family

While my boy was here, we did some beading.  I did not get photos of all the necklaces he crafted, there are a few more.  Then the last day, we had a crimper failure, every one we finished that night, slipped apart.

At first there was heart ache and doubt- did we do the whole week’s worth of creations wrong and each would become a series of beads escaping across the room when worn?

Then, we tried the tool on the crimping beads separately from a necklace and watching closely how they closed.  It looks like we simply wore that tool out and the crimping beads were no longer closing correctly.  They came out twisted and smashed.

There is some worry about when this began.  Were the previously made ones getting progressively worse as we went along, or  did it happen all at once?  There was one moment when the tool locked up pretty hard, maybe that was it?

I advised Adam not to wear one of the pieces on his flight today, that maybe he should only wear them around his house until he knows they won’t break, and keep a bag in his pocket to gather up beads just in case.  He also filled bags with the bits and pieces of the ones he created that the closures failed on, so he could buy a crimping tool and recreate them at home later.

A lot of my time went into making bracelets to sell at Good Juju.  I put together a couple necklaces, my last one is where we discovered our catastrophe with the tool.  Luckily, it fell apart in my hands as I was finishing it, so I didn’t have to crawl under the table looking for gemstones.  I put some tape on the ends of the wire, will go buy myself another crimper, and repair it later.   But I’ll be fixing it alone, Adam will be back in North Carolina.

I’m going to miss my babies when they leave.

Not just me, the furry side of our family will be thinking about Dewdrop when she is gone.

They got lots of attention from her

You know what else I’ll miss?  My jeans.  I doubt if they will fit now.

We had over the top, magnificent meals every night.  A friend had given us a cooler full of t-bones, lamp chops, roasts, and more, all grass fed and raised on his farm.  Our dinners each featured a a delicious selection along with fresh veggies,  I made bread and cinnamon rolls multiple times.  Sugarwings perfected a recipe for coconut sugar brownies, and kept busy making them every couple of days.  Adam doesn’t eat cane sugar, so I did some experimenting with how I made cookies and rolls too.  Probably a more healthy choice, but hey, handfuls of cookies and plates full of meat every day still is a lot of food.

We had a BIG and utterly wonderful meal like that every single day.  Plus, Adam took charge and my participation was minimal.  Not only will I be missing the wonderful food, I’m losing the chef too.

He has a good life in the mountains, and I know he loves being there.  But it’s very far away from the plains of Kansas.

We were blessed to have this time with our family, and I treasure each moment.

Thoughts of Ryan were with me throughout.  I wore his pj pants, watched some of his favorite shows, and closely noted things he would have loved.  Losing him makes every moment with his brother even more precious.

It was a beautiful week.