eBay experience

Well, I did try eBay again. Listed 18 items-sold one. Whoopie-finger twirl! Not sure I want to waste my time with that.

My husband says we WILL participate in New Paris Community Garage Sale June 1st and get rid of some things. He has been cleaning out garage. I need to get busy and round some stuff up. It is time to eliminate some of the clutter in our lives. Also if I live to be 150 I could not get all the projects done that I have material for. Not sure I can even read all the books I have and want to.

I hope to get more projects done, but when you have sewing patterns for girls from size 3 to 14 and no granddaughters that size anymore it is time to get rid of them. A lot of them have never been used-such was my dreams and goals.

I would advise everyone to try and accomplish what goals you can. Life is too short:) Of course if I quit watching TV, Pinterest, Facebook, blogging, games and searching on the computer I might get more done.

Being a creative person is not easy. You have dreams and goals and things you want to create and NOT enought time to do them. When you are working you think I will have time when I retire. HA. When you retire, you slow down, tire easily and time goes tooooo fast. Also the things you thought you were going to do it seems "what's the point".

Ok, reading this over I sound a little down and I am not really just a little discouraged. Time to get busy and do some sorting.


 

giving ebay another chance

Well, I have decided to give eBay another chance. I guess you can list 50 items a month without a listing fee and free pictures. So I am working on putting some vintage sewing patterns.

Some of these are totally unused and uncut. One of my failed goals-patterns bought for making grandkids some clothes. Also some are from my patterns of items to make for my kids.

I did do some sewing for my daughter. Made dresses for her when she was in kindergarten and first grade. I also made pj's for both my son and daughter.  By the time my son was in first grade I was working outside of the home.

I am getting slower and slower

Well it is taking me forever to get pictures taken and posted of what I want to elimante from my supplies.

It seems like I get more disorganized as I get older. I remember my mom saying she had two speeds--slow and reverse. I thought it was because she had polio when I was little and she walked with a limp. I honestly think it was also because as you get older you don't move or accomplish in a day what you did when you were younger.

I am hoping to get pictures up soon!

I am wishing everyone a blessed Easter. May God spread His love over His people and draw them closer to Him.

Best plans of mice and men........

Best laid plans of mice and men...

 

 

 

How often have we heard that phrase and can finish it. "They often go awry".

 

Well after my post yesterday, I decided to take pictures of some of the things I need to eliminate. My camera batteries were dead. I find I do not have the size I need in the house so now it waits till Saturday-store day.

 

I really struggle with trying to accomplish something and not getting it done or how to do it. I am also not a good organizer. When my plans change or do not go the way I think they should it really throws me. I can totally understand how "hoarders" get caught up in their messes.

 

I have a mess in the dining room. Box for things to donate to Goodwill. Box for things for my grandchildren. Box for things for my sisters. Box for things I would like to sell even tho I am not sure yet how I will do that.

 

Does anyone else struggle with sorting and organizing items? Am I the only one who cares about these things? Are the grand kids or my sisters really interested in what I have set aside for them. What to do and how to sell doll things or vintage items?

 

Sometimes I just am so overwhelmed I cannot accomplish anything.



 



The Fire

     I was reading some one's blog and they had had a small fire with minor damage. They went on to share how her sister had a fire and lost their whole house and contents. Luckily they were not home when it happened. Lightning struck their house and no one noticed the flames until it was too late.

     We had a fire almost 10 years ago. We were lucky too, but not because we weren't home we where and it was the middle of the night. I am convinced God woke my up. It was approximately 3:30am.  The morning of December 17, 2001. We were asleep upstairs. "Something" (God) woke me up, I realized smoke was coming up the stairs and the house was totally dark no alarm clock lights etc. I woke up my husband and said I thought the house was on fire. He tried the phone and of course it was dead. He pulled on pants ran across the street to pound on the neighbors door and told them to call the fire department.

    They told us to come in and get warm. We have a volunteer fire department so they had to call people in. I am amazed at how fast they got there. I told them I thought it was in the basement. How I knew that I am not sure, it was pitch black in the house. They went in and found the ceiling of the basement beginning to burn. There was a huge amount of "toxic" smoke.

