Only 3 more days until Anna is free from teaching and I will be free from baby duty.  It has been hard, I'm not going to lie.  9 hours a day, 5 days a week, and a child that you cannot take your eyes off her for  a second. She is taking her first steps, and I am 100 percent certain that she is going to go straight in to running, making sure she can get all those electrical outlets she is so fascinated with and ready to pull down all furniture that isn't nailed down.  I am exhausted.  Love her to pieces, but boy, do I need a vacation!  Looking forward to getting more projects done.  Above are the things I've been working on a night.

 

Baby Days

Eloise has entered the building!  As you can see, she is practically perfect in every way.  The little family has moved in with us and chaos reigns, but a mostly happy chaos.  Anna doesn't have to return to work until November, so we have a little time to breathe.  I think I'll be ready for more full time grandma work by then.

 

New Year, Here We Go

 I hate change.  I really really hate it.  Life is all "change change change change and change some more."  2024 was the great "you will do nothing but deal with ridding yourself of piles of crap" but the piles of crap just kept growing.  I decided my life started going downhill when the Clarinda house was sold and just never got back on an uphill trajectory.  We gave away so much of the furniture from that house and stored the rest in our downtown building, and then out of nowhere, someone wants to buy the building.  I give away more stuff,  I rent a storage locker and still there is too much left--a pile of furniture has been sitting in my sister's tractor shed for almost a year now, thank goodness she doesn't care.  Then there was the father-in-law motorcycle and car part nightmare to deal with because I had to sell it all to settle the estate.  In the end, we just bought the motorcycles that were complete to be able to close the estate, so I still have those to deal with.  There are still assorted radios and piles of speakers and 78 records piled up on my porch.  Oh, and there is a stack of unsold parts sitting in my music room, along with 2 cupboards that we put there "temporarily" two years ago.  Hoping 2025 will see the final clear out, but old change has to get in the way again.  Husband should really be retired, but not only is he still working, but he agreed to help the hospital start a new clinic in a town a bit closer to us than his current clinic.  New patients mean stress, and more stress.  A joyous change, but also a stressful one is that my daughter Anna is expecting a baby girl!  Yay!  Stressful part is she can't afford to not work, and I have volunteered to care for the baby while she is teaching.  I did raise my two girls and did it well, but they were a year old when i met them, and I don't have too much of a clue on what to do with a newborn.  I am also no help at all when Anna has questions about being pregnant and have to refer her to my sisters for advice.  There is a possibility that she and her husband and new baby may move back in with us, as their apartment is so tiny and lease up right when baby is arriving.  Finding a larger yet affordable home has been daunting.  In some ways it would be so much easier to have them here, baby wouldn't have to be driven back and forth, but it would be hard on them to lose their autonomy.  Starting a family is hard enough without having to move back in with your parents.

In the meantime, I must work madly to get all my projects done before baby becomes my job.

Time for Christmas Madness

The normal people are out there are all "It isn't even Halloween, stop with the Christmas talk", but here in the craft world, I should have started listing Christmas weeks ago.  Just got started today and already selling the few things I am listing.  Must find more hours in the day...

Take a Breath, and Get Covid!

 After the months and months of emptying that house, I started to try to work on my shop.  BAM! I get Covid.  Well, crap.  Thank goodness they let us have medication this time around.  Unfortunately, many are getting it and having doctors tell them it is just like a cold, so go home, rest, drink fluids, no medicine needed.  My brother and sister in law are VERY sick because they had one such doctor.  We all got sick at the same time, I had a couple bad days, but pretty much cured except for the very irritating cough.  They are still having high fevers and terrible head aches.  Back in the old days, my husband could have prescribed medicine for them, but all the new "government bureaucrats control the doctors" bull shit, he can't prescribe for any family member.  It is ridiculous. All I get to do is pray for their recovery and hope some of the over the counter stuff will work.

