Super Sprout celebrated a super 4th Birthday recently…we vaporized villians, went to the bat cave, practiced our super hero skills – all great fun.  I’ll be sharing the details coming soon right here including my pattern for our super hero capes!

(someone please tell me how on earth this sweet baby girl has turned 4 already!!  Now…if only I could talk the Gardener into adding one more sprout to our pea patch.  I keep telling him the 4th time around – will be a boy for sure!  But with 3 girls, I don’t think I have him convinced!)

Sometimes I keep the stuff I find and makeover.  Sometimes I give it away.  It’s just fun to recreate something and save it from the landfill.

Here’s one of my latest :: a new lamp for Sprouts bedroom.

THIS is what it looked like the day I saved it from the thrift store.  

A little spray paint to the base…

…and I added some doodles with my paint pen.

Then I covered the shade in fabric scraps and buttons…

In all, this project took me : 5 minutes or less to spray the base.  5 minutes with the doodles on the base once the paint dried.  10 minutes to add the fabric and buttons.  Pretty quick and Sprout loves it…it’s in her room currently but I’m thinking about stealing it for my sewing room!

Have you any thrift store decor makeovers you love?  Your own or someone else’s?  Share a link in the comments…

{you might like THIS POST too!}

Trish Thanks so much for this class/pattern! I finished my bag today! I have to confess, I am something of a “bag addict”, and this is one of the fastest, easiest patterns I have found, your instructions were so easy to follow. I loved the videos, I could almost make the bag just by watching the videos alone! Thanks so much! I’ve aattached a picture of my bag!

Thanks so much for joining Jan and I for our fun Happy Earth Day giveaway.  Jan gave away a lovely bundle of her fabrics and my patterns on her blog and I am giving away THIS…

…and HELEN, #98, this package is just for you!  Congrats and thanks again for sharing your great Earth Day Everyday tips with us!  My favorite I think was the worm composter someone had in their kitchen!

If you’d like to learn more about textiles and the environment…join Jan on her blog for her series of conversations , Growing Organically.

I have a fun “makeover” of a thrift store find coming up next on my blog…

Dream.  Come.  True.

And so, I carry this love for the environment with me, forever.  And into my sewing business too.  Which is why when I meet people in this industry who are like minded – it just makes me very happy.

Back in 2010, I had the pleasure to meet Jan DiCintio of Daisy Janie at Quilt Market in Houston.  Kindred spirits.  Jan and I chat frequently about kids, health, business and our shared love for the environment.  Jan is an amazing designer who self produces an organic fabric line.  Any chance I can get to support what she does for the love of our earth…I love to do it!

As a sewing pattern designer, it is such a joy when I get to feature amazing fabrics in my projects.  Even more amazing when they are GOTS certified organic fabrics.  It is of no surprise that I have used two of Jan’s latest lines on two of my newest patterns.

Here’s the best part about this fabric and pattern relationship Jan and I have…to celebrate EARTH DAY…we are giving away a fat quarter bundle AND patterns!  We are giving two packages away : one on each of our blogs.

Shades of Grey is such a great line.  I can find a million ways to use this line – if you follow what I do, I’m not shy about color.  Which is why I love pieces like this that balance out those pops of color – I love it to create monochromatic themed projects too!  I used this line on my new pattern, The Date Night Clutch.  Check out the cover photo on my facebook page for another peek at this bag.  Here’s one of our giveaway packages:

Giveaway Package #1: 
- 1 Date Night Clutch pattern
- 1 fat quarter bundle of Shades of Grey
- 1 surprise home dec pattern from Trish
- 1 surprise scrap pack of fabric from Jan

Then Jan came out with Tilly!  Oh, sweet wonderful Tilly!  Hard to resist with great colors that just happen to match just about all of my home decor!  I see new curtains and chair covers in my future with Tilly.  I was super excited to feature Tilly on my newest pattern…and come to think of it – I haven’t even introduced this pattern to all of you yet.

So here is her grand debut (although, she started shipping to stores almost 3 weeks ago) - Always a Bridesmaid Clutch.  Giveaway package 2!

