Made Machinery

03/23/2026

Five years of birthdays led to this moment, and I'm crying at my kitchen table because I just staged a stuffed animal party that broke my own heart. Each of these friends represents a year of my daughter's life, one handmade companion I crocheted for each birthday since she turned one.
Piglet came first when she was tiny and everything had to be pink. Tigger bounced into her life at two when she couldn't sit still. Pooh arrived at three during her honey sandwich obsession. Eeyore joined at four when she started asking deep questions about feelings. This year I finished Roo because she's been mothering everything in sight.
I've been funding the yarn for these special projects by selling other crochet pieces through my Tedooo app shop, always planning each birthday animal years ahead but never telling her the pattern.
This morning, while she was still sleeping, I gathered all five of her birthday animals and set up this little celebration. I gave each one a balloon and arranged them facing her bedroom door like a welcoming committee. When she came out for breakfast, I told her they'd been planning a surprise party to congratulate her on becoming such a big girl.
She stood there in her pajamas, looking at this circle of friends that have been with her through every stage of growing up, and whispered "They remembered everything about me."
That's when I lost it completely. Because she was right. Each stitch in every animal holds a memory of who she was that year, and together they tell the story of the little girl who's becoming someone amazing."
-saw this on the tedooo app and just had to share with you!

03/22/2026

Yesterday a woman walked in at 4 PM. No appointment. Asked if I could squeeze her in. "What do you want?" I asked. She showed me a photo on her phone. Numbers. Just numbers. "392. On my wrist. Simple. Black. Can you do it now?" I looked at her. She'd been crying. Eyes red. Hands shaking. "Yeah, I can do it. But can I ask what 392 means?" She sat down in my chair. Took a breath. "It's the number of days my daughter stayed clean before she overdosed. I found her yesterday. I want to remember she tried. That 392 days mattered." I didn't know what to say. Just nodded. Started setting up. She kept talking. Needed to talk. "Everyone's going to say she relapsed. That she failed. But they won't say she was sober for 392 days. That she went to meetings. Got a job. Started painting again. That she was my daughter again for 392 days. They'll remember one day. The last day. But I'm going to remember 392." Her voice broke. "This tattoo is proof those days existed. That she fought. That she almost made it."
I finished the tattoo. Simple numbers. 392. On her wrist. She paid. Tipped way too much. Started to leave. Then turned back. "Can you keep that stencil? And if anyone ever comes in here struggling with addiction, can you offer to do this tattoo for free? Any number. However many days their person stayed clean. 10 days. 1 day. I don't care. Just so they know those days counted." She left before I could answer. I kept the 392 stencil. Put it in a frame behind my counter. Wrote under it: "Days of sobriety tattoos — always free. Any number. Because every day counts."
Three days later, a man came in. 1,279 days. His brother. Sober driver, killed by a drunk one. I did the tattoo for free. He hugged me for five minutes. Word spread. I've done 23 sobriety number tattoos in three weeks. 47 days. 6 days. 1,823 days. One woman got "14 hours." "My son stayed clean for 14 hours before he relapsed and died. Everyone says 14 hours doesn't count. But it does." I tattooed it on her shoulder. She sobbed the entire time. When I finished, she whispered, "Now everyone will know he tried." The supplies started adding up fast. I wasn't charging anyone, so I opened a small shop on the Tedooo app selling custom memorial prints and recovery keepsakes, things people could order to go alongside the tattoos. The community there rallied around it. Orders came in. It covered the ink costs and then some. I never expected that.
Yesterday someone asked for "0 days." His daughter never made it past a few hours. Four rehabs. She died at 23. "Can you do 0 with a little infinity symbol? Because her attempts were infinite even if her days weren't." I cried doing that tattoo. A teenager came in two days ago. 91 days sober. With his dad. "Now when I want to use, I'll see this. I'll remember I made it to 91. I can make it to 92." His dad tipped $200. The kid comes back every 30 days. I add a tally mark next to his 91. He's up to 151 now. He's going to make it.
The original woman came back yesterday. Another number. "1." One year since her daughter died. One year she'd survived without her. "Every time I wanted to give up, I looked at 392. If she could fight for 392 days, I could fight for one more." Someone from the Tedooo community sent her a handmade bracelet after seeing my post there, a stranger who lost her own son, with a note that just said "your daughter's days mattered to me too." I have a wall now. 47 tattoos in two months. Numbers from 14 hours to 6,247 days. Every single one free. Every single one a story of someone who tried. Trying counts. Fighting counts. Even if you lose, the fight counted. I'm a tattoo artist. But these aren't just tattoos. They're monuments. And in a world that only remembers the last day, I'm making sure we remember all the days before it.

03/22/2026

New skirt - which top??
I just bought this skirt and am playing with tops. I like both of these but can’t decide which to wear it with on Monday morning.

