Lately

Making:  Stuffed elephants for the little one's of friends.
Cooking:  Ryan is making homemade pizza tonight!
Drinking:  The last of my summer beer.  Sad.
Reading:  Brand new stack of books from the library...just started Wither today.
Wanting:  To go hiking this weekend at a local state park with my sister.
Looking:  Out my office window, wondering if it's going to rain.
Playing:  Harry Potter Lego, Years 5-7 on the XBox.
Wasting:  Water.  Our toilet is running in our guest bath and our water bill was HIGH last month.
Sewing:  Elephants, and alphabet letters for a Christmas present.
Wishing:  Fall would arrive in full.
Enjoying:  Banana chips I bought in bulk today at the health food store.  Yum.
Waiting:  For Tuesday.  Our family dog Mia is having surgery and I'm sad for her.
Liking:  A Facebook post on Stephen King at the Boulder Chautauqua talking about Doctor Sleep. WHYYYYYY aren't I THERE?!
Wondering:  How long I should wait after lunch to eat those banana chips.
Loving:  Ryan and the pups.  Life in general.
Hoping:  That I can make it over to my Grandma's tonight.
Marveling:  That Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike are down the street from me today.  Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, directed by David Fincher, is filming here and it's bizarre.
Needing:  A nap.  Always.
Smelling:  My Lovestruck perfume.
Wearing:  A top I haven't worn in a while, sandals and black skinnies.
Noticing:  How bright my office is right now.
Knowing:  That I am going to be OK
Thinking:  About getting some e-newsletters out this afternoon.
Feeling:  Fulfilled.
Bookmarking:  Best social media campaigns to take notes from.
Opening:  New tabs in Chrome.
Giggling:  Over the Meta Picture.  Love it.

Halloween Hats & Pencil Skirt Over-Wear

When Ninja was discharged from the emergency vet after the awful brush with rat poison, they gave us 60 Vitamin K pills for her to take twice a day until they were gone.  They were horse pills, and Ninja was a champ about taking them.  Yesterday, we finished up the bottle!  I'm thankful every day for her health; she brings me so much joy.

Have you guys checked out my friend Nikki's awesome giveaway yet?  It is not to be missed, and Nikki is a good blog buddy of mine from back in the wedding planning days!

I love my yellow pencil skirt so much, I have to restrict myself to wearing it once a week!  I always save it for days when I really want to feel kick ass about what I'm wearing.  Do you do that, save your power outfits for days when you need them?  I'm wearing it again this Thursday, I have to give a presentation on social media to an area Chamber of Commerce luncheon (gulp).  

On a sad note, our family dog Mia was diagnosed with a brain tumor last week.  Mia is 8, and she's the first dog we ever had; without her I would still think dogs were stinky and dumb.  My parents took her up to St. Louis to a canine ophthalmologist who did an ultrasound and found the mass behind her eye.  Her eye is actually being pushed forward by the tumor so it bulges out a bit.  We had a lot of family discussion (and buckets of tears) and decided to have her eye removed, which will take away current discomfort and give us an idea of what kind of a mass is back there.  Her surgery is scheduled for Oct. 2nd so please send healthy, healing thoughts her way.  

And what's a blog post here without gratuitous pictures of Oscar and Ninja?  I discovered the dog Halloween hat section in Target with my mom and sister last week and we had FUN:

The side eye in this one, you guys:

Ninja honestly thinks I'm punishing her when I put it on, that stinker.  My mom bought Mia a pirate hat...because soon she'll be one-eyed....I love my family and their sense of humor!

StacySewLightly

My Etsy shop is open for business!

I wanted to do something that I enjoyed doing, something that got the creative parts of my brain whirling. Something that supported small, local businesses and something that might make me a little bit of pin money some day.

I collected the prettiest vintage hankies from local antique shops I could find and hand-stitched a dozen or so with words that I thought might resonate with someone for their special occasion.  The up-cycled hankies purchased from local stores (that feed into a big sense of community I have here, as I'm buddies with most of the shop owners) are a bit of a throw back with some modern sensibilities as well.

This Tiffany bow hanky is one of my favorites, the bows are really beautifully hand appliqued onto the handkerchief:

HAD to throw some Jane Eyre into the mix!

Fashionable Wife Nikki has lots of Etsy shop experience with her Delightful Designs Shop, and she was kind enough to share her experience with me as I got set up and tested the waters.  I've been following along with Laura of Luckiest in Love since she was wedding planning, and she has had a very successful experience with her Thoughtfully Designed Shop.  I'm grateful to the help and inspiration of both of those girls!

We'll see how it goes!

Do you have an Etsy shop?  Let me know, I'd love to follow you!

