Happy Thanksgiving or Black Friday!!

 

Happy Thanksgiving or should I say Happy Black Friday. I guess that isn’t even correct considering that Black Friday has been going on for weeks now as far as the stores go. We had a kind of last-minute Thanksgiving because our plans kept changing. We were supposed to have several friends over including one friend flying in from out of town for a weekend of food and music recording but we ended up doing the socially responsible thing and cancelling due to Covid numbers going up again. So we finally ended up doing a small Thanksgiving dinner on Friday with just me and my husband, his son and his girlfriend.

Once again I am ashamed to announce that my holiday cards got sent out late which is really stupid because I actually had them done fairly early. We try to put a personal note in every card so that can get a bit difficult to come up with those so that’s a part of the reason why we hesitated to get these finished and in the mail. Another big reason why I drug my feet is because I am not really happy with the way these turned out. Probably the biggest reason why I don’t like them is because these are my second attempt at creating my own pattern and I am super critical of myself no matter what I do.

 

I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to tweak this pattern to make it right because I tend to “slip down a rabbit hole" way too easily now days and it is a very slippery slope indeed, not to mention it’s also very long. Also, as I mentioned several times before, nothing ever tends to be good enough so, should I try to make myself happy I would never finish. I got the idea for the feathers while cruising around pintrest when I stumbled across a dragonfly pattern that you can find here. The body is just a pattern that I am sure is found in lots of places and in lots of patterns.

 

These are the first time I haven’t put a little beaded do dad with them partly because I am completely running out of ideas for thanksgiving and partly because I figured since I added beads to them already that would probably be enough.

 I used South Maid 100% acrylic fiber called fudge brown. This thread was a real pain in the butt to work with especially when it came to closing rings. In fact I broke this thread several times when I was doing the split rings for the head, although to be fair its partly due to the fact that I was pulling the  stitches pretty tightly trying to make them even. This is one pattern that I actually used a picot gauge on (just a big wood stick like doctors use for tongue depressors) because I have a hard time making really large picots. I actually made 18 of these because we anticipated having people here for the weekend but by the time I came to trying to get them in the mail I only sent out 13 of them. In fact some of them haven’t made it to the mail yet because we have been working on a project for Christmas and I was just going to send them all at once but the project is taking much long than anticipated and they are still not ready to get in the mail yet. They really should have all gone in the mail already because they are advent calendars for the grand kids so like everything else now days they are going to be late getting them.

 Anyway I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving, I know the last year has been extremely difficult for most people but I hope you all could find at least a little something to be thankful for!

Happy Halloween!!

 

Well look at that, its actually Halloween and I am actually posting about my holiday dodads. Its been a while since I have been able to say that so I will count this as a win.

 I know I have already done a cat for a Halloween motif but I am running out of ideas, so I ended up doing another one. This is a pattern called Small Stretching Cat Down and it’s another one by Jane Eborall that you can find here. It is a pretty fun pattern to do because it has lots of split rings.

I first tried these in grey but when I went to look for a beaded doodad idea to attach with it I decided to do a witch hat so I went with purple Artiste #10 thread called wild berry (why did they call it berry I wonder?) to give it a bit more color. I also tried one without the eye but I didn’t much like that one so here is what I ended up deciding on…

 I ended up making 17 of these (not including the 2 samples) but I only sent 9 of them out. I kept hoping that we would be able to either have friends over for a Halloween dinner or that we would do our “normal” tradition of going to friend house to carve pumpkins and dinner but thanks to Covid that didn’t happen. So, I will just put all the extras together with the ones from previous years and maybe come up with another idea to give them out.

I have actually had these done for a while now but of course we waited till the last minute to send some of them out. I had spent the last couple months thinking “I am going to get these in the mail early” but thinking and doing are pretty much on the polar opposites for me right now. I think most of the ones I put in the mail at least made it on time. But the better news on this one is that my parents were actually here around the middle part of October so they were able to take most of them back home with them and deliver them for me. I also was able to send back some Halloween goodies for my kiddos and grand-kiddos since they probably won’t be able to go out trick or treating this year which is kind of a big bummer since it falls on a Saturday. But maybe good news because its also a full moon tonight which always seems to bring out more craziness!

The card idea was mine. I actually started out with it saying “ whats the scariest thing about 2020..Covid, being out of toilet paper or the thought of Trump winning the election” but only part of our family would think that was funny so I changed it to something a bit friendlier. I usually stay out of politics but this election is going to be extremely critical so I hope you will all remember to vote!

