Embroidery

Maddie is working on different sorts of embroidery techniques here, just learning the ropes, so to speak.  Or at least learning the strings.  Or yarns.  Or threads.  Or whatever that is.  Anyway, tomorrow she's going to work on a little project, and she's pretty interested in that.  Meanwhile, her other classes are going on and here we are with the final march towards the end of her public school career.  I cannot, cannot believe we're here already.  It seems like just yesterday...

And speaking of seeming like just yesterday, here's a blast from our past.

I was at Longstreet today for a scan, but before we get to that, the reason for the reminiscing is that this location here used to be where the chemotherapy was done.  Mom and I would go here a few times a week.  They've since moved things upstairs, and it's still a pleasant and peaceful sort of location, contrasting with the dire circumstances that lead people to this place.

As for me, my reason for being here was a scan for kidney stones.  And sure enough, later on I got a message on my medical site:  two kidney stones (5mm and 3mm) in each kidney, plus an infection.  And here you go.  Some might look at this as a negative, but truthfully I feel pretty excited because it's been painful and I've been thinking it was something related to my pancreas (again).  So now all I have to do is move forward with the urologist.  

I will probably have to drop by there, because the Gainesville Urology place does not answer the phone.  I waited on hold for twenty minutes, opted for the callback feature, and hours later it rang twice and they didn't let me even get to "hello" before it hung up on me.  Repeat process.  Call back, wait ten minutes this time on hold, give up and opt for the callback feature by leaving a name and number, and then again there's two rings, and I don't get to even say "hello" before they hang up on me.  So for those of you with kidney stones in the Gainesville area, don't try to call them because it's fairly pointless. 

Ah... here's some peaceful Longstreet Clinic artwork to calm the nerves.  They answer phones.  They also get you in and out very quickly.  

Here's someone that did not get out very quickly.  This was a bad decision I got to witness on the way home.  I only took a picture of this because it was pretty crazy.  A guy trying to back up a super steep hill in a truck, getting stuck, and rescued by a forklift.  Yep.

As for the rest of the day, I did make a cameo appearance at work.  I saw Charlie Kirk there - he's hosting a big event at the church the next few days.  I was hoping to go... but kidney stones.  Mom is opting to stay with me.  We're blessed because we saw him and many of the other speakers at the church just a few months ago in October.  So we're okay with that.

I got home and we got there just in time to watch the splashdown!  Yes, the astronauts came home today.  Two of them were sort of stuck on the International Space Station the past nine months, in what was supposed to be a significantly shorter stay.  So many of us were glued to the screens, watching the spaceship come down for a soft landing in the Gulf. 

It was precision on an epic scale - timed down to the minute.  Everything went according to plan, and there was an unexpected surprise as a pod of dolphins came up to the floating spacecraft to welcome the astronauts home.  We spotted those early and weren't quite sure, but having been in Florida a lot, we could tell that yes, those were dolphins - and then angles like this showed us there were lots of dolphins approaching with interest.  Immediately I was thinking of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," where the dolphins are quite ready to travel to space.  Or perhaps they were ready to help drag the ship to the shoreline.  Whatever it was, the entire thing was amazing to watch.  

So tonight there was no taekwondo or church - Maddie had homework though.  She did that while Mom and I watched "Bolt," one of our old favorites.  We saw that and forgot all about how fun the character Rhino was.  Plus that song in there - that was the confirmation song for me that this house we're living in... it belongs to us.  If you know the song, you know what I'm talking about.

We read tonight from "Maskerade," and we said our prayers after that.  I slept well, slightly uncomfortable again, but a good night's rest.