Guest post by Gerard Mcdaniel
My mom is the strongest person I know and it’s been really hard on her since dad died. She loved that man with all her heart and she gave her whole life to him and to raising myself and my brothers – now we’re all trying to do what we can to make sure she’s taken care of now that she’s on her own. One of my brothers is a Realtor so he found her this great house pretty close to me and we all chipped in and bought it for her. I love that she’s close enough I can stop by on my way home from work or just to say hello. My other brother is a construction foreman so he’s going to do some of the updates to the house that it needs – nothing major, just tile work and installing new appliances and all that. I’ve been working hard on the back end stuff like going to electriccompaniesindallas.com/ to get her energy provider all squared away and talking to her neighbors about going by and checking on her every few days. She really prides herself on being independent but it’s been years since she’s lived on her own and she’s pushing 90 so she’s very, very frail. Her health is in remarkably good condition considering her age but she’s only going to be around for so much longer so I want to make sure my kids get to know her well. They’re in college so it’s hard for them to tear themselves away to spend time with grams but I know at the end of the day they’ll sure be glad they did. The one regret I had when dad died was not having told him more often how much I loved him and not going fishing with him more. I think if I could tell him anything it would be that I love him very much and that I hope I made him proud! My mom seems to be proud of us all and I guess that will have to do for now.

This is a photo of what I made today, a bag for my clothes line pins. I recycled a tshirt the youngest son is too big for. I should have took photos as I went but I will try to explain what I did the best way I can. I turned the tshirt inside out, and stitched across the bottom of the shirt, then sewed up the sleeves. Then turned it right side out and put the hanger in the shirt and stitched under the top part of the hanger just enough so the tshirt would not slip off the hanger. Then I filled it up with my clothes pins and put it to use. 











