The Christmas 2010 Give-a-way and some blinding news

 As promised, I used the random number generator to find the lucky winner of this package of stitching goodies and Santa is ready to send out when it arrives here really soon(crossing fingers).

The winner is Virpi from Finland!!!

She left her messages on Dec 1st! This girl is on the ready!!!!

Congrats to you and I hope you enjoy all your goodies!

Santa also will be putting in a few other things that you will like. I can't promise it will get there by Christmas but as soon as the order arrives (I ordered it on Thanskgiving and still not here from the ABC Stitch Therapy site), I will be glad to send to you. Just email me at jennifer.dalenberg@yahoo.com your mailing address.

Thanks to all for participating. There were 300 entries! 

This week has been a whirlwind of things that were not so Christmasy so for me,  is the biggest present I can receive and wanted,  is to be able to give something meaningful to somewhere who cares. So, my Christmas wish came true with the mailing of this to Finland.

Thank you again for all who took time out to leave comments. I read each and every one. I wished I could make all your Santa wishes come true. I really do. Some were heartbreaking to read especially those wishing family members to come, or call, or for the health of loved ones, for jobs and broken relationships to mend.

I hope that this Christmas your hopes do come true for each and every one of you.

Around the house this week>>>>>>>>>

Body guard has been out all night and still out now due to the state of emergency ice conditions which has caused over 100 or more accidents just last night in this area alone, this doesn't include Atlanta. The rain came and then the ice came. Ironically, he had to pick me up from 30 miles away as I had my eyes dilated AGAIN for a 2 hour procedure which did show irreversible optic nerve damage from being hit in the eyes years ago. We were so hoping that the intital tests were wrong, or that this couldn't really be happening but the hemmoraging is continuing in the back of the eye near the optc nerve and I am supposed to go again today for GDX testing to see how far it has progressed. Unfortunately there is very little they can do with traumatic glaucoma as it usually isn't detected for 20 years down the road after the blow to the eye socket.

As I had many blows to the eye socket by my X husband in the mid 80's, it is hard for me to really go through all this again with medical providers probing for questions about particular blows, how many, and such without starting to have flashbacks and nightmares again.

The plan is to keep the pressures low in the left eye with medication, which I learned from the eye doctor last evening, is common with this type of glaucoma. Most of the damage is done and set in motion by the time someone notices any symptoms years and years later. My peripheral vision tests are every 6 months for the rest of my life. There is already one tiny area of total black, it's very small but present. 

Yesterday I sat through exams on my eyes that I thought I could not ever tolerate. I used to never be able to put eye drops in, just totally freaked me out. But, you never know what you'll do when you learn you are going to go blind in an eye. They put suction cups on my eyeballs are numbing them many times and turned them around and the pulling of the suction cups and ocular lenses off my eyeballs was something I've never experienced. By the time they had finished 2 hours later, the numbing solutions had drained down my tear ducts to the back of my nose and throat and it was hard to swallow for a while.

She was hoping that the next set of digital pictures (last set was around week before Thanksgiving) didn't show the hemmorhaging in the back of the eye but it is still there which she said is not good news.

Prior to all this I did get my new lenses into my glasses for the computer and close up reading. This time they were good. They aren't designed to correct the distance problems though but I have prescription sunglasses to wear for that and will avoid night driving at all as lights are really hurtful to my eyes, they look much bigger than they really are.

While I can, I will be stitching and reading like crazy. That's all I kept thinking about yesterday is not seeing to stitch or read would be horrible as this is my love. But time will tell and I'm sure everything is for a purpose, usually a greater purpose that we can't "see" literally at all and maybe not meant to for this life.

Fixing to see how the road conditions are. Our roads are completely glossed over with ice sheets and I have 3 things I need to do this afternoon. Many schools are closed. I may be in for a long weekend. Glad I finished my Christmas shopping, the little bit I did; however, I was hoping to go Saturday to finish some things up. We'll see if the temps unthaw by then.

Amazing Grace,

Jennifer