Need help from quilters.. Heart Quilt Blocks in trade for donation please read!

I do work full-time... I WORK 60 HOURS a week.... as a pastry chef in a restaurant in downtown Houston... I live in a CRAPPY apartment, which I just moved into just so I could take a cut in rent... to help my mom... I now live on the bottom floor so my mom can come visit me because she cant walk up stairs at all..I cant take a semester off, I am enrolled in a private college *Art Institute* where I have 40,000 dollars I owe regardless if I attend or not, my butt is signed into that for life. If I take a semester off, they bill me for it as if I was still attending, I also currently have a 4.0 GPA and have a few women chef scholarships that ride on me being in attendance, or I will lose those too... So in otherwords, you tell me to give up the only chance I have to succeed in life to help my mom yet I am doing everything I can to help her.... I get no sleep.. I work and do homework all day long... I have no car... I am sewing quilt blocks to TRY AND raise some extra money besides what I set aside from the cut in my rent.... I am still a child... what can you say you knew at 22?? The same as you know now???? If thats the case then I should be a genius?? I have a whole life to learn, and being 5 feet tall doesnt help any. My mom is over 100 lbs overweight... she has done the research believe me... She knows this can help her, everything else hasnt... AT least its a shot... You make it sound like, if you had a chance to survive from cancer by getting chemo one more time, you wouldnt do it... just because it COULD have the possibility of NOT working... Its worth the try...

You arent trying to slam me, yet everything you said was a direct slam... I am doing what I can.... I work, I MAINTAIN a 4.0 GPA, I cut my rent back... I am living on a sandwich a day, sewing quilt blocks.... and consistently attending all classes and school which run from 7 in the morning to 11 at night...

I didnt ask to be hurt... and if anything... my feelings have just been crushed... I didnt ask for you to give me money... I just asked to trade... :*(

If you were hurt, you would want your daughter to do the same... or would you be honored your daughter did this?? MY mom doesnt know I am doing this for her... I just want to repay her for the love and support she has given me...

CNYstitcher wrote in message news:...

Those "Things" werent bought for her... Her next door neighbor shares the ebay account with her, the lady doesnt have a computer... I KNOW what some people are going to say, why doesnt your mother sell the computer?? Because she needs it to run the business my father and her are in.. After 9/11 they were left with almost no money... they have almost no posessions.. They live in a log cabin they built themself... Anyone want to personally call me to question me on this?? You want to hear the desperation in my voice before you believe me??.. My moms auctions have been the ones where she has sold blocks and trying to sell her quilt..

Thanks for your negative comments... Please go read my other post where I answered your question... I have given up almost everything..And as far as diets... she has tryed them all... Its kind of hard to exercise when you can barely walk.. right? My mom has tried the six small meals a day... my mom has lifted cans of green beans... My mom has walked... she has biked when she could.. My mom has walked the treadmill... done sit and be fit... changed her diet over and over again... no protein... then no carbs... then the all carbs... the all protein... the shakes.. only green foods.. Everything.. I dont know what to tell you... You got lucky you lost the weight... sometimes its harder than that for others..With this surgery.. My mom would be physically changed in diet.. she COULDnt HOLD more food in her stomach.. she would be forced to lose the weight... And here In Houston... The Galveston Burn recovery center... will offer to take off any extra skin... from her body after the surgery for free to give it to burn patients... we have researched it all... Now its a matter of just trying to get her the treatment..

Thank you Kate. PAT

Cheyne,

Prayers and good thoughts are always given. That we have no trouble with. We also *do* trade blocks, but not for money. The times that money comes into play are when we do something like a HUG for soemone and people help out with the cost of the needed backing and batting and postage.

I will gladly offer prayers for your mom's improved health, as I do with everyone who asks for them from the group. I may not post that I am praying for all who ask, but I do say a little prayer everytime I her of a specific need, and I also pray for the group as a whole.

Larisa

Cheyne wrote:

I wasn't slamming, I was offereing other suggestions. If my mother were in this situation, I would do all I could to help her, except post to this group asking for monetary help. If that meant leaving the home that i have worked hard to have, I would. If that meant going into debt, I would. I would go through local avenues of selling my belongings rather than post on the internet - ebay charges a fee regardless of if your items sell, the local paper only charges a fee for listing items.

