7 Sevens

A while ago, some of my family blogged their 7 Sevens. I've been meaning to respond since then and now have a place in which to do it. So here goes. I'd like to invite any of you who are interested to join me and leave a link where I can find yours. It's fun. Honest.


Seven things I want to do before I die:

1. Prove to myself and the Lord that He can depend on me

2. Make a quilt for each of my children and grandchildren

3. Finish scrap-booking our family photos - up until each of the children have
graduated from high school (I’m 19 years behind right now)

4. Graduate from college (I have 7 classes left to earn the bachelor’s degree I put
on hold to raise the kids)

5. Give so much service to others that it becomes “who I am”

6. Go to Hawaii

7. Read from the Scriptures every day

Seven Things I cannot do:

1. Live without “Papa”

2. Go one day without thinking of and praying for my kids and grandkids

3. Deny my faith

4. Pass up a doughnut

5. Remember numbers (If I tell you a story with numbers in it, it will probably be
inaccurate.)

6. Finish all of the things my “to do list” on any given day

7. Resist the ocean or going barefoot


Seven Things that attract me to my Spouse:

1. His eyes and his smile

2. The way he loves me and supports me in all I do

3. His sense of humor

4. His willingness to put the needs of the family above his own wants (like going to
work every day to provide for us and our future)

5. His faithfulness – to me, to the family and to his beliefs

6. The way he always helps out around the house

7. His passion to create things: wooden treasures, gardens, music, laughter,
security, love……..

Seven things I say often:

1. I love you.

2. Have you got any ideas for dinner?

3. Empty-nesting is just like being newly weds, only with more money.

4. Be safe!

5. Gotta go. I’m running late.

6. Honey, come and see what I made today.

7. Nuts!


Seven Books or Book Series I love:

1. The scriptures

2. The Chosen – Chiam Potok

3. Harry Potter

4. Jane Eyre

5. The Work and the Glory

6. Me and Caleb

7. The Mitford series by Jan Karon


Seven Movies I could watch over and over:

1. The Princess Bride

2. Return to Me

3. While You Were Sleeping

4. Anne of Green Gables

5. A Knight’s Tale

6. Ever After

7. The Court Jester


Seven People who’s Sevens I’d like to hear (now, and again 20 years from now):

1. “Papa”
2. Heather
3. Cody
4. Katie
5. Dan
6. Adam
7. Lisa
8. Megan
9. Becky
10.Andrew

And all of my friends and - 20 years from now, all the grandkids

Piecing Life Together

A while ago I took my serger in for service. It’s a very specialized machine and I had to go clear across town (well outside my freeway comfort) to have it fixed. What I found was not so much a sewing machine store - as a social club.

In the back of the shop were a bunch of work tables where some friendly women were just hanging around, working on projects and visiting. Intrigued, I came to find out that they teach all kinds of sewing workshops there and on a whim I signed up for “Quilting 101”. (a 4 week course starting December 4th teaching: 4 different squares, sashing, cornerstones, machine quilting, and binding)

After 3 classes, I was successfully assimilated. “Resistance is futile.”
NEVER have I taken to something so quickly and so completely. I am addicted! This is the baby quilt that I made during that class (mistakes included at no extra charge).



The day I finished this course, I signed up for the “Yellow Brick Road” class. It’s taking me longer to complete because for some strange reason I decided to hand quilt this one, as you can see….it’s still on the lap frame.



Right after Christmas I joined the church quilting group that meets weekly. As soon as I walked in the door, it was, “Bwaa-haa-haaa, another compulsive quilter to join in the fun.” They were just starting their annual “friendship quilt” and were excited to have another contributor. We each picked a different star to make (my choice was easy, since I only knew one at the time). We bought fabric for our own quilt, which gets passed around each Thursday until we’ve all made a star out of each person’s fabric. We got to give specific instructions if we wanted to. (Mine are that each square is to have the cream colored background and have at least a little blue fabric in each star.) In April we get our own bags back with 16 completed blocks to use in putting together our own quilts.

Those girls also got me signed up at the local quilting shop for “quilt of the month” club. Starting in January we can get instructions and fabric for 1 block a month. The 1st one was $10 and the subsequent blocks are free, if we come to the next month’s class with the completed block from the previous month. We can also buy “bonus blocks” each month if we want to make a full sized quilt. As a “piecing junkie”, I – of course – had to do them all. Here’s what I’ve got so far.









