My Mom is Dancing with Jesus

On January 27th, 2016, I hopped on a plane in Durango, Colorado and headed to Texas to support my brother, who had been sitting with our mother in the hospital and the nursing home for the past 3 weeks.  Before I could board the plane in Durango, my brother texted me and said that the Nursing home had just called and mom was not responsive and they were transferring her to hospice.  I truly believed that when I arrived in 4 hours that she would be gone.

As I walked into her hospice room, Mom yelled ‘Michelle’ with her arms opened wide.  I ran and gave her a hug, but was still confused as I expected her to be in a coma.  After talking to her and hearing her story, I was REALLY confused, she said that ‘they’ had put her in a ‘cold box’, but then they realized that she was still alive, then she was being taken to the hospice.  (Not sure what of this is truth as she was very delusional at the time).

January 27th was Mom’s birthday and that first night in hospice, she stayed up all night.  She stated that God had come to her through a tv (only she could see it, my brother could not). She said that God had given her a few instructions, one was to take her cold hands and her money and go have fun, another one was that all of her past marriages would be washed away, that all of the pain, the lies and the deceit would be washed away and that she would be a new virgin in Christ and she would soon marry her first true love.  She could wear a white wedding dress, and she would be living in a large house with a swimming pool, a hot tub, and a new car.  

The night of January 27th, mom stayed up ALL night, she said God had told her,her birthday, is the day she would be married, I was sent out to check on if ‘he’ was coming, she saw him, but never saw his face.  She heard him, but never knew exactly where he was.  The nurses gave mom a sleeping pill at 9 and then another one at 11 p.m. Neither of them fazed her, I was exhausted by 2 and told her to wake me up when he got there, and I laid down on the cot that folds out in the hospice room.  At 4:30, Mom was calling my name:  ‘Michelle, Michelle, wake up, Michelle’…groggily I awoke and asked what was wrong, she said you need to leave, he’s coming.  She said leave and don’t come back, until I call for you. So at 4:30 I was kicked out of my bed and sent to wait in the waiting room.  It was humorous at the time.  That particular night I cried once, when the nurses said there was no way she was getting a bath (at 11:30 p.m.) mom’s lip started quivering, because she wanted to be clean and sweet for her love.  I left the room in tears, she was calling me to come back and when I did she asked if I was crying, I said said yes and she asked ‘why’ then with this beautiful glow in her eyes, she said ‘I KNOW, HAPPY TEARS’ I said, ‘Yes, mom, happy tears!’  (She really couldn’t fathom that they could be anything else…)

Around 6:30 a.m. On the 28th I was allowed to come back into the room, ‘he’ never showed up, she kept saying he got busy.  I finally told her that he called me and said he had some loose ends to tie up and and he’d wake her when he got there.  Nothing much happened that night, she slept until about 1 a.m. When I awoke and asked her if she needed anything , she kept mumbling and I said ‘what” and she said ‘I need Jesus in my heart, I need Jesus in my heart, I need Jesus in my heart’ I was scared, and texted my brother, but he accidentally turned off his phone that night…since he never responded,  I knew I was on my own…Mom and I sat and prayed for 30 minutes, the fear I felt melted away as I’m sure it did for my mom, as she finally said ‘If Jesus wants me now, I am ready’, then she fell asleep and slept until morning.

Another thing Mom kept saying was ‘when all the kids are together, we will get married’, My brother and I just knew that Mom was waiting on my sister, who was driving down to Texas on Saturday.  On Friday mom and I talked about her wedding, what jewelry she should wear, if I had my dancing clothes with me.  Occasionally she would watch her ‘special’tv and when I’d ask what was on, she’d say ‘it’s for me’…usually she would tell me what she was watching, once it was her beautiful house, complete with a swimming pool and a tiny dog and cat (cause he likes cats).

