Families

Last night I went with my parents to a funeral home for a visitation of a family that has been friends of my family for many, many years. The man who had died was married, had 5 children, some grandchildren and great grandchildren. I hadn't seen any of the family members for many, many years. When I read the obituary in the newspaper I knew that I needed to go to the visitation. It was a real eye opener for me and I have thought about their entire family all day. I never knew that this family had so many issues. One of the sons wants nothing to do with his parents and he didn't attend the visitation and had no intention of attending the funeral today. Two of the other sons and their daughter have very little to do with their parents and one of the sons told me he hadn't seen his sister in over 10 years. I just can not imagine a life like that. I still have both of my parents and one grandmother. I am the oldest of five children, all but one of us is married, we all have children and two of us have grandchildren. Lots of people tell me that I am very lucky to have such a close knit family and after last night I am seeing that in a different light. We certainly aren't The Waltons, we do have issues at times although in the whole scheme of things they are very small. And I am sure the Waltons had their problems too. I am so thankful for my family and I thank God every day for them.

A Bit of a Crazy Week

This week has been a little crazy for me. I usually consider myself a "Last Minute Lucy" and at this time I am usually in a panic to finish up my Christmas sewing, gift wrapping and cooking. Other than pumpkin rolls I don't do any Chritmas baking so that is not an issue. Anyway, we had two family Christmas parties last weekend so it seems as Christmas is all over. On Saturday we had a family party at my parent's home with 46 of the 48 family members in attendance. It was a wild time and also a very fun time. The day included breakfast, gift opening, games, snacks, horse drawn carriage ride, more games, more snacks and then dinner. Then on Sunday Steve and I celebrated Christmas here at our house with our family, all 14 of us, plus my parents. It was a fun day of family time (7 grandchildren, including 4 - 1 year old boys), gift exchange and dinner. It was so good to have everyone home at one time. I have been able to kick back a little bit and have enjoyed it. Yesterday after volunteering at school and an office party I finally got back to piecing a block from the Block of the Month that has been cut and waiting for probably a month or better. This morning I made made another block for the BOM and started on the 4 corner blocks. It has been fun to just relax and do some sewing. In fact as I write this post it is almost noon and I am still in my jammies. I have a couple of loads of laundry to fold and put away, then I need to get ready to go to a Christmas party with my Grandma at the nursing home here in town. I told Steve that it felt kind of wierd this week since we have already celebrated Christmas with our kids and grandkids and he agreed. He said he had been thinking about it too and was glad that we have two Christmas programs at our grandkids schools this week. Oh, and I need to add that we will be celebrating Christmas this weekend with Steve's family. Merry Christmas everyone!!!

A Confession and an Excuse

Ok, so in a post a week or so I said that I needed to be more selective in my fabric purchases. Steve and I went Christmas shopping in Saginaw last weekend, about a 2 hour drive from home. We had a great time. Our first stop was the JoAnn Etc store there. I have to confess that I bought 19 1/2 yards of fabric, but I can explain. Seventeen yards of that fabric are for Christmas gifts and the gifts have already been made and wrapped. The other 2 1/2 yards will be used for a Christmas Block of the Month quilt we will be doing at Guild next year. We did some major power shopping on Friday and Saturday. Saturday evening we had tickets for a concert featuring the Oak Ridge Boys. They sang several of their original songs for an hour, took a short break, then sang Christmas songs for about an hour. On Sunday morning we attended a german worship service at a Lutheran Church in Frankenmuth. It was pretty neat although the only word I recognized throughout the entire worship service was Amen. That Church was offering a Christmas Concert that afternoon so we decided to stay in town for the concert. It was great. I am very lucky to have a husband who likes to do those kinds of things.

A Fun Day of Sewing

I enjoyed a fun day of sewing yesterday with my sister and a friend. Last winter we met at a Church here in town on Wednesdays to sew. The location was convenient but the heat didn't get turned up until we got there and it was always very cold. Actually by the time it was time to go home the room was finally warm. I mentioned that perhaps we could sew at Sandy D's Quilt Shop. It is located 4 miles from Hillman, Sandy is a wonderful lady and friend, she is open every day and she has a large class room area. So yesterday was our first day to sew there. We had a small crowd but that was ok. Carol worked on adding the borders to her quilt for her son Cody. Jessica worked on her block of the month quilt from Sandy D's. I had planned to do that too but had a change of plans and sewed on a stash buster quilt. It was so nice to be able to spread our stuff out, visit with each other, visit with Sandy and visit with the customers. We decided to meet every Wednesday, beginning in January to sew and socialize.
After dinner last night I sewed 3 small Christmas gifts.

Another Great Quilt Camp

I was so lucky to be able to attend a wonderful Quilt Camp last week. Our camp was held at the Julka and Hardies cabin in Hulbert, in the upper peninsual of Michigan. Five of us drove up on Friday afternoon. Four of us headed home on Wednesday afternoon. Throughout the camp we had some campers who had to leave early and some who had to wait and come up a little bit later. At one point we had 9 campers in attendance including my Mom, my 3 sisters, two nieces and a family friend and her daughter. We had such a wonderful time. My Mom has been having some health issues and she did so well this time. We sewed, ate, laughed, ate and sewed some more. In fact we wore our jammies for the entire camp, except for the three who made a little trip to the Quilt Shop. I made these two pieces while at camp. The bottome picture is of a Block of the Month that I hand embroidered. I also made a jacket and will have to get a picture to share. We had such a great time and I hope we will be able to have this camp for many, many more years.