Life's Circuitous Path

Merry Christmas to All and A Very Happy New Year!

"What?" you say.  I know that I have been late with my Christmas cards before but this is taking "late" a little bit too far. Besides being the wrong season to post this, if you know my family, there is one child missing from this photo. This was my Christmas card photo that was never sent this year. You see, I do have a tendency to take the annual Christmas photo a bit late in the season and this year was no different. With Kelsey away in college, we did not have the opportunity to take a photo until we were all together when she came back from break. Yes, we could have, and should have taken one at the beach when we were all together there this past Summer, but who is thinking of Christmas in the heat of summer? Obviously, the fifty families whose cards we received this past year with smiling sun tanned faces who have, "on the ball mammas." The Thanksgiving photos that we took, truly reflected the energy that lives at Willowbrook Farm but unfortunately not everyones faces. So ours was to be taken on December 17th, the weekend Kelsey came home. Talk about cutting it close to the wire! That is okay, I had it all figured out. I could still get them back from the printer on time, and if I addressed the envelopes early, I would enlist the kids begrudgingly, to help stuff, stamp and send them off.  My good friend and photographer Brenda Carpenter was going to come to the house to take a photo of our brood. Yes, I could have done it but she is so darn good and the thought of getting that "good enough to send" shot with the kids all getting older made me get a little sweaty. After all, lets face it, something happens to a Christmas card when the kids age and there are no longer toothless smiling faces beaming at you. Brenda showed up on the weekend afternoon that she had fit us into, the kids got dressed in their clothing of choice and the weather man obliged us with a bit of snow. The dogs even got in on the act! The only snaphu was that we could not get our eighteen year old son out of bed. Not because he is lazy but because he has been struggling with a chronic illness called Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia since he finished his Freshman year in High School. That was four years ago and this has pretty much been the scenario ever since then. The question of, "Where is Shane?" no longer gets asked when we are in social or family gatherings for it has become the norm that he is unable to attend. Life is  passing him by in the fast lane. 

Pause the thought of Shane and life passing him by.  Into my life enters the Hearts for Megan event, which was started in the memory of Megan Bates, a beautifully vibrant twenty one year old Senior at West Chester University whose life was tragically ended by a drunk driver. Her family, friends and co-workers wanted to start a non profit to not only honor her life but to celebrate it, and Family Lives On Foundation would be the recipient of the funds the foundation raised. Why Family Lives On? They provide grief assistance to bereaved CHILDREN who have lost a PARENT (not to parents who have lost a child) through the carrying on of traditions. The reason was two fold; Megan loved traditions AND the young man who was driving the car Megan was in that veered off the road, was under the influence. He was a man who had lost his mother at the age of thirteen and Megan's family had known him well. They felt that he had made some poor choices since his moms' loss. Maybe the involvement of an organization such as Family Lives On, might have helped guide and nurture him as his mother had done? Thus the relationship between Hearts for Megan and Family Lives On was born. It has continued on every year since Megan's death in 2008 when the idea was conceived and in 2009, when the first event was held at Riverstone Cafe in Exton Pennsylvania where Megan worked. 

The very first Barn Sale that we held, benefited an organization known at that time as Mommy's Light. Mommy's Light was born by a mom, Mary Murphy (my maiden name but no relation) who was diagnosed with cancer. As this insidious disease began to win out and she knew there would be no remission, she spoke to her then ten year old son about how they would keep her memory alive as he was grieving her loss. They came up with the idea that he would continue the tradition of baking butter cookies at Christmas every year. Mary then realized that there were hundreds of kids out there who were facing the same scenario. Who was going to keep their moms' memory alive and how were those kids going to be helped with the obvious grieving process? Thus Mommy's Light was founded in 1997. Mary died two months later but her idea has lived on and to this date Family Lives On Foundation ( the name was changed to reflect the incorporation of supporting children whose fathers have died in 2013) has supported over 1000 traditions for children between the ages of three and eighteen whose mothers or fathers are terminally ill or have died. Any of you who are reading this and are mothers, would feel a special pull towards this organization, for the thought of not being there for our kids is staggering. That thought is one that we, as moms, push aside, shut out and never really get our heads around...unless we are forced to do so. 

