Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts

Saturday, July 7, 2012

I am Blessed

Yes, I am truly blessed.  June was a potpourri of blessings and emotions.





Our daughter returned home after a year in the Marshall Islands.  She was on a remote island teaching English in the elementary school for World Teach.  She survived a year without plumbing, electricity, telephones, or computers.  She learned so much about the people and their culture and history and has so many great stories to tell.  Now we are waiting to find out what her next step in life will be.  She is such a joyful person and fun to have around.

Then I received this great news via UPS:














I was selected as a winner in a giveaway from Quiltmaker Magazine.  Wow!  What a great prize.  I received a gorgeous glossy book of the first two issues of the 100 Blocks magazine called (what else?)  200 Blocks.  It comes with a CD to print out all the patterns.  How great is that??  Plus they sent me two mugs from the first two volumes.  Each mug has the quilt blocks printed on them that appear in the magazines.  I feel so lucky.  Thank you Quiltmaker Magazine and the Quilty Pleasures Blog!!




The peach truck came again in June and we are working our way through a half bushel of peaches.  My husband requested peach cobbler so I have made it twice.  This was a first for me.  I don't love cooked peaches, but was happy to make it for him.



My dear sweet mother- in- law passed away in June also.  She was the sweetest person I know and never ever said an unkind word about anyone.  It was so sad to lose her.  We shared quilting and reading and we are the only ones in the family who shared these passions.  I know I will miss her for a long time.  She quilted for a group at her church that made prayer quilts.  I found a box of photos that she was saving of the many, many quilts she had made over the last 10 - 15 years for this group.  I was truly amazed at how prolific she had been.  I was also dismayed that she had quit sewing on her machine almost a year ago because she could no longer lift her arm above the table to guide her work.  She had been hiding this from me and it made me even sadder.  Because she loved to read so much, my FIL had written a computer program for her to track all the books she had read.  He called up the program while we were visiting and found that she had read over 2500 books since 2005.  I think we figured that was about 1 book every 2- 1/2 days.  WOW!  I doubt I will read this many books in my lifetime.  I am so grateful that God brought her into my life and that she was the perfect mother for my husband.  She did such a remarkable job of raising him and making him the best husband I could imagine.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Moving forward



This was a big week for us.

Our daughter has finished college and will be coming home soon before striking out on her own in the big wide world.


Our son turned 20 yesterday - no more teenagers! A bittersweet moment. He is still on his semester abroad, so we have not been able to celebrate these two great occasions with either of them. And they will home this summer at different times, so we don't even know when we will be able to have a family celebration!

I'm not sure I'm ready to let go yet of all the family togetherness time. I've had plenty of practice since our daughter left for college 4 years ago in another country, but somehow I am just now coming to grips that they will both be gone for good very soon and our ability to all meet as one unit is dwindling. Thank goodness for Skype. We would be lost without it, even though we have yet to figure out if there is a way to do a 3 way video chat.

I am excited for all the possibilities that my daughter sees in the future. I will be even more excited when she decides on a job location that does not scare the bejeebers out of me!

Monday, March 7, 2011

Vacation Fun




We are back from a week of travels to see family. We spent the last 4 days with two lively 3 year olds. What a fun time for us. Since our two kids are off to college we have forgotten what it is like to be around boisterous, loud and fun-loving kiddos. We played Burrito Baby and I Spy and Hi Ho CherryO and watched videos and had tons of fun.

Hope our next visit is not such a long time coming as the last one.
We spent our first four days visiting my awesome in-laws. We had lunch at the Heart Attack Grill in Phoenix and then got snowed in for a day or two in the mountains. It was so nice to just take it easy and enjoy the company. We talked quilts non-stop.