What a week!

It's been quite a WEEK! 

First off, spring was on full display.  Weather was in the 50's & 60's and I was in my weather-heaven.

Tuesday oldest son turned 32 and Wednesday we celebrated with him and his youngest brother (they share an apartment) with take-out Bronzini Pizza and garlic knots.  Yummy stuff!  And a few rounds of the game, Medium.  How do I have no photos of any of this?

After driving a couple thousand miles over three days, artist sister also arrived in the area on Wednesday.  

Sister is in front, I'm in back.

On Thursday my brother's house went from:

to:

We arrived in town a few minutes prior to the scheduled closing and walked around the property one last time.  Before we left, the listing agent stopped by and changed the sign to read SOLD.  That was handy!

At the closing we met the buyer of my brother's house.  He's a young man (mid-thirties) with a vision for updating older houses in lower income neighborhoods.  It was interesting to hear his plans for the little bungalow my brother had lived in for over 30 years. 

Afterwards, sister and hubs & I had lunch and then sister and I drove around our hometown (and sometimes walked) for a while looking for houses that were familiar (of friends and family from our childhood).  Driving through a neighborhood that once housed our Jr. High School, we were delighted to see an old soda fountain/diner from our youth still intact.  Well, not the soda fountain, but the building.  While it looked just like it did in the 60's and 70's,  It had most recently been used as an election headquarters (for either Greg Pence, or Trump and Mike Pence).  We had to stop for pictures when we spotted a cardboard Trump in the window:

We laughed so hard, I imagine the neighbors thought we were nuts.  

But it sure was fun just being silly.

Later in the evening, we came back to our house where we looked through some of our brother's things.  Some items my sister would take back with her, some items were in the category of memorabilia and personal notes created by, or relating to our brother.  It was good to have company sifting through the later things.

~~~~~

Friday I realized I had forgotten to hand over the keys to my brother's house at the closing, so that meant another trip to Columbus to hand deliver them to the buyer.  My sister joined me and we became determined to find a building where our aunt used to have a Bible bookstore in the 60's.  We think we found it.  Her shop may have possibly been in the same space (or in the next store down from) where there is now a sweet little yarn shop:

We approached the store just as the owner was getting ready to lock up, but when we explained what we were looking for, she invited us in to see if it looked familiar.  I can't believe I didn't take any pictures of the inside, but then again, I didn't want to presume to hang around too long.  This will be a fun place to revisit soon, though.

 ~~~~~

Saturday, we met a niece and her sweet family to pass along some items of my brother's.  We had lunch at Zaharako's, an over-100-year-old ice cream shop/soda fountain in downtown Columbus.  It was old when I was a kid in the 60's.  Now it's something of a relic.

Flowers on table are from oldest sister (sent by way of her daughter, the niece we were meeting that day.)

