Wednesday, helping a friend

     I have a good friend coming over this morning.  She has decided to make a Wedding dress for her future daughter in law.  So I am recruited to help.  Usually when I am approached with this I just take it away and do it.  It is faster and turns out better.  But she wants to be in on the fun so we will see how it goes.  We have had many late night adventures together getting each other in and  out of hot water.  Is has been a few years since we have had an adventure of this kind.  We will have lots of laughs, or tears I am not sure.  Anyway looking forward to helping her.

     I was able to get quite a bit of sewing done yesterday and I have $30.00 over what I need for the house payment.  Now I just need money for our trip.  I forgot to tell you that I was able to get $1000.00 back in a savings account!  So that is a relief.  Just keep plugging along.  I need to finish a few things in the shop this morning for tomorrow pick up.

     My Ballet Mistress has a bad cold and can hardly talk.  It was hard for her with the little ones yesterday to keep them in line.  I spent the early part of the evening running back and forth between studios enforcing silence.  I was not very good at it.  Little monkeys.  But what can you expect from 30 five and six years olds? I also received many hugs. I don't think they knew I was chewing them out, they would just smile and hug me around the waist, and whisper, "Oh Miss Kim".  It doesn't get much better than that.

     Saga cont:

     When hubby and I looked at the numbers and the expenses of keeping the shop opened we decided to move it back to the house.  We had a room in the basement that was not being used  and I could have clients try on upstairs in one of the bedrooms.  When my lease was up we moved the shop home.  Business of course fell off.  The house we were in was on a main street so within a few months I was back in business and I could control the flow much better.  But nature had another little surprise for me in store.  I became pregnant with my last child.  I was a little old to be having another baby and with all the problems I had carrying a pregnancy this was not a happy time.  Our oldest daughter was 12 and the 2nd one was 5 so both were in school hull time and I am pregnant.

     I am super, super sick when I am pregnant.  I mean can't get up sick.  Crawling around trying to get the kids ready for school.  No cooking can be done as once I start to get sick I end up in the hospital on IV's.  I tried my best to keep things running.  But the house was a disaster.  I had a few customers make snide comments about my housekeeping,and it hurt.  I'm sure people came and then never came back.  I had a good friend from our church tell his wife he was shocked by the state of my house.  This friend then came over and helped me clean the main floor  I spent most of the time in the bathroom.  She thought the house was a wreck because of the pregnancy.  She did not realize that this was the way it usually looked.  Crisis cleaning remember?  Bills started to pile up and without the help of the church and my lovely sisters I we would have lost the house.  The day after Thanksgiving 1992 I had my last little girl.  She was healthy.  I was grateful.

     Right after B was born is Nutcracker season.  When she was 6 days old I had to be at a theater to help roady for the incoming Ballet company.  Our oldest had auditioned and had a part as a bon bon.  I remember taking B with me.  She was sleeping and I walked into the theater during the company rehearsal.  A tall beautiful older ballerina looked down at me from the stage and said, "are you the roady?"  I replied that I was and she then asked how old the baby was.  I told her  6 days.  She wanted to hold B so I remember stretching my child way above my head as this woman bent down over the stage to take her. She then cradled B and said, "You can get your list of duties from the stage manager, I will hold the baby."  For the next 3 hours I ran with my work and when the Show was ready to start B was returned to me.  Most professional Ballet dancers don't have children or can't have children.  It you want this life for a career having a child will ruin your body for some parts.  Also the starvation expected can really mess up your system and you just can't have children.  This ballet Mistress could not have a baby, we still talk about once a year and she always tells my that those three hours were some of the most precious in her life. 

     I tried to get back into the swing of things way too quickly after B.  We were 2 house payments behind in threat of foreclosure and I just started to work like a demon.  I was embarrassed by our financial situation and my messy house.  Every morning I would have to go in a straighten the bathroom and the larger bedroom in case a customer came to try on something.  I tried really hard to keep things up but it just wasn't in my nature.  What I was really suffering from was postpartum depression.  I did not know what it was, I had generally been a happy person.  This was different it was a blackness that I can't even describe.  I do believe that if things had been on an even keel financially I probably wold not have suffered as badly or for as long.  As I did not know what was wrong with me. I continued to muddle along the best I could.

     One of the blessing that came to us during this time was Richard.  Richard moved in next door and he was a single man with no kids.  I never really got to know much of his background story, but he immediately fell in love with the girls.  I remember he came over to borrow some ice, it was the week before Christmas and B was crawling all over the house like a rug rat.  She had a messy diaper, and a runny nose and her knees of her sleeper were black from crawling on the dirty floors, yeah she had not even been changed into clothes.  She crawled over to Richard and lifted her arms up like rescue me!  It was love at first sight.  I was embarrassed.  What a mess of a child.  But B had charm she still does. Richard would become a very pinnacle part of our lives for the next 5 years.  I do not know if I would have survived my depression without his help. 


Saga cont:

     Hubby took the truck to the carpool place as he is coming home early today to take it to the dump.  I think he finally realized I wasn't going to do it.  :)

Have a great and productive day!

Kim