I've never been one for making New Year resolutions... in fact, I'm not big on celebrating the change to a new year, at all. I had a bad experience with ringing in the New Year at a neighbourhood party as a child and it's always just kind of stuck with me and filled me with angst toward the fun that most people I know plan for and look forward to all year long. Parties are just not my thing and up until now, resolutions have been something I just didn't feel the need to bother with, I suppose in almost a completion of my personal New Year celebrating boycott. But this past one has been a very different and difficult year for me and I actually find myself truly wanting to make the upcoming year a better one.
Just enough.
That's all I need. That's all I want.
Just enough nourishment to keep my mind and my body working well and strong.
Just enough words that will lift my heart and keep me looking forward with a smile.
Just enough brave to un-clip my own wings.
Just enough fear that there is still room for wonder.
Just enough confidence to overcome hurt.
Just enough expectation to offer my own promise.
Just enough space to feel protected and content.
Just enough patience to accept the time my body still needs to heal.
Just enough hankering that wasteful wants won't overshadow my honest needs.
Just enough.
Thursday, 31 December 2015
Wednesday, 16 December 2015
Happy Adoption Day, DAY!!!
It's snowing today, as it did on that day... that lifetime just two years ago..... when my heart so gratefully ex-PLODEDDD with love, overtaken by my sunshiny Day! He crawled instantly into my lap and burrowed straight into my heart, and that is a day I never will forget!
 |
| "Day-O, Day-O. Daylight come and me got a new home!! The first time I ever saw a Greyhound meet new people and crawl up on their lap! Day says I love them and they love me so let's head on up to Thunder Bay. Congratulations Gillian and Enzo and Day." Photo and Quote thanks to Steve, our Adoption Coordinator |
 |
| Days huggy-needs just continued from there, he's my cuddle-bug-snuggle-bug-answer-to-prayer. |
 |
| He's become my sweet little follower, ready to help in whatever might be... rowing, doing laundry or even decorating the tree, it doesn't matter what it is, he's always there for me! |
 |
| He's made many friends, one who even comes to-call... his girlfriend, his sweet Maggie Mae! Greyhound Party Photo (bottom right) credit goes to Earl's dad, Rick |
 |
| Day used to have to play with his glass-friend every day, but now a brother he does have to share in the fun! Day and Play, they make quite a pair and their PlayDays have only just begun. |
 |
| Sometimes Day just lays and disappears, into memories or future plans... I don't know. I worry and ask him just what's on his mind but before long, he's back with his demands..... |
 |
| .....from bum-lifts to second-breakfasts, he makes his every wish known. |
 |
| He does have his moments'O'naughty... but all in good fun and he loves FUN-a-TON so it's all in all just really swell! |
 |
| If ever I'm down, Day happily clowns around... doing his best great impressions of 'Sid'! |
 |
| He loves to sleep in comfort, tucked tight in a mess-of-a-nest! |
 |
| But, maybe most of all, Day loves to celebrate, special days with a treat of PUPcake... it matters not the size or even the shape. He just likes to share his treats and and his joy..... |
and so a VERY...
Monday, 14 December 2015
Oak Island or BUST!!!
Is anyone else as fascinated as I am with The Curse of Oak Island on History Channel???!!
The first I ever heard of Oak Island was when I was a little girl. My dad had been a huge lover of all things history and had told of the island we might one day visit in our family travels. Growing up in our hometown of Thunder Bay we were pretty much situated by nothing but lakes and forests and sat close to midway between the east and west Coasts of Canada. My dad loved driving and family road-trips so we did a lot of exploring in his wanting to sharing all of Canada with us. Everywhere we went he took us to explore museums and forts so we could learn the history of our country which he loved so much. We did make it all the way to the west coast when I was eight years old, my sister was four and my brother thirteen, which couldn't have been an easy feat for my parents in keeping the three of us happy and entertained for an over three thousand kilometer drive (each way) in our lime-yellowish '73 Ford Crew Cab truck and tent trailer; how they survived us through the prairies is still beyond me. We never did make it, as a family, to the east coast before my dad died but I still hold hope of one day getting there, of seeing and exploring the beauty.
I'm not actually too sure of why we never took that trip east, maybe it was merely a timing thing. We had moved to Southern Ontario for a few years before thankfully coming back home to Thunder Bay, but in that time away my dad had taken a new position as a forestry safety consultant and he spent every week 'on the road', travelling from site to site; I guess it just must have become a chore to road-trip rather than the adventure it had always been for him before. In any case, we never did get to visit Oak Island and learn about the history that, even today, is still being discovered there. Still, it is a really special thing to be able to follow along with the program and to be able to actually see how things are happening, how the discoveries are actually being made.
We're fortunate to live in this age of technology - well, in respects such as these, anyhow - there is much about technology that I feel incredibly unfortunate about, but that, I might tackle in a future post. This post is about the good side and for me it means I can see-to-understand the methods being used in the search. Thanks to my parents own love of books and reading, I developed the same revere of the written word along with all of the gifts it offers. I was taught to dream through books I could immerse myself within, reading was how I learned that everything is possible. I have to admit though, that technical reading has always challenged me. I mean, it's not the escape that my brain naturally seems to want to take within a book and I could read one chapter on ground drilling set-up and bits and casings... maybe a thousand times over but I still would be likely to have pictured it in my mind all wrong simply because I don't have the knowledge of what the equipment really looks like or how it really works. That's just one more reason I love this show.
I've seen many comments and message boards that bag on the show for the lengthy and repeated recaps but I am grateful for the flashbacks because I don't feel like I get left behind if I didn't fully understand the first telling. It almost feels as though the questions I had from the first showing are answered when the next telling is told, maybe in just a slightly different wording. What really helps me is the visuals they offer, for my mind, a light dawns with pictured description. Maybe if I had actually been brave enough to ask questions in high school history class and been offered recaps, I might have actually passed the class! It was kind of horrible to do so horribly in history class when I was so fascinated by history in real life.
And then there came this show!
How I managed to even see an ad for the program is somewhat of a mystery since I record everything I ever watch, which truthfully, is generally only Hallmark movies since the Stargate franchise left the airways and I record just so I don't have to sit through the ads... yet somehow, the ad for The Curse of Oak Island premier found me just hours before its first-ever run time. I immediately set the dvr to record and have been hooked into the hopes and the angst, the theories and evidence, the determination and ingenuity and maybe most of all, I've been hooked into the true camaraderie that's clearly been found in the findings of the search.
Reality television is not something that generally interests me and I prefer, instead, to disappear into a make-believe world on the rare occasions I watch television. This is different reality, though... it's not based on celebrities looking for a new fit in the headlines and it's not about non-celebrities trying to become celebrities by turning sex tapes into careers..... it's about real, actual and tangible history.
And I love it!
And I'd love to know more.
I think about it as I watch each week and I wonder, how? How did the Rick and Marty Lagina get themselves from enthralled with reading a Reader's Digest story, all the way to actually becoming an integral part of that very story that captured them so many years ago? How did two young boys keep their dream, their vision of searching to find a long ago lost treasure on a small island far from their home, alive for fifty years? How did they make their place in this enveloping puzzle happen? How did they know what first steps they would need to take to physically claim their spot on the island... and how did they summon the courage those first steps would take? How did they research? How did they know what was reliable in what they did research for so many years? How did they not only trust in their thirst of the quest but how did they not allow themselves to be talked out of their childhood dream by naysayers? Or were there naysayers, at all? Maybe there weren't, maybe their lives have been filled with encouragers, maybe they were taught to believe.
So many hows but the whys, from what I have gathered while watching, are simply that of belief. Rick believes in the in the deeply rich history of the island and Marty believes in his big brother. And the absolute trust they have in one another is glaringly unwavering.
What brought me to begin watching the show was simply the mention of Oak Island and the memory I had of hearing the story from my dad but what has kept me coming back for every episode is the respect for teamwork and fellowship the men of Oak Island seem to share. The brothers, along with their friends, their teammates, really are invested as a single full-on unit. Even though their hopes, expectations and personal desires may differ within their own personal prospects, they trust in one another to move forward together and nothing spoke that fact greater to me than when on the unpopular end of a vote, Marty admitted defeat on a positive note, saying simply, "I will respectfully disagree, but I will wholeheartedly participate." And he did. They really are "one in, all in" and they all stand with that decision.
The sibling dynamics are also something I find to be pretty hysterically familiar. Sometimes I can't help but to giggle at the personality differences between Rick and Marty as they so closely relate to my own sister and I. I am a total dreamer and I truly believe that anything is possible if we just would let ourselves take the chance while my sister sees and focuses only on every single possible obstacle that could ever even remotely possibly occur. I think Rick must just be a much greater skilled charmer than I am in getting the adventure-bug caught. I just think... my sister thinks twice. Rick just thinks... Marty thinks twice, even for something as simple as an ocean dip to swim off the muck of a dirt-filled day; Marty asks, "How cold is this water?" And Rick answers, "Who cares??" It's pretty awesome!
The only one thing that I am not so keen on is the name of their clubhouse, The War Room. I get it, I really do... the word 'clubhouse' probably didn't make the final paring when compared with the heavy-hitting sound of 'war'. I'm just glad that that Rick and Marty, for their part, seem quite honestly to be on the good-guy side of searching and that they really do intend to "do good" with whatever treasures they may find in their incredible quest of bringing the lost once again into the light.
