Happy Birthday To Me...kind of...

So today marks another year around the Sun for me. I'm a little bit older and hopefully wiser. This birthday, however, was a real hard one for me. My mom hasn't even been gone a month yet. In fact it hasn't even been a month yet since I got my last text message from her. So things are still so freaking fresh for me, and I spent a huge amount of the day crying. Sobbing sometimes. The person who gave me this day to celebrate is no longer here and it is so freaking hard on me.

I was up most of the night crying, unable to sleep. Thinking back on things about my mom's passing and what could have been done differently. What could I have done differently? Was this completely out of my control? I'd get distracted by a phone call or talking to my husband or watching a video, and then I'd have a moment of silence and I was right back there wondering, growing angry, missing my mom, and feeling so hurt and lost. Eventually my husband and I went to Walmart to pick up some meds, a few gifts for me, and a cake and some ice cream. We went to my parents house and I spent my birthday with the hubs, my sister, and my dad. My sister sang Happy Birthday to me while I cried. LOL! I tell you, I was a mess today. After a while my husband took me to two bookstores we love and I grabbed a few discounted crochet kits to try. I'm super excited about them. In fact I need to show you all the things I got for my birthday. I was spoiled, and I appreciate it so much. It helped distract me some from the pain of having my first birthday without my mom. After the bookstores we came home, I heated up dinner, and here I am typing away. It was a bittersweet day. I am glad to have this one of many 1sts over with. I think this one will be one of the harder ones to deal with, but the holidays are coming up, so stay tuned for that.

So, I don't know what I truly believe, as my spiritual journey is ongoing, but I truly feel my mom sent me some subtle messages that she was here and she missed me and loved me. It helped me deal with the day a little bit better because we've been doing so much "finalizing" lately that its been hitting me hard mentally. Canceling appointments for her, changing her from my emergency contact, taking her name off my parents bank account and putting my name on it instead. Just a bunch of stuff that doesn't feel right to me, but it has to be done. So that is what I've been dealing with lately. That and freaking trying to crochet that dang donut!!!

This sucker is still taunting me!!! I've got the two halves done, but sewing them together is tricky. If you follow the instructions it doesn't work out right. Also his safety eyes are anything but. They keep coming apart! I might have to try melting them but I am a bit afraid of doing that, but I want them to stay in his freaking head, so I may need to try that. I first need to get his center sewn together. It seems, after some research, that I picked a horrible kit to be my return to crochet. The Dollar Tree kits are notorious for being horrible for beginners. Since I am returning to crochet, I consider myself a beginner again and omg it so horrible!!! I'm going to keep at him though. In a bit I will crawl into bed and try to crochet the center again. If I get that done I will pause until tomorrow so I can melt the eyes in the kitchen over the sink. LOL! Then I will continue sewing him together. I hope to have something to show from this kit soon. I'm ready to move on to other kits dang it! So stay tuned for that also.

That's about all I have for you lovelies today. I'm exhausted, dehydrated from all the crying I've done today, and I am just ready to call it for the day. I have another early day tomorrow so, I need to hit the hay early. I hope you all had a great Saturday today. I hope it was fun, and if you too celebrated a birthday today, I wish you the Happiest of Birthdays!!! I will talk to you all in the next post. Until then, as always, I hope you all have a magical, wonderful, splendiferous day. Bye guys!!!

Chicken and Dumplings and Things (Or how my weekend went.)

 

How was your weekend? I hope you all had a great one filled with family and friends and great food and adventures. Mine was a slightly busy one. I went over to my parents house to help sort the garage a bit because some friends were coming into town to buy one of mom's mowers off of us. Yes, I said mowers. My mom had several of them because when one would "stop working" she'd get another one. She took them in from time to time to get fixed by family friends who ran a small engine repair, but she had several in case one stopped working. We secretly believe she had undiagnosed ADHD. I'm like 99.99% sure she did, especially since it seems I have it. It was hard letting the mower go, especially since I believe it was one of my mom's favorites that she used to mow the lawn. It went to good people, and that brings me comfort. We have several more to sell, and that will help clean up the garage some. We have some other things we will need to sell as well, but slow and steady. My sister and I don't want to get rid of things too quickly because it almost feels like we are trying to erase her. Clearly we know that's not the deal, it just feels like that a little. However, we do need to keep a steady pace and cleaning things up because I need to get moved in for several reasons. So, as hard as it is, we have to keep trying to get things out of the house. We'll get there. It's just hard. 

I have a therapy appointment this evening. I've invited my sister to come with me. I think it would be good for her to hear what my therapist has to say. I want to try to encourage my sister to get a therapist. Maybe we can try to get therapy at the same place on the same day and time and have out mental health days "together". For now I will just see how she likes it and I hope she walks away from therapy feeling a bit better today.