Giveaway Package #2:
- 1 Always a Bridesmaid bag Pattern
- 1 fat quarter bundle of Tilly
- 1 surprise home dec pattern from Trish
- 1 surprise scrap pack of fabric from Jan

Of course, you need not have a wedding or prom in mind to make either of these bags.  They would make great date night bags for dinner out with your favorite guy and being a Mom of a toddler – either bag could also make a super stylish diaper / wipes accessory bag.

The Date Night Clutch comes with a version with a zipper and one with a tabbed magnetic snap closure.  The Always a Bridesmaid bag folds open to create a larger bag, tuck the flap down behind the tie or secure it with a snap and add a lovely fabric flower brooch.

(you can also catch a glimpse of another sweet friend of mine and fav designer, Jennifer Paganelli of Sis Boom whose fabrics are featured on version B of this bag)

How to enter our Happy Earth Day Giveaway…

1) One entry, leave me a comment sharing your best every day earth day tip that you and your family live by.

2) Extra entries – like Daisy Janie and Two Peas on Facebook.  Leave a separate comment for each.

 PLUS – Jump over to the Daisy Janie blog and enter there too!

• Giveway ends on Sunday, 4/22 at midnight EST.
• 1 winner will be chosen from the Two Peas entrants to win Package #2.
• Winner will be chosen by a random number generator
• 1 entry per person. Dupes will be deleted.
• Open to US & International entries.
• Fabric not to be resold!
• Winners will be announced on Monday, 4/23.

(Earth Day is on Sunday, April 22nd!)  Maybe celebrate Earth Day by making up some of Jan’s produce bags (and say no to plastic!).

Our family’s best every day earth day tip :: Compost!  We compost food scraps and recycle most of our waste.  It takes us 4 to 5 weeks to actually fill our garbage can for trash pick up.  Typically, we have one kitchen trash bag per week from our entire house of 5, working to make that even less.  We start with a sink side compost container.  We dump that daily into a larger container off of our back deck.  And then the Gardener (my hubs) rolls that one down to our garden and dumps it onto our compost pile to make garden gold!

With any luck, this giveaway will at the very least teach you a little more about why purchasing products that support sustainability are important.  Be sure you read HERE - all the great things that Jan has shared about why this part of sustainable agriculture is critical in her Growing Organically series.  I could go into all of the science of it – this stuff I roll around in at my day job working at the university in environment and natural resources – but the reality is that our global population is growing and in order to feed the world we need to take care of our soils, our water, our air, our planet.  It’s that simple.  Be good to the planet.  In everything you do.

Happy Earth Day!

I have a small obsession with the What I Wore Wednesday posts over at the Pleated Poppy.  I LOVE to see what outfits everyone puts together and get ideas on how to refashion what I have in my closet to make new outfits.  Love, love, love these posts.

I decided to join in today.

OK…so it goes something like this.  I love the whole colored tights trend that has been going on for awhile now.  I’ve not ever been brave enough to try it myself.

But, while shopping recently, I found these mustard colored tights on the super duper clearance rack.  $1.99?  Yes, please.  I can be adventurous for $1.99.

So I googled “how to wear colored tights” – and I found what I thought, was something suitable in my closet to put together with the tights.  Hence, this.

Sweater – Kohl’s, clearance (like 8 years ago!)
Dress – Ann Taylor LOFT, clearance
Belt – Ann Taylor LOFT, clearance
Tights – Kohl’s. clearance
The best pair of shoes I’ve ever owned in my entire life, Kohl’s  (seriously. I just got these – with memory foam and the softest insides ever!)

The color is off a bit in the picture because the sweater and the tights are actually very similar in color than they appear in the photo.

The Gardener,(aka my hubby) said, “You look like an Ompa-Loompa from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”.  Thanks honey.  The “internet” said that when you wear colored tights – to match your shoes.  I had some cute metallic gray heels but I went with the matchy-matchy thing.

I went on to work.  I told the girls I work with what my husband said.  They bust out laughing.  And then said, he was right and don’t ever wear that again.  Bahaaha!  Oh my.

Ok, colored tights FAIL.

My only saving grace, the Gardener said my hair looked fabulous.  I think he wants something.  But, I was kinda having a good hair day.  You know how that is.  Doesn’t happen very often.

So, help me out.  How the heck do I wear colored tights?  Or do I not wear them?  (please don’t call the fashion police on me!)