Saturday evening, my sister and I met with a wonderful couple who knew our brother through the local amateur radio club.  Words cannot do justice to what a gift it was to hear the couple recount memories and thoughts regarding our brother and share the experiences they had had with him over the years.

~~~~~

Sunday was my 62nd birthday.  It was the first time in months we'd attended church just as congregants.  We've been back a few times (even the week before) to serve on sound and computer duty, but it was our first experience since COVID that we sat with other attendees and just soaked in the worship service unencumbered by duties.  I didn't even wear a mask.  Yes, there is life after COVID vaccines!

Monday I took a walk through one of my favorite places: the local cemetery:

Tuesday (yesterday), my sister, and hubs & I spent hours looking at slides from our childhood.  It was bittersweet, but good.  We spent some time culling out pictures we didn't want, and made plans to digitize the keepers.

And this (Wednesday) morning, we woke up to this:

I know the snow won't stay for more than today, but it's very sad to imagine that under the snow, all the beautiful blooming trees probably turned brown overnight.  I'm so glad it was a beautiful drive for my sister as she made her way here last week, and that we took advantage of lovely days to do some walking and taking in the beauty and scent of blooming trees.  

Wednesday (today) my sister began her trek back home.  I pray it will not be hard for her.  Mixed in the good and fun of our time spent together were also hard things.  It's strange how sometimes the hard moments felt like a burden shared, and sometimes it felt like a burden doubled. I'm curious, but I didn't want to ask her if she feels the same. I'm glad we had this time together. I don't want to tinge it with such a negative thought. It's time for us both to do some processing alone again, I suspect.  And it's good (and necessary) for life to get back to some normalcy, but it was hard to see her go.    

While there are still months ahead of probate, I think with the selling of my brother's house, the estate business will all become something that will more easily flow with our days, than our days being directed by things needing attending to. 

I hope to finally start getting back to my "Making Space" challenge I started last year.  And after the snow melts I look forward to enjoying the rest of a beautiful spring here.  

I do hope it's beautiful where you are!  Thank you for stopping by and and letting me share my past week with you.  

This pic is just for a giggle.  

Chick-fil-A really has got good service figured out - even in the rain.

Hi again...

Well, Hi again.

I know I just dropped out of sight again for two weeks.   Thank you to those who made more kind comments on my last post.  Life has been a different kind of challenging these last few weeks, but estate things are moving forward and progress is being made.  Never mind that I constantly feel like I'm trying to catch up.  I think that's the nature of something like this.

The closing on my brother's house is scheduled for later this week.  Looking forward to having that behind, but it's not without mixed feelings and thoughts.  I'm telling myself to prepare to feel something I hadn't quite anticipated when that is done.  Let's hope the feelings are mostly of the positive sort.

So the last time I was here, I was working on a cute-as-can-be bunny cross stitch.  Well...  As I was adding the final color I became deeply disappointed.   It was obvious to me after I started it, that I had purchased a pattern off of Etsy where someone had changed the colors from the original, but I plugged on.  When I printed it out, I noticed the seller called it a "vintage" pattern.  I don't know what that means, or what she intends others to think that means.  I  have since found the same pattern sold by two other sellers online.  It is in no way clear who the original designer is, or if any of the designs available are original.  I was so frustrated at this realization, combined with the disappointing colors, I just put it away for now.  Maybe forever.  

I took a bit of a break and then decided to start May's Snowflower Diaries: Joyful World pattern:

Nearly finished, this one does not disappoint. I love the whimsy in these little monthly stitches.  I will admit, though, to changing the cats' "called-for" colors.  After digging through my stash of DMC floss I came up with a mottled gray cat and kitten.  I think I've decided to turn this (and whatever of these designs I stitch) into a small pillow.  I like the idea of working my way toward a bowlful of small pillows of various cross stitch designs.  Knowing me, I may just about have enough pillows to fill a bowl (or basket) about the time the trend dies off.  That's how I roll.

And that's a wrap!   Thank you for stopping by!  😊

More little things...

Much is happening here, but most isn't really shareable.  Or somehow it seems that way.  Truthfully, the visible part of what we are doing is so mundane it isn't worth writing about here.  The emotional part is yet to be fully realized, I suspect.

We're moving into a new stage where I can feel free to make decisions about my brother's things that I've not felt free to before now.  It is good to be at this place because it will start freeing up our home, but there is an emotional cost to this that I don't know how to count right now.  On the surface it feels something like relief, but deep down it feels like something else.  Another loss. 