On Sunday the husbae and I headed back over so he could finish mowing the front yard, and I could help my sister clean the house a bit and we had dinner. My dad loves making chicken and dumplings in the slow cooker, if you couldn't tell by how beat up the cookbook is. He's done it for years now. The last time he did it, however, he put okra in it. For those of you who don't know, when you cook okra it gets this slime to it. Now in other meals where you can't see the slime I am fine with okra, but in chicken and dumplings you can't avoid it. It just turned my stomach and I couldn't look at it while eating it. I only ate the dumplings and chicken out of it and left the rest. I told my mom I didn't like it and why I wasn't eating it. This thought came back to me yesterday before I went over to the house. That was the last meal I had with my mom. I was staying the night, I believe, and I was having dinner with them. I can't remember if that is the last time I saw her before the stroke. I want to say I saw her one more time after, but with the way my memory is, I honestly can't remember. I was worried I would break down over dinner, but I didn't. I served my husband and dad, sis got her own plate while I took dad's down to him, and then I served myself. I sat down with my husband and sister and we just chatted and ate and things were ok. I was in my mom's kitchen, surrounded by her things, and things were ok. It gave me some hope for the future and made me feel like she was there in spirit and letting us know we will be ok. Funny how a family meal can do that.

So, onto crafty news, remember this guy? Yeah, so I started working on him on Friday. You start with the plain donut part, or the bottom of him. He works up that you make the bottom part, then the top part and then you sew the two pieces together, stuff him, and then close him up, and then bam you have a donut. Well, while I was crocheting the bottom part, I was noticing that it was getting wavy. By the time I finished crocheting the piece it looked almost how a scrunchie looks, really wavy and tight. I knew I had done something wrong. I read and reread the instructions. I was pretty decent at reading crochet instructions back in the day, and I thought I was following it right, but I think I realized my mistake. I think the instructions were explaining to me to do one stitch in one stitch then another stitch in the next stitch, and continue that all the way around. I thought it was telling me to do both stitches in each stitch around, but after doing some Googling, I think I figured out that is wrong. So I am going to attempt him again tonight when I get home from therapy, I'll probably need a nice cool down activity to do, and we'll see if I am right. Also, omg this yarn is DISGUSTING!!! It's so freaking fuzzy and it has this weird "binding" yarn that wraps around the yarn as you crochet. This took me forever to frog. I had to take a needle and gently pry threads apart so the yarn would come loose. I also tried to undo from the beginning of the chain and work that way, which was going good until I got to a point where the yarn was splitting between stitches somehow and I needed to stop. Now that in itself was a mystery because once I finally got it all frogged from the other end, that split yarn was nowhere to be found. The yarn was all back together again. What?!? This little guy is becoming an interesting challenge. I found out on Youtube that the company that makes him also makes these kits for other dollar stores. I saw a content creator on Youtube do a haul for another dollar store and she found other kits. The kits look similar, but I knew for sure it was the same one once I saw the instructions and the yarn. So if you are on the lookout for cheap amigurumi kits to try, try looking at any dollar stores in your area, you may find some there. I will totally grab another one of these kits if I come across one, but I am looking forward to seeing if they are worth it in the end. I will update you all soon on the final results. Oh and for those wondering, yes I am using the hook from the kit, and honestly, so far so good. I know, I'm just as surprised as you are. I'll honestly be delighted if the whole kit works perfectly fine as is. Oh, there is one thing this kit forgot and I am super surprised by it. Stitch markers. They expect you to have one, but they didn't put one in the kit. I had to grab one from another kit I have here. I mean they could have popped two or even just one plastic stitch marker into the kit. Granted you can use a piece of yarn if you don't have a stitch marker, but I never liked doing that. I prefer to have something firmly gripping my stitch just in case, but a piece of yarn will work in a pinch if you find yourself without stitch markers. So if the creators of the kit ever find their way to my post, stitch markers, pop one or two in and your kit will be complete.

Now onto the final topic for this post, I've been on the hunt for doll blogs, and I am happy to say they are still out there. I'm slowly building a folder in my favorites of dolls blogs that I am finding that have been active as of this year. I might also save some that were active in December of last year as that still seems "active" to me. I plan to make a spreadsheet of the blogs, what dolls they talk about, and how active they are. Once I get a good amount of them, I'll be sharing it here with you. Like I said in my previous post, I'm not big on Tumblr blogs, so odds are they won't show up in the list. I prefer blogs that are completely about the blogger and their own original posts. Tumblr is a lot of reblogging from other blogs, and while that is cool, I feel I don't get a feel for the blog author as much. Who knows, maybe this will encourage more blog reading and encourage those blogging to keep going and maybe some who stopped blogging to come back. Hey, a girl can dream. However, to be fair, I will take a look around Tumblr just to make sure I'm not missing out on blogs that the author just posts about themselves and doesn't reblog. I don't want to miss out on gems that could be out there. I shall keep you updated. I'm also going to work on finding doll communities and make some lists for those as well. I miss my people, so may the hunt begin to find them again. 😊

