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Ok, it's Saturday, there's nothing I'm particularly interested in doing so I'm just going to go ahead and tell my life story. Not my entire life, just the last two years.  Two years ago, I was an able bodied person, a retired RN  working PRN in Labor and Delivery.  I had a thriving EBAY business making things and selling them.  My husband and I were packing to move to Florida to a retirement community.  Jim has wanted to move to Florida for the last ten  years but I was still working and my parents were still living.  The last four years my brother and Sue and I were very involved in their care, switching off staying with them.  The last two years after my mom passed away,  during the school  months, my dad would come stay with either Sue or I because Sue had a school age child and lived forty miles away.  In the summer she could bring him with her so Dad could stay on the farm. My dad passed away the day before his 93rd birthday.  The next year Jim and I began making plans for our move to Florida.  We sold our house and while we were packing our belongings, I fell down the basement steps and my whole life was turned upside down, pun intended.  I broke my neck and spent  the next three weeks in intensive care in a medically induced coma.  Then I was transferred to a rehab hospital where Jim and Sue and I were taught everything we'd need to know for me to survive as a quadriplegic.  I retained use of my arms and my right hand.  After five months I went to Sue's house for her to care for me.  In order for Sue to continue to help take care of me, we needed to live closer to her, so we moved to her small town.  Florida became a dim memory.  We built a completely wheelchair accessible home in town and Sue helps my husband take care of me.  She's also our driver because Jim is losing his vision.  I don't require a lot of care, but there's no way I could live on my own.  So six days a week, Sue comes to our house to make stuff with me while Jim goes into his office and takes a break.  I'm not telling you this so you"ll pity me, but rather because so many of my stories are related to my disabilities.  

Ok, so the blizzard came and we did get snowed in, but just for a brief time.  Now five days later, it's 40 degrees with a plethora of slush (another term that may be unfamiliar with).  I'm sitting in front of a window and I just thought i saw a robin.  Actually it was an autumn leaf sticking up from the grass and snow.

I have some more photos of our purse charms.  The first one was made with Nebraska fans in mind.  My personal favorite of these is the black and white one.

We are expecting  a blizzard here n the next few hours.  Those of you who live in more tropical climates may have to google blizzard unless you're a Weather Channel junky.  Right now they're predicting 6-12 inches.  We will be totally snowed in.  Sue won't be able to get here so i'll be on my own. 

It is surprisingly relaxing to string tiny beads on wire.  They are much prettier in person.

Sandy is so right about the brain thing.  Now that we are spending a lot of time together, we finish each other's sentences.  Sometimes she just opens her mouth and I speak.

Sue and I figured out a long time ago that we share a brain.  We are actually one person in two different bodies.  The first time I became aware of this was about twenty five years ago.  My parents thought it would be fun to take a road trip to Texas to visit Mom's family, and that it would be even more fun to take Sue, me and my brother Gary with them, just like the old days when we were kids, only now we could help drive and pay for our own food.  Was that a run on sentence?  I put a lot of commas in it.  So anyway, Sue and I have always loved to sew and in order to keep the trip from getting boring, I decided it would be a good time for us to learn to quilt.  So I went to the library and checked out every quilting book they had.  I got a box of fabric together and all the tools we would need, needles, thread scissors, etc  Sue lived forty miles away, so she was going to come to my house the evening before we left and my parents and brother were going to pick us up in the morning.  When Sue got there she said she had thought this would be a good time for us to learn to quilt,so she had gone to the library to get some books and all the quilting books were checked out.  Spooky....

It wasn't a boring trip, but not totally because of the quilting.  Try it sometime.  Going on a trip with your parents and your grown  siblings can be really fun.  We made it a yearly event for several years.  Sometimes one of the sibs wouldn't be able to get away, and sometimes a nephew or a spouse joined us, but it was always a fun trip.  Of course there were moments when tempers got short, but nothing like when we were kids.  More later, feel free to comment.

Pictures do not do Sue's book justice.  And being able to hold it, of course, is better than pictures.

