Catching Up

My fairy house is finished! Inside the bottom door, there is a sycamore seed chandelier, a chair made of twigs and leaf ‘cushions’, and a bark chunk table with lichtin ’tv’. There is also a chunk of bark with a round seed head lamp. Too tiny to photograph though. Oh! And a rug! Well, really a crocheted coaster… 🤣

Next project is jammers. Shirt is finished. 

Working on britches now.

Still doing IV antibiotics. Steve is my hero, he hooks me up and unhooks me every 12 hours. The down side? After 2 weeks, Dr extended 2 weeks, 

and I still have a sinus infection. 😳

I would say it is 50% better, 2 weeks left.

Someone I know offered me cockscomb seeds many years ago. She explicitly said that if I wanted them, I better REALLY want them; I will have them forever! This was absolutely true. I do enjoy them forming their blossoms, however, they take over the entire flower bed! Anyhoo, here is a couple amazing ones… these are at least 8” across!

And how strange is this one? A perfect S!

I am trying to start old fashioned sour dough starter to make bread. Years ago, I used to make potato sourdough bread every week and we loved it! This is soooo different from that, and there is a huge learning curve - or I am a total near failure. Hopefully I will get it eventually.

My headache is awful, my body hurts from head to toe. Honestly, I am absolutely sick of being sick! 

Guess what? This is the rest of my life.

It sucks. The sick sucks. Not my life.

 

Gourd Fairy House And Stuff

 So I had a few more minutes to work on my fairy house. I decided the inside needed to be bright green, 

lime-ish green!

I bent the chimney, used paint and masking tape to made it look like rocks, put the gourd on log bark that I found in the pasture, and put little treasures of plants in an acorn. I had used the pine cone seeds for the roofing, and what was left after cutting the seeds off looked like an upside down wicked tree -

 so I flipped it and ‘planted’ it next to the gourd.

Still not finished, but enjoying working on this little project. Scouting the 40 acres for things to use has been fun as well!

I needed pink buttons and our Joann’s is closed until our brand new one opens on the 9th of August. I posted about needing them and Loretta, a friend of mine had some. When she brought them to me she gave me this wonderful sewing machine! Isn’t it great! All intact and still works! I absolutely love it!

Somehow, I hurt my toe and foot. Dr x-rated it and it has no breaks, but significant arthritis and schlerosis, whatever that is.

Finally, I am also crocheting a baby blanket. 

I finally learned a shell stitch! I love it!

Gourd Fairy House

Been busy working on fair projects. This year, I decided to make a gourd fairy house, instead of a gourd snowman, like I did last year.

Here is my progress so far:

Roof (acorn part) didn’t work for me…

Like the ‘chandelier’ but not the pics. Rug is a coaster, but going to use a goldish yellow one. Walls are white (not purple) but think I will change color… 

More like what I want, but still working on it:

Maybe I will build steps up the the ‘garden’ room?

Make the chimney crooked?

Planning on putting a window box with flowers underneath the upstairs window.

Any ideas? Not that a soul reads this anymore, but I can dream.

Night all!

Indian Tacos and Family

Steve got a call last week to come to his cousin Ross’s home, in southwest Oklahoma. Ross’s sisters were coming from Colorado and northern Oklahoma. 

It was a cousin get together! 

One quick day, short and sweet and FUN!

Siblings and mom:

Siblings:

Probably more like what they were like when they were younger! 🤣

Everyone minus one:

Everyone minus me:

Mother and Rod

Hubby and wife  🥰

Moments:

Deep in thought:

Lots of love in this circle:

Moments:

Indian Tacos: 😋 

Sister and brother:

Ornery:

Wife and hubby:

Saying goodbyes are always difficult.

I love them all.

They are the reason we needed to be back in Oklahoma.

Random family moments.

I wish I had been here years ago.

However, I loved my Louisiana home, too.

These are moments we cherish. 

Thank you, Paula and Ross, for this opportunity.

Thanks to everyone who came!

 

Today is Better

Just a quick note to say I am better today. I get down in the dumps when life messes with me at the same time my medical has twisted it’s ugly head. I just needed to vent yesterday. Back on top of it all today. I am important to one other person:

The man that is with me through all the ugly battles we fight. This one, while we are on the way to a celebration in Lawton. His cousin is there from Colorado and all the cousins want to get together. This is just a bump in a road to adventure.

It’s gonna be ok.

Life Today

This IS my life. 

I don’t brag on it. I don’t dwell on it.

If I do, it is because I need to vent.

I do try to bring awareness to Primary Immunodeficiencies. 

