Baby Steps toward (the New) Normalcy

First, if you didn't see yesterday's second post of the day and were a giveaway winner, please scroll down and read it - thanks!

Life is slowly returning to normal since James' passing. There are still some very raw moments, but that's the grief process. We did have one big piece of closure Wednesday afternoon when his Indiana memorial service was held.

Lisa with James' oldest daughter who flew out for the service.

It was also Pony Pal Mila's seventh birthday and she was very sweet about waiting to have her family party until this coming weekend. (She did get to open some gifts at home that morning.)

James was from Washington and the rest of his family is out there, so a funeral and the burial will take place there. Lisa and Craig are flying out for that while I will stay home and take care of the dogs.

Which will be fun - here they are "helping" me change the sheets on the bed yesterday, although Pepper and Nash got into a tug match with a toy while Molly simply milled around underfoot and smiled and wagged her tail at me the whole time.

Aside from my blogs and a few quick looks at some model horse sites, I have not been on social media much as I packed away Christmas (the spa tub is empty!) and put out a few winter decorations.

This has not been a good time to be out of the loop on Breyer news - Collector Club entries closing, Christmas Day Horses released (love the colors but not the mold), Warehouse and Grab Bag sales, 2023 new releases, and most exciting of all, BreyerFest reveals! I am soooo far behind on model news and hope to catch up. 

Surprisingly, I have been able to get back to the sewing machine and work on some donations and orders.

These are for Are You Kitten Me Live - I love the vintage black cats! I hope to wrap up my custom orders and pop them in the mail by Monday or Tuesday and then I will officially reopen Horsiemama's Mercantile & Haversacks for business again. (I closed it for Christmas and then extended that to January 9 after James died.)

Baby steps toward normalcy (or what will be the new normalcy), but slowly it's coming.

Giveaway Winners, Take Note!

Second Post of the Day

I still need a couple of addresses from people who participated in the last giveaway. I'd like to mail all the ornaments out on Monday, so if you haven't yet sent me your mailing address, please email it to horsiemama8@gmail.com by Sunday night.

If I don't hear from you by then, I will assume that you do not want the ornament and will pass it on the someone else.

Thanks!

The New Year's Eve Barn Mud Bath Party

Tim and Loni went out of town to visit one of their kids just after Christmas, and he asked Barn Buddy Kelsey and me to do the daily barn checks. I am always happy to do that!

When he got home, he sent a thank you text that included this snippet: 

Thank you to both of you. Horses are all happy and healthy - albeit, their New Year's Eve mud bath party seemed a bit excessive...

Did it ever. And I blame it on the youthful element in the pasture...

(Just so there is no confusion, Tim was making a joke.)

Snow Globes!

Whenever the grands visit, I always plan a couple of crafts to do with them. It gives us time together and it gives them something fun to do, especially when the weather is as brutally cold as it was this Christmas.

What's not to love about five different kinds of glitter, hot glue, water, and teeny tiny things to put in glass jars, right?

With eight under eight zooming in and out and anxious to get their hands on those tiny things and shake, shake, SHAKE that glitter!

Luckily Aunt Sarah stepped in and we split up the duties (and the kids) and our snow globe project became a well oiled glittered machine.

Some of us were VERY particular about what went in our snow globe, but we had the time to let them carefully meticulously slowly finally pick out what they wanted.

Only one of our snow globes leaked; ironically it was mine, the one I made to "show them how it's done." Theirs stayed tight and dry.

It was fun, it kept them busy, and they turned out so nice,

that the Tooth Fairy even chose one as the site for a drop-off!

2022 in Review: October - December

Fall is my favorite season, and Fall 2022 was fast paced - it seemed there was always something to look forward to that was fun but that also kept me busy as I prepared for it.

The Feast of the Hunters' Moon was exhausting but worth all the time and effort I'd put into it. Not only did it connect me to genuine 18th century history that had unfolded right here on the Wabash River, it also connected me to family - my mother was one of the founders of the Feast and my sister has been the director for the past 17 years.

Four generations of our family have participated in it, and three of them were there that weekend.

I barely had time to recover from that than I was headed to the October GLC show.

Liz invited me to stay with her and we have a wonderful time catching up.

Horse Buddy Trinity came out during her fall break at the University of Iowa and met Two Socks.

And my siblings and I were guests at The Farm at Prophetstown at Prophetstown State Park

when they dedicated their new heirloom apple orchard in memory of our family's orchard.

All of us taking a break from working in our orchard back in the 1960s.

In December I learned that when you don't want to see a unicorn, you do, and when you are trying to find one, you can't.

I spent time in the hospital with stroke like symptoms that (luckily) turned out to be complex migraine symptoms. I still have them, but I've learned how to cope with them. (The worst is when my speech is affected and I garble words and am hard to understand; the second worst is when my hand and arm go numb and I can't hold things, write, type, and essentially only have one hand for a while.)

