Planning For 2012

No, I don't believe the world will be ending in 2012. Believing the truths of God's word in the Bible, the Lord Jesus would have to return to remove His followers (known as the Rapture of the Church). Following the rapture is the seven years of tribulation, which is then followed by Christ's 1000 year reign ON THE EARTH, so the earth has, at a minimum, another 1007 years should the Rapture occur imminently....many days I would like that to happen now rather than the day of which no man will know until the time. Other days, I pray it doesn't happen for a very long time because there are so many people I love who don't have a personal relationship with Christ and I want to see them in Heaven. So, I know the earth will be here in 2012, whether I am or not! So I will plan, and the Lord will make the necessary adjustments to my steps.





Since girlhood I've enjoyed collecting recipes. In part I think, because growing up we pretty much had just basic foods and repetitive meals. That may have been fairly normal in a rural area where neither money nor grocery variety were abundant during the 1950s and 1960s. Over the years I've culled through those old recipes, added new ones and added numerous cookbooks to my shelves. Something I need to do frequently. Lately I've been creating weekly menu plans with a breakfast/lunch/dinner chart on the front and a shopping list on the back. For both, I found forms online, adjusting to suit my needs. I have about six months worth in work at this time. What I've noticed is that I must really be desiring winter, as many of the recipes I'm adding are casseroles, stews, soups, and in general, hearty meals. As I refine these menu plans, I'll see how I can adjust them to make them healthier without robbing flavor. Hubby and I both need to lose more than just a few pounds while the almost-teenager is a true string bean! We want to keep eating like we're 20 and the string bean doesn't. My goal is to have the menus ready for 2012, if not before.

Next on my list is to get more quilting done. Aside from Poseidon Loses, I've done nothing on creating quilts except adding to my fabric stash and quilt tools and books collections. PL is the 34th quilt I've started/worked on since I began quilting in 1999. And some of those, as with PL, were worked on by others as well. In that count are some missionary quilts, a couple quilts for military members in our church fellowship group, and a quilt for our pastor and his wife that were joint projects where I did the piecing and others did the quilting and/or tying and binding. Some of those projects have only reached the starting point of setting aside the pattern and fabric, but I still count them because I will proceed with them. I'm looking forward to joining Judy L's weekly stash reports, Design Wall Monday and UFO Challenge 2012.

In part, that's also why I want to keep up with this blog. It may not be daily, may not even be weekly other than the reports, but I'd like to keep it going with some of the things in my world, and as I learn my way around this blogging thing, I'll start adding some photos.

Poseidon Loses

This project was tossed my way this past Spring. It was intended to be a quilt for missionaries from our church. It may remain in my custody for a very long time. The fabrics, all wonderful, were chosen by someone else, my guess probably more than a decade ago. The pattern is altered from the book: Samplings from the Sea by Rosemary Makhan copyright 1993. Many of the various blocks were already finished but some didn't align 'perfectly' but I thought they were close enough to 'ease' together. Many other parts to various blocks were also cut out. I cautiously checked the remaining amounts of the various fabrics to make sure there was enough of each to make the quilt in the layout that would work for our missionary quilt preferences. The diamond blocks in this project are all template made (have I said 'ugh' yet?). I cut some of the additional pieces needed and set myself to sew together all the blocks (I confidently ignored the cardinal rule of measuring the finished blocks.). I then, just as confidently, sewed three strips of the blocks together before taking them to my design wall and pinning them up to see how it would look. Gasp!!!!! They DIDN'T LINE UP!! And they were too far off to 'ease' in. Like about 6" between the first and second rows...how could I have goofed THAT badly. Well, lesson learned for sure! So this is where the hours of unsewing, remeasuring and trimming, and yes even adding smidgens, and in some cases all new pieces to do it all over again. I unsewed nearly EVERY block in the piece. I was NOT going to let Poseidon win. The top measures 86.5 x 74.25.

End of Summer...Catching up

Oh my! It has been quite some time since I posted, hasn't it? I realized I had prepared a post welcoming in 2011 but hadn't posted it; it is now posted.
On to some updates from 2011:

• Our son, nearly 13....and several inches taller than I! He's grown a lot this past year.


• My daughter gave birth to an utterly handsome baby boy the first week of September 2010. We traveled to visit them during Thanksgiving week and met the little bundle of joy. (It's over 1100 miles away.) He's now over a year and walking.


• In the spring, a whole lot of quilt fabrics and books were passed my way, along with a project that had been started & abandoned...I now know why! I spent many hours sewing, then unsewing, then resewing and now have a beautiful Storm at Sea quilt top ready for the backing to be assembled. Project is currently on hold due to a couple of the following reasons.


• My 40th high school reunion was this summer so our son and I traveled to my hometown. Where did 40 years go?


• While attending the activities of my class reunion, a pain developed in my lower right abdomen, yep, appendicitis. I put off going to the ER for several days so am praising God it didn't rupture during that time.


