Once upon a time, there was a lonely 39 year old lady named Sharon. Mesmerized by a beautiful full moon, she sat on the sand at the ocean and pondered her life. She cried out to the heavens, “What have I done, that I have no one to love! I have all this love to give but no one to whom I can give it. Maybe I should just forget about being a wife and mother and dedicate my life to being the best nurse I can be.” Calling love to her life, she decides to turn her fate over to whatever power is out there.

After this week-long vacation, Sharon returns to work. On this very day, August 21, 1999, Sharon meets a very special lady that will truly change her life. Her name is Jonda. Jonda is very sick with leukemia. Leukemia is Sharon’s area of expertise as a nurse. Jonda has a large extended family and Sharon meets them all. One of them, also a very special lady, was to change the very course of Sharon’s life. Her name is Kim Parker.

Kim is the sister of Jonda’s significant other, Linda. She is a whirling dervish of a woman. She comes often with her family to cheer Jonda up with their visits. On one visit she is talking of her cousin, Bruce. She has just returned from a trip to Toronto to visit him. She describes him as sad and lonely. She has forgotten a video tape of some of their visit in Canada that she wanted to show Jonda and Linda. Sharon’s ears perk up as they describe Bruce as a stocky man with red hair, painfully shy, but with a good sense of humor. Sharon is in the room hanging IV antibiotics and offhandedly says she likes burly men. A twinkle comes to Kim’s eye. “Why don’t you e-mail him?” she says teasingly. Kim reports, “Bruce always said, ‘The only way I’ll ever get a girl is if you find me one.’”

The next weekend Kim does bring the video tape. Jonda has kidded Sharon about this all week. Of note is a scene in which Bruce is sitting on the deck of his cottage and is doing his version of “Bubba” the redneck with his baseball cap turned backwards and making the most ridiculous face with BBQ sauce all over him. Sharon laughs and then says, “Oh, what the hell!” Kim says she will ask Bruce if it is ok for her to give Sharon his e-mail address. Evidently, he said yes and Kim gave Sharon the address.

Slowly, thoughts and feelings are shared between Bruce and Sharon via e-mail while they were getting to know one another. These simple exchanges of information became almost scary to them because they shared so much in common. Then, on October 17, 1999, they e-mail all day. He sends her photos of his home and cottage, and of him (she has forgotten exactly what he looks like). She likes all she sees. He is very handsome to her! He sends a picture of the fall leaves taken at his cottage. Only a man with something very special in his soul would have thought of taking this photo much less seen the beauty of the scene in the first place. She is smitten. Finally, it is decided that they should talk on the phone.

They talked from 10:00 pm till around 3:15 am. Bruce says Sharon talked and he listened but that is not entirely true. Sharon goes to bed that night giddy as a school girl because she knows deep in her soul that finally this is “THE ONE! She just has to convince Bruce of this.

Their actual meeting approaches. Bruce is already scheduled to visit Florida the week of December 18, for the 50th wedding anniversary of his aunt and uncle. Would it be the same in person as it is over the internet and the phone? Can they overcome their pasts to truly let this evolve into something as special as it appears to be? Bruce his shyness and inexperience; Sharon her bad choices and heartbreaks.

Sharon meets Bruce at the airport with a sign in her hands that says, “Welcome to the rest of your life.” But she is too bashful to actually hold it up for Bruce to see. She is relieved and very pleasantly surprised because she definitely likes what she sees. Bruce is much like the Scotsmen she had always admired in her childhood at the Highlands Festivals in Roan Mountain, North Carolina close to her native Tennessee. She has always dreamed her babies would have red hair. They, then, drive to Clearwater Beach for dinner. It is a bit awkward, do they hold hands or what. But once they sat down with the beautiful view of the intercostals they start talking and it is just as it is when they talk on the phone. Comfortable!!!

After dinner, they take a walk on the beach. They hold hands. They find a group of Adirondack chairs to sit on and talk. After sitting for a brief while they return to Sharon’s car, share a shy kiss, and proceed to their own destinations.

Sharon and Bruce spend a day at Bush Gardens and go Christmas shopping together. On Christmas Eve, they share in all the Christmas festivities with Bruce’s Florida family. They look at old pictures and it feels like Sharon has always belonged just were she is. At Bruce’s side! Once again, with Sharon’s family, both Bruce and Sharon are overwhelmed by the feeling of having put on their favorite bathrobes and Hushpuppies all at the same time.