The thought of losing a child is even more staggering and I know that I fire up that prayer, all too often, to watch over my kids and keep them safe from harm. Megan's parents have turned their tragedy into something that will bring others a blessing while remembering the joy of Megan's life. Family Lives On works tirelessly to do the same. This relationship that I have formed with both, through Life's Patina, has blessed my own life. It has opened my own eyes and made me face things that I would rather not. Shane has a life altering illness and yes, I mourn the missed opportunities, the college visits, the proms, the football games, the unsent Christmas card... but these are all trivial in the scheme of life. I know that he is upstairs and I can talk to him, experience his nearness and that someday, hopefully, he will experience life as it was meant for him again. He has good days and bad days...we all do. It is what we do with those days that count.

So...we walk on, in all of our different life situations and we hold our heads high and we try and make a difference. Please come out and join us at any of our events this Spring. They all benefit the Family Lives On Foundation. 

Life's Patina Spring Preview Party with a seasonally inspired menu and cocktails

Thursday May 1st at 6:30

Life's Patina Spring Barn Sale

May 2nd, 3rd and 4th

Hearts for Megan Dinner and Auction with QVC Host Shawn Killinger

May 10th ~ 6:30 pm

For tickets or more information on any of the events please visit our website at www.lifespatina.com

Thanks for reading and a very Belated Merry Christmas and a New Year full of blessings and making a difference!

Meg

The Afterglow of Kelly Corrigan

Kelly with Kimberly Fellows

We are still basking in the afterglow of Kelly Corrigan's visit here at Life's Patina! Her personality and prose were both a delight and the afternoon could not have been any more rewarding and pleasurable than it was. That is not how it started. To be quite honest with you, I was in a cold sweat, literally and figuratively. The day before the event, the skies opened up and Spring monsoons came in. As many of you already know, when it rains here, it seems as if all of our township's water runoff if running off...to Willowbrook Farm. 

We had to scrap our plan to have all the cars park in the horse field and after my husband asked me for the 17th time, "What is you contingency plan?" I threw a plate at him. Only kidding...it was only a pen... but I truly did not know how to answer his repetitive question. We had never parked close to one hundred cars here and not used the horse field.

I wrestled with this issue the entire day as the rain continued to fall and the temperature began to plummet. It was 28 degrees at 2 am when we left the barn. Now it was not only very wet but very cold.

I went to bed with the thought that some things are just not under our control and I knew down deep that it would all work out, for come on, Kelly Corrigan was going to be in the house!

The sky was the most beautiful blue the next morning and despite the cold, it was a stunning day! We managed to park all of the cars on slightly higher ground in the yard and the day commenced.

Kelly, cup of tea in hand, entertained us with her story and kept us vacillating between laughter and tears. So much of what she had to say struck a chord. She stressed the importance of reading in building empathy and vocabulary which I whole heartedly agree with. She asked each one of us to walk away from the event and share with our friends, by way of one of our various means of social media, a great book that we had read. Kelly depicted her relationship with her mother and through her voice inflections, we felt that she was in the room. The most striking thought that I took away from her talk was her realization that even though her mother and herself are much different personalities and they might not see eye to eye, her mothers (and others) "way of being in the world is the right way for them." Ahem....

I hope that many of you who joined us on that day have delighted in the content of Kelly's book. After a wonderful Easter break, we are back in action revamping the barn for our Spring Preview Party. I invite you all back to see the changes we have made to fit all of our Spring goodies into the barn. If you were not able to join us, come on over to see how Spring has erupted at Life's Patina. Here are a few tempting pictures of what you will find. 

Just a peak...more to come, as well as a story about the whole connection between Kelly Corrigan, Family Lives On Foundation and our Hearts for Megan event on May 10th. Nothing is ever random!!

~Meg

Preview Party is Wednesday night, April 30th at 6:30 ~ Registration can be completed on our Facebook page or web page

Regular Sale hours are on Friday, Saturday and Sunday

May 2nd, 3rd and 4th

Bringing the Outside In

I love to bring the outside in for your Spring Decor. So often, just a little touch of what mother nature has to offer in this prolific season of Spring bloomers is all you need. I had collected many fallen branches from this winter of devastation on the poor trees. Low and behold, these fallen branches gave us a burst of beauty. The ones that I kept outside, started budding! They must not have gotten the memo that they had been separated from their life giving trunk. If you did not collect ones during the winter, you can still gather ones up from your Spring pruning. Just assemble them in a pretty urn or container and you have a simple but beautiful look. Any buds of green or flowering blooms will do.

A staple like lettuce, which is a cold hardy plant and loves the cooler temperatures of Spring can also be assembled to make a very simple centerpiece.

Here I took all the seedlings and popped them into a long galvanized chicken feeder. Running down the center of a table, this long arrangement gives a pop of color. You could also pop them into a low planter and arrange them into a square pattern, almost like a quilt.