Mom had started eating a little, placing her breakfast order every night before bed (usually McDonald’s), sometimes she would eat everything in sight, and I’d be amazed!  Saturday morning I talked to the dr. And she said that mom was stable, but still fragile, every person that walked through the doors, mom recognized.  she’d sit there and talk to them and remember the good old days. When she wasn’t sleeping, I was cutting her hair, or she’d play candy crush or find a word, or color…we’d watch ‘wheel of fortune’, etc (sometimes it was like real life and she’d get pretty agitated, other times she knew it was just tv)

Mostly we’d plan her wedding, mom had an idea who her ‘first love’ was, it was a guy named Dub Gordon, he had painted this beautiful picture of her, on silk (or had someone do it, I can’t remember)…Her dress was white, but she never saw it, he showed her her engagement ring, which was the size of a goose egg, and cost $80,000, when asked how she’d eat with that thing on, she said she didn’t care, if she had to hire a maid to feed her she would (if she couldn’t lift her hand)…Mom was sleeping better and eating pretty good, I had told her that her honey would be coming in with my sister on Sunday.  Mom would ask to speak to me or Gene (my brother) she wanted to verify that we had Jesus in our hearts, she was assured,without a doubt that we had Jesus in our hearts.  when my sister came in, mom asked her the same question, and Mom said ‘I can be at peace, all my kids are together’…Sunday afternoon, mom was determined to have her bath and get dressed.  We helped her with her clothes and into a wheelchair, she refused to leave the room until her hair was fixed, her teeth were brushed and her face was washed because ‘I’m going on my first date with ‘him’ tonight’…we went outside to watch the birds, after 5 min, mom was exhausted, so we helped her back into her room.  She laid down and ate a couple of bites for dinner, and then slept, she would always respond with I love you, too, when we said ‘I love you. My sister and I went to Walmart, to get some items for Mom’s next day at hospice.  Sis bought her a birdhouse, that we put up and filled with birdseed, so mom could watch the birds in the morning.

For some reason, my senses were on high alert that night, I constantly listened to mom’s breathing, around 3:15 a.m. Mom started coughing, so I jumped up to see what she needed, I gave her some water and she drank a few swallows, I talked about how it would soon be morning and she could have coffee (her favorite thing), She gave me her water and mumbled something, I said ‘what’ she said ‘hot cup of coffee’, so I put my shoes on and went to get her a cup, when I got back, she said she’d drink it later…then she asked for ice water,”ice water?’  ‘Ice’ she said, I said ‘do you want me to wake up Crystal to go get it?’  she said ‘no, leave her alone’, lol…so I went back down the long hall for ice, I remember talking to the night nurse, about how exhausting it is being a caretaker, but I also said, what mom wants, mom gets…I went back to the room and gave mom about 10 ice chips, and then I wiped  her face and neck down with a cold rag (she always did that to me when I was sick and she loved it) about 3:30 she fell back to sleep and I sat straight up in bed around 4, I jumped up and knew immediately that she was gone, I touched my sister and said ‘Mom’s not moving’ She jumped up and we stood there for a minute, before I called the nurse, and it was verified that she had passed…my last words to my mom was “I love you’ which she replied ‘I love you too’.  Mom passed 15 hours after my sister arrived…I know without a doubt that my mom is in Heaven that when she mentioned her ‘First love, it wasn’t her Human first love that she was referring to, but Christ, OUR FIRST LOVE!’  Mom is in Heaven, living the life she always dreamed of, of someone who loves her unconditionally, someone who adores her, no lies, no cheating, all of her dreams come true…Mom is in Heaven, and I KNOW I’ll see her again soon!
Mom, We love you to the moon and back, and forever and ever!!!!

A fun secret ‘box’ made out of playing cards…

The other day my niece stated that she wanted to make one of those ‘secret’ hidden cutouts in a book, while we were discussing it, but husband wondered why no one had ever made a secret box out of cards??

So…I started thinking about this, and doing a little research on the interent, and not finding anything, this is what I came up with…

  
First, you need a box of playing cards, I picked these up at the dollar store, but any cards will work.

You need to pull the jokers and 10 cards out of the deck, these will be used later as the bottom and the lid of the ‘box’.

  
You need a way to create the holes in each of the cards, I used this die from Sizzix.

  

Use the die to center your hole, and tape it down, once you put it through your cuttlebug (or whatever die cutting machine you chose), that card will be used as a template for all the other cards.  
Now you can tape two cards together and tape the die on to get a perfect shaped hole (well, almost perfect).  Once you have all the holes cut out of the remaining cards (remember not to cut holes in the ones we will be using for the top and bottom), we will begin gluing them together. (I used art Glitter glue and applied the glue with a paint brush, washing the paint brush off, as needed, so the glue wouldn’t ruin my paint brush, by drying on the bristles)

  
  
I think it works best if you have something that will give you at least two straight edges (I thought of a box and using the inside corner, but hubby came up with this) the main thing to consider is you want to have the cards directly on top of each other so that they stacked correctly…
Once you have the main cards glued together, you will glue the 5 cards together (for the top and bottom) with the jokers on top).

