What 'Ya Doen?

I don't know what you are doing, but me...I'm moving...Again!  Why stay in one place and begin to feel a sense of belonging when you can throw everything you own into a box or the garbage can and start all over somewhere else!?!  

We are packing our bags and boxes and moving from Minnesota to Utah.  I am about 50% thrilled, 50% horrified.  By the end of the month I have to survive a grad party this weekend, Madison's High School Graduation, Emmalee's 8th birthday which just so happens to be ON Father's Day...My anniversary, Emmalee's baptism, AND packing/cleaning this three story house.  I have been totally absentee here on the blog and my FB page trying to just make it day to day.  This picture, while taken 2 weeks ago...pretty much shows exactly what the same room looks like today.

I managed to get the garage cleaned out and piled up all this wood!  I am SO hoping to assemble kits and put them for sale...but honestly, I don't even know how or when.  Still, I am a woman full of hope, so, I will plan to do it.  Maybe the heavens will part, angels will descend, and things will come together before the end of the month.

For some reason these pics all loaded sideways.  I decided to leave them to portray a more accurate view of the Sew*CakeMakers right now.  I have been working on orders.  This is one of the recent Ipad stands sold on Etsy...

We have been reading.  This book is HILARIOUS!  I totally recommend finding it at your local library.  Children's books that entertain Mom along with Emmers, Its a Winner!

I have cut, sanded, painted, lettered, assembled, and shipped a pile of Father's Day frames...I have a couple unpainted kits left and about 2 saw frames if you want one shipped out this week ;0}

We pulled out the fancy pen holder attachment for the silhouette Cameo to address Madison's grad party invites.  It worked like a charm and everyone thought Mads or I had some stinken great handwriting.  Thank you Silhouette for making me look SO GOOD!

With everything going on... Can I just say, I have never been more jealous of a cat before in my whole life!?!  We came home from Church on Sunday to this.  Show off!

Apparently the stress hasn't effected Princess too much.  She is still able to sleep just fine, LOL.

This here was the cause of such a tender moment for me...a little moment frozen in time that would make for a fabulous sappy Maytag commercial.  My big boy, the one begging for a drivers permit at the age of 15...I pulled his laundry out of the dryer the other day and found this guy!  It might sound SO SILLY, but it made my heart glow.  My little baby Eli, even though he is getting so big and won't let me say hi to him out in public any more...he still has toys falling out of his pockets in the dryer.  Awe!

So, tonight I am making a graduation Spot-It game.  Yep.  That is the pressing job that is keeping me out of bed tonight.  We are less then 48 hours from our party and I am sitting here making a card game.  Heaven help us.  I will be back in a few days with fabulous pictures of the party I will be SO EXCITED to have over.  See you later!

Progress, Luckily!

I'm really struggling to see progress lately.  Life pulls in so many directions it can be frustrating at times.  That is probably why I am so over-the-moon excited to have put off everything else tonight and 

got a few odds and ends taken care of.

For starters, I am feeling pretty lucky to have finally painted my "Lucky" sign I designed 4 years ago with my sweet friend Season.  I found it last summer traced on a piece of wood hiding in the garage.  I must have moved it 3 times in 3 different states over the last 4 years.  It was finally cut out this last fall on my scroll saw.  Since then I have moved it from pile to pile of unfinished projects optimistic that life would ease up and time would permit me to paint it.  

Trust me.  This hunk of wood is LUCKY it survived to see the paintbrush.  It will be fun to hang up next March, even if I missed using it this year ♡

Next up, and having waited even longer, moved even more times...my Never Enough Snowmen signs!  I have 2 of them I stumbled across at Christmas time and decided their day had finally come.  Then January was full of trauma and recovery, February was more trauma, a big trip, more trauma, and illness.  March was finally feeling better, crazy craft party, even crazier photo shoots to prep and pull off, followed by trauma and over a week without my husband and right arm (Madison) while they sat at Grandpa's bedside 1200 miles away.

