2019 in review for Trading ATC and Art/Craft Supplies

OK Here we go, a new year and a new year!  This year I am going to do my utmost best to keep up with the journal the Yvonne Oliver posts over on Trading ATC and Art/Craft supplies group on Facebook.  I Have been a member there for quite sometime, since the beginning I think, and its the only group on Facebook that I can say that I am truly a founding member of. LOL I would like to be a little more active and focus my time mostly on this particular group.  

It is my intention to not only keep up, but to keep each entry short, sometimes it will be just an image with a description, and sometime it may be just a written entry.  Since it is already January 3rd, I will just go ahead and post the first couple of days here.

1= 2019 in review
2= 2020 on Horizon (set goals, new techniques/art forms, etc)
3= create an entry page with dried&/or silk flowers

January 1, 2020  &  January 2, 2020

In Review of 2019, it was a very bizarre year.  I had been so sick and tired of being so sick and tired and decided that in 2019 I was not going to keep my mouth shut regarding my pain.  My chronic pain and fatigue had been a misery for me pretty much since about 2011 or 12.  I know  that my closest and dearest friends know what is going on with me and that is all that matters.  But having said that, I'd been sent to numerous doctors and specialists and it has been discovered that I have Fibromyalgia and OsteoArthritis.   I am still waiting on getting into the Women's College Hospital.  It's been more than 8 months now, so I am sure I will be hearing something from them soon.

Throughout the year, Abby and I had made several trips to Embro, ON which the closest town to the Happy Hills Retirement Resort was where my Mom and Dad had been living for 15 years as their pre-retirement home.  As time went on, in 2019 Abby and I had talks and visits with them and realized something; that they were definitely not getting any younger. My Mom is 78 and my Dad is 83 now and it was not only time to move them out of that retirement resort and move them closer to our end of the world.  Driving to Embro was a 5.5-6 hours long one way! 

In August we prepared Mom and Dad and told them that we were going to parent-nap them for an entire week.  So, on August 30th, we drove down to pick them up, spent the night and drove back and we spent an entire day of visiting a variety of Senior Retirement homes for them to take a look to see if we could find anything they liked.  Sadly, there was not one single solitary appropriate living quarters that was not even slightly suitable or affordable for them.  Almost at the end of the day we got a call from a place that was not even on the list.  It was something that Abby was looking into before the parent napping was arranged.  An appointment came up that exact afternoon, and we went in, and we were all quite impressed and would you believe that was the place my Mom wanted to go to.  And that my friends was a wrap....that was the place we moved them too.  And they are quite happy there.

With my Dad have dementia and my Mom having her own issues (high risk of stroke) I can't even express how grateful I am to have my parents living closer to us.  They are now but a 15 minutes drive away from us...and they are in good hands at Chartwell.   Also the other most amazing thing is that they are only just around the corner from the local hospital in Huntsville.  

I absolutely love having them closer to us.  As soon as my parents got here, Dad ended up in the hospital for almost two weeks, with quite a serious situation and a week or two ago, Mom was taken to the hospital by ambulance and I was called at 5 am that morning. 

We have absolutely NO regrets for doing this.  We started praying about this at church early in August and it was TWO MONTHS TO THE DAY literally that the move from Embro was complete.....We love you so very much Mom & Dad!

January 2, 2013


1= 2019 in review
2= 2020 on Horizon (set goals, new techniques/art forms, etc)
3= create an entry page with dried&/or silk flowers

1. It is my heart's desire to want to do this challenge every single entry that Yvonne post's every single day or minimally group of days possible.
2. It is also my desire to spend more time with my Mom and Dad as I possibly can now that they live so close to us.
3. I want to explore more of a variety of different art technique back grounds
4. I want to start making cards to sell, and a variety of other different items that can be easy to make.   
5. This is the year I want to start selling die cut kits at local trades along with cards etc.
6.  I want to get my art cave all completely organized. 
7. I want to get all of my ATCs that I received in to binders
8.  I want to keep visiting this and adding to it as the new year goes under way.