Thanksgiving rolled around and we had a smaller group with us than usual.

Little did we know that it would be our last holiday with James.

In December, Teacher Daughter Lisa invited her students and their families to come out to the barn on a Saturday and she taught them about animal adaptations with help from Tim and his granddaughter.

James was in and out of the hospital in December (he had a rare genetic liver issue) and had a heart attack just before Christmas and died December 22, devastating us all.

I was so grateful that our family was together and there with Lisa as she coped with his loss. While we mourned, we had our moments of fun and laughter, too.

I'm ready to move on to 2023 and am hoping we will continue to heal from James' loss.

Happy New Year to you all!

2022 in Review: July - September

July is the busiest month in the model horse world as it brings us BreyerFest. Whether you are attending in-person or virtually, it is a heady, exciting time. 

Breyer had asked me to teach an in-person seminar on making pony pads, but that just was not possible - I would need a sewing machine for every person in attendance, plus five or six irons and ironing boards to share. So I suggested that I teach virtual seminar.

It was thrilling to be a seminar teacher and to see my seminar on the BreyerFest web site.

Liz Cory was kind enough to stop by and pick up my tickets since I had decided to stay home and attend virtually myself. She brought my models home to me - what a friend!

August brought The FAMulous Collectibility Show, held in Muncie, Indiana with my dear friend Allison Pareis.

I'd made a show backdrop with fabric that had our logo on it along with haversacks for all the judges.

Horsiemama's Haversacks & Mercantile has been around long enough that I usually see things I've made at shows. That always makes me smile.

I made that tablecloth and all six of those pony pads!

When FAMulous was over, I barely had time to catch my breath - I had to switch sewing gears as The Feast of the Hunters' Moon was fast approaching.

I wanted at least one size of everything (S, M, L, XL, XXL) so my goal was to make five short gowns, five bedgowns, five chemises, and five men's shirts. In addition I made three boys' shirts, a girls' dress, two petticoats, four bum rolls, five aprons, two caps, eight pin pillows, and five housewives (sewing packets). I also made 75 beeswax ornaments and 40 beeswax needle cakes. 

In September and in preparation for taking her students on a field trip to the Feast, Teacher Daughter Lisa invited me into her classroom to teach about clothing from the 18th century time period. I am wearing a caraco jacket over a blue petticoat with pocket hoops underneath and a fichu tucked in around my neck. The girl is demonstrating a second set of pocket hoops. 

Here she is trying on the bedgown so the kids can see how the pocket hoops work to make her bedgown stand away from her hips.

September brought a big surprise and change at the barn - Tim sold the rental home and blue barn, and purchased the old barn and farmhouse.

Tomorrow we will look at October through December. Stay 'tooned!

2022 in Review: April - June

We had a lovely spring and many good things happened as it unfolded. One of the best things happened early Easter morning. Easter is a celebration of rebirth, so the birth of Two Socks Easter morning was a great way to begin the day. (Although I was incredibly distracted in Church later that morning!)

Bold and sassy from the beginning, I still held my breath the first couple of days whenever I went out to check her. 

But unlike her sweet brother Little Feller, she made it through the earliest days of her life and has continued to thrive.

In April I attended the Great Lakes Congress show in Huntley, Illinois and had an extended chat with dear friend and Hagen Renaker expert, Nancy Falzone.

 It's always a good day when you get to spend time with Nancy!

At the end of May, the Indy Blooms show was held an hour south of me in Lebanon, Indiana. I invited several of my hobby friends to stay with me and we made a pony party out of it. Naturally we went to the barn to see the horses and meet Two Socks.

Shannon Call, Barn Buddy Kelsey Kramer (Shannon stayed with Kelsey), Jamie Rott, Liz Cory, and Steff Bodamer.

Afterward we went to dinner together and to my surprise, one of our servers was a former student of mine who is now doing graduate work here at Purdue.

Indy Blooms was fun and I met a lot of long time hobby friends, including Michelle Evans. She lives in Indianapolis and has been in the hobby since the 1970s.

Before heading back to Lafayette after the show, we stopped at a Mexican restaurant for dinner together.

In June, preparations for The FAMulous Collectibility Show were well underway. The Mares in Black interviewed Allison and me and while I have known Jackie Rossi, one of the hosts, for thirty years or so, I was still a little nervous. But it went well and ended up being a lot of fun.

June also brought a family reunion in Iowa City, Iowa and Nauvoo, Illinois to celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary. Everyone made it except our Florida family who'd been exposed to COVID.

Cutting our anniversary cake together in Sarah's kitchen.

Family dinner at the Iowa River Power Restaurant.

Look for the July through September review tomorrow! Stay 'tooned!