Anna's this and that

We've had several beautiful days of lovely sun despite the cold temperatures which some nights dropped to -6,5 C/43,7 F. Winter surely comes early this year! Within a few days the garden froze and the nature changed colors to a burnt orange, but the sun made dog walks so enjoyable. Today, the whole world has changed to an unfriendly atmosphere of strong wind, rain and general grayness. Not nice! Toska refused to go out, Happy did his morning obligations very fast, Lucky (who has short but thick woolly fur) went out for an hour and returned running at my first shouting, totally wet and hungry.
I don't have work since over a week, which is almost a blessing or at least what I really wanted to gather thoughts and stack up on good energy before my return to Poland. The last weeks had been stressing and I was overworked, so I am accepting these few days with a big smile. It's a good time to catch up on lots of small things at home and at my computer.
H's leg is healing but very slowly and it's definitely a difficult case. Nurses continue to come daily to change the specialized thingies on his wound and he drives to see the surgeon once a week now. Still on antibiotics (which we laughingly call anti-idiotics) because of the staphylococcus aureus infection he got at the hospital and a part of the wound has opened wide (eeeeek) but the necrosis seems to heal.
I feel so sorry for him, that it all is due to the blood thinning medicine he is taking after his heart op' and unfortunately such problems arise with a sad regularity even though he's very careful at preventing them. But it is also an eye-opening situation, what do we know that will happen to us later in life? He'd been in perfect health till the age of 50, and his heart condition was not due to high cholesterol, obesity or anything like that. It was suddenly discovered there was a genetic malformation in the heart, his life was saved and the quality of his live is perfect, he's certainly just as/more active than any of his active friends, but very regularly, problem arise with the blood. He goes to have it checked bi-weekly if it's okay or daily when it's not, but sometimes the problem occurs in between the good periods and most often the values jump because of a simple cold or medicine. He has now returned to work and can walk a lot better so I'll be leaving for Poland on Sunday, with Toska and Happy. Not that I look forward to it, because *a lot* of tasks await me till Christmas, but I already got my ticket back to Norway before the New Year, and that eases the heartache a bit! (also that of leaving little Szpulka here).

My blogging was so erratic over the past year that I thought it would be a good idea to catch up on the crafty part and post finishes from that period. To start, here is a box I sent last year to Jill F. for her birthday (exchange). I was so proud of me! I painted the box inside, covered it with matching fabric outside and glued a white cardboard piece to the bottom. I knew that Jill liked purple and peacocks s I chose this pattern and adapted the color. So glad she liked it! It is a bigger size box that can be used to hide all sorts of crafty treasures :)

Pinberry Lane - Mehitable Wright's Redwork Sampler

Among the birthday goodies, I added this hand-made felt hedgehog, because Jill likes them.
I used a pattern I found on the web after searching long for one I liked and I stuck pins in it :)

I'll leave you with this heart-warming video of Szpulka and Lucky. I am sure you will melt down! We sure have a very patient dog :)