New details

Check out the Flickr badge of Mary's house (The Glencroft) on my sidebar.
Lots of new things in the house :o)

My poor ignored blog

Lets just say that I'm really looking forward towards a uneventful March, OK?!
This month has been nuts.

This is another rambling post, you have been warned :o)

R.I.P.
Last week we lost another family member.

Our dear fridge.
Bit the dust at the tender age of just 7 years.
Like I really needed the added stress last week... that compressor could have died this week and it wouldn't have bothered me so much. We decided to do a pre-emptive strike, seeing as the small freezer next to it is 12 years old.
We went out and bought this baby:

Dude.
A sided-by-side freezer/fridge!
It's huge. And beautiful. And sleek.
And yes, we went broke, because our insurance only covers half of the fridge cost, LOL!
I think I'll be rolling out a red carpet when this is delivered on March 1st.

So where have I been keeping my food, you ask.
Well, we went and turned on my mom's old fridge next door. Which means that to get milk etc you have to put on your shoes, dash outside, go next door and walk through the entire house to get to the kitchen. Let me tell you, this cuts down on snacking.. just too much effort involved.
It has also led to some creative thinking:

A tray with milk and often used items on our basement steps by the side door. We forgot to put in the needed insulation tape before it got cold and there's a nice breeze through the side of that door... hey, with these temps, it keeps the milk just perfect.

Flowers.
I rescued a couple plants from my mom's kitchen windowsill and repotted them.

You can't even see the Aloe Vera hiding behind the..umm.. we call it Christmas cactus, since it blooms then. You can see it is filled with buds again. This plant used to be my grandma's. I hope I can keep it blooming.


These are the flowers I used to make the casket decoration and our bouquet for the funeral. The yellow and two-toned tulips were in the bouquet, the rest on the casket. I was going to take photos of the finished pieces, but in all the hassle I forgot. And I had no intentions of taking my camera to the church. So you'll have to trust me when I say they were beautiful, I got many compliments on them.

The Funeral.
Want to know what happened on our way to church? On the 500 meter/yard drive?
Our car was rear-ended.
Yes.
Really.
I was in my cousin's car, but witnessed it all. We are so lucky nobody got hurt.
However our car needs a new rear light, a new exhaust pipe and a bumper paint job. Oh yay.
(the next morning I got out of bed and wondered why my thighs felt like wood, I hadn't done anything the previous day... My dear cousin looks at me and says: Right, except that 100 meter dash to see if your kids were OK. Oh yeah...)

But, we got to church with time to spare.
We had 50-60 people show up, I never did count all heads. The priest had taken our cue to be less solemn, in fact her speech really nailed it. Once my mom's casket had been carried out of the church to the car, we had to smile. No ordinary "casket Volvo". Oh no. My mom's last ride was a Chrysler Voyager. Going out in style.
We had a "coffee reception" at the church afterwards. Lots of good memories were told. The 63 photos on the laptop were a big hit. All in all it was a very good funeral.
Once we got home, us five adults emptied three bottles of bubbly, true to my mom's style.

More Mini Things.
I've always wanted to try basket weaving... hehee..

It will be a laundry basket for my dollhouse. It's made of paper covered wire which I just happened to have hanging around, completely useless. Luckily I have two rolls of it as I need to make a lid also.

Pretty trash, isn't it?

In fact it is so pretty, I think I'll use some on a scrapbook page instead of throwing it all away.
What is it?
White tissue paper painted with watercolors.
I punched a whole lot of tiny circles from it.

Why?
To make these roses:

And yes, each petal is individually glued on.
I'll be making more over the weekend and put some up for sale at my Etsy store.
Along with these gerber daisies and carnations:

Pretty aren't they?

I've also been doing some furniture shuffling in my dollhouse. And making curtains. I have new ideas for Mary's house. Once I'm done it'll be filled with details. But of course that'll take a long while. I'll give you glimpses on the way though.

