Fire Department

Yesterday was a busy one! Rescue training was to be a live scenario where they stage an accident, perform their duties, and critique it afterwards.
Everyone was involved: medics, rescue techs, firefighters, and the state troopers. The Auxiliary was asked to feed everyone.
Vicki and I shopped for burgers and sausages, coleslaw, beans, potato salad, cookies, and the makings for a fruit salad.
I was in the training room before everything started and they tried to hand me a triage tag so I got out of there and waited outside. Vicki and Christie waited with me until the pre-briefing was over and everyone moved out of there to the "accident scene" outside. The weather cooperated nicely. The sun was out and it was just a bit chilly. We saw a huge flock of geese heading for their summer home and several cranes making their strange noise flying over. There are still some piles of snow around where the plow left them.
I was stirring the beans when Christie's younger son came in and called his dad (also a state trooper) "Dad, you should come here and bring your camera! Adam has a fake bloody nose and now he's getting arrested! It's cool!" Apparently, Adam was playing the part of a drunk driving teen in the scenario.
We all worked well together getting the food ready. Christie manned the grill, I took care of warming the buns and the beans, Vicki set up the sides and the plates before we sent her off with the camera for a few pics. Hopefully I'll get to post some. Christie wants to use one of Adam for his senior page in the school yearbook some day (he's a freshman now).
Unfortunately, everyone made it back into the training room before we did, so clean up got delayed. It turned into a late evening for me because I still had to go home and take my Gleevec which means I have to stay up and sit still until the nausea goes away.

I just had dinner with my Team, the Valley Renegades, a great bunch of people training for marathons! It was another cold, windy run or walk for them. I couldn't even do a short walk because I tripped coming in off the deck yesterday and twisted my ankle, so I sat in the truck and stitched until they got back. It was nice to see almost everyone together again. Edie couldn't be with us just yet.
Margaret said she bought a little cross-stitch kit in Boston and wants me to help her get it started. While I am always hoping to find a stitching buddy close by, I can't imagine that she will get as hooked on it as I am. She is such a busy lady.
On the way home, I saw an owl sitting on a fence post. He was huge and turned that big head as we drove by. Now I need to find out what type of owl he was.

Hello, It's Me ... Lu

I suddenly decided to start blogging. One of the reasons is to keep track of my stitching projects. They seem to be everywhere in various states of progress. Perhaps if I post them now and then, I will stop starting new ones and finish something!
Another reason is the difference between my life in Alaska and the lives I read about everywhere else. When I read posts on my favorite message board (123Stitch), I can't relate to some of the issues. Oh, the cross-stitch things I totally relate to, but things like neighborhoods, lawns, and such are just not part of my life!
One more reason is to share my journey through leukemia (CML). I probably should have started writing about it in Feb. 2007 when I was diagnosed, but it was so much more devastating then than it is now.