On my worst sick day, I had the misfortune to encounter the most evil, vile, bitter, evil, did I say evil? human being that has ever walked this earth.  All because he thinks he will buy the motorcycles and that no one else has any right to them, including us, the people that own them.  He has been hounding me to sell them, told him I was sick, he told me he hoped I would die.  I just said FUCK YOU.  It got worse, called me a whore, guaranteed that he would get the bikes no matter what.  I don't think so Beelzebub. I hope my run of bad surprises is done for the year at least.  I do need to add that every biker guy that came to the house to buy something has been very decent and kind, they all helped me identify parts and told me how to find serial numbers and figure out what year things were made.   The psycho is definitely an outlier.

Since I hate doing nothing, I have been painting a lot and making fall things between coughing fits, so I guess that is one bright note.

And I Thought I Used to Have Too Much To Do

 

I have been MIA as the last 6 months see the liquidation of my father-in-laws estate.  The man was the king of hoarders--we filled 2 jeeps with car magazines and newspapers to recycle, so that was the usual hoarder stuff you find, but that was certainly not all.  We also sent 4 Jeep loads and 3 trailer loads of antique radios to auction, well over 1000 radios.  Next, we have thousands of radio tubes and knobs and speakers and parts and more parts.  Boxes filled with gaskets and car parts, fenders, windshields, tires, everything car.  Then comes my next task after moving all that, the sorting and selling of motorcycle parts. This is one of I think 50 speedometers.  He had some rare ones, this one brought almost $700, an early Harley brought $1000.  We almost sent motorcycle frames to the scrap yard, but decided to try an auction starting them at $50.  They all brought about $4000 each---are you freaking kidding me?   I still have several actual full Indian motorcycles to sell, a couple Harleys, bunch of engines, it is so much fun. NOT. Last week was scrap yard week and despite all that we have moved out, there was still 10,000 pounds of metal to send the the scrap guy.  That is not an exaggeration, it was literally 10,000 pounds.  House finally sold and I think I just have one more weekend of moving crap out, but still months ahead of continuing to sell all the crap that is piled up around my ears at my house.  

Poor old Catspaw is limping along amidst the chaos.  I occasionally get some stuff done...

Crazy Spring

 It was summer all through March, and now that it is officially spring and April, winter is back! Snow and cold and so much gloom.  I have been so crazy busy.  For almost a year, I have been saying "once this is done, I will have time to breathe"... "Just get through my daughters wedding, then I can breathe"...no wait, crazy Christmas season is upon us, so "Just get through the Christmas rush, then I can breathe"...no wait, everyone is still shopping, I am shipping a million packages a day.  My somewhat messy house becomes a disaster area and there is never time to fix it.  Now, I am in the "just let me get the taxes done", or maybe "what can I do to avoid doing the taxes?"  After all, internet full of end of world during the eclipse, so I wouldn't want to waste my last days.  So here I am, when I should be listing things.  Sales have slowed dramatically, so a bit more time, but not enough ever.  

Oh, and here in the middle of winter, in the city, and I avoid the outdoors at all costs, I have contracted Lyme disease.  Broke out in a rash all up and down one arm, no other symptoms, thought I got bug bites from playing with some puppies, but no, it turned out to be the stuff of horror films.  My husband found a deer tick on the shower wall one morning.  We assume it landed on him when he was cutting brush.  Weeks pass, I am changing bed sheets, and I find 2 deer ticks on his pillow.  My rash is just horrible, but just on the one arm, then I get bites on my legs.  I strip the bed, wash EVERYTHING.  We take the animals and check them, they  have no bugs.  Grace and I take the dog and bunny out to the car and bug bomb the house, spend 4 hours driving around with the pets.  Next day, I find another tick on the bed and about freak out.  This is the first time I think to look up.  My sheer curtains on the window behind my bed have a line of black throughout the rod pocket.  I get on a ladder and find the rod pocket full of ticks. How they got there, I will never know.  There are a lot of deer roaming the city, we love seeing them, they are so pretty, but apparently they brought guests.  We must have brought a pregnant tick in without knowing it and she started a family in the curtain.  James and I both are on the antibiotics, and I still jump every time I see a black speck any where.  Just telling the story is making me itch.  Hope they are gone never to return.

This may be why I turned to all white for the latest creations.