Some exciting news!!

Sooo.. I just wanted to share with everyone that I was asked to stay on with the Shimmerz Design Team as a regular....not just a guest designer! I'm thrilled! You all know I LOVE this stuff - and I couldn't be happier that Kim and Stacey at Shimmerz asked me to stay! Thanks!!! Woohoo!!

And some bad news. This is sort of long and personal, so you really don't have to read it!

This weekend was really not the weekend that I planned for. My family and I had originally planned to go out of town for some last minute school shopping and just for a bit of fun. Lots of things started coming up a few weeks ago and last weekend we decided we'd stay home. First, we got a couple of kittens ...the kids were so excited. Day two of having the kitties, they were showing signs of being sick, by day three I found out the whole litter of six kittens was sick with the same symptoms (not able to eat..not able to keep what they were eating down or in), so I took them to the vet on Tuesday morning and picked them up Wednesday night. The vet said that after fluids and some meds. they were improving. I brought them home and they were NOT improving at all. It was terrible. I tried to nurse them back to health with fluids every hour or so and continued the antibiotics. One of the kittens was the runt, and he was having a hard time - what he couldn't keep in turned to blood, then by the next morning the other kitten was doing the same. I took the kittens back to the vet on Friday morning and said I didn't think that they were better, I didn't think they were going to get better and that they probably should be put down. The vet argued with me a bit and said he'd like to try more. I was so confused - I didn't know whether it was worth trying or if he was just looking for some money. I left the kittens there. I picked them up Monday morning and the larger of the two looked great. It flew right out of the little carrier and started playing and has been doing great. The runt was not very well at all. I decided to just keep trying to give it some fluids, formula, and the meds to see if I could at least help it get better, thinking that maybe being with me and my family we'd at least provide it a bit of will to live. The kitten seemed very cold and it had a hard time keeping warm, so I made a rice bag out of an old pillow case that I could heat up each evening (of course , not too hot) for the kittens to sleep on. Each night I expected the kitten to pass and I would tell the kids that I didn't think he going to make it, but we'd keep trying. Finally on Friday morning the little guy passed. His sister was stayed with it though, which was very sweat, and although there was no life left in the kitten it was actually a bit warm - the warmth I'm sure came from the sister kitty. I didn't feel like it was suffering in pain, just not thriving, and I felt like there was a bit of hope, so we kept trying. The kids handled it as well as expected, bummed and a bit sad of course, but they seemed to understand.

That Friday night, they also got to see their great grandma for the last time. (My husband's grandmother) When we visited her, she was able to sit in her chair and laugh and smile a bit with the kids. It was a good way for them to see her - very much they way they've always known her. By Saturday morning, she was unable to get out of bed, and by Sunday evening she passed. My husband was very close with her and spent both Saturday and Sunday at her bedside, calling me often to let me know what was going on. He did the same thing for his grandfather just a few years before. I kept the kids updated on how G.Grandma was doing, even though it was not good news. I was able to use the whole lost-kitten experience to help them understand, and as awful as this may sound to you, I was able to tell them that unlike the kitten that had a bit of hope/chance to survive, there was no way that their great grandma would get better. I was very honest with them, and I even explained the stages of death that she was going through. We knew she wouldn't make it through the weekend, and when someone is terminally ill, sadly, during the last few days, the faster the better seems to run through your head the whole time. The kids really handled her death quite well, and it seems that the loss of the little kitten might have helped them just a little bit.

If you got this far, thanks for reading! Wow! That was a lot more personal that I normally like to get on here - but it was sort of nice to get it out! Thanks.