Unexpected Adventures

After making yet another commitment to blog weekly life as usual interfered. The past month has had a myriad of interesting challenges, obstacles, and sweet treats!

The sweet treats came about due to a horrid accident when my son in law Bill had an ATV accident involving my Sweet Pea Elizabeth and himself. By God grace they are both recovered/recovering but it was a scare! However it meant that this Grandma got all 4 Sweet Peas for a week! It was wonderful!! We played at the park every day and on the week end engaged in one of mine and their fav activities yard sales! We all got some great goodies! And of course we included a day at the beach!!

Poor E was a bit beat up But nothing can damper her spirit!

I spoiled them rotten and part of that included them each having their own pie!

Gramps and I had the grandest time. It was so hard letting them go home! The house was too empty and quiet!!

But there was no time to rest as we needed to move out of our rental home and our new house had not yet closed. This meant packing everything into storage and finding temporary digs. Sounds simple but was anything but! With over 8 storage facilities in Salem we could not find one empty unit! Apparently appraisals are backed up in Salem and we aren’t the only ones needing storage! One facility actually opened up a unit that was under repair and let us have it. They also just opened another smaller unit so we literally got the last 2 units in Salem! Next up was finding a place to stay. By Gods grace I had an open room at the assisted living community I manage and my wonderful regional director told me to move on in. And to add to the blessings my son in law Matt made the 10 hour jaunt from Nevada on his days off to move me. Matt has done numerous of my moves and he’s really the only person I trust to move me. Especially when it’s all going into storage!!! And moving me is no easy job, especially when it will be a double whammy, that man deserves a medal!!

An added bonus to Matt coming is that means Becca and more Grands!! What a happy grandma!! Becca and I knitted away while the guys moved us. Also had to make a trip to the bouncy house, well several trips, to keep Emmy happy!

We also managed to get to numerous yarn shops and a myriad of yard sales! After all we needed to keep out of the way!!

Here are a few of my yarny treasures! MadTosh and Malabrigo both so lovely and will soon become shawls.

These will become two shawls. But first I needed to finish this:

Here it is needing blocked and ends ran in. This is Wee Baby Blocks a very fun knit! I’ll make another of these.

Just prior to the move I had acquired a few new furniture pieces to transform with my brush.

I am so in love with this little sewing basket. It was a maple color and pretty ugly!

This little chair has such character and will be used at my new desk.

I love love love this piece and how it turned out! Here is the before:

I had these old chairs and started a renovation but then just sold them after just the one redo.

And just prior to the move I added this:

Got a few coats of black on it before it hit storage.

I just love playing with pieces and paint but must put that aside for a bit until moved and settled in our new home. I cannot wait to put all my newly painted pieces in my new home!!!

As I sit here in my temporary housing I reflect upon how humans meet challenges and disappoints. It has been a rough several months with this home purchase, everything that possibly could go wrong pretty much has. The stress it created was immense. But being a Positive Polly I like to focus on the blessings. Where stress often causes couples to fight and blame it just brought us closer as we know we are a team and gotta stick together. We could moan and whine and gnash our teeth. But on the bright side we have storage, we had family who made great sacrifice to help us, we have a cozy FREE place to live, and our seller is patiently holding on with us. All in all not so bad and it is gratitude I feel; gratitude for loving family, a great employer, and my sweet hubby. Plus I have a greater perspective on what life is like for my residents and the time to do some extra fun stuff around my assisted living community. My residents love that I’m living here with them! And our doggies, well heck they only care that they are with us.