Merry Christmas from our house to yours . . .

And from our hearts to yours . . .

 The living room is ready. . .

And right around the corner in the crazy round house, the family room is ready . . .

 

Cookies are baked and waiting. . . 

And tomorrow the loved ones come to celebrate Jesus birth . . . 

Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving . . .

I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday time.  We are looking forward to a couple days with family here - fixing turkey with all the trimmings.

I was just sitting around thinking of the blessings and being thankful.  I remembered this summer when the Portland kids were here.  This is a photo we took the morning they were heading back home.  Meagan is almost 9 now and Weston (on the left) is 7 and Walker is 3. It was fun to see them together. 

And believe me - that little lady in the middle kept those two boys on the straight and narrow - much to the chagrin of Weston who is usually the boss.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

ideas . . .

I tried to get this done in time to share at our Art Group tonight, but I unstitched more in the past couple days than I stitched.  But about 4 pm today I found myself on the right track.  I am  now anxious to get more time to work on it - but probably not until after Thanksgiving. 

The Art Group meeting was fun - saw some great stuff from others. 

Good day . . .

Go Bobcats!

What a great day! Our neighbors Nick and Betty came over to watch the football game and we enjoyed some good taco soup, salad, crunchy bread and fresh ginger bread with special topping for dessert.

AND - the Montana State Bobcats won the game over the cross state rivals - the University of Montana Grizzlies.   It is always a good day when win.   

I did some work on an art piece on my longarm - will show more on that tomorrow.  But the important thing is that I am working again!  Amazing!  It might be a miracle!

Starting again . . .

It has been a long absence,  but here I am. 

Right after my last entry, the first part of July, my brother had a heart attack.  My mom who is 91 lives here in Bozeman in her own condo since her move here last summer.  My brothers illness really took a toll on her.  My brother had surgery in mid-August to replace the titanium valve from several years ago as that was not working and he is doing fine now. 

Mom continued to struggle during my brother's health issues and then her younger sister passed.  Mom had been so vibrant, so independent and able.  That suddenly that started to end, as it can, with memory loss, angry phone calls made that were not remembered,  family conflict over issues that didn't exist, overtaking and undertaking prescriptions and continually wanting to move away.  And we keep working on it.

In late July, we enjoyed a huge family reunion here at our house with lots of cousins.  We ate "fried chicken" made memory of the Kimble family who all loved their friend chicken.  My dad and his two sisters were the parents of the 75 "chicken-eatin'" relatives.  It was a milestone for us all - lots of memories made and certainly worth the work.  You can see some of the cousins in the photo above.

Our Scottish Terrior, Kassie, got sick right after the reunion and was soon diagnosed with bladder cancer, inoperable, and yesterday we said our final good-bye to her.  

I always think about being on the Oregon Trail.  You just keep heading "due west" through all kinds of good and bad and that is what we are doing.  Today it seems like we have arrived somewhere - not sure where - but not a place of celebration.  Just a destination.   And then we will head out again.

I have continued with my studio work - including some art quilting, traditional quilting and design digitizing.   I want to start a new blog focused on my art.  I will post that here when I get it up. 

It feels like my "third act" is completed.  

Here I am again . . .

I took some time off and now I am back.  It has been a busy couple months, but all is well here.

We have had lots of celebrations, birthdays, Mother's  Day, Father's Day, kiddo's soccer, some "granny nanny" days, planting flowers, visiting, kiddo's soccer, meals with friends and so it goes.  Mom turned 91 in May and we had an open house for her.  She is doing very well in her own condo here in Bozeman.


This past week, I have been doing lots of "cleaning out" in my studio area which is the area over the garage.  There is a large storage area that we call the "eve storage", a bedroom, and my studio in the space over the garage.   The entire space is about 900 square feet.  The bedroom is filled to the brim with stuff - or at least it was.  When Mom moved out of her house in Missoula 3 years ago, I brought her antique quilt collection here for safe keeping.  She has about 50 antique quilts - some of them quite nice and some just representative of an era.  She decided after her birthday that she no longer wants to do any more sewing or work with the quilts.  So, I am moving them to the eve storage which meant I had to go through every thing in the storage area, empty it all out, haul stuff to the dump, to our new Goodwill, and lots and lots of books to the library for their annual book sale.  But, the eve storage is now empty with shelves rearranged and I am starting to put things in there.  I also have several boxes of her fabric - mostly wools as she never quilted, but did lots of beautiful sewing/tailoring of her own garments.  And, I want to reclaim the extra bedroom as an office area.  More on that later.

In the midst of that I have found some inspiration to play around with creating some "fabric sketches" for a challenge in our little art group.  I dug through my scrap basket and pulled out little scraps of what I liked.  That is the first picture above.  Then I pressed them and started just sewing pieces together freeform and this is the first "sketch".  It is 9" x 9" and I want to do some stitching on it now.

Tonight I made cookies for church tomorrow.  I have found a church I like so much.  I have been going now for almost a year when we are home and I always leave feeling so much love.  Sometimes Bob and/or Mom go with me, but sometimes not.  I am doing more and more volunteering there and it feels right.   Mom gave me the cookie racks 'cause I bake so many cookies. I like it more than I thought I would.

So, it has been a good couple months - I have found time to be just me while enjoying special days.

Sometimes . . .

I just need to be "Carol" - not wife, mother, daughter, grandmother - just "Carol". Do you know what I mean?

Today is one of those days of awareness. I need to just be me - all day - going to church alone - in my studio alone - happy alone. It is a gift and I am going to bask in it for today. The world out there is going to have to get along without me for today. And I know it will do fine - probably even prosper.

As will I.