Ahem, get the picture?  This is why I am so excited to have even started these projects!  With any luck, I will even get a couple finished 😄

I did get the lettering finished tonight!  I made a strip of vinyl to use as a stencil.  The white area was where the vinyl was.  I can't even tell you how EASY vinyl has made crafting!!!  I didn't have vinyl back 9 years ago when I cut thsee signs out.  My box would never have been so straight and the lettering would have totally stressed me out.  Instead, done...finally.  Now to get the snowmen on the sign completed!!!  

*fingers crossed*

This will be my new Mother's Day Door Decor.

Cut out this time last year, painted to the level of done-ness you see here.  Yesterday, between editing photos, I worked on the pattern so hopefully I can get it and others up for sale soon.

*more fingers crossed*

These are 2 of the 9 signs I got painted before dinner.  Mads and I are planning a little string art here...

Another fixer project moved from table to table...

I decided I don't like my letters by the front door on wires.  I started gluing them to ribbons and I love it!  They hang better AND store better.

If only I could find the "U" from my "LUCK" I would get that set on ribbon too.  

My garage is a disaster.  Maybe with temps finally above the 30s this week I can get out there...no fingers left to cross!

Fixed my first bunny.  He fell a couple of times during our craft party and I hate to just throw him away.  Now that his ear and foot have been glued back in place I hope to touch up paint and have him good as new.

Got my HAPPY BIRTHDAY frosting painted for my birthday cake door decor.  It is not a fun piece to cut or paint.  I think I finally figured out my paint colors, so hoping to finish the whole cake soon!  Yesterday I designed a party balloon door decor pattern.  I want to make a 3 piece party pattern set with the cake, a giant present, and the big balloons.  More...more...to do.

My most recent started and waiting project.  I finally figured out how I wanted to finish these guys and got the stencils made for the hash marks on the bottles.

After realizing how many unfinished projects I had to show you, I figured I'd better get SOMETHING finished!!!

DONE.

Ignore the scrap on the carpet!  I am posting entirely by phone tonight and have no idea how to crop that out, LOL!

Won't these be cute on the door welcoming baby home for the first time!?!

Well, I am off to bed.  Feel free to show me your projects you hope to finish one day.  I'd love to know I am not the only one 😀

With Littles

Emmalee is the best at making an event out of a normal everyday day.  She decided we HAD to go to the Disney Store at the Mall of America and attend the Zootopia event they were hosting.  While we were at the MOA we might as well see the movie....and how better to enjoy it all than with BFF Ruthie!

Madison and I were allowed to go along incase these cute littles needed someone to hold the American Girl Dolls at the Disney store and the Disney dolls in the American Girl Store.  Whatever.  Share some hot theater popcorn with me and I will go along with just about anything ;0}

We checked out the Lea Adventure Academy they are having over spring break.  If you are near an American Girl store be sure to sign up!  Last year we just happened to show up at the store on one of the days and were so sad to miss out on all of it because prior registration was required.

I had already decided, premeditated style, to buy these girls a matching outfit for their dolls since they play together with their dolls so much.  We walked the entire store twice studying each and every outfit.  In the end, after a little arm twisting, these girlies decided they HAD TO HAVE musical instruments for their dolls instead of clothes.  

I love it!  I knew when this blond babe was in my belly that she would love music.  Every time a song played she jumped in my belly.  Ruthie loves music too, joined the band at school this year, so the doll instruments were pretty much perfect for these two.

After enduring several impromptu concerts I convinced the girls we should sew.

Serious fashion designs were sketched.  Two small knit t-shirts were lovingly sewn by excited little fingers.  Emmalee decided to put a violin on her t-shirt for her doll.

Ruthie designed a flute for the front of hers.  

We played until nearly 10pm when Ruthie had to go and our party dissolved into bedtime.

Ruthie went home, Emmers went to bed, and I sat there so totally happy.  I was in heaven today playing and sewing with these Littles.  The giggles and smiles and squeals of delight were simply intoxicating.  I have come to discover I REALLY ENJOY teaching other people, no matter their size, how to sew and paint and create.  What a fulfilling way to spend your time, using your energy and mind and all the working parts you are blessed with to shape and mold and create something from ingredients.  

Do yourself a favor.  Create something today.

