Back Home and SFD Dress

It is SO GOOD to be back home.  For those of you who don't know, we live on 11 acres in the deep woods in Southern Oklahoma very near Lake Texoma.  It is a short walk down the hill in our back yard to the lake if you don't mind bobcats, rattlesnakes, raccoons, skunks, armadillos, scorpions and various other wildlife.  We prefer to drive around the windy road to the marina which is about one mile down the road.

I have been gone for 6 weeks, and Jerry has been here and there and somewhere else for 6 weeks.  Our gardens and our yard looked sadly neglected, and neither one of us could stand it.  Not only did we have to drag two vehicles full of fabric, jewelry, groceries, clothes, etc. into the house and put it all away, we worked in the yard.  I pulled weeds and swept the patios and washed them off with the hose.  Jerry mowed the yard, weed-eated and trimmed all the hedges.  I swept up the chopped off parts as he went.  He also fixed the main road and our driveways with his tractor.  And, as promised, I ripped ALL the bedding off our bed which was recently visited by a huge scorpion.  Then I vacuumed EVERYTHING in, under and around it and all the furniture in the room. 

By 7:30 when we settled down to our t-bone steak, baked potato and salad dinner, we were SO TIRED, we could barely chew!  The steaks were PERFECT, and usually I gnaw the bones dry.  Last night, we both threw bones with meat still attached into the trash.  We both took a handful of Advil and slowly climbed up the stairs to watch a movie.  Jerry picked up the TV control and started to look for a movie, and immediately fell asleep.  I picked up my Ipad and emailed Phylly.  Shortly thereafter, we went back DOWN the stairs and into the wonderful freshly-sheeted bed.  There could have been a team of wild horses in it, and we never would have known it!

Now, it is Monday and this is the very last day I will be without my kitchen sink, kitchen plumbing and countertops.  I am really excited we are moving on to the next stage of our lives.  Well, I'm excited about most of it.  We have found out that we have to become Guardians of Jerry's Mom instead of him just having Power of Attorney.  Evidently, with POA, Mom is still a free agent and she can sign whatever piece of paper is put in front of her, and she can simply walk away from where she is. 

We had to get an attorney.  We sort of have an attorney, but it is because in 2008 when Jerry was diagnosed with cancer in his spine, we took the first attorney referred to us to get our estate planning done.  He is an excellent attorney, but he is very expensive.  I called him about doing the guardianship for Jerry's Mom, Nida, and he was more than happy to do it if we would give him $3,000 up front before he did anything! 

Good heavens!  Our business sure doesn't work like that.  Ask Phylly.  We are lucky to get paid in six months, and sometimes we don't ever get paid for what we do.  If you were to ask one of our customers to pay FIVE CENTS, they would run out the door.  We sell medical equipment, and Medicare/Medicaid/AARP or other insurance companies pay us.  Hence, the hassle.  Medicare could decide tomorrow morning that only people with one leg are allowed to have a wheelchair -- or that they will no longer pay for red wheelchairs.  They can do whatever they want to, and they can make it retroactive.  

I suggested to Jerry that we find an attorney in Kingfisher.  At least, there would be no travel expenses to pay to an attorney that way.  So we asked Aunt Betty Jane, and Aunt Betty Jane asked her friend Jo, and we got a name.  We met with the attorney in a musty old office in Kingfisher last Friday.  We were there about 45 minutes.  The man -- not the attorney we called, but from her office -- looked at Jerry's POA and said, "You have to have a DURABLE Power of Attorney".  I picked it up and pointed to the heading that read "Durable Power of Attorney".  He informed me that just because it SAID it was durable didn't mean that it was.  Sooooooooooooooooo, here we go -- on another ride.  At one point he looked at me and said, "You don't like attorneys, do you?"  Wonder where he EVER got that idea???

 

I came upstairs this morning to call APQS about my suddenly broken longarm that wants to sew in super high speed only, and I noticed Lucy.  I had almost forgotten about Lucy.  I immediately ran downstairs and got my new blue dress and put it on her.  It fits her PERFECTLY!   

I took a picture of the blue dress which IS NOT PRESSED and has been folded up in the back seat of my car -- so PLEASE don't judge all the wrinkles in it yet.  It has not been hemmed either.  There are gathers at the neck because I needed more of a bust dart, so I put it up there. 

This is rayon/poly/spandex so it is drapey.  So much nicer for a dress than cotton. 

I have to get showered and ready to go meet Jerry in town for lunch, so don't have time for perfection right now.  I will take better pictures when I get it done and PRESSED.

I put kleenex in the pockets so you could see it has pockets.  I LOVE that.  I think everything should have pockets in it. 

I'll finish this SFD dress tomorrow while the countertops are being put in if I don't finish it this afternoon.  I'll explain how I changed it from my SFD blueprint. 

Hugs, Joy