Despite the fact that my mother and I do not get along as well as you and your mother seem to, I would do anything short of taking my own life to help her. That is not a selfish statement, that is fact - I have a small child and another on the way. For them to not have a mother would be cruel to them. My mother wouldn't want my life anyway because she would want me to be with my children. She wouldn't want me to put myself through any hardship, but I would because she is my mom.

I am glad that you have a full-time job, you could still move back home, however and save even more money. As I said, these are not slams, just suggestions that came to mind while reading your posts.

I am still a child... what can you say you knew at 22??

If you still consider yourself to be a child after making a decision to enroll in a school that costs 40K, then we have extremely different views of what a child is. YOu made this decision, now you have another one that you need to make. I knew a lot at 22, not everything that I know now, but enough to know that I wasn't in a position to attend a 40K school. I was actually accepted into a rather prestigious college - Johns Hopkins - and declined going (even though I *really* wanted to) because of the financial burden it would have put on myself and my family. Instead, I went to a local college and earned my degree. A more responsible choice, and one that I have never regretted.

What the hell does your height have to do with anything?? I'm 5'7" whoopie, who cares? Want me to tell you how tall the rest of my family is? It has no bearing on anything but may be yet another way you want us to feel sorry for you, I don't know. I can't see into your mind as to why you think this is important for us to know.

I had a cancer scare and would have done anything that would have helped me, with one condition, that it not be detrimental to my family in any way. I had suggested another option that has helped thousands of people and personally, helped me lose 60 pounds. If you didn't want my advice, don't read my posts. If you don't want the advice of others, don't post any more to the group.

I said , and will continue to say that I was offering other options.

You didn't ask to trade, you offered things for sale, there is a difference. Any sympathy I felt for you adn your mother (and other siblings) has been decreased by you obviously being so self-focused that you are taking everything thing I said as an attack...the perils of being young....it was offered as optiong, and some were actually questions.

If you were hurt, you would want your daughter to do the same... or

I wouldn't want my daughter to ask total strangers to contribute to my helath care or her college. The way my husband and I are raising our son (and will be raising our daughter) is to be self-sufficient, and to show respect to us. You are doing that in that you are trying to help your mother. How we choose to raise our children is our decision, and there are many other facets that you need not know as our life is just that - ours. YOu chose to share your life with people who don't know you and have never "met" you before. You can't blame any of us for being skeptical. If a member had posted for you, a member that the majority of the group knew, there might have been a little less doubt. HOwever, that didn't happen.

I and many others have tried to offer advice in whatever way we could, you have chosen to get snippy with me over my post. I posted without knowing what the entire situation was, so my responses were based only on what you originally shared. Keep that in mind next time you choose to repond.

Larisa

Hear Hear...nex time, I will just let Kate answer for me...and if nobody objects, for the rest of the group.....must be the teacher in her that makes things so eloquent, yet clear and concise.

Larisa

Pat > Thank you Kate. PAT

i started a reply the other day to her original post, as i often do to spam here. i got lost in the mix of 'sales and donations'. i'm glad you've explained the general position of rctq so eloquently for me/us, Kate. can we add this to our 'files' for future reference/use if its ever required again. hugz, Kate. jeanne nzl*

Cindy,

When I first started painting and entered culinary school, it was a way to try and release myself... I got to many paintings sitting around so I was selling them online to pay off loans.. At this time.. my mom had been told she was approved for the loan to get her surgery.. then they called and told her it was off and they couldnt approve her and I decided any money I could spare would go to her..

'Course you can - only I need to edit it a bit: there's half a sentence that got chopped off somehow, and a few punctuation issues I need to take up with myself! ;)

Geez.... I was 100+ lbs. overweight for over 12 years. IT'S NOT *THAT* MUCH! You *can* lead a normal life at 100 lbs. over-weight. You DO NOT need to beg on news groups at 100 lbs. over weight. BUT..... you can go thru hell in your personal life and suddenly find that eating constantly just doesn't cut it any more and then start doing some exercise- just a little at first, I'm 100% disabled- and you will start feeling better. Then you find that eating less and exercising a bit more and looking nicer feels *really* good.... and then suddenly---- I am ***66 POUNDS LIGHTER AND LOVING IT!!!!!** And I'm still going lower! Tell your mom to get busy and do it the old fashioned way- eat less and exercise. It still works.... I can prove it. So can a few others on this group! Ladies? Please speak up.....