     Our bedroom was on the top floor not main floor and fire was in basement. How did I know the fire was there? How did I wake up? Thankfully there was more smoke damaged than fire damage. It did take out our electricity because where the fire started was near the fuse box. It also took out our water system because our well and pump was in the basement.

     The cause of the fire was a dehumidifier. The fire investigator tried to get a number off of it and it was so badly burned it was unreadable. It was an inexpensive one from Walmart.

     The fire was out in a short time. We called our married daughter and she came right away. We went to her house and discussed what to do. We could not go in to see damage. Plus it was still dark. My daughter and I had planned to do Christmas shopping later that day. When my husband and I got to my daughters, we realized how very, very lucky we were to be alive. Because it was the middle of winter, flames would not have been seen for a long time and by then the smoke and "toxic" fumes would have killed us. Another lucky thing was that during this time our son and his 3 children were living with us. He shared custody with his ex-wife and it was not his week to have the kids so they were not there that night and he had spent the night with a friend.

      My daughter, son-in-law and their 5 kids lived in a big farm house. They offered to put us all up as long as necessary. That now made 13 people sharing a house. It was interesting. We did it. It is amazing what you can do when you have to.

     I took time off work and went to the house as often as I could to go through things and throw items into the huge dumpster that they put in our front yard. There was no heat, electricity, or water for quite awhile. They got a little electricity hooked up but still no heat or water. When I would call the "clean-up" place to check on progress because many days they were not there to do anything. I was told----"Mrs. Miller, you picked a bad time to have a fire"----REALLY oh next time I will call you first before I have a fire to make sure it is ok with you. They were overbooked and ran into other delays, but did not have the honesty to say up front they were running behind. They kept saying oh a couple more weeks, etc, but it ran a lot longer!! It ended up being 2 1/2 months before we could move back home.

     Oh and the "toxic" fumes-the basement was my craft area and I had lots of supplies stored in plastic bins. They don't burn they melt and release the toxic fumes. Again we were blessed by God's care. The items lost we  were able to replace and we were safe.

creativity or confusion

I am a creative person. I have always needed to do something creative. As a child, I would use graph paper to color the little squares into designs. Wish I had saved some they would be good quilt ideas now. My great grandmother taught me how to do 4 patch and 9 patch quilt squares sewing them by hand. So my interest in fabric began than and continued as I sewed for myself and my family. I still have those squares and am trying to incorporate them into wall hangings with some of the embroidery quilt squares I did as a child. I learned to embroider from my mother and did quite a few items. Most of those I still have. I have many items I purchased with the idea of embroidering them some day. More than I will probably get done at this time of my life.  My grandmother taught me how to crochet. So I have added yarn, crochet thread, hooks and pattern books to my collection of craft items.

Over the years, I have learned to do many other crafts. I got interested in making potporrui, growing and drying herbs and flowers. When I went to work at a greenhouse, I learned to do floral arrangements. Needless to say I added containers that could be used as well as wreaths and lots of silk and dried items.

Then I got interested in ceramics, yes I have paints as well as bisque to paint.
I think I could furnish a small craft shop with materials I have on hand-you name it and I probably have the supplies:  scrapebooking, beading, candle making, cards, home decor anything!

Now the problem is I get to creating and my mind goes in too many directions at once. As I am making something, I see possible options and my hands can't make it fast enough to keep up with my ideas.
I have always seen someones creative idea and that causes my mind to go into other directions adding or  changing what their idea was and make it mine but different.

If I could not create, I think I would stop breathing. But I wish I could be better focused and more organized. As you can see from the above picture, when I am creating, I am messy:)

The Amish

I read a blog where someone had gone on a trip and went through an area where there is an Amish community. My husband was raised Amish. He was one of nine siblings. He is a twin and likes to joke that he has 3 twin brothers. How is that possible? He had an older set of twin brothers. He and his twin are the younger set. There are 53 sets of twins in 3 generations of the Miller family (at least his Millers). Four of his siblings have passed away. Only one older brother and my husband chose to leave the Amish and live "English" as they call us.