 I also hope everyone has a Happy Halloween and that everyone will do it safely!!

Cruise dolphins

 

I don’t think I even want to bother counting the days I have been social distancing/self quarantining in fact I would be hard pressed to even guess what month we are in. I haven’t had much luck in finding a job. Most days I have my hands full just trying to convince myself things are going to be ok. I have been trying to keep my mind occupied with doing craft projects, but I have still been having massive problems trying to start new ones. I have been doing quite a bit of cross stitch, a bit of tatting but not a whole lot of beading and way way too much time on pintrest looking for patterns. I had done a cross stitch for one of my grand babies and had totally forgot about that until I ran across a picture of it. Since then we have had 2 new grand babies, so I figured I better get on the ball and get a couple more done for the rest of the grand kids. For a couple of them I just ordered a kit but some of them I found patterns on pintrest because hoarder me has a stash of fabric and thread. The problem with some patterns is that you have to pick your own colors and on some of them I had to change a couple things on the pattern, so I have spent hours and hours looking for patterns, colors and making changes.

I can’t post about the cross stitch stuff yet because they aren’t all done yet and I don’t want to spoil the surprise but I can post about my last tatting project that got handed out. Since it is such a long time until the next holiday I wanted to come up with another project to do to let people know that I am thinking about them.  Since nobody is able to take vacations it got me to thinking about the last vacation we had been on and that would the cruise that my parents treated our whole family on 3 years earlier in September.  I had run across a cute dolphin pattern that I figured would remind everyone of the days we spent together watching the dolphins that played around our ship.

 

The pattern is one by Jane Eborall and you can find it here.  She has some really fun patterns on her site, if you haven’t visited it yet you should check it out! This is a fun pattern to tat, it has lots of split rings which I have found to be fun to do. It also has a down facing picot that I had never even heard of. I sure wish I had know about these earlier because I know I have done several projects that would have looked better had I know about them. This pattern also has the option to do a split chain in a couple of spots but since I had not tackled those yet and on this particular pattern you have to also attach it to an anchor picot on a helper item I decided to leave those out.

 

I first tried these in gray but they were so small and the little ships looked huge  that I decided to try them with a little bit thicker thread. The grey one is artiste #10 called cloud and the blueish one is J&P Coats knit cro-sheen called aqua.

 

The best part of these little doodads is that I got to hand deliver several of them. I ended up making 9 complete ornaments  but actually only needed 6 of them. Me and the hubby got to take a trip back home and hand delivered them to the family members that still live there. This happened in September it has just taken me a bit to get these posted. With any amount of luck I will get the next holiday motifs out in time!

Happy 4th of July!!

Happy 4^th of July, it sure doesn’t feel like I should call it Independence day since we are working on day 113th of quarantine. However, our county is finally moving into phase 2 so I hope we are moving toward better days.

I am pleased to announce that I am actually all caught up on posts so these are actually the doodads for today’s holiday. I am even more excited to say that these went out in time for everyone to receive them by today.  These are another holiday that I had completed last year but not sent out.

When I went to put these together I found a good reason why they probably didn’t get sent out last year...these poor stars are super sad and look terrible. I believe I must have gotten the idea for the star off of a picture on pintrest because I could find the actual pattern. I found a couple of trial stars that looks like I tried to figure out the pattern but clearly, I didn’t do such a great job. Looking at these today I know there must be a much better way to do these.

I used Aunt Lydias Metallic size 10 thread and I remember this thread was an absolute nightmare to work with. I used 2 rolls of this crochet thread and I only ended up making 10 of these. I would have liked to make more of them but the thread is awful to work with and it is quite expensive so I decided not to put myself through more torture by making more. I know I should use tatting thread instead of the thread I usually use (artitste) but it is much more expensive and I have to think ahead and order it online so I just use the stuff that is readily available at our nearest craft store which is a hobby lobby about 35 miles away. I also find rolls of this at our thrift store that is just down the road from us so I usually grab it when I find it. Yes, this does add to my massive hoard that I have in my craft room. In fact it takes up a pretty big space since there is not a really good way to store it all.  

