Emily Cox moved from a larger city. But she loves it here. Emily lives on the edge of town with her mother and step-father, Karin and Ron Baumann. She said smiling, "I can look at the mountains and a lot of cows." Emily moved here to recover from COVID-19. "It's been a blessing in disguise because it has pushed me to live healthier."

She spent 13 days in the hospital with nine days in ICU with a feeding tube and bi-pap. There were 80 beds in her ICU in one large room that only had cloth partitions. She never slept, never saw anyone but masked nurses and doctors. She had nightmares and suffered from PSTD because of it. She has worked in the medical field before, but "once you are a patient, it was scary. You can't see family, the doctor for 5 minutes, no faces, only masks. COVID brain is real! Your brain wanders. Neither my body nor my brain is the same as it was before. "

Emily rolled into Big Sandy on Jan 16th. It took her about three weeks before she started working again. Her business is called Windy Hill Creations and can be found on Facebook. (https://www.facebook.com/windyhillcreationsandboutique/). If you are interested, you can look on her Facebook page or text/call: 406-390-0955

Emily said, "right now, I mainly custom making tumblers." She can make any of your ideas come true. But she also can make "baseballs hats, T-shirts, hoodies, anything that can be personalized is big right now."

"I like being busy. It keeps me on my toes."

"To make a tumbler, the process is long. It takes about 2-3 layers of epoxy, and each layer has to cure by spinning on the spinner for 12 hours. She has ten spinners so that she can make ten tumblers in one week. She won't ship them until after they sit. They need to be held for three days.

If they are dropped, she can fix them.

The Tumblers come in two sizes; 20 ounces and 30 ounces. Emily has one she can make look like a football for football season and sippy cups for kids. She loves the creative part of the process.

They compare to the Yeti brand, which is so popular, but she uses the Hogg brand. "I feel they keep things hotter and

colder than any other brand. The cost for the two sizes is 20 ounces $30, 30 ounces for $40. The same kind of cup is sold on the internet for twice to three times that cost. She likes to keep her prices down.

Emily starts by painted the cup by hand and every layer after that. Depending on the design, each layer is handcrafted. She recommends they be hand-washed, even after the epoxy is added.

She can also make customized pens.

Emily told me she should wear a mask because of the epoxy. "It will ruin your clothes."

Her business started in 2018 when she started making custom signs. After that, she added "Yardzee," a lawn game she designed after Yahtzee. She has made 16,000 lawn "Yardzee." Right now, she isn't making them because they are so time-consuming. Then she branched into decals and t-shirts.

After seeing the results of her work, I ordered a purple tumbler with purple glitter!