I told you we live in the midwest, did you google that?  Anyway we live in a very small town and yesterday a water main burst and we had no water for awhile.  Almost immediately after my shower, in fact.  So now we have to boil our water until further notice.  Sue lives a couple of miles from town and has a different water source, so she doesn't have to boil her water.  Luckily we have a bag of ice in the freezer because of course we can't use the ice from the ice maker.  I don't know when this problem will be solved because it is a small town and it is the weekend.  I would rather have dirty water than have the electricity off.

So we went to the city Wednesday and of course we had to stop at Walmart.  Some of you may have to google Walmart also. I think it's a midwest thing.  We have over-purchased recently, but we found ourselves in the craft department in the bead aisle and somebody had to buy one of every color.  It was not me.  I am not a good influence.  More later.



































we live in the idwest;  did youb 

Bellevue meets Rockwell

I went to the Goodwill awhile back to get some books to alter, and found this old one named Bellevue:

  It was written in 1940 so the pages were already distressed.  Then I went to the library for free magazines and found a Life with a tribute to Norman Rockwell, and wondered what it would be like to pair the pictures with the book.  Here's what I came up with:

Since the pages were already distressed, I used the ones I tore out for pockets.  It's a bit of a fragile book and will have to go to a special person who is able to care for it properly.  And I'm sure there is a better way to position the pictures but I haven't figured it out yet.  When I'm sure that I'm finished with the book I will list it on Etsy with a fuller description of the pages.

Today I find myself with extra time on my hands so I will tell you a little bit more about myself.    I live in the midwest.  Where's that, you ask?  Sue and I were talking yesterday about how the midwest is the forgotten country.  We were preparing for a blizzard (which didn't materialize) and discussing how we never hear anything on the national news about our blizzards like we hear about blizzards on the east coast.  Same with cold weather.  Last week when we had temps of -27 degrees, all we heard on the national news was that Florida had temps in the twenties.  Big deal.  Oh, and another thing...while I'm sitting here typing on my computer, I'm noticing on my monitor  that midwest is underlined in red as if it's a misspelled word.  Are you kidding me?!  Maybe we're going to have to walk around with signs that say MIDWEST LIVES MATTER.  Of course somebody from the national news needs to see us so never mind.

More later, maybe Sue will weigh in and we welcome your comments. 

Hi, I'm Sandy, also known as unknown by the great blogger in the spirit world.  I will admit right now that after texting on my phone, I've gotten accustomed to having my letters capitalized,  having my periods filled in if I spaced twice, and having autocorrect tell me what I really wanted to say.  I have always been a stickler about correct grammar, punctuation and spelling in my real life, but now with the internet, I have relaxed those rules for myself, so don't be surprised if I lose those things as i go along. 

I have been identified here as somebody who likes to shop on the internet, and it's true.  And if I see something I like, I will buy one of every color.  That's not only true of my virtual shopping.  When I actually go to the store, I do the same thing.  Sue is a bit more conservative but on the internet shopping, Ithink she is a close second. 

I loveto make things and sell them on EBAY.  I had a pretty good business there a few years ago and then was felled by an accident and am hoping that Sue and I can build that back up and become millionaires.  It's slow going at the beginning but I remain hopeful.  If you want to check us out on EBAY, the user name is sandyvint.  Right now the product we're working on is beaded purse charms.  Oh, great, you're thinking, already a commercial, but it was a short one.

Welcome!  This blog is hosted by my sister Sandy and me (Sue, Susan, or hey you).   We are at a time in our life where we can pretty much do anything we want so we spend a good share of our days crafting.  Our current passions are making jewelry and also paper bag albums.  One of us in particular, and I won't say who, loves internet shopping.  We are old enough to remember before the internet existed, when you weren't sure who your friends were, and there certainly weren't 500 of them,  and when you said something no one shouted "Like!"  It was a boring and uncertain time and has probably been written about in history books.  We have adapted well to the technological age and the internet is now a big part of our lives, because where else could we learn from youtube??
Susan