and Jenn falls asleep

and then the mask to scare us all

Mary tries being serious

PJ party snapshots

Friends

Another part of healing is solidifying friendships with your girlfriends. In February, I had my second pajama party with some friends from work. We had a wonderful time. We sang karoake, talked all night, ate and drank. It was so much fun! One of my friends got sick the last minute and couldn't make it.

Family

Dylan has been dating Jordan for a while. No news yet on next step, fingers are crossed though. During Christmas Dylan told me he got a new position in his firm and is very excited about this. Jordan has changed jobs and is very happy as well.

Family

Blake is also preparing to go to London with Jessica. He will be working there as she completes her degrees. He is pretty excited about going. He shared with me that next month he is going to start looking for a ring. Now I am excited. She is definitely going to be a wonderful addition to our family. I am wondering if they will be married before they leave for London in September!

Family

So part of the healing process is being with family, especially during the holidays. I was really happy to know that I was spending the Christmas holidays with my boys in Texas and their girlfriends. They always treat me so well when I am with them and the time spent was wonderful. I love my kids but don't get to see them often due to the distance between Vermont and Texas. I would move near them but they never stay in one place long enough. My youngest, is now planning on moving to London for a year or two because Jessica is planning on get her Masters and might just roll it through and get her PhD. She is pretty amazing. Of course my passport is in order so I will definitely be visiting over the next year or two.

So now for the healing.

One of the things that I have decided is that I would like to do some charity work. I am trying to join the VFW and do work for the troops but they are giving me a really hard time. So in the meantime, I have decided to do some charity knitting. The month of December was devoted to making helmit liners for our troops. The project is a bit difficult but definitely worth it.

If anyone is interested in knitting the helmet liners, this project was througj Citizien Support for America's Military, also known as Citizen SAM. It is a nationwaide program based on volunteers who organize donations and support for soldiers. If you go to their website, you can download the pattern. Be warned that the colors are very specific they must be either charcoal, black, brown, tan or olive drab. The wool must be Peruvian Highland wool or a worsted weight superwash wool and you must attach the wool label to the helmit when mailing it out.

More of the barn. I didn't take pictures of the house.

A good part of the barn has been cleaned up. The house has been cleaned up (especially the basement). When spring comes I will work on the property.

This is the toxic materials that he left in the studio

The mess

Well I had to show everyone the mess that I was left with and all the work I am doing to bring my house back to order. The studio that was left partially built was trashed with toxic stuff. The rest of the barn was just total trash. The outside looked like a huge garbage dump. This is the outside picture.