Then I bought some books and here are my first 2 independent experiments. I’m just using scrap fabrics from my stash. Maybe I’ll make pillows from them.





Another thing I’m doing that I think is fun is making an extra square from each quilt I do, so that someday I can put them together into one wild quilt that is a history of my quilting career. So far I’ve got these 2.






This week I have a class on Thursday at the church and another on Saturday back at the original place – which oddly enough isn’t a bit out of my comfort zone anymore. Now you can understand why I have my new toy. It is amazing to me how much better my work is turning out with a precise tool. I am having the time of my life.

I only wish I had discovered this hobby while my mother was still alive. She was a wonderful quilter and really loved the handwork from assembling, to quilting to binding. Other people used to embroider, appliqué or piece quilts and hire Mom to do the finish work. I love choosing the fabric and the creativity of putting the pieces together, but the actual quilting is a lot like work to me. We would have been a great team. I can’t help but think she would be so tickled to know I’m doing this and loving it just like she did.

There's a New Toy in Town

I haven’t blogged in a couple of days. No, I haven’t given up on the whole thing yet. I just have a new toy and as I understand it, any worthwhile toy that comes into the house MUST be given undivided attention for at least 48 hours in order to become acclimated to it’s new surroundings. I want it to feel welcome!

I have a new sewing machine and OH, what a machine it is! It’s all shiny and new and it has bells and whistles up the wahzoo.

When I appliqué, it will do a perfect blanket stitch in varied lengths and widths.

It has oodles of fancy stitches to embellish grand-kiddie clothing.

It has built-in scissors to cut the threads at the end of seams or when winding or inserting the bobbin.

It has a knee peddle to lift the presser foot every time (which I thought I would never use, but I LOVE it).

It’s self-threading and self-tension adjusting.

It will even sign my name or write cryptic messages on stuff.

It has 14 different feet and the LCD screen tells me which one to put in when I select the stitch.

When I broke a needle, it beeped at me 3 times, froze up and displayed “Safety feature has been activated” – which is an ubber-polite way of saying “Stop sewing already, you big dummy! The needle just broke! DUH!

It has an open arm, extended sewing desk top, shiny plastic carrying case, bobbins and needles and tools…oh my.



Now you may think I’m getting way too excited about a hunk of metal and plastic; but it’s all about the dreams I have of things I can create. I love to greet my Honey at the door with a kiss and a hug and a “Come and see what I made today.”

But I can’t write anymore now, I’m in the middle of a project and I can hear it calling me from the sewing room. Maybe tomorrow I’ll write about why I suddenly have the need for this incredible piece of machinery.

A Few of My Favorite Things

Of all the jobs I’ve ever had, my very favorite was teaching pre-school in Denver. I worked at a Methodist Church which employed an amazing staff of teachers from all different Christian denominations. It was a blessing in my life to know each of the dedicated women on staff and to work with them to make a difference in the lives of the children. We had a director who was warm and helpful and who became more of a cherished friend than a boss.

At the end of one school year, as part of our teacher appreciation gifts, she gave us each a “gratitude journal”. We were encouraged to record 5 things that we were thankful for each day. What a difference that little book made to me. I think I’ve always been a pretty positive person and have appreciated the blessings in my life, but keeping the journal made finding new things to be grateful for each day a priority. I spent my time actively looking for things to be positive about. And it was fun.

I was thinking of that yesterday and began making a mental list of simple pleasures that make me happy.

I like: candle-lit bubble baths

the smell of bread baking

the feel of a new-born baby in my arms (grandbabies are as good as my own)



the sound of “I love you.” or my name on my husband’s lips

classical guitar music

kisses under the mistletoe



the feel of just shaved legs on freshly washed sheets

chocolate

the sound of excitement or laughter in my children’s voices

sunshine days

bare feet in warm beach sand (These are DYM's and Laylee's)



going high on the swings at the park



the sound of rain on the roof

cinnamon rolls still warm from the oven with cream cheese icing

seeing an American flag flying in the breeze

new socks (If I were very, very rich I would have new socks every day.)

my true love’s kisses on the back of my neck

the singing of “Oh Canada”

the smell of a campfire

hearing the blessed story read from Luke 2 each Christmas Eve

lunch eaten @ the teahouse at Lake Agnes (after the killer hike to get up that mountain, EVERYTHING tastes wonderful there)

autumn leaves to jump in or rustle through

sitting in the hot tub on a cool evening

getting to curl up with a good book and a blanket on a chilly afternoon

the sound of canning bottles popping as they seal



Rita’s water ice gellatis (This is a Jersey treat pronounced “wooder ice’.)

