A few new cards to share and an update on life at Kat’s House

Hi all, I have a few cards to share with you today as well as a very quick update on the family.  Things here are going slow, taking it one day at a time.  Justin is doing fairly well and is still on the suboxone treatment program but is getting ready to start an intensive outpatient program as well.  (Answer to my prayers!) and hopefully this will help him when it’s time to wean off of the suboxone.

Tyler is not doing well in school (failing to be specific) and since he is special ed, we have to meet to take another look at his IEP and see if there is something we should all be doing differently.  He keeps missing a specific class after lunch and says he’s in the bathroom with stomach problems but since it’s almost a daily thing, I’m wondering what it really is.  This is the first year he’s been in public school and has the ability to make his own choices about whether or not to go to class (ie cutting/skipping) so we are trying to figure out if he is really stuck in the bathroom and if so, WHY or if he just hates that class and is skipping, etc.  Getting the truth out of a 15 year old is NOT an easy task!

I’ve been doing so so with the RA and Fibro/CFS, etc.  the pain is controllable with my meds and I’ve had days where the weather is nice and I’ve felt good enough to actually get out of the house and do some things and then afterwards, I usually end up stuck in bed for one to two days.  But I took the ferry over to Seattle a few days ago and met Jason, (Tyler’s dad) and we spent some time in Seattle and then went to Ikea (my favorite store!) and then came back here to Bremerton and had a very nice visit.  It’s amazing that I met him when he was Justin’s age (19) and here we are now at our current ages (LOL) with a child who is 19 and 15.  (he is not Justin’s dad)

Anyway, that’s why I’ve not been blogging as much, the weather has been nice and I’ve been taking advantage of my “‘good” days as well as spending time with my mom helping her go shopping and such.  She is having a very hard time walking and the doctor ordered an MRI of her brain, she is worried about parkinson’s because my grandmother had it before she passed and I guess it can be hereditary and she has some of the same symtoms my Grandmom had.  I’m praying that everything will turn out well and they can find something that is fixable to help her walk better.  She is also having kidney problems, her kidneys are only functioning at 51% of their capacity and they don’t know why.  My mom is my best friend and I can’t imagine life without her so your prayers would be so greatly appreciated.  My step-dad is also having a biopsy done because they found a tumor and cancer is very prevalent in his family so I’m praying that his biopsy comes back clean as well.  My parents and my boys are my life and to have these two health scares going on at once along with Justin’s drug addiction and Tyler failing school is making things really tough right now.

On top of it all, my beloved dog and friend, Ginger, who I’ve had for 11 years has a tumor as well and it’s inoperable.  They don’t know how long she has but she is having a hard time getting up and walking and getting in and out of the dog door.  We have to feed her and give her medication 3-4 times a day to keep her blood sugar elevated and to think of life without her is just breaking my heart.  She helped me raise my boys ya know?

Wow, I was thinking that things were going fairly well until I actually wrote all of this down! Now I’m totally stressed out! lol  I guess you don’t realize how much is going on sometimes until you see it writing!  So yeah, if you pray, your prayers would be greatly appreciated for my entire family right now!  (thanks in advance!)

I’ll keep you all updated as often as I can so stay tuned.

With all that is going on, I’ve decided to give the design team a mini-vacation from Kat Scrappiness for the month of May.  Mostly so I can get my head on straight and have a month to get re-organized since I moved into my new scrap room and so forth.  So things at Kat Scrappiness are rather slow right now, but hopefully they will pick up in June.  We do have a new youtube channel so if you want to subscribe to see our videos, please click here to do so.  (We have a giveaway going on until May 7th so go enter now if you want to win one of three gift certificates to the shop!)

If you haven’t seen our new website yet, please check it out. Our main site is now off of etsy and located at http://www.katscrappiness.com.  The site is broken into three sections, we have our blog, our gallery and our shop.  Let me know what you think ok?  If anyone is a web designer and has a better idea for the design of the site, please let me know, I did it myself so it’s very basic.

So that’s it for updates, here are the three cards I made 🙂

I used Lawn Fawn’s “flying by” stamp to make this card along with some of my new washi tapes.

I used the “This and That” collection from Echo park to make this card.  I used a circle and scallop punch and made my own embellishments 🙂  That was fun!

I used the other “This and That” collection by Echo Park to make the next two cards.  This first card is also using a thank you stamp that I got for free from PaperTreyInk.com when I placed my last order.  It’s a fabulous, high quality stamp and I love it!  I made this card for the nice man who fixed my computer last month.

This next card is VERY simple because it’s for my brother’s birthday which is today (happy birthday Mike!)  It’s so hard to decorate cards for men.  I never know what to do so they always come out simple and clean.

Thanks for stopping by and catching up on what’s going on at my house.  I also want to say thank you for those that take the time to leave comments for me, I read each and every one of them and appreciate them so much. I answer them via email if a response is called for so please don’t think that just because you don’t see my replies here on the website that I don’t reply, I always do my best to get back to everyone.

Enjoy this beautiful spring weather (in the high 50’s where I live and sunny!) and take some time to do something crafty each day.  It’s good for the soul!