Are you curious about who we are? Well, let me satisfy some of that curiosity! We’re Pat and Shelley – a military couple with a few too many household moves under our belts! We met while my husband was training in Florida, married eight months later, and have spent time living in various areas of Texas, Las Vegas, Washington, Illinois, Missouri, Arizona, and are currently back in Northwest Florida (until the government tells us otherwise or we hit that 20-year retirement mark).
Our family consists of Patrick and myself, and our furry, four-legged children.
Pat is the resident blacksmith, handyman, jack-of-all-trades around here. Or, at least he was until we moved away from Washington. Between the hot humidness of Florida and once again living in a populated area, he decided to take a break from blacksmithing until our living situation is more conducive to the art. For now, he is biding his time finding a new love of tropical plants and designing random accessories for me on his 3D printer.
I (Shelley) am the wanna-be fiber artist. After a visit to an alpaca farm in 2011, I fell in love with alpacas. But what do you do with alpacas? You shear them, spin yarn, and make fuzzy warm stuff! The following Christmas I was gifted my first spinning wheel and my love of the craft has endured. I learned to process the fleece from straight off the alpaca to finish yarn, but then wasn’t sure what to do with it. I knew how to crochet, but as a person living with Rheumatoid arthritis, crocheting and spinning are not always easy tasks. Then I picked up weaving. I started with a rigid heddle loom, then a table loom, then floor looms. I’m still very much a novice but I love to work with my hands when I can and the repetitive motions of weaving are pure joy!
Other fun facts about us — we love beer and wine (we even raised bees for homemade mead), British humor, hiking, bird/wildlife watching, and enjoying a variety of “slow crafts” that bring us joy and peace.
One of our latest big adventures was that of rehabbing a 1900’s farmhouse in Ashford, WA, just outside the Paradise entrance of Mt. Rainier National Park. The blog includes many of our experiences with the rehab loan process, the construction phase, and moving on to making this our dream home. In 2022, we needed to leave Washington to be with family during some difficult times and are in a new phase of our lives experiencing the Gulf Coast once again and keeping an eye on what the future still holds for us. It’s part of the military way of life: unexpected adventures!
