The Faery Glade

Yeah, I'm done with that..
It’s February alright. I’m tired of snow and cold (yet another 8 inches of snow on Monday). The annual BB blow-ups are occurring. I’m tired of the colour white—thank God I haven’t tried to stitch on anything white. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t succeed. The hereditary Seasonal Affective Disorder is starting to seriously kick my ass every year, which is no surprise. I’ve watched it get worse and worse in my mom over the years. I’m hanging on to my bi-polar management by a very thin thread. Which brings me to my point today, my topic. There are some things that I’ve just decided I’m done with. I’m through thinking about them. I’m seriously over talking about them. And I’m DONE worrying about them.

1. My aborted trip to Nashville: It was sad, and painful. But in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t a major catastrophe. I don’t know who caused the issues. I will never know. Now, I’m done with worrying or thinking about it. I refuse to speculate, or try and figure it out. It’s impossible. It can’t be figured out by any other means than calling Nashville organizes and demanding the information. And you know what? It’s NOT worth it. I really don’t care who it was anymore. What I care about most was the amazing show of support, love and commiseration I got from so many on the board. I was able to see how I’m truly seen by those I respect, and even by those who don’t really know me. It was incredible, and I was in tears of joy more than tears of sorrow when I saw that many see me as honorable, with integrity and honesty. That means more to me than a trip. So I’m done with that.

2. Board controversy & strife: I’m learning I can’t fix everything, even if I’m friends with all parties involved. I’m learning it’s not my JOB to try and keep things smoothed out. My only responsibilities are what *I* say and do. Therefore, I will only concentrate on my own actions and reactions. I will not involve myself in personal conflicts and problems. I will love my friends, and learn about and get to know new people. I will cultivate patience (don’t choke, I’m seriously trying). I will actually concentrate on *stitching* on the stitching boards. Imagine how much more stitching I will get done.

3. Closed-mindedness: You might think this is more centered in number 2, but in reality I’ve just about had it with this in my everyday life as well. I’m done worrying about or freaking out about closed minded people. If you aren’t open to new ideas, that’s not my problem-and that was the “collective you” I’m referring to. I’m open to all SORTS of ideas… if I wasn’t, I’d never have found half of my friends on the boards, I’d never have branched into specialty stitches, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have taken over my daughter’s Brownie Troop.

4. My house: I’m done worrying about the fact I’m not Martha Stewart or June Cleaver. My house is lived in and damn messy. It’s a piece of crap house that’s falling apart. I can’t fix it all right now. I can’t fix it all tomorrow. I’m taking it one day at a time, and I’m done apologizing for it.

I’m sure there’s more for my list if I really think about it. But right now I’m having my own little crisis in my Brownie troop involving some missing tickets for Disney on Ice this Friday. I seriously have some more important things to do right now.

Y’all take care of yourselves. No one else will. :)

It's been a week
One full of ups and downs, to be sure. I think I'm on some cosmic junket with regards to health. I was sick, probably 98% of December. It was awful. January and up until this last week have been good, relatively smooth. I should have known the train was coming back around. Last week it was headaches and sinus stuff. This week it's still that, but throw in a UTI for fun. yeah... anything but. So I'm sick again, what's new--what's next.

I've been stitching...got a great portion of Mystery 8 part 2 done, and I'm officially done with Part 1 except the beading. *wahooo!* Chatelaines are going to be the death of me, but OH what a way to go!

Ya'll take care of yourselves :)

