Things Did Not Go As Planned

Oops, apparently, I haven't posted in more than a year.  In my defense, it's been a weird year.  So, you know that Miss Lucy Rose was born in Jan '21.  Then on Valentine's Day "21, Hunter & Carmen announced they were having a baby, too!  I was OVER THE MOON!  Naturally, I immediately started on the quilt and toys.  I'm pretty sure I've posted individual shots of those items on FB if you want to take a look.

Her nursery is safari themed, obviously.  I couldn't really blog about them since they were gifts & I'm not sure if she ever reads the blog.  Then I forgot about it after the baby shower.

Over the summer, I took gardening seriously for the first time ever.  We did a lot of landscaping and planting.  I'll try to show more of that later.

Fingers crossed, things have survived the winter.  I've never paid much attention to what things should look like during the winter before but I have started to see a few things with new growth this week.

Rich and I went to a concert.  John 5 is a famous guitar player that Rich was fan boying.  Isn't he handsome?

In early October, we went on vacation.  I had to get it in before Miles was born.  The original plan was to go to New Orleans but the big hurricane hit the week before we left.  So we decided to pivot west to TX after visiting my brother Luke, instead.  That vacation deserves it's own post.  Absolute cluster f**k... but any who, it was great seeing Luke and Lil.

We stopped at NASA.  Super awesome day, if you get the chance.

Got home in time to meet Miles Orion Mantz.  All went well, spoiler alert, he's perfect...

I made some fancy pants for him to be Christened in.  This was a disaster as well, The pattern was HUGE for him.  I ended up having to take 3 inches off each side and shorten them by 2" AFTER they were made... A seamstress, I am not.

Of course I had to make a cake too.  I tried to do a fancy basket weave.  My buttercream was a disaster.  It was so cold out that it was either too stiff to get out of the frosting tip or it was too soft from my hands melting it... It did taste pretty good though.

Mr. Miles in his fancy pants.  Not many can pull off this look, but he did great!

The christening was the last weekend that my life was 'normal'.  The Monday following, Rich came home from work sick but refused to go to the hospital.  By Tuesday, he couldn't breathe well and he finally agreed to go in.  He never came home.  We kept him on life support, against his directive, for 3 weeks, hoping that he would pull through.  He turned 52 while he was there.  So, for the first time in my life, I find myself unsupervised...  The last 6 weeks have been an absolute nightmare.  I have lost my damn mind but can see the humor in me trying to get things done without my husband of 29 years.  So going forward, I've decided that I'm not a widow at 50.  I'm just unsupervised.

After manically rage redecorating my house for 6 weeks, I finally got sick of myself and joined some friends for a weekend of quilting.  I started this quilt sometime this last fall for my brother Luke and his wife Lil.  They've been using a quilt that I made YEARS ago for their bed that isn't bed size!  So, they asked if they could get something that fits a queen bed.  When I say years, I mean years.  It's the first hand applique project that I ever made.  So, 15 years ago, maybe?  While at their house in Oct, I spied a china plate in these colors on their counter and was relieved that the color palette might work for them.  15 years is a big commitment to a look, you know what I mean?

That same weekend, Bethany and I started line dancing again.  We'd been going every Monday over the summer and fall.  It's a lot of fun and good exercise.  You can see B in the back center.  They offer lessons on Monday nights at the Collinsville VFW.  Maybe you'd like to come by and watch me make a fool of myself.

If you want to join me in my new 'adventure' that is life unsupervised, I'll try to post about it.  It might be good therapy for me.  It might be about travel, sewing, cooking, gardening. who knows?  Do I sell the house?  Do I take a solo vacation?  More landscaping?  Buy a longarm machine?  Will I ever find out what all the keys are for?  How does one live on a quarter of the income that they're used to?  These are all questions that need to be answered and it might be funny to see how bad I am at doing things for myself.  I'll try to keep the depression to a minimum because I hate whiners and I don't want to wallow in self pity.

That all being said, hope to see you soon!