01/31/2026

The Halloween parade was in twenty minutes, and my sister was sobbing into her coffee. "Tyler refuses to wear the dinosaur costume. Says it's for babies. He wants to be something 'funny' like his friend Jake."
Her seven-year-old sat at the table, arms crossed, rejecting every suggestion. Suddenly, I remembered this absurd idea I'd seen someone selling patterns for on Tedooo app - turning recycling bins into costumes.
"What about a porta-potty?" I blurted out. Tyler's eyes lit up. "That's DISGUSTING. I love it!"
My sister looked horrified. "Absolutely not. He'll be the weird kid. Everyone will laugh AT him, not with him."
But Tyler was already bouncing. "Please, Mom? PLEASE?"
I had a blue recycling bin in the garage. Working frantically, I cut out the door, spray-painted a toilet paper roll white, attached a pump soap dispenser, and fashioned a toilet seat from cardboard. The finishing touch? A sign reading "Occupied" that Tyler could flip to "Vacant."
My sister watched in horror. "This is a parenting fail. I'm documenting this for his therapy bills."
At the parade, Tyler was an instant celebrity. Kids were lining up to high-five him. Parents were crying laughing. The principal asked to take a photo. Three other moms asked for my number, wanting their own "gross-out costume" for next year.
Tyler won "Most Creative Costume." During his acceptance speech, he announced, "My aunt made this! She sells stuff on Tedooo app!" I don't, but his enthusiasm was adorable.
My sister texted me later: "He wants to be a garbage truck next year. This is your fault. Also... thank you. Haven't seen him this happy in months."
Sometimes the best costumes are the ones that make kids laugh so hard they can't breathe. Even if they're literally toilet humor.

01/20/2026

My husband walked outside, looked at what I'd been working on for six months, and said "You turned our grain silo into a gazebo?"
Not "this is beautiful." Not "I can't believe you did this." Just pure confusion mixed with that tone he uses when I do anything that isn't dinner or laundry.
We inherited his parents' farm in Foley three years ago. Twenty acres of memories and that massive grain silo just sitting there empty, rusting. I kept saying we should do something with it, and he kept saying "like what?" Then he'd go back to his phone or the TV or wherever he goes in his head when he doesn't want to deal with real life anymore.
Last winter I was sitting in our kitchen at 2am because I couldn't sleep next to someone who feels like a stranger. I started looking up silo conversions on my laptop, just dreaming really, and found this whole community on Tedooo app of people repurposing old farm structures. There was a woman in Iowa who'd done something similar, and she connected me with the craftsman who made her custom metalwork. He ended up creating these gorgeous light fixtures and corrugated metal panels for me at a price I could actually afford from my own savings.
I worked on it every day while my husband was at work. Ordered handmade furniture from different makers on Tedooo, spent hours figuring out the wiring, planted those shrubs myself. My back hurt and my hands got calloused and I've never felt more proud of anything in my entire life.
He still doesn't get it. But last weekend my daughter drove four hours just to sit out here with me under those lights, and she cried and said "Mom, you built something beautiful."
Yeah. I really did.

01/20/2026

I made this wooden chair and it started sprouting leaves - I'm honestly not sure if I should laugh or cry.
My mom passed away six months ago, and this was her favorite chair on the back deck where she'd sit every morning with her coffee. Dad and I couldn't bring ourselves to move it, so it's just been sitting there through all the rain and weather.
Then last week I noticed these tiny green shoots popping up all along the armrests and legs. At first I thought it was just moss or something, but they're actually leaves! Apparently the wood was still alive enough to start growing again.
The crazy thing is, I built this chair myself three years ago using a guide I found in the woodworking community on the Tedooo app. The tutorial emphasized using "green wood" - freshly cut branches that still had life in them - but I never imagined this could actually happen.
Mom always joked that she had such a green thumb she could make anything grow, even furniture. She used to pat the armrests and say "good morning, chair" like it was a pet. I thought she was just being silly, but maybe she knew something I didn't.
Part of me wants to trim the sprouting branches, but honestly? It feels like she's still here somehow, still making things grow with her touch. The chair is literally coming back to life in the spot where she spent her happiest mornings.
I never knew wood could do this, but I'm going to let it keep growing and see what happens.

01/19/2026

We moved to this property in May thinking we'd finally have peace. Just me and my wife, far enough from our old life that maybe we could remember why we liked each other before everything went wrong. But our neighbor started walking through our land like he owned it. Every morning I'd see him cutting across to get to the creek, trampling the wildflowers my wife was trying to grow. When I asked him to stop, he laughed and said he couldn't tell where his property ended and ours began.
I showed him the survey markers. He shrugged and kept walking through. My wife stopped going outside. She'd worked so hard clearing brush and planting things, trying to make something beautiful out of the mess we'd made of our lives, and this man just walked through it like it didn't matter. Like she didn't matter. I watched her give up a little more each day.
I couldn't afford a real fence. Money was tight after the move, after everything. But the ice storm in March had knocked down a dozen trees on our property and I started dragging the branches into piles. Spent two weeks building these gates out of fallen wood, nothing fancy but solid enough to mark what's ours. I didn't want metal or chain link destroying the view my wife loved. I used techniques I found in a free DIY guide on Tedooo app from a guy in Montana who builds rustic furniture, and I just kept stacking branches until it looked like it belonged there.
The neighbor hasn't cut through since I finished. My wife planted more flowers last week, right up against the gate. She found these handmade garden markers on Tedooo app from a woman who does woodburning and bought one for each section she's working on. I caught her smiling at them yesterday. First real smile in months. Sometimes you just need a line in the dirt that says this space is mine, even if it's made from broken trees.

01/15/2026

Recycling 🤣

01/15/2026