Why It Matters Enough to Take Over My Facebook Feed

I've tried going over it in my head repeatedly.  Why has Sweet Briar's Closure announcement been so life shattering for me?  I'm a wreck.  I break down at work, home, in the car, at church, at the doctor, everywhere.  I'll do my best to focus on whatever task I have in front of me but still find myself just going through the motions until I fall apart.
I feel it deep down.  My heart hurts.  It hurts to breath and move.  The crying doesn't really help either.  I have a constant crying headache.

My kids a heartbroken.  Emmeline the most.  I didn't see that one coming.  She is usually the one that goes with the flow.  She is used to not having much control in her life.  Yesterday was the first time she was able to mention moving without getting upset.  Up until then,  several times a day she would cry about it.  "Nothing will ever be the same" she would say.  What do I say? She wants me to say it will be the same, but I can't.  It wont. Ever.

We all thought this would be where we could actually make a home.  Where the girls would grow up.  Where they could have the freedoms I had as a kid and more. It's more than we ever hoped for.  I thought "we have had a hard go of it the last 6 years.  We all worked hard and this is our reward." I breathed it in and let this place settle into the deep, dark bitter parts of my soul and shed light where it had been absent for years.  I jumped in with both feet and fell head over heels in love. Not only is it beautiful here, there is a sense of family.  Everyone waives at everyone.  They are happy to see you and you help each other out.  You feel like you are part of something that you have been searching for but didn't know it until you found it. My girls have opened up and progressed in amazing ways.  Isa and her friends down the street have the most amazing adventures in the woods and throughout campus.  They have planned their college careers here and all the things they would do together. Emmeline has become so much more comfortable and confident outside.  Due to her balance issues she has always been wary of being on uneven surfaces.  Not here.  She runs and plays.  Yes, she still falls occasionally, but she just gets up and goes. I constantly find myself stopping and being overwhelmed with happiness.  I would look around, amazed that it even existed. It is, in one word, Magical.

And then someone killed it.  But not right away.  Someone walked up and gave it 4 months to live.  And I get to watch it die.  Watch it slowly empty and all the lights go out.  Then leave it behind, alone.  Every day I feel sick.  Like I'm fumbling around trying to stay busy and ignore the impending doom.  Flip flopping between acceptance, denial, anger and sadness.  Mostly anger and sadness.

Someone drew a parallel to it being like a person walking up and saying "that person over there is bleeding to death, but there's nothing we can do, so just leave them there bleeding until they die." Doesn't seem quite right does it? It seems like you should try everything you could imagine until they actually die. Try until there is no more trying to be done. And so I post.  Anything and everything, so that people will know.  This place was here, it was real and it was amazing.

The Cat in the Hat

So I got an email from Emmeline's teacher saying that if we wanted to send our kids to school in a red t shirt or something for Dr. Suess's birthday we could.  Yeah, I think we can do better than that.
I figured I could whip something basic up from my felt stash and luckily I had just enough red. Here is what you need:
1 Black Shirt
2 (approx) sheets of felt in each red and white.
hot glue
1 headband
needle and thread

I cut an oval from the first sheet of white felt.  It took almost the whole sheet.

Then I did a (very) rough stitch around the edge.  I should note that I am planning on dismantling the shirt after the fact so if you want a permanent costume you would probably want to use a sewing machine.

I didn't have a whole sheet of red so if you use the whole sheet you would end up with a bigger bow.  I did and accordion fold and some pinching to get it how I wanted it and then used hot glue and put a few dots of glue to hold together the folds.

Then use a long strip, around 12 inches long.  About the length of a regular sheet of felt.  Then cut it to look like this.  Not the little notch in the top.  That is from a previous project.

Wrap the long piece around to cover the glue in the middle and make it look like a tied bow. Then hot glue it in the back to hold the long strip in place.

Then I sewed it (roughly) to the top of the shirt. 

On to the hat!  Use a large mouth glass to trace a circle.  Cut out two.

Sandwich the headband between the two circles and glue around the edge not leave a gap for the headband so you can adjust the hat once it's on your head.

For traditional Cat in the Hat you have a white brim and then 2 white and 3 red stripes.

Rough stitch them together alternating red and white.

Then sew it into a tube by sewing up the side.

Cut out a red circle and sew it to the top of your tube.  Then turn the whole thing right side out.

I then glued the tube to the white base. This can be tricky but it will work.  It would probably be easier if you stuffed your tube with a filler of some kind so it would be a bit more stiff.  Hindsight.

The Cat in the Hat.