These stars tended to curl up and were very fiddly. They seemed to press out ok and I probably could have blocked them and got them to behave a bit better but I wasn’t sure what would happen to the metallic filament if I put glue on them.  The little beaded uncle Sam came from a pattern I bought off of ThreadABead that can be found here.

The card idea was my husbands and I tend to think that it is very relevant for this years holiday. Our governor of the state has made it mandatory that we all wear masks. I hope that whether you are in the group that thinks that this is a good idea or the group that refuses to conform that we can just be kind to each other… NO MATTER WHAT!!

St Patricks catch up

Next catch up holiday is Saint Patricks day so I hope you are all wearing green!

There are not a lot of ideas for Saint Patricks tatting motifs. I pretty much have just found variations on the four leaf clover. For this one I just used the pattern that I used in  2017 doodads and changed the stitch count and added picots. Its kind of fun using 2 different colors for each shuttle.

 This is another holiday that I had done last year, I even had the cards done but they just didn’t get sent out. This year, I am happy to announce that these actually went out in time, in fact I got to hand deliver them to the part of my family that lives in Idaho! I made 12 of these and in looking back it looks like that I forgot to send a couple of them out, probably partially due to the fact I was in Idaho over the holiday  and partially because I was still reeling from being fired and my brain was not on straight.

I believe this post catches me up to the holiday tatting I have sent out so far. The next holiday will be 4^th of July. I know they need to be sent out immediately if they are to arrive anywhere near on time. Wish me luck because I am having a hard time getting motivated to get them out.

No tats, just plants!

At this point I don’t even want to count how many days we have been in quarantine, I guess I shouldn’t count days because it has been months. The company my hubby works for (a company that builds carbon fiber guitars) “officially” had to go back to work last Monday. Up until that week he has been working from home and pretty much everyone else has still been getting paid but they haven’t had to go into work.   The company is located in the next county that has decided to move to phase 1.5 and allow a few more businesses to open. His boss decided he could go ahead and keep working from home  since a lot of what he has to do can all be done from home, so for now he only has to go in when he needs to.

The county we live in is still in full on quarantine because we were one of the hardest hit as far as cases and deaths go so I haven’t been able to find a job yet. Unfortunately, I haven’t really gotten anything much done around the house either. About the only thing we have really accomplished was a bit of yard work. My hubby loves rhododendrons and we have been meaning to plant some in our yard since we moved in (yickes has it really been 6 years)  but we never could find the time (or really the money)  to do that since we have pretty much worked every summer on the weekends doing concerts and festivals. I ended up getting one at Walmart on clearance and then the next time I went to Walmart I happen to ask if they were going to be going down in price and they said they were just going to throw them away so they sold me 4 more for $8.00 each…SCORE!! They had already bloomed and they were not looking so great but they are pretty hardy plants so we are hoping they will be ok.  Our property is about 2 acres and for some reason this stretch of land has never had anything planted along it. We are hoping that its not because nothing will grow there or since we have a power pole in the middle of that yard that it isn’t illegal to plant there. Wish us luck!

Valentine's Day

I am happy to post that the next holiday I am catching up on is Valentines day and I actually get to say that I sent them out. Unfortunately, there is some bad news as well. I didn’t send them out in a very timely manner which is a huge shame because I actually had these doodads done for last years holiday and just didn’t send them out. Part of the reason why they didn’t get sent out last year is because I didn’t love the way they turned out and partly because I couldn’t come up with a card and partly because of the shame of not sending out the Christmas cards.

This is the first time I have tried adding beads into the tatting project itself, it’s also the first time I had attempted split rings. I got the pattern here on Etsy.  I tried tatting the key a couple of different ways but because my picots are out of control since the last couple of projects I did I wanted big floppy picots and the thread I use doesn’t really allow for small picots to look good ( I used size 10 Artiste thread called cloud. ) I decided to omit the picots. I still didn’t love the way these turned out and adding the beads, especially the one that you have to add to the second half of a split ring, really was not fun so I only ended up making 12 of these.  Since I didn’t make enough of these and I wanted to give a few more people valentines I sent out a couple of the doodads that I had left over from previous years.

When I went to put these together I found that when I made the beaded hearts I didn’t account for a way to attach them to the tatting.  Usually I add extra beads or a bigger bead on top to attach them but for some reason I didn’t this time. The beads were so small that I couldn’t find a split ring with small enough wire to go through them, so I ended up making my own rings. They don’t look very good but at least I got them attached.