The first I ever heard of Oak Island was when I was a little girl. My dad had been a huge lover of all things history and had told of the island we might one day visit in our family travels. Growing up in our hometown of Thunder Bay we were pretty much situated by nothing but lakes and forests and sat close to midway between the east and west Coasts of Canada. My dad loved driving and family road-trips so we did a lot of exploring in his wanting to sharing all of Canada with us. Everywhere we went he took us to explore museums and forts so we could learn the history of our country which he loved so much. We did make it all the way to the west coast when I was eight years old, my sister was four and my brother thirteen, which couldn't have been an easy feat for my parents in keeping the three of us happy and entertained for an over three thousand kilometer drive (each way) in our lime-yellowish '73 Ford Crew Cab truck and tent trailer; how they survived us through the prairies is still beyond me. We never did make it, as a family, to the east coast before my dad died but I still hold hope of one day getting there, of seeing and exploring the beauty.
I'm not actually too sure of why we never took that trip east, maybe it was merely a timing thing. We had moved to Southern Ontario for a few years before thankfully coming back home to Thunder Bay, but in that time away my dad had taken a new position as a forestry safety consultant and he spent every week 'on the road', travelling from site to site; I guess it just must have become a chore to road-trip rather than the adventure it had always been for him before. In any case, we never did get to visit Oak Island and learn about the history that, even today, is still being discovered there. Still, it is a really special thing to be able to follow along with the program and to be able to actually see how things are happening, how the discoveries are actually being made.
We're fortunate to live in this age of technology - well, in respects such as these, anyhow - there is much about technology that I feel incredibly unfortunate about, but that, I might tackle in a future post. This post is about the good side and for me it means I can see-to-understand the methods being used in the search. Thanks to my parents own love of books and reading, I developed the same revere of the written word along with all of the gifts it offers. I was taught to dream through books I could immerse myself within, reading was how I learned that everything is possible. I have to admit though, that technical reading has always challenged me. I mean, it's not the escape that my brain naturally seems to want to take within a book and I could read one chapter on ground drilling set-up and bits and casings... maybe a thousand times over but I still would be likely to have pictured it in my mind all wrong simply because I don't have the knowledge of what the equipment really looks like or how it really works. That's just one more reason I love this show.
I've seen many comments and message boards that bag on the show for the lengthy and repeated recaps but I am grateful for the flashbacks because I don't feel like I get left behind if I didn't fully understand the first telling. It almost feels as though the questions I had from the first showing are answered when the next telling is told, maybe in just a slightly different wording. What really helps me is the visuals they offer, for my mind, a light dawns with pictured description. Maybe if I had actually been brave enough to ask questions in high school history class and been offered recaps, I might have actually passed the class! It was kind of horrible to do so horribly in history class when I was so fascinated by history in real life.
And then there came this show!
How I managed to even see an ad for the program is somewhat of a mystery since I record everything I ever watch, which truthfully, is generally only Hallmark movies since the Stargate franchise left the airways and I record just so I don't have to sit through the ads... yet somehow, the ad for The Curse of Oak Island premier found me just hours before its first-ever run time. I immediately set the dvr to record and have been hooked into the hopes and the angst, the theories and evidence, the determination and ingenuity and maybe most of all, I've been hooked into the true camaraderie that's clearly been found in the findings of the search.
Reality television is not something that generally interests me and I prefer, instead, to disappear into a make-believe world on the rare occasions I watch television. This is different reality, though... it's not based on celebrities looking for a new fit in the headlines and it's not about non-celebrities trying to become celebrities by turning sex tapes into careers..... it's about real, actual and tangible history.
And I love it!
And I'd love to know more.
I think about it as I watch each week and I wonder, how? How did the Rick and Marty Lagina get themselves from enthralled with reading a Reader's Digest story, all the way to actually becoming an integral part of that very story that captured them so many years ago? How did two young boys keep their dream, their vision of searching to find a long ago lost treasure on a small island far from their home, alive for fifty years? How did they make their place in this enveloping puzzle happen? How did they know what first steps they would need to take to physically claim their spot on the island... and how did they summon the courage those first steps would take? How did they research? How did they know what was reliable in what they did research for so many years? How did they not only trust in their thirst of the quest but how did they not allow themselves to be talked out of their childhood dream by naysayers? Or were there naysayers, at all? Maybe there weren't, maybe their lives have been filled with encouragers, maybe they were taught to believe.
So many hows but the whys, from what I have gathered while watching, are simply that of belief. Rick believes in the in the deeply rich history of the island and Marty believes in his big brother. And the absolute trust they have in one another is glaringly unwavering.
What brought me to begin watching the show was simply the mention of Oak Island and the memory I had of hearing the story from my dad but what has kept me coming back for every episode is the respect for teamwork and fellowship the men of Oak Island seem to share. The brothers, along with their friends, their teammates, really are invested as a single full-on unit. Even though their hopes, expectations and personal desires may differ within their own personal prospects, they trust in one another to move forward together and nothing spoke that fact greater to me than when on the unpopular end of a vote, Marty admitted defeat on a positive note, saying simply, "I will respectfully disagree, but I will wholeheartedly participate." And he did. They really are "one in, all in" and they all stand with that decision.
The sibling dynamics are also something I find to be pretty hysterically familiar. Sometimes I can't help but to giggle at the personality differences between Rick and Marty as they so closely relate to my own sister and I. I am a total dreamer and I truly believe that anything is possible if we just would let ourselves take the chance while my sister sees and focuses only on every single possible obstacle that could ever even remotely possibly occur. I think Rick must just be a much greater skilled charmer than I am in getting the adventure-bug caught. I just think... my sister thinks twice. Rick just thinks... Marty thinks twice, even for something as simple as an ocean dip to swim off the muck of a dirt-filled day; Marty asks, "How cold is this water?" And Rick answers, "Who cares??" It's pretty awesome!
The only one thing that I am not so keen on is the name of their clubhouse, The War Room. I get it, I really do... the word 'clubhouse' probably didn't make the final paring when compared with the heavy-hitting sound of 'war'. I'm just glad that that Rick and Marty, for their part, seem quite honestly to be on the good-guy side of searching and that they really do intend to "do good" with whatever treasures they may find in their incredible quest of bringing the lost once again into the light.
Wednesday, 9 December 2015
Christmas is Coming!!!
I love Christmas.
I love decorating and baking. I love the music, the memories and I love the meaning that I believe in. Maybe most of all... I love the light of Christmas. The soft glows from carefully decorated trees in windows, the outdoor displays, ice and snow sculptures glistening in warm light graciously offered by the moon and stars. It's a sparkle that just can't be beat and it brings me a joy I can't even begin to describe.
Another of my greatest loves is in writing stories for children. I've not been able to have kiddoes of my own in life but I love being an aunty to my niece and my nephews. I love being silly and laughing hysterically with them and I especially loved the cuddly storybook times shared with them when they were little. I thought it would be fun to share both of my loves in this looking-forward-to-Christmas post... Christmas lights and story time. I wrote this little story-poem a few years ago when I was worried I might just be losing my own Christmas Spirit but thankfully, I found it again... just in time.
The Christmas Light
Decorating for Christmas
Hattie loved most of all to do,
it was all she planned and dreamt about
each day, the whole year through!
Snowflakes, ornaments
and lights flashed through her mind,
as she remembered all the good and fun
festivities now behind.
But looking forward into the future,
to all the grand surprises it held,
kept her waking with a smile each morning
cheerfully springing herself out of bed.
It seemed to take almost FOREVER
for another year to work its way through,
and marking each calendar day that passed
brought excitement that grew and grew and grew!
And then at long last, the evening had arrived,
Hattie's family gathered 'round to decorate,
but something was off, something just wasn't right
and their decorating would simply have to wait.
It was the lights that were not working
to brighten and warm their Christmas tree,
even her dad couldn't figure what was wrong
so new lights, they supposed, would have to be.
"They're very old lights anyhow,"
Hattie's dad explained with a shrug,
"we'll go buy some more in the morning..."
he promised with a reassuring hug.
So early the very next morning
Hattie sat quietly ready in wait,
to go out and find the most perfect lights
for her family to celebrate.
Finally Hattie's dad did awake
and got himself ready to go,
while she sat waiting in anxious agony
from watching him moving SO SLOW!
It seemed an eternity had passed
when, at last, they were well on their way,
but Hattie looked forward with hope
that this would be their day.
She knew they would find the most beautiful lights
then rush home to string them 'round the tree,
so they could cast their perfect, glimmering light
and make the tree one incredible sight to see.
Hattie hadn't realized quite what she was in for
nor the difficulty she would endure,
because the perfect lights sat in wait just for her
and of this she was positively sure.
The store, she soon discovered
was filled up WAY past full,
with garlands,ornaments and light sets
stacked row... upon row... upon... ROW!
It would almost certainly take them
the whole day long to find,
the right lights to offer their tree
it's own bright and wonder-filled shine.
There were boxes upon boxes
from which she would have to choose,
and she wasn't sure she had what it takes
to fill such decision-making shoes.
There were long cords, there were short cords,
some looked old and some brand new.
There were green bulbs, there were red bulbs,
there were yellow and orange bulbs, too.
There were clear bulbs, there were blue bulbs,
even pink and purple to boot!
There were star-shaped, there were icicle-shaped,
there were teardrops and bells, as well.
There were candle-shaped, there were snowflake-shaped,
and others of which she couldn't even tell!
They were all so bright and pretty
each in their own special way,
so why none seemed remotely right
was something she just couldn't say.
Disheartened, they headed in silence
back outside and over to their car,
the lights having proven much harder to find
than anything else had, by far.
'If only it had been the bows...'
in her mind she forlornly thought,
for she'd already seen so many of those
she'd proudly and gladly have bought.
Even the ornaments that carefully hung
upon hook after hook after hook,
would have been far easier a choice
and she could tell after just one quick look.
There were still a few more stores
in which they would surely come to find,
the lights-of-perfection in wait just for them
the ones she could see in her mind.
