Thinking

I have always been a over thinking person. A miss fix it, if you can make one, then why not a dozen.In school, I would listen to what a teacher was saying, but was also having my own dialog too. Talking instead of listening…always thinking ahead as to what I wanted to say. I am not a good listener, I get lost in their words.

Maybe that is why I love to write, no one gets in, I am just spilling out….Just a thought on a Saturday afternoon.

 

I made Bracelets

 I was determined to make something. So I dug out the beads and a few charms I had stashed away and made 14 bracelets. I used the stretch silicone so they will go on easy. I had a good time making them, even the few times I dropped beads and they scattered everywhere. Finley thought it was a great game. I will take them to Bazaar.

The doors are on the closet, still have to do the trim and my antique knobs. I have collected glass knobs for many years with only the hope that one day they would find a place in our home. So when we moved into this cottage Farmhouse, one by one they have found a home. The doors were here in the peach room, so they are recycled.

Just for fun…..what do you think this is???

The Header

I thought this header fit my mood today. A little like Alice when she fell down the hole. Not sure about what is, but not wanting to go down the hole in the ground either.

I want to create some fun craft, but unable to center on the doing. I think it has to do with the remodel of my upstairs. It’s like I am waiting for something special and until then, I am a little lost. It seems all of my mental energy is directed to one thing…The Loft!

I went looking at blogs this morning, some I had never seen before which was fun. I guess that I am looking for inspiration, and there is really wonderful things being done on blogs, and I do not have a clue how to get a kick start.

I have so many things to work with, paper, scissors, paste, fabric, colored pins, pins, beads, etc, no limit to what I should be able to do.

What do you do when you are blocked creatively?

 

RAIN:)

It rained here for the first time in months. The quail were all over the field waiting for the warms to come up. We could smell the rain before it got here and celebrated the first drops on the patio. We have had so much smoke from the fires up the hill. And earlier in the evening we could see blue sky…that was really nice. Here at my computer I can hear the cars on the wet pavement, it sounds good to me. It wasn’t cold, so we had the back door open all day. My only regret is the flies came in.

I want to thank you! Your comments mint so much to me. Words can hurt you sometimes, but they can also heal. Thank you for the healing words, Mary

On the Today Show

I was watching the Today show this morning. And one of the topic’s was how to let go of a friendship. It was interesting to me since I had just found this note on facebook. It was from someone I have known since I was 16 years old. Our path in life has been very different, so to blend our reality of life has been hard. But we have tried. On the show it shared the many ways people let go of the relationship. Some people confront, others just kind of fade away. Others stay in a toxic friendship because they do not want to hurt anyone. But whatever way they chose, it is painful.

This was the note I received after 51.

  click on note to read.

Why would I even share this….maybe because I am mad! Maybe because it hurts! Maybe because I hope it will help someone. But for whatever reason..this is her truth no matter how I feel. Did I fail this person? yes, because I could not be the person she needed me to be.

 

NO! It is still September

For many years I have made tags for our Church Bazaar. This is when no matter what the temp or day it is, my clock says it is fall.

I find a theme and this year I made them with Christmas in mind.

Here are just a few that I have made.

I have more to show you, but I thought this was enough of a Christmas reminder.

Fall is in the air!

Oh Yes, I thought you might like to see Finn our little Maltese. And yes we are still working on the Loft.

The ball hanging from her hand is a bead. I hung it with thread so it moves.

Soon to be a closet. Arney is mudding as I write this.

Now to go look and see what you are doing.

We will never forget!!!!

I was trying to think of something

special to say today about this awful

event in all our lives. But it really has all been said over and over.

Today is my sisters Birthday…so I try to only think of her special day.                                                I really think I was in a coma on 9-11-2001. Doing the day to day things. Going to work, fixing dinner for my Arney and loving my kids. Just living my life and a lot of time spent thinking about my Mama.

I never felt more awake than when the news came. I wanted to go home. I needed to talk to my family. I knew my Mama would be glued to the TV and she needed me.

So many feelings and so few words.

                    Mary

The remodel continues……

I hope to get to all of you in the next couple of days. I have been busy working on tags for Bazaar and the never ending dust.You might ask, when will the Loft be done…I hope it will be done in October, but we will see.

Here are a few pictures that I took.When you are working on a 1906 cottage farmhouse, things can look really awful when opened up. This was a homestead house, not built with the best of craftsmanship.This chimney is for what was the wood burning stove in the kitchen. It served to warm the whole house.Although it is not in use, we decided to leave it because it is so much apart of the history of this house.The walls were thin and no telling how many years this helped a family keep warm. Idaho gets very cold in the winter. And years ago it was even colder than now.I have from the very first days of living here even with so much waiting to be done, that love was in this house. It has and continues to be our comfort.  

There are two of these doors, one on each side of the room. They are a really good place for storage. I found old wallpaper in there and just little things like an old ironing board.

Arney working on Closet..this is a big  deal to me…I wish it could have been a walk in but we would have hit our heads on the ceiling.

This is our son-in-law Doug mudding the drywall. What do you think Mom? Sweet!

Grandma, this feels just like frosting…Don’t eat it!!! I know grandma, Gotcha! Our Summit.

My daughter Jenny and her Dad discussing the Victorian footboards he will be installing. Jenny is mother to Summit and wife of Doug…the mud man.

Jenny has been waiting along time to see this all come to life for us.

It does take a tribe to build a dream sometimes.

 

I would have given almost anything for a pair of Mary Jane’s….

