In my ladies' Bible class we were talking about the fact that life IS a journey and that it's not that you actually ARRIVE anywhere...it's about how you travel. We were talking about how easy it is to fall into the trap and say we'll do this or that WHEN blah blah blah is in place...I'll be able to keep the house clean and have people over when the kids are gone...I'll think about trying to please God when I'm not so busy building my career at work...I'll spend time with my kids/friends/whomever when I retire and don't have to juggle work outside the home and housework......you get the idea. With all the things that January brings (year-end stuff, quarterly reports, annual reports, W-2's, 1099's, etc) MY own particular journey has been pretty hectic lately. However, I'm happy to report that Beth is coming out here today, and we've declared it to be a fun day. She's near the end (hopefully) of a bout with allergies and bronchitis and I'm having some similar problems, so we're going to start with a lovely cold, thick, rich milkshake that's soothing to the throat as well as to the psyche. (so deliciously decadent!) No restaurant-bought milkshake can even BEGIN to match the ones I make at home like the ones I grew up with. Good ol' Nestle's Quik and milk and rich vanilla ice cream. MMMmmmmm. We may watch movies, we may play with quilting stuff, we may stroll around outside and do some gardening planning. We may even get wild and go somewhere - like to Michael's in Murfreesboro (about an hour away) since my fairy godmother sent me a 40% off coupon!
I was fascinated with these little Pennie Pockets and just had to try them. Here are my first attempts. Sorry the pictures aren't better - and I even went outside and froze just to use natural light and most of the inside ones were better! The verses are on the same yellow stripe fabric that's inside the pocket with the red dots on the back. (wanted to use something different than the same yellow so it would show up better, but it was all I had handy where the color/pattern weren't too strong for the words to show up) Anyway, the colors are nice and bright and cheery. There are so many things you could do with them that I am determined to make more of them! They cry out for something to be put in them...so I immediately thought of little cheer-you-up things and chose some Psalms and other verses....I really like these with the same thick insides used in the quilt postcards because it's a substantial thing to pull out and look at, but that makes them so big you can't really get many in the pocket. So I may try just a heavy version of regular fusible stuff.
Happy Saturday!

Blessings of the day: sunshine, birds singing and enjoying the feeders, a kindred spirit daughter

A couple more Christmas items . . . dishtowels using a great pattern I found unexpectedly!

These kinds of gifts are not valuable in monetary terms, but they are very valuable in terms of good thoughts and caring thoughts and energy and time invested to bring another person pleasure. Quilters and stitchers seem to me to be among the most generous folks around, and I feel humbled to be even on the fringe of this. As I read blogs and learn of the lives of others and the things they do and the things that are done for them, I feel such a renewed sense of faith in people. Truly, good people are in the majority and the ones in the news are in the minority - which has been put to me as being a good thing - as in, it's good that bad folks make the news simply because it means they ARE the exception to the rule. Kind of a weird way of looking at things, but thankfully somewhat true.

Different topic entirely . . . I think I've mentioned that my daughter, Beth, has taken up running. In November she completed her first half-marathon (13.1 miles) (on a morning when we had a matinee performance of A Christmas Carol as well as an evening performance, the goofy girl!!!!). I was tickled to see the shirt she wore - as a kid she loved watching the tv show Wonder Woman, and her sleeping bag was a Wonder Woman one - and she made sure to take it to college for those times when tons of folks are in one room or tons of girls go to someone's house for the weekend (lots of different girls have used it here at our house for sure) {yes, she'd graduated to a "real" dark blue one for her junior and senior high years but got over that in college, teehee} Anyway, she's a wonder woman to me. I am so proud of her.

Blessings: a wonderful daughter, friends both quilty and otherwise, faith

I got a lovely and unexpected present from Mel! I feel as though we're old friends because of one of those interesting connections you sometimes come across - she and Don moved to Michigan for his job with a plant that other friends of mine went there to build. (Janet, who worked at the same doctors' office I do for a number of years, lived in the UP for several years and she and her family moved there because hubby Joe worked for a huge construction company that sent him there to build a particular plant. Janet talked a lot about how beautiful it was up there and how friendly everyone was and just generally how much they loved it. When I first found Mel's blog and saw that she was in the UP, I felt an immediate connection . . . and then found out there really WAS a connection! Just one of life's serendipities . . .) It's a covered planner! She made the quilted-of-course cover and stamped the cards (and chickadees are probably my favorite birds!) and wrapped it all up in gingham tissue! Isn't that just the greatest thing? I was having a fuzzy picture day but wanted to show the special tissue. I think another picture is a little better . . .


The planner is a really nice one with Bible verses and short little inspirational writings, places for tracking prayer requests and answers, and Mel even wrote in little quilty thoughts here and there throughout the year! Inside the cover she even made little pockets for pens and highlighters!

An altogether lovely surprise when I was in the midst of closing out a month for 1 corporation, a calendar year for 2 corporations, and fiscal year for 1 of the corporations!! Thank you, Melanie!