All too soon were they to find
that they'd wasted the whole, entire day,
so Hattie and her dad returned home with no lights
in moods of regret and dismay.
Hattie sunk into a sadness
she'd never before ever known,
where nothing seemed able to cheer her
so she spent all her time on her own.
She'd sit and she's stare right straight into the tree
wondering why in the world it was so,
that the lights in her mind she could so clearly see
were causing her heart so much woe.
And then came the night
peaceful and special it should have been,
but was the wrong time altogether
to Hattie it did seem.
They strolled their way through the Festival of Lights
which had each year before seemed so bright,
but Hattie grew sadder with each passing step
giving all, even her, a great fright.
Hattie's Christmas Spirit was gone
and what would happen if it never returned,
would she find peace and joy in her heart ever again
or live the rest of her life feeling spurned?
And so the family quietly left
having seen only half the displays,
with plans to return and finish their walk
but for now had to be on their way.
The service was soon to begin
and they just didn't want to be late,
for they always tried to be to Church right on time
especially on this one special date.
It was the Eve of Baby Jesus' birth
and Hattie's heart, at last, began to lift,
she was shown once again the true meaning
of our one True and Heavenly gift.
It had never been the tree lights, after all,
that had always made the season so bright,
it was all the love and joy so openly shared
upon a perfect Christmas Night.
Back, once more, at the Festival
wandering slowly to finish their tour,
a disaster quite suddenly happened
to threaten the spirits of all there, for sure!
Every single string of bulbs
at once just ceased to glow,
but it was thanks to spirit-filled Hattie
the others smiles again shortly showed.
Standing there in the now darkened park
in a crowd where grief did course strong,
Hattie raised her eyes to the Heavens to find
the light she'd been searching all along.
She pointed to the star shining brilliantly
from far above them in the eastern sky,
instantly it warmed each and every heart with joy
as Angels serenaded on high.
The meaning of Christmas had made itself clear
and Hattie would never forget,
even though it had taken a little while to see the truth
she had not one single regret.
And so they'd gone home in elation
to yet another surprise waiting bright,
and had stood 'round together just gazing in awe
at their Christmas tree now bathed in light.
Every old bulb shone warmly in splendor
more brightly than ever before,
they had witnessed the Miracle of Christmas
in pure faith now their hearts did all soar.
I love decorating and baking. I love the music, the memories and I love the meaning that I believe in. Maybe most of all... I love the light of Christmas. The soft glows from carefully decorated trees in windows, the outdoor displays, ice and snow sculptures glistening in warm light graciously offered by the moon and stars. It's a sparkle that just can't be beat and it brings me a joy I can't even begin to describe.
 |
| A Christmas tree never loses its magic! |
Another of my greatest loves is in writing stories for children. I've not been able to have kiddoes of my own in life but I love being an aunty to my niece and my nephews. I love being silly and laughing hysterically with them and I especially loved the cuddly storybook times shared with them when they were little. I thought it would be fun to share both of my loves in this looking-forward-to-Christmas post... Christmas lights and story time. I wrote this little story-poem a few years ago when I was worried I might just be losing my own Christmas Spirit but thankfully, I found it again... just in time.
The Christmas Light
Decorating for Christmas
Hattie loved most of all to do,
it was all she planned and dreamt about
each day, the whole year through!
Snowflakes, ornaments
and lights flashed through her mind,
as she remembered all the good and fun
festivities now behind.
But looking forward into the future,
to all the grand surprises it held,
kept her waking with a smile each morning
cheerfully springing herself out of bed.
It seemed to take almost FOREVER
for another year to work its way through,
and marking each calendar day that passed
brought excitement that grew and grew and grew!
And then at long last, the evening had arrived,
Hattie's family gathered 'round to decorate,
but something was off, something just wasn't right
and their decorating would simply have to wait.
It was the lights that were not working
to brighten and warm their Christmas tree,
even her dad couldn't figure what was wrong
so new lights, they supposed, would have to be.
"They're very old lights anyhow,"
Hattie's dad explained with a shrug,
"we'll go buy some more in the morning..."
he promised with a reassuring hug.
So early the very next morning
Hattie sat quietly ready in wait,
to go out and find the most perfect lights
for her family to celebrate.
Finally Hattie's dad did awake
and got himself ready to go,
while she sat waiting in anxious agony
from watching him moving SO SLOW!
It seemed an eternity had passed
when, at last, they were well on their way,
but Hattie looked forward with hope
that this would be their day.
She knew they would find the most beautiful lights
then rush home to string them 'round the tree,
so they could cast their perfect, glimmering light
and make the tree one incredible sight to see.
Hattie hadn't realized quite what she was in for
nor the difficulty she would endure,
because the perfect lights sat in wait just for her
and of this she was positively sure.
The store, she soon discovered
was filled up WAY past full,
with garlands,ornaments and light sets
stacked row... upon row... upon... ROW!
It would almost certainly take them
the whole day long to find,
the right lights to offer their tree
it's own bright and wonder-filled shine.
There were boxes upon boxes
from which she would have to choose,
and she wasn't sure she had what it takes
to fill such decision-making shoes.
There were long cords, there were short cords,
some looked old and some brand new.
There were green bulbs, there were red bulbs,
there were yellow and orange bulbs, too.
There were clear bulbs, there were blue bulbs,
even pink and purple to boot!
There were star-shaped, there were icicle-shaped,
there were teardrops and bells, as well.
There were candle-shaped, there were snowflake-shaped,
and others of which she couldn't even tell!
They were all so bright and pretty
each in their own special way,
so why none seemed remotely right
was something she just couldn't say.
Disheartened, they headed in silence
back outside and over to their car,
the lights having proven much harder to find
than anything else had, by far.
'If only it had been the bows...'
in her mind she forlornly thought,
for she'd already seen so many of those
she'd proudly and gladly have bought.
Even the ornaments that carefully hung
upon hook after hook after hook,
would have been far easier a choice
and she could tell after just one quick look.
There were still a few more stores
in which they would surely come to find,
the lights-of-perfection in wait just for them
the ones she could see in her mind.
All too soon were they to find
that they'd wasted the whole, entire day,
so Hattie and her dad returned home with no lights
in moods of regret and dismay.
Hattie sunk into a sadness
she'd never before ever known,
where nothing seemed able to cheer her
so she spent all her time on her own.
She'd sit and she's stare right straight into the tree
wondering why in the world it was so,
that the lights in her mind she could so clearly see
were causing her heart so much woe.
And then came the night
peaceful and special it should have been,
but was the wrong time altogether
to Hattie it did seem.
They strolled their way through the Festival of Lights
which had each year before seemed so bright,
but Hattie grew sadder with each passing step
giving all, even her, a great fright.
Hattie's Christmas Spirit was gone
and what would happen if it never returned,
would she find peace and joy in her heart ever again
or live the rest of her life feeling spurned?
And so the family quietly left
having seen only half the displays,
with plans to return and finish their walk
but for now had to be on their way.
The service was soon to begin
and they just didn't want to be late,
for they always tried to be to Church right on time
especially on this one special date.
It was the Eve of Baby Jesus' birth
and Hattie's heart, at last, began to lift,
she was shown once again the true meaning
of our one True and Heavenly gift.
It had never been the tree lights, after all,
that had always made the season so bright,
it was all the love and joy so openly shared
upon a perfect Christmas Night.
Back, once more, at the Festival
wandering slowly to finish their tour,
a disaster quite suddenly happened
to threaten the spirits of all there, for sure!
Every single string of bulbs
at once just ceased to glow,
but it was thanks to spirit-filled Hattie
the others smiles again shortly showed.
Standing there in the now darkened park
in a crowd where grief did course strong,
Hattie raised her eyes to the Heavens to find
the light she'd been searching all along.
She pointed to the star shining brilliantly
from far above them in the eastern sky,
instantly it warmed each and every heart with joy
as Angels serenaded on high.
The meaning of Christmas had made itself clear
and Hattie would never forget,
even though it had taken a little while to see the truth
she had not one single regret.
And so they'd gone home in elation
to yet another surprise waiting bright,
and had stood 'round together just gazing in awe
at their Christmas tree now bathed in light.
Every old bulb shone warmly in splendor
more brightly than ever before,
they had witnessed the Miracle of Christmas
in pure faith now their hearts did all soar.
Wednesday, 2 December 2015
It's Gnocchi, Dumplin'!
It seems there are some who would be interested in a "recipe post" and because I love to share, I am saying YES to the request and giving recipe explaining a go.
I need to be from-my-heart-honestly clear, though... I absolutely HATE cooking. I'm actually not big on eating either, I don't get excited about 'foodie-stuff'. I don't care about fancies or fusions, about props or presentation, heck, I don't even care about variety. Food just doesn't impress me and if I lived alone my refrigerator would be filled with a water jug, a cheese tray, a vegetable tray and a fruit tray (all pre-prepared) and I would live on pasta and perogies (both home-made in huge batches and then individually-sized frozen) so I would only have to actually cook every once in a very little while. I'm not bad at cooking. I know how to cook and I do it daily but it's a chore; it's something that needs to be done and is certainly not something I actually want to be doing. Maybe it's the clean-up part that I hate the most and have let myself come to a point where the dread of cleaning has grown to overshadow what could be the joy of cooking. I think I really did like cooking at one point but now it's a chore that just sucks!
Having admitted all of that - please don't hate me - there are a few things (always comfort foods) my family will request I make for our Sunday Dinner get-togethers and I am more than happy to cook up a storm for them... maybe because I know how much they really enjoy their favourite dishes. Whether it's old-school macaroni and cheese with fried balogna and home-baked beans, lasagna with ceasar salad and milk powder rolls, apple pie, spaghetti with meatballs or even just a big ol' bowl of mashed potatoes or stuffing as a side dish, it doesn't matter, I find I truly love making because my family loves enjoying and I love the company of my family!