Not as okay as I thought...
So the Nashville reports have started, and The designs being released this time are lovely and more incredible than I thought. As I sat looking through the various pictures, reports, etc last night... I realized that I'm not as "okay" with what happened as I thought I was. By no means does that indicate any upset with my LNS, at ALL. I would NEVER have been upset with their business decision, and I agree with it 100%. It is the vile, small, jealous person who used a lie to strip this from me that is the direction of my fury.
It truly isn't that I didn't get to go see all the new designs first--but more that I wasn't able to meet people I admire, and friends of my heart. My LNS owner ran into Jennifer Aikmen-Smith of Dragon Dreams waiting for her shuttle on Friday morning. Which means I would have been in the same hotel. I *love* Dragon Dreams designs, I have at least 35 of them (which is not holding a *candle* to Misty, but hey). It would have been a dream to sit and chat with her (and to feel like a pudgy hobbit next to her! LOL). Or meeting Nan Caldera of Just Nan. Wow, would I have been overjoyed. Her band sampler charts (I have nearly 100 of her designs in my stash) have brought me so much stitching joy, and were the push I needed to really learn to stitch specialty stitches. I regret that I wasn't able to thank her in person. It would have been lovely to see Jo Fisher again, and to see in person how she finished the model I did for her, the Celtic Birth Sampler. It was the first model I'd done for a designer of a design no one else had seen. I enjoyed every second of it. And to be able to shake hands with the Fantasy Queen Herself, Teresa Wentzler--I have met her once before at CATS Hershey. She is from a town very close to where I grew up. I totally bungled my first meeting with her.. she's so much taller than her chart pictures look! She is a lovely graceful lady, and my treasured picture with her was lost with my computer crashed. I had had hopes of taking another. *smiles*
And then, there's the friends of the heart that I missed out on. Dana (thutmosis) has been such a sweet, dear friend. I think I was almost more excited to meet her finally! Wendy, whose birthday I have missed now Happy Birthday Wendy!. She and her husband were coming to meet me-I was going to have a surprise for her! Tastykake snacks-from Pennsylvania. A favourite childhood treat for both of us. Cheryl (momstitches) was there too. I would have loved to see her beautiful stitching, and meet her face to face.
Ah well. No, I'm not as okay as I thought. I will be, and I struggle to come to terms with some things that I am trying to teach my daughter. Life is not fair. Truth doesn't always win. People can be very cruel. Protect your heart.
Take care of yourselves.

More Lessons...
For a quasi New Year's resolution..I decided I needed to be more of a presence on the various BB's I'm a part of. I used to be quite active, and then quite some time ago, my life pretty much fell apart--it boiled over to my board presence and I disappeared. When I came back, I stayed low... quiet. Out of sight, out of mind, so to speak. I have friends and acquaintances I would speak to in email, or AIM or Yahoo. But I would rarely post on boards, and very *rarely* start a thread. So..this year, I decided I should be more involved in this community that has given much to me. Meet new people, be more vocal.

I'm learning that wasn't such a good resolution. It opens me up to new people and new ideas, yes. It also opens me up to disapproval, pain, and anger. The lesson I learned today is that I can't react rationally when I feel someone is trying to tell me how to parent my child, when they don't *know* my child. Or commenting on my child's behaviour, when they don't really know her, or seem to listen to descriptions of her. Especially if those people either don't have children, or (like my parents) raised their kids long ago. That isn't the other people's fault, to be sure. I have little ability to put distance between myself and the subject... I'm not sure how much distance I would *want* to put there in dealing with her. Parenting a severe ADHD child can test saints, and is far beyond the realm of regular parenting. Trust me, I'm no saint nor am I any way, shape or form a candidate for Mother of the Year. But I love my daughter, and keep trying to find ways to help her grow and mature.

For now, though... I think subjects dealing with my daughter need to stay *off* the boards.

A Lesson to be learned...
Isn't that what your parents told you after any disappointment in your life? Or after something that was perhaps very painful? I know my mom told me that everytime, and often. There was a lesson to be learned in my first heartbreak, and another being the only fat, unpopular girl in my class. If you asked me the ultimate event I learned a "lesson" from, it would have been my 16th birthday party. I am a summer baby, which meant I had to give invitations at the end of school, and hope people remembered. They didn't. I stood in my pink & white decorated basement, and was crushed. Not Surprised, mind you, but crushed. Until this week, I would have said that was close to the most unfair "lesson" I'd ever had to learn.

Until this week. I am working very hard at trying to find the "good" in what's happened to me this week. Perhaps it is that my daughter obviously needed me, and therefore it's good I didn't get to go to Nashville. Perhaps it was the snowstorm moving in, or something I don't yet know. But there must be *something*, right? Because otherwise the complete and utter unfairness of what someone did to me this week will forever live in memory as the "worst" lesson learned. I did nothing wrong, and yet was accused of things that most who know me, know I wouldn't do. I am missing the opportunity to meet people I refer to as "family of the heart", and it is basically because of someone who either hates me - personally or for the chance I was getting, or someone so petty and worried about competition they would willingly say something not only untrue, but VERY destructive about me. That is what makes me hurt, and angry. It was SO CLEAR I wasn't doing what I was accused of, but yet it didn't stop someone from making an accusation. The snowball effect was .... painful. People I've come to care about felt perhaps trapped, perhaps nervous--and made the only decision they could have--one in fact that I would have insisted upon, had I known about the problem. But it still hurts I won't get to meet Dana, or Wendy, or perhaps Cheryl. I am sorry, to all of you for the disappointment. I'm grateful, too, for the support and sweet kind words I've read. It helps to know that people really do believe I am honorable, and act with integrity. That helps so much.

