Saying Goodbye......for Now.

Since the loss of my Uncle Ducky I have been in such a slump creatively and emotionally perhaps because we (my mom & I) have been left with the task of sorting through the precious things that meant so much to him. Only one who has ever been assigned this excrutiating task can even appreciate what a stressful yet privileged job this really is. I feel an obligation to my Uncle because he was such a dignified and loving man, so I want to make sure that he will be pleased with the way things were distributed. He always would tell me how he cried when his grandmother died and when he went back east to collect her belongings, people went in and just had all of her precious things thrown about like it was trash.

Death is so hard to deal with and although we may lose someone who means so much to us, we can keep their memories alive through the things that they treasured and preserve them for the future generations just as Uncle Ducky did.

Uncle Ducky was a "saver" of many things. He loved his nephews and nieces so much and he loved all of his fleshly brothers and sisters as well as his spiritual brothers and sisters dearly. This has been proven by the fact that since his death, we have uncovered probably every wedding invitation and every high school graduation card and every birth announcement for each of our family members and friends that Uncle Ducky has ever known! He even saved every note that each one of our children has ever written to him. What a treasure he has given us! He has preserved each and every one of these things along with pictures of family that I have never seen before. Of course each of these things is wrapped in plastic and stuffed in every nook or cranny possible which has been a task in itself. I came across napkins to most of my cousins weddings (did I mention that I have about a million cousins) and report cards from his siblings who are now in their 70's. Yes, and he even saved every card that any of us has ever sent to him. Did he love his family and friends or what? Yes, we were all precious to our Uncle Ducky.

We have decided that through this process we are going to put together boxes for each of his siblings and their children with the things that Ducky has saved from their family and children. Our family will probably treasure these things just as much as Uncle Ducky treasured them and it will give them the opportunity to keep their memories of Uncle Ducky close to their hearts and it will enable them to start their own memories from treasures that Uncle Ducky saved.

How cool it has been to see my wedding invitation that I sent Uncle Ducky 32 years ago! I didn't even have a copy of my wedding invitation! I also found notes that my children who are now grown men (31 & 25) wrote to Uncle Ducky when they were about 8 & 9 years old. I will always treasure these things and now I have some of these things to make a beautiful scrapbook out of.

So through this process it has been very stressful and very emotional. One moment we are crying because we miss him so much or we may come across a note that he wrote us telling us how much he loves us and appreciates all that we have done for him and then the next minute we will be laughing about all of the toilet paper that he collected in his home (151 packages, not rolls) yes, for some reason I think it is a senior thing, never having enough??? What a character!!! I love it!!! Or we will reminisce about his dancing or his funny sayings.... He has definately made sure that we will never forget him. Not a day will go by when I don't think of my precious Uncle Duck and his beautiful smile. But for now I will say goodbye to my Uncle Ducky and it's time to keep living until we meet again..... This is dedicated to my Uncle Ducky who loved life so much and lived for the ones he loved so much. We will miss him dearly.....

There were so many friends and family at his memorial. It was very comforting to see how many people were touched by my Uncle Ducks.

This precious baby is my niece Carrie's who was born the same day Uncle Ducky died. How precious to see a new life begin. He would have loved to see a new addition to the family!

More Family & Friends......

Isn't this a great picture of my beautiful mom with my OLDEST BROTHER Ray.....

















These are Ray's two girls, Mandy (on the left) and Carrie (on the right). Carrie just gave birth to her seventh child on the day that Ducky died.
















Here is Kim and his beautiful sisters. His brother was missing because he is still in the hospital. He went in the hospital just days before Uncle Ducky died. Actually Uncle Ducky went with us to go and see Keith.









My handsome cousin George even showed up. He has been mourning the loss of our Uncle Cookie whom he was very close to also and who past away one year ago in March. We were glad to see George smiling again and here to celebrate Uncle Ducky's life with our family and friends.













This is me and my sister-in-laws who I love very much. Being the only girl of five children it's nice to have other girls around......

Crafters Feast!!!!

The girls were busy at work making beaded bookmarkers out of wire. Tina brought over a box of beads to sort from and the girls went right to work making beautiful book marks to give away as gifts for the delegates that will be coming to the district convention.
















Here are some of the completed bookmarks. Nice!!!
















Elise sorted our gift bags on the floor in eight bundles. This gave each one of us 14 bags to give away and fill with goodies.
















We are going to embellish the bags with beautiful flowers!!!

We always have to start the night with our feast of goodies!!!! Yummm....

Ja Ja Sisterhood Crafters......

We finally got together this week to do some creative crafting for our "soon to be here" district convention in June. Here are some of the girls having fun posing with their wire bookmarks.
We made these bookmarks from 16-gauge wire and beads. A friend gave us this idea at one of our past craft nights so we decided that this would be a great gift to give away to the delegates that will be coming to the international convention.