We had a pork roast dinner at my moms house this past Sunday and I made the mashed potatoes. Because there was left-over potatoes, the request for last nights dinner (Tuesday) was Gnocchi and as I was pulling the potato container out of the fridge I thought... hey... why not document and share this family fav??
I have never used an actual recipe, except when baking sweets, I prefer to 'cook by feel' but I did actually log the measures for this batch as I made it so it would be easier to share. My methods are not authentic but they work and this is a top favourite of my family... coming in a close second to the number one favourite of lasagna.
**They do take a little time but are totally worth the work! And to make it a much simpler dinner I try to always have my premade gnocchi and meatballs frozen and at the ready for really easy dinners so I only have to make a nice fresh sauce on the actual day... cooking the gnocchi (directly from frozen) as explained below.**
So, here it is... get ready for a gajillion pictures!
Gnocchi with Tomato Sauce (and meatballs if desired)
Gnocchi Ingredients: (room temperature)
2 cups Mashed Potatoes
2 Eggs
1/8 tsp Salt
3 cups Flour (divided)
Directions:
Step one:
Combine potatoes, eggs and and salt in mixing bowl and mix to combine well. You can always mix by hand if you don't have an electric mixer, I just prefer to mix the lazy way.
*I always use red potatoes and leave the skins on when making mashed because I don't like to give up the extra skin nurtients and I also like the extra texture that skinless mashed potatoes just can't offer. Skin on, skin off, plain mashed, gralic mashed... it's all good, don't be afraid to give it a go with whatever mashed recipe you love... I even sometimes make gnocchi with leftover mashed squash.*
Step two:
Add 1 cup of the flour to above and mix well. Swich from blending blade to dough hook and add in another 1 cup of the remaining flour. Combine well using dough hook on low speed.
Step three:
Continue adding wee bits of flour until the dough is an un-stickable, workable consistency. It may take more or less than another 1/2 cup, depending on how much moisture the mashed potatoes have.
Step Four:
Take the beautiful gnocchi dough and head to the rolling station!
Line a tray with a cotton cloth and sprinkle lightly with a little of the remaining flour or just sprinkle directly over the tray if you don't want to use a cloth... I just find it easier to pick up the cloth and shake the lil' dumplin's loose when it comes time to cook them.
All the rolling tools you will need are your hands, a knife and a fork... as well as a little flour for rolling and forking.
Step five:
Cut or pull off a handful of dough and snake that baby out, just like you used to do with Playdough! Roll it out until that rope is about 1/2" - 3/4" thick and then cut it into 1" pieces.
Just a note - these little 1" rope cut pieces (pictured left) can totally be your finished gnocchi dumplins if you just don't have the heart to FORK them! But I'm a sauce junkie and I love that forking makes perfect nooks that sauce can settle into for extra saucy sauciness!
As for the 'forking' technique: press fork into remaining flour and then press firmly into dumpling... seriously... press FIRMLY, it's fine if it even breaks right through - stick those babies to your work surface! Be sure to press fork into flour before EVERY fork press into each dough piece.
Step six:
Roll the dumplins by scraping them up and into themseves from beneath... here's a video snippet to hopefully show what I clearly have not clearly explained with my words.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qqqBjt9_-k&feature=player_detailpage
And here is a picture of what the gnocchi should look like after rolling...
Step seven:
Lay the lil' dumplins close together (but not touching) onto your prepared tray. When finshed rolling all of them just pop them into the refrigerator until ready to cook. I usually make them first thing in the morning and then it isn't a ton of work all at once.
*If freezing the gnocchi, just freeze on the tray and then shake them into a freezer bag or seal frozen in a food saver bag for an easy future dinner.
Step eight:
Really? Do you really want another step right now?? No, I guess not! You've done enough work for now... go watch a movie and relax for awhile!
Step nine:
COOKING!!!
Step ten:
TOSSING!!!
If you have a favourite sauce, by all means... use it, I'm sure it will be delicious!! My favourite is home made tomato sauce with either crumbled ground beef or meatballs in it and it works fantastically for tossing the gnocchi because the oil from the meat naturally rises to the top of the sauce when cooking and left undisturbed... so DON'T stir the sauce until after stealing a few tablespoons for tossing! Just scoop a few spoonfuls of the oil (juuuuuust enough to coat) and toss gently.
If you don't have a favourite sauce and want to try mine, I will post my own sauce recipe below.
*I coat the gnochhi with the oil because coating them with the thicker sauce tends to make them soggy where the light oil just keeps them free and losse without breaking them down.
Step eleven:
ENJOY!!!
Whether you prefer it plain (like my mom) or with parmesan (like me)... I hope you love every bite!
Basic Tomato Sauce
I like to can my own tomatoes and that's what I use to make my sauce but cans of tomatoes from the grocery store will work just fine!
Tomato Sauce Ingredients:
1 quart Crushed Tomatoes (or one 28 oz can)
Water (to equal that of the crushed tomatoes)
1 can Tomatoe Paste
Olive Oil
1 Tbsp Minced Garlic
1/2 Tbsp Onion Flakes (I use 1/2 a whole yellow onion if my mom is away,she is "allergic" but actually she just hates fresh onions)
1-2 tsp Sugar (to taste, depending on the acidity of the tomatoes you may need more or less)
1 Hot Pepper (for a little heat, if desired)
2 Tbsp Fresh Parsley (or Basil... whatever I have at hand in the freezer; mix'n'match is good, too)
Salt and Pepper (to taste)
Step one:
Coat bottom of large pot with olive oil over medium heat. Add in garlic, onion, salt and pepper to saute slightly for a few seconds... just until heated and well-combined.
Step two:
Add tomato paste to above and mix together gently.
Step three:
Add in the tomatoes, water, sugar and parsley... stirring gently to combine. Bring to a simmering boil then turn the heat down to medium/low. and cook gently for an hour-and-a-half to two hours or until desired consistency stir every half hour to check on sauce thickness.
Give it a taste about halfway through cooking and add in more salt if needed.
When it's done to your own preffered consistency, it's ready... ENJOY!!
Note about the hot pepper*If you want just a little heat flavour without actually having heat, put the pepper in whole without slicing... I like a hint of heat without having it HOT so I cut a tiny slit on either side if the pepper just to let out a medium heat. For a full-on hot sauce feel free to squish the seedy heat out of that soggy-cooked pepper after simmering in the sauce.
*If I am using meatballs in the sauce I just drop my pre-made, pre-frozen meatballs into the simmering sauce for the last forty-five minutes of sauce cooking time. Drop them straight in while still frozen and try not to disturb them too much while cooking but make sure they are all safely and cookably covered with sauce while not being too squished in. They should be cooked through with the forty-five minute cook time but if you are unsure just cut into one as a check test.
Basic Meatballs
2 lbs Lean Ground Beef
2 lbs Sausage Meat (hot or mild)
4 Eggs
1/2 cup Breadcrumbs
1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese
1 Tbsp Dried Parsley
1 Tbsp Minced Garlic
1 Tbsp Onion Flakes
2-3 tsp Salt
1 tsp Pepper
2 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
*Add in a little extra breadcrumbs and parmesan if mixture feels it will be too wet to roll into balls.*
Directions:
*To freeze... Place freshly formed meatballs on a parchment-lined tray and freeze. Once frozen, just pop them off the tray and into a freezer bag or a food-saver vacuum bag and set them back into the freezer until you have use for them.
And there it is... a favourite family comfort dinner. Feel free to make your own substitutions and please, if you try making the gnocchi, let me know in the comments how it turns out! It's way easier than it appears and I hope you will love it as much as my own family does!
I need to be from-my-heart-honestly clear, though... I absolutely HATE cooking. I'm actually not big on eating either, I don't get excited about 'foodie-stuff'. I don't care about fancies or fusions, about props or presentation, heck, I don't even care about variety. Food just doesn't impress me and if I lived alone my refrigerator would be filled with a water jug, a cheese tray, a vegetable tray and a fruit tray (all pre-prepared) and I would live on pasta and perogies (both home-made in huge batches and then individually-sized frozen) so I would only have to actually cook every once in a very little while. I'm not bad at cooking. I know how to cook and I do it daily but it's a chore; it's something that needs to be done and is certainly not something I actually want to be doing. Maybe it's the clean-up part that I hate the most and have let myself come to a point where the dread of cleaning has grown to overshadow what could be the joy of cooking. I think I really did like cooking at one point but now it's a chore that just sucks!
Having admitted all of that - please don't hate me - there are a few things (always comfort foods) my family will request I make for our Sunday Dinner get-togethers and I am more than happy to cook up a storm for them... maybe because I know how much they really enjoy their favourite dishes. Whether it's old-school macaroni and cheese with fried balogna and home-baked beans, lasagna with ceasar salad and milk powder rolls, apple pie, spaghetti with meatballs or even just a big ol' bowl of mashed potatoes or stuffing as a side dish, it doesn't matter, I find I truly love making because my family loves enjoying and I love the company of my family!
We had a pork roast dinner at my moms house this past Sunday and I made the mashed potatoes. Because there was left-over potatoes, the request for last nights dinner (Tuesday) was Gnocchi and as I was pulling the potato container out of the fridge I thought... hey... why not document and share this family fav??
I have never used an actual recipe, except when baking sweets, I prefer to 'cook by feel' but I did actually log the measures for this batch as I made it so it would be easier to share. My methods are not authentic but they work and this is a top favourite of my family... coming in a close second to the number one favourite of lasagna.
