Moved  ~

Tonight my husband and I were able to visit a traveling Vietnam Veterans War Memorial that is in our area for a few days.  I didn't know any of the veterans personally who were killed in the war and I have visited the Memorial in Washington D.C., but I was so moved seeing it again.  All the names,  everyone of them representing someone who gave their life fighting for our freedom.  I am so grateful to all our veterans for their service and sacrifices.

Thankfulness  ~

Thanksgiving is a time for me to stop and take time remembering how lucky and thankful I am in life.

My husband who is battling prostate cancer has found out it is in remission with the medicine he is taking. We have a new lease on life together.  My son made the decision to move to the east coast to work and attend a culinary school, something he has wanted to do for some time.  I am thankful for my family and dear friends, who have been there for us in good and bad times.

 At Thanksgiving we always had our grandmothers come over for a wonderful meal that my mother  made, starting early in the morning.  She always made Scalloped Oysters for us as our favorite dish, which I love to this day!  Thanksgiving was a day to take time for our family.

Many people love to watch football on Thanksgiving and have the game blaring while everyone is setting down to eat.  I do not feel that way though.  I think that the television should stay off when everyone comes over and during dinner.  It's a special time to be with family and friends, to talk and enjoy each other.

Now you hear of stores opening up on Thanksgiving to have "Pre-Black Friday" sales.  Life should not evolve around materialistic gifts.   True gifts in life are love, health, family, and friends.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Traveling Through Life  ~

When I was young I must have been bitten by the wandering bug.  Not that there was a bug wandering by that bit me, but that I love to explore and travel.  When I was young my parents would take us on trips to Minnesota to a little lake to swim and fish.  We always stayed in one of the little cabins, owned by a lady.  My brother and I would play cards, nothing serious, but we would use life savers as our "money", and as usual my brother ended up with most of them by the time we finished.  We always had kids to play with there, and it gave mom and dad time to just relax and enjoy fishing.

I've traveled out to Oregon with my dad, driving through the Rockies and then another time flying out to Arizona to surprise my grandmother. We then drove out to California with my aunt to the redwoods, then back across the country to New Orleans with a walk down Bourbon Street. This was all before I was nineteen.

Years later I traveled to San Francisco, Carmel, Big Sur, and Cannery Row in Monterey.  To Vancouver, Victoria BC, Seattle and Mt Rainer.  To the east coast, up to Bar Harbor, Maine.  My son and I were also able to visit Korea and China, and walk on the Great Wall.

My husband and I have been traveling down the Natchez Trace from Nashville heading south.  It has been beautiful and peaceful, very interesting to see history around you.

The Old Trace

Meriwether Lewis's gravesite

  

Northern entry to Natchez Trace Parkway

I quilt and garden and enjoy them but I still like to just take a drive each day to just get out.


I love to travel, to this day I feel like I could easily pack a bag and jump in the car and not care what direction I choose, but just sight see driving the back roads, to just explore.

Thank You ~

Thank you to all of our veterans for their sacrifices and service.

Still  Going Strong  ~


When my mother-in-law was fourteen she graduated from eighth grade and wanted to go on to high school.  She lived on a farm and was the second oldest out of ten.  Her father was not going to let her continue her education so she decided to leave home, and move to Parchment, Michigan to go to school in Kalamazoo.  She moved in with a family who owned a local paper mill that she could get room and board from, and so doing put herself through high school.  Later she married, had two children, and worked for the paper mill company.  She worked with her husband to build their brick home and garage and plant fruit trees out back.

She has always been there for her family and friends.  To this day she loves to hop on her rider mower or take the leaf blower and work outside. She now is 98 years old and still as spunky as ever, not willing to just set.  Great for her.  

No Charge  ~

When I was young my parents bought a microscope for my brother and me, and since that time I have always enjoyed looking at nature close up.  So many times in our busy lives we don't spend the time just enjoying the beauty of nature.  I am not a fan of spiders but to walk out in the field early in the morning and find a spider web that has dew on it, is one of the most beautiful pieces of nature that I have seen.  So many people would just walk on by it and not take notice of it, but I love to stop and spend time studying it.   When my son was small we ran outside one evening to see the Northern Lights, and what a show they gave us.  They seemed to be right over our heads and lit the sky with greens, blues, and pinks.  When there would be a beautiful sunrise or sunset I would tell my son, "These are free for all of us to see, there's no charge, so take the time to enjoy them".  So enjoy.

