Running Stitch

Here is an updated picture of my Tulip UFO. The block are from a Quilting bee I had in 2004 (ahem) I first posted about them here in 2005, last spring I dug them out and started work on them. But put them away at some point, the scrappy patches that I love to look at finally overcoming me.

Springtime in Utah has arrived blowing in with blustering winds and intermittent sunshine. but I’ve already bought another pair of sunglasses and been sunburned twice (must by a hat!). Also I finished those three quilts I meant to finish before I left Washington, so it must be time to check another UFO off my list!

Also fitting nicely in with our Springtime theme. Our learning to tell time theme. Halfway through the making of flower power I thought maybe I should have made a sun for my extremely gender correct, covers his eyes when he see pink, seven year old.

But then I figured, if I don’t scar him emotionally, someone else will!

Tip Toe through the Tulips-Tiny Tim

This boy turned 7 over two weeks ago. Lest you think we forgot, we did not. but life here has seemingly been and an unending stream of visitors. Not unwelcome, but somewhat wearisome. So much so that we sat down last week and made a list of weeks not to say yes to visitors. It is rough, you know being so popular that everyone want sto come visit you in your new Sunny! spot. But in order to have what it takes to enjoy those visitors, we, and I particularly need some down time.

My annual quilting weekend, part of my pre approval for moving to Utah, was this past weekend. I’m still an ocean girl no matter how much I am enjoying the Utah sun. Walking on the beach is still one of my favorite things to do.

And a group of women I have know and loved for ten years gathered around sewing machines?

Ahem, sewing machines!

And also nine patches, I love my nine patch, I didn’t get to work on it much though because I was busy finishing the Aqua rose quilt. All done, and four years later back with it’s owner. I first started working on that quilt at our very first beach retreat Which I guess was only three years ago not four, that’s nice to konw.

Anyway..Done.

Life’s a Happy Song-The Muppets

Where is my Nine shirt? he asked as soon as he woke up.

To all our Family…..M-I-C..see ya real soon.

K-E-Y..why? because we like you!

M-O-U-S-E.

We heaved a huge financial sigh of relief, this week when our Washington home sold. Because of course, we did, Who wants two mortgages? I mean unless one is in Hawaii. But it was still unbelievable to say goodbye to the house I brought my babies home to, to the hills I buried furry family members in. To a place, I realistically? never thought I’d leave.

Goodbye to the Nut tree where we took our Easter pictures.

Goodbye to the porches we added, and the yardwork we did and the firewood we chopped and hauled.

Goodbye to the creek they played in and the creek their father before them played in.

To my blueberries and strawberries.

To the trees.

Goodbye to our Washington life.

We all took turns being sick last week.

And staying close to home, and doing the things you do while you are sick, recovering from being sick, waiting to be sick.

Harry Potter Clue, complicated when you haven’t read all the books, and adds a few twists like traveling by floo powder from room to room, the dark mark which can lead to delay in getting to The Burrow where you can make an accusation.

And in the quieter moments, I finished my first pair of socks. They’re tube socks. But I like them, and I made them, so I feel pretty awesome about that. And feeling awesome was key to surviving last week. We have a birthday boy this week, who thinks he is turning nine. But that is only if he beats the fever he started yesterday, otherwise I’m going to revoke his birthday privileges. I’m hoping pedicare and Jurassic Park trilogy will perk him right up.

Originally posted on August 22nd 2010 or here.

It’s not summer, or my anniversary, this post is just because, and also I am sick.

One day last week. We headed home from The East Coast. The day started at 5am EST /2am Pacific. A series of hijinks later, including a Thunderstorm (in other states, rain bothers people, it’s weird) a car accident (not us thankfully) we found ourselves not on our scheduled flight home.

We hunkered down in the Food Court of the Airport, for six hours. IT ROCKED! Hi! Have you met my four year old? Oh he is in your lap? Oh he is eating your lunch? Oh? Hi!

Four year olds in general are so low energy that they are easy to contain in a situation where the adults are a little bit cranky, and everyone else is in a very big hurry! Must get over there! Must. Get. Over. There.

So anyway. Our flight, the later one, and then the connection (oh how I hate connections) and then finally the landing in Seattle. And the pick up at the airport! And…oh whoops. We lost one.