**They do take a little time but are totally worth the work! And to make it a much simpler dinner I try to always have my premade gnocchi and meatballs frozen and at the ready for really easy dinners so I only have to make a nice fresh sauce on the actual day... cooking the gnocchi (directly from frozen) as explained below.**
So, here it is... get ready for a gajillion pictures!
Gnocchi with Tomato Sauce (and meatballs if desired)
Gnocchi Ingredients: (room temperature)
2 cups Mashed Potatoes
2 Eggs
1/8 tsp Salt
3 cups Flour (divided)
Directions:
Step one:
Combine potatoes, eggs and and salt in mixing bowl and mix to combine well. You can always mix by hand if you don't have an electric mixer, I just prefer to mix the lazy way.
*I always use red potatoes and leave the skins on when making mashed because I don't like to give up the extra skin nurtients and I also like the extra texture that skinless mashed potatoes just can't offer. Skin on, skin off, plain mashed, gralic mashed... it's all good, don't be afraid to give it a go with whatever mashed recipe you love... I even sometimes make gnocchi with leftover mashed squash.*
Step two:
Add 1 cup of the flour to above and mix well. Swich from blending blade to dough hook and add in another 1 cup of the remaining flour. Combine well using dough hook on low speed.
Step three:
Continue adding wee bits of flour until the dough is an un-stickable, workable consistency. It may take more or less than another 1/2 cup, depending on how much moisture the mashed potatoes have.
 |
| Falling off hook and sticking to fingers. Sticks to hook, NOT to fingers... perfect! |
Step Four:
Take the beautiful gnocchi dough and head to the rolling station!
Line a tray with a cotton cloth and sprinkle lightly with a little of the remaining flour or just sprinkle directly over the tray if you don't want to use a cloth... I just find it easier to pick up the cloth and shake the lil' dumplin's loose when it comes time to cook them.
All the rolling tools you will need are your hands, a knife and a fork... as well as a little flour for rolling and forking.
Step five:
Cut or pull off a handful of dough and snake that baby out, just like you used to do with Playdough! Roll it out until that rope is about 1/2" - 3/4" thick and then cut it into 1" pieces.
Just a note - these little 1" rope cut pieces (pictured left) can totally be your finished gnocchi dumplins if you just don't have the heart to FORK them! But I'm a sauce junkie and I love that forking makes perfect nooks that sauce can settle into for extra saucy sauciness!
As for the 'forking' technique: press fork into remaining flour and then press firmly into dumpling... seriously... press FIRMLY, it's fine if it even breaks right through - stick those babies to your work surface! Be sure to press fork into flour before EVERY fork press into each dough piece.
Step six:
Roll the dumplins by scraping them up and into themseves from beneath... here's a video snippet to hopefully show what I clearly have not clearly explained with my words.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qqqBjt9_-k&feature=player_detailpage
And here is a picture of what the gnocchi should look like after rolling...
 |
| Top - nicely forked Bottom - neatly pinched |
Step seven:
Lay the lil' dumplins close together (but not touching) onto your prepared tray. When finshed rolling all of them just pop them into the refrigerator until ready to cook. I usually make them first thing in the morning and then it isn't a ton of work all at once.
*If freezing the gnocchi, just freeze on the tray and then shake them into a freezer bag or seal frozen in a food saver bag for an easy future dinner.
Step eight:
Really? Do you really want another step right now?? No, I guess not! You've done enough work for now... go watch a movie and relax for awhile!
Step nine:
COOKING!!!
- Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil.
- Add gnocchi dumplins to pot and VERY GENTLY move them with a plastic or wooden spoon to keep them from sticking to the bottom of the pot when they sink. Continue to move them carefully every 30 seconds or so until they float to the top.
- As soon as they all float to the top, they are done... depending on how hot your stove element is, this should only take a few minutes so DO NOT leave them unattended; they usually float before the water has a chance to come back up to a full boil.
- Drain immediately and gently shake off the excess water before returning the pot or a serving dish... I use the pot because I'm too lazy to wash an extra serving dish.
Step ten:
TOSSING!!!
If you have a favourite sauce, by all means... use it, I'm sure it will be delicious!! My favourite is home made tomato sauce with either crumbled ground beef or meatballs in it and it works fantastically for tossing the gnocchi because the oil from the meat naturally rises to the top of the sauce when cooking and left undisturbed... so DON'T stir the sauce until after stealing a few tablespoons for tossing! Just scoop a few spoonfuls of the oil (juuuuuust enough to coat) and toss gently.
If you don't have a favourite sauce and want to try mine, I will post my own sauce recipe below.
*I coat the gnochhi with the oil because coating them with the thicker sauce tends to make them soggy where the light oil just keeps them free and losse without breaking them down.
Step eleven:
ENJOY!!!
Whether you prefer it plain (like my mom) or with parmesan (like me)... I hope you love every bite!
Basic Tomato Sauce
I like to can my own tomatoes and that's what I use to make my sauce but cans of tomatoes from the grocery store will work just fine!
 |
| My overcrowded kitchen during canning season... |
1 quart Crushed Tomatoes (or one 28 oz can)
Water (to equal that of the crushed tomatoes)
1 can Tomatoe Paste
Olive Oil
1 Tbsp Minced Garlic
1/2 Tbsp Onion Flakes (I use 1/2 a whole yellow onion if my mom is away,she is "allergic" but actually she just hates fresh onions)
1-2 tsp Sugar (to taste, depending on the acidity of the tomatoes you may need more or less)
1 Hot Pepper (for a little heat, if desired)
2 Tbsp Fresh Parsley (or Basil... whatever I have at hand in the freezer; mix'n'match is good, too)
Salt and Pepper (to taste)
Step one:
Coat bottom of large pot with olive oil over medium heat. Add in garlic, onion, salt and pepper to saute slightly for a few seconds... just until heated and well-combined.
Step two:
Add tomato paste to above and mix together gently.
Step three:
Add in the tomatoes, water, sugar and parsley... stirring gently to combine. Bring to a simmering boil then turn the heat down to medium/low. and cook gently for an hour-and-a-half to two hours or until desired consistency stir every half hour to check on sauce thickness.
Give it a taste about halfway through cooking and add in more salt if needed.
When it's done to your own preffered consistency, it's ready... ENJOY!!
Note about the hot pepper*If you want just a little heat flavour without actually having heat, put the pepper in whole without slicing... I like a hint of heat without having it HOT so I cut a tiny slit on either side if the pepper just to let out a medium heat. For a full-on hot sauce feel free to squish the seedy heat out of that soggy-cooked pepper after simmering in the sauce.
*If I am using meatballs in the sauce I just drop my pre-made, pre-frozen meatballs into the simmering sauce for the last forty-five minutes of sauce cooking time. Drop them straight in while still frozen and try not to disturb them too much while cooking but make sure they are all safely and cookably covered with sauce while not being too squished in. They should be cooked through with the forty-five minute cook time but if you are unsure just cut into one as a check test.
Basic Meatballs
2 lbs Lean Ground Beef
2 lbs Sausage Meat (hot or mild)
4 Eggs
1/2 cup Breadcrumbs
1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese
1 Tbsp Dried Parsley
1 Tbsp Minced Garlic
1 Tbsp Onion Flakes
2-3 tsp Salt
1 tsp Pepper
2 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
*Add in a little extra breadcrumbs and parmesan if mixture feels it will be too wet to roll into balls.*
Directions:
- Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl, mixing gently but thoroughly.
- Cover well and let set to marinate flavour in refrigerator for at least two hours.
- Roll into evenly sized balls and add desired amount to already cooking sauce and cook through as explained above; this recipe will make a lot of meatballs so freeze the rest for easy meatball dinners in the future.
*To freeze... Place freshly formed meatballs on a parchment-lined tray and freeze. Once frozen, just pop them off the tray and into a freezer bag or a food-saver vacuum bag and set them back into the freezer until you have use for them.
And there it is... a favourite family comfort dinner. Feel free to make your own substitutions and please, if you try making the gnocchi, let me know in the comments how it turns out! It's way easier than it appears and I hope you will love it as much as my own family does!
Sunday, 15 November 2015
November is National Adoption Month??
Did you know that November is National Adoption Month? I didn't. Not until a friend posted a quote about it on her social media page. Now that I do know, I feel the need to celebrate!
The only background history we'd been given was that I'd been born in 1973, to a young girl of fourteen years and a boy of seventeen years who had made the decision to give me up for adoption. I spent my first months in a foster home and then was matched up with and later on adopted into my family, my family, the family I can't even begin to imagine my life without. I have heard many horrible and frightening stories of how adoptions have turned out for the worse but that has never been the case for me and I am grateful to be able to say so with nothing but honest and loving truth to back it up.
I've always known I was adopted, from the time I could talk and understand conversation my parents explained to me, in ways I could understand, how it was I had come to them. My parents were always approachable and open and it was always a positive topic of conversation no matter how tough the questions I had. I was assured that I had been given up out of a love so great that I might never come to know the depths that love had carried. As hard as I tried, I could never understand how loving could mean leaving. I grew up safe, happy, healthy and incredibly loved in my family yet still, buried deep down inside my soul there always sat a fear. It was a fear that I could somehow lose my family, that they would perhaps decide one day that I had been chucked away as a baby for good reason and that they would then do the same and I would find myself without. It was a ridiculous fear, I know, but it was a fear built in knowing knowing that my very first 'someones' hadn't wanted me and had done just that... they hadn't wanted to be burdened with me and although my parents showed me again and again that I was loved and wanted right where I was, I still worried. It's not that I hadn't believed my parents, with their assurances that I had been given away out of love, but the words just didn't ever sit right with me. I never, not even once, judged or dismissed their claims but deep down, I knew that I had never been, by my birth people, as loved as I was by who I knew to be my real, true parents.