Elise is our youngest crafter. Here she is posing with a necklace that she made out of leftover beads. Good Job!!!




Elise is our busy helper tonight. She was sorting our gift bags that we are going to embellish with a flower and then we are going to stuff the bags with goodies.


Elisa is posing.......

The girls are busy working......

My Bird Book......

I made a miniature bird book as a gift for Tina Capriotti. I know she loves birds and I made it for her since she's my crafting buddy and she always gets my creative juices going. We have a healthy competition going between us when it comes to crafting and it keeps us very busy. I love it!!!
I must say though, this was really hard to give away because it turned out soooo....CUTE!!!! But it was worth it when I saw Tina's face as she really paid attention to the detail in my work. Only fellow crafters can appreciate a hand-made item as we do.....



















When you open it up it unfolds to show the pictures of many birds and a little poem I made up.

















The last page has a whimsical bird saying "The End" The back page acts as the back of the book and has a closer attached that you tie to the front page.
















The front of the book is actually a shadow box and it has the ribbon tie with a little bird charm attached to it that you can close the book with....















Here is a close up of the front of the book. I lined the shadow box with the saying "Birds of a feather flock together" and then I lined the picture of the bird with rhinestones. Enclosed in the shadow box is a wire bird nest that I made with jewelry wire and pearls. And just alittle moss completes it.

Creative Charms.....

Tina Caprioti came by this Friday night and helped me get my creative juices going. We were working late into the night just trying to get our soldering irons to work correctly. Here are some things we're working on. These are old buttons that were my grandmothers. I decided I didn't want them to go to waste sitting in a jar. So I'm going to make a bracelet with them. I'll have to post it on my blog when I'm done with it. Tina got me started by foiling some of them for me.




Tina brought over these flat floral marbles and we made small charms with them. Aren't they cute!

This is the back of a locket or broche that I made it has pressed flowers from my yard and the front has a piece of old lace and rhinestones. I will probably incorporate it in a junk jewelry necklace.

Stress....Then De-Stress....We're Goin' On A Cruise!

You know how things are just getting more and more stressful by the day....Well we are definately feeling the stress just as everyone else is out there. So I decided to get the heck out of town with my hubby and our friends (and now family) Larry and Denise Holloway. But of course before you can de-stress there always has to be more "STRESS". Kim was out of town back East the whole week......I was afraid he wouldn't make it back because of snow storms....He makes it back on Thursday and goes to work all day Friday only to have to do more business for AAC and I was ready to strangle him!!! Then when we finally get on the road and on our way, of course....Here we are missing the turn off to our ship!!! The ship is just on the right .....in that water that we're just about to go over!!!! See the bridge we're going to go over????

















So we made it to our ship.....And as you can see Kim is now in vacation mode. He has just de-stressed. That's what I'm talkin' about!!! VACATION !!!! Everybody needs to just de-stress every so often....


















And then when you get your first towel character on the foot of your bed......Then you know it's going to be ok......

Chocolate Feast!!!!

There was even a table for Kim (who is diabetic). Actually the sugar-free desserts were actually pretty good!

Norwegian Cruise line had a chocolaholic buffet one night. Of course I had to attend this one!! This sign is all in chocolate!

They really had some beautiful ice statues. This one was of a horse.

Here are some Chocolate Dolphins. I really wanted to eat at least the top two dolphins but I controlled myself.






This was not even half of what they had!! I don't think I want to see any chocolate for a while!!! Just Kidding of course!!!

Having a Great Time In Mexico.....

I had to take these pictures of Larry & Denise. They were just having too much fun!!!! The band was playing a song for Larry that was a New Orleans tune. He felt right at home.

Here's the one and only shot I got of Mazatlan. The rest of them came out too fuzzy. Sorry.

Michelle & Denise are posing with "The Office Rambo" here in Cabo San Lucas. Michelle had us meet her here at the "Office" and she had tables and chairs waiting for us on the beach. And she also treated us to the best margaritas in town! We had the most fun on this beach! Thanks Michelle!!!!

Cruising......

We had a great time with Denise & Larry Holloway! Here we were relaxing in one of the lounges on one of the late nights. Can you tell that they are having fun!!!

I caught this shot of Denise and Larry on the back of the ferry boat on the way to Cabo. See our ship in the backround!

















This is a beautiful Cove that we go to when we visit Puerto Valerta. It just looks so peaceful. I could so live there!

The beach was just perfect there the day we were in Puerto Valerta. The temperature was in the 80's. Couldn't of asked for better weather especially since we heard that it was raining for 4 days at home and it was freezing enough to put snow on the Ortega mountains! Good timing for a cruise, don't you think?