Spring blooming bulbs are another way to beautify your house. They can be planted in just about anything that will hold water. Once they have finished blooming, you can plant them in your garden and they will continue to give back year after year.

I love this color combination of blue, white, silver and old wood but any color palette that you love can be incorporated.

Of course, fresh flowers are always in abundance now but why don't you 

"go out on a limb" and try something a little different.

Spring Blessings~

Meg

It Really is all Fun and Games

This weekend was our last long trip, venture out picking trip before our Spring sales. Our new merchandise was all in except for a few stragglers and our projects that we wanted to finish up before the sale were spread out...all over the barn. We felt that we needed some more cool items to interject some pizzaz into where there were holes. So where did we go??? We headed to some of our favorite haunts in Virginia and Maryland. I am sure that most of you think this is all fun and games. Well let me tell you, we give "fun and games" a whole different meaning. 

We learned the hard way on our first trip down here, that the open trailer that I usually use to haul stuff in would not cut it. To maximize the drive down here, we planned on making it a two day trip. After excitedly packing up the trailer the first day, we drove into the hotel parking lot and realized that aside from sleeping in the Suburban pulling the trailer or in the open trailer itself, how we were we to keep the fabulous finds stationary in the trailer while we were sleeping in the warm beds in the hotel? Have you ever seen the looks you get from the hotel front desk clerks when you ask if you could please have a room that overlooked the parking lot out back...near the garbage area? After a fitfull night spent mostly dozing off at the window looking down upon the parking lot, (I mean really, what were we going to do, should someone walk up to the trailer and start to unload the goodies we just bought? Bang on the window and make faces and point fingers at them as we silently mouthed epitaphs at them? I bet that would have really scared them off!) Anyway we pulled blearily out of the parking lot at the crack of dawn with everything still intact in the trailer. Whew...but that experience from then on caused us to rethink things and fork over the $100 to rent a U Haul once down there and drop if off once back near home. Worked swimmingly well the first time we did it. This trip brought the fun and games.

The whole trip started off on a different footing when I called the U Haul place we received confirmation from to make sure we could pick up the trailer early on Saturday morning. From the other end of the receiver I heard the question, "You have a man with you?" after I verified the information. I wasn't sure I heard the gentleman who was speaking in a delightful southern drawl so I asked him, "Pardon?"  Upon his repetition  of his question, I understood it and replied, "Why no, I will not have a man with me, but I have driven these before." He said," No, I ain't worried about a lady driving it but I'll need some help lifting it onto your hitch." I assured him that I was quite strong and had helped the last gentleman lift the trailer on with my able bodied partner in crime. By the end of the conversation he was calling me honey and all was well...so I thought. What he did not tell me and what we vaguely remembered reading in the fine print was that if the trailer you book online is not available at the location you chose online, they reserve it for you at the nearest location to your so thought reserved location. Hold onto that thought because it will come into play later.

We headed out somewhat bright and early the next day after being delayed by a few odds and ends like packing the bungee chords, the blankets, finding both the hitch and the electrical hook up for the lights etc. All things I should have done the night before but I had a little run in with a 24 hour bug of some sort the night and day before and had been feeling a little foggy so...I had put it off until the morning of.

After we solved most of the world's problems and our own... (there is nothing like a 3 plus hour car ride with a great friend) we pulled into the field of our first outing. We had decided to get the trailer after we found out if we were going to strike it big on our first stop. The best stuff always goes first and what was a 2 mile drive to get the trailer? 

Some of our goodies

We hit it big time and after gathering up our loot from the buildings we visited we decide that we do not need the trailer just yet, for my husband had left the roof rack on from our Canada trip! We had more than enough room! With the help of two burly young men, we load the goods and then move to the tents where we have a beautiful trunk to pick up. One thing I really pride myself on is packing a car or a tailer. I goofed on this one as well as my partner and I soon realize, that the beautiful trunk will not fit into the car unless we unpack it and do it again or we go get the trailer. My trusty techy partner loads the address into her phone to get the directions to get the trailer and comes up with a location that is TWENTY miles away...not TWO. We pull out the confirmation that was emailed to us to double check and lo and behold, the location 2 miles away did not have the size we had reserved so they reserved one for us at the nearest location....TWENTY miles away, that was the closest??? I am NOT driving TWENTY miles to get that U Haul and then TWENTY back to pick up a trunk and two piddly...but beautifully piddly chairs! Out the window flies the money we had given to the boys as a tip and we decide to repack.