I wanted to rave and cry about the unfairness of life--but it is what it is. People I wanted to 'take care of' with my attention to detail on this trip will still mostly be taken care of. The quiet time I desperately needed will *sorta* come on Saturday. Today, my angelbaby and I are having a "mental health" day. We might have another one tomorrow. I *want* to have a massive retail therapy spree, but being the responsible, bill paying adult I've become (snorts) I can't do that. Not that I *need* more stash anyways. I am trying to soothe my soul in other ways. I am concentrating on the positive. I'm giving my little girl LOTS of hugs. There's not much else I can do, but I'm working on making that enough.

Ya'll take care of yourselves, K ? **hugs* to you all.

A Finish for me!
I have done a model this year for DinkyDyes, a teeny finish for a gift (2"x2")and now I've finished a WIP that was a gift to me from a dear friend. This one is all mine! I proudly present Just Nan's Pearl Orchid.

Well, you chose to move there!
If you know me, even slightly, you know I'm not an outdoors person. There's a lot of other things I'm *not* on a serious basis, like a morning person, but I'm really not an outdoors person. When it's summer, there's bugs, and the heat, when it's springtime, there's the hatching spiders and the rain... in the autumn, after the gorgeous colours-all those leaves fall, bringing in ants, and mess. But there's a special season reserved for the most direct loathing, in my eyes.

Winter. Cold. Snow. Freezing temperatures, slippery roads, people driving either so conservatively they are a menace, or people driving without a seeming care in the world, which is a whole different type of danger. Snow... that really pretty white stuff... I like to see it on the trees, on the yard, perhaps even on the house. But isn't there something that could be done about it falling on the roads ? Did I mention cold? I am not a good "cold" person. I whine. I moan. I hibernate. Yes, I am much like a big fat bear, in more ways than one.

So... hating winter as I do, and cold, and definately snow..WHY am I living in New Hamster .. I mean New Hampshire? Home of the Frozen North (sorta). Where this year alone we've already had about 30 inches of snow? THIRTY INCHES. probably a bit more. Where today, when my child has off school, and I have a full day of errands, stitch-shopping-where she was going to start learning to stitch, and I was going to get to spend time at my awesome LNS, take my bright child to lunch at Pizza Hut where she gets a free pizza for being an awesome reader, and grocery shopping (yes I'm one of those nuts that enjoys grocery shopping)... today when I have ALL that planned, scheduled and happily plotted, it dumps FIVE INCHES of SNOW on me overnight. Not just snow. Heavy, WET wnow. All the schools in the area are delayed. NH got a sucker punch surprise, no one was really prepared for it. Beautiful.

So, why am I here ? Well women have done stupider things for Love. My DH lived here when I met him, and I moved here, for Love. While a noble reason (and I love my DH and adore our married life, my life being infinitely better now) I really think I didn't plot that out all the well. True Love is blind they say... I disagree. Right now, True Love is just damned cold and buried under snow.

What a Whirlwind lately!
Lots of things have happened in the last little while! The biggest and best, of course, is that I have the most awesome LNS! They've asked me to go along to Nashville Market for them as a buyer!! It's incredible, and I'm so excited. Not only will be I be there, seeing new designs, threads, colors, etc... before they actually hit the market, BUT it's 3 1/2 days away from my house! No DH, no DD...heavenly. Mind you I love my family, but *I* never get a vacation!

My Brownie troop really outdid themselves! We've sold over 1600 boxes of cookies so far...They all want to go to camp! I think about 100 of those boxes are for the Operation Solider for the Troops in Iraq. We can still take orders too, so some of the girls will have even higher numbers :)

Stitching--I've fallen desperately in love with Mystery 8 from Chatelaine. The second part came out on the 1st, and someone has it done already. It's stunning. I can't believe I will actually be stitching something so gorgeous. This second part uses my all time favourite Silk'n Color too!! Medieval Mulberry-Yum! In fact, I'm off to stitch now!

Take care of yourselves, and be good!