Very Thankful For Family!

If you read my last post, you will know that we were struggling to make ends meet after the lay off and had no clue how we were going to get funds together for us to move. No bank was going to lend us a penny, since neither of are currently working.  We were so lost.  Let me just say my FIL is a true godsend at this time.  He was willing and able to loan us the amount we needed for our move.

I did talk my hubby into staying here one extra month so we can let our daughter graduate with her pre-K class in June.  Our house is slowly getting packed up, A LOT of it is getting purged via craigslist & freecycle & friends.

As of June 22, our place here in CA will be packed up on a truck and shipped to WI.  We will leave here either the 24th or 25th, after we do final clean up.   We will drive till we can’t handle the drive anymore, it’s a 22 hour drive to our first destination, and stop to sleep at a hotel or if we make it to the in-laws in OK, all the better to save us money.  We will stay there for a few days and head up to WI by end of the week.  Will stop in IL to finally meet a friend of mine face to face, we met on a message board when we were both pregnant 5 years ago! but living across country from each other, we never got to meet in person, and now we finally will!  Then after our late dinner with her and her family, we will finish the drive to my brothers house, where we will be staying until we can get established finding jobs and getting our own place.

I am so thankful for family in our time of need, and honestly do not know what we would do without them.  They will never know how much this truly means to me and my immediate family.

Our daughter is so excited about moving, she asks me at least 3 times a day, if we are going to Uncle T’s house now.  Every time we get in the car, she thinks we are going, and gets bummed when I tell her it will be another 2 months before we go.  Of course at 4, 2 months is 2 hours later..  She is so excited to play with her cousin.  And so excited to be able to go spend the night at grandmas.  I have decided that I am going to make a calendar to help her understand and mark off the days till we move. 

So there you have it, things are looking up so much in the last week.  That being all said, the sewing machine is already packed up, the cameo is still out, but will be packed up soon. I do have a friend wanting me to make her daughter a couple hats, so I will keep out my crochet hooks and the yarn, but other than that my crafting is pretty much put on permanent hold till after the move, and possibly till after we find our own place.

Where has all my crafting mojo gone?

This is a pretty personal post for me, so if you would rather not read about my personal life, then you may want to skip this blog post.

You may have noticed my crafting blog here has completely been lost in the last few months.  Why you may ask? Well stress is the answer.  In December, my husbands job downgraded and he got put onto part time.  He knew it was coming, sorta, they are always slow around Christmas, and there really wasn’t anyone else they could cut, as they were already down to their bare minimum of employees, all they had left were managers, including my husband, but he was what you would consider middle management.

In late January, I was diagnosed with depression and was put on antidepressants.  I never got to the point of wanting to hurt or kill myself or others, but a mild case of depression in the least.  I had lost all motivation to do anything, crafting and doing anything with my daughter were feeling like chores to me, instead of fun and an outlet.  I sat on the couch all day, didn’t care what my house looked like, that the dishes piled up, that the house really needed to cleaned, spending time with any friends, let alone leave the house or even want to shower, none of it mattered to me.  I was sad all the time, I wanted to sleep all the time, and every little thing just got me flustered and irritated and I would have loved to just stay in bed all day long, but I couldn’t, I had a family to take care of.  Things are better now, I still have days when the meds just aren’t enough, but that is my choice.  My doctor wanted me on 40mg of the med, but I noticed a huge difference in my mood and motivation at just 20mg, so I told her I would not go up on my meds unless I don’t feel it isn’t working.

In March, we came to realize that my husbands company isn’t picking back up this year, and I was finally able to talk him into moving back to Wisconsin where my family is located.  We started looking into moving companies to move us across country.  The quotes were a lot higher than what we expected them to be, so on a tight budget we went so we could save up for the move. 

April brings us to our current state, 2 weeks ago, my husband got laid off. Stress has super kicked in.  We don’t know when his unemployment will kick in, and here in CA, they have a cap on the amount you can receive on unemployment each week, which happens to be even less than what he was getting working part time. Funds were already tight, now I have no clue how we are going to save up for a move, let alone even make bills.  Once we get out of CA though, things will be better cause we won’t have the ridiculous high rental costs, so things will definitely be less stressful, but we have no clue how we are going to get the funds to do a move now.  Which leaves not only myself stressing, but my husband as well. 

And that is where things stand, we have been selling items we are not planning on taking with us for the move, FreeCycling other items that aren’t worth much, but still have plenty of use left in them. We have also decided a lot of the items we were planning on taking with us, will no longer be going so we can downsize the costs of the move.

Valentine’s Day

This year, with it being K’s first year of school for Valentines Day, I had to put my hand forward and make her “cards” for her. I had to make a total of 40 of them, 27 for her class, and 13 for a party we have to go to after class that day. I used my cricut to cut a file found on SVGCuts.com named Sweet Treat Bags.  I need to add some more embellishments to them, just need to find something in my many stashes as to what I want to use. I bought some 3x4 bags and a stack of K&C Valentine paper over at Michael’s.  I filled the bags with some sweethearts and some valentine M&M’s.

 

I also printed up some Subway art for the walls that I found over on Pinterest, I am addicted to this site!

Giveaway Over at Creating from the Heart

A very talented Melissa over at Creating from the Heart is doing her annual end of the year giveaway.   For you paper crafters this is definitely one you will not want to miss entering, but for any crafter, why would you pass up on the chance to just get that wonderful Michael’s gift card?  The drawing will remain open until Jan. 1st, 2012.

Here is all that she is giving away. 

~ A $150.00 Gift Card to Michael's Craft Stores

~ 1 Copic Air-Brushing Starter Set System

~ 1 Copic Color Swatch Book

~ 36 Copic CIAO Marker Set!

Been a Busy Month

Been a crazy month, with K’s birthday, K’s first dance recital, being not only a paper cutting test cutter but also a sewing pattern tester, and Christmas, it’s been non-stop go go go here.  I am unable to show off the test cuts or the sewing pattern testing I have done yet, but I will post them once I get the ok from both designers.
Here are some of the photos of crafts from K’s party. We had an Under The Sea theme.

Treat bags

Cupcakes

Party Hat

Fish Net

Made some Christmas Subway Art to hang up on my wall.

 

Christmas Cards I made for the family.

I decorated K’s door with streamers for her to run through in the morning when she woke up on her birthday.  She was all sorts of confused and called for us to get her out when she woke up.  I plan on running and getting some red and green streamers to do for Christmas morning too.


I really wish I could share my test cuts and pattern testing dress I made, the dress is a definite one that will have several made for her throughout the years.  I love it!!  But soon enough, she is still testing out size fittings for the other sizes, hopefully it will be fairly quickly.