Christmas Wrap-up and Looking Ahead

Whew! It's been crazy here since last I wrote. These couple of weeks at the end of December are always wild, it seems, but not usually quite as crazy as this year.

Ruthie got the stomach flu on Christmas Eve, which put a bit of a damper on things. I was singing at church that night so couldn't stay home with her. Rebekah and Brian offered to stay with her so my husband would be able to go.

She was fine on Christmas morning, though a bit crabby about opening gifts. In the end, a good time was had by all. We had our Christmas feast, which was enhanced further by four 1+ pound lobster tails courtesy of Brian.

If you look in the picture above, you can see the big TV on the bottom. That was my grandma's and it stopped working not too long after we got it. Our family TV, which had been moved to my sewing area, was moved back and it stopped working the Sunday before Christmas. When Lucas got the Playstation 2 from Rebekah and Brian, he glanced over at the non-working TVs, wanting to be able to play in the family room, but able to play in his room if needed. I told him quietly that we'd move my sewing room TV, the 19 inch my kids bought me for my birthday, downstairs so he could play. Brian caught wind of it and took charge.

After some discussion as to whether or not our TVs were worth fixing, it was determined that at 10+ years old, they probably weren't. Brian showed up Sunday with the spare TV from his basement. Were we surprised to see this come through our door!

He installed it and hauled away the two old TVs. The look on Lucas' face later in the day when he turned on his Playstation was priceless.

The night before the TV switch was made, Lucas got the stomach flu. The day after, both Mike and I got it. Rebekah got it New Year's Eve and now the only holdouts are Joshua and Rachel.

The ups and downs of the past December are a little mind-boggling when I think them all through. In the end, I think that we came out feeling more positive about a lot of things than we have in a long time.

So now it's time to look ahead! I realized that over the course of all these difficulties that I withdrew into my quilting. It was a good thing for the most part. It gave me peace and pleasure and helped to protect my aching and confused soul. I feel as if I'm coming out of that fog and one of the results is wanting to spruce up our house.

Change comes little by little. As our kids have gotten bigger, slowly the house has become easier to manage. Instead of fighting fires, I want to prevent them. My sewing room and it's lack of aesthetics, has been bothering me for a while. I love the space in general, I'm just ready to take it to the next step of organization.

Part of that will include making some changes in our bedroom as I move storage pieces between the two rooms. I figure that this will be a project that encompasses a few days and I'm anxious to start, but really shouldn't until Monday, when our schedule is back to normal and it is less likely that we'll have friends floating in and out among my mess. I am going to start getting ready, though, by doing some necessary cleaning out and organizing to make the implementation easier.

I feel like I've been running a marathon. I took yesterday "off", or as off as I can get. I was also able to relax and applique some on New Year's Day and the result of these is the posy blocks are finished!

So in addition to sprucing up and reorganizing several rooms in the house, I'm also looking ahead to my quilting for the winter. The stained glass quilt is in the hand quilting stage and not very big so I expect that one to be done soon. As I reorganize, I'm going to see if there are any other smaller quilts in progress that I can finish before tackling the ring quilt.

My plan is to cut sashing for the posy quilt today and I'd really like to get the sashing and blocks all sewn together today. I won't be adding borders yet as I'm not sure yet what will be in the outer border and don't want to limit myself by having the size chosen and already sewn on.

The marking of the sashing on this one will be a bear if I do it as I hope to and then there is a lot of celtic applique to do before this top is finished. I've been really looking forward to the sewing part, but am a bit aprehensive about the marking part.

I also have another strip quilt in the works as well as some other old piecing projects that I wouldn't mind seeing finished this year.

But first off, I need to get organized. This will allow me to be much more productive, with the added bonus of more enjoyable surroundings.

And then there is Ruthie. Aside from the stomach flu, she's been doing just great. Christmas wasn't met quite as enthusiastically as I expected, but she had a good time and she is interacting more and more with people who come to the house, which is really wonderful. In the next week or so, we're going to attempt potty training. With developmental delays, she hasn't seemed anywhere near ready before now, and I'm not really sure she is now, but you never know until

you try. Santa brought her a whole bunch of pretty underwear, which she loved, stacked and re-stacked and wore as hats. We'll see!

Until next time, I hope you are all happy and healthy and enjoying this quiet, post holiday time.

Sue