Leaving the Amish and "going English" is a very BIG step. Merv and his older brother had not joined the Amish church so it was not as difficult as it can be. A tremendous amount of pressure is put on the children to stay in the faith they were brought up in. The parents feel like they have failed if the children leave the Amish church. He grew up in Amish area in Northern Indiana.

My husband was drafted during the Viet Nam war. The Amish are pacifist and do not believe in war. My husband did his service at a hospital in Indianapolis. I grew up in Indiananpolis and my senior year of high school worked in the office of this hospital. We met at lunch time in the cafeteria. We began to date and fell in love and started talking marriage. My husband said to me "I am from the Amish and most of my family are still Amish". I said "what's that"? He tried to explain, but I did not get it. He would go home occassionally for visits and as he began to stay down in Indy more and more, his family knew something was going on. When asked on one visit if he was seeing someone he said yes and it was serious. His parents wrote several letters to him prior to our marriage about what it might mean to marry English. They do not believe in divorce at all for any reason and they were afraid if we married we would not make it.

I grew up in a prostant church and went from the time I was a baby all through my growing up. Church, faith and my God and Saviour have always been important to me. Any time I dated someone I would invite them to church with me. We would go on Sunday morning or if we worked that day, Sunday evenings. Merv later told me he had not had any idea of what God or the church was about till he came to my church. In the Amish church, they meet every other week in each others homes. The preacher or preachers (sometimes up to 3) preach; but they preach in German, not the Pennsylvaina Dutch that the Amish speak in everyday. So he did not always understand what was being said and as with most Amish children they are just thinking of playing with their friends after service.

We made plans to marry and only 2 of Merv's unmarried sisters made the trip down. The Amish do not drive cars only horse and buggies. They do hire drivers for some trips. After we were married, we moved to Northern Indiana because Merv had a job waiting for him after his service was done. Once we were married his family was very welcoming. They have always been supportive of us. We have been married for 45 years this June:)

The Amish are very family oriented. Family is very important also visitation and caring for those in their community who are in need. They do not believe in insurance, but each church communnity will step in and pay the hospital bills of those in their church. If there is a huge hospital expense, they will have some kind of fund raiser and these are supported by the larger Amish community and a lot of the English too. The fund raisers are usually some sort of a meal and it is good food!

The Amish like the rest of us are not perfect, but they do strive to be a "plain" people and not "worldly". One of the discussions I have heard is people talk about the "shunning" that is done. This is not as practiced as it used to be. It would be done to those who had joined the Amish church and then left for assorted reasons. The act of shunning could be very hurtful, making the shunned person sit at a separate table when eating in the family home. I have never seen this pracitced in my husband's family. They are loving and welcoming. They do forget sometimes that I do not speak "Dutch" and will get to talking and not include me, but that is very rare. Most of the time when we are with them they make the effort to speak English. Most Amish children do not speak English until they go to school.

Originially it was encouraged that the Amish farm or carpenter or craftsmanship. Almost all of the women do not work outside of the home. Because of the economy that is not always possible anymore. A lot of the men work at RV factories in this area. The family usually has a very large garden, growing and canning a lot of their own food. The women sew all their families clothes as well and they do not have dryers so the clothes go on the line year round. The whole family works very hard. Children are expected do help with all the chores.

One change over the years has been the addition of phone buildings. These are not public phones with coin operation. Several families will get together and purchase a phone line with multiple numbers. The phones cannot be in the house, so they are at the edge of someones property. These have become necessary because of several tragic accidents where emergency personal could not be called in time to help someone. Another change all of the homes being built now have indoor plumbing. When my husband and I first married, several still had outhouses and pumped water for dishes. They do not have electricity in their homes.

It is an interesting lifestyle that I have been priviledged to learn about. At times I have craved the simplicity and quietness; BUT, I could not give up my TV, computer, and not being able to walk in and flip a switch to turn on a light.