Karla's Cottage

Road Trippin’ with Junkin’ and Craftin’

My friend, Angie, invited Beth and I to visit the old farmhouse her grandma lived in.

She and her mom have been restoring it for years.  

It’s a great mix of original pieces and beloved collections. (Angie had the very old, still functioning fridge stocked with deliciousness for us)

The drive south was as much fun as the staycation itself.  We hit every thrift store between Lawrence and Chanute.

And got photos of the most unique offerings.  

While making some friends along the way.

And eating some of the freshest home cooking you could ever be lucky enough to find at a roadside cafe.

At one stop, there were baskets of $1 packets of old lace. I bought more than my fair share, but couldn’t stop thinking about them so stopped on the way home to buy more.

Beth happened to bring craft supplies too, and shared her 1800s era quilt pieces for us to embellish with some things we found along the way.

Impromptu creations made with just what you have with you can be an inspiring challenge.  We all managed to get a few pretties done.

But mostly we just laughed. And then laughed some more. Then we ate and drank wine and did more laughing.

It was perfect!

 

 

April Showers Bring May Flowers

My birthday is in May and Mom used to say “April showers bring May flowers” to me when I was little.  I loved it, and thought she made it up just for me.  

This year, May will be hard, but I am focusing on why I have always loved this month and will try to get outside and enjoy those flowers and everything else springtime brings.

While visiting Indiana, my sister gave me her curtains since she switched to new ones.  I thought the lovely, rosy pattern on my favorite blue would be just the splash of spring that I needed, so I turned the curtains into slipcovers for my sofa.

Maybe calling them slipcovers is too generous of a term.... they are just pillow cases, no closures, darts, or anything that takes skill.  Simply rectangles sewn together on three sides with couch pillows in them.

But cheerful, right?  Thanks for the curtains and inspiration, Sissy!

 

 

Appreciating Something Normal

We had company!  Our friends are now vaccinated and we celebrated together with a pitch in BUFFET style meal!

No more fixing an individual plate for each person, we actually all stood NEAR each other, WITHOUT masks, INDOORS, and fixed our plates.

Then, why does my dining room look so empty?  Well, for one thing, we were so busy catching up, then pour painting that I didn’t remember to take photos of the group.  

Another reason is that, I was excited to have a reason to clean my house and took pictures before people came over.

During the first half of quarentine, I found myself organizing and cleaning a lot.  My drawers and closets were impeccable.  

But after a while of no one coming inside, I kind of let things become sloppy around the edges.  It was very nice to have a reason to care about how things looked again.

Also, there are still reminders of the pandemic everywhere.  Such as having a new dishwasher on back order for  six months.  

But you know what?  That doesn’t phase me at all.  That might have been something that would piss me off pre-pandemic or at least be something to whine about.  But now? Small potatoes!  I had my friends coming over, and things like dishwasher delivery being delayed is not the sort of thing to upset me after what 2020 delivered to the world.

Instead of having a sit down dinner with a set table, we filled our paper plates and went outside to enjoy a beautiful, spring day.

My goal is to appreciate what I have, not complain about what I don’t.  We have all lost so much.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Honoring my grief

I have had a rough few weeks emotionally.  It started with thinking I’d lost a bag of Ryan’s ashes that I wanted to spread in Indiana while stopping there.  Luckily, I found them (put away safely, that is always a mistake, isn’t it?) Then on our visit to my hometown, no one there mentioned Ryan, so it didn’t feel right to bring up sprinkling ashes.  

We didn’t have a funeral for Ryan due to quarantine. At the time, I was too wrecked to care, and was almost glad that I didn’t have to deal with it.  But over the last year, I have begun to feel as if Ryan was cheated out of something he deserved.  He spent his life quietly in the background without many people knowing just what a great guy he was.  Was not having a ceremony another instance of Ryan fading into the background?  And is it too late now to have one?

Part of Rich’s family had a small ceremony at the Lake House last summer, and I treasure the wind chimes we made together as each person had something to say about Ry and clipped their piece of the chime together.  It was lovely, and so thoughtful of them.  I didn’t realize how much we had needed that at the time.

Thinking that I’d misplaced the ash made me remember every single bad mom incident throughout my boys’ childhood.

Then, I was overwhelmed by having a shivery cold snap hit us after three weeks of camping and needing to winterize the camper to prevent frozen pipes (while still traveling with it). We had to scramble to find alternate lodgings and between Easter weekend and spring break, plus traveling with three dogs, there just weren’t any to be found.

Seriously, it wasn’t a big problem, and it got solved, but I was irrationally upset about it, beyond the scope of the actual problem itself.   Since then, my attitude had been getting worse, and my sadness was building too.  

The anniversary of Ryan’s death looming over me has been almost more than I could handle and I let other stressors feed on that pain.

This might sound silly, but watching the season finale of the Walking Dead without him and knowing the series was ending soon, about wrecked me.  A new season of Top Chef starting, without RyGuy next to me to watch it was rough too.  The shows we watched together were important to us.  We’d pick apart details of the programs on our walks and talk about what we thought should happen next, who should be eaten by a zombie or pack their knives and go.

Thinking of the soon to be born litter of pups coming without Ryan by my side had been causing me torment instead of the joy I should have anticipating all those sweet babies due soon, too.  It was beginning to feel like everything was a reminder of how sad I was.

Everyone needs time to grieve and to acknowledge those raw emotions.  But letting them take over was not healthy, and I needed to get control of my world again. 

I will always miss my boy, nothing will change that.  Living with grief will be something I cannot change.  But dealing with grief and loss by appreciating what I have is something I can do.  Letting my raw nerves run my life certainly wasn’t helpful.  


So I took action.  

I had a sincere talk about issues that had come up with someone I cared about, who also had major worries of her own.  