]]> http://twopeasinapoddesigns.com/2012/04/what-i-wore-wednesday-2/feed/ 0 http://twopeasinapoddesigns.com/2012/04/confidence-and-peace/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=confidence-and-peace http://twopeasinapoddesigns.com/2012/04/confidence-and-peace/#comments Sat, 07 Apr 2012 15:46:58 +0000 Trish http://twopeasinapoddesigns.com/?p=3932 Continue reading →]]>

Where have YOU been?

Who ME?  

I’ve been on a journey.  See…I blog for my 3 girls.  For me.  For my family.  For my friends.  To share with you some of my crafting and some of my heart from time to time.  And as of late, my heart has just been unable to speak words.

February 1st, Uncle Mel died.  My husbands uncle.  My husband grew up with him being more like a brother since they were so close in age.  But in recent years, he’d been the other “father in law” I’d ever known (my husbands own father died almost 30 years ago) and Mel had stepped in and been a guiding light for our family.  We had grown close over the recent years and we know now that was such a blessing.  It takes time for your heart to feel like it can go on.

4 weeks and 6 days later, my dear sweet friend Kris passed away.  A homeschooling mother of 5.  A courageous and generous and loving woman who I miss terribly.

One day, years and years ago when I used to do home trunk shows and sales of the Two Peas stuff, I got an email from a woman who said she enjoyed my blog and had I ever considered having a sales rep?  She went on to tell me she lived in Columbus, Ohio and was a homeschooling Mom of 5 and looking for some small income and job on the side.

I wrote her back telling her that I too lived in Columbus (she didn’t know that at the time she emailed me) and offered to meet her for coffee sometime.  She wrote back telling me exactly which suburb she lived in (Columbus proper is over 1 million people and the suburbs total way way more than that and covers a pretty large area as our state capitol) so we could make plans.

Would you believe we lived in the exact same town?  Not only that but we lived within 3 miles of each other.  And when we met for coffee at the local coffeehouse, she went on to tell me about the church she and her family were considering joining.  It was the church we belonged to.  Kris and I were friends from that day on.  We bonded over sewing, over kids, over our church.  Her kids were on swim team with my girls.  We chatted about 4H and lots of other things.

And then a little more than a year ago, she got sick.  I had sent her an email asking for help with some sewing projects and she responded, asking, had I seen the note she posted on facebook.  I hadn’t.  I read it and my heart dropped.  She had been diagnosed with cancer, thymoma.  Over the next year, I joined in with countless friends and family to help bring meals to her family and clean house for her while she fought.  I prayed for her a lot.  Every single day.  Many times.  But her healing just didn’t happen here on earth.  The end of January, her family had a birthday party for her and I felt in my heart, I was saying goodbye.  A month later, she passed.

Hard stuff.  Hard stuff for my heart to handle.

Last week, my husbands best friend got married.  Joy.  My husband, the Gardener, he was the best man and our little Sprout was the flower girl. When we walked into church for the wedding rehearsal, we walked into the area where my friend Kris had laid at her memorial service – where I last saw her earthly body – and said one final goodbye to my friend.  We walked into this joyous occassion and I had to turn around and walk right back to the restroom to have a cry.  My two peas had much of the same reaction.  They said they could “feel” Ms. Kris there in that place.  I did too.

So my heart has been on this journey.  And although there is sadness – I don’t want this post to be about grief.

In this sadness, I have actually been given amazing gifts that I feel incredibly blessed to receive.

In these last couple of months, this little journey has brought me to confidence and peace.

I had the gift of being able to care for my family when Mel died.  I shared very intimate conversations and time with my husband and I got to love him even more than before.  He has been through a lot in his life and being able to comfort him and share life with him, good and bad, has been a blessing for me.

I shared a lot of my rollercoaster kind of feelings with my Pastor recently – after Mel died, I had not been back to church for awhile.  It was too hard.  But what I felt in my life was that God was changing me.  And I have been thinking a lot about death.  In a good way.  About meeting death with confidence.  About peace.  Because death – in my faith as a Christian – is not the end.  But I had not yet reached the place in my life that I fully rested in that truth or the promise of eternity.

Tomorrow is Easter.  My Pastor asked me if I would read a scripture verse at our Good Friday service last night and if I would share something personal about my thoughts on this scripture.  Tricky.  He knew I had not been in a “good” place lately.  Or maybe I have been in a very good place.  My scripture verse I choose was Luke 23: 44-46.

