2 days. Today I watched my husband die and made arrangements for cremation. How could life change so much in 2 days?

David is gone. The nurse called at 4 this morning and told me he was getting worse. So this morning I went down to North Memorial and asked to have him taken off of life support. Kelly, his sister and Jim, her husband, and Dusty, one of their boys, Sean and Teresa, his children from his first marriage, and my sister, Elaine, were there. Once they took him off of the ventilator, his heart just beat slower and slower, and then it raced, and then it quit.

This man I’ve known for over 30 years, I’ve loved him with all my heart, and at times I’ve despised him just a little bit. He struggled with alcohol, and he lost his fight with it, as did 2 of his sisters. The doctor thinks he had an infection, and his body was too run down to fight it, and he didn’t go to the doctor or say anything about not feeling good. So by the time he got some medical help, it was too late. His organs were already shutting down.

From the beginning, David was my closest friend, but over the years the alcohol was too much competition, and when he started saying hurtful things to me over the past couple of years, I withdrew to protect myself from the pain. Maybe if I hadn’t done that, he would have been more communicative. As my sister says, though, hindsight is always 20-20. All I know is that he’s gone, and I hurt so much, and I don’t know what to do. I’m full of regret and guilt and grief.

My husband, David, is in the hospital on full life support. Something happened yesterday evening, and we had to call 911 because he couldn’t stand. They took him to Monticello, and had to administer CPR because his heart stopped. They stabilized him and then took him to North Memorial in the cities. His kidneys have shut down and he’s on dialysis. He’s not breathing on his own, so he’s on a ventilator. They don’t know what happened, and why this is happening. All they can do is keep his body alive and hope something ‘optimal’ happens.

I talked to the ICU doctor this morning, and he said that the kidneys could come back on their own, and it could take days or weeks, and even if they do, there’s no way of knowing how badly his brain has been affected.

I have people telling me I need to have him taken off of the machines, that he would not want this. I agree, but I’m having a very difficult time making this decision. I know very well he wouldn’t want to be hooked up to machines to live, and I know very well that he wouldn’t want to be in a condition where he would have to be taken care of by others. I know this is the right thing to do.

But I am having a VERY hard time saying it. There’s the guilt, maybe I should have just made an appointment after he fell down 3 weeks ago instead of just urging him to go to the doctor. The guilt of just wanting to let him go. He’s spent most of his adult life trying to find happiness with a bottle. He’s been miserable the last few years, and he turned into a crabby old man who seemed to blame me for everything bad that’s happened to him. Maybe it’s true. Maybe if I hadn’t been so angry at him for choosing the bottle over us, maybe it would have been better. And the guilt of thinking about the hospital bills, about nursing home bills. The doctor said it could take days and even weeks of being hooked up the dialysis machine before finding out if the kidneys recover. The fear of having him mentally and physically disabled and having to take care of him, on top of Lukas. Lukas is our 23 year old handicapped son, and he lives at home with us. Am I letting all of these feelings push me into making the wrong decision?

And then there’s the finality of that decision. It’s saying goodbye to the person I fell in love with 30 years ago, even if he hasn’t been that person for years. It’s not having him here. It’s saying goodbye to 30 years of life with him, and the hope that he would overcome the alcoholism, and go back to that caring person who could make me laugh.

How do I make that decision? How do I not make that decision?

OK, I have officially given up on redoing my website. Freeway Pro is not a program that is easy for me to learn. So it’s back to generic webpages, but at least they’ll be webpages that work.

Lots of hoarfrost today. If the sun had come out, I would have gone out and taken photos, but without the sun it was just another cold dreary winter day.

So to lighten it up, here’s more stupid pet photos. Tiger making good use of the exercise bike again,
And here’s Squeak and Peaches playing. It really gets funny when Peaches, the cat, starts chasing Squeak, the dog.