Touch of History  ~

A dear lady that I know from the country neighborhood that I grew up in owns this quilting frame.  These were used by putting them together on chairs and attaching a quilt to it.  These are what ladies used at "Quilting Bees".  I do remember when I was quite young going to a "Quilting Bee" with my grandmother.  It was held at a lady's home the next road over, all the neighborhood ladies were there also to help.  This quilting frame was originally owned by lady that my grandmother was friends with.  When my friend showed them to me I didn't see just four boards with fabric on them, I could see the ladies setting around the frame and quilt, talking, sewing, and laughing.  If you take a close look at the boards you see all the indentations from the years of clamps used on the boards.  I look at these and can see the ladies mounting the quilts on the frame, their weathered hands working on these boards.  To other people these mean nothing more than boards, to me it means looking back into the lives of the ladies that my grandmother knew and loved.  To me history is stamped on these boards.     

Procrastinate  ~

fear of failure often causes people to procrastinate: delay, put off doing something, postpone action, defer action, be dilatory, use delaying tactics, stall, temporize, drag one's feet/heels, take one's time, play for time, play a waiting game.  

This word has been on my mind for the past few days as I have been working on a dear quilt.  It started when my grandmother told me in the early 1980's  that she would make a quilt top for me if I would pick out the material and the block.  I picked out the Bear Paw block and she hand stitched each block together.  So here is where the procrastination starts.  She passed away in 1988 and at that time I was new to quilting, not really knowing how to square up blocks or add sashing between the blocks.  My aunt took over for me and pieced together the quilt top for me, that was in the early 1990's.  Because some of the blocks needed repair on them before I could sandwich the top and hand quilt it, I have packed it away not sure I wanted to take it on.  It has moved with me to new homes, and hung in my quilting closet just waiting patiently for me to turn my attention to it.  

This fall I made the decision that I would get the repairs made, sandwich it together, and start hand quilting it.  It's a beautiful quilt, my grandmother spent so much time cutting each piece out by hand, not rotary, then hand stitching each together, when she was 90 years old at that.  There was so much love that went into to it first by my grandmother then my aunt, and all these years I have seen it in my mind, finished and adorning my bed.  This Friday I am meeting with my dear friend to lay the top out and baste it for the hand quilting.  So for the past few days I have been working daily on each block to make sure of the stitching.  One more day to go, but I will have it ready by Friday.

I can apply all of the terms for procrastinating to what I have been doing for years.  I keep telling myself I have to stop doing that and face problems head on and get through them to the other side.  I'm now on my way !

String of Pearls  ~


Eighty seven years ago today a little girl by the name of Helen June was born in Erie, Pennsylvania.  Out of five children she was the second daughter of Mack and Vieta.   Eventually they all  moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan.  At the age of seventeen, she married a young man from the neighborhood who would become a test pilot during WWII and they would move out to California for him to complete his training. On his last flight before he was to head oversees, his plane crash landed and he was killed.   By that time she was nineteen and heading back home to Kalamazoo to bury her husband and start over.  Later she would marry again and have three children, two boys and one girl.  Unfortunately one son would only live for a few days.

Helen was a very quiet and shy person, but if you were her friend or family she would do anything for you to help you.  She loved to work in her garden, tending to her irises and she loved to walk.

She was my mother but most of all she was my best friend.  When my son was small, we would pick Mom up and go to a little  ice cream parlor by the name of "Frosty Boy".  She would always give my son quarters to play three songs on the Juke Box, one for my son, one for me, and one for her.  The one she always requested, "String of Pearls".

So Mom, just for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg2vtWezWbw

Love you Mom




  

My grandmother lived next to us when I was growing up so I spent most every day with her, from the time I was very small until I graduated from high school.   She would tell me of times when she was growing up and what it was like when she was a small girl.  One of the things she shared with me was of watching her grandmother work on her loom weaving material.  Grandma was only around eight at the time and she would set there with hand sewing to work on while her grandmother worked away. 

This is a piece of the woven material that my great-great-grandmother wove, I have held on to it all these years, thinking of her when I look at it.

When I would go to visit Grandma she would pull out a big box that was full of scraps of material.  I would go through them checking them all over looking for just the right ones to make a pot holder or a doll's skirt.  How I wish that I had that box today to go through, what memories it had in it.  I think of all the dresses and shirts that must have been cut up to use in something else after they had served their purpose once.  Who contributed to those scraps, my grandmother's mother, or her mother?  What had they used them for, what dresses or scraps from quilts?  

Now I am working on a quilt that my grandmother made all the blocks for.  The pattern is the Bear Paw block.  She's still close to me, in thought and in material.  Because of her I have such a love of quilting.  

This is my grandmother's high school graduation photo of 1914.  It makes me smile every time I see it.