We use the best methods in town to eye ball weather or not more things will fit up top.

We unpack repack, unpack and repack again utilizing the large pieces that we had bought like pieces in a puzzle and get it all in with the help finally, of I think. a rather dumbstruck man who watched the whole procedure. Boy did we impress him!! I am sure he was muttering,  "dumb broads," as we left him in the dust

To the field we go to load up the two adorable small chairs that we had purchased earlier in the day, along with of course, some books. We take a few things out that we thought we could reconfigure to fit the chairs and finally I have to make the decision, do I leave my partner Chris behind? or the chairs? After deciding that both are quite valuable, we find a place for Chris in the back seat and the chairs in the front.

We put the address in into the GPS to realize that it has taken us entirely to long to repack the car 15 times and now we have to haul it the TWENTY miles to the U-haul, (they weren't kidding when they named that)... place to get there before it closes at 4:00. Anticipated arrival time is 4:03. We call to let the kind gentleman know that the ladies will be arriving a bit tardy to pick up their U Haul so please do not close the doors on us. We are sweating profusely and at this point in the day our enthusiasm for the days adventure is wearing thin. He says, "Okay," which could mean many things and as we pull into the parking lot of what looks like an abandoned building. A little door opens with a smallish U Haul sign on the front and there stands a large-ish man. Chris unfolds herself from the back of the car after taking the heavy metal wash tub off of her head and the large-ish man grins, which breaks the ice. After filling out the paperwork, crossing an empty lot whilst talking to the man who happens to be wearing a Steelers shirt, and backing the Suburban up to the trailer, he picks up the trailer all by his lonesome and hitches it up for us. Being a southern gentleman, he even offers us to follow him out so he can guide us to the best way to the highway pulling the trailer in the heavy winds...did I forget to mention it was a SUPER windy day?

We high five our way out onto the highway as we narrowly averted a situation that would have resulted in a huge waste of gas, a hefty penalty for not picking up the trailer on the allotted day and a scramble to find another hotel near the U Haul place which by the looks of things, would have been quite difficult. 

On the road again, I just can't wait to get on the road again...

We only have an hour left until we reach our next destination.

While traveling at a brisk speed, sounds come from the top of the car. Top of the car...top of the car, I repeat in my head. The roof rack!!!

I quickly pull over on the highway to look up and see the roof rack OPEN. As I climb up, on the side of the traffic mind you, I realize that I had left the key in the rack with it not locked all the way. It was such a struggle to get it locked the first time and then get the key out that I had left the key in after we had repacked numerous times in case we had to shove something else up there. What I then remembered as well, (My timing for remembering things at times can be quite poor) was that the lock on the other side was broken and we were NEVER to unlock it that way. I heard my husband's words over and over again as well as my own thoughts on how was I to explain to him that I did not try and open it that way...the wind  did that upon the flapping open of the other side. I could also hear him say, "Why don't you like to play golf or tennis?"

We both dangle out of the doors in the car trying to angle ourselves to get up on the roof high enough without actually climbing on top of the car. As we are doing so, we see flashing lights come up behind us and realize that we have been spotted by Florence Nightingale of the highway and she has put her big arrow behind us as we struggle with the roof rack. We impress her by pulling out our handy dandy ratchet ties as we try to tie down the roof rack after getting it partially closed.

We had lost nothing which was truly a Godsend for Chris had put her overnight bag up there which had our only change of clothes for the next day. Mine held an extra pair of boots for we had been warned the fields were muddy but after checking on one of my sons upstairs in the am and being drawn into a lengthy conversation, which IF I can remember correcly involved zit creams, all thoughts of adding clothes to the bag rushed out of my head.  (Why can I remember the conversation about the zit cream and not that the key is still in the lock?) We assure her that we will pull off of the closest exit and fix things properly at a safer site. She follows us the exit, we get off, she passes us by and we get back on behind her. How the heck are the two of us going to get the entire roof rack off of the car and into the U Haul?  It takes my husband and at least two of our sons to get it on! We are fine...we limp along at 40 mph, tick off a few people behind us and pull into the hotel parking lot to find the closest restaurant and some beverages. A girl has got to eat. 

We check in and up to our room we do go to wash the grime off of our hands from the days forays. As we unlock our door, we notice Room 305 and a picture of a truck with the words, "Buy- 1 Get - 1 Free- Fireworks on the door. How apropos??

More to follow on Day #2...tomorrow...now for some sleep!