Poor Baby!

Caution, This post has Very Yucky Pictures of Emmalee's mouth, tumor {aka-Molar Baby}, and surgery!!

I mentioned before that we found a tumor in Emmalee's mouth 4 days before Christmas, right?  Well, now you get to hear the whole story.

I was on the computer Monday morning, December 21st, 2015, trying to make a template for the Death Star Nerd Shelf while Madison and Emmalee were in the middle of some sort of sisterly tickle torture.  I was getting totally annoyed with the loud belts of screamy laughter and nearly said something a couple of times.  Luckily I didn't or I think I would have felt even worse when Madison gasped from the other room.  She called me over right away.  

Madison caught sight of the molar baby when Emmalee had her mouth wide open for one of the gut-clenching laughs.  The minute I saw it, my stomach dropped to my knees and a flood of anxiety washed over my heart.  There was no mistaking that bumpy mass in her mouth for any sort of normal canker sore or even swollen gums.  It was thick, red, and looked like a wad of raw hamburger in the back of her mouth.  I had to send her off to play and compose myself for a few minutes.  I was literally frozen in terror.  And only a few moments earlier I was crabby about the noise coming from 2 happy girls.  What a stupid thing to be crabby about. 

I called a local pediatric dentist as soon as I could pull my wits together.  Trying to describe it over the phone was pointless.  The receptionist and the dentist both said they figured it had to be a canker sore, until they saw it.  Even in the office I tried to warn them, "Just be prepared.  It is really wicked looking.  It is a mass, not just a canker."

I didn't think my stomach could fall any further, that is until I saw the horror on the dentist's face.  She poked.  Emmalee had no feeling in the mass.  After a few minutes of the both of them just staring terrified at the lump the dentist apologized, but she didn't know what it was.  We were given a referral form and a phone number for a local oral surgeon and sent on our way.  

Here we were, 3 days before Christmas, I had finally shut my Etsy shop down after 3 months of no sleep and barely functioning as a human being.  We had a list 5 pages long of things to get ready for Christmas and suddenly none of it mattered.  

I begged and pleaded for the Oral Surgeon's office to get us in before January.  After much pleading we were given an appointment the next day.  Luckily, the Oral Surgeon looked at it and was pretty confident he knew what it was.  He grabbed his dental hook and told me if we were lucky, this was a mushrooming type of tumor, meaning, it comes from a small area and kind of pops up, covering a large area like an umbrella, but that area of attachment is very small.  He poked at the mass with his hook and his face lit up.  He said, "Look!  See, when I pull it, it separates from the gums."  He sent us away confident this tumor could be cut out cleanly.  

I was more than a little upset to find out they could not get my Emmers in for surgery before New Years.  We were finally able to get an appointment on New Years Eve, but it just made me sick to think of that "thing" in her mouth, possibly harming my baby girl.  Somehow we had to make it a week before we could get that thing out.  Emmalee was fine.  She was a little shaken up emotionally, but she wasn't in pain or physically affected by the tumor at all.  Me....I was another story.  I bawled the rest of the day out in the garage as I worked on the Nerd Shelf.  I imagined what my life would be like without my baby girl I fought so many years to get pregnant with.  I imagined what it would be like to bury my baby.  I imagined my sweet, so-missed grandma who passed away 5 years ago coming and taking Emmalee by the hand and walking off with her.  It just made me bawl harder.  

I know it sounds crazy, but I guess that is how I deal with hard things.  I immediately think of every possible scenario, what the outcomes could be, how I would feel, how my family would feel, how I might react, and how I know I do not want to react.  I am not a sudden reactor.  You can ask my little sister Kallie.  She makes fun of me all the time because she can't get a reaction out of me no mater how shocking her remarks.  I think it has something to do with growing up in a house where temperaments exploded so unexpectedly.  Reacting only made things worse.  I just wait to see if what I perceive is really how things are before any emotion surfaces.  Inside I am a whirling vortex of anxiety, thought, and panic.  The shell on the outside is staring off as if lost in thought.  