Funny story: Peaches is a good size cat now, about 3-4 times as big as Fang, the ferret. The other morning Fang was feeling pretty wild, and Peaches was in the studio sauntering along, so Fang came up between her hind legs. So what does Peaches do (besides switching her tail)? Instead of running and getting out of the studio, she lays down! Well, of course, Fang can’t pass that up, so right away she’s on Peaches getting a grip on the back of Peaches’ neck, which just paralyzes her. So I had to pry Fang off of Peaches so she could make a get-away.

And here’s a photo of the wild turkeys that were in the yard,

OK, as I said, it’s back to the drawing board. I think between Expression Media and Freeway Pro, I might have a work around for my photo albums. Here’s my pen and ink and ACEOs galleries.

An update on the lawsuit for defamation against Ullja, her lawyer filed a motion with the court to be taken off of the case and another firm substituted, and they withdrew the motion to change venue. The deposition is supposed to be sometime next month. That will certainly be interesting.

Framesets and rollovers and target images... I’m pulling my hair out!!!!

I give up. I’m trying to make a photo album for my pen and ink drawings, and my ACEOs. And then I want to make photo albums of family photos. My mother was wonderful at taking photos throughout our lives, so there are literally thousands of photos. iWeb is extremely limited is flexibility, so I thought I’d try Freeway Pro again. For a commercial program it is very, very sparse on directions. Their manual is extremely weak, and after a week of reading and playing with it, I’ve finally figured out how to do rollovers and target images, to realize that this just isn’t going to work. There are too many steps to make a photo album. So I have two alternatives, Expression Media (which was a wonderful program until Microsoft purchased it) and Photoshop, to make photo albums. Expression Media easily makes photo albums, but the thumbnails are horribly bitmapped. Photoshop makes photo albums, but again, it’s extremely limited in ability to personalize the appearance.

Back to the drawing board...

Sigh, accidentally threw away the file I needed for my website when I installed a new system on my computer, so now I’m trying to redo my website. I figured since I had to do it anyway, I’d jump to the next level and try to do a little bit more personalization than iWeb allows.

I’ve been learning about framesets and rollovers and lots of other information that is just bogging down my mind. :(

BRRR!!! January in Minnesota, -21.5°.

Good riddance to 2009. It was a year of pain, emotional and physical. Enough said.

Welcome, 2010. Here’s hoping it ends with more fun than it started. Get up, let the dogs out, beat the kittens away from the front door because they like to chase my birds, start the fire in the wood stove (-2 out there, it’s nippy), break up a fight between Frankie and Baby (cats), hear some yowling coming from my studio, go in there to find Peaches has wormed her way into the ferret cage (door is wired shut with a 2“ opening to keep the cats out of there) and Fang (the ferret) has her helpless by grabbing the nape of her neck. Amazing how a ferret 1/6 the size can disable a cat. So I have to get the door unwired (how the heck did she get it there?!?) and pry Fang off of her. So while I’m there, I might as well clean the cage, then both the litter boxes. Then I finally get to sit down with a cup of coffee. Might as well add a dash of buttershots to it. :)

A good start for the new year, more stupid pet and bead photos. This one is of S.C. (Scaredy Cat) watching my embroidery machine move by itself. She is just fascinated with this machine. Last night I had to chase her away from it because she was trying to bat the needle as it was moving.

Some of my favorite beads:

Here’s wishing a peaceful and loving upcoming year to all.

Yup, it’s winter. It was -6° this morning. Just a little crisp. At least the sun was shining.

The latest on the lawsuit against Ullja for defamation: her lawyer filed a motion to have the deposition quashed, but the court denied it and ordered her to present herself for the deposition. I just read a copy of the discovery questionnaire, and I’m shaking my head (again) in disbelief. How can she deny so many things that can so very easily be proved. One glaring example is denying she sold beads claiming she had made them herself. That was all hashed over last year with Etsy. They were reluctant to do anything, but they were presented with too much proof to ignore it. So that’s all evidence sitting there just waiting to be presented at court. I just don’t understand her reasoning.

