I have been busy....

I have been busy! I made a whole bunch of fashion jewelry for friends, family and the nurses at the chemo centre. There is 1 male nurse at the chemo centre so I made a few wooden bead things for him to choose from. I'm really enjoying this! It's creative, I love giving gifts to people I know, I love seeing my creations being worn, it keeps me busy from silly thoughts, it used up lots of beading supplies that I have, it requires less physical exertion, etc. It's a perfect pass-time while being ill!

Here are some of the gifts I made. I forgot to take a picture of the 20+ pieces of jewelry that I gave to the chemo centre. My kids drew the designed the fabric ones for me to make and my son asked for the Snoopy:

I made many custom pieces for friends and family because I knew them well and I knew mainly what they like. As for acquaintances, I made mostly earrings as gifts because sizes don't matter much. Necklaces are not as bad but people do have preferences for long or short necklaces. Bracelets are the hardest. I have a very thin wrist so most bracelets fall off me and don't look good. So it's hard to figure out if something will look nice on someone else with a different shape or size of wrists (meaty, bony, prominent bone, etc). And I find that a lot of people will take a lot of fashion risks with their earrings but not so much with the other types of jewelry.

I still haven't heard back from my queries about using my jewelry for fundraising for my local chemo centre. I need to check that again. I would love to raise some funds for chemo centre, even if it's only $100. I need to talk to the chemo nurses for sure.

Only the kids are decorating the tree this year

In previous years, we would let the kids decorate the x'mas tree with whatever they like. Then after they had gone to bed, my husband and I would do a major edit to the tree decor. This year, I decided to just let the kids decorate everything and not edit anything. It's much more 'organic' that way. They used their Lego to decorate the bottom of the tree. They put their little stuffed toy into the branches. And they put the beaded and fabric ornament I recently made onto the tree too!

Tree decoration in progress by the kids

X'mas decor continues.....

I continue too make decorations for our x'mas tree. I have used up almost all the beading wire:

I guess I need to make some stuffed ornaments now! Or should I go buy some beading wire?

My cancer story on the local newspaper

My cancer journey is now posted on the local online newspaper:

https://www.yorkregion.com/news-story/9066210-markham-mom-with-stage-4-lung-cancer-needs-support-for-u-s-clinical-trials/

I hope this will bring attention to our Go Fund Me Campaign as well as patients like me who are stuck between the provincial health insurance program and no insurance. I'm sure there are lots of patients with serious illnesses like me in Canada, even though we have a basic universal health care program. How do we solve this problem, especially with complicated medical illness like cancer, with medical treatments that advanced much faster than the legislation can follow.

DIY Holiday decorations

I started making fabric and beaded holiday decorations for our x'mas tree. If I make 1 a day there should be about 20 new ornaments for the tree. The kids had also drew things on paper for me to make into stuffed 'whatever'. My daughter drew a cloud and asked me to make it into a stuffed cloud. My son drew a puppy's head and asked me to make it into a stuffed puppy head.