Here's to hoping that I will post again real soon!

No Christmas again!!

Things have been pretty frightening lately, I seem to have lost days, maybe even weeks at a time because we are at day 60 of self quarantine and I have no idea where the time has gone or what I have done the last couple of months. Apparently, I need to quit blinking because it seems to happen in the blink of an eye!

Anyway, I would love to be posting about the next holiday but alas the next holiday should be Christmas , and I seriously cant believe I have to say this, but I didn’t send out Christmas cards yet again! Maybe even worse than that is I can’t even remember why I didn’t send them out. If I had to make a guess I would say probably because it was beyond stressful at work. There were a couple of months that I seriously didn’t think I was going to make it out alive. As far as Christmas goes, about the only thing I can remember is that it was just me and my hubby hanging out alone for the day and since it landed in the middle of the week I only had one day off anyway.  So I am going to just move on past this holiday, pretend it never even happened and hope for a better one next year. The way things are feeling that may even feel Christmas will be here in the next couple of weeks.  

Thanksgiving 2019

It is impossible to believe that we have been in quarantine for 46 days, yet here we are. I have spent most of my days with my head spinning out of control, watching murder shows on ID and trying to come up with a new craft project (dang pintrest is a huge contributor to my stress) . I have an extremely difficult time starting new projects: what with trying to make a decision on what craft I want to do next, like tatting, beading, jewelry making, cross stitching or plastic canvas etc.  and then the fun of trying to choose colors for the project aggghhh! I have an okay time while I am in the middle of a project but then when I reach the end I have a hideous time completely finishing it. I actually have lots of new crafts I want to try but trying to pick one is overwhelming. I am a massive craft hoarder and I have a room full of supplies that would almost put hobby lobby to shame but that is completely overwhelming because there is so much and such a wide variety. I don’t know what my problem is but I feel like one big giant mess.

It is getting harder and harder to come up with ideas for my holiday tatted/beaded cards.  It is just as hard to come up with card sayings and ideas, in fact trying to come up with cards is a good part of the reason why they sometimes get sent out so late or sometime not at all. The next holiday is a perfect example of both.

These are the motifs for Thanksgiving  2019

I had already made leaves for a card a couple of years ago but I couldn’t come up with anything else, so I found this idea by Marilee Rockley. I don’t much like the little beaded guy so wasn’t super proud to send these out. I made 13 total doodads but I only sent 6 of them out, mostly due to the fact that I thought they were not so good and partly because they probably got sent out late. I don’t like any of the colors and the poor scarecrow is just sad. I used 2 different brands of thread and I was a bit surprised how different the 2 threads were size wise. The gold leaf is artiste size 10 as is called topaz and the red one is red heart classic size 10 and it is burgundy.

We couldn’t come up with anything witty to put on the cards so we decided to just tell it like it is.  You probably can’t see what is says in the parentheses but it says “insert appropriate number here”.

I hope everybody is staying safely at home and working on lots of fun projects. It is quite the feeling knowing that the whole world is doing the same thing and going through the same stuff. 

Halloween 2019

Time is just absolutely flying by. I am still behind on my posts so I am going to continue to try to catch up on posting about past holidays. As I have said before I rely on my blog posts if ever I want or need to go back to previous tatting to remember what I have done.

I believe the next holiday that I need to post about is Halloween 2019.

I ended up making 13 of these doodads but I only sent 7 of them out. I would venture a guess that they probably got sent out late because that’s the way I usually do things (I am not  proud of that but I am really trying to figure out why I have such a hard time completing projects). That would also explain why only part of them got sent out. I found the pattern for the tatting on pintrest, it’s a pattern by L. Shelby and you can find it here. I changed the pattern a little bit because she has the pattern listed as a dragon and I wanted it to look like a bat. This was a pretty fun pattern to work but it’s one you have to pay attention to while doing it because its easy to miss a join. In fact, I made 2 of them that are unusable because I forgot a small ring on one of the wings and on another one I missed a join. I used artiste thread, size 20 and the color is called pewter.

