I happened by today and realized it has been awhile since I posted anything.
Where does the time go?
There has been several things happen since the last time I blogged!!
Where to start?
We had a family living with us for awhile the winter of 2012/13. That was an experience. Our lovely (and I mean LOVELY in the true sense) children, graciously gave up their Christmas to be able to incorporate this family in our Christmas. It did break my heart completely to see how ungrateful some people can be. Our children never complained.
During the New Year Season, we had some troubling times. Things got very difficult. I can't express how difficult those times were. I think I shed more tears, questioned my sanity, question other peoples sanity, questioned God, shed more tears, did A LOT of praying. The future seemed so uncertain, the days so long, the nights even longer. I was averaging about 3 hours sleep tops.
I guess it's in the darkest times when you find out who your true friends are. I regret to say there were and are, few. I could count them all on one hand. But, it's all good. It's good to know where you stand with people. It's good to know who can be trusted and who can't. Although, the hurt may never go away completely, at least there is a knowledge of who is trustworthy. And that's good.
It would be wonderful to be able to call up a sister and talk endlessly about our heartbreaks and disappointments, along with our joys and new findings. But, I have no sisters.
So, most of the time I feel rather alone in this cruel world.
In 2013 both of the girls enrolled in classes at the Learning Center to finish their high schooling.
In April of 2013, the eldest of the second batch of kiddos became engaged. The plan was to be married on March 22, 2014. Oh, my, but not to worry ... this is the daughter that has planned her wedding (all except the groom) for most of her life, and has secretly had her groom in mind for the past six years. She knew exactly what she wanted and who she wanted to do what. It was all planned down to the last of details.
This would be easy, we just had to execute the plan. ... NOT!!!
Immediately, all plans, colors, ideas went out the window. And suddenly this girl who knew what she wanted for her wedding, didn't even have a clue what she wanted. UGH!!
Nothing was right. Everything was wrong. If she came to a conclusion, the groom wasn't on board. And so it went. I tried not to "take over" as I was so tempting to do. Time was running out and no-one could come to any conclusions.
In July we decided on the colors and the styles and a maybe list for bridesmaids. Nice spring colors. Great!
In the middle of summer sometime. The groom started a different job. Now, time off is jeopardized. But, all is well. He now has a long weekend once a month. Then, it came to realization that his long weekend wouldn't fall in March 22 as previously thought. So, we frantically look at date options.
They didn't want to move it to April or later. So, we started looking at earlier dates.
February. February not a great choice, it could be really bad weather here in the north.
January. January could be worse than February, probably not any better, anyway.
December. Too close to Christmas. Our indecisive bride would absolutely not hear of a "Christmas Wedding"!!.
November? Too close to Thanksgiving.
October? No that would be Halloween. And the list went on. Everyone needed to understand ... NO THEMES ...
Earlier was vetoed by me. I simply would not consider less time. I had to have some decisions. I had to get started on dresses. There was too much to do and too little time to do it in. Enough already.
After promises were made that NO THEMES were to be incorporated, it was finally decided upon November 16 (his long weekend of that month) 2013. By now we were way behind schedule. AND ... people with vivid imaginations concocted all sorts of reasons as to why the date was moved up.
They have found out by now it wasn't what they thought. People can be so ..... bless their hearts.
Meanwhile,
No decisions could be made. None. Not even the colors because spring colors would never do. Don't know what flowers we want. Don't know who to ask to be in it. Can't decide how many to include. Some couldn't make it due to the date change.
Some of the acquaintances involved had some not so pleasant things to say. Stress was out the roof. And that brings us to ....
The roof. It had been fixed and my sewing room restored to its original place... midst the wedding plans this roof manifested its lack of compatibility!! Yep, it began to leak. So, they attempted to fix it again. To put it simply, the roof STILL leaks. Floods, would be more like it.
Anyway, there were lots of things to go wrong. A wedding party to clothe, flowers to be had, decorations to be made, reception to plan. But no decision were coming from the bride and groom.
In the meantime, A lady from our church was kicked out of her home, suddenly and with no warning. She was living with her daughter, who had called the police...she must be out NOW. So she moved in with us.
We started baking cookies that could be used for the wedding, or if they didn't meet with approval, Christmas. We laughed, we cried, we fretted, we worked.
Sometime in late summer, we get a break through. The bride finds an antique dress at a Goodwill Store. It was cheaper than the patterns we had been looking at. It was "The Dress" !! Well, almost.
The fabric was noisy, made an obnoxious swishing sound when you moved. But the lacy was perfect. The lining wasn't the right color, the choker had to be removed, the sleeves were hideous. So, the dress was carefully taken apart, and recreated with new fabric and incorporated the antique lace. It wasn't my choice for her, but we had a decision!. So, in the middle of puddles from leaky roof and so on, her dress was to be remade to her specifications.
