Pretties

If you follow me on Facebook, you might know that I'm trying to post pretty or happy things everyday.  Under the circumstances, I think everyone needs something happy to look at.

I thought I'd start doing the same thing here.  But first, I thought I share the past few years of my life.  You've probably noticed that I haven't been very chatty for a very, very long time.  It's been a rather challenging time in my life.

You may know that I've just been through a horrible, 2 year long divorce.  And you may remember that I took care of my husband while he went through eye surgery for an almost completely detached retina and then a year later, I took care of him while he underwent chemo and radiation for cancer of the tonsils which he put off for 5 years despite me, my mother, his mother and my aunt telling him to take care of it.

Not only did I take care of him, I took care of my cats and my elderly cat Lucy who I lost 2 years ago.  I took care of the house, kept the roof over our heads and food on the table and paid the medical bills for those 2 major medical problems.  He lost a lot of time at work.   I also worked my tail feathers off to pay for a new roof on the house and a new water softener.  And I did it knowing the whole time, that he was fooling around with my sister.  There, I said it!  And I needed to say it!

In order to take care of all the medical bills and keep food on the table, I not only humiliated myself by setting up a Go Fund Me account, I sold 2 of my crazy quilts and my entire collection of crazy quilt purses that I made for myself.  There were about 25 of them.

When all was said and done, when I had everything paid for, he filed for a divorce and bullied me out of my house.  He was vicious!  I took my 4 cats, my personal things, my computer and my car and I have been living and working in my parent guest room for 2 years now.  The divorce was brutal and expensive.

I've tried to stitch here but most of my craft supplies are packed up and out of reach.  My 2 sewing machines are not accessible.  I can cross stitch but I only have a tiny space and quite frankly, I'm tired of trying to function in a space that I can't function in. 

So, I've focused all my energy on my work.  My cross stitch patterns and Crazy Quilt Quarterly magazine.  Knowing that when I buy a house and get settled, I will be able to get back to all the things I enjoy doing.

I am planning on buying a Townhouse in the near future.

So, with all that said, I have some nice plans that I'm working on and I will share those as they become feasible.  I hope to get back to being more chatty and more active here on my blog.  If you remember, I used to bake a lot and share my recipes.  I used to post a lot of photos of my kitties.  I used to share my flea market finds and lots of other things that I felt were of interest.  I used to do give aways and I just can't even remember everything I used to do here but I always tried to make this a fun stop on your blog hops!  

I used to share my works in progress but I just don't have any at the moment.  That will change.

So for now, I will share some of my previous pretties!

This is my Mozart purse:

I made this quite a few years.  Mozart is my favorite composer.  The signature is his.  I found it online, traced it and embroidered it on the block.  The little treble clef is a rhinestone pin that I found at a flea market.  I hand painted the lace applique and beaded it once it was sewn down onto the block.

You can tell my earlier pieces by my little signature cat.  I used to stitch him on my blocks.  Maybe I'll go back to doing that when I can get back to doing these.

I've also been asked if I plan to get back to making some things to sell.  Yes, as soon as I can buy a house and get settled.  Yes, I will.

So that's what's been going on for the last few years.  It has not been pleasant but every storm runs out of rain eventually!!