Yall it has been a CRAZY week. I’m still not fully recovered from Friday. What was Friday, you ask? Well let’s start at the beginning.
I’ll do some bolded titles so you can skip past the long bits if you don’t want to read them.
Enjoy some weird pics of Luna after I threw some money at her while I tell my picture-less story.
A Broken Back and a Nasty Wrap
Thursday I woke up with what I thought was a crick in my neck but after a few hours I realized it was actually a migraine. That happens sometimes, it’s rare – it’s like the pain radius is in my neck instead of just above my ear like it usually is, so when it first starts I think it’s just a sore neck until it starts to radiate into my head and I realize it’s a migraine. But because I’d let it go on so long without taking anything, the migraine took hold and was hard to shake. This isn’t the main crux of the story, but just the prelude to a crappy couple of days.
And then a bit later Thursday morning I get a text that am ambulance had been called for my grandma (Mema) because she was in so much pain she couldn’t move. It was guessed kidney stones – so I just kinda let that be the official story in my head for the time being so I didn’t have to worry too much.
And then in the afternoon came this text: “Mema broke her back.”
WTF!
As time went by the next few days, the theory is that when she fell off that dr table last summer (I think I posted a few times about staying up at the rehab hospital with her), she actually got this fracture then, but it just now worsened enough (she has osteoporosis) to cause pain. The side of the family my grandparents live with/near were all leaving to go out of town Friday, so the Memphis gang was mobilized to split up times to go stay with her. Because of her dementia we don’t like her to be left alone up there – when I stayed with her at the rehab hospital after the hip break last year, I kept having to remind her that we were in a hospital. She thought she was at home.
So I got assigned Friday night. Friday after work I took a quick nap (still dealing with migraine so I was sleepy), then went to double check on my dinner plans — when Mema was in the main hospital last Feb/March (can’t remember when it was it was a blur), they had a Chick-Fil-A there on site. Decided I’d just grab that (even though I try to avoid them – but it was the quickest/easiest option) — went on their website to make sure they’d still be open by the time I got up there and their website showed them open.
So I drive the hour up to the hospital, grab my bag and head inside, get checked in, get my guest badge, and then get lost for about 5 minutes trying to FIND the food court. Finally find it and… the Chick-Fil-A is fully boarded up. Like not just closed but completely gone behind slabs of drywall or whatever. There was only some vending machines and a Subway. (There was also a cafeteria elsewhere in the building, but I wasn’t sure how quick or mobile that would be, and at that point I needed something in a bag quick) So I reluctantly got in the Subway line. I HATE Subway. But I got a wrap and a drink and quickly headed on upstairs.
And again this, like the migraine, was just a bad start to a bad night. (The wrap was nasty. I made myself eat about half of it so I wouldn’t be hungry all night)
So my grandpa left a few minutes after I got there. Mema was in a pretty good mood and feeling ok – they’d done a procedure that day to fill in the fracture and everything was looking OK, thank goodness. But within a few minutes of my grandpa leaving she was immediately asking where he went. And then looking at the clock “It’s 7pm. Where is he? He better get home soon” – again, thinking she’s at home and he’s out somewhere. I’d remind her that he went home to sleep (there was no way he could have slept on that tiny couch in the hospital room. I like to say I can sleep anywhere but even I struggled with this couch), and that she’s in the hospital. She’d settle down a bit and we’d talk like normal, we’d talk about different family members, our cats, etc. Then she’d go right back around to “where’s your granddad?”
But that was pretty normal because she did the same thing in the rehab hospital last year. But then it switched to “where’s my book?” I helped her look around for her book and didn’t find one anywhere. So she wanted to call my granddad to ask where her book was. I knew we’d wake him up by calling him (and probably scaring him) but she was insistent she’d had her book there so I finally gave in and called him – she had NOT had her book there, and he told her he’d bring it with him tomorrow.
Then after a while it switched to “where’s my purse?” and “where’s my phone” – again no purse or phone anywhere in the room. I told her I didn’t think she’d had either here, because they’d brought her in an ambulance and it was probably still at home. She was getting more and more wound up over this, and was wanting to call my granddad AGAIN – by this time it was like 10pm. I didn’t want to wake him up again when I knew what the answer was. I was begging with her to please let’s not call him. Let’s just go to sleep, he’ll be here in the morning with your book and your purse and your phone. But she started getting mad at me, so I finally called him again, put him on speaker phone so he could tell her himself he’d bring all those things in the morning.