  
Next, glue the bottom to the ‘block’ of main cards, with the joker peaking through the hole.

  
Finally, use a piece of thin, plastic tape to tape the ‘lid’ to the box.

  
Now that your ‘secret’ box is complete, fill it with jewelry, keys, money, or whatever else you can think of, it should fit perfectly back into the original box and will be a fun ‘surprise’ for someone that is on your gift list.

If you know of anyone that has ever made a similar box, I’d be happy to hear from you.  Please feel free to share this blog post, or my youtube video (featuring this craft), but please give me the credit for it!  

Thank you for your support, and have a GREAT day!

Hugs~~Chelle

Turkey Grinding and results

Yesterday, was THE day, the turkeys had cooled from the butchering and it was time for the grinding process (we eat TONS of ground turkey, so  we decided to grind all the meat, I’ll use the bones at another time to make turkey broth).

My niece always comes and spends the day with us on Sundays after church.  She was SUCH a big help, with the grinding, I was having issues with dizziness and breathing, so she says ‘Aunt Michelle, I’ll help Uncle Clint with the grinding, I love playing with raw meat’ (she’s 13, and she had a blast!)

So, Uncle Clint cut the meat from the bones, while niece was sticking it into the meat grinder, while checking for remnants of undesireable objects.  She was like, ‘here’s part of a feather’ ,or ‘this feels like a bone’.  She did an awesome job.

  (Here I made them recreate a scene when she was 2!  She was laughing so hard)
The bounty…

  Here is the meat all ground up, and what we determined is:
20 turkeys $120

turkey feed $220

cat food the turkeys ate $150

waterer for the turkeys $30

number of turkeys that killed themselves 12

Remaining turkeys butchered 8

Amount to raise 8 turkeys to butchering size $520

Pounds of turkey meat 8.5, price of turkey meat at the grocery store $3.99 a lb.

In conclusion…

We raised our own turkey, we know where it comes from and it only cost us $488 for 8 lbs of turkey!

SPENDING THE AFTERNOON GRINDING TURKEY WITH YOUR LOVELY NIECE:

PRICELESS!!!

Playing with Watercolors

I have a bit of chest cold (having trouble breathing) and a bit of a clogged nose, so hubby told me that I’m not to MOVE, from the spot on my couch!  I didn’t feel inclined to nap, and you can only watch so many movies, so I dug out my watercolors (thankfully they were nearby, so all I needed to grab was a cup of rinse water and a paper towel and I kept my ‘promise’ not to move!  🙂

This water color was done, by watching Lindsey ‘the frugal crafter’ on youtube.  I absolutely loved how it turned out, until I added the words, and my ‘A’ was upside down on my printing ‘block’…oh well, I guess that shows me that I need to print on something ‘to test’ my lettering before putting it on my project!

  Then, because I was in the ‘painting mood’, I painted these leaves and am pretty proud of them, the colors on the leaf to the right, may be a little bright, but overall, I think they turned out pretty well, and since I made up the design AND how I was going to paint them (with NO tutorial) I must admit that I am pretty proud of myself…

  So for now, I will continue my practice and my ‘lessons’ and maybe one day, I’ll actually know what I’m doing…now it’s naptime!  Hoping to feel better when I wake up!

Have a GREAT day~Chelle 

Pooh Bear

Here is Pooh Bear, sitting with Daddy, while Daddy is carving a snowman nose.  Aren’t they cute?

We brought ‘Pooh bear’ in a few weeks ago, he was a semi-wild cat that we had been playing with outside, to kind of tame him down.  We had given him his first shot and when it started to get cold outside, we decided to make him an inside kitty.  He still doesn’t come to his name, but comes whenever we call him ‘little Bubba’ (Big Bubba is Samson).  The other cats in the house have accepted him, for the most part and Sammy absolutely loves him!  ‘Little Bubba’ has claimed Daddy as his favorite, but will occasionally come to me for loving!  🙂  He is such a fun addition to our household!  

The funny thing about him, is that he chirps and purrs whenever he hasn’t seen us for a while or he is running through the house, we’ve never quite seen anything like him!