Books and Babies

We spent the weekend in St. Charles, packing in lots of lovely visits with old friends and meals with his family plus a first birthday party with the cutest little birthday girl I've ever seen.  That birthday girl brings me to the books...we found ourselves in Barnes & Noble on Sunday while waiting for a table for brunch with my in-laws and decided to pick up a birthday present for Hannah.  We found the sweetest dog book with lots of fun pull tabs and dogs that look like Hannah's furry brother and sister, so we had to get that.  We also got her a Grouchy Ladybug board book, one of Ryan's childhood favorites.  I had WAY too much fun in the kid's section.  Introducing our future, hypothetical little ones to books is something I am most looking forward to about being a parent, so getting to thumb through all the books was a blast.  (They also had the new Harry Potter boxed set where the spines make up Hogwarts, which was fun to see.)  

I got to love on 3 babies this weekend-my niece, our friend Rebekah's sweetheart of a daughter and the birthday girl herself!

I've actually been collecting kids/young adult books for a few years now, picking up old favorites at thrift shops, book sales and garage sales.  We have a whole shelf going:  

Any Mrs. Piggle Wiggle fans?  I just loved her.  I still go back and re-read some of these when I'm in the mood for them.

We also got the chance to see one of Ryan's cousins' art shows.  I'd seen pictures of her work, and being pretty ignorant in the art department, didn't realize what a different experience it would be seeing everything in person.  The pink weights were part of a hot pink/glittered barbell installation, and the crazed Dexter-look-alike body builder was part of a mixed media piece called "Arnold's Fairy GodDad's".  It was great to see Lauren in her element and see the world through her eyes, and lots of Ryan's family was at the opening too.

What were Oscar and Ninja up to while we were out of town?  They were being sewn customized squeaker toys by their Grandma.  Her house is like Doggy Disneyland.  I love that my dogs love my mom so much, and we do not take for granted how generous my mom is to watch them while we're out of town.

How was your weekend?

DIY Face Scrub

Happy Friday!  Being a short week I was hoping this one would go by faster but it has just crept along...anyone else having that happen?

When we visited friends in Colorado in July, Beth mentioned that she used a mixture of ground up oatmeal and baking soda as an all natural face wash/scrub.  I've been using it about 5x/week for the past month or so and I LOVE it.  

The humidity has been over 80% for months now, and when I work out/bike I sweat around my hairline and it makes it hard to keep my skin clear (especially my forehead).  This oatmeal/baking soda scrub has been just what my skin needs right now.

Make up free this morning/no filter in my super cool logo wear for a Chamber of Commerce coffee hour after a month of use 5x/week:

I keep it stored in an upcycled yogurt container.  I eye balled the amounts; I think I pulverized about a cup of oatmeal in my food processor along with another cup of baking soda.  I put about a tablespoon and a half into my hands every night, wet it down and wash/scrub my face like normal, then rinse a couple of times to get it all off.  I'm still using my normal face wash (Cera ve) 2x/week.

Next time I'll process the oatmeal longer, as there are some sizable clumps in here.  The oatmeal has some moisturizing properties and the baking soda exfoliates.  

It's as cheap as it gets, all natural, easy to make/store/use and I always have the ingredients on hand.  All of which make it a keeper on my bathroom sink!  I'm pretty wary of the homemade beauty products I see on Pinterest as I tend to get all excited to make them just to realize that tracking down the ingredients is going to be a pain.  This one fits my lazy ways very nicely.

How do you combat the summer heat/humidity's effects on your skin?

Ninja and the Mouse Poison

Wednesday August 21st:  Ninja is yelping and seems to be in pain.  I take her to the vet, they run blood work and take x-rays, and there's nothing...she's fine, according to the tests and they tell us it's a pulled muscle.  They give her an injection of a muscle relaxant, and send me home with anti-inflammatories and more muscle relaxants.  I take her home, but she's still acting like she's hurting.

Thursday August August 22nd:  Ninja is lethargic, she isn't eating or drinking.  Ryan and I are both afraid to handle her due to the supposed pulled muscle, but at lunch I roll her over and gasp out loud....her chest is black and blue.  The muscle relaxant should have worn off by now and the bruising is really scary.  Ryan takes her back in to the vet and they tell him it's either a spider bite or rat poison.  He calls me and after we talk about it for 10 minutes or so, we realize that she got in to almost 8 ounces of rat poison....on Sunday.  I immediately call the vet back and they start pushing Vitamin K right away.  At 3, Ryan and I take off work and head to the vet to visit Ninja.  She's on fluid and Vitamin K via an IV, and she looks awful.  The light is gone out of her eyes.  I cry and cry, and the vet goes over treatment with us-Vitamin K, with a transfusion being the worst case scenario but the risks right now outweigh the benefits.  We leave her to be monitored overnight.  They all us at 5:30 and tell us that she drank some water and she's perking up quite a bit.