I admire my parents, more than anybody else in this world. My parents. Two more selfless, loving people I can honestly say I have never met. It's because of their selfless love that I have lived so fortunately. They aren't my parents because they had to be. They are my parents because they chose to be. They loved me and I knew it. They love me and I know it. To know love without boundaries is a pretty incredible gift, one that I'm not sure I would know had things been different. I can't imagine having been the one to have to make to make the choice to give a child away and hope for the best but in my own case, I'm grateful the decision was made. I have lived my life with parents who taught me what it means to be family and to love completely. I have a brother and a sister I can't even fathom my life without. I have memories filled with happy and still many yet to be made.
Nurture or Nature? If you ask me, I swear by Nurture, all the way. I am my mothers daughter just as I am my fathers daughter... Dad watches over us from Heaven now, but without both of my parents nurturing, I wouldn't be who I am today, that much I know for certain. My parents raised me. They taught me. They encouraged and stood behind me. They cheered me on with every endeavor I began, patting my back in congratulations or helping me stand and brush myself off after a fall; not only did they help lift me after a hurt but they also always helped me to find the gifts inside the lessons.
I wish I had actually told my dad how much he meant to me when I still had that chance.
I still need to tell my mom.
I know I'm safe and I know I'm loved... so why is it still so hard for me to let my honest feelings be heard? The simple reason is that there are fears, no matter how ridiculous they seem, in everything, even in gifts. I was given the greatest gift of my life when my parents adopted me as part of them and it's the one gift I cherish above all else. For some reason, even at forty-two years old, I still worry that it could all be yanked away as if it were nothing but a dream. But more than I fear, I celebrate because I know in my heart that with my family... I'm home.
So, here's to adoption!!!
From the deepest deep of my grateful heart... I celebrate..... my family!
The only background history we'd been given was that I'd been born in 1973, to a young girl of fourteen years and a boy of seventeen years who had made the decision to give me up for adoption. I spent my first months in a foster home and then was matched up with and later on adopted into my family, my family, the family I can't even begin to imagine my life without. I have heard many horrible and frightening stories of how adoptions have turned out for the worse but that has never been the case for me and I am grateful to be able to say so with nothing but honest and loving truth to back it up.
I've always known I was adopted, from the time I could talk and understand conversation my parents explained to me, in ways I could understand, how it was I had come to them. My parents were always approachable and open and it was always a positive topic of conversation no matter how tough the questions I had. I was assured that I had been given up out of a love so great that I might never come to know the depths that love had carried. As hard as I tried, I could never understand how loving could mean leaving. I grew up safe, happy, healthy and incredibly loved in my family yet still, buried deep down inside my soul there always sat a fear. It was a fear that I could somehow lose my family, that they would perhaps decide one day that I had been chucked away as a baby for good reason and that they would then do the same and I would find myself without. It was a ridiculous fear, I know, but it was a fear built in knowing knowing that my very first 'someones' hadn't wanted me and had done just that... they hadn't wanted to be burdened with me and although my parents showed me again and again that I was loved and wanted right where I was, I still worried. It's not that I hadn't believed my parents, with their assurances that I had been given away out of love, but the words just didn't ever sit right with me. I never, not even once, judged or dismissed their claims but deep down, I knew that I had never been, by my birth people, as loved as I was by who I knew to be my real, true parents.
I admire my parents, more than anybody else in this world. My parents. Two more selfless, loving people I can honestly say I have never met. It's because of their selfless love that I have lived so fortunately. They aren't my parents because they had to be. They are my parents because they chose to be. They loved me and I knew it. They love me and I know it. To know love without boundaries is a pretty incredible gift, one that I'm not sure I would know had things been different. I can't imagine having been the one to have to make to make the choice to give a child away and hope for the best but in my own case, I'm grateful the decision was made. I have lived my life with parents who taught me what it means to be family and to love completely. I have a brother and a sister I can't even fathom my life without. I have memories filled with happy and still many yet to be made.
Nurture or Nature? If you ask me, I swear by Nurture, all the way. I am my mothers daughter just as I am my fathers daughter... Dad watches over us from Heaven now, but without both of my parents nurturing, I wouldn't be who I am today, that much I know for certain. My parents raised me. They taught me. They encouraged and stood behind me. They cheered me on with every endeavor I began, patting my back in congratulations or helping me stand and brush myself off after a fall; not only did they help lift me after a hurt but they also always helped me to find the gifts inside the lessons.
I wish I had actually told my dad how much he meant to me when I still had that chance.
I still need to tell my mom.
I know I'm safe and I know I'm loved... so why is it still so hard for me to let my honest feelings be heard? The simple reason is that there are fears, no matter how ridiculous they seem, in everything, even in gifts. I was given the greatest gift of my life when my parents adopted me as part of them and it's the one gift I cherish above all else. For some reason, even at forty-two years old, I still worry that it could all be yanked away as if it were nothing but a dream. But more than I fear, I celebrate because I know in my heart that with my family... I'm home.
So, here's to adoption!!!
From the deepest deep of my grateful heart... I celebrate..... my family!
 |
| 1992... Our last family picture with our dad. |
Thursday, 5 November 2015
Rag-Bin Hugs
Every once in awhile comes something to cause a personal course to alter and for me, that ‘once in awhile’ was plopped, quite unceremoniously, into my hands one Sunday evening following our weekly family dinner.
I sat there in the rocker glider, quietly for a moment, just taking it in. I instantly knew that I was holding a very special history in my hands, all sewn up and bunched into one extremely fragrant bundle. The smell, I have to admit, had hit me brutally fast but... it wasn’t actually a bad smell, not musty or stinky in any way, but more of a very strong perfume that somehow drew me completely into a different time and to a place that felt like home. The connection I had already felt with this old quilt top I held in awe was overwhelming. I felt an instant longing to know my Great-Gramma and an even more instant loss at knowing that I never would.
The first I had ever heard tell of this quilt top had been only weeks before I held it. I had just opened my longarm quilting business and my mom, just in passing conversation one day, had mentioned that there was quilt top that her grandmother had made for her and my dad as a wedding gift. I’m not sure if my dad had ever seen the top in progress, I’ll have to ask my mom about that one, but, if he were alive today to see the finished product I can guarantee he would have LOVED it... his colour choices were loud and far ahead of the times! This is where it got a wee bit confusing but I’m just thankful the top didn’t end up lost! Apparently, my Great-Gramma Matchett had pieced the quilt top squares, starting in the Fall of 1967 while she visited the family in Nipigon from her home in New Brunswick. Now, my Gramma Matchett had said she would finish the square joining and quilting part of it for her since Great-Gramma had to return home before being able to finish them herself. Gramma Matchett did, in fact, finish joining the blocks but, didn’t finish the actual quilting. My mom figures it got sidetracked because she, herself, had no real interest in the quilt - but I’ll get to that later! From Gramma, it went to my moms older sister, Peggy, who had the interest in finishing the project but not the inclination, as it would turn out. So, then from Peggy, it went to my moms younger sister, Janna, who thought that she might give it a go but, instead it ended up sitting in wait to be finished until it came to me... 46 years from when it had been started.
I sat there in the rocker glider, quietly for a moment, just taking it in. I instantly knew that I was holding a very special history in my hands, all sewn up and bunched into one extremely fragrant bundle. The smell, I have to admit, had hit me brutally fast but... it wasn’t actually a bad smell, not musty or stinky in any way, but more of a very strong perfume that somehow drew me completely into a different time and to a place that felt like home. The connection I had already felt with this old quilt top I held in awe was overwhelming. I felt an instant longing to know my Great-Gramma and an even more instant loss at knowing that I never would.
The first I had ever heard tell of this quilt top had been only weeks before I held it. I had just opened my longarm quilting business and my mom, just in passing conversation one day, had mentioned that there was quilt top that her grandmother had made for her and my dad as a wedding gift. I’m not sure if my dad had ever seen the top in progress, I’ll have to ask my mom about that one, but, if he were alive today to see the finished product I can guarantee he would have LOVED it... his colour choices were loud and far ahead of the times! This is where it got a wee bit confusing but I’m just thankful the top didn’t end up lost! Apparently, my Great-Gramma Matchett had pieced the quilt top squares, starting in the Fall of 1967 while she visited the family in Nipigon from her home in New Brunswick. Now, my Gramma Matchett had said she would finish the square joining and quilting part of it for her since Great-Gramma had to return home before being able to finish them herself. Gramma Matchett did, in fact, finish joining the blocks but, didn’t finish the actual quilting. My mom figures it got sidetracked because she, herself, had no real interest in the quilt - but I’ll get to that later! From Gramma, it went to my moms older sister, Peggy, who had the interest in finishing the project but not the inclination, as it would turn out. So, then from Peggy, it went to my moms younger sister, Janna, who thought that she might give it a go but, instead it ended up sitting in wait to be finished until it came to me... 46 years from when it had been started.
My mom had tried to prepare me for the utter ugliness that she remembered the quilt top being but, thought that I could maybe finish it, even just as extra practice with my new machine. I remembered those words she had said as I held this 46 year old beauty in my hands, as I ran my fingers over the still incredibly vibrant fabrics and I felt myself so close to tears that is was actually physically hurting to hold them in. My mom had called this amazingness - ugly.
I had felt touched immediately by the memories of this quilt top, memories that I would never ever even begin to know clutched me tightly and I didn’t even understand why just then. The colours, the patterns, the textures had blocked out everything, everyone in the room. I was completely blown away in this sudden new presence of comfort.