   
 

Turkeys For Thanksgiving…

This year, was the first year that we had decided to butcher turkeys (last year we butchered chickens, but for whatever reason they were out of chickens when we ordered) anyhow, we had decided to butcher some turkeys, instead, and at first we had ordered 40 turkeys, but then while I was laying in bed, I got to calculating just how much meat that would be (and there is just the two of us), so we called and changed the order to 20.   My friend told me that turkeys are a pain, but not having raised them myself, we decided to give it a try…

     Forward 5 months, we were down to 8 turkeys, from the 20 that we started off with.  No one really mentions it, but turkeys ARE NOT the smartest animals in the world, in fact, they are pretty dumb.  We had one turkey that killed itself while it was raining, he was looking up and drowned from the rainfall (true story), a few others couldn’t figure out where the water was, even though their ‘buddies’ found it with no problems.  Anyhow, we had 8 that survived, and no matter what we did, we couldn’t keep them in the 8 ft fence.  We trimmed wings, put small weights on their legs, but they still managed to get out.  

    This week was THE week.  We decided to get over with ‘the dirty deed’ before the weather got bad.  After walking through turkey poop, on a daily basis, it was WAY past time.  So earlier this week, we took care of the 8 that were left.  We now have three freezer bags full of turkey meat in the fridge, awaiting the meat grinder…and as I see that meat in the fridge, I can’t help but to ask myself if the experience was worth it.  I can answer that question, with a resounding NO.  We will never again have turkeys… 

 

Upcycled Can Roses

A fun way to use cans and make something truly unique…

Making Apple Muffins

This morning I decided to make some apple muffins, this is a long time recipe that I have used for many years and is one of my ‘signature’ recipes.  The original recipe comes from the CookBook ‘Cooking With One Hand’ by Kris Hulsey.  

I decided to make this recipe today because I had some apples that were a little ‘too ripe’ for ‘raw’ eating. Sometimes I just grate up the apples and stick them in the freezer to make this recipe later.  But since we needed breakfast and hubby mentioned this last night…I decided it would be a good idea to make them!  I usually tend to double the recipe, because we eat them so quickly (and if we DON’T eat them, they freeze well and make for an quick easy breakfast or snack anytime!)

The original recipe is called “Breakfast Apple Muffins”, I call them ‘Yummy Apple Muffins’.  

Here is the recipe doubled…

1 cup sugar

3 cups flour

1 tsp salt

3.5 tsp baking powder

1 tsp nutmeg (I always add a bit more, because I love the taste of nutmeg)

2/3 c. shortening (I use Crisco)

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 c. milk

1 c grated apple (Today I used 2 apples)(I just use a full, peeled grated apple, cause I figure, who just wants to use 1/2 cup, and throw the rest away?)

cinnamon and sugar mixture

Mix flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and sugar together. cut in shortening til mixture resemble fin crumbs.  mix egg, milk, and apple together.  Add to dry ingredients all at 1 time; mix quickly, but thoroughly (just until mixed well, if over mixed you will have a tough muffin)  Fill greased muffin pan 2/3 full.  Top with cinnamon and sugar* Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown, or an inserted knife comes out clean.

 (the original recipe calls to bake first and then roll in melted butter and then cinnamon and sugar, I didn’t want the mess, so I add the cinnamon/sugar mixture before baking, I love the crispy topping it gives the muffins)

Hope you love these as much as we do!

   
    
   

Learning New Things

With the expectation of a slow winter (at work) I’ve been thinking about different crafts that I want to learn.  I recently thought about watercolor and I purchased a small water coloring set.  I’ve been watching a lady on the internet (frugal crafter on YouTube) and have been learning some fun techniques.

The Frugal Crafter offers ‘real time’ tutorials, so I’ve been painting with her.  I love that you can pause the video and go as fast or as slow as you like.  Here is a picture that I’ve recently painted and though it’s not perfect, I think it turned out pretty well!   Thank you for letting me share what I’ve been learning. I can’t wait to look back on this and see my first watercolor picture!  

  

‘Pooh Bear’

  ‘Lili Mae’

  

Oh and we have a new kitten.  His name is Pooh Bear and he’s a little doll baby.  He’s super cute and so loving!  He seems pretty happy too and with the exception of Lili Mae being upset that he’s in the house, everyone else has welcomed him.  Lili Mae is accepting him a little more every day and they will probably best friends in a few weeks.  

Thank you guys for reading, hope you have a great day!

~Chelle

Started A YouTube Channel

I was scrolling through the youTube videos and I came across all of these crafty videos (tutorials and such) and with not doing any craft fairs this year, I knew that I would continue to do crafts and what better way to share with the World what I am doing?

My first video was quilling and I made cute little spiders for it!

Follow this Link to See my first video: