Martha

Over a year ago, Martha stopped coming to Taiko classes because she needed to undergo Chemotherapy.

Today I found out that she passed away.

This picture just hints at her enthusiasm and the warmth of her smile.

A-B Camping 2008

A few years ago, Evenewra moved to the East coast (NJ) from the West coast, and we decided to start a tradition of camping together every year. The first camping trip was August of 2006 and Evenewra was pregnant. The next year, N was an 8 month old infant, and now she's an adorable toddler:


Largely because I feel incredibly behind in life, have a lot of obligations, and am preparing to go to Japan in a couple of weeks, the camping trip was shorter and less remote this year, but we all had a great time.
Here's Evenewra's take: http://brainsite.blogspot.com/2008/08/camping-2008.html

Getting It Together

So, I haven't posted in two months... what's been going on?

Over the late winter and into the spring, I found myself feeling strangely exhausted, sometimes weirdly thirsty at the same time. The exhaustion didn't feel like normal lack of sleep... it was deeper, and lying down to take a nap didn't work all that well. I had difficulty concentrating, and eventually I started feeling vaguely nauseous when I was also feeling tired. All these symptoms were very vague and only gradually got worse, so it took a long time to figure out that I needed to see a doctor. It wasn't until I realized how much trouble I was having getting work done...

...long story short my thyroid has been malfunctioning. I started taking levothyroxine four weeks ago today, and I think I've started to feel better. I'm still feeling tired sometimes, but more often it corresponds to when I'm actually underslept. I have been able to be productive a lot more of the time, my concentration has improved, and I haven't been feeling nauseous anymore.

Now I'm trying to get caught up with everything. Fortunately, my sister came to my rescue for a week and helped me get caught up on data entry for my business (timesheets and such), plus she helped me sort the papers that were starting to pile up. It was awesome to have her help!

I took a lot of pictures during my hiatus, so I'm going to gradually go back in time and add entries in the gap. That means that anything posted between June 3 and this entry has been added later.

Mysterious Package

A lovely little vase arrived in yesterday's mail. It came from a Japanese museum in Florida... and I couldn't figure out who it came from, as there was nothing to identify the sender on the package...

Ikebana Vase with Tickseed (Coreopsis)

I spent about a day wondering. It turns out that it came from Sue G. It is from the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, which she had visited with Bob a couple of years ago. It was the inspiration for incorporating a Japanese style shade garden as part of the landscape design that I created for them. What a sweet gift! I have other vases, but this is now my favorite.