Spring Quilt for Grandma

Here's a bizarre angle to a quilt top I just finished for Mr Joyful's Grandma.  It was her 90th birthday, and we flew to Southern California for a quick weekend, the beach, and some yummy Birthday Cake.

Here it is finished....(wow, finished, that's a word I don't always get to use) and sitting on Grandma's lap.

Idea for quilt came from cluckclucksew.com.  This is a springy version of Alison's "January Quilt."

Valentine's Table or Trunk Runner

I've been doing  a little creating lately (instead of the dishes, sorry mom.)  Here is a Valentine inspired table runner.  I got the pattern idea from cluckclucksew.com (my s-i-l's awesome quilting blog.) Just fabric from JoAnn's, but check out the free-motion quilting pattern: I can do "hearts."  Looking at these happy cheerful colors helps me to feel cheerful and happy during February.  And I chose brown as the "dark" to represent chocolate, of course.  Who can do Valentine's without chocolate?

Roses for me

NOT so joyful today.  I really HATE, don't like February.  Too much being inside for too long.  Too much mud.  Too many boys with too much energy that really just need to go outside and work, work, work.  Not enough sunshine yet.  Too much extra weight still hanging around from leftover holiday stuff.  Or something like that.

I feel like this every February.  I need a big beautiful bouquet, or a trip to Hawaii.  Oh, Michelle, I "wish I was there, too."

I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow.

Here is my bouquet, that I have to copy and paste in cyberland for myself, because no one else will do it for me.

This is my fantasy version of myself reading the book mentioned in the post below.   Add two babies, a couple of "littles" playing with toys (or throwing their toys at each other) at my feet, and three youths sitting at the dining table behind me because I am trying to coax them through math lessons, and sometimes(read: often) that table still has sticky syrup spills.  Maybe someday I'll take the real picture and post it.  Oh, and I am not this thin, nor am I wearing this beautiful of a dress.  Love the flowers though, that would definately be a possibility.  One other thing, I am perfectly aware that complete editing is not happening here.  Sorry.  If the occasional typo's or spelling errors bother you, please volunteer to be my editor.

The truth with this post.....

I noticed myself in one of my friend's sidebars, and well, with my "last post" being seven months ago, I felt kinda sad.

I don't post a lot, because I have such visions of beautiful pictures, and delicously profound words, (I am capable of both, you know) and yet it seems I rarely take the time to craft them.  So sorry.  If any of you might really care. 

Deep thought of lately circle around Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Persig.  What an odd book.  So full of importantly deep and difficult concepts, and yet bogged down with the pathetic father-son story. 

One idea perhaps:  Persig speaks of "knowing" things.  He asks the question framed by Kant:  "Are we capable of knowing something a priori (before it is physically before us)?  Kant was a little confusing for me, but my own take and take-off of his ideas is (are)  that the broader and deeper our knowledge base is, the more substance, form, categories, we are familiar with.  This leads us to be able to begin the understand, to perceive, to envision more and more truth (quality) around us.  

I simplify it by likening it to explaining a crochet pattern to someone who is competant at crocheting versus someone who has never done it before.  Because of a previous familiarty with the vocabulary, the forms, the patterns, someone who has crocheted before can easily visualize a new article made from a pattern that they are not specifically aware of.  The latter will most likely have a very difficult time. 

Even though this is a very simplified example, we can see how it can apply to the deepest questions of our being.  All of our previous experience, and knowledge really colors our lenses.  Try to consider how an astro-physicist might examine a starry night.  Would the physicist see things, understand things that are so blatantly clear and visible - and yet might be so completely obscured to someone else.  Could the physicist better understand and see an emerging truth in the universe?


Walt Whitman

                A NOISELESS, patient spider,


I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;

Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,

It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;

Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them. 5



And you, O my Soul, where you stand,

Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect them;

Till the bridge you will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold;

Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

Are you filling your mind with knowledge broad enough and deep enough, that your bridge will be built as you connect, connect, connect, and sift for truth all around you.  The clear and the obscure, the new and the old.  Will you be prepared for what stands ahead?

I love this picture...I am sad that it is of this date, one boy behind...but it says....
"Welcome our precious new little one, who are you? Who are we to help you become?"

I asked a veteran homeschooling mom of 14 today, "How do you find the courage to fully allow the Lord to bless you with as many children as He will?" She shared a story that included the loss of a newborn baby, and a three year old.

"When you lose them," she said "the important and eternal become so clear..."

Kayti's year-end piano recital was tonight. How beautifully she plays. How much work and practice time go into each finished performance. I love to watch the grace of her hands, the stillness of her body as she gathers the emotion that lingers on the keys. There is no greater joy than to hear my Kayti play with love, beauty, and truth. Thankyou so much for the great gift you share with us all.