The next week was spent trying to put on a happy face.  We usually LOVE our break between Christmas and New Years.  I bawled alone.  I bawled with Madison.  We just kept consoling Emmalee, promising her the doctor could take that molar baby out and she would be just fine.  Every day of that long week I fought off that sick feeling in my stomach hoping that everything would be OK.  New Years Eve finally came.  Emmalee was nervous, but so excited to get that thing cut out. 

Emmers was so brave.  She took the needle stick with grace and the surgeon was able to work on her without using gas.

I watched as he cut and nipped at the mass.  My stomach flopped when I saw her blood trickle from the first few slashes.  The point I had to look away was when he started scraping at the bone trying to get every last piece.  The area of attachment was about 1/3 the area that the tumor covered.  It was great that the wound didn't cover as much mouth as the mass, but it was still a large area so they wheeled in the laser.  Emmalee LOVES to tell people that she had lasers in her mouth.  They used the laser like a pen, drawing over the wound to cauterize or seal the area.  

About 5 minutes later, we were done.  The molar baby was out.

It was packaged up and sent off to pathology.  2 weeks would be our wait.

Emmalee thought it was her birthday when they brought her her very own carton of ice cream.  She was so excited and the assistant to the surgeon thought she was so brave, Emmers got a second carton to take home.  

It was during this 2 week wait that I finally got into the doctor for my own issues.  I had been bleeding for weeks, passing clots every couple days.  That week of vacation I started passing clots every day.  In August I had a DNC for the same thing, the doctor hoping it would help.  At that point my doctor was convinced I had uterine cancer.  I had my own biopsy sent off, so for about a week the SewCakeMaker family was waiting for 2 oncology reports.

As for Emmalee, her lump came back benign.  It was such a relief, I can't even express it.  Her diagnosis was pyogenic granuloma.  So apparently these tumors are common for children, but on their neck or arms.  The only time they are ever found in the mouth is in pregnant women.  The sources I found said that pyogenic granulomas are always benign, unless they are misdiagnosed and are actually a very rare form of cancer.  So, that week between Christmas and New Years we knew it was benign, unless it was misdiagnosed.  Luckily, thank the Good Lord in Heaven, the molar baby was benign and Emmalee hasn't had to think about it again.  

A week after getting Emmalee's results, I went in to have my unplanned hysterectomy and tried to find the least bit of excitement for this new, off to a terrible start, New Year.

2016, I was full of terror as I watched the ball drop on New Years Eve.  I know now, just as I knew then, that you are not going to be an easy year or very nice to me and my family.  Luckily, on New Years Day I saw this posted on my FB friend's wall and found direction in it's message...

After the encouraging words from this man whom I love with my whole heart, I resolve to find the bright side, to REMEMBER there IS a bright side.  I re-plant my feet on faith-formed sod.  

2015 was hard.  It taxed me in ways I never would have volunteered for, but if I focus on the negative things, I would totally miss the miracles that happened.  We were SO BLESSED last year.  When I thought about this quote, all at once I was FLOODED with remembrance of the miracles and tender mercies of my Father in Heaven that accompanied every single day.  This molar baby thing was just one more moment that ended up being a blessing dressed as despair.  Even if Emmalee's tumor had not ended up benign, I feel like this experience would have been a blessing.  I was able to take a few days, after months of being a terrible mom, working like a dog just to keep my head above water, but unable to be alive and interactive with my kids.  I had those days to examine my life, my role as a mother, my child, how life would be with one less baby to hold at night.  I had just a glimpse of what so many mothers are facing right now, their baby with a terminal illness.  How would it be to find out your baby had, not a benign tumor, but a real, cancerous, parasitic mass slowly consuming the life of their little one.  I am thankful for that glimpse.  I don't think I could have gained the compassion for those struggling families without having gone through this experience.

So, forward we will trod, through this year that is sure to bring heaps of more troubles dripping with unimaginable blessings and insight into God's plan for all of us.  I will take it.  I will do my best to find the good.  I will Act, and not be acted upon.  After all, I am the only one who controls how I react to situations I find myself in.  I am the only one who can open my eyes to see the sunrise after the long, cold night.