Big fluffy snowflakes

making something that turns out well (Get a load of those Christmas pajamas!)



Philly cheese-steaks

a romantic movie

a squeaky clean house

Oh, Enough already! I could go on forever. After all I have a gratitude journal full of this stuff.

Now I want to hear what makes you happy? It’s time to share.

Greetings from Grammy's House of Drugs

I have a cough. This may not seem like big news to you, but I’ve had this cough for over 3 months now and it’s begun to be one of the main focuses of my life.

It started as a cold before Thanksgiving. So I did all the usual things: vitamin c, Echinacea, lots of fluids and *z_ _ _ _ to shorten the duration. (I’ve never used this before and it tasted nasty, had to be taken often, was expensive and didn’t seem to work for me – so this is a last time for this experiment.) Then I resorted to over the counter stuff for the symptoms – cough syrup, mentholated chest rub, sinus spray and aspirin for the body aches. Still the nasty cough remained.

By Christmas, it was starting to clear up. But then someone – in the spirit of Christmas giving and sharing – brought home “the plague” and passed it around the family. My cough intensified and was joined by fever, chills, body aches and extreme headache. I felt like “walking death” (or more precisely, like “laying around, moaning death”). But at least I was in good company. We took turns either being sick or taking care of the more dramatically ill. And since almost everyone got their turn being the patient, we were incredibly empathetic! The nasty, rotten cough persisted.

I am of the old school when it comes to doctors. This means I never go to one until after I have toughed it out on my own for as long as I possibly can and exhausted every natural, herbal or over the counter method of treating myself. (Believe me, I have tried them all.) By the middle of January the sound effects had become quite dramatic. An almost non-stop symphony of dry hacking coughs with a wheeze at the end – guaranteed to illicit the sympathy vote of all within range. (And it hurt!) So I finally gave up and made an appointment.

This doesn’t mean that I saw an actual doctor. Around here you have to wait weeks for a consultation with one of those. I saw a PA. She repeatedly used phrases like, “You, poor Dear.” “I am SO sorry.” And “Do you have a history of asthma?” She took blood work and gave me a super strong anti-biotic, something for the nasal drip and an asthma puffer.

After 10 days their office called to say that it was official. I had had an upper respiratory infection, but the antibiotic should have taken care of it and I was now all better. Unfortunately no one told that to the nasty, rotten, good-for-nothing, cough that lingered on.

I was so tired. Coughing up a lung and getting no sleep takes it’s toll after a while. I knew it was bad, when a friend called to see how I was doing and I broke down and bawled on the phone. (The next day, she dropped everything from her busy schedule and came over to see if her prayers for me were working yet. Now that’s a real friend!)

Of course not everyone was as sympathetic. The man conducting a meeting I was coughing my way through indicated that my cough was having an effect on the hearing of everyone in the room. I think the term he used was “deafening”. On another occasions a Hispanic friend was talking to my Honey about my cough. I made out the word “perro” and thought he was empathizing - like “Your wife is sick as a dog.” But no. He was saying that my cough was so shrill that it would kill his dog (presumably if he were in the vicinity.) So much for empathy!

I went back to the doctor and saw PA #2. She kept saying, “Oh, dear. Oh, dear.” After a bunch of tests, she indicated that my infection was gone and that it was most likely allergies. So now I am on prescriptions for cough pearls, 2 different allergy medications and a nose spray.

The good news is, it seems to be working I slept through the night on Tuesday without getting up for a coughing fit and a steam. Wednesday afternoon and evening I hardly coughed at all and went to bed confident of finally getting better. In the middle of the night I woke up from the pain of my annual migraine. Is there no rest for the weary?

I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired! There. Now that I’ve complained to the world in general, I feel strangely better.

How Do They Stay in Business??????

