Hey y'all!

I assure you, I'm not dead. Just have had a LOOOONG absence.

So, an update from my personal life - I didn't get the job that I had applied to at the beginning of the month. Hence I'm back to looking again. In the meantime, I've been keeping busy around the house, writing like crazy, and trying to keep my sanity and soul intact in all the craziness we call life.

Speaking of which....I got a doozy of a story to tell y'all.....

Several weeks ago, we're just about to say family night prayers and I happen to look over to the calendar hanging on a closet door.

And made the causal remark that my parent's 25th anniversary was in 10 days.

That realization sunk in like a lead weight. As we all knelt, I'm sure my blood pressure was hitting the roof. Because Miss Melancholy Temperament had no blooming clue what her Plan was to execute this thing.

Then I looked towards the door where my brother Matthew was kneeling. As soon as he caught my gaze he mouthed to me:

"Shoebox"

It take me a minute to catch what he was saying but then it clicked and my blood pressure went back down to normal.



See, about 2 years ago right after Christmas, we kids were scheming to buy our parents a replacement washer and dryer set for their 25th anniversary...as our current set was reaching the two decade mark. Pretty ambitious for 2 kids in college and the others on a minimal allowance. Of course, we all thought that Matthew and I were going to have higher incomes 2 years down the road. In the meantime, we all chipped in what we could set aside at the time and set it in a Christmas shoebox. Which immediately got stashed under Matthew's bed (best place for it, no one would think of looking under there....LOL).

2 years went by. A little more money was stashed in the shoebox. Our 20 year dryer bit the dust and our original scheme, and the shoebox, was largely forgotten as the finances got tighter and tighter for Matthew and I.

Until that particular night at prayer.

After we finished, Matthew and I sped off and dug out that old shoebox. We counted all the cash and we had slightly more than expected (~$120). Which was a miracle of providence in and of itself!

So, the schemes began.

We came up with the following plan:

1. We would get a nice card, and include a gift card to a nice restaurant, $25 worth.
2. While they were out, the rest of us kids at home (cause Matthew had to be back at college), would decorate the house a little, have a cake, and give a little silver present.

Simple, right?

If only.....you know that proverb about best laid plans, right??

We managed to get the gift card before Matthew had to go back to college. The problem happened when trying to find the silver present.

Nothing we tried was working or clicking with us. A photographer was way too expensive. Scouring of gift websites drove us batty. Antique stores yielded only silver plate. Talk about frustrating....

So, we had to maintain semblance of daily life while attempting to find a solution.

We quickly discovered that silver, at retail prices, was a lot more expensive that we bargained for too. Which only increased our frustration levels. Deals fell through because of technicalities, and many silver items were out of our reach financially. I'm sure Matthew was ready to string me up because of the grief my perfectionist streak was giving him....

I'm sure Matthew's face mirrored this guy's at least half of the time through this whole mess....

Then finally, 5 days before the anniversary, I found Replacements, Ltd. This is a company that specializes in making replacement pieces for old silver sets. And for decent prices at that!

I knew that we had an old heirloom set in the family. All we had to do was match the pattern and order two silver napkin rings. Simple. We got this.

Only problem was I didn't have a company name or picture of the blooming silver pattern....both of which were very necessary in order to determine which pattern it was! So, I got in touch with some of the extended family to procure a picture and the company name (which was apparently easier to find than the picture...).

In the meantime, in my stupidity, I never grabbed the greeting card or deposited the rest of the cash in the bank before the actual anniversary. See, it was only going to be a quick trip, just hop and the car and go, and life has a funny way of getting in the way all of a sudden...

And yeah, that came back to bite me, big time.

Dad snitched my car cause his was in the repair shop for two days. The two days before the anniversary, of course. Great timing...oh well, there is always the day OF the anniversary right?

RIGHT.

You know what came the night?

A snowstorm. A bad snowstorm. Of course it would. There is over 8 inches of snow outside in the morning, the roads are a mess, snow is falling very finely very steadily (anybody that has lived up in the North KNOWS that that means lots of it).

Perfectly. Squashed. EVERYTHING.

*insert frustrated scream*

But that's not all, of course it isn't....you think that's all?

Keep your eyes peeled for part 2!

Old-fashionably yours,

Catherine