Shakespeare, More Convention, Poetry, CPap, etc....

I will go ahead and get the really sad news out of the way. Katarina and Brandon lost their sweet 10 year old kitten named Shakespeare a few days ago.

He was such a pretty and sweet boy and will be sorely missed by the entire family. I also have a few more pictures from  mine and Marlan's trip to the District Convention with our kids.  I am still basking in the happiness of being able to be there every day. I only missed one hour of the entire program.

I had to share this one of Katie in her new dress. What a great color on her. She was one of the volunteers who sat beside a contribution box before and after the meetings as well as during the lunch period each day. 

The first one is of me holding Hiro Friday night and the second one is me holding our sweet Vincent before leaving for the convention on Saturday morning.  Vincent is over 15 years old now so he is getting pretty feeble.  It made me happy that he still "claims" my lap every time I come to visit. When I mentioned how Hiro claims my lap when I'm at their house but will not let me hold him when he comes to visit, Douglas reminded me that in our house, Miya is the "alpha" cat and I belong to her.  I guess that makes sense. 

Now I will share a few from the Poetry Reading Party Ivy Jo had this past weekend. I have been so disappointed to not be able to make it before so I was pretty happy when Marlan said she would pick me up and take me this year.  Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that it was a "Wine and Poetry" party.

I brought two special poems to be read. I asked Dawn to read my first poem which is the one Douglas wrote the day after Page was born. It is such a sweet and special poem from his heart and highlights all of our fears during those first very scary days.

Judy read my second poem which is the one my brother-in-law wrote about my Mom several days after she died. There is a copy of it on my blog and where I got the name of my blog from.  It is called "Belma's Pearls".  Judy asked me if she could read that one since she was with us that night and stayed with us until Mama had taken her last breath.

Sherry called this one "The Three Amigos" on Facebook. I have a series of pictures I snapped real quick one after another of Sherry that are hilarious. I will only share with her though because I love her.  Oh yeah - they are "that" funny.

I brought something else pretty special home from the Poetry Party besides memories of a good time .  This lovely, plush, purple blanket that Ivy Jo gave me. I LOVE it!  Guess who else loves it? Yep - Princess Miya Chula Yum-Yum. She crawls up in my lap to sleep on it every chance she gets. She looked pretty on the brown one I have been using but I will have to admit, purple really is the color that represents her "royalty" better.  Spoiled rotten cat.

Dwight asked me if I needed anything from the Farmer's Market this past Saturday morning so I told him to pick me up some Sunflowers like the ones Jessie brought me awhile back.  They are no where close to being as big as the ones she found but I think they are pretty anyway.  I'm just glad he put forth the effort to get them for me. 

I had to go back and spend the night at the Sleep Clinic last week to be fitted with my new CPAP mask and try sleeping in it.  Dwight took a picture of me in the mask before he left but it was too blurry to keep. He really didn't want to stay overnight again so I told him to go back home and just pick me up the next morning. I felt a little funny there alone to start with but after I finally went to sleep, I actually did very well.  Now I'm waiting for an appointment to go pick up my machine and to learn how to calibrate it.  I have no idea when that will be and am just hoping they didn't give me a date/time and I forgot to write it down.  Hmm, I think I will call them tomorrow and check on it.