Spiritual Softening, Sadness, Sewing & Sickness!?!

What kind of a title is that? Well as weird as it sounds, it pretty well sums up the week I've had (am having) and explains my absence from blog land.

Spiritual Softening -
We started a new series at church, the day before we went in for our infertility tests, titled, "Who's in Control." Well clearly I would have nothing to learn from this (HA) as I have no issues with control ... nope. none. And the series is in 1 Samuel. Not a book of the bible I'm super familiar with ... so imagine the "coincidence" that the first chapter of 1 Samuel deals with a woman named Hannah who is grieving her inability to have children. Wow! God really is in the details of our lives. So Sunday's message was all about Hannah's heart ... and how she had to give her biggest heart's desire over to God, give it to Him to take care of, since she could do nothing about it on her own. And the bigger message ... not just give it to Him, but give it, LEAVE it and go on with joy. So Sunday started off the emotional roller coaster of this week ...

Sadness, great sadness -
We found out on Tuesday of this week that our cat, Chopper, had cancer. We knew for the past few weeks his health was declining and after many tests and hundreds of dollars later, we got this awful news. We really felt like the only choice we had was to put him down and end his pain. Anything else they *might* have been able to do would have only temporarily improved his current problems, but there was no cure. Neither one of us could face bringing him home and "waiting" for him to get bad again, not really having a way to understand his daily pain.
We've had Chopper since before we were married ... every day we've been home in the last 10 years, he's been here with us. His daily presence has left such a void, a loss that has surprised both of us at how hard it will be to move past that. He was a feisty cat and not the friendliest to those that visited our home, LOL, but he so loved us (especially Matt) and was always curled up with one of us. I'm so glad I snapped this last picture of him on Tuesday morning and that it looks like the Chopper we knew and loved, not the one that was very sick.

Sewing -
Well, I don't think there is an easy transition from the sadness, so I'll just jump into sewing. Last week I got 4 apron orders (whoo-hoo!) and completed one last week, just finished two this week (sewing is good for taking my mind off other things) and have one more to complete before this weekend. These pictures are of one of the Isabella aprons that was up in my shop, it wasn't completed when I listed it, so it only showed fabric at that time ... and here is what the fabric turned into:



This same person also wanted a mans apron as this was going to be a wedding shower gift. This was a challenge in that she wanted the two to coordinate ... so I added a bit of pink to the front pocket, added some detailing to the neck band and lined the big pocket with the other fabric. I'm not sure how "manly" it is, but it sure turned out great. I think I'll include a tag that says, "Real Men wear Pink and Cook in Aprons!"




And sickness -
And just when I thought the week couldn't get worse and we were headed to even emotional ground, getting ready for a much needed "break" from daily life, well I wake up to a barky/seal cough at 1:30AM. Ah, the love of croup. Now I'm not positive that is what this is, but Ethan favors croup if he's going to get sick :). So I slept next to his bed, so not a good idea when you've passed the age of 25 let alone 30! My neck, my back, my hips .... So that means no preschool today which throws off my to-do's, but that's life, we're going to enjoy being lazy, sewing and getting caught up.

Right Now ... well sweet Janna tagged me to do a blog post right now and so I figured that was as good a prompt as any, and took this picture right before I sat down, my desk in my "space" a little messy, but do you see that delicious iced tea and that warm cinnamon roll. The cinnamon roll is now happily in my tummy and I'm working on the tea ...


Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow and back into my posting routine!
Happy Thursday (yes, it's a reminder for me too, to be happy even when I don't feel like it!)