Real Life.
Is calling...
Have to go grocery shopping, do laundry and vacuum.
If anyone wants to come and distract me, feel free to ring the doorbell.

...de-de-de-deeeeee... welcome to the Twilight Zone...

Just how creepy is this?

This is from the 80's, I just found it in my mom's closet...

I swear the hair in the back of my neck stood up.

[shiver]

Photos, as promised

Spanning all the decades of her life, in no particular order.

(click to make them bigger)

They make me smile.

Oh boy.. [shaking head]

I don't know if I should laugh or cry.
Well I do know.. since we laughed... apparently we should have been crying.
[rolling eyes loudly]

My brother and I met up with the lady priest who is doing the service at my mom's funeral on friday. I have never met a more solemn and sad looking person in my life.
She oozed grief.
I kid you not.

Now I need to set a few things straight before I ramble further.
Yes, it is a terribly tragic event to lose one's mother.
Yes, I have had a good cry about it.
But no, I refuse to wallow.
We refuse to wallow.
In fact my mom would be kicking our sorry asses if we were to wallow.
We are focusing on the good times, fun memories.
So we choose to laugh and smile.

This apparently is a strange attitude in our country.
By nature we Finns tend to be melancholic pessimists.
I'm told.
Heh.
Soooo...
Once we shook hands and she turned around to take us into her office, we looked at each other with very raised eyebrows, a smirk and the idea of which one of us would reach the door screaming first...
Through the interview she must have thought we were nuts.
All smiles and laughter.
Not a kleenex in sight.

And another thing.
We won't be wearing black.
Nope.
No way.
We'll wear colors and smiles and bring bright happy flowers.
And after the service at the well...reception of sorts (coffee etc served), we'll have a slideshow on a laptop of 50 photos of my mom.
I'll upload a few of my favorites here later.

Now, in other news:
there are new items in my Etsy shop.
Feel free to browse :o)

A little this, a little that

I'll start with this little thing:

I'm planning our dollhouse shopping center, one of the shops will be a seamstress's (are there really that many s's..lol). So naturally there needs to be a dress in the works. I found patterns fot this wedding gown online, dug out some fabric scraps and went to work.
The conclusion? I have way too big fingers to sew in miniature! That stand is just 14cm/5½" tall. Came out pretty though, if you don't look at the stitches too closely...
And yes, there's a petticoat under there... groan.

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Life goes on.
I think the good thing in all this is that my mom's death didn't come from behind a tree as the saying here goes. I had wrapped my head around it all in plenty of time. Living right next door, I knew just where we went.
The funeral is set for a week from today, the 16th.
There is still so much to do. Meeting the priest, the company handling the funeral, flowers.. hoping people RSVP in time, so we know how many are coming (the number is at 43 now).
And I won't even talk about the paper bureaucracy... if that doesn't give you grey hair, I don't know what does.

We spent 6 days going through the house. There is still so much to do, but we've taken most of the week off and head back into the dust tomorrow.

Going to pick up the mail each day has felt so good. All the cards and letters I've been getting... I'm surrounded by so much love.
Thank You.

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Yesterday I finished a few of my famous "almost done" projects.
My new cute headgear:

Should keep my brain from freezing. The flower was actually made by my grandmother decades ago.
And this little purse that will end up in my Etsy shop later today:

You might remember seeing it in pink/orange too.
I still have enough of the blue and pink/orange yarns to make more if needed ;o)

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Speaking of Etsy...
I sold my first items today!!!
Yippeee!!!!!

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Hey, it's Friday.
I'm thinking pizza and red wine tonight.
Amd a roaring fire, since it is still COLD.
How about you?

A new day

And such a beautiful sunrise.

It's my birth month.

I promise to smile through the sadness.

I uploaded one of my banners from last year.

And thank you all for your sweet words.

Especially ones from "fried friends".

Thank you for the giggle C.