Last night, for an early Valentine’s celebration, Papa and I went out for dinner. Feeling adventurous, we chose a Chinese restaurant that we’ve never been to before. It turned out to be your typical Americanized strip-mall version of Oriental décor and cuisine. Nothing that unusual - except that the place was virtually empty.

There was one other couple in the whole restaurant and they left shortly after the arrival of our entrée. An older Chinese lady waited on us attentively (What else did she have to do?) while an older gentleman and woman (of moderate, indeterminate age) puttered around the outskirts of the room and wandered in and out of the front and kitchen doors. The whole thing had a rather surreal, “Outer Limits-ish” feeling about it.

And we couldn’t help pondering, “How do they stay in business?”. We certainly didn’t pay enough for our meal to cover the food, lights, equipment and hired help. Perhaps they have some illegal and highly lucrative business going on behind the scenes. After all, we never actually saw into “the kitchen”.

There’s another business at our favorite local mall that we’ve been wondering the same thing about. I’m not sure what the store is really called. We’ve always referred to it as “Gaudy Oriental Things “R” Us”. It’s located several miles down the freeway from it’s sister store, “Tacky Lawn Ornaments Galore”.

In the 4 years that we’ve been frequenting this mall we’ve only seen a customer (yes, a single customer) inside on 2 occasions – no sales people either (although one did appear from somewhere mysterious on the 2 occasions when an actual vertical, breathing human set foot on the premises). Now this is a very large corner shop in a prime retail establishment. The rent has to be exorbitant. If they are not selling ANY of the jade dragons, painted fans, geisha dolls, paper lanterns or kimonos; how are they satisfying the landlord? I suspect there’s an illicit drug operation working out of the back room.

My spider sense is tingling folks. I just know something untoward is going on. Have you any theories? Perhaps together we can blow the lid off this mystery.

AWESOME

I went to church this morning. Not that that’s such an unusual thing to do, really. It’s Sunday and I usually go to church. It’s just that this morning I wasn’t that excited about going and it had nothing to do with the meetings themselves or the people who I would see there. I just wasn’t that excited to have them see me.

What it comes down to, is that I did something clumsy earlier in the week and I didn’t really want to discuss it with everyone. I dropped a curling iron against my cheek and am now sporting the evidence of that mishap in the form of a large brightly colored welt across my face. A copious amount of cover-up only succeeded in making it more look like a bruise than a burn. So a large number of loving and concerned people were anxious to know what I had done to myself. Needless to say, explaining to everyone that I am an idiot is not my favorite pass time.

Unfortunately, it’s not the first time I’ve had to make this kind of explanation. The incident with the ax springs to mind.

Some years ago, I was out in the garage chopping wood for a cozy evening’s fire. As I was swinging my trusty ax, the Spirit whispered to me as clearly as anything, “Don’t hold it like that. You’ll hurt yourself.” Did I listen? No. I countered with, “No, I won’t. I’ll be careful.” The very next swing took off the end of my thumb about half way down the nail. Only after visits to the clinic, the hospital and the pharmacy for major pain killers did I remember that our family was scheduled to sing at our church’s ward conference the next morning. Standing in front of the whole congregation I (and my huge, glowing white bandage) had nowhere to hide.

Let me tell you, the old saying is absolutely true. “Nothing does stick out like a sore thumb! And something else I discovered is that whenever you do something truly stupid, anyone who’s ever had a similar experience will tell you their story. After all, they are safe with you. You’re just as dumb as they are.

I heard sharp knife and ax stories like you wouldn’t believe. So my accident prone friends and I decided to form our own support group. We called ourselves “AWESOME – AWSM”

……… Wait for it………

Ax-wielding self-mutilators Sad but true!

A Little Bit of Nothing

Well, it's amazing to me the things I will do for my kids that I would never have thought of doing on my own. For several months now, I have been resisting their urging to join them in the blogging world. It's not that I am completely illiterate, exactly. I just can't think of anything to say. I'm ok at coming up with an occasional snappy rejoiner to the original, creative things they post. But to think up something on my own? Never going to happen!

So this afternoon, I was vegging on the couch watching a completely inane tv program, while sitting on a heating pad nursing a sore back- mnding my own business, when who should call but the Daring Young Mom. "Guess what, Mom? I just set up a blog for you and all you have to do is fill in the blanks."

So here goes nothing - because I always have a great deal of nothing swirling around in my brain.