Introducing...

HERBERT the hippo! My awesome friends Terry and Kathryn got me a hippo friend and he's a telus hippo :D which makes him even cooler. So I have a new monthly goal to craft Herbert a monthly wardrobe.

I needed something positive today since my sale pretty much fell apart here, they didn't get their financing, they didn't do their inspection and so I'm back to house showing. The hardest part of this was that I could do nothing about this so I just had to sit back and let it happen but it was on and off for the last few days which was even harder than just them saying no.

On the positive side I got the apartment I wanted in Regina so next week I'll be talking to movers and setting up/closing down utilities. I did the google street-view of my new neighborhood, I live on top of a used bookstore, an ethiopian restaurant and the schizophrenia center. I will be a block from a 7 eleven and a 24 hour shoppers drug mart. The bus stop is just outside my door for the bus to the university. So I'm pretty psyched there are also lots of hotels in the downtown core just blocks away so you have a place to stay if you come visit.

I also got my invite to the mature student orientation event which is an evening of dessert and cocktails with a campus tour. I'm excited to go and meet some people and no frisbees or beer in sight. After they tried to put me in dorms i was a little worried that they didn't consider me a mature student but thankfully I am so I can hopefully find a niche and a few new people to meet.

Sold!

Well it's official, the house sold in less than 24 hours. We still have to have the conditions removed which are the buyers financing falling into place and a home inspection. Very normal and it sounds like it should go smoothly. I can't believe what a state I worked myself into over this selling business and then to have it go so easy. Once again I underestimated God, I didn't even think to pray about it and yet he still provided. I don't know why I always forget to give my worries over to him. I really prefer to keep them to myself but he still finds away to work around me and despite me give me what I need.

I'm happy the process went well, I'm happy that I can move on but I'm sad to leave. Now it's time to pack, hire movers, do the paperwork and start a new life in Regina.

Crafty Goodness

Well as promised here's some of the crafty goodness I've been whipping up in the last little while. Sorry this will be picture heavy :D

This little house I made a while ago and it's been hanging out in my living room so some of you lucky folks may have seen it already. It just makes me happy to look at and there's no theme or anything just things I like all hanging out to make a house.

This little girl is my needle felted fairy :) I have some explanations of needle felting coming up with some pics and I'd like you all to note that no fairies were harmed during this photo shoot, the cat was just used for size reference.

This little house was a chance for me to experiment with a colour I don't usually use, which was the point of it, to stretch myself. I'm not completely satisfied with it yet and it really didn't want to photograph well sorry but it'll give you an idea of the piece.

This is a just for fun thing, a shrine to love. It's tin I've painted and glued a bunch of stuff on. I think it's really pretty but I may be biased.

I've been working on Artist Trading Cards and while I haven't quite gotten to actually trading them I've been building up quite a collection of my own and I needed something to keep them in so I took this old coffee tin and I painted and collaged onto it, added a label tag and voila a fancy dancy place for my ATCs to live. The picture on the top is a rubber stamp I bought in Stratford on Avon actually I bought several they are all female shakespeare characters and they are amazing!

Now needle felting, this is my new latest obsession. It's really easy you take raw dyed wool, it's very soft and fluffy, add a sharp barbed needle (very sharp my fingers can prove it). You poke the wool with the needle and it felts, if you poke too far you scream aaahhh dammit as you remove the needle from your finger. In the end you get a fluffy little chicken. I've been learning courtesy of joggles.com which has online classes in all sorts of crafts and has a great selection of craft stuff I love it.

Voila here's the chicky I made. He's perched on the awesome plate Monica gave me for my birthday and he looks pretty cute, although sometimes a little angry I got the eyes shaped funny. Next week's lesson is making a bunny rabbit. The fairy I made I totally made up myself.

The Selling Blues

Well a lot of hard work later and finally I'm ready to list the house...well sort of ready. Emotionally I'm not sure I'm ready but it has to happen. It's very bitter sweet to be bidding farewell to this place. While there's been a lot of sadness this last year, it was our happy home for quite a while. I remember the joy we felt when bought this place, the hopes and dreams we dreamt while we moved in, the memories we made in the following years. There were so many good times, now that's all gone. Leaving this place means leaving behind the good and the bad, moving forward but leaving the past behind. Emotionally I'm feeling very mixed feelings.

I'm also very anxious about the showing the house part. What to do with the kitties, what to do with me, keeping the place in show condition day after day, it makes my head hurt.

Oh well, it has to happen...so if you know anyone who would like a very nice well cared for bungalow with nice neighbors send them my way.

Connecting

Well my cold is just about gone, even the cough isn't too scary sounding, so I've actually been going out in public. Well actually mostly just to the hospital, my Dad is still at the UofA hospital and tomorrow is his surgery date. After finally agreeing to do an MRI they discovered he had torn 3 of the 4 muscles in his shoulder. This solved the "mystery" of why he couldn't move his arm side to side. From the date of surgery it's six weeks before he's supposed to put any weight on it. We're not sure what that means but it most likely means he'll be in the hospital for those 6 weeks since he won't be able to preform his transfers (moving from his chair to bed) so he'll need assistance although he's surprised everyone the last 3 weeks with how much he's been able to do through sheer willpower and adjustments.

I'm choosing to be optimistic about this and in some ways it's easier for me than the rest of my family. He's alive and this is a relatively minor hiccup and they've said it's a full recovery type thing so once he's recovered he can go on with life. To me right now it feels trivial but I know it isn't to him. It's inconvenient that he's stuck in the hospital, it sucks that he and mom had to cancel their holidays, the reminder that he's getting older wasn't really needed but I know he'll recover so I can be positive. I just wish I could share that with the rest of the family who after so many hits this last year and a half are reeling a bit and are very emotional. I don't want to trivialize their feelings because what they feel is important. I think I've hit the dead zone aka my emotional limit because this isn't phasing me too much or maybe I've finally learned to just roll with the punches. I do know that I'm sure it's the fault of someone in the hospital that I caught this cold (boo) but even a cold couldn't stop me.

My next post will have some craft photos I promise since I'm taking some online craft classes and I'm learning some new skills which are just feeding my need to create, but it may be a few days since I'll be at the hospital with mom tomorrow when Dad gets out of surgery and I've promised to take Grandma to visit Dad the next day so she can make sure her "baby" is fine. It's fun watching my Dad get parented.

I received the best inheritance you can ever get, a disk of 400+ pictures from my Grandfather Ginther's side of the family. These negatives were found in a shoe box in the back of a closet in my great aunt's house and one of my cousins took the time to scan them all into the computer and now we're sharing them amongst the whole family. These pictures go back to include baby pictures of my Grandfather, my great Grandparents as a young couple and even a few shots of my previously unknown Great Great Grandparents. It's strange to look through these photos and see people and places I know so well and to notice the things that tie us together. Several shots of the family surrounded by books gave me a thrill, there was proof I'd inherited my love of reading. A shot of my Grandma as a teen laughing with her peers, showed me the vivacious beauty my Grandpa first met. A shot of my grandpa on the tractor as a teen followed by a shot of his desk at home crowded with books reminded me of the things I loved best about him and want included in my life. Looking into the eyes of the Great Grandmother I only knew as an old woman trapped silent by Parkinson's disease and seeing her as a young wife and mother made her even more real to me. So many glimpses into life back then and being able to draw connections to my life now is an amazing gift. Scripture says the fruit of the fathers will be their children and their children's children, I realize that this is true I'm the fruit of all these people I carry bits of them in me. That's amazing to think of I'm sure my ancestors weren't fretting about what I'd turn out to be but I am the person I am today because of the choices they made. Someday I'll get to meet them in Heaven and truly know them but this small glimpse into their lives assures me we'll get along just fine because we're related you know :D