I wrote a long, long letter to Ryan.  For months after he died, I filled his urn with notes and messages, but had gotten away from “talking” to him that way.  I gave myself a full day of just missing him, looking through the journal I’d made for him, (hugging it tightly against me and sobbing), watching shows he loved, writing to him and going for a walk like we used to together.  Instead of letting that underlying unhappiness brew inside me and make me antsy and sad, I let it rise to the top of my emotions and didn’t try to hide it or pretend I was fine.  

I painted.  And painted.  Pour paints are sooooo soothing.  Watching those colors glide and swirl is good for the soul.

I made plans with friends and family. I’m sharing a paint pour day with friends, having a craft day, and having a family dinner night with my fairy flock. 

Most of all, I honored Ryan by just missing him. And missing him a lot.  We both loved springtime, but he isn’t here to enjoy it, I’ll need to show my appreciation for the season enough for both of us.

 

My husband took a trip to Omaha to watch his nephew compete in jr college wrestling nationals, and I used that time to organize the studio and garage, gather supplies, mix up paints, and then dove deeply into swirling those colors around on a few canvases.

Acrylic paint pouring is an expensive hobby, but such a relaxing one.   I look forward to having a couple play dates with family and with friends.  It will be just as mesmerizing to watch them tilt and twirl the paint around.  I find the process healing.

Grief will never leave. But how I choose to have it in my life is up to me.

 

 

 

 

How to make a little fairy diorama

There were more fairy family photos to add to the mantel from our wing making event that Miss Tree gifted us with at Solstice.  


Now, I think I have us all represented over the fireplace.  I’ve used a variety of ways to display them from frames, shadow boxes, in bottles, hanging, and more.

I ran out of space for more frames, so thought I’d craft a mini diorama for my son and Dewdrop.

The first step was to cut out, glitter and decorate the people I wanted to use.

Next, I cut an arch shape from two sided cardstock. No pattern, just a roughly arch shaped piece because I knew it would be covered.

I glued Adam to the arch and then glued the arch to the inside of a mayo jar lid.

To strengthen and support the arch, I added a strip of more cardstock to the back.

Some grosgrain ribbon covered the lid up.

I filled the inside of the lid with blobs and globs of Ultimate glue, stuck a bent pie cleaner where I wanted Dewdrop to stand, then filled the lid with moss.

Dewdrop was then glued to the pipe cleaner and clamped til dry.

To stabilize the pipe cleaner, I glued pretty rocks onto the moss.  They also worked as weights to keep the piece upright.

You can see behind Dewdrop into the lid in this picture.  I added flowers and leaves around the archway and a few flowers into the moss too.

Ta-dah!

This isn’t a very refined, or perfected project  just a quickie not meant to last a life time.  But it suited my purposes for a way to add more family fairies to my display.

This is my springtime mantel  and I like it so much, it might be up all summer.  I think I even see a few spots where I could squeeze in a few more sprites...

 

An Estate Sale in Ottawa, KS that opened some floodgates for me

My friend, Angie called me to say she had someone cancel on her and she could use a couple hours of help at an estate sale she was running.

(304 E 11th Street in Ottawa, half price on Saturday the 19th)

While there were plenty of vintagey goods, practical items, and tons of tools for sale, the star of the day was the house itself.

Throughout the day, I explored all of the excellently preserved details of this pristine old house.  It made me feel nostalgic for my mom’s house in Sioux City, IA.  Hers was from the same era and style, also had that great woodwork and arched entryway doors.

Mom’s home didn’t have the original potties, though.   This house had delicious tiling and the baths were updated but not gutted and redone.  The rose and black might have been my fave.

(Delicious might not be a good word to describe a bathroom, but, honestly, that color is pretty dang tasty!)

But, no maybe this room is my favorite color combo- the soft green with a hint of lilac?  How springy and delightful!

The woodwork throughout was magnificently crafted too.  And filled with French doors.  My mother took her French doors off and stored them in the basement for some odd reason.  Maybe so my crazy, wild boys wouldn’t ride a tricycle through them.

They weren’t the only kids raised in that place, it was also the childhood home of Ann Landers and Dear Abby.  I have a feeling the advice sisters weren’t as rambunctious as my kiddos, but then not many were.

Luckily, this was marked NFS, or it would’ve been in the back of my pickup, and I do not need it. 

I sure WANT it.

The basement was filled with the original workings of the old place, and that again brought back memories of Mom’s house on Nebraska Street. There was a laundry chute here just like the one my sons threw all of their toys down.

Visions of two year old Adam dropping trucks down onto four year old Ryan’s head in the basement were bittersweet.  And I laughed out loud with tears in my eyes as I recalled running down the hall and screaming, “Noooo!  The dog cannot go down the chute!” Just in time to save that poor little schnauzer.

It has been a rough week for me, I definitely needed this day out to work with Angie. The added bonus of spending the day in a home that brought so many forgotten times rushing back was good..

May is coming up, and it is filled with land mines for my heart.  My birthday and Mother’s Day were dates that Ryan never failed to make me feel treasured on.

Then the end of May brings the anniversary of his death.

It is still April, but the mere  thought of May has been wringing tears out of me while anticipating the calendar page about to turn.

And horrifically, some dear friends recently lost their son. I spent a week making a journal/album for him and feeling their pain with each drop of glue I used.

On top of that, I’ve had someone I trust turn on me and flip my view of our relationship up and twist it around.

Memories can be a blessing and a curse at the same time.  All I can do for now is roll with the emotions, enjoying the stories that play in my mind while missing my boy.

Bad things happen, sadness continues to occur, but I need to hang out to those good memories and think about those funny little boys with the giant pile of toys under the laundry chute in the basement.

Or I will never survive this.  Those memories need to be my lifeline.