When the going gets tough

some of us run to a hotel with a couple hundred other like minded souls, play with fiber all day, and generally chill out.  Weekend after next, we’ll be doing just that – heading up to White River Junction, Vermont to the Comfort Suites.  There will be demos and impromptu instructions in all things yarn and fiber related.  I’m thinking of bringing this guy with me:

Progress on this fellow has hopelessly stalled.  What better way to teach folks how to needle felt than to give ‘em a six foot tall dragon-to-be to stab?  And maybe it will light enough of a fire under me to get him finished – or at least, closer to completion.  The deciding factor on whether or not he comes with me is whether or not he fits in the car.  When he was first created, we had a much larger vehicle!

Reports are that Sue McCain will be at the event, as well as Cascade Yarns.  There will be vendors, us included, and a yarn store crawl offering discounts from the participating stores.  More info on the event can be found on Planet Purl.

It’s official!

The house is on the market.   Can include 11 sheep and a guard llama.

When we bought this house, I thought it was for life.  Tom knew better.  He worked every night on it for months, gutting it completely and rebuilding it.  He came to know this house intimately and insisted the house told him we wouldn’t be here permanently.

When we purchased the house, it had only 4 outlets and no heat other than the woodstove.  Tom stripped it down to the bare minimum, with a little help from the boys:

Look how little the boys are in these pictures!  These two are both bigger than me now.

That was the demolition crew on a well deserved lunch break in what had been the kitchen.

This is the same corner of the kitchen after the crew was finished.

Once stripped, the house was raised up and reinforced, plumbed, wired, insulated and, for the first time in nearly 200 years, heat was installed.  We put in a Monitor system – propane fired, on demand.  The 1903 Glenwood stove still serves as our primary heat, however, and does a fine job.

The house comes with a bonus -

Them’s naked sheep, just after shearing last spring, a spinners’ flock of 11 assorted and lovable sheep:  Marcy, Deanna, Carole, Abigail, Suzie, Maxine, George, Zelda, Duncan, Donny, and Veronica.  And Bonny – the guard llama with a great attitude.  There are Cheviot, Cheviot/Black Welsh Mountain Cross, Corriedale, Navajo Churro, Lincoln, and Moorit Shetlands.  I promised these sheep they would be taken care of for the remainder of their days.  If the new owners don’t want sheep, I will be searching for a home for everyone.

Seventeen years

and counting.  We were married in 1992 at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale.  The ceremony took place in the main gallery in front of an incredible Dorothy Gillespie.  Here we are on our wedding day along with Dorothy:

We had an amazing wedding.  It began the day before with a party in our honor hosted by none other than Dorothy and her late husband, Buddy.  The wedding itself was beautiful, surrounded by glorious artwork and accompanied by the music of Jon Frangipane on piano.  Following the ceremony, we treated everyone to Thai Garden in Wilton Manors.  Patty, owner of Thai Garden, outdid herself, serving some 60+ of our closest friends and family members.  The dinner was not the end of the evening, however.  The finale was a party at our condo in Margate:

Okay, so the little store bought cheesecake with the improvised birthday candle was a little lame, particularly when compared to the lovely wedding cake ringed with pearls and topped with irises that a friend presented at our wedding dinner.

Yes, today is also our birthdays.  This dual birthday/anniversary has worked well for us all these years.  Neither of us has ever forgotten a birthday or an anniversary.  Even our children have no problem remembering our special day.  Our oldest presented us with this card this morning:

Smart aleck, that one is.

And Mother Nature presented us with yet another birthday snow:

That’s the view from the kitchen this morning.  That’s about all we can see, as our road turned to mud this weekend, with ruts a foot deep that are now covered in about 6 inches of snow.   Amazing.  To think this all began in Fort Lauderdale – and now we look out our windows to a winter wonderland.  Even more amazing is the noise inside our house – basketballs bouncing off walls, an electric guitar wailing away upstairs, dogs barking at the snow as it slides off the roof.

We moved to Vermont 15 years ago with no real plans, just a vague idea of semi retirement.  I was going to weave rugs.  Tom knew he wasn’t going to have much opportunity to continue in his field (he was an exhibitions designer – an incredible one at that) in Vermont, so he planned on working as a massage therapist and playing his guitar.   Amazing.  We never thought we would have a house full of boys, critters everywhere, and be spending our days making the products that we do.  Who knew?

It’s been a long and often challenging road that we have traveled, but it feels as though we set out on it only yesterday.  I pray it never ends.  I told Tom this morning that I felt I have done enough lifetimes in enough situations – as far as relationships go, I have achieved the pinnacle – therefore I see no reason for it to end or alter once we leave this life.  I would love nothing more than to go on through eternity with Tom by my side.

Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary, Tom!

He’s making me bloomin’ crazy

I just finished the website, when he tells me the Purple Passions sets are gone and could I adjust that to be just single dpn sets instead.  I fix that and he tells me another size is gone.  Fixed.  Then he brings home yet another new color:

It’s never over

but at least it is loaded.  “It” would be the website for Grafton Fibers – newly revamped, with new needles and loads of new fiber pictures.  You can even play with them!  If you find any quirks or bugs, and no doubt they are there, I would appreciate it greatly if you would let me know about them.  For now, however, I am off to a well deserved sleep.

Oh – almost forgot the new needles too!  Purple needles!

Woo hoo!