Eighteen hours into our trip, he just couldn’t take it anymore. See how he is still in the car seat position? The Best Part about this? Is hoy boy! We still have a three hour drive home. Yahoo!

It was rather a long day. Just shy of a 24 hour trip. (Or a three hour tour). We pulled into the Burrow at 11:30pm Pacific (2:30am EST). We arrived home, a half hour before our Tenth Anniversary.

Ten Years, they tell me is a milestone. He says “wow, it doesn’t seem that long” and I say “wow, we have alot of teeth, between the too of us…seriously look..teeth everywhere.

But seriously. Ten years, married to your best friend? Is good. It’s really good. But I think the best thing I can tell you is after sleeping a very long time, last Thursday, I woke up. And laying next to me was, well my four year old, but on the other side of him? Was that tall drink of water I married ten years ago.

I won’t say our marriage is easy, because though it feels easy, I believe that is because neither of us are afraid of work. We know, marriage is work. Not the hard kind, but work, nonetheless.

I work every day at being a mom, and a wife. Not because I have to. But because I want to.

We have been lucky, he and I. Very,very lucky. And we know it. And at the end of the day, even if that day, is very very long, and spent in a car that is not moving, then frustrated at an airport,with two small boys, in a plane, with two small boys, in an airport, with two small boys,in another plane, with two small boys, in a car, with two small boys, another car…..

I want to be stuck with him. Cliche, but true. He is my rock, I am never afraid when he is near, because of him I find it within me to the hard things. He is the one that sets me straight, the one that encourages me to believe in myself and the person I want to talk to first in the morning and last at night.

Seriously….teeth, a lot of them.

*Say Hey (I love you)-Michael Franki and Spearhead

This is my space where I begin and end each day. It is where I work and plan and day dream about the day, the weeks the months to come. In my mind it is clean and clear and the rosemary plants I buy for it never die horrible brown deaths.

In reality, the rosemary plants never fare well for me inside, the school books (mine and their’s) usually litter the surface, craft projects dry there, knitting rests as I move from one moment to the next and my tea which has two lovely hand made coasters waiting for it on my desk, is never to be found there.

It is somewhere on the table where they are working, or in the kitchen or did I put it in the microwave to heat it up? Oh yes, yes I did, an hour ago.

But this space, as untidy as it seems, is exactly how it should be.

Follow me-Fraggle Rock

At night, when I check on them, for maybe the fifteenth time, to make sure they are covered up and you know breathing. I am apt to find a wide assortment of books amongst the covers as well.

How one could sleep amidst such a collection of paper cuts waiting to happen and eyes waiting to be poked out by corners (I’m a mom sorry) I don’t know. It certainly doesn’t seem comfortable does it?

And yet night after night the collection grows, no matter that every morning they are instructed to put them back on shelves, the next morning will find an entirely new pile of books among the covers.

Some, tried and true classics, some not, and some original works, scribbled under the cover (literally) of darkness each evening. Pencils? Do you know how many pencils I find in their beds? A lot.

Frankly, I don’t know where they get it.

*The Book of Love-Nataly Dawn

It might not be the Smoky Mountains, but wow, they are mountains.

Smoky Mountain Christmas-Dolly Parton

We had a lovely, if not wet weekend on Dragon Island with good friends, lots of tea. Lots of tea, quilting, babies and some needed downtime. If you can have downtime with three young boys and one baby. Escaping the reality of boxes and packing and cleaning and packing and panicking and packing? Was certainly down time for me.

There aren’t many pictures from our getaway, which I think speaks to the slow amble pace we took and the many hour spent quilting, holding babies and drinking tea. Did I mention the baby? He was the reason we made this long, damp drip to the Island. He is not much of a traveler this one, as wee babes tend to be, especially long, loooong car ride traveling. And we were, all three determined to see him and Dragon Island before we went.

Even though the road home was long and rainy, I still woke up refreshed and re energized into tackling more moving related business. The ongoing moving related ness. Soon to be replaced with actually moving and then unmoving, also know as unpacking. Oy! Let’s focus on the present again!

Bonny-Portmoire- Lorenna McKennit