odds & ends ... and not ending ...

 Last week I went to the high school graduation of my ... niece once removed (?)/grand-niece(?) ... I'm never sure what ancestry calls those extended lines, but regardless, she's more than grand, she's awesome.

This is her dad, my nephew Dan, and his sig other, Christina.

This is a smile that I just adore!

There was a hiccup in the upcycling of my cabinet, and the last three original brass handles were too corroded and pitted to be salvageable.  Unable to find anything comparable (or affordable) to the originals, I ordered something similar for the two bottom drawers.  

Now that they are on the way, and I've finished putting the wallpaper on the last drawer and cabinet door, I'm suddenly rethinking how (badly) I took off the warped veneer on that bottom drawer and may have to redo both of the bottom two drawers.  Part of the issue is the wallpaper isn't wide enough to fit across the entire drawer front, and I'm not happy with my attempt to line up the moths to make them match.

I may pull the paper off the two bottom drawers.  I need to do a better job cleaning off the damaged veneer and paint it the same green as the rest of the buffet.  Then I might swap the fancy handles to the plain green drawers and put the not-as-fancy handles on the two cabinet doors and the top drawer so they don't distract from the wallpaper.

The 100 Days of Wonder has ended.  Sort of.  The woman dropping the daily prompts is continuing to provide them, hoping for paid followers to continue supporting her.   I pay for enough things and will take advantage of the free prompts until those stop.  That said, I don't always have time to keep up with the art creation during the week, and my weekends are becoming busier as I pack and purge.  Rather than create new art, I will take photos where possible of the prompt words, and work them into a new storyline.

In other news ... the dream forever home isn't anymore.

It would have been a nightmare money pit with foundation issues that would have cost a minimum of $100,000 to repair and restore.

I didn't just walk away from it ... I ran.

I'm running out of time to get moved, and I'm looking for a home to purchase and a home to rent.

Everything happens for a reason.  

sunsets ...

   Albert and Clarence never went back to that old mysterious house with so much pain and suffering associated with it.

  Clarence became stronger and healthier.  When he and Elsa married a year later, he walked her back down the aisle that Albert had walked her up to give her away.

  The two of them lived to a surprising age of 100 plus years, having enjoyed more than 20 years of marriage, and passed within hours of each other.

  Albert settled into a small cottage nearby and fully expected to live a quiet life alone for the rest of his days.  However, fate would hear nothing of that.

  Before long, word of a handsome eligible bachelor spread among the single women in town and surrounding towns and villages!  Albert had weekly visitors, bringing him cooked and baked delicacies until one woman, Sasha, won his heart forever.

  They married at sunset in a small vineyard Albert had started behind his home.  Albert and Sasha enjoyed almost as many years together as Clarence and Elsa and lived just as long before they also passed just weeks before them.

  It was as if fate, and the Universe, were making up for lost time.

dreams can come true ...

   Albert looked at the door as the knocking persisted before slowly rising from the chair beside where Clarence was resting.

  He opened it and took a step back.

  Standing in the doorway was a stunning silver-haired fraulein, in a traditional German dirndl dress.  She looked past Albert, her eyes searching the room.

  Albert stepped to the side and her eyes met Clarence's.  Crying, she rushed to the bed and fell into his open arms.

  Days later, with Albert pushing Clarence in a wheelchair, the three of them walked a meandering trail along the Rhine River.  Color had returned to Clarence's face, and his voice had gotten stronger as his appetite returned with Elsa's cooking.  She and Clarence held hands, and Albert could scarcely keep his happiness contained as his cheeks hurt from the constant smiling behind them.

wishes ...

   As the years passed, so did her family.  When her grandparents became too old to live alone, Elsa moved in with them.  Caring for them until they both died within days of each other.  Their house was left to her, and the nook remained her favorite place to sit and think of what her life could have been with Clarence.

  When her mother became too ill for her father to care for her, she moved in with Elsa where she stayed until she died.  

  Her father, however, was stubborn and refused to leave the home he had been born in.  Elsa checked on him daily and prepared his meals until one day she found he had died in his sleep, a photo of her mother cradled in his arms.

  As she prepared his house for sale after the funeral, she found a box high on a shelf filled with all of the letters they had intercepted from Clarence.  Later that evening, sitting in the nook where she had always dreamed of what might have been, she read each of his letters over and over again.  When she finally looked up through tear-filled eyes, her face puffy from crying all night, the sun was coming up over the village.  She showered, changed her clothes, and went to the cemetery where her parents and grandparents now lay side by side.

  She grieved the life she could have had, and the loss of all the people she had loved, but no longer had enough tears to cry for.  Sitting there in the grass between her mother and grandparents, she wondered if ever she would be happy again.  A butterfly fluttered over to her from a nearby flower and settled on her hand.  Elsa watched, mesmerized.  It slowly walked up her arm, stopping every so often to unfurl its tongue to taste the sweat on her skin in the warm sunshine of fall.  It stopped at the edge of her dress sleeve and the two of them looked at each other closely.

  Was this a message from her grandmother?  She had always reminded Elsa that when the caterpillar believed the world had ended, it emerged as a beautiful butterfly and that it was the struggle to break free of the chrysalis that gave it the strength to fly.

  Elsa made a wish as the butterfly slowly flapped its wings and flew off.