Of Catawbas, Kudzu, Moms and Fallen Women

Catawba Blooms
(from Flickr)

This is going to be one of those long, getting caught up posts with bits and pieces of lots of stuff... so you might want to pour an extra cup of coffee.. or whatever you've got on hand.

Late last Wednesday night, me and The Amazon took Ma to another hospital, this one an hour and a half away, clear on the other side of Big City, damned near to South Carolina. They were expecting us, her visit was arranged by her doctor upon the advice of her social worker.

It's a nice place, with caring employees who dote on the patients, spoiling them rotten. We're not sure how long she's staying, but the goal is to get her on some medication while she's in an atmosphere where it can be monitored or adjusted. We took her some extra clothes yesterday.. and a chocolate bunny... because everyone needs a chocolate bunny on Easter.. and visited for a little while.

I have hope.

~*~

I had hughnormous plans for Saturday, mowing, tilling, hoeing and laundry.. there's always laundry.. but all plans came to a screeching halt when I received a mystery text message. I don't have much excitement in my life, living in the holler and all, so to entertain myself I often mess with people who accidentally text me with the wrong number. I responded to the mystery text message with my version of some messed up hillbilly ebonics. Had I known the message was from my long lost daughter that I'd given up for adoption over 20 years ago, I wouldn't have done it.

Way to make a first impression. Color me dumbass.

Soooo yeah. There were flying texts between Long Lost Daughter, myself and The Amazon. After a while, I sorta felt like it was really The Amazon she wanted contact with, so I quietly bowed out and went outside to cut grass, but not before I found out that I have two grandbabies.. and a third on the way.

OMG I'M A GRANNY.

Saturday and Sunday were sort of an emotional roller coaster. See, I've always been the "other woman." There's only been one relationship I've had that didn't at least start out that way, with the crack head ex-con. All the others have either been living with or married to someone else.

That's right. I'm a ho. Or I was anyway. I'm not sure how to explain it, but my therapist seemed to think it might be because I was sort of "groomed" that way in childhood.. who knows. I bring it up because this whole deal with Long Lost Daughter kinda stirred those feelings up again, which I didn't expect. I have two beautiful grandbabies, (a boy 6 and a girl 2) but I feel like I gave up any right to call them that. LLD also admitted that she hadn't told her mother she intended to contact me, that she'd gotten upset the one time she'd even mentioned it.

 I feel like the other woman.. still.

There are ways, however, that LLD can't deny being mine. She looks a lot like me and while she was raised in a home where her parents weren't critter loving type people, LLD has four horses, dogs, a bird and there was even a picture of the littlest grandbaby walking a tiny piglet on a leash.

Some things are definitely genetic.

The Amazon is tickled absolutely to death. She's got plans to knit things for the new baby and seems to have fallen in to the role of doting aunt overnight. She's even been invited to go riding with her new found baby sister. I'm excited for both of them.

~*~

I've decided to change some things in my Etsy shop. I'm not going to be making any more rugs. They sell and they get lots of views, but they take so long to make that there's no way I can get back what I put in to them.

Over the past year, I've tried different things, some worked, some didn't. I've decided to focus on earrings, mostly big dangly hoops, nail oils and pillow covers. The pillow covers will still be made from sari fabric, but will be 20" instead of 16" and will be made in pairs. They've always gotten lots of views and been featured in treasuries, but they just didn't sell. I'm hoping these changes will make them more popular. Lowering the prices already seemed to help a lot.

I will be adding one more line. I want to make candles with soy wax, scented with catawba and kudzu blooms. I found directions on how to extract the scent from the flowers and as soon as my big ol' catawba gets flowers, I'm going to give it a shot. I LOVE the scent of catawba blooms. I'll probably do container candles, using thrift store tea cups, feeding the "shabby chic" style with a nod to Gypsy tea leaf reading. We'll see how that goes. The kudzu doesn't bloom until late August and smells like grape popcicles. If it works, they will be the AWESOMEST SMELLING CANDLES EVER.

Anywho..

I guess that's all for now. Well, other than I'm still broke, but at least I'm not in the hole. We're still working on a fence for those chickens. I'll keep you posted.

Ya'll have an awesome week. We'll talk again soon.

Later Taters!!

Tweet Pin It