Tough Day at The Old Tattered Flag

Hooking on the porch......

Annette working on her purse....

Lilleth, Robin and sister Barbara!

Ann working on Antique Coverlet.....

Julie hooking on the swing....

More hooking.....

Corrine with "Fall Friends"

Mom with Tamara's little Sheena!

Tamara punching on black weavers cloth.....

After 13 moves over 24 years I tell myself every time that I am not going to make friends at the next place because it's just too hard to say goodbye.... 

We have lived here in upstate NY for 6 years, which is the longest duty station for us and really quite rare for a military officer.  My kids were able to be in one high school for most of their teenage years.  They played sports, were in drama productions, graduated, went to college.....lots of milestones in a kids life (and mom's and dad's).  

My sister lives in Vermont so trips back and forth, although not as frequent as we would have liked because we are both so busy, were doable.

Major life events like my father's passing, in this very house and my mother choosing to live with us 

also occurred.  

Military friends have come and gone during this six years but back in August of 2010 after my mother had committed to moving in with us and as my husband  headed off for his third year long deployment with the 10th Mountain division we decided to see if any local ladies would be interested in rug hooking.  We were pleasantly surprised when Lillith and Sue called up and came and hooked on the porch.  Well, two years later I had contact information for close to 50 ladies and we had a pretty consistent group of 10-12 ladies who regularly came by to hook every two weeks.

Several of the ladies have thanked us for introducing them to hooking as we all know can be very relaxing and stress reducing.  These ladies have no idea what they did for us.  In 2010 when we started the classes my mother was still dealing with the loss of my father.  I really never knew how therapeutic our hooking days were to her, actually both of us.  Sometimes we wouldn't hook, but would just sit and talk, cry and laugh a LOT.  Many of the ladies were widows just like my mother and they had so much in common.  Sometimes I would be working in the other room on a pattern and would just smile as I would hear them all laughing.  

Yesterday we had our last "hooking on the porch".  My defense mechanism is to "harden" myself and not think about it, or distance myself.  When the ladies came in with cards and Julie brought a photo album of the good times it became apparent that it was going to be rough, but somewhere along the way I realized that it's ok to cry as you say goodbye to each person and how much each lady enriched our lives in a different way.  How could I really say that I don't want to make friends anymore?  Yup, it's hard, but my goodness, what would we have done without these ladies?  

So, as we pack up the wool studio and all the patterns we have smile on our faces one minute and a tear the next, but it's ok because I know we'll pass through here again. 

Thanks so much Ladies for a GREAT two years and please, continue to get together and keep on hookin'. You need each other more than you know and after all, there is still SKYPE.

UNTIL NEXT TIME........