07/16/2026
Hello friends! I have been completely remiss in keeping you, my people, up to date with the changes in life. I think it is because they have come so quickly and unexpectedly, I couldn’t condense them into something that would make any sense. But, I’m going to try this morning (surprise, not surprise….I can’t sleep).
It is 5 a.m.- I’m sitting on my screen porch (fancy people call it a “lanai”- it’s just a screen porch to me). There is thunder in the distance, I’m hoping there might be a lightning show in a little while. I have settled into my sweet home and I love it here.
The teaching job I had so much hoped for didn’t work. I’m citing “philosophical differences” - I wanted to teach children to love learning, admin wanted me to teach a test and had no follow-through with discipline. So, I waited for the universe to send me my next. And by waited, I mean that I pounded the pavement and applied for EVERYTHING. Twenty+ years of running my own business and I couldn’t get a job as a checker at random orange big box hardware store. 😜
Life evolved, I’ve had many, many wonderful times with the family I moved here to be near. New babies and jobs for them, time with my favorite kiddo making slime, playing at the springs and creating handmade paper dolls, time with my darling brothers and their families, and now…extra special time with my amazing mom.
Mom moved into the independent side of a facility last May. She gave it a honest, solid try, but found she just hated it. I had the ability to be there a lot, and had the ability to have her up to my sweet home often. One visit, around Easter, she commented on how much she loved being in my home. And then commented that again, and again…I asked “Mom, do you want to come and live with me?” Her response was along the lines of “Oh, could I?” Of course, yes Mom, please come live with me. I’ve always promised she would have a home with me, and now she’s here.
Shuffle life, shuffle stuff, move stuff, purge stuff, shuffle some more…we are just at a month of mom being here with me, and I am SO BLESSED to have this amazing person in my home, and in my heart every.single.day. We are still figuring out where some stuff will live, the garage is a crazy clutter of boxes and “to be sorted”, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. She is bright and funny, a little hard of hearing, addicted to Wheel, Jeopardy, the news and the Tampa Bay Rays. So we watch ball in the evenings, and I cook simple meals, and we laugh. She hems pants and fixes pockets and mends, reads voraciously and enjoys the quiet pieces of life in a home with family. We sit on the screen porch when it is not a thousand degrees and enjoy a random breeze, my neighbor’s crazy roosters who are time impaired (they crow all today long) and we talk and enjoy the simple pleasures of life and it is good. It is very good.
I’m working part-time at a job I really enjoy. I’m doing Home Health, I have a couple of wonderful (crazy, cranky, loving) people that I take care of. I am able to adjust my schedule so I’m not away from the house for 10 hour days, and I can be here with mom, and that matters the most.
God has decided to put on a lightning show for my enjoyment. The thunder rolls like a bass drum band, there is a quiet breeze, “my” rooster is singing his morning songs, the early birds are chattering in the trees, Carolina is quietly snoring in the bed, and I know I am right where I am supposed to be. Sharing my home with my amazing mom, making a quiet difference in the lives of my people and knowing that I am right where I am supposed to be. And, I am blessed.
If you read to the end of this protracted essay, thanks. I love you. I miss you, and the years that were full of Sticks and String will always define who I was for a huge part of my life. I have not forgotten the moments that made me who I am when I was your go-to yarn store person. I hope you are blessed, even in the troubling, challenging, difficult times. I hope that in the garden of life, when the weeds are winning, you still find that beautiful bloom that makes you smile. I hope your stitch count works out every row, and that you win at “yarn chicken”. I hope and wish for you all the most beautiful blessings.
In Sticks and String- me
