The loss of a friend

This morning at 8:15 a very good family friend passed away. Ken Irwin has been in my life for a long time. The earliest and strongest memory I have of Ken is riding in his van to Flippin AR to watch my dad and Kevin(Ken's brother) play softball. There were too many people in the van. I remember Teresa(his sister in law) sitting on a cooler between the captains chairs. I don't really remember specific details of the ride I just know it is a happy memory. I have many more memories of Ken all of his happy go lucky and caring personality. He tried to help so many kids in the area. His house was one that you could go to if you needed a place to stay or just get a way for a little while. Some of those kids took advantage of him but there are countless kids that he helped.

I am sad for his family. We lost a friend, Kevin and his siblings lost a brother, his parents lost their son and his children lost their father.

My thoughts are with his entire family. We will miss you Ken!

Winter Weather Woes

The weather forecast for this week was calling for a winter storm. They were predicting ice, sleet and snow starting Monday evening and lasting through Tuesday night. At work Monday I was secretly wishing that we would get some bad weather so the office would close. It might not have been too secret? Management made the call to close the office early so that we could get home safely before the really bad weather hit us. That gave me a pretty good indication that we would not be open on Tuesday.

My wish came true. The office was closed on Tuesday due to the weather. I thought it would be a perfect opportunity for me to work on a couple of sewing projects. I am making a hobo bag. It is a Sewing for Dummies pattern. Because I am a beginner I thought it would be perfect. I had started on it before Tuesday and had gotten extremely confused. I brought the instructions and what I had done in to work on Monday so my good pal Carrie could help me out. After reading the instructions she reassured me that I was not a dummie and the instructions were not well written. So we made it up. I did as much as I could do on my hobo on Tuesday. I will have to go back to Carrie for more instruction. I am not too good without instructions. Once I has quit working on my hobo I decided to start my yoga mat bag. Allison, Jessica and I have started doing yoga as many times a week as we can. Allison nor I had a bag to carry our mat in so we had shopped for fabric and she found a pattern online. I love completing a project. For my first one I think I did pretty good. There are a few things that bug me but I am letting those go and will make my next one better.

Management had said that we would open at 10 am this morning but I was doubtful. At 9 am my boss called and said that we had one more snow day and would open Thursday at noon. At first I was ok with that. Then I realized I had no more sewing projects to work on. I guess I shouldn't have gotten so much done yesterday.

I didn't have any projects to work on and I hadn't been to yoga since Saturday I decided to shovel snow. I know that doesn't sound as exciting as sewing or yoga but it had to be done. Maddie was having some trouble getting outside to go to the bathroom. She is short so the snow was up to the bottom of her belly. I shoveled the patio and a path in the yard so she would have an easier time. I also shoveled the driveway and put ice melt on the patio and driveway.

Hopefully I will be able to go to work tomorrow. I am starting to get cabin fever!

MLK Craft Day-Squirrley Girl Craft Co.

Monday Jan. 19th was a holiday for us at work so some of the crafty girls decided to get together at Carrie's house to work on a project. Most of the girls knitted but Carrie and I were sewing and of course we ate. Food is involved in anything we do!! I started to work on a bag that I want to make but I realized I didn't buy the right interfacing so couldn't do much with it. Good thing I brought another project. I then started making our spoiled dog Maddie a dog pillow. I got a lot accomplished on it before it was time for me to head home. This was also the first time I had gotten to use my new sewing machine that my dad bought me for my birthday.....it worked wonderfully. I was in such a sewing mood that when I got home I rearranged one of my bedrooms so I could set a card table up in there to sew. I finished sewing Maddie's pillow and while I was stuffing it she was resting her head on it as if she just knew it was hers. There is a common theme in most of my projects and that is I never seem to buy enough or all of the items needed to finish the project. I didn't buy enough filler so I left it to finish this weekend. When I came home the next night from work I had gone in there for something and noticed that the pillow had a hollowed spot in it. I realized that Maddie had been using her unfinished pillow while I was at work. It made me think she might actually use it??

You might be wondering about the Squirrley Girl Craft Co. in the Title of this post. Those crafty girls and I are going to start making items to sell with the profits helping the American Cancer Society. So look for more information on that soon. Allison has a business plan and already created an etsy account for us.

Christmas 08

Christmas this year was not as crazy as in the past. Dominique and Amillya stayed the night with us Christmas eve. Chago picked up Anthony and Mikayla mid-morning. Chago's dad and sister, Tasha came up for dinner and gifts. We had the normal spread for dinner(Turkey, Ham and all the fixins). It was really great to have all the kids here. They had a great time.

All of us decorating Santa's cookies.

Handing out presents

The aftermath!!!

Time for a haircut

As I was fixing Anthony's hair for a day roaming the streets Chago had me pick it out. This is what it looked like! We all laughed but Anthony didn't want it to stay that way. This helped me talk Chago into letting Anthony get his werhawk. That is Anthony's name for a mohawk, who knows where that came from. Later that day we took Anthony to get his haircut. I don't have a picture of his new haircut but it is very cute!

The Ring

I have mentioned before that Chago and I are now engaged. This is a picture of my engagement ring. As you can see in the picture it is not on the correct finger. I had to send it off to be sized and I won't have it back until this weekend.