Stitching with a Shimmy

Happy New Year!

2010 has NOT been easy. 2009 ended with me being laid off from my day job, and before that even had a chance to register, spending two weeks running back and forth to the vet and the emergency vet while we ascertained that our youngest cat — my Dora — had gone into total kidney failure. The wonderful vets at our Animal Hospital got her stabilized, and now after a year we’re falling into the routine of sticking her with a needle every other day and pumping her with sub-cutaneous fluids. Kind of like kitty dialysis. She and my Dad (who’s on human dialysis 3 times a week) commisserate whenever he visits.

Then, as I focused on rebuilding the needlework line, the EO spent more than 6 months fighting health issues. We finally got an inconclusive diagnosis in October just in time for him to miss our planned getaway to Beach Blanket Beledi and the romantic beach weekend that was supposed to go with it.  (Our dance troupe did well, though, and we got lots of compliments, thank you!) And the treatments for the health issues are improving life dramatically for both of us now.

October was my first online needlework show, and despite a couple of errors that I’m horrified about now, it went pretty well for a first trade show. I’ll be back next year.

My secret knitting project (that I didn’t post about earlier this week because of NEXT paragraph) was received well, and I’m finding myself designing sweaters as well as knitting them (eek!). Note: The secret project is NOT one of mine.

Then we had snow after Christmas. Yay snow! Pretty. White. Deep on Sunday and icy on Monday. And Tuesday we started the day with the panicked call that said recipient of pretty new knitted sweater was on his way to the hospital. He had missed dialysis on Monday because of the snow, they didn’t reschedule him immediately, and he landed in the ER and then the ICU with potassium poisoning. Not fun at all – for any of us.  He’s much better now, and happy to be home with HIS cat, Martini (that’s Martini up there at the top of the post, trying to steal some of his namesake, the lush!)

All in all, this was a tough year. I’ve found myself facing (and hiding from) my self-confidence around business matters, and there have been some errors that I wish I could have a do-over on, but I’m finding a stride, if not my final one, and I’ve grown in ways I didn’t think I could (that thud you hear is the EO banging his head o the wall because much of what I am finally learning {I hope} are things he has been telling me for the 10 years I’ve known him…)

What I want from next year -

Ease. I want to continue learning, but I’d like more of the lessons to be a little lot less painful, please. I’m feeling, at this moment, like I’m finally beginning to be ready to move ahead, and maybe more importantly, that I can handle moving forward. So. Lightly on the gas pedal, and let’s get this car rolling slowly at first. But forward movement is imperative. And I want to share my love of needlework and dance  and the many various styles of both that I’ve learned over the years with others, y’all first on the list.