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining.  And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.  Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.”  When he had said this, he breathed his last.

One of my girls drew the picture above for me while we were sitting in church last night before I went up to speak.  Wishing me Good Luck. What I shared was that Jesus had willingly took the torturous pain and burden of our sins.  He knowingly came to the cross.  And he confidently came to death – He was not afraid, His life had not been TAKEN but that He had GIVEN His life for ours.

But I’ve never had that confidence.  I don’t think I’ve ever trusted in God enough to be at peace with what eternity is, whatever it is.  And when I think back to Mel, in his final moments, he showed tremendous courage and faith.  He wasn’t scared.  He was ready.

My friend Kris, she fought hard for the sake of her kids but ultimately, she was not afraid because she knew where she was headed.

When I think about my Grandma Beatrice before she passed, even years before she passed, she would tell me she was ready.  I never understood that peace.  But she would ask me all the time if I had accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and had I asked Him into my heart.  I would be annoyed with her because of course I had – being raised in the church and all.

But in my adult life – I have found that it’s not something you do just once.  At least not for me.  Because my life with Christ – my confidence and peace in my faith comes and goes.

When Jesus was in that dark place on Good Friday, He was outside of the kingdom of God and in pain from the burden of all of our sins, and He did that to free us so that we might have eternity.  He did that so that when we come to death, we can meet it with confidence and peace knowing that it isn’t goodbye – it is, see you later.

I have created in my life, my own personal Hell at times – I am a sinner.  I have done things I am not proud of.  I am ashamed.  And those things can really weigh you down.

But in these last couple of months, in grief, I have found great joy.  And Peace.  Because I’m finding my own confidence.  My faith has been strengthened.

I have NOT ONCE.

NOT TWICE.

But many times over in the course of my lifetime, I have asked Jesus to be my Lord and Savior and I have asked Him to come into my heart, and forgive me of my sins.  And each time I do, I think about my Grandma Bea, and her teaching me those words.

And in sorrow, I’m finding peace and confidence because I believe that my sins are washed clean.  I believe I can have second chances to do better, be better.  I believe in the promise of eternity.  I believe I can move forward in my life, unburdened, made anew, without fear, without worry – that I can be like Mel, and Kris, and my Grandma Bea.

That I can find peace and confidence.

So, I haven’t been here in blog land much lately because my heart has been on a journey.  It didn’t feel right to come here until the time was right to share what God has been doing in my life.

And Easter – Resurrection Sunday – is the perfect time.

For Hope.  For Blessings.  For Rebirth.  For Forgiveness.  For Courage.  For Strength.  For Promises.  For all of us.

I ended my sharing at our Good Friday service by quoting a song I love by contemporary Christian artist Matt Maher called “Christ is Risen”.  (find it on iTunes – you’ll love it).

“Oh death.  Where is your sting?

Oh Hell.  Where is your victory?

Oh Church.  Come stand in the light.

Our God is not dead.  He is alive.  He’s alive.”

Happy Easter and Many blessings to your family.  Thanks for sharing my journey and being patient while I ride the ride.

My two sweet peas celebrated their 11th birthday with a fun tween theme of Alice in Wonderland.  This was a great theme because it was fun and whimsical but also sophisticated enough that they felt really special with the grown up touches to the party.

I thought I’d share what all we did for our party to inspire you – it was fun to put together!  I think this party could be done for just about any age.  Plus, this gave me an excellent excuse to go thrift store shopping – bonus!  So, here’s how our Alice party went…

Invitations – I found some great graphics from google and also the graphics fairy to create these postcard invitations printed front and back  (the peas are not actually named Lily and Emily – we fudged them, they like their privacy.  Tweens!)  We hand delivered each invitation with a teapot cookie that Aunt Carla made for the girls (they were AMAZING cookies – these photos from my phone don’t do them justice!).  

Decorations – I HAD to go to at least 5 different thrift shops to find all of the teacups and saucers.  Twist my arm.  Love junk shopping!  I scored these great Johnson Brothers china teacups at one shop and was so excited.  They match my dishes – I have  a different pattern but they are very similar!