Let's Get Real

  This is just a warning, there are NO CRAFTS in this post.  I have been wanting, no, Yearning for the past 2 years to make a change here on this blog.  For the past 5 years I have showed up, way more often the first 2 or 3 years than the last 2, showing off my work, sharing my patterns and ideas, trying to share the crafting knowledge I hunted and searched all over the internet and library to gain.  I tried to pretty much keep my personal life and beliefs out of the posts.  I have tried to be upbeat, cheerful.  I have failed miserably at that at times, and other times far exceeded my original plans.  While feeding the crafting soul, I feel like I was smothering the spiritual.

I am not talking churchy spiritual, but the deep feelings of my heart on subjects that have so intensely changed my life.  I am so frustrated with where our current social trends are taking us all!  Terror strikes the heart when I step back and realize how little concern for others there is in the world.  As I approach my 5th anniversary as a blogger I need to clarify, more for myself than any of you, why I am still here.  I need to Get Real.  I am hoping to re-align my goals with those I originally had so that blogging is something I enjoy again, not something else on my to-do list I am not getting done.

If you do not blog, you probably are not aware of the incredible target you have on your back by blogging.  I get emails, letters, phone calls, all from marketers wanting me to endorse their crappy products I never would buy, much less advertise for free.  I am asked constantly to donate product for drawings to get "free" advertising in exchange.  There are surveys about what people visiting my blog would "respond" better to {respond = will go out and buy}.  There are people contacting me letting me know I can get more followers, more traffic, more centrally publicized posts, all if I just subscribe to their services.  My old posts get spammed constantly, people putting links to their own sites in my comments and I have no idea if those links are actually validly useful or links to viruses.  I closely monitor those now and only allow comments on old posts if they are real people, on links.

I have barely been able to post the past...basically 18 months and I still have this chaos constantly.

Beyond that, all over the internet are post and articles and podcasts on how to improve your blog, sell your product, tips for what you should be doing, how you know if you are terrible at what you are doing.  I hate to admit it, but ALL OF THIS has disabled me.  How could the thought, "Hey, I should start a blog!  Then I would have all my projects all in one place so I could find them!!!" turn into this huge, complicated, impossible-to-do-right, out-of-my-control thing.

--let me set this straight...  I do not care about how many followers I have.  It is a status symbol I am not seeking.  I do not care how search-engine friendly my blog is.  I no longer participate in surveys and focus groups and marketing groups.  That is not what I am about.  I need money, but I am not going to throw more flashy wastes of space at the viewers of my space in hopes of getting $.03.  I am not online for attention or praise or to be validated by others.  I am here to help, to share knowledge, and to lift.  When I cannot do this and take care of my family, my whole extended family, I will not be posting.  Family comes first.

I have let the pushing of people change why I blog.  That stops now.  I am sick of worrying if what I have is cute enough, interesting to other people, photographed just right, those photos edited because they can never be photographed just right, text written clearly, checked and spell checked and re-written.  I am over it.  And my house!!!  My house is ALWAYS dirty.  We live in it.  Not only that, but we left the new-styled house in sunny Arizona and moved to the always-grey midwest and live in a too-small house with dark trim and no storage and I can't find one single place to photograph my stuff.

It is time for a reset.  My whole life needs a reset, but part of that is having an outlet, and this is mine.  I get maybe 5 minutes to myself during the day.  There are days, weeks, and sometimes months when I don't get to think about myself at all.  I have gone days, weeks, or months without looking at myself in the mirror.  Ornament season on Etsy is that way for me.  From the end of October until the week before Christmas I am lucky to get 4 hours of sleep, dinner in any form from any location to the table is an accomplishment.  I am tired.

I want to be real.  I don't do fake.  I don't do keeping up with the Jones-es.  I will not compare my kids to other kids to decide if they are ok.  They are ok because I love them. I am ok because Jesus loves me.  If you don't believe in Jesus, that is ok too.

Let me tell you who I am.

