A Good Friday

What a GOOD FRIDAY we had at Maria and Andreas's home outside in the garden! Thank you so much for inviting all of us! You don't know how much we appreciated the attentions, the delicious Greek food, the laughter, and your kind hospitally! I ate more that meal than I have eaten in long time! I felt so good!

Maria: I will call you to tell you this in person if I can manage to do it without crying...but I wanted you to know how wonderful it is that our friendship doesn't just revolve around work (we only talked a little about it when we were alone) and that during dinner my illness wasn't mentioned once! I Love you, my Aussie-Greek friend! Maya and Antonia enjoyed their individual servings of pannacotta and berries! We left Maya with her bike and helmet to spend the night with Antonia...what a treat it was for her! She's still talking about it! Antonia is only 2 months older than Maya but she's so advanced physically...a head taller, stronger, more balanced. We took advantage of the situation to see if Antonia would inspired Maya to ride her bike on her own....it worked! With a little more smooth road practice Maya should be biking without training wheels soon. Thank you Amilon FAMILY!

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Later that evening, I had to stop taking the Ibprophen in order to prepare for the liver biopsy blood tests. New pains started to come and I threw up my dinner (not Maria's food!). I was rather scared and shakey. Since then I have not had much energy. I took it easy on Saturday only helping a little bit with the Easter rabbit preparations. Rested as much as possible before Maya came back from Antonia's so we could dye Easter eggs together outside in the Florida room.

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Sunday we had the Easter egg hunt (which is not a Swedish tradition) in the forest behind our house. Each year we invite the neighbor's 2 children to join Maya and it's a lot of fun.

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Off the ibprophen is awful...new pains along my left breast, breathing is difficult--being poked in the side--, back ache, and on top of everything I'm PMS. It just doesn't seem fair. I keep repeating to myself, this will pass, this will pass, I can survive....I WILL SURVIVE!

Looking forward to a visit tomorrow from a former colleague, Jennifer and her twins! I will finally give them the presents I have made for them! Will definitely post photos of that special event! :-)

On Monday afternoon, my in-laws will come to celebrate with Swedish style Easter food...I'm not sure I can sit at the table with them...somehow the pickled herrings that I usually love do not appeal to me at all at this time. But I can handle the hard boiled eggs. There's hope! No snaps for me this year either! next year!

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Crafty News

Each year I try to participate in a FAWCO fund raising event by making a quilt square or two (or 3) based on a theme. After we send in our squares the organizer always sends us a colored print of the completed quilt that was raffled at the International FAWCO Conference. This year's theme was "Save the Planet" and my contribution was the little polar bear with orca friends on the top row, second from the right. FAWCO is an NGO of the UN...Federation of American Women's Clubs Overseas.