• One week after the appendectomy, I took a fall and injured my wrist. Another trip to the ER. Not broken, but badly sprained. Upon returning home at the end of vacation had an MRI: tears in the ligament. Eight weeks later, it's still a bit painful with certain motions but is on the mend & won't require surgery, but I still have to use the splint with certain chores and activities.


• Son's school resumed the last week of August, so we're adjusting to the changes of being in junior high.


• With the wrist issues I've been able to do only the minimums with housekeeping and such, and very little to nothing on my hobbies of quilting and genealogy. DH isn't 'allowed' to cook, or wash dishes...it's just best for all that way ;). Son has learned to wash most of the dishes.


• Hmmm, now I'll spend time figuring out how to return to normal margins instead of bullets. Technology!

Hello 2011

Whew! Where have I been? Utterly distracted. Treacherously dealing with the affairs of the 'farm' and the 'frontier' and secretly wishing both would go away and take my 'addiction' to them with them. Well, that likely won't happen, but hopefully, prayerfully?, the time spent on them will be lessened.

2010 is nearly over; in less than six hours here. 2010 in so many respects has been a personal waste. I've neglected much. I've felt the un-dealt-with effects of my own sins of anger, resentment, bitterness, laziness and neglect of God and His word. And so 2011 will encounter the prayers and efforts of trying to undo what I should never have allowed to occur within my own heart and soul.

Lifting my bottle of water, as I'm not a drinker, here's to 2011 !
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Oct.1, 2011 - I obviously didn't get this posted on Dec 31st, LOL

Fire Insurance or True Heart

Our youngster is eleven. We have taken him to church with us since shortly after his birth. He attends a Christian school. We endeavor to live our lives in accordance with the teaching of Jesus Christ at home, though admittedly, often fall short. Last night, my husband comes into my 'studio' and closes the door behind him. He said "Our son just prayed to have Jesus come into his heart". He elaborated a little more in that at school they're studying from the book of Revelation, and he got scared. We praise God !

My prayer is that he has been truly convicted of his sin and his sinful nature, and truly desires a personal relationship with the Lord. My 'fear' is that, at this still young age, he merely wants 'fire insurance' of going to heaven, and that's not ASsurance. Time will tell as the years go by. And we'll continue to pray that he'll continually desire and draw near to the Saviour.

Scanning Negatives

For the last several days I've been scanning decades-old film negatives to my computer using my all-in-one printer. Most of these photos are from my childhood in the 1950s and 1960s. The black and white images have turned out pretty well using the tools available on the computer from the printer. The color images are a bit more difficult as the film has aged, and color was a relatively new element and not very stable, or so it seems. One of the most frustrating issues is that the scanner will only accommodate 35mm negatives or 35 mm slide film taken out of the cardboard or plastic frames. Most of the film I want to scan is approximately 4.1 cm x 6.5 cm or 5.7 cm squared. I don't know yet how I'll get those scanned. I searched some on the internet to see if special film scanners for those sizes were available but didn't find much. I may have to check with photographic suppliers....and that may be prohibitive to the budget!

Aside from the technical issues, I've enjoyed viewing these old photos which bring back the childhood memories of Christmases, life on the ranch, siblings and other family, and the many houses we lived in during those years.

Horses

My childhood was largely spent on a ranch. We didn't own it but my father worked on it. At that time the ranch was around 2000 acres of beautiful woodlands, hills, creeks and fresh air. While we lived in several houses near the ranch and even in town during those years, there was one house we lived in the longest for about five or six years. That place is home, in my heart. It remains only as a memory in my mind and in photos as it burned down in the late 1970s or early 1980s. I still visit the ranch owner who, now retired, lives at the ranch rather than in the big city. And it's still 'home'. And I miss it. And I'm glad I can go visit.



We had horses and cattle on the ranch, with round ups in the late fall, early winter. It was always wet and cold, but was a time for which I looked towards with pleasure. I loved the horses and riding. I think I must have also read every book and story in our school's library, and the town library, that had anything to do with horses or cowboy-western events. Many of them I read more than once. I watched shows like Fury, My Friend Flicka, Sky King, Zorro, The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid, Roy Rogers & Dale Evans. Perhaps my favorite stories were the Black Stallion series, and it was so thrilling to have a movie made from them. I miss horses here. I miss having them to ride, to care for, even to seeing them, for while there are horses in areas near here, there aren't any on my normal paths around town and other outings. It's been several years since I've ridden even a stable-rental horse.



I hope there are horses in heaven, or at least on the new earth, but I wonder if it would be the same. This meloncholy feeling for certain things of the past will no longer exist. There will be no more tears, so I won't cry over long-lost horses, cats, dogs that were so important as a child and since. I won't tear up when I watch a movie of a horse story like Flicka or The Black Stallion. But still, I hope there are horses.