A few days later, they part not knowing when they will see each other again. Sharon is totally despondent but, oh, so hopeful because she knows that this is “THE ONE” without a single doubt.

The e-mails and phone calls again flow between Bruce and Sharon. On the first phone call after Bruce returns home, he says, “I want to go someplace warm with you.” Discussions begin on where and when.

Bruce has a wedding to attend on New Year’s Eve 2000. He is to call Sharon around midnight. She waits with great anticipation by the phone. She has to work that next morning at 0700. She waits and waits alternating between mad that he forgot to call and scared that something has happened to him. Finally, he calls around 0300. They talk and talk. Bruce’s final words to her are a tentative, “I love you!” She isn’t sure of what she heard and by the time she can respond Bruce is off the line. She asks him what he said but he never repeated himself.

It is finally decided that they will take a seven day Caribbean cruise right after Valentine’s Day. The night prior to embarking, Bruce presents Sharon with a diamond heart necklace, his heart.

Sometime before he arrives for the cruise, the discussion turns to Bruce moving to Florida. Sharon scopes out property. Eventually, Bruce proposes and insists on building a home for Sharon prior to the wedding. “If we can build a house together, we can spend a life together,” Bruce insists.

On June 16, 2001, Bruce and Sharon were wed. She could not persuade him to wear a kilt but the church was decorated with Ancient MacEwen tartan to honor Bruce’s family. They had a hand fasting ceremony in which their hands were tied with a tartan scarf that was later placed on Sharon’s dress with a MacEwen clan badge pen. This was Bruce’s way to welcome her to his clan. Bruce’s mom and dad are passed and Sharon does all in her power to honor his family. She wears his mother’s headpiece and veil and alters her dress herself to help it coordinate with the aged headwear. She carries a white rose and a thistle in her bouquet.

The above is a condensed version of my scrapbook titled, “The Story of Us.” This business directly came from my frustration in attempting to find Celtic knots and other Celtic items to scrapbook this album as well as my wedding photographs. I found shareware and freeware designs and fonts to use but what I really desired was tartan scrapbook paper and Celtic knots cut from metallic papers. I made do with what I found and I will eventually post parts of those albums here.

As I scrapped these projects the scrapbook bug took hold. Bruce bought me a wide bed scanner for my birthday a few years ago and this allowed me to print tartan papers. I cannot get it to print true 12 x 12 papers but I like the way the 11 x 11 tartan papers look with a solid background page as a border. It makes the colors pop and I often use the corner punches to fancy up the page.

The next step in the evolution of this business was my discovery of the Wishblade Personal Media Cutter. Basically, it will cut paper, transparency, magnet, some fabric, and vinyl with any line I make on the computer just like a printer prints it. They are expensive machines but I talked Bruce into getting this for me for my birthday/early Christmas present for 2005. To justify the expense, I started thinking of how I might recoup some of the funds I spend on this hobby of mine.

Another reason the business evolved as it did is our pursuit of our genealogy. It is an illness, you know. If you have been bitten by this addiction, you already know and understand. Bruce is the last male in his line of MacEwens. Especially when we were trying to have another child, this was very much on our minds. Bruce and I have traced the MacEwens of Prince Edward Island, Canada back to the original Scotsman who came over from Perthshire, Scotland in 1770 on a ship called “The Falmouth.” We are still searching for the missing link between our patriarch Duncan and the last chief of Clan MacEwen, Swean of Otter in the 1500s. Our inclusion of heritage items came from the genealogy albums I am working on and will be working on ad infinitum.

As we became more and more “into” our genealogy we decided to visit some of the area Celtic Festivals and Renaissance Faires. We all love them. Bruce for the humor and food. Ali for the horseys and the doggies. And me for the freeness of it all. I just love people with the freeness of mind and playfulness to dress up and pursue their interests in history. We all now have our festival clothes - some of which I made myself. We did our first Celtic festival as vendors at the Zephyrhills Celtic Festival on February 18, 2006.

This is the story of our business, Scrappy Celtics. I say the name was God-given as I woke in the middle of the night with the name in my head. The business is basically just me doing my thing when the little one is in daycare 2 days a week.

In closing, I want to thank you for your visit to our site. If you found something you like or if you have something in mind that you would like made, just e-mail me and I will do my very best to custom-design that item to your specifications at a reasonable cost to you. I am not out to make a fortune, just to share my loves and creativity and make enough for spending money.

Take Care,

Sharon