And then, still all wound up, she wanted to leave. She kept trying to get up (they didn’t want her getting up at all). Then she wanted to call my granddad again to take her home. I wouldn’t let her. She got mad at me, telling me I don’t care about her. She wanted to call my aunt so my aunt could come take her home. She wanted to call my mom so my mom could come take her home. She was mad and almost crying. When I’d again tell her all she had to do was rest for tonight and she’d be going home tomorrow (which is what the nurses were telling us), she’d just lay back and groan “oh my god oh my god”. I was exhausted already, it was 11pm (way past my bedtime yall), I had a migraine which makes me even more tired, my stomach was already growling again (making my migraine worse. My migraine meds work best on a full tummy. If I take them on an empty stomach they tend to not work), my grandma is MAD at me because I’m apparently the sole reason she’s been kept in the hospital and so I finally texted Kristie and told her what was going on. She had my aunt call so she could try to talk Mema down a bit. Which didn’t really work, Mema got mad at her and basically just set the phone down and stopped listening.
So then Nana called up to the nurses’ desk to tell them to go give Mema something to help her sleep. A few minutes later her nurse comes in with some meds and within 5 minutes of taking them, she told me she was glad I was here with her and that she loved me and finally fell asleep.
Not that that meant I was getting much sleep after that. Like I said the couch was awful. My head hurt, my stomach was growling, and every hour or so nurses were coming in to check her vitals, turning the lights on and waking us both up – but Mema would go right back to sleep, I’d lay there trying to get comfortable again and toss and turn. I think I maybe got about 3 cumulative hours all night. By about 5 I gave up entirely and just messed around on my phone until she woke up around 6:15. She was groggy and in some pain but not near so wound up as the night before.
(Just want to add in here that while I am complaining about my lack of sleep, it was not the most important thing happening here – Mema was the most important thing here and making sure she’s healing and ok was the goal but I’m telling you all about the Chick-Fil-A debacle and the couch and everything just to tell the story.)
My granddad got there around 7:15 (with a suitcase in tow – “I brought your book, your purse, your phone, some clothes – everything but the cat”) and she perked up once he was there. Gave them kisses goodbye and was on the road by 7:30. I guess by that point my stomach had given up on getting fed, because I wasn’t feeling hungry anymore – got home around 8:30 and Chase and I went out and got breakfast and went ahead and ran our errands.
After errands I passed out on the couch for about 2 hours. Much needed. Got a text that Mema DID get to go home that afternoon. Yay. Got some sewing done (talk about that later), had a good dinner, decided to play some Sims before bed… and my laptop had other ideas.
My Laptop Has Passed On
So yeah my laptop isn’t THAT old – I got it in 2016 and I really don’t do much on it besides back up my iphone photos, edit and tag my photoshoot pics, some occasional photoshop art and Sims. I guess that’s 5 years old but I use it so infrequently it doesn’t feel that old. Especially since I think I’ve changed the wallpaper ONCE since I had it? It’s been that Vanity Fair photo of Leia, Poe, Finn and Rose since that photo came out.
But with all my photos and things it has gotten pretty slow. I’ve been needing to get a new external and back it up for ages. It’s super slow to start up and the battery is pretty much dead – if it’s not plugged in it will not stay on. Even plugged in sometimes, if it hasn’t been plugged in LONG enough it’ll nope right out and die.
So what I usually do when I want to play Sims is I get it plugged in, let it sit for about 5 minutes to make sure it’s not going to die as soon as I open it, and then give it about 5 minutes to full start up. Awful isn’t it? But I usually spend that time on my phone and I’ve gotten used to building that time in before I want to play (though if Origin needs to update… forget it, I know i won’t be playing that night). So Saturday night I get it plugged in, wait a few minutes, fire it up, sign into windows and… nothing.
The Princess and the Pea (it’s all of our outdoor seat cushions I needed to put away)
When I signed into windows, it was just a black screen and a cursor. I could get to task manager and see it was loading in everything, so I figured I’d give it a few minutes. But still nothing. I googled on my phone and found a few things to try. I wasn’t super worried because obviously everything was still there, just the desktop wasn’t loading in properly. Restarted in Safe Mode, figuring that would fix it and… nope. Same thing in Safe Mode. Which meant half the fixes I’d googled couldn’t work because they needed you to sign in in safe mode to still access menus and stuff. After I tried the few things I could, Chase came down to try a few things as well and no luck. Tried a system restore from a week before – nope.
Finally after fighting with it for an hour and a half, I told him to just leave it on overnight and see if the desktop would eventually just load. I was exhausted, stayed up way later than I planned trying to fix this, and I was just SO over everything.
Sunday morning it was still just a black screen so we started trying other stuff again. Still no luck. So finally Chase went up to his office, got an external drive, and we were able to back up all my files successfully (I think – I need to bring the external up to my desktop computer and check everything). So I guess after this we’re wiping it and reinstalling windows or something. Sucks.
At least I do still have my desktop computer. (It’s actually work’s, but it’s so old (from 2007) it can no longer connect to their network. I just use my work laptop for work and the desktop has become a personal computer. I asked work if they wanted it back and it’s so old they don’t want it LOL)
To top it off I felt like crap Sunday. I think friday night caught up to me. My head hurt (not really a migraine) and I kinda felt pukey for a while. Felt better after eating lunch but the rest of the day was a struggle.