I have sent out Halloween motifs for the last 4 years and I haven’t missed a year since I started tatting so I have pretty much ran out of patterns for this holiday. I found a witch hat by Gillian Buchanan that has a written pattern and a diagram but for some reason I tried it and failed dismally. I can’t seem to figure it out. I may have to try it again because I can’t find anything else. I haven't been doing much tatting lately because I cant seem to find something to tat. Since I didn't send out any holiday ones last year I am ahead of the game for this year and Halloween 2020 is actually the next project I need to make stuff for. I have been doing lots of cross stitch because I realized that I never made a birth announcement for our grand son (my husbands daughters son) that will be 2 in June. I had made one for his brother so I figured I should do one for him as well.  I also decided to make one for our new grand daughter (Jeez she will be turning 1 this month) and she has 2 siblings that I am working on as well.  These have kept me quite busy but it has been way too long since I have tatted and I am starting to really miss it. I need to find a project soon before I forget how! 

Let go? Let go!

It sure has been a crazy last couple of months. I have hesitated to post something lately because I don’t even know where to start. I guess first off, I thought I would get some time to start posting a bit more regularly because I lost my job. My boss let me go toward the end of February, just about a week after my last post. It is pretty much a case of "be careful what you put out into the universe and extra careful what you put into writing!  I actually had asked for a meeting with him so I could discuss the way my job has been going but before I could talk to him about my concerns  he decided that things weren’t working for him so he decided to let me go. I may never know if we went into the meeting with his intent to fire me or if it was his “not thinking past this 5 minute personality” or him not wanting to hear what it is I wanted to talk about as he really hates to hear about any of his failings and he will go to great lengths to avoid having to deal with those.  I have been trying really hard to think of this as a good thing and that he did me a favor in letting me go because I have been desperately stressed and not happy at all at work lately but he paid really , really well and it is going to be pretty difficult to replace that.  

 I tend to pretty much bury my head in the sand and haven’t been able to deal with facing current events as I have been so stressed about just dealing with my own every day to day stress that adding anymore to my already beyond stressed life would probably push me over the edge so I really hadn’t even know that the whole world was falling apart around me with the pandemic. I took a trip to Idaho to go back home the week after I was let go. The trip had actually been planned  several weeks ahead of that so it was kind of a bummer about the timing of it all because had I known a bit earlier that I  didn’t have to rush back for work I would have been able to have a longer visit. It was during my trip that I started to learn about what was going on with the extent of the pandemic. A couple of days after returning from Idaho my husband’s boss made the decision to close down his business for the time being to participate in the social distancing practices and a few days after that Washington made it mandatory that all non-essential businesses close. My husband is working part time and he is down to making 20% of his salary but so far, he pretty much spends the largest part of his day in the back room doing heaven only knows what on the computer. I am taking it a bit personally that he doesn’t want to spend any time with me but I cant say that I blame him because I am beyond stressed and probably not a lot of fun to be with.  Its already been almost 3 weeks that he has been off and so far, we haven’t really gotten anything done. We have lots of things that needs done around the house, but I have been so depressed and stressed out that I find it extremely difficult most days to even get out of bed. The longer I just sit around the harder it is to get up off the couch. My head has been spinning and my self-esteem has been completely back in the dumps and  I have been feeling pretty worthless after giving my heart and soul to a job and boss and to have him find me not valuable or worth a crap to even try to listen to me or to try to work things out and to just want me gone has been devastating. I have never been let go from a job before and let me tell you it sucks! I know I just need to pull on my big girl pants and move on but that is also difficult when I know that I don’t even need to pull on pants because we are all stuck at home. I really just need to keep thinking that at least we are fairly healthy, and after all, I need to stay healthy because I don't have insurance anymore.   Hehe…maybe tomorrow will be a more productive day!

Really rough 2019

So I have a terrible confession and its one that I am super not proud of but here it goes.  Its not a huge secret that I haven’t posted anything for an extremely long time but it’s the reason behind why I haven’t posted is my dirty little shame! The next holiday I needed to post about was actually Christmas but the reason why I haven’t posted anything is because I had my motifs all ready to go out including the card but they just didn’t get sent out. Part of my family actually visited mid January and I was going to give them the cards at that time, but I felt stupid for being so late. But the biggest reason I didn’t give them out then was because after hearing them talk about all the Christmas gifts they gave each other like refrigerators and foreign vacation trips  I felt so horrible that the only thing we could afford to give out was tatted dodads I was beyond crushed. I was completely devastated that my sister was able to give such extravagant gifts to our parents and I was going to hand them a stupid card with a stupid lil thing inside, so I didn’t even bother to give them out.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning of my massive shame. Come Valentines day I had my motifs ready to go but I couldn’t come up with a card and I was still feeling stupid about not giving out any Christmas gifts and not even sending out any cards that I was too embarrassed to send these out.