I knew, not just by smell, but also by touch that my first order of business would be to wash this quilt top and even just the thought of having to do so terrified me. Wash a pieced quilt top on it’s own? No way, Dude!!!!! But, I knew that I couldn’t possibly work with it in the condition it now sat. And so I asked my mom...
“Do you think I should wash it first, Mom?”
I had felt touched immediately by the memories of this quilt top, memories that I would never ever even begin to know clutched me tightly and I didn’t even understand why just then. The colours, the patterns, the textures had blocked out everything, everyone in the room. I was completely blown away in this sudden new presence of comfort.
I knew, not just by smell, but also by touch that my first order of business would be to wash this quilt top and even just the thought of having to do so terrified me. Wash a pieced quilt top on it’s own? No way, Dude!!!!! But, I knew that I couldn’t possibly work with it in the condition it now sat. And so I asked my mom...
“Do you think I should wash it first, Mom?”
Of course she agreed with me that it needed to be washed and , as she generally does, she made me feel as though any decision I made would be the right one for the quilt. Knowing that she fully trusted me made it even tougher because I so did not want to disappoint by ruining such a special piece of artwork.
I continued on with the agonizing internal debate, as we all had dessert (cupcakes... my FAV), over washing the top. I had touched those carefully chosen, painfully cut and meticulously placed and sewn strips of fabrics. I had run my fingers along the hand-sewn seams. I had witnessed the pains that had, with nothing but love, been taken to create this stunningness. I also felt the pain that could be the price of having ruined an irreplaceable history.
I turned to my Aunt Janna who has been sewing for as long as I can remember, hoping she could help with my desicsion. “Jan, do you think I should try washing it first?” I asked her. I was searching for permission, well okay, I’ll admit it, I really just wanted someone, anyone else to make the decision for me.
It was my mom who called the answer out from the kitchen before Janna could even start her reply...
"Honey, it’s 46 years old,” she started simply. “ You won’t be able to do anything with it in the condition it’s in. If it falls apart in the wash then... it falls apart in the wash.”
And there I had my answer.
I couldn’t let it go and had sat holding the top through dessert while listening as both my mom and her sister recollected upon their memories of its making. The sound of smiling had taken over my moms voice as she spoke but her expression admitted only to a slight wonder of sorts. She was entirely amazed at and I think even a might ashamed of having denied the beauty and especially of having been so incredibly unappreciative of all that it held.
I saw her eyes as they drifted back to another time while she told us all of how she could remember the quilt being pieced together. She was looking into her own past as she spoke of watching her Gramma sat perched on the edge of her parents bed, the rag bin by her feet. She had cut, with ordinary kitchen scizzors, all of those strips and she had sewn them onto the muslin backing squares, entirely by hand, with whatever bits of thread she had available. And, as I listened, I couldn’t keep my fingertips from running along the stitching lines, rainbowed with colour, and I fell in love with the back just as I had the front. I loved knowing her stitches so much actually, that I felt almost wrong in even the thought of covering any one of them with a backing that would hide her handwork.
There was one fabric pattern that I somehow knew, it had been the first to catch my eye and the one that I just kept going back to. I recognized this pattern even though I knew I had never seen or touched it. I had to have seen it somewhere though because, I knew it. I felt my eyes glazing over in the figuring and then I made myself speak up about it. I said that I recognized this design and that I could see in my mind an old picture of my own Gramma Matchett from one of the old family photo albums, wearing that pattern and was I being insane? I admitted how ridiculous I knew it sounded but it turned out not be ridiculous, at all. I had seen the fabric in pictures.
I continued on with the agonizing internal debate, as we all had dessert (cupcakes... my FAV), over washing the top. I had touched those carefully chosen, painfully cut and meticulously placed and sewn strips of fabrics. I had run my fingers along the hand-sewn seams. I had witnessed the pains that had, with nothing but love, been taken to create this stunningness. I also felt the pain that could be the price of having ruined an irreplaceable history.
I turned to my Aunt Janna who has been sewing for as long as I can remember, hoping she could help with my desicsion. “Jan, do you think I should try washing it first?” I asked her. I was searching for permission, well okay, I’ll admit it, I really just wanted someone, anyone else to make the decision for me.
It was my mom who called the answer out from the kitchen before Janna could even start her reply...
"Honey, it’s 46 years old,” she started simply. “ You won’t be able to do anything with it in the condition it’s in. If it falls apart in the wash then... it falls apart in the wash.”
And there I had my answer.
I couldn’t let it go and had sat holding the top through dessert while listening as both my mom and her sister recollected upon their memories of its making. The sound of smiling had taken over my moms voice as she spoke but her expression admitted only to a slight wonder of sorts. She was entirely amazed at and I think even a might ashamed of having denied the beauty and especially of having been so incredibly unappreciative of all that it held.
I saw her eyes as they drifted back to another time while she told us all of how she could remember the quilt being pieced together. She was looking into her own past as she spoke of watching her Gramma sat perched on the edge of her parents bed, the rag bin by her feet. She had cut, with ordinary kitchen scizzors, all of those strips and she had sewn them onto the muslin backing squares, entirely by hand, with whatever bits of thread she had available. And, as I listened, I couldn’t keep my fingertips from running along the stitching lines, rainbowed with colour, and I fell in love with the back just as I had the front. I loved knowing her stitches so much actually, that I felt almost wrong in even the thought of covering any one of them with a backing that would hide her handwork.
 |
| Rainbowed stitches |
 |
| The one I knew... |
The rag bin had been full of Grammas old housedresses and aprons. And so it had been countless hours that my great-gramma had set upon the side of the bed, cutting and sewing for her granddaughter, a tangible history of her mother. This was a total work of absolute love. I had never been fortunate enough to have met the woman who had carefully stitched these memories together but I had known and immensely loved the woman who had worn each one of these fabrics. My gramma had chosen these patterns, each one of them. She had lived in them, worked in them, dreamed in them. She’d set her famous bread to rise, put baked beans to simmering and had sat to read and record her favourite poems in them. She’d smiled in these fabrics, she’d laughed in these fabrics and I am certain she even shed a few tears in the fabrics.
The weight of the quilt top felt even heavier to me now but, it was a welcomed and somehow nourishing kind of heaviness. It was the heaviness of home. I could almost feel the roots of my own unknown past trying to pull me in, almost pleading for acknowledgement.
I fell asleep that night with an incredibly heavy heart. I had more questions still than answers and I hoped that I would find what I needed in the work that was yet to be done.
Next morning, first thing, I washed that old quilt top. I felt like I did when I was a kid and my beloved pink blankie was being washed; feeling forever pass with each cycle of the machine and panicking that it wouldn’t come back to me just exactly the same as it had gone in. And just as my blankie had always come back, so did that determined old quilt top... WHEW!
Once I had washed and dried the top, I gently folded and carried it out to my workshop, laid it out atop my cutting table and set to checking every inch of it for snags, loose seams and any other signs of damage. It wasn’t until I reached to thread the end of a loose thread through the eye of a needle that it hit me - this very same length of bright turquoise thread had been threaded, 46 years before by the hadnd of my Great-Gramma. And let me tell you, it hit me hard. Tears began to stream until I was completely out of control and in a sobbing, heaving mess.
Was I being ridiculous? Probably so. But, I must really have needed that breakdown.
Once I made it back into the land of sanity (somewhat, anyhow) and had repaired and squared the top, I started my search for a backing fabric. My aunt had told me that there had been an old piece of batting as well as an old, plain and well worn sheet that had been meant for backing kept in with the
quilt top that just had not stood the test of time in wait; she had decided it best to “pitch them.” This information had left me with the choice of both backing and batting and I felt entirely inadequate for the task. I wanted something that would belong and not just something that would suffice.
So, where does one find the perfect backing for a 46 year old quilt top? Why, the World Wide Web, of course! I took the top back inside the house and carefully laid it out before the garden doors and atop the carpet in my bedroom so I could take it fully in as natural light flowed perfectly over it. I smiled as I cast my eyes over its entirety. It was really the first completely ‘overall’ look I had actually had. To my surprise, there were three colours, out of the MANY, that popped out at me without question... bright blue, bright green and a light but brightly buttered yellow.
I turned on my trusty ipad and typed “vintage fabrics” into the search engine. My tummy fluttered
with excitement at the many images of lovely vintage patterns that appeared and then sank as I quickly realized that these were merely small cuts of unused fabrics bought by people years ago and couldn’t even begin to cover the 4 full meters I would need. I could have found a number of fabrics from the era and pieced them to create an interesting and era appropriate backing but that just didn’t feel right. I didn’t want for anything to take away even a single glance from all that the top deserved.
So instead, I cleared my search and typed in “retro fabrics” and I knew I was on the main line to
perfection.
I spent hours looking through the virtual pages of fabrics, saving photos of the ones that I thought could work and also that I thought my mom might like. It had to be of a unified, sixties pattern style but stay muted enough to allow the top the spotlight it so deserved. It turned out that the very first fabric that had caught my eye and I had clicked on was the one I ultimately chose and later that night
ordered. A late 60’s style, flower-power type design which, as I looked back and forth between ipad screen and quilt top, managed to pull the three stand-out colours to the backing, perfectly! I knew it was the one but I wanted for my mom to have the final say on whether or not she liked it because it was, after all, a quilt made for her. I’m beyond happy to say that she agreed with me because I don’t believe that any other backing could even remotely have worked. I worried, of course, after I had placed the order that the screen colours wouldn’t match the actual quilt colours but once the fabric had arrived it was as though they had been given to me all together; that’s how perfect of a match that backing was for the top.
the gift of a very special quilt
It may have taken awhile to complete but somehow, I think this quilt of love may actually have somehow completed me. It was both with humbling reluctance and uplifting joy that I gave my mom her amazingly stunning quilt once I had finished it. I felt the treasure of working on this quilt and it filled me entirely. I was unbelievably saddened at the loss of it even though I knew it would never be lost to me... I can bundle up in that quilt at my moms any time at all when I need to feel the rag-bin hugs of my past.