Cupcake plates!  To make the cupcake plates, use super glue or an epoxy and glue the saucers to the candlesticks.  These were used as our treat plates during the party and we also let each girl take them home as one of their favors.  They could use them to hold jewelry or a candle, etc.  Most plates were 59 cents, candlesticks 99 cents…pretty cool deal I think!  I found the teapots at the thrift store too…and added some faux flowers and birds from the dollar store.  The other decorations that hung from the ceiling were also from the dollar store with all the Easter stuff.

Playing card garland – also from the dollar store, I punched a couple of holes into each card and strung them up to create a garland.

I also used a roll of craft paper and poster board to create the rabbit hole by cutting out the hole and adding some mushrooms.  We hung this in the doorway to the party room and the kids had to crawl through.  That was a lot of fun!  Of course, we added a few arrows saying, This Way, That Way, and The Other Way!  And arrows over each birthday girls seat with their names on the arrows.  A mix and match of table coverings and chairs to mimic the Mad Hatter’s tea party worked great – we just used what we had on hand.

I also added “drink me!” and “eat me!” tags to the teacups and plates as well as to some little bottles I thrifted.

As each guest arrived, we gave them a ticket for the movie.  We had them pretend to drink from the bottle that said “drink me” and then showed them to their seats.  We had the Alice in Wonderland movie set up (there is a great 1999 version that is a modern update to the classic – NOT the Johnny Depp version!).  When we brought them into our family room, we had a row of chairs set up from the girls American Girl and Barbie houses and pretended that they must have grown and therefore, wouldn’t fit on our seats.  They thought that was funny!  Then we watched the first half of the movie, up to the tea party scene…that made them hungry and so we went out to the party room and ate.

Queen of Hearts - of course, there HAS to be the Queen of Hearts!  I obliged and surprised my girls when I came down in a red ruffly shirt, black sweater and skirt and one of their huge hair bows on my head.  I painted some craziness on my eyelids and added a heart to my cheek and embarrassed them by talking in some weird British accent most of the day.  The Gardener had his Mad Hatter hat on for all of 5 minutes.  Sprout thought we both just looked funny!

I found a mirror at a thrift shop and I’m going to hang it in my sewing room but I used it on the food table for the party – it was really pretty.  We served fruit and veggie trays with ranch dressing and peanut butter dips, chocolate covered strawberries and pretzels, and pink lemonade and sweet tea, of course!  Maybe because the girls were all dressed up or maybe because we were using real glass serving ware but they were so well behaved at the tea party…it was funny!  Not that I expected them to not behave but they were all being very proper and using such nice manners.  

Games and Crafts – I think it goes without saying, if you have an Alice in Wonderland party, there will be croquet.  So…Ohio this time of year, well, it was windy, overcast and barely 40′ outside BUT darn it, we did play croquet!  And the kids loved it!

We also set up a photo booth which was really fun!  Being close to St. Patrick’s Day and Mardi Gras, I was able to easily find fun crazy glasses and hats at the dollar store.  The kids could put on whatever and pose in front of the backdrop which was plastic table cloths hung from the ceiling along with balloons and some playing cards.  We turned on some music and they had a blast snapping shots.  Even Sprout went crazy with all the big kids (she’s such a trooper – she’s been icky sicky with a cold all week).

We made these simple marble magnets - I read about these probably 7 years or so ago in Family Fun magazine and we make them often.  Just button magnets with images (I used my alice images I found online) with those floral marbles that are flat on one side all glued together.  The marble magnifies the image.  Pretty cool.  I also found this inexpensive ball chain that we cut to length for each girl and these key pendants.  The girls then had to add a jump ring and string them on their necklace.  Both made for great party favors.

Cheap is how I like to go so I opted to use these lunch bags as their favor bags.  I think they were $1 for 50 and then I added a tag with each girls name on it and some ribbon.  I also added a few stickers and a crazy straw to their bag to add to their key necklace, magnets and cupcake plates as Favors.

But the big favorite as far as favors go had to be the hairbows.  My friend Kelley from our twins club has the cutest bow shop and made up these hair clips for all the girls.  I have a basket full of her bows for Sprout and the Peas – they are super cute and really fabulous quality!  This picture I swiped from her facebook page isn’t the best quality photo – the girls were so excited about these I didn’t even get a chance to take a quick pic!

