Pisces Moon Studio

Yes, it’s true. Carol’s blog rises from the UnDead. Again. (And if anyone arrives with stakes or silver bullets in hand, prepare to be repelled. I’m a skilled zombie-hunter hunter.)

Two years and two days. That’s a long time to be away from blogging, and it’s going to take a very long time to build an audience again. So what’s the story? Why did I go away — and even more importantly — why did I come back?

If you read back through the last few posts before this one, you’ll see that in April of 2007 I went with my sister to the M D Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and then broke my right hand almost immediately thereafter. In April of 2008 my husband was hit by a car as he was crossing a street downtown. He ended up on the pavement under the car, with three bones broken and all the tendons in his right knee torn loose. I told him we were canceling April from now on.

It didn’t work. April of ‘09 I had a serious vision scare — posterior vitreal detachment in my right eye. It eventually resolved without major treatment, but for a while there I was convinced I was losing the sight in that eye. For a visual artist/web designer, this is not a Good Thing.

Okay, now we’re canceling April. Enough already!

Fast forward to mid 2009. It took a little more than a year, but he can walk again, although he uses a cane and can’t walk very far or very long at a time. It could be worse. As he puts it, “I’m above ground, upright, and sort of mobile. It doesn’t get much better than that.”

My hand is still not quite right after the break, but it’s usable. I started keeping a journal in longhand last summer, mostly for the writing practice. I had almost completely lost the ability to write legibly and it has taken a while to get it back. I still can’t knit without discomfort, though. And hand quilting is forever in my past. Ain’t gonna happen again.

My sister lost her battle with cancer last month. I can’t be sad that she is no longer in pain.

In happier news, we have new dogs and a Probable Future Daughter-In-Law.

In January of ‘08 I did a pro bono website for a local rescue group in return for a puppy. But when my son and I went to pick out our puppy, we couldn’t decide between the brown one and the black one, so we ended up bringing both of them home.

Please meet Sasha (left) and Natalya.

They are littermates (although we think they may have had different fathers. Mama is a Great Pyrenees mix.) Lovely girls, very protective, with well-developed herding instincts. If I happen to be in one part of the house and they think I should be elsewhere, they’ll both get behind me and push with their noses to herd me where I am “supposed” to be. It’s highly amusing to watch.

I don’t have a photo of the other probable addition to our family. You’ll have to take my word that she is charming and very cute and she adores my son, so we all adore her.

My website design business continues to be successful and keep me very busy.

And me — I’m back to writing this blog because I am beginning to feel the need to reconnect with the quilting/fiber art world again. I’ve spent two years immersed in technology, marketing, learning to run a business. Time to come back home.

Still no time for art. I’ll have to work on that. But I’m back.