I am Vanessa.  I was born in Utah.  I LOVE Utah, but I am embarrassed to tell people I am from Utah because of stigma.  My dad took me from my mom when I was a little girl.  She missed me alot.  My dad married an amazing woman who took care of me while I was away from my mom.  She is my mom.  This matters A LOT to me, for I am a mom and not a day goes by that I don't hurt for both of my moms.  One must have cried 6 billion tears to have her baby taken from her, just talk to her once in a while on the phone, to go years not knowing where her baby was or if she was safe.

The other woman must have cried not knowing how to raise another woman's child when she was just 20.  Surely she cried more when she had her first born and still had to take care of this other child, when she loved this child, but this child cried at night for another woman called mom.  She was called stepmom, like Cinderella's, even though she was not at all like her.  She had sleepless nights worried about another woman's child when that child was out on dates, worked late, cried over boys, watched her dad beat every member of the family.

Life is so not fair.

I am a Mormon.  My dad is a Mormon too, but the Mormon church is not ok with men beating their families.  My dad was beaten by his dad who was beaten by his dad.  It isn't a church thing.  Just a vicious ugly cycle that stopped with me.

As for my church, I L-O-V-E IT.  I cannot express in words the level at which I love the teachings and practices of my church.  The people are human, the the church is God's church.  You hate it?  That is ok.  I love it.  I love the church I was raised in with all my heart and wish EVERYONE in the world could know what I have come to know as I studied, not blogs and tabloids and smut put out by man or by word of mouth, but the very words of our scripture, the words of our prophets, the words written on my heart in permanent marker.

I am 39.  That is old.  Isn't that old?  I can tell you, it isn't as old as it used to be :0}  My body is tired.  I don't give it sleep and exercise and pedicures like it wants, but I pick it up every morning, move it where it needs to be and lay it back in a nice king sized pillow topped bed with scottie dog flannel sheets I scored at Black Friday this year for $12.  Many days I wish I could just leave that body in the bed.  But I don't.

I have three beautiful babies.  17, 14, and 7.  I wanted 6 kids.  I have 3.  2 weeks ago I had to have a hysterectomy so there will never be another baby born of this body.  That makes me sad, but I will deal.  These three I have, I don't even remember them when they were 2.  Life is so busy doing just what we have to do to keep those three kids alive and happy, that is the biggest reason whey I don't have time to look in the mirror.  I'm ok with that.  They are worth it.  When they leave my house I will have more than enough time to look at myself in the mirror.  Today, I look at them...and tell one to empty the dishwasher, the other to fill it and the last to READ FOR 30 MINUTES FOR THE LAST TIME!!!

I have a husband who is far better of a person than I am.  I love him like the stars love the sun and look up to the sun and wish they could shine that bright and make everyone warm like the sun can.  He lifts me body, mind, and soul.  He rubs my sore feet, my sore shoulder, my wounded heart.  He always has.  It makes me sad that there are people without a soulmate like mine.  I thank the Lord above we were smart enough to marry 19 year ago so we didn't waste a minute we could spend together.  He makes me feel beautiful even though I know I am not.  He makes me feel special, like there is no other woman in the world like me.  The world should be glad ;0}  I feel blessed that the good Lord in Heaven loved me enough, not that He doesn't love others just as much, but He knew me.  He knew I needed Scott.  He also knew Scott would drive me just crazy enough that he gave me a sense of humor.

I am broke.  I am ALWAYS worried about money.  I will not succumb to get-rich-quick or get-rich-at-the-expense-of-others schemes.  I do not want to outsource my Nativity ornaments because I put a tiny piece of my testimony of Jesus Christ in each and every ornament, each and every nativity vinyl cut.  We have money to meet our needs from October-December when ornaments are selling, but I am so tired and out of my mind during that time, we spend half of it paying for processed food and fast food and treats like a constant stream of Redbox movies to watch while picking nativity vinyl.  It is just a vicious cycle I need to figure out.  Still won't outsource.

This always-broke-thing is a crazy thing for me.  I feel the need to work to ease that burden, yet I desire to be here at home with my kids, with my husband, here when they need me, here when they want me.  I want that more.  Every 3-4 months I take all the wood pieces off my Etsy site because I feel too torn from my family by work.  I decide I need to focus on them...then the bills pile up or we want to drive out West to see family in the summer and so I throw it all back on the Etsy site and start the cycle all over again.

