Finally finished

I am what you might call a bit cream crackered tonight as I have spent most of the weekend finishing my latest assignment. I seem to have been making notes for weeks but it seemed relatively straight forward and I even had quite a bit drafted out. But no alas it took hours, but part of the problem was on Thursday I couldn't find any motivation to do it whatsoever, which means alot of the weekend was taken up by it. Also I had that annoying thing that seems to happen with Word when you go back to change something and it eats the words already on the page. Some thought that would be a good thing to add into the programme it seems, but it only adds to the workers stress and shouldn't be allowed.
Therefore not much stitching has been done over the last few days but I am slowly plugging away on my rotation and I can see some benefits for my hard work. I have around three pieces which should hopefully be finished over the next few months and my goal is to finish them by Easter. I also have a few snaller ones which will be added in soon so I am really hopeful that I can get my projects down this year.
However although there hasn't been much stitching recently last weekend was a real stitching treat. I attended a Judy Dixon class in hardanger and drawn thread with Gina and some of her friends and I had a great time. I have been to Judy's classes before but this was the best yet, despite a rather big mistake by me which involved alot of frogging out it was just a great day. Also I stayed with Gina the night before and got a fair amount of stitching in then on my rotation piece Elizabethan embroidery which is another of Judy's class designs:




I am hopeful this will be finished when it next comes up in rotation, but even if it doesn't at least it means I get to enjoy more time with it.

Quality of life

This is something I blogged on myspace yesterday but due to problems with picture uploading it's taken a day to reach here:

This subject has been on my mind since I took this lovely picture of Taffy this afternoon:



Although he is much better in himself since the tablets he isn't quite right and I think as a pet owner you have the chance to question their quality of life and whether it is worth it. I think anyone seeing this photo would agree it is more than worth it and even with his daffy ways he is totally loveable and doesn't seem to be suffering at all. I thought last week it was time to say goodbye but he has proved us wrong I am pleased to say and I think we will instinctively know when that time comes. It is not going to be easy but he has had the most wonderful life so far and although I hope he has awhile to go yet it is a great comfort to know he is happy with us.
This inevitably led me to think about how there is no such luxury for us humans and we have no say when our time is up and maybe in a way that is no bad thing. But some of the suffering I have seen does make you wonder if it is fair that we as humans have to go on living in a way you wouldn't allow a much loved pet to endure.
I am not trying to say that I want out-not in the least it has just got me thinking about it all today and wondering what quality of life consists of. My life has it's ups and downs as everyones and the last couple of years I can honestly say have been pretty bad on both a pysical and a psychological level and yes a couple of times I did wonder if it would be easier to simply go to sleep and not wake up as the stress was just too immense and was making me ill.
Now I am coming through slowly to the other side I have had time to reflect on a few things and I realise that I have been given awful odds before and beaten them and I want to again. But if as is quite possible I never get a transplant I will survive and live my life to the full and although I won't always accept my limitations I will never allow myself to fester either. I didn't have particular dreams or ambitions as I wondered for awhile if it is worth it when an emminent doctor tells you how long you have. But isn't that reason to prove them wrong and even if they are right to make the most of that time? So yes I have started going after the things I want for myself now but his words still haunt me and that is what I struggle with simply because he did take my future away from me for awhile and led me onto a path that has been enormously difficult to handle. Not least because there is a chance things could have been very different now.
But they say things happen for a reason and in some ways it has made me a better person. I am sad to say I was much less than I could have been when I was at my worst but possibly when dealing with all that it was inevitable, but that doesn't make me feel better for it though. I am starting to regain some of my old spirit although I think some it has probably gone forever I realise life isn't so bad and many go through worse. Someone on a bulletin board I go on said it was the simple pleasures she revelled in when times were hard so with that in mind I aim to enjoy them too. This afternoon I uploaded some more pictures of myself and some of my stitched pieces and enjoyed generally messing about on here and tonight I will chill out and just enjoy being.
I know many of you don't know the full story behind this but it was something I had to post whilst it was in my mind as although I grapple with it most days, today I had a different perspective.