 

It was a cold winter’s day and the big yellow school bus pulled up in front of my Grandmamma and Granddads house. I could smell the bus fumes mixed with the fresh mud as the soft rain continued to fall. I watched that old bus for a long time as it went down the country road. It had one more stop, a little rich girl named Ginger Landers who lived about half mile down the road. Her parents went to church with my grandparents in Pixley, California. She took great pride in sticking her tongue out at me. My Grandmamma would say, ‘Don’t pay any attention to her, that tongue will break off one day.” I lived with my grandparents north of town in a large white farmhouse with a screed in back porch. It was Friday and no one was home and the back door was locked. So I sat on the back steps and then went into the barn where I could dry out. I got scared, I really felt afraid, but I really do not know why? Maybe too much time had gone by, but I found myself out in the field of mud crying, and thinking I should run to the Landers house. So I did, and no one was there either. Confused, scared and worried, I ran back home just in time for my grandparents to drive up. I was safe and warm in no time, Grandmama said that they were sorry that I was alone. It could be because I was only 5 years old.

My Aunt Sweetie (Lily Ellen) and I would sleep out on the porch on hot nights. We would wait for the soft breeze that came long after the sun went down. I loved that we could lie on our back and see the stars. Sweetie knew where the big dipper and all the other signs in the dark sky. My grandparents (Ethel and Albert) gave all their children and grandchildren nicknames. I am Doll

(Mary Ellen). Sleeping on the porch was nice because we had no air conditioning; I think Sweetie wanted to be a boy. She played baseball and hung out with the boys more than girls. She always wore either a baseball hat or a green beanie. I loved that beanie; she had charms and buttons of all types on the beanie. She would get stuff out of the cracker jacks box and pin it to that beanie then give me the cracker jacks sometimes. Aunt Sweetie also had wonderful dolls that she never played with. She had Cuppie dolls and baby dolls in all sizes, and I could not touch them. Ones and awhile she would take me to the hall closet and let me look at them. No touching!!!! I wanted to be her for a long time. She was a true tomboy. And I thought she was so pretty.

The front door was for company, we were the back door kind of family.

School was hard for me. I didn’t like Church school. It seemed like everyone but me lived with their parents, and they were rich. I was poor and knew it, only because the clothes they wore were much nicer than mine. And to make things worse, I was the only redhead in this school. Add to that I was really thin, skinny really. So there was lots of name calling.. There have always been Bullies in school. I was not good about food. I disliked most everything. But I loved catsup sandwiches;  kids called them blood sandwiches. So often I would not eat at all until I got home, fearing that someone would say something. Because they did.

I was scared of so many things, cars, the bus, dogs, and teachers. I was afraid of the dark and I was lonely. I don’t remember any friends in Christian school. Not until 2nd grade.

Merle was a good friend, she had long blonde hair. I loved her hair. We ate lunch together every day. I remember after a rain she and I jumped puddles in the school yard. You know the puddles that you could see the blue sky with fluffy white clouds in. No one made fun of me any longer; I was one of the first kids picked for all sports. Baseball, races, I could out run any boy in school.

I was living in southern California by the second grade with my parents. My sister Sharon was born in Long Beach, and we lived on Signal Hill. She was like having a live baby doll. I remember Mama hanging her diapers on the clothes line. Kids from the apartment played a lot under that clothes line because it was round. My Dad worked hard but there was never enough money. So I continued to want nice clothes like the others girls wore. But clothes were hard to come by. I think the hardest part for me was shoes. At the start of school I got a new pair of Oxfords, they were always a little too big so that I would not grow out of them too soon. I had the worst blisters from them every year. Band-Aids did not help. So often there was blood on my socks. In a short time my shoes would started to smile, that mint they had to go to the shoe repair man. My Mama called him by his first name…and it was like we were going to see a friend. Children do some really strange things sometimes. I would take my socks off and put the socks in my lunch sack and pretend that I had pretty shoes. My legs where so thin, this must have looked just awful. Then put my socks back on walking home from school. I would have given just about anything for a pair of Mary Jane’s.

I was not a good student…although no one would have known that I had a condition in the 50’s, but today we call it ADD. I was always thinking about something else, looking out the window, or worried about what was going on at home. Just a messed up little girl. I felt stupid, but had no way of sharing this. It was hard being me. I remember teachers saying to me, your test scores are really good, you should be getting your work done and having better grades. Okay!

I found these pages I had written years ago. So thought I would share this today. If you open enough boxes, you may be surprised at what you find.

Arney and “Finn” building the Closet…

Arney thinking about…the next step:) 

Arney and Finn doing the happy dance…

We have all our clothes in the Laundry room…Remodeling can be a fun thing if you stop and do a happy Dance now and then.

It’s Sunday…a good time to kick up your feet if you still have the energy.

Secrets……

  Today I woke thinking of secrets. We all have some. We keep them because it would hurt others. Even if you shared, you have no evidence of what you are saying is true.

Just a thought, something I am dealing with.

On a happier note…..

 

Since we no longer have a bedroom set….I have always thought it would be fun to have a more or less Shabby Chic bedroom. The above picture shows the picket fence look that I think would be fun to do. I don’t want a foot board, but the headboard would be fun. I would not make it just like this, but it gives me ideas. We bought a king sized bed. If I go with the white, then I can play with some old stuff made new…Just a thought…what do you think? Oh yes, I do have a white dresser I think is out of the 20’s that has been stored upstairs forever….hummmm!

Let there be light!!!!

Clay finished the electrical this morning and hung our two new lights. We have all new wires and everything. the bottom light is one I have had for years. It was in my daughter Jenny’s room when she was still at home. It works very well at the top of the stairs.

What comes next….dry wall and building the closet. Arney is getting the supplies tomorrow. Yep, we have so much more to do.

Patients….that is my word for the day. Along with dust, and more dust!!!!!