Life is back to normal

I normally live a quiet life, stitching, reading and going to cross-stitch retreats.  Lately I have been busy doing some major cleaning and purging of some stuff (okay, call it junk) trying to get my house cleaned up.  And of course getting things ready for the craft fair.  In the midst of all this, I received a call from my brother asking if I would like some company for a few days...I was kinda of hesitant because my friend Roberta is coming to visit but then he told me it would only be for a few days.  So I had some lovely company, my Dad got to see them and my brother and his wife got to visit the grandchildren a lot.  We all had a lovely time and now they are back home and my life is quiet once more.....well relatively....I'm still trying to purge and organize.  My neighbour who is quite handy built me some shelves that fit the plastic boxes that I have all my material in, so now my aida cloth is in one bin with another for the overdyed aida as well as a couple of other boxes for my evenweaves.  They look awesome, he did a lovely job and now I  have easy access to my fabrics.  Now I need another shelving unit for the smaller boxes, lol.  But I can wait for that one.  That's it for today. Hugs Louise.

A Very Successful Craft Fair

Hello, how are you today.  I am simply chuffed (as my British sister-in-law) would say, in other words...I am very, very happy.  We had a successful day at the craft fair, we raised .... drum roll please.... $800!!!! Wow,  I was hoping that maybe, if we were lucky, we would get $500 but we surpassed that.  When I say we, I mean Manon and myself, Manon is a wonderful lady that I had the pleasure of working with for many years and I am very fortunate that she wanted to keep in touch with me after I retired.  It was Manon who suggested that I get a table at the craft fair (at work) and we could raise some money for the FOP as well as raise awareness of this rare disease.  She loves to do some crafts and she made the cutest little bath mitts (shaped like a kitten, a whale and a snowman) this year and they were so successful that she took orders for several more.  I cannot thank her enough for her help and her support in helping me with these craft fairs.  To all the people who bought some goodies, thank you for supporting us.  Big hugs, Louise

November 1st - where has the time gone

I am definitely overdue in posting, my sister called me to ask if I was still alive....hmmmm, yup!  So what have I been doing over the past couple of months, to be honest - not a heck of a lot.  I visited my friends Roberta and Peggy in Massachusetts in August - the aim was to get a lot of quilting done.  Welllll, hmmmm, I took lots of fabric down there with me.... and of course I did bring my stitching with me and did I get a lot done? - that would be an emphatic no. (Big sigh)  However, I did enjoy the week spent visiting, we laughed and chuckled and laughed some more, I wish I lived closer than the 8 hour drive but hey that's life.  So what else has happened, I have been busy with my Dad - some days more than others.  I realize how fortunate I am to still have him here.  He will be celebrating his 90th birthday in January but there was times this past year when I wondered if he would even make it to his 90th birthday.  He has been so frail this past year and has started to develop some health problems and after much nagging (I do admit it, I was nagging him) he has finally started to use a cane or his walker when he goes out.  And that only started 2 months ago (I won't tell you how long I was after him to use a cane).  That said, I make sure that I talk to him every day just to make sure that he is doing okay.  I have to laugh because some of the conversations are very short (less than a minute), while others we talk and laugh for at least 5 minutes!! I am enjoying the time that I have with him because I know that he won't be around forever.  So if I might be so bold and suggest something to you, tell your loved ones that you love them because we never know how long we will live or how short our life may be.  On that note, love you dearly, take care of yourselves. Big hugs, Louise