Lots of Updates

So much has been happening around here, I feel like I post a few tidbits and then move on to the next thing without wrapping up the first. So, here are some updates on things I've written about but never quite finished.

Count the Kicks

Sarah's event was a huge success!

Curt, Lisa, Sarah, and Vanessa in front of one of the billboards advertising it here in Lafayette.

Two hundred pregnant moms were planned for, and three hundred came. I asked Sarah if they'd had enough food and she responded, "Food? Yes. Cookies? No!!" 

Colts wide receiver and Count the Kicks sponsor Ryan Kelly modeling the event's tee shirt given to all who came.

Sarah said the Kellys were very generous in their sponsorship and support of stillbirth prevention - they truly made a difference by hosting this event. Sarah is back in Iowa now, tired but very pleased with the number of pregnant women who were there and learning about preventing stillbirth. 

Health Update

Speaking of health, look what arrived in the mail for me.

I have very mixed emotions - I've grateful because this will make running errands much easier, especially as it becomes snowy and icy here.

But it also makes me feel old and even bad for taking a parking place that someone who has more difficulty walking than me might want to use. But mostly I am grateful because it has been a big help to me to have it.

I do think my health is improving - the twice weekly physical therapy is really helping my back. The hemiplegic migraines have stopped. I still get a regular migraine occasionally (I've had them since I was nine) but compared to a hemiplegic migraine, they are nothing.

The blood and heart issues have resolved but I am still dealing with blood pressures that are occasionally at stroke level. That's scary, but I've got good doctors who are helping to get that under control. 

The hernia is problematic. It hurts to wear anything with a waistband, so I've bought some muumuus that hang from my shoulders and don't put pressure on my abdomen. I also bought some stretchy yoga pants so that if I do need to run an errand, I wear those. (I can tolerate a waistband for short periods of time.) I see a surgeon next month.

Custom Trade Shirts from The Feast of the Hunters' Moon

I had two orders for shirts from the Feast but I had to wait until Leslie got the fabric for them back in stock.

The blue daisy chain block print shirt turned out really well. 

The man who ordered it sent me a selfie of himself wearing it. I sell a lot of clothing, but I don't always get to see it being worn, so that was a treat for me.

I was prepping the fabric for the other custom order (I always prewash the fabric to get extra dye out and to preshrink it since it's cotton) and was dismayed as I ironed it to discover lots of ink issues. Take a look.

These long random lines were all over the fabric.

I photographed eleven different spots across the fabric

before I stopped, realizing that this fabric was not acceptable and needed to be returned.

Every block print has a flaw or two; it's part of their charm and an indicator of being hand printed. But these lines were not caused by blocks being misaligned.

I think the ink on this fabric was still damp when the fabric was gathered up and taken for pressing and the wet ink transferred along the wrinkles.

Fortunately I had a second piece of this block print without those flaws and was able to get started on the order.

The body is done except for the collar, and the sleeves are ready to be put in. (The triangular pieces are underarm gussets. They keep the shirt from being flat and paper doll-like, allowing for arm movement without constraint.)

Patient Tammo

Pepper is a brilliant dog. She really is; she had to be in order to be selected as a Seeing Eye Dog. She's the smallest of all the family dogs, but she always wins the scuffles over the toys by using her brain. Instead of using strength like the other dogs, she persistently hangs onto the toy and doesn't shake or fight for it. She just holds it in her mouth. And she always gets the toy in the end. 

(Occasionally she uses the ambush approach, surprising the other dog by charging around the corner of the couch and snatching the toy before they know just what happened. Like I said, she's smart.)

If Pepper has a toy, any toy, then Tammo wants it. And that boy has figured out a way to get toys away from her. 

He can be just as persistent as Pepper, but he couples that with patience. He waits her out, watching her all the while.

If she gets distracted or puts her head down to snooze, he makes his move. He sneaks up to her and gently pulls the toy away. If she sees him and grabs ahold of her toy, he goes back to waiting and watching.

From getting a toy or a bed that he wants, his patience almost always pays off. I'm starting to think that Tammo, too, hit the jackpot when it came to brains.

New Hagen Renakers to share tomorrow. Stay 'tooned!

 

Counting the Kicks with the Colts

Sarah has been with us since Saturday, here on a work trip but staying with us instead of a motel to get some family time in.

Today she heads down to Indianapolis to the Indianapolis Colts practice facility where, sponsored by  Colts Wide Receiver Ryan Kelly, his wife Emma, and the Colts team itself, her organization, Healthy Birth Day, is holding an event for underserved pregnant mothers. 

Count the Kicks is part of Healthy Birth Day's stillbirth prevention program, and because Ryan and Emma's first daughter was stillborn, they are interested in educating other families about how counting a baby's kicks during the third trimester can help indicate possible problems with the pregnancy.

Sarah is passionate about maternal health care. Just this past September, President Biden signed a bill giving states more flexibility to use federal funding grants to help prevent stillbirth. Sarah worked on getting that bill passed.

She was working on the Colts' event while she was here and some of that included checking out billboards she'd contracted to advertise the event.

So, Sunday afternoon Lisa, Curt, and Vanessa drove her around town to help her find the three she'd had put up in the Lafayette area. 

Craig and I stayed home with Ian, Mila, and Lukie, playing Rudolph Bingo, watching Home Alone together, and grilling out burgers and hotdogs for a family dinner.

Sarah was only here for a short time, but Tammo absolutely fell in love with her.

He followed her like he was glued to her side, and even slept in her room with her, ignoring our calls to join us when we went to bed!

She left early this morning to head down to the Colts facility where she has several meetings and set-up to supervise before the event at 6:00 this evening. 

They had planned for 200 women to come, but far more than that signed up, so there is a bit of a scramble - making sure they have enough food for the dinner, swag bags for each expectant mom, and more. 

I can't wait to hear how it goes, but she has people to drive to the airport tonight and will just stay in a hotel there and drive home tomorrow morning. 

Best of luck today, Sarah!

Sarah and a Win for Maternal Health Care

 Second Post of the Day

I have another nickname for Hawkeye Sarah - Hero Daughter. Why? Because she is passionate about doing things that make a difference in the lives of others. Her focus has been maternal health care for over two decades now. And what a difference she just made recently - all the way to the White House.

Sarah began her career as a nurse, then shortly into that career, was t-boned at an intersection and injured her back badly enough that she was unable to do the standing needed as a hospital or surgical nurse.

Looking for new options in the medical field, Sarah then became certified as a doula and a breast feeding consultant. She went back to school, got her degree in Education, and became a high school health and social studies teacher. (She taught more than one pregnant teen who, aware that their teacher was also a nurse and doula, asked Sarah to be with her while she gave birth.) 

She and Todd moved to Aurora, Colorado where she was hired as the director of Health Education grades K-12 for the Aurora Public Schools. She wrote curriculum, she wrote grants, she mentored teachers.

Six years later and with a Masters degree in Public Health, Todd and Sarah moved back to Iowa where she was hired as the State Expansion Director for Count the Kicks, the educational arm of Healthy Birth Day, Inc. that focuses on the prevention of stillbirth. The organization began in Iowa and is now found in all fifty states.

The organization has focused on bringing better maternal care to all women, especially those populations that are traditionally underserved. That focus has received a lot of bipartisan political support in each state of the country. 

Through that bipartisan support, a bill was recently introduced in Congress, made it through both the House and the Senate, and was signed into law by President Biden.

States now have the flexibility to use federal grant funding to help prevent stillbirth.

This mama so very proud of her Hero Daughter and the difference she has made in the lives of others. 

And that's why I call her "Hero Daughter."