I can carry over this same shame clear into October. I had St. Patricks, Easter, and 4^th of July motifs all ready but I just couldn’t bring myself to send them out.  I guess the good news is I have a jump on my motifs for 2020 so I guess we will have to wait and see how that turns out.

I guess partly in my defense we had a pretty horrific 2019. My daughter gave me my first blood grandbaby in April.  She was born a month early under an emergency situation. Both baby and momma did exceptionally well under the circumstances and recovered fairly quickly and were released from the hospital within a week. Both did really well for a couple months until my daughter was in a horrific car wreck with baby in the back seat. Thankfully baby was strapped into a car seat (one of the safest rated on the market) and just ended up with scratches and hopefully no long-term issues due to shaken baby. Momma however ended up with several massive deep cuts and a pelvis that got broken and fractured in several places. I have never felt so helpless in my whole life as what followed in the next couple months. I live in Washington while the rest of my family lives in Idaho and I had already taken time off work for the baby shower and the birth and visiting just the month before, so it was extremely difficult for me to travel again. Thankfully my parents are both retired and have a house where they have a room that is wheelchair accessible, so they were able to take both momma and baby in. It was a huge undertaking because moms’ milk never came in so they had to run up and down the stairs making bottles. My daughter wasn’t allowed to stand up any longer than it took to transfer from the wheelchair to the toilet and then straight back to laying down so baby had to sleep with my parents which meant that they had to get up for the night feedings. My daughter ended up completely out of commission for 4 whole months which encompasses so much like getting her and baby to doctors’ appointments, all meals for mom and baby, bathing’s, jeez the list goes on and on. My daughter also has 2 other kids/toddlers that she has raised as her own for the last 6 years and that can be figured in that mix.

I was only able to go back once during that time so add more shame, guilt, remorse pretty much every demeaning adjectives you can use to my low self-esteem. My self-esteem has always been excessively low anyway but it is pretty much rock bottom right now.

 In the midst of all this our well house floor caved in causing the filter system to sustain damage which in turn caused electrolysis in our water system which caused leaks to start forming in the copper pipes in the house which means we had water spraying out behind walls . During the appointment for the estimate the contractor ended up finding our 2000 square foot deck was attached to the house instead of being anchored to a beam and that all the snow that we had during winter was so heavy that it had begun to pull  the deck away from the house which means it started pulling the house down the hill with it. Insurance got involved which covered replacing the deck and the damage to the house but not the plumbing. So while the work on the deck was going on we took on the task of replacing all the copper pipes throughout our entire 3000 square foot, 2 story house.  

We hired someone to do the plumbing and plumbers are in such high demand that they can pretty much name their own price…translation...freaking expensive and hard to come by. Since the plumbing was so hideously expensive, we took on the task of cutting out and redoing the sheet rock throughout the whole house. What a nightmare mess, I am quite certain we will be finding sheet rock dust till the end of time, I will be looking at the crappy job we did and kicking myself for not trying harder but at least we still aren’t done with all the rooms yet. The deck took the entire summer, April till mid-September so we didn’t get to enjoy it at all.

Quite a few of us suffer with major panic/anxiety attacks and severe depression and the accident has exacerbated them.  Several of our family members went through some very emotional stuff this past year. Its never easy to see the ones you love go through pain and heart ache and it was a very tough year for both.

Work has been extremely difficult on lots of levels. My boss is a very challenging person to work for. He is a very “this 5 minute” kind of person, he doesn’t much think beyond the exact moment he is in, he doesn’t think how  his actions or words from this minute will effect the next 5 minutes. He wants it all and he wants it right this second. He changes his mind and his direction so drastically and so often that it is very difficult to keep up. He has decided to expand the business into several different directions, like taking on general construction, doing pedestrian door and gates and doing commercial as well as residential work. So this translates into all of us learning  completely new things while trying to keep up with our already overwhelming loads of work.

I am sorry, I just realized I have been rambling on and on and whining when I should be very thankful that I even have a roof over my head, a job that pays the bills and a growing family that is fairly healthy . So I will quit ranting and call this a long enough post for now. Hopefully I will have time to post more soon. We have been working pretty much every single day for the last several months trying to get caught up on finances so we don't have much free time now days.