Congratulations June!!!

June of Butterfly wings is the winner of my partially finished, woefully lacking in enough thread Shepherd's Bush kit.  Congratulations June!!!

A total of 9 followers were interested in the kit.  I wrote their names on pieces of paper, tossed them in an empty tea box, & June's was the name that was pulled from the box first.  Once again, congratulations June   : )   I already have your address, so the kit will soon be winging its way to you.

Not much going on here stitching-wise.  I'm still working on the Lizzie*Kate traveling pattern & still hoping to finish it before the end of the weekend.  

I had mentioned in my last post that the new heart medication which the specialist added to my regimen was not working well.  As it turns out, it was causing me some pretty bad side effects.  I would take it & within an hour or two I would be very dizzy, unsteady on my feet, have difficulty breathing, & have trouble seeing clearly.  These symptoms would wax & wane throughout the day.  I tried telling myself that I just needed to get used to the medication, so I kept taking it. Sometimes I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer.  After putting up with these side effects for 3 weeks, I called his nurse & she in turn talked with him & he agreed that I needed to stop taking the medication.  He did not prescribe any other medications for me.  If he had, I wouldn't have wanted to take them.  After having bad side effects from the last three, I'm really not keen on trying another.  We will talk about cardiac ablation vs. pacemaker placement at my appointment on the 20th.  All I know about pacemakers is you can't be near a microwave.  Oddly enough, I was talking with my aunt yesterday & found out that one of my cousins recently had a pacemaker placed.  I will maybe have to give her a call & talk with her about her experience with it. 

I hate to even say this but it looks like I may need to start eating a gluten-free diet.  All I know about eating a gluten-free diet is that you can't have wheat.  No wheat.  Sounds like a death sentence, doesn't it.  I can give up sugar without a second thought, but wheat? The outstanding indication of my need to go gluten-free is the fact that after my strict diet I started eating a bowl of shredded wheat in the mornings & a vege sandwich in the afternoons made with whole wheat bread.  I would feel very bloated afterward & just "not right."  I also started gaining back some of the weight I had lost.  Not a good thing.  Supposedly a gluten-free diet helps people who have autoimmune diseases, & since I have a few of them, along with the bloating/not right issues, I should feel better once I start this.  But again ... no wheat.  If any of you can recommend a good book about eating gluten free, please let me know.  

We had 2 hummingbirds visiting us this summer ... same as last year.  Since we enjoy watching them, & the flowers that drew them to the garden had finished blooming, we decided to buy 2 hummingbird feeders.  I hung one on the back porch & the other I placed on a bird feeder pole in a smaller garden.  I took photos of the 2 hummingbirds using the porch feeder.  Since it's in a shady area, you can't really see their coloring very well, but you can tell they are different hummingbirds.  The first 2 photos show a hummingbird with a lot of light feathers & some light coloring on/around his head.  The second 2 photos show a hummingbird with a very dark head, & if you look very, very closely, you will see a bit of red coloring around his neck in photo #3.

We were ecstatic that these 2 hummingbirds found the feeders so quickly.  Somehow, word got around & we now have about a dozen hummingbirds coming to use the feeders. However, these first two, especially the one with the lighter feathers, are very territorial & they will chase away the others when they see them.  The one with the lighter feathers actually will sit in a large bush we have near the back porch where he can see both feeders, & he guards them fiercely!

This territorial behavior rather upsets me. There are plenty of perching areas on the feeders as well as plenty of nectar to go around, yet these 2 hummingbirds don't want to share.  John & I watched a documentary about hummingbirds a week or so before buying the feeders & it did mention that they can be territorial.  Ah well, I just hope the other hummingbirds get to enjoy the feeders at least some of the time ... maybe when the 2 guards are taking a bathroom break   : )

I have no photos to share with you regarding this next bit of information so you'll just have to take my word on it   : )   John & I were sitting on the front porch the other day.  We have 2 large flowering baskets hanging out there.  We noticed something flying from flower to flower in the basket closest to us & at first thought it was a large bee, but no! It was a baby hummingbird!!!  It was the first time either of us had seen one.  On the one hand it was a combination of us being in the right place at the right time, but I also believe God sends us little gifts on occasion, & I consider seeing that baby hummingbird to be one of His gifts to us that day   : )

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!