It's The Strangest Thing

Today's high temperature was: 24 degrees

Feels like temperature: 16

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Today was one of those days when I just felt real peaceful and content.  I have no idea why--just like I have no idea why on the days I feel shaky, depressed and weepy.  There is no rhyme nor reason.  But...I like this kind of feeling much better.  I just felt real mellow--wish I knew how to keep that feeling.

This time of year is the happiest time of year--according to all the polls.  It is also the saddest time of year--according to a lot of the polls.  There are so many people that are sad this time of year, because a loved one is missing from their family gathering.  A parent, child, spouse, sibling.  Even if it isn't talked about, someone in the group is missing and someone is thinking about them.

Nostalgia reigns  supreme.  I miss my Mother and the way she made Christmas the most wonderful time of the year.  I miss the fact that most of my grand children are all grown up now--it is so fun to have little kids at Christmas time.  Of course, this year I will be missing my youngest daughter and her family.  I miss the way Christmas was back when I was married and the kids were young and so excited about everything.  Going to the Sunday School Christmas program where they had all parts to play and pieces to say.  

For us that are alone, it is really hard this time of year.  I have the house all decorated and lights inside and out and...no one will see it. It is just for me and it seems all too much work at times, but I know I need it.  There are no presents under my tree--no secrets packages for Fred (or me) to shake and see if we can guess what is inside.  No one to wake up with Christmas morning and eat cinnamon rolls and open presents with.  No one to ride home with, in the dark, after the family Christmas Eve and talk all about it.  Yeah--it is so hard.  BUT--we put smiles on our faces and we dress up with a bit of glitter in our ears or around our necks and we laugh and talk and maybe go to Christmas Eve late church services.  

No wonder that on December 26th, I take down the tree and get rid of all the decorations.  It is over!  I want it out of my house!  Then of course, I have New Year's Day, the second year of Fred's "transition" date.  This year, it too will be hard, because he would have been so excited to watch Michigan State play football in the Rose Bowl!!  I still may make "our" platter of Game Day goodies--some Hickory Stick, slices of good Wisconsin cheese, some sweet Gherkins and those wonderful Breton Sesame Seed crackers to put it all on and munch to our heart's content.  <sigh>

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It is the strangest thing.  I cannot draw--for the life of me--I cannot draw a picture.  I can't get the perspective right so things look like they should--some near, some far.  But--I take a blank piece of cross stitch fabric and I can stitch what I want to see.  I can see it in my mind and just start stitching and along comes ideas and how things should look and.....

I got the front of the barn done and then figured out how to put the back end on it==a row up so it would look like it was farther back.  Then I decided, it needed steps by the door that led into the calf pens--cement color.  Then, I wanted a silo back behind the barn--like it actually was, so..how to do that.  Ah yes.

  

Then I decided I wanted a fence that looked like it was back behind the barn and I came up with this and the gate.  I think I will take that fence kitty corner up from the barn to the blue line and on the other side too--to give the illusion of a fenced in field because....I gotta get a tree or two on the left upper, so I can have a few cows there.  A corn field over to the right of the barn, and of course, I have to figure out how to get a green tractor in there and--perhaps a driveway coming down past the house.  Guess I will put in the house first and the driveway later--when I am sure of the placement.

But--that's how it's going and I think the perspective looks good.  I don't need a pattern!!  I just need to let my mind wander and figure it out. It really does look like our barn--in a sort of sampler/Amish/Grandma Moses/provincial way.