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Trying to get going on a more regular posting/journaling schedule...and wanted to show a couple of things...most of the things I made for Christmas gifts are gone and not photographed...:-(...too much hurry...but I've got a couple of pics, anyway...I think I probably made more gifts this year than I have in a while, and it felt pretty good....and the response has been good, too....(I mean, we all know whatever we've done is less than perfect, so it's really nice when someone is really tickled to get it because you made it)

The above were sachets made from cocktail napkins from AllAboutBlanks - I used a Crabapple Hill pattern for the monograms and then filled the sachet (in a separate internal sack) with really good quality dried lavender flowers purchased online. Getting the stupid ribbon through was probably the hardest part of all. For some reason, these oatmeal napkins were easier to deal with - the fabric was tougher and the grosgrain ribbon was easier to use. The first 6 I made were with white linen napkins (sorry - they got wrapped before the camera came home) and I used white satin ribbon - talk about a royal pain!! But, boy, they all smell GREAT!!
This below was for a special friend...got in a real hurry at the end, and, man, is the quilting pitiful, done in a hurry that morning before work...however, I know she won't care. She loves anything I do. (don't know if you can tell I did a bit of coloring with colored pencils...have only used crayons before...this was a bit softer and more subtle)

She's called me Sparky since I've known her...and it just kind of tickles me....she's a great friend and huge encourager just in terms of being a friend and also in my ladies' class and being Beth's running coach - she's a few months older than me and finished her 50th state marathon in October. She's run more than 50 marathons, but she also did the whole "all 50 states" thing, too. Wow! My hat is off to her! She's one cool chick.

On the way back home from East Tennessee the day after Christmas, we stopped in Crossville to revisit a quilt shop I discovered there a couple of years ago making the same homeward trek. It's a really, really neat place just off the interstate. They have a "men's room" - as in, tv, recliners, sports and hunting magazines, etc. to keep the men happy while the wives browse and pet fabric and shop. Kinda cool, huh? Got a special Christmas gift from some of the girls at the office of $$ to spend, so....I couldn't disappoint them, right? Right??? In addition to what's shown, I got several white-on-white pieces and an absolutely beautiful parchment-looking fabric to go with all sorts of things. Those 3 civil war repro blues are to die for! And, the 30's things ALWAYS call my name - these charm packs were just too cute to resist. And the other one has some absolutely beautiful fabrics.
(oh - and sorry for the mess on my cutting table - frantic Christmas leftovers)

Blessings:

• that I AM so blessed
• family and friends
• living where even a recession leaves us richer than most of the world, and the richest part of all is our freedom to worship without restraint of any kind

I hope everyone has enjoyed good times with family and friends. The times of togetherness are so much more important than the gifts, however much fun those may be.

Before the season is completely gone, I thought I'd stick in a few pics of our very first band concert! Our Christian school is in its 8th year and we added band this year! My sweetie, who was a band director/chorus teacher before joining his dad in the utility construction business, has 2 beginning band classes. He's a contractor in the morning and a band director in the afternoon. He is really loving being back with music and kids, and the kids really love him, too.

One of the moms brought hats for everyone...and the band was the hit of the evening, which was the annual RCA Christmas program.

Managed to catch my 2 sweeties just before things got underway....he got Beth to play keyboard for a special little percussion thing the drummers did before they got to the Christmas numbers. And all 3 of us had sung some carols with a few of the older kids before the program actually began....I think that was designed to distract folks from all the pre-program excitement and quieten things a bit so the precious little teeny ones who were first on the program could be heard. Without an auditorium yet, we have to do things in the gym, which makes it a bit more difficult, but it was a great evening all around!!

Merry Christmas

This picture may not look like much (not a very good picture, admittedly), but it has much meaning for me. The little clay orchestra around the tree was hand-made in Honduras by native craftsmen and brought to me by a dear friend who goes there on annual mission trips. Wish I had closer pictures to show the detail - the conductor has a tiny baton (that has miraculously not been broken in the years I've had the orchestra and packed it up and gotten it out and packed it up and gotten it out) I have fun arranging them differently each year, although I always start out with placement as the instruments actually would be in an orchestra, and then space limitations force me to get a bit creative. There was no firing of the clay, so the figures are quite fragile. She has brought me several figures similarly made. The scarf on the stereo top was made by my great-grandmother, who crocheted the edging. There is a tiny mended place on one side where a patch was put under a hole. The figure on the right is Scrooge, a director's gift after we did A Christmas Carol the first time...you can't see the whole thing, but it has a candle holder to the right of the figure. Doing the play was a wonderful thing and the actor who played Scrooge is a very dear friend. I was the Ghost of Christmas Present as well as assistant director. (and Scrooge and I reprised those roles this year and had another wonderful time)

That was way more detail than anyone probably wanted to read, but my point is that this special time of year is about special memories - treasured memories that we revisit and new memories that we are making. This is a very special time in our journey.

More wonderful memories...this sleeping Santa candle is over 50 years old...he sits on a piece of dead cactus from beloved relatives in Texas...the little sack of presents was made by my mother over 50 years ago to go with Santa (corduroy with a bit of glitter) and there are tiny packages that she fashioned with cardboard and wrapping paper in it. The hurricane candle holder in the middle she bought for me the year Beth was born and it's been used every year since then. The dresser scarf was another made by my great-grandmother. There is something special about every item on this table. Each one alone can bring a warm feeling and a smile - put them all together and they're powerful stuff!

Happy Fall to everyone! I just love fall...this picture, which I got from Google, does a really good job of showing how I feel about fall - looking up, whirling, feeling as well as seeing the glorious colors and the sky that is BLUE instead of merely blue. Truly "the heavens declare the glory of God". Fall is brisk and energizing and crisp and exciting. A time of new beginnings.

I've had dead camera batteries and seemingly no time to charge them, but eventually I'll show a picture or two from the big AQS Quilt Expo in Nashville (the last one so close, boohoo) and maybe even a project or two underway.