Friday August 23rd:

7:30 a.m.:  I am at the vet as soon as they open to see Ninja.  She looked much worse than the day before:

Unbeknownst to me, the vet doesn't arrive until 9 a.m.  I drive to work, crying the whole way.  She just didn't look good.  I should have spoken up at this point and advocated for my girl, but I didn't.  I didn't catch the rat poison earlier, how did she get it off the shelf, I can't believe I let her get in the basement.....

9:05 a.m.:  Ryan calls.  The vet called him the second she walked in the door and said that if we want what's best for Ninja, that we have to take her to St. Louis for a transfusion.  Or we put her down.  I run out of work, go home, meet Ryan and we go straight to the vet's.  There the vet tells us that if we want Ninja to make it, we have to take her to this emergency clinic in St. Louis, about 1 hour and 45 minutes away.  They're one of the only 2 vets in the state of Missouri that have blood and plasma on hand.  They've already called and everything will be waiting for us there.  I look our vet in eye and ask her if Ninja will make it to St. Louis.  She says she will, no worries.

9:20 a.m.:  Ryan is in the back seat with Ninja, trying to get her swollen body comfortable while I'm driving 80 mph on the interstate.  There's no music on, we're hardly talking, and I can't stop crying.

10:00 a.m.  Ninja's breathing starts to become more labored.  Her neck is so swollen that she's having a hard time breathing.  I call the vet in St. Louis to make sure they're ready to go when we arrive, and that they have permission to do everything they need to do.

10:40 a.m.  Her breathing sounds awful.  I really don't know how we're going to make it to the emergency clinic.

11:00 a.m.  I know in my heart we're going to lose her.

11:16 a.m.  We finally get to the vet.  Ryan carries her in and her head rolls back.  I think that I didn't drive fast enough.  They take her back and get her on oxygen and the transfusion going within 60 seconds.  I'm hysterical and trying to fill out paperwork, Ryan can't stop pacing.  

11:30 a.m.  They put us in a room and the vet comes in to talk to us.  He's worried that there's been bleeding on the brain, that she won't be the same dog if she makes it.  He tells us that she is critical for the next 24 hours, that she could crash at any moment, that we need to stay close so that if she takes a turn for the worse, we'll be able to get there in time to say goodbye.

1:00 They let us back to see Ninja in doggie ICU.  She raises her head and wags her tail when she sees me and I lose it again...tears tears tears.  We get to put her blanket from home in there with her, and the vet tech, Kim, tells us that she really didn't think Ninja was going to make it that first 10 minutes she was there.  Kim is great and tells us that she gets off and 4 will call us with an update.

1:30 p.m.  We leave and have lunch (at the bakery we got our wedding cake from).  My appetite is non-existent.  Just waiting.  Ryan's Aunt and Uncle live 10 minutes from the emergency vet, so we contact them-they're out of town until Saturday night, but give us the code to their house and tell us to make ourselves at home.  We wait.

4:30 p.m. Kim calls, as promised.  Ninja was in such rough shape that they set the transfusions to run for 3 hours initially, but she was doing well enough that they slowed them down.  Still a waiting game.

6:00 p.m.  We go in to visit with Ninja.  They put us in a room.....and WALK her in!  Such a huge improvement from just 6 hours before.

The waiting game continues to see if her body will break down the new blood cells from the transfusion; if so, the poison might have destroyed her body's ability to work the way it should, and we have some decisions to make.  When she arrived at the emergency vet's, her red blood cell count was at 11%....it's up to 32% after the blood and plasma transfusions.  We head out to have dinner with Ryan's family to pass the time while we wait...Ryan wants to be around family with all this stress too.  And I get to love on my niece, Brynley, and I'll never say no to that!

5:30 a.m.  After being up since before 3 berating and blaming myself over and over, I call the vet's for an update; she was sleeping so well that they didn't wake her up to do a blood test.  They'll do one around 8 and the vet will call us when he gets the results in.

9:20 a.m.  The vet calls; his voice sounds disbelieving when he tells us that she's doing great, that her blood count had held (!!!!!!!!!) and that we can come pick her up in the afternoon!

3:00 p.m.  We go to the vet to see if Ninja is ready to be discharged; she's responded incredibly well to treatment and is ready to go home!  A full recovery is expected, and the vet tells us that once they respond to the transfusion that they don't go backwards...for the first time since Thursday, my heart lifts and I feel like I'm not going to lose her.  