After the tea party and croquet and photos and crafts…the girls were ready for CAKE!!

My BFF Kristin (who also helps me with my two peas business) is an amazing cake maker!  She gifted the girls with this cake for their party.  It was off the hook, crazy AWESOME!  She had their names on it, cards, mushrooms, the white rabbit and his watch, the caterpillar, the cheshire cat and his big grin…topped with a teapot and teacups.  All handmade fondant and hand painted by her and her daughter, who is one of the two peas BFF’s.

On top of that – the inside was a white and purple checkerboard!  It was a huge hit at the party and yes!  She is for hire!  (She’s driven as far as Texas before to deliver cakes but if you’re local to Columbus, she loves to make cakes on the weekends for all kinds of parties for a little extra “mom” money.  You can get in touch with Kristin at kristintwopeas at gmail dot com).

With 11 girlfriends – most of whom they have been friends with since they were 3 or 4 years old, it was a great way to celebrate the Two Peas 11th birthday!  I love you girls to the moon and back!

Happy Happy Birthday!

slowly easing back into things…I have a literal mountain of work, laundry and thank you notes before me.  Catching up is the name of the game currently.

 Over the weekend, I had fun sewing up a quick sample for our Schoolhouse Clutch Sew Along.  It’s not too late to participate – just grab a copy of the pattern from your favorite retailer or from our shop and join in.

Since I posted about the sew along early in February and then went on hiatus with 24 hours afterwards (see February post…spent with family) we lost out on promoting this sew along.

BUT if you participate, I promise I have something fun just for you!  Send me a copy of your receipt showing me you purchased the Schoolhouse Clutch pattern and I’ll send you the link for the private post on how to add an easy zippered pocket to the inside of the bonus mini-journal included in your pattern PLUS a few little design tidbits.  And there may be more…just saying.

Take a moment and say hello if you will…I always scratch my head in wonderment at the number of hits this blog gets vs. the number of comments that are left.  Hello?  I’m real, not a robot…and I’d love to connect with you and get to know what you are crafting up.  Introduce yourself…I’m so glad you are here.

And he loved tractors.  And his dogs.  And we love him.  Oh, how we love him.

Absolutely drops me to my knees and tears fall when I read this post.  Because my gardener retires this year.  And this is exactly what he had in mind – to hang out with Uncle Mel, build stuff, garden, sell at the farmers market.  They had plans together.  We had plans.  Plans involving our families and work and spending time together.  Plans.

Uncle Mel wasn’t a whole lot older than my husband or his 3 other brothers.  They were like brothers.  Best friends.  And in most recent years, he’s been more to us.

On February 1st, my husband gave a letter to Uncle Mel from the two peas.  We had not been able to see him for the last several months because he was keeping everyone away.  He didn’t want us to see him.  He was sick and he wanted to protect us from that pain.  On that day, the letter told Uncle Mel how much the peas loved him, appreciated him for all that he had done, thanked him again for the great time they had staying at his house over Spring Break, told him how the thing they loved best about him was how he took care of Aunt Carla, and that they knew he knew this already but they wanted to tell him again – that Jesus loved him, and to be careful on his way to heaven.

They couldn’t get Mel home because he was on a ventilator – which was a result of him collapsing at home 2 days prior.  His diaphragm muscles finally quit working.  For the last couple of years, we had been trying to help get him with the right docs to figure out what was wrong with him.  Everyone said he was fine.  But he wasn’t fine.  Turns out, he had ALS and I think in his heart, he knew something was drastically wrong.  And as the disease progressed, he just didn’t want us to see what was going on.

He just wanted to get home.  My husband told Carla – but he is going HOME.  ”And home maybe not be the house he shared with you but he is going HOME.”  And they made arrangements to bring his favorite dog to the hospital.  And Jake sat on Mel’s lap, and Mel spelled out that he had a great life.  And that he loved everyone and then lifted his finger and pointed at Aunt Carla, his son, my husband and Carla’s brother who was there.  And then my sweet husband left him alone with Aunt Carla and Mel’s only son and Jake, his dog.  And then he asked for the tube to be removed, and he went HOME.

So me, my husband, my girls and our extended family – we aren’t quite up to par just yet.  I’m not even sure how to get back to my blog because the words just won’t come.  I just need some time.