Sigh.

Meanwhile, while I ponder this somewhat elusive place I am in, stuff does get done.  I do laundry.  I grocery shop. I cook and eat.  Too much.  That last thing doesn't help, I know.  I go to doctor's appointments.  They tell me to eat better and get more exercise.

I know.  I know...    

I will.

And I stitch.  I'm so thankful God gave me this gift of enjoying making things with my hands.  

This week I stitched a little on the bunny cross stitch I showed last week - it's nearly done.  And I kitted up a small seasonal project I'd like to start soon.  And of course I don't want to totally neglect the mystery sampler I'm only 7 months behind on, but I have completely ignored it for a week now.

Today I have crochet to show.  I got out some pretty spring-colored crochet threads and made two more little doilies from the book, 99 Little Doilies by Patricia Kristoffersen.

Doily #4, which I'm calling Sweet Thing:

and Doily # 24 - which I've dubbed "Parasol": 

I'll just say upfront, I did #24 wrong.  But that's okay.  That makes mine an original.  And a good blocking made it all better.  Truth be told, I like my mistake better than the original.  Isn't it nice when that happens?  😊  This one I made with size 3 thread, which means it's thicker than a typical doily, and it should make a nice little coaster.  That center part is just the right size for fitting under a glass.

That's it!  That's all I've got on the crafty front - on this second day of spring!    Well that and tomorrow I'm scheduled for my second Pfizer COVID vaccine.  Yay!  Moving closer to normal!

Good news & some spring stitching...

Good news this week!  I received and accepted an offer on my brother's house last Monday!  It's a few more weeks until closing (possibly a month), but I'm feeling relieved to (hopefully) have finished most of the work involved in getting the house ready to sell.  We still need to move a few things off the property, but that doesn't feel like too monumental of a task at this point.  Mustn't grow weary now!

On the crafting front...  after seeing Sandy's cross stitched bunny last week (at Home Ec Major) I had an irresistible urge to cross stitch a bunny, too.   So I found one, and now about half-way done, I think I might get it finished before Easter:

Also, I finished Part 4 on the Linen & Thread 2020 SAL, and added some smaller pictures:

Trying to decide if that is too busy there (in the center of the above picture), and if I should go lighter in filling in blank  spaces.  I've seen a couple that are really full and they are fun to look at.  On the other hand, I wonder if it's too much.  The wonderful thing about a sampler is that it doesn't have to look the same throughout.  So maybe I'll experiment.  

And that's really all I've got.  I think the upcoming week will be busy - hopefully, that translates into feeling productive.  It just now occurred to me (for some reason)...   Heading into tax season, we need to not only get our own taxes done, but gather and take necessary stuff to the accountant for both my MIL's and my brother's estates.  

The nuttiness of that just struck me.  

😧

Breathing deep... 

We will get to the other side of this.

If you have posted a comment to me under the name of Glenda, please e-mail me via the address found on my profile.  I will be happy to answer your question privately.  Thanks!

Some stitching...

So, back in May of 2020, Part 1 of my Linen & Threads sampler looked like this:

And after adding most of Part 4, this busy little corner looks like this:

Never having exactly the same lighting when taking photos, I end up with slightly different shades of red showing up in the photos.  

Wishing now I had thought to take a larger (or whole) picture after every part was completed, I'm going to try to remember to do that - maybe I'll post that picture once a month.  Or maybe it will be more fun to just reveal it all when it's all completed.  I'll give that some thought. 

Meanwhile... this is what the whole thing looks like on this first Sunday in March.  Almost 1/3 finished:

While it's felt like I've let this thing languish and haven't accomplished much, it's kind of inspiring to see what the whole thing looks like to date - especially in a photo.   It inspires me to maybe be a little more diligent about working on it.   

A photo of the whole thing will also better show the smaller, extra motifs I plan to add to fill in some of the spaces - spaces that were originally designed to add initials of friends and family.  I didn't really want to have a lot of initials scattered throughout the sampler - so when I saw some other stitchers adding motifs in place of the initials, I knew I wanted to try to do that instead.  I'm finding motifs in a variety of places (some books I own, some OOP books I've found online, some free from blogging cross stitch designers) - the online sources I've linked to way down at the bottom of my blog.  👇  My hope is it will look a bit like an Eye Spy picture, and will provide on-going interest and even a bit of whimsy to the finished project.  Wish me well in that.  😉

~~~~~

And Tag No. 10 in the #52 Tag challenge was easily finished yesterday:

The "theme" of this one is Suffolk Puff (I've always known these as Yo-Yo's), and Lace.

And that's another wrap for another week!  It's gorgeous today, and supposed to be in the 60's several days this week!  I could almost cry with happiness.  😂