Hello everyone!
Phew! What a year this has been!
Last March, I
blogged for what may have seemed like the last time.
And after that, I became
homeless.
Yep, that's right; homeless.
For those of you that don't know, I had been living in a
refurbished barn with several other college students owned by some great professors. I loved it! The community was encouraging, the couple that owned the place was compassionate, it saved me on my loans, and I had the freedom to do things like
hang my own laundry, make my own meals, and personalize my closet! Things were going great!
Then, on March 26th, a local inspector arrived at the barn. Apparently, there had been confusion for the last few years over what township, exactly, this old barn belonged in, and since that had finally been sorted out, a friendly routine inspection was to take place. Or so we thought.
He deemed it unlivable. Not because there was anything wrong with it, but because the property owned by the married couple was listed as a "single family household." They were not allowed to have others living in this massive building in the back of their land. Nevermind that the people who owned it before them used it to house homeless. Nevermind that they checked it out with their lawyer before purchasing the house. Nevermind that we had nowhere else to go. Too bad.
Needless to say, there was a lot of sudden stress. The couple went to the college, who graciously agreed to let us live in an empty building for the remaining six weeks of the semester at a cost somewhere between room and board and the rent we were used to.
Around the same time, I realized that I had to graduate from college a full semester before I had planned to. My fiance and I had our wedding set for
December 21st, right before my last semester of college. During that final semester, I would be student teaching, and he would be graduated, so neither of us would be immersed in college anymore, and this seemed like the least stressful time to have it, especially since I wanted a winter wedding. However, around this time he got word that his occupation would be moving him to San Francisco. From upstate New York, that's a long commute, and neither of us wanted our first four months of marriage to be long distance! So I frantically applied to the school board, took three times the allowed credit load over the summer, did my student teaching in the fall, and graduated on December 14th, exactly a week before the wedding.
During the summer, I was taking enough credits that the school graciously gave me free housing, and so I worked part time at the local daycare, was thrown into another random dorm room, and worked my tail off. For the second half of the summer, I moved back home with my parents, cleaned out all my worldly belongings (which I hadn't done since age 12), kept taking classes, and prepared to start student teaching.
During the fall, I moved into an apartment in the shady part of the city, planned a wedding, and student taught.
So here I am now, moved in to the new place in San Francisco, ready to start anew. Crafting here I come!
This is a project that I finished in April. I saw the pattern November of 2015, and I knew that I had to make it for my father-in-law. You see, his favorite place in the world is the porch of a beautiful cabin on a lake in the Adirondacks. He sits there with a cup of coffee and a book every morning, and it's often just brisk enough to need a blanket.
He also likes practical gifts. Gifts that can be used. And so when I saw this pattern, there was no choice: I had to make it.
And then they decided to sell the cabin. To be honest, I was heartbroken. But I decided I had to give him the blanket anyway, and thankfully, he still likes it. 