I fell asleep that night with an incredibly heavy heart. I had more questions still than answers and I hoped that I would find what I needed in the work that was yet to be done.
Next morning, first thing, I washed that old quilt top. I felt like I did when I was a kid and my beloved pink blankie was being washed; feeling forever pass with each cycle of the machine and panicking that it wouldn’t come back to me just exactly the same as it had gone in. And just as my blankie had always come back, so did that determined old quilt top... WHEW!
Once I had washed and dried the top, I gently folded and carried it out to my workshop, laid it out atop my cutting table and set to checking every inch of it for snags, loose seams and any other signs of damage. It wasn’t until I reached to thread the end of a loose thread through the eye of a needle that it hit me - this very same length of bright turquoise thread had been threaded, 46 years before by the hadnd of my Great-Gramma. And let me tell you, it hit me hard. Tears began to stream until I was completely out of control and in a sobbing, heaving mess.
Was I being ridiculous? Probably so. But, I must really have needed that breakdown.
Once I made it back into the land of sanity (somewhat, anyhow) and had repaired and squared the top, I started my search for a backing fabric. My aunt had told me that there had been an old piece of batting as well as an old, plain and well worn sheet that had been meant for backing kept in with the
quilt top that just had not stood the test of time in wait; she had decided it best to “pitch them.” This information had left me with the choice of both backing and batting and I felt entirely inadequate for the task. I wanted something that would belong and not just something that would suffice.
So, where does one find the perfect backing for a 46 year old quilt top? Why, the World Wide Web, of course! I took the top back inside the house and carefully laid it out before the garden doors and atop the carpet in my bedroom so I could take it fully in as natural light flowed perfectly over it. I smiled as I cast my eyes over its entirety. It was really the first completely ‘overall’ look I had actually had. To my surprise, there were three colours, out of the MANY, that popped out at me without question... bright blue, bright green and a light but brightly buttered yellow.
I turned on my trusty ipad and typed “vintage fabrics” into the search engine. My tummy fluttered
with excitement at the many images of lovely vintage patterns that appeared and then sank as I quickly realized that these were merely small cuts of unused fabrics bought by people years ago and couldn’t even begin to cover the 4 full meters I would need. I could have found a number of fabrics from the era and pieced them to create an interesting and era appropriate backing but that just didn’t feel right. I didn’t want for anything to take away even a single glance from all that the top deserved.
So instead, I cleared my search and typed in “retro fabrics” and I knew I was on the main line to
perfection.
I spent hours looking through the virtual pages of fabrics, saving photos of the ones that I thought could work and also that I thought my mom might like. It had to be of a unified, sixties pattern style but stay muted enough to allow the top the spotlight it so deserved. It turned out that the very first fabric that had caught my eye and I had clicked on was the one I ultimately chose and later that night
ordered. A late 60’s style, flower-power type design which, as I looked back and forth between ipad screen and quilt top, managed to pull the three stand-out colours to the backing, perfectly! I knew it was the one but I wanted for my mom to have the final say on whether or not she liked it because it was, after all, a quilt made for her. I’m beyond happy to say that she agreed with me because I don’t believe that any other backing could even remotely have worked. I worried, of course, after I had placed the order that the screen colours wouldn’t match the actual quilt colours but once the fabric had arrived it was as though they had been given to me all together; that’s how perfect of a match that backing was for the top.
Now, onto my next big debate... okay, agonization... Which type of batting do I use?
One of my other aunts, on my dads side of the family, has been heavily immersed in the quilting world for years and I figured she would be a good one to ask about batting that would have been used in the 60’s. I, knowing very little about historical quilting supplies, had no clue and was asking for help. Quite dumbly, it would seem, I had made an incredibly wrong and ridiculous assumption that it might have been a polyester batting - wasn’t polyester big in those days??? I didn’t think it was such a dumb question but I was quickly put in my place that it would likely have been wool. Okaayyy... I asked no more questions. I didn’t want to feel less than while I was pouring my whole heart into trying to do the best work that I could on this one special treat.
I don’t think it’s any surprise in the quilting world of today that many quilters have VERY strict and quite often snooty attitudes about which battings are theeeee battings to use and... to ONLY use which leaves any other batting just in the wrong. I generally try to steer clear of batting debates and choose instead to go with the ‘feel’ of the quilt. I just knew that by choosing the simple polyester batting that had been my first inclination (I’ll give you all a moment to recover from your horrified gasps of choke-worthy air......) I could easily find myself in hot water with the quilting world that
surrounds me here where I live but that didn’t matter to me. What mattered to me was what the top had been waiting for.
Once I had pieced and loaded the backing onto the longarm frame and still was undecided, I covered half of it with the Hobbs 80/20 (of quilting pop culture fame) and the other half with the Hobbs polyester (unfairly shunned in far too many circles)... don’t get me wrong, I love the 80/20, too, I simply don’t like being told that I absolutely HAVE to use it ... Anyway, I then laid the top across both halves and spent the next 2 days feeling each side in turn every time I happened by. It was the fresh life that the soft loft of the polyester batt offered which won my heart.
Next up was thread choice! This one was easy. The bright blue that most shone out from all of the fabrics, I had figured, must have been the one that Great-Gramma had liked most of all out of that old rag bin for she had, after all, made certain it had reigned supremely across the top. I matched that blue with thread and for the first time I felt no questions, no fear, just confidence that it was right.
Now, the top in its entirety was very busy; long, thin strips having been sewn diagonally onto squares cut from an old sheet and placed together to create a busy maze of diamonds. I now know that the proper name for this type of quilt is ‘String Quilt’ however, I prefer to call it the Strips of Love Quilt. So, in not wanting to take away, in any way, from the living pattern itself, I quickly decided upon a simple circular meandering to offset all the straight lines and add softness to the angles. Most importantly, I had wanted the quilting to stay muted so that Great- Grammas work would be the only shine the limelight would offer.
One of my other aunts, on my dads side of the family, has been heavily immersed in the quilting world for years and I figured she would be a good one to ask about batting that would have been used in the 60’s. I, knowing very little about historical quilting supplies, had no clue and was asking for help. Quite dumbly, it would seem, I had made an incredibly wrong and ridiculous assumption that it might have been a polyester batting - wasn’t polyester big in those days??? I didn’t think it was such a dumb question but I was quickly put in my place that it would likely have been wool. Okaayyy... I asked no more questions. I didn’t want to feel less than while I was pouring my whole heart into trying to do the best work that I could on this one special treat.
I don’t think it’s any surprise in the quilting world of today that many quilters have VERY strict and quite often snooty attitudes about which battings are theeeee battings to use and... to ONLY use which leaves any other batting just in the wrong. I generally try to steer clear of batting debates and choose instead to go with the ‘feel’ of the quilt. I just knew that by choosing the simple polyester batting that had been my first inclination (I’ll give you all a moment to recover from your horrified gasps of choke-worthy air......) I could easily find myself in hot water with the quilting world that
surrounds me here where I live but that didn’t matter to me. What mattered to me was what the top had been waiting for.
Once I had pieced and loaded the backing onto the longarm frame and still was undecided, I covered half of it with the Hobbs 80/20 (of quilting pop culture fame) and the other half with the Hobbs polyester (unfairly shunned in far too many circles)... don’t get me wrong, I love the 80/20, too, I simply don’t like being told that I absolutely HAVE to use it ... Anyway, I then laid the top across both halves and spent the next 2 days feeling each side in turn every time I happened by. It was the fresh life that the soft loft of the polyester batt offered which won my heart.
Next up was thread choice! This one was easy. The bright blue that most shone out from all of the fabrics, I had figured, must have been the one that Great-Gramma had liked most of all out of that old rag bin for she had, after all, made certain it had reigned supremely across the top. I matched that blue with thread and for the first time I felt no questions, no fear, just confidence that it was right.
Now, the top in its entirety was very busy; long, thin strips having been sewn diagonally onto squares cut from an old sheet and placed together to create a busy maze of diamonds. I now know that the proper name for this type of quilt is ‘String Quilt’ however, I prefer to call it the Strips of Love Quilt. So, in not wanting to take away, in any way, from the living pattern itself, I quickly decided upon a simple circular meandering to offset all the straight lines and add softness to the angles. Most importantly, I had wanted the quilting to stay muted so that Great- Grammas work would be the only shine the limelight would offer.
 |
| Great-Gramma's handwork of beauty |
BINDINNNGGGG... the LAST step in this agonizingly, exciting and over-emotional undertaking was about to begin!! Honestly, I was at a complete loss with this prospect. I found myself wishing for some long-lost piece of Grammas clothing to fit with the quilt top fabrics but, even as I did, I knew the wish was simply a wish. But, there was one strip of fabric laced here and there throughout the top that answered my dilemma loud and clear. A plain, black cotton with crisp, very intermittent brushstrokes of stick figures peeking out in places was what had caught my eye. It was thanks to the old housedress that Janna had remembered as one of her favourites that Gramma had worn that had solidified my decision.
 |
| Binding choice FOUND |
And so it ended up that all that was left for me to do was to simply frame in plain, black cotton:
the gift of a very special quilt
THAT
my Great-Gramma pieced for my Mom
THAT
my Gramma helped her to finish
THAT
my aunt Peggy took home intending to finish into a quilt
THAT
my aunt Janna then took home intending to finish into a quilt
THAT
at last, found its way to me to finish into a quilt 46 years later
FOR
my mom
 |
| A finished combination |
 |
| A Rag-Bin Hug |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)