Random stuff and a personal request

A little bit of crafty stuff....

I'm participating in this quilting swap thingee. I can't think of what it's actually called right off of the top of my head, but basically there are 5 people in a group. We each make a row. Then we send our row to the next person, who adds a row. Then it gets sent to the next person, etc etc etc. So when we get our first row back, it now has 4 more rows attached to it, all made by different people all over the country.

Anyway....this is the row that I got from one of the ladies in the group. She is going with a "rustic fall" theme.

I laid it out on my bed and stared at it for a while, trying to figure out what to do with it next. I had a couple of ideas but decided against them and decided to just make some more traditional squares.

Of course, I wasn't paying attention on the first square, and it came out way too small, so I had to start over. But as of right now, I have 2 squares done, and I'm hoping to get the other 3 done this week so that I can get them attached and mail her row on to the next person - and then wait for the next row to come to me.

It's a fun project, and something that I've never done before - so I'm really anxious to see what my quilt looks like by the time that I get it back - although that won't be for several months yet.

In other news, I've been on a quest for a new datebook for the past couple of weeks. I had bought my typical little cheapie from the dollar store, but they changed the format of the pages in it and it just wasn't going to work anymore. I looked online to try to find something, but I didn't really like (or couldn't afford) anything that I saw there. I had to take The Dude to the dentist today and when we got done there we had to go to WalHell to get his prescriptions filled and so I looked at the datebooks that they had there.

It's a little bigger than I wanted and it was a little more expensive than I wanted (I'm a cheapskate. I admit it.) but it has lots of room and I think that it'll work just fine. I already started transferring information into it while Emily was at basketball practice tonight - when I wasn't dealing with argumentative kids who wanted to do absolutely nothing but irritate the snot out of me for the entire time that we were there.

Now....for the request.....

Please forgive me for the vagueness of this, but I just can't go into specifics because of the situation.

I have a friend, a dear friend from high school. Our lives went in different directions after graduation, but we stayed in touch for years and then lost each other, and then found each other again through the miracle that is facebook, and got to see each other live and in person last summer for the first time since graduation (I think), and I got to meet her kids, and it was wonderful.

Anyway, she is now going through something that I believe is probably the worst nightmare that a parent can endure, short of the death of a child. I had heard about the situation before, but didn't realize that there was a connection between it and her until today, when we exchanged some brief messages. My heart is breaking for her and her family right now, and I can't even begin to imagine how she is feeling. She is devastated and heartbroken and there is nothing that I can do to help her except to be there for her and love and support her from afar, and it just doesn't feel like enough.

So I am asking you to please, say a prayer for her and her family. Or if that's not your thing, send a happy thought or a good vibe or something to her. Go out and do something to help someone else. Make a donation to a charity. Something. Anything. She's in the midst of hell right now, and something good has got to come out of it. Somehow. Some way. And I don't know how else to do it.

There's too much bad crap happening in the world. Go do something good.