The New Year Begun

Darc, Nick, and James, Carlsbad Cavers, NM, Dec '11

The new year was awesome to start off with and now we get down the nitty-gritty of life.  My mom stayed with us through the Christmas season- way cool!  She returned to NY on the 2nd of January.  And Chappy left today for SC.  Our latest tenants, a chaplain couple, were reassigned after he finished school. So, for the moment, the house is not rented.  Chappy is going to do some maintenance on it, ie the paint job and deck repairs I was not able to do because of the way things worked out last June, and find a new management agency.  For those who followed some of that story, we received a letter via email a couple of weeks ago stating that she, the manager we've had for almost 4 years, had to close her doors and that the finances were turned over to a trustee to straighten out.  And, by-the-by, she was not going to answer ANY communications sent to her.  Oh, she also didn't give us information as to WHO we were supposed to contact.  We may never see the almost $2k we were owed.  This saddens us as we were hoping to put that use toward GarryOwens, which is on hold now until we get renters in the house in SC.

John did return home from the TCA and went right back into his old habbits.  But not all was lost.  He had earned his GED and scored a passing grade on the ASVB (military test) and since being home gets up (when someone wakes him) to go running early in the A.M.  He is starting to study the TX DMV drivers book to get his permit soon and putting in applications for employment.  We are going to get an ASVB prep book so he can work on taking that test to get a better score the next time he takes it.

John, James, Darc, and Nick, Carlsbad Caverns, NM Dec '11

And with the start of the new year, I am now into Designs by Rhenn full time again.  I have a man's court wardrobe that I have worked on here and there that is almost complete.  I hope to have all the necessaries done tomorrow/Saturday so that John can model it for me and I can post it to my Etsy shop.  After that, I move onto the Elven Upcycle I have also had on the back burner.  I can use my new serger for that.  I can't use the serger on my historical garb because of the way seams lay and they simply didn't have seams finished that way.  But since my Upcycles are fantasy wear, I have no qualms about using the serger.  After we get the house taken care of and the sweaters go on sale at the second hand stores I will try my hand at a fairy coat and if that works out well, I will incorporate the technique on some new ideas I had over Christmas-- Woop-Woop!