And I try to shut up about it - though sometimes 

I would just like others to try to understand 

or act like it is

an important part of my life

And pretend I am worth the moment.

Some days, it isn’t worth chewing through the restraints.

Those days, my room entertains me.

I listen to music.

I fret about life stuff.

I miss my kids.

I watch the wildlife.

I dream.

Most of the time, 

I am great in my own little world.

Other days, I just need a friend.

My friend moved. The one that cared. 

The rest are… ones that don’t. 

We chat. 

About sewing. 

About the weather. 

About quilt shows. 

No one really cares,

Like a friend cares

I am on an IV antibiotic

Not one message.

Not one call.

Wait. 

My elderly friend did message.

🙂

The rest?

Nope.

But I am fine.

And I would tell you I was

Even if I wasn’t.

Because I know 

it doesn’t even matter

I do miss my friend.

She could see it in my eyes

Hear it in my voice.

She did care.

But she is far, far away.

This *is* my life.

For the rest of my life.

Today, the restraints are tough.

But who cares?

Watching one deflate as the days progress.

It is a struggle.

A stressful one.

                                         A lonely one.

 Tomorrow I pull up my bootstraps 

and plow through again.

Because contrary to popular belief 

*I* do matter

To me.

Family Question #7

Stephenie and I:

What did you want to be when you grew up?

I had no aspirations of anything I wanted to do other than be a mother. I guess I never saw into my future. I was extremely naive and sheltered (?) lol so it never occurred to me that I had a life ahead of me to plan for. What can I say? 🤷🏻‍♀️

I took architectural drafting, in tech school, mainly because I was good at it in high school, and Jeanie took pipeline. I knew I hated pipeline, and I always loved creating, and I could create awesome buildings and homes. So architecture it was. I never finished though, because I moved to south Louisiana when Steve graduated and accepted a job 750 miles away in south Louisiana.

Later, I would have loved being a trauma nurse. I handle emergencies well and had a good head on my shoulders. I had too many kids to go after that dream - and God answers unasked prayers, because it likely would have killed me anyway. I believe God watches out for us in ways we don’t understand.

I have always been extremely organized - I think because that is something I can control - in fact, the only thing in life I can control. Some call it OCD, but I call it organized. My mind does not work in chaos. 

Through the years, I worked for 2 companies; as a medical secretary with a nurses home health care, and at Heilig Meyers. I did well at both places. I started and ended at Nurse’s Home Health Care as a medical secretary. 

I started on the sales floor before our local Heilig Meyers even opened.  We assembled all the floor furniture and displayed it. What a fun job the displaying it was!  I had hired on when the building was still empty as a sales person. Little did I know that we had to fill 50,000 sq ft of space with furniture we assembled!  I can still assemble furniture like a champ! Oh, and the only reason I didn’t stay there forever is because the company went bankrupt, 

BUT, I filed theft charges on the manager of the store and walked out. I had documented everything, collected camera info, found no record of purchase - which would have come through me, and turned it in to corporate. He was arrested, trying to claim I stole the furniture. The house full of furniture, that was at his house, with the BBQ pit he stole as well. I left smiling. He wasn’t happy in handcuffs I heard. The store closed permanently 2 days after I left. It was heartbreaking to us that cared and loved working for a great company. 

I started as a salesman selling furniture, and worked my way up within the company. I became warehouse and procurement manager (different times), refusing collections (bleh), assistant manager, and manager’s positions - the latter would have meant moving. Marvin, my boss loved that I could sell the Furniture Guard well - he assured the rest of the staff that I could sell it on a stainless steel dishwasher!  🤣

They repeatedly asked me at both places to become manager, and at Helig, they wanted me to move to corporate to take over procurement. I couldn’t accept because Steve was prime bread winner. It was nice to feel needed in the higher ranks though.

Anyway, when I was young I always wanted to be a mom, probably because I knew nothing else in my life. Taking care of kids. That is what I accomplished. 

          

                     Jeremy and I:

I get frustrated because ‘only’ being a mom is not worthy of any “attaboys”. It annoys me to no end that people look down on us because we didn’t have a ‘degree’ or ‘really’ ‘work’ for a living, but believe me I worked - and I also took some of their kids to sports, scouts, appointments, and school for those working moms - because I wasn’t good enough to have a job. I helped raise kids that weren’t mine to raise as well. 

                                   Us then:  

                                       Us now:

                                   Them then:

                                     

                                 Two of them now:

      

I cherish each of the children I have been blessed with helping; by blood or by circumstances. I love them all. And I didn’t say “no”, or “I work”, or “I don’t have time”, or “I can’t”, or “we don’t have the money.”