I am ok with it though, because I am still home.  My babies are never alone when they don't want to be.  I will not have regrets about that when they leave home.  This is one of those points of conflict, mom's staying home.  If it isn't your thing, if you can't or don't want to, by all means don't.  Go to work.  The other half of me wishes I had a day job, cause then we wouldn't be $2 from zero so often in the bank account and getting out of the house would be nice once in a while.  In the end, I spent so many days and nights alone 6 year old me swore I would not leave my kids alone.  They would have a mom around when they needed one.

I am a self-taught crafter.  The sweet woman that raised me had to figure household things out on her own.  I don't hold it against her that a glue gun was used like a sewing machine.  In fact, I still own her first glue gun.  I cut up sheets and made barbie clothes.  I cut up sheets and made skirts, hot glued together.  They came undone in the dryer, but a little more hot glue and we were good to go!  The hem on my prom dress was reinforced with duct tape.  You do what you gotta do.  Best thing I could have learned in life.  Make what you have work cause nothing in life is perfect.

Sadly, I am a perfectionist.  This is a huge downfall for me.  It keeps me from doing.  I don't have enough time, or supplies, or money to complete a project to my tight standards, so I don't do it.  I fight perfectionism every day.

I fight depression every day.  Some days are better than others.  I have a pretty clear cycle of functionality.  I have about 1 good week every 6 weeks.  That is usually when I get my wood cut. There is a clear 2 week downhill fall, one solid week at absolute bottom-unable to accomplish anything, making dinner is an accomplishment.  Then the slow climb back up out of the sludge to the sunlight.  It is exhausting.

The biggest thing I have been missing in my life lately is service.  Time spent in the service of others is the most incredible blessing possible.  I crave it.  I need it.  It is the best medicine for my depression, for my anxiety.  I see the hardships of others, find ways to ease their trial and in turn get to forget about my own.  The funeral we had yesterday did just that.  I went to my drs appointment today and had to count the days it has been since my surgery, 2 weeks!  More on that later, when life permits me time to tell that story.



This is probably more than anyone wanted to know about me in one sitting.  As anyone, there is so much more to tell, but there are also so many things I was supposed to get done today, all still sitting un-crossed on my to-do list.  Thanks for listening as I vent, reset, and carry on.  I hope the same for you.  I pray you feel the love of your God in your life today for you are so loved.

Crafts and patterns are coming, slow but sure.  I just needed a minute to get real first.

More Rumblings...

Well, we have been trying new things lately.  Like these glitter ornamnets.  I have seen them, I have even made them once or twice, but I didn't remember them being SO FUN!

I couldn't find the exact stuff shown on other blogs, so I just grabbed what my local store had on it's shelf.  This stuff worked great!

Pour it in, swish it around, pour it out.  

Dump in Glitter.

Swirl the glitter around, then dump it out.

Not on the table like me ;0}  Not what I had intended, but when you hand the ornament to a 7 year old to help you....That is where the glitter ends up.

Smart people dump it into a cup then back into the bottle of glitter to be used again.

I have also been slaving away making these lovely sets of 12...

Eating these...cause they are my favorite candy when I am working ornaments for Etsy.

Check out these minis!  I wasn't sure the design would cut well this small, but it did!  I need to post these for sale on Etsy.

Then we had a request for snowmen you can put on the outside of a bulb.

Not perfect, but they work.

Then I finished weeding like 100 of these.  Not super fun, but they look cool!

Needless to say, after all of that work Madison and I needed to get out of Dodge.  

We like to run to Joanns, Target, or Hobby Lobby when we need a little break from the Etsy sweat shop we work constantly.

Mads found Starwars jammies that we were missing to make our set complete.

We finally bit the bullet and bought one of these naughty little guys.

And then I saw these cute burlap stockings.  Makes me want to get my sewing machine out and make a few.  One of these years I will get the sewing machine out in July and make something for Christmas, so when Christmas finally rolls around we actually have cute stuff for ourselves, instead of making it and shipping it off to everyone else.

When will I learn!?!