Ninja is SO Ryan's dog, I love that picture!

Ryan and I decided to take Ninja back to his Aunt and Uncle's house just to be close to the vet's just in case...more for our peace of mind than anything else.  We head back there and get Ninja settled.  Ryan goes out to get pizza for dinner and special food for Ninja, and when his Aunt and Uncle get back around 9 they start spoiling Ninja, who loves to have the air blowing on her face:

Their hospitality was a godsend that weekend.  Having a homebase only a few minutes from the vet, and  they immediately started taking care of all of us the second they got back from their trip (Uncle Joe was receiving an award at a conference).  We were so grateful for everything they did for us.

We stuck around Sunday morning and had a really nice visit...here's Miss Ninja on Sunday: 

Then we headed home.  Ninja's stamina and energy level gets better every day.  I am humbled and so grateful for her health and her recovery.

There's no more rat poison in my house.  As much as I thought it was out of their reach and in a basement they're not allowed in, accidents happen....we hosted a BBQ for Ryan's Cross Country team and they got tables/chairs out of the basement and that's when Ninja slipped in there and got the poison off the shelf.

I'm grateful we were able to get up to St. Louis when we did, that Ninja is such a trooper and hung in there for us, that we have savings to pay for whatever it took to make her well, that Ryan's family gave us a place to stay, that people who I have never met were pulling for Ninja....we're so lucky.  She's our little ray of sunshine and we are just so lucky.

Ninja last night:

She's still not eating as much as we'd like her too, and she isn't at 100% quite yet.  She's definitely on the mend though and getting better every day.

Thanks for all of your kind thoughts, words and prayers.  They meant a lot to me during a really scary time.

Colorado Vacation Part 4

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Rocky Mountain National Park will always have a piece of my heart.  We had no clue what we were doing in the park, so after leaving The Stanley we headed to the first Welcome Center stationed between Estes Park and RMNP.  The guide there was incredibly knowledgeable and super friendly, and set us up with a map with some of his favorite spots circled.

Driving into RMNP.

We only had a few hours, as we were planning to head to Fort Collins to tour a few breweries, so we decided not to venture too far into RMNP.  I had heard from a visitor at my work that the Alluvian Fan was not to be missed, and it looked relatively close by.  We parked, hiked up a short trail and came out onto this huge expanse of boulders and waterfalls that tumbled down from the mountain when a high-up lake's dam burst years ago.

Pictures don't do it any justice at all.  The boulders and waterfalls went up and up, and mountains were all around us.

We climbed up a little bit and I made Ryan take his shoes off and get in the water.  It was SO COLD!

We climbed and climbed and the views just got better.  

Ryan took that picture to prove I was actively participating and enjoying an outdoor activity, haha.

This is my happy place.

We were swearing up and down that we just HAD to take our kids to this place one day.  There were little ones splashing in the water, and sweet, earnest 5 year olds tackling the boulders.  

This was an afternoon of bliss, of complete happiness and elation.  There's no way to NOT make this sound like a cheesy mess, so I'm not going to try.  Something profound happened to me here, in this spot at the Alluvian Fan.  Those mountains got into my soul.  Everything fell away and seemed so small next to that landscape.  There's so much more of this park that we have to see.

My only regret about our vacation is that we didn't spend nearly enough time in RMNP.  Who knew that while we were going to Colorado for the beer and the active lifestyle, that instead the outdoors would grab us and not let go.

Ryan travels and travels for work, and we're a frugal couple, so this vacation was a big one for us.  Thanks to RMNP, we're already planning next year's trip; we're hoping to rent a cabin with Ryan's cousin and his wife.  And spend WAY more time in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Turns out, I am outdoorsy, it just took Colorado to show me that.  I can't wait to go back.

Other trip highlights were Pearl Street (I hit up a used bookstore there almost every day, and we bought fabric at a fabric shop there to make a throw with and I LOVE this fun souvenir we'll have), visiting friends in Parker, Colorado, Cured, seeing my buddy Kim at the Boulder Convention and Visitors Bureau (we met at a conference in May) and both of us thoroughly enjoying each other's company (I was worried we'd get sick of each other and we didn't at all!). I surprised my husband with wanting to hike and go and be outside-it was a side of me he hasn't seen before.  It was so pretty there it almost hurt to be inside.  Ryan got to check out the Boulder Fleet Feet (he worked at the STL Fleet Feet for a bit), we had a really nice dinner out before we left and we both appreciated and enjoyed the time away.

We're checking out cabins at Chautauqua for next year and I'm scheming as to how to get my bike out there.....

And that does it for my Colorado vacation highlights!  Thanks for sticking through all those :)