And that concludes all the drama from the last week. Please let that be all the drama for a while.
The Sewing Update
So last week i got the collar finished and sewn in.
And then decided I didn’t like it. It was too tall and looked uneven (even though it wasn’t. I could fold it in half and it lined up perfectly but it LOOKED uneven when I put it on)
So I ended up taking it off, opening it back up totally to make sure nothing funny was going on inside causing the uneven-ness. Trimmed it to be a bit shorter. Put it back on:
And I think it just being too tall is what was the root of the problem. It’s not perfect but it looks a whole lot better (and less uneven) after shortening it.
So the surcoat is done except closures and buttons. Chase is going to 3d model the buttons for me.
Next up are the velvet pieces, which means it’s finally time to dig into the embroidery.
I downloaded a trial of Hatch Embroidery Digitizer and pulled my “loops” I’d drawn in photoshop in – and it was super easy to digitize.
Here’s my test on some similar scrap velvet.
I did 4 versions – 1 loop, 2 loops, 3 loops and 4 loops. I picked up lots of thread Saturday so I could start running this and once I got everything set up and let the machine start mapping it out – I realized it was a tad too big. So I went to resize them all. This time printed one off on regular paper to hold up to the panels and I think I’ve finally got it about right.
But that was enough for my brain for the day so I switched to working on Bail for the rest of the weekend.
Chase’s mantle
I’m using the McCall’s Civil War pattern for this and it looked pretty straight-forward, wouldn’t need a lot of editing. I had gotten all the pieces cut out between Thursday night and Saturday morning – outer fabric, lining, interfacing, everything. I usually do it in chunks so it was nice to have it all done beforehand LOL. I got the basic upper part of the jacket put together Saturday, and Saturday night I had him come try it on – and discovered it was too big. He was happy that he was smaller than the size we cut it to – but I had to do a LOT of alterations to take it in. After I pinned everything I was like, I can’t deal with this tonight, and went to play Sims to wind down and… well that’s when the laptop debacle happened.
So Sunday I basically had to take the jacket apart to cut it down because it was enough of a difference that just taking the seams in didn’t really work. Made the same updates on the lining pieces then and there so I didn’t have to deal with them when it came to put them together.
Got it to where it fit him, did the lining layer, got it installed, made the lower sections, got it sewn on, had him try it on and I think we’re all good.
It doesn’t look like much on my form. I forgot to take a pic of it on him.
I’ve got to finish the lining on the inside – it’s not connected at the waist seam or the collar. And then do the hems. But I’m really happy with how much of it I got done over 2 days. Will do the pants next.
I have not figured out a closure yet. I’m thinking snaps in the areas hidden by the mantle/belt.
Also Chase printed a new version of my hairpiece this weekend:
And I ordered 3 wigs last week – a base wig for Padme, a wig for Wanda, and finally a wig for Eliza. Supposed to arrive tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
Speaking of Wanda, 3d printed a new tiara and belt buckle too. The first tiara file Chase found and printed was curved and didn’t turn out great – so trying a flat one and heat-forming it.
And finally last week I ordered this blue eyelet cotton. It’s coming across really grey in photos but it is a blue. (I always have trouble with photographing blues in my sewing room) This is for one of the silly random costumes I mentioned in my Dragoncon post. I’m not saying what it is yet because I think it’s hilarious and I want it to be a surprise. It’s kind of obscure but I think certain folks will get it once they see the look together.
Anyway I expected this fabric to be a stiffer cotton, but it’s really thin and flimsy – so Saturday I picked up some heavier cotton to flat-line it with. I was going to line it either way so not a big deal.
So my goals are to be done with all sewing on Bail by the end of this month, and all BASIC sewing done with Padme too. I say basic as in all the major soft parts of the costume are done, machine embroidery is done, and I just have wig work, the floral pieces on the skirt and the brooches left. And I hope to be done with all that by July. Major focus shift to Wanda by start of July and just finishing Padme stuff in the background.
the end
Well not really just the end of my bullet points.
Saturday I begged Chase to go to Burlington Coat Factory because I’ve seen tiktoks that people are finding disney parks merch there. So we went to the one closest to us – no luck. So we went to the next one further away and found a few things!
We got this set of Ink and Paint plates for $9. They are really nice! I also found a ceramic Ink and Paint bowl that was really cute – but it had a big crack in it so we didn’t get that. And also found these POTC socks for $3.
And in non-disney parks merch we found a really cool metal Star Wars wall hanging for Kevin’s room, and I found a glass that said “Catalina Wine Mixer” on it for $2 so I had to get that.
So that’s all for this week. I think it’s ENOUGH for this week.