On January 11th, the court will hear her motion for change of venue.

Enough of the icky stuff of life, now it’s the fun part of my blog, Stupid Pet Photos!
This is my most favorite pet, Fang the ferret. She is SUCH a character! Here she is diving into a dishpan of snow.

Another togetherness photo, Frankie curled up to Chester:

And while I do hate the snow, I have to admit it makes nice photos,

Just thoughts for the day:

Watching the news about the health care bill being passed. They said the Republicans are saying that it’s unconstitutional to require everyone to have health insurance. Ah, excuse me, but doesn’t our government require us to have car insurance? I know Minnesota requires it. Is that unconstitutional? I don’t hear anyone in Congress complaining about that. And considering that I just used our car insurance to get a jump for our van, and that it’s the first time in years that I’ve put in a claim, I KNOW that we have claims for our health insurance (what little they pay for, ha ha), a lot more than that.

Another thought, driving at night with prism glasses is just as bad as driving at night without them. My left eye is going wonkers, so the eye doctor gave me a pair of prism glasses to help me see to drive, which they do. But after getting stuck down in the cities because the van wouldn’t start and then having to drive home in the dark, I discovered that those little prisms in the glass act just like prisms, they make oncoming headlights show up as flashing rainbows.

And the final thought for now, I CANNOT have my new embroidery machine and the cat litter box on the same end of the room. When the kittens hear the embroidery machine going, they like to come and watch it move by itself, and it seems like all that action stimulates their bowels. You get my drift?

Oh, the final, final thought: I HATE WINTER!!!! 12-18“ of snow today.

Well, I think it’s finally sunk into Wacko that she can’t go around calling 224 people frauds without suffering some kind of consequences. The lawsuit is in progress, with the usual jockeying between the lawyers. Her lawyer requested a change of venue, the AGLF lawyer requested a deposition, her lawyer requested the deposition be ‘quashed,’ and so on. The court denied the motion to quash and ordered her to present herself within 20 days for deposition, and the court will decide on the 11th of Jan. about the change of venue. She hasn’t posted any new names for over a week now.

The AGLF calendar is done and is being mailed out now. It’s things like this that will beat the nastiness of the Wacko. The artisan community came together and supported each other, financially and emotionally. What did all of this gain her? Some momentary pleasure of revenge against what in her mind were injustices? Compared to destroying any online reputation and chance of selling, dragging her and her mother’s names through the mud, wasting huge amounts of time researching people and filing false reports against them, and finally being sued by dozens of people and having to waste more time and money on lawyers and courts. What a colossal waste!

Enough of that!! Time for more stupid (and cute) pet photos.
This is Pickle sleeping in the recliner. I love the way she has her paws crossed.
Another togetherness photo:
And here’s the stupid pet photos. It all started out with Tiger jumping into a box that was on top of another box in the foyer. It fell over, which scared him, so he took off running, which got the little dogs all excited so they had to chase him. Then I heard a crash in the kitchen and the next thing I see is Peaches running into the living room tangled up in the plant stand. Don’t ask me how the heck she did it! After taking photos, Christian held her while I pushed her shoulder blades in and back through the wire leg of the plant stand. As my sister says, live entertainment.

OK, my sister has been nagging me to get busy and post something, she’s bored with opening up my blog and seeing the same old, same old. So here’s more silly pet photos:
This is Pickle. She is fascinated with watching the fire through the vent of the wood stove. (This stove is an heirloom. My mother’s family used it to heat their house when she was a child.)
This is Tiger, showing an excellent use of the exercise bike:
And here is Peaches, just looking silly:

One step forward, two steps back. The AGLF calendar is all finished, and Lukas’ computer died.