Leslie (size women's 20 to a misses 14)

The HairyFacedOnes 'N Me

RCTQ- Houston 2004..... A good friend will come and bail you out of jail.... but, a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "Damn... that was fun!"

VBS -- doesn't work if the excess weight isn't from overeating. For me to lose weight, I have to restrict my caloric intake to UNDER 1,000 (800 is best) a day and ALSO exercise for a minimum of 45 minutes a day, 6 days a week. Doing all of that, it will take me about three months before I will see any appreciable weight loss. I am one of those people who have a perfectly healthy thyroid -- as least as far as the standard tests can show -- and Dr's have never been able to find out why I have so much trouble losing weight. Now that I am post-menopausal, it's even worse :-(. I WILL agree -- limit your calories AND exercise. If you over 25 or 30 that's about the ONLY healthy way to lose weight. Not sure if the young woman and her story are on the "up & up" but if she is, I have been where her mom is and the only thing that helped was having my stomach stapled. Even with that, I have to do the 1,000 or less calories a day and the serious exercise not that my body has adjusted to the different stomach size. I once read that constant dieting & exercise for those who are prone to obesity can be a double edged sword. by always restricting your calories and then burning them off with exercis, your body thinks you are in the "almost starving" mode and turns all calories that are not used quickly to fat! The body WANTS those fat stores to help carry it through all of the semi-starvation that constant dieting results in! Not sure how much of that is true but it's an interesting theory!! CiaoMeow >^;;^< .

PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their WHISKERS!! Nothing is complete without a few cat hairs!

Me too - well, so far 25 lbs off and sinking! Goal weight is 146 lbs and I'm currently at 188 lbs. 146 is the top of my BMI, so I could go lower. We'll se how I feel when I get there. At present a UK size 14 looks like a good size to aim for.

There was a very scary programme on the telly the other week, called 'Diets from Hell'. There was a young man there who almost ate himself to death. Got so he couldn't move out of his room, couldn't walk, couldn't wash properly, and almost died of septicaemia. The fire brigade had to take him out of his bedroom by the window, first removing the window frame.

He had the stomach stapling op and lost 20 stone - 280 lbs. His medical team wanted him to lose at least another 200 lbs. The lad was only 24. At the end of the programme, he was mobile (just), could get in and out of the house and up the stairs, but was still classed as 100% disabled by his weight. In his case it was have the op and take a 45% chance of not surviving it or be dead in six months.

He had also taken responsibility for having got himself into this state, and was fully committed to becoming as healthy as he could from now on. Teasing at school while a child had lead to the initial comfort eating, and his mother did admit that she should have checked it while he was young enough to heed her, but in the end, he did admit that he has eaten the food and done this to himself. It's not easy to admit that one's weight is one's own responsibility, but the commitment to losing it does require you acknowledge that you ate what put you into the obese category. I've yet to meet a fat person (myself included) who was force fed into that state.

There are many dangers with this operation, half of which have to do with actually operating on someone so obese. Personally, I'd rather try anything else first!

I saw the program on that guy and also the follow up. He eventually returned to his old habits and regained all the weight and then some. He did die from heart failure not long after. They had to disassemble the house and use a fork lift to remove the body. Sad ending.

Cheri

Absolutely! I am 52, eat 600 to 800 calories a day and am WORKING at it. And working HARD! BUT..... it *does* come off if you do! And it

Leslie

The HairyFacedOnes 'N Me

RCTQ- Houston 2004..... A good friend will come and bail you out of jail.... but, a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "Damn... that was fun!"

Oh Kate! I have to bow down to your tact, your way with words, and the wonderful, sensitive, and kind way you dealt with this. Thank you for saying politely what I couldn't.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek, what the heck is 600 to 800 calories in food? what do you eat? how do you keep blood sugar levels up? i'd starve. i need to lose weight, also post menopausal. it aint easy. i dont eat a lot but not what i ought to, i know that. does mouse clicking count as exercise? i got the skinniest fingers in town :D. jeanne nzl*

You said it yourself honey. We like to TRADE not BUY or SELL.

Well, I just HOPE it was polite - but I am not famed for my tact! ;P Quite the reverse, in fact...