And that's it for this post. Just a quick update about my weekend and what I got up to. I am hoping to get to some cool crafty things this week. I also have to do some adulting, which is never fun, but we must do what we must do. I just hope I get to some fun things too like dolls, crafting, gaming, etc. I of course will update you here on what I get up to. I hope all of you are starting your week off on a great foot and you have oodles of fun stuff ahead of you this week. If you don't have anything fun to look forward to yet this week, take today to plan for something fun, be it some reading time, going out with friends, shopping for a new collection item or hobby, or just going out and having your favorite meal. You'll have to come back and let me know what you decided to do at the end of the week. Sending the vibes out to all of you that we all end the week happy and healthy. For now I will let you go and get back to your life, thank you for taking a moment out of your day to stop by and visit me. I loved having you and look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, as always, I hope you all have magical, wonderful, splendiferous day. Bye guys!!! 

I don't know what I am doing, but I am here.

    Hey there. Long time no see. Well, like the title says, I don't know what I am doing, but I am here. So I've been wanting to come back and blog for literally years now, I've got the drafts to prove it, but for some reason I just could never do it. It seems so many people I used to follow in the blogging world have either moved on from blogging to other social media sites, have changed to Tumblr as their main blog which I am not the biggest fan of reading, or just faded away back into life. There is truly a huge hole in my blog loving heart that misses everyone, but I know times change, people change, interests change, and so goes the world. Even I have changed my focus as well. Usually I would just start a new blog when that happened, but I've decided to dust off this one and invite anyone who is interested to join me on whatever journey I may take here. So it is the first day of my birth month and I am hoping for this month to be one of peace and clarity. So trigger warning, the next part of this paragraph is going to be about the death of a loved one, if you would rather not read that, please skip to the next paragraph. So July was probably one of the hardest months for me. My mom had a stroke, and the doctors felt she wouldn't get better, so they sent her to hospice. In hospice it looked like she was getting better and may graduate from hospice and go to rehab. However that wasn't the case. She was great one day then took a turn the next. We were all still hopeful, but hours after she took a turn she was gone. Such a big presence in my life just gone like the wind. It was and still is something hard for me to come to grips with. We buried her on the 30th of July, then on the 31st I had to go to an appointment that was suppose to be a joint appointment with my mom, and they asked if she was still my emergency contact and I had to tell them she passed and changed my emergency contact to my husband. I know ultimately I should have my husband as my emergency contact, but I felt it would be easier to contact my mom in an emergency and she'd been my contact for decades so I just got lazy and didn't change it. Now over the coming months I will have to slowly change all that. One of the things I've dreaded most in life is the death of my mom, and it has happened and I'm kind of lost right now. I know life has to continue. I know I have to keep moving forward. There were plans that were being put into motion at the exact time she had her stroke. My sister was going to move in with me and my husband. My husband took vacation so we could help her move in. Instead of moving my sis in during his vacation we spent the week seeing my mom and hoping she'd get better to setting up her funeral. Also, now instead of my sis moving in with us, we are moving in with her and my dad. Literally in the blink of an eye my life has changed and for the next couple of months I will be trying to figure out where I go from here. So that was my July. I truly hope all of you reading this had a much better July. I truly mean that from the bottom of my soul. If you didn't, and even worse, if you experienced a similar situation as mine, I am so truly sorry and I encourage you to join me in focusing on making August a refresher and a time of bringing back that special spark into life. We've got this!

  So now we have a fresh new month. I want to look at each month with new eyes. I want to try to see the potential of each month and what awesome things it can bring me. This month will be a mixture of highs and lows, but I want to try to take advantage of every day as best I can. I want to return to hobbies that I have pushed pause on for so long. I want to explore some new hobbies that I tend to learn for the benefit of older hobbies. For example I learned crochet because I wanted to make crochet dolls and toys and be able to crochet clothes for my dolls. I also want to try knitting again. I think I need to refresh myself with crochet first and then attempt knitting.

    I have always loved that with crochet all you ever deal with is one loop. Knitting is a bit overwhelming because of all the loops you have to deal with and they need to be going the right way and etc., but I will attempt it again and soon. So for right now I want to focus on the MANY crochet kits I have bought over the years and create the items from them. I think my first one will be a donut amigurumi kit I bought from Dollar Tree, the little guy you see here. I am going to attempt to use the supplies that come with the kit, though everything seems really flimsy, but I want to know if its possible. Fingers crossed. 