I just did. We did. All of us: my hubby, the kiddos and me. WE did, because they are worth it. And I couldn’t have done some of this without my dear friend Peggy helping get children to appointments. Thank you, thank you, God, for Peggy. And thank you, Peggy, for giving all of you to us. ❤️

So, I feel that I earned my way whether the world thinks I did or not. It was deeply rewarding to me - and that is all that matters in the long run. 

This is a funny: I kept laughing and joking that I had 14 children, but Megan kept correcting me saying I only had 11. Well it sure as heck seemed like 14 at one time! Maybe even 20!  🤣

Moma - Remembering the Good Times

A friend posted that her mother had passed away 10 years ago. It brought so many memories back that I didn’t want to overtake her post, but I thought I would share here - remembering our good times.

I had talked to moma most ever day for at least 30 years - even if it was 1 timed minute a day to say “I love you and I miss you so much.”. I carefully saved money to buy her minutes on an AT&T card so she could call me, too. No, we couldn’t afford those calls, but Steve and I paid bills and ate, and we were never without necessities; but I was without guidance, I was young and naive about life. I had been sheltered to the outside world and knew only the world I had left 750 miles away. There is still several hundred minutes on there, because I always renewed them - I wanted her to be able to call if she needed to.

I was only 19 when Steve took the job in south Louisiana. My whole world was left behind, and my husband was working gawd awful long (12-18?) hours every day. I was lonely, just found out I was pregnant, and I was scared and alone most of the time. Yes, I made friends, very dear friends, who I am still friends with to this day, but I had no history with them. My life was back home. I learned to live without them by my side, but mom helped me learn to live without her by my side. And friends healed my pain.

I have mounds of my letters that I sent to moma that she saved. I have her cut outs from newspapers and magazines, cutouts of what she would buy me if she could afford to. They were more precious than if she had actually bought the items.

She would send cutouts of pictures of flowers she thought I would like, because I have always loved flowers, and critters, and nature - yes she sent pics of them too. She shared articles from the local paper that she thought I would like to read - and it was like getting a piece of home back.

I miss her 12:01am call saying Happy Birthday and her mid-afternoon call saying do you know what I was doing (?) years ago? Having you!  

I miss her vacation weather updates telling me what was coming where I was. She was faithful with those updates, watching ‘back then’ tv, carefully, paying attention to where her kids were, and relaying back to me about my vacation weather, and then even the weather my sisters and brother would be in. And she updated me through hurricanes when we had land lines and no cell phones.

Moma loved to sew. She had ‘borrowed’ a new Necchi sewing machine that my grandmother bought when I was born. Grands told her she could only ‘borrow’ it until I was grown, but then it was mine. 

We laughed about her sewing on my machine so much she would wear it out. She sewed clothes for me, for her and for my sisters and brother. She never did wear ‘my’ Necchi out - and yes, I have it. 

Dad died when he was 59, Moma died when she was 62 - 10 years apart. Both died very young. I miss them every day, but moma? I miss moma so very much. I miss her voice and her laughter. I miss her tweety bird fine fluffy hair we kept trying to fix and I miss her hugs into her sunken chest. 

She was adopted, never knew her natural family and one person in her adopted family alienated her from the entire rest of the family. He convinced her that she was never wanted, so she backed away to not invade their space any more. She was told to never come back. It was years after she died that I found out it was one very bitter, hateful man that did that to her. She was so hurt.  

We went through pain that together on the phone, and with hugs, and deep bawls. I had also lost my cousins and grandma in that terrible (one man) war. It was a death I never would have wished on anyone. But it happened because one person was just a bitter, hateful ’brother’ to my mom.

Anyway, all of this to say, my moma was loved unconditionally by me. We had out tough times, but there was much more love. I always needed her, I understood her pain, I was with her enough to see where it came from and I like to think I loved and laughed her through it. I know, without a doubt, that she knew I loved her deeply. 

        

My moma, Karen, with my niece, Michèl. Both gone but never forgotten.

If you are still reading this, and if you have your parents, no matter how much you have been divided, treasure them and nurture them. Don’t just call when you need them. Tell them you love them… because you are gonna miss “this” when they are gone.

South Fork & Million Dollar Highway

 We stayed at Fun Valley, great for kids, but it was very crowded. The east part is beautiful, the west, crowded.

West:

East:

Just pics of the bike ride yesterday.

YES! We got our asses soaked!

We are safely at our next stop: Del Norte, Colorado at a beautiful campground named Woods and River.  

We are on the river. Site pics tomorrow.

Tomorrow: St Elmo Ghost Town on the bikes.