In September, we attend and help with another wedding in the grooms family. There were things to be done in connection to this wedding. Our Bride was one of the bridesmaids. Dress fittings, hair appointments, etc. Then it hit me that I didn't have a gift for this wedding. So, the night before, I hurriedly painted a country scene on canvas to give for a wedding gift.
We're probably nearing, if not in, October when we finally ran across some fabric that "might" work for the bridesmaids dresses. By now it had been decided that there would be four bridesmaids. FOUR. I was making all of those beside the brides dress.
The bridesmaids chose their patterns. Measurements were taken. We squeezed in a fitting. This was for the lining of the bridesmaids dresses. Two of the girls lived about 2 hours away. A second fitting took place when the dresses were near completion and the girls were in town for the wedding shower the first part of November.
The flowers had to be ordered. We had to have REAL flowers. NO artificial. Priced the florist. Not happening. We simply didn't have the budget.
Checked out Sam's Club. You know the place. Ordered REAL flowers from them in bulk. We were able to purchase all the wedding flowers cheaper than just the brides flowers would be from the florist.
Both girls took their finals. Both graduated just days before the wedding. The graduation ceremony will be sometime this summer.
The day before (and the day of) rehearsal we were making flower arrangements for the reception, church, attendants, and various decorations. Also the last dress fitting. Dresses to be pressed. Details, details, details. They received a wedding cake for their wedding gift. Her sister and sister-in-law took pictures.
Was it perfect??? No. Was it what they wanted??? pretty much. All in all, even though several didn't think we had it together, everything came together as it should.
There was ham and turkey, buns or dinner roll, baked beans, macaroni and cheese, veggie trays, chips, cookies (mint, chocolate chip, sugar, snicker doodle, thumb prints, oatmeal, lemon, etc), candy, fudge (chocolate, peanut butter, and chocolate peanut butter), pies (cherry, apple, pecan, pumpkin, sugar cream), oatmeal cake, brownies, hot chocolate, lemonade, tea, coffee, punch, purified water, soda, and of course wedding cake (half white on white and half white on chocolate). Almost all of it was homemade. It was a lot of work, a lot of tears, a lot of frustration, but it all came together nicely.
The bride wanted a painted picture (a specific picture) for her wedding gift from her mother (me). Sometimes the simplest picture can become the hardest to do.... sigh. I finished it after the wedding, gave it to them after their wedding trip. Some things can simply wait.
Following the wedding and reception, were the holidays. Thanksgiving, then Christmas, and New Years. We were involved with the compassion network, where we distributed gifts to the unfortunate. That's a story in itself.
During the year, there were many other things that happened. Several unforeseen funerals. One was of a mother in her 30s. Heartbreaking story - too long to insert here. Tried to get up to see her .. an hour away as she was fighting for her life. She left 2 teenage daughters and a small son. There were lots of trauma associated with that loss.
So, now I'm forced to move my sewing/craft room once again, or risk losing everything, including sewing machines and what have you. It's crazy. We're not talking about a little drip drip drip. We're talking about a steady stream in multiple places. This is after a new roof on that side. They can't seem to find where it is coming in. It's a mystery, for sure.
So, once again the "house" is torn up and things are being moved and re-moved and removed. LOL.
But it's all good. Spring housecleaning at its finest! Getting in a little room painting as we go along.
Between times I've managed to get in a few trips with a friend to the Genealogy Center. Unfortunately, my "new" laptop is acting strange and I can't get it to completely boot. It boots enough for me to feel confident that the hard drive is probably OK, but not booting enough to actually access it.
But, computers and I have never gotten along too well. This one got hit, banged, bumped or something, the same day I got a notice about hacker problems and updates needed for antivirus. So, I'm not sure what happened. It may just be a virus. The hard drive doesn't sound clicky, and I don't hear any lags, at least not much of one. It could be stuck, but really doesn't sound like it. It boots but goes straight to a repair screen. It doesn't want to do anything from there. I'm thinking of getting an adapter to move the files off the hard drive to an external drive or another computer.
I'm now planning our annual trek south to visit the health challenged parents and some of the grand-kids and their parents. Everything seems to be challenging these days.
I'm hoping I can get in a better schedule and be able to get crafty things done, keep up with the home duties, and the church duties, work on our genealogy, keep my pinterest account happy and my e-mail inbox empty. Maybe I'll even get a blog or two in from time to time.
I have way too many hobbies, but don't want to give up on any of them. I love to learn. Love to sew, crochet, embroidery, knit, quilt, want to learn to tat, do a little cro-knit, and the list goes on. Woodworking, gardening, painting, glass staining, etching, all things I either do or want to learn. There is always something new to learn.
I've been at the computer way too long. I need to get moving and put some more supplies away.
Well, that's a little of what has been going on here the last year and a half. What have you been up to?
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