    I'm also attempting to get back into diamond painting. I keep buying diamond paintings that I would love to see all done, but I haven't been actively working on them. I am trying to put a pause on buying, which has been working for the most part but I had a chance to get a deal on some recently so I snagged them, but for the most part I want to work on what I have. I'm ALMOST embarrassed to say I have a plastic tub of diamond paintings I have to do. I say almost because I kind of felt like I wasn't really "in" the hobby because I only owned like three of them at one time. Now that count is probably over 100 and they are all ones I want to do, I just need to sit down and get to work. I was re-inspired to do them back around mother's day to make two for my mom and mom-in-law for Christmas. I thought get them early and work on them for Christmas. I got two of them and needed to finish one more for my mom, and I was like should I give them early. I wish I had now. But because of certain events, it caused me to pause on diamond painting. I still have those and several other that I have to seal and looking at them causes me some guilt. I had no idea what would unfold, so I am trying to push through and past the guilt and try to find a way to enjoy diamond painting again.

    I returned to one that was up on "the slab" for a while now. It honestly should have been a quick one to whip up because it has a TON of color blocking, but depression is a bitch and lumped onto everything else, it just sat there. Yesterday I decided to sit down with it again and it took a while for me to get a flow but now I am excited to finish it again. Its a painting I was so excited to buy and couldn't wait to see it all put together. I am still excited for that.

    I also have some coasters I am working on as well. I won't be actually using them as coasters because the sealant I use is water-based and I kind of want to keep all my diamond paintings in one place that I can pull them out and look at from time to time. I have an under the bed storage thingie that I put them in currently. Its made of fabric, I'd like to get a plastic one some day maybe, but I feel the fabric one allows them to breathe and not get sweaty so maybe I will just kept them in that one laying flat. Yeah, I'll probably do that instead honestly. That is my current diamond painting journey right now. I will do a post soon showing off all the ones I have done so far and maybe talk about about my process, explain what "the slab" is, and talk about future diamond painting plans. 

    Now, a lot of you probably came to my blog once upon a time for dolls. Well I'm happy to tell you the dolls are still here. I have continued to follow dolls I love and every now and again I've bought some dolls to tinker with. I am trying to decide where I want to take my doll hobby. I used to be into photostories, but I think that time has passed for me. I'm not 100% sure but I honestly do think it has passed for me. I still have all the props and whatnot and I will probably be putting those up for sale for other doll hobbyist to enjoy. Keep following this space to find out if or when I do it. I know some stuff has to go, and I will just keep what I truly love. I also have a TON of stuff to unbox that I was going to do for a doll and toy unboxing Youtube channel years ago. Life hit me hard and it never really took off because of that. I still have the stuff I wanted to unbox and still want unbox the items. They are older items so people may not be interested in seeing unboxings of these items, but that is ok. I mostly want to do it for my enjoyment, and I welcome anyone who wants to come join the fun with me. I'm also trying to decide what dolls I want to collect. I realize that I would prefer more of a focus on dolls rather than having a wide variety of dolls in my collection. I'm leaning very heavily towards Blythe dolls, Asian bjds, custom made dolls, and even making my own 3d printed dolls. I will still pick up dolls from other lines that speak to me from time to time, but I really want to focus more on who I get. I feel it makes it easier to dress and share items among dolls, and it allows me to get into a community focused on those dolls. Its hard to find communities that cover a variety of dolls nowadays. I could be wrong, and I am going to do some research and start making lists of communities I find. When I get a decent list going I will share it here for you all to enjoy and use. I am really excited to jump back into the doll world. I have truly missed you guys and your dolls so much. 

    So what else do I have planned for this space? I'd like to share more of me in general. Maybe some recipes I've tried or love to cook. Maybe some news I'm excited about. Maybe keep you up to date on my current attempt to 100% Stardew Valley, yes that is currently in the works. My thoughts on books I've read or movies I've seen. Or maybe I simply want to share a sunset with you all to help you end your day on a high note. I've got so many plans, I've got a sticker business I've started with my sister I want to share with you as well as a business I will be starting that will be a sister business to the one I've started with my sister. Just so much I want to do and share and I'm excited for it. I would love to have you all here along the ride with me. Be sure to bookmark the blog and follow along with me and whatever chaos will come. 

    Thank you for reading my return to blogging post. This was literally a long time coming. I still have so much to update you guys on. Like it just hit me, that last time I posted here I was single, and I mentioned my husband earlier in the post. Yeah, I'm a Mrs. now! We got married on Halloween in 2019. We had a church wedding in jail. What?!? I know, that doesn't make sense. Damn, I should have brought this all up in the next post. This one is a long one already. I hate being that person, but yeah, I will update you on that in the next post. Promise! Until the next post, I want to thank you all again for reading. If you are a returning reader, welcome back! If you are a new reader, welcome to my world! It feels good to be back. I leave you all with a beautiful fluffy cloudy sky to calm your day. I will see you all next time. Until then, as always, I hope you all have a magical, wonderful, splendiferous day! Bye guys!!!