Yippee, the AGLF calendar is done (singing ‘Dancing in the Streets)!

http://greyhaven.bizland.com/MiscStuff/Calendar/Calendar%20Jan.jpg
http://greyhaven.bizland.com/MiscStuff/Calendar/Calendar%20Feb.jpg
http://greyhaven.bizland.com/MiscStuff/Calendar/Calendar%20March.jpg
http://greyhaven.bizland.com/MiscStuff/Calendar/Calendar%20April.jpg
http://greyhaven.bizland.com/MiscStuff/Calendar/Calendar%20May.jpg
http://greyhaven.bizland.com/MiscStuff/Calendar/Calendar%20June.jpg
http://greyhaven.bizland.com/MiscStuff/Calendar/Calendar%20July.jpg
http://greyhaven.bizland.com/MiscStuff/Calendar/Calendar%20Aug.jpg
http://greyhaven.bizland.com/MiscStuff/Calendar/Calendar%20Sept.jpg
http://greyhaven.bizland.com/MiscStuff/Calendar/Calendar%20Oct.jpg
http://greyhaven.bizland.com/MiscStuff/Calendar/Calendar%20Nov.jpg
http://greyhaven.bizland.com/MiscStuff/Calendar/Calendar%20Dec.jpg

Next step, off to the printers.

The titles of these photos need to be ‘Togetherness.’

Lukas discovered Peaches likes to play with the feather duster:
I was looking for photos to put in the AGLF calendar and this bead just hit me.

You have GOT to be kidding!! There was just a piece on the news about a police drug sniffing dog that escaped from his kennel, got picked up by the dog catcher and was euthanized because he didn’t have tags and he WASN’T microchipped. Then they went on to say that neither the Minneapolis or St. Paul police departments microchip their dogs.

It cost $50-$75 to have a dog microchipped! How stupid and short-sighted can you be? Maybe if they had kept closer oversight on their Metro Gang Strike Force, they would have had money to do it, instead of it going into shady cops’ pockets.

Gads, has it been that long since I updated?

Well, I have an excuse. Been busy laying out a calendar that we’re setting up to sell for fundraising. The Wacko hired a lawyer and has asked for a change of venue and proof of our accusations. LOL, oh, that won’t be difficult at all. She is the one who said, ‘Google is forever.’ Must not have thought about all those cookie and bead sales from Etsy that she had the last couple of years, the ones that show her selling beads that she claimed she was making in Italy (ones she had bought from other lampworkers), and the screenshops of her cookie shop saying she was baking cookies in her bakery in Waco, Texas. Plus the screenshots of the fraud website being registered to her address. Still shaking my head in disbelief.

Oh, well, I’ve got better things to do than shake my head. Like making beads!
My favorite glass, Aurae:
A Galaxy bead with a touch of Aurae:
And be darned if I can remember what was in this one besides Olympic Rain:
OK, off to make some more.

Really trying to get the energy to do something. Started the day with a headache and earache again.

I worked on our genealogy a bit. We can trace back our family on my Mom’s side to my great-great-grandmother, Wilhelmina, who was born in 1825 in Germany. My great-grandfather on my Dad’s side was born in Germany in 1845. Amazing, when you think about these dates.

Got a cute pet photo. This is Squeak with Peaches using her as a nice warm pillow,
Finally got some more beads listed on Etsy and Artfire. I love this one. It’s on a golden amber translucent base, and it just glows.

I might try making some more like this one, with a lighter plunge. The photo doesn’t show it well, but it has metallic copper and brass layers. Really neat and shiny.
As to the latest on the Wacko ordeal, we’re all waiting to see what happens tomorrow. That’s the date she has to respond to the lawsuit by. She’s up to 207 people on her fraud blog. You would think after getting slapped with a lawsuit for defamation by 70+ people, she would quit posting, but not her. She’s posted close to 60 people since getting served. Just shaking my head in disbelief...

Friday, Nov. 13th, 1953
Our dad was killed in a farming accident. How different things would have been if that hadn’t happened. He was only 36.