Swimming Upstream

Do you ever have times when you KNOW you need to give up swimming against the current and "go with the flow"? I'm still learning the limits of my time and energy. For the first 2 weeks of January Karlie was with us. Daddy & Poppy are building a bar-b-que trailer that needs to be ready to put in service in Feb. so keeping up with Ms. K fell mostly to Bebe (the name Karlie gave me and I LOVE).

Lesson learned: serious art making time is limited with a 2 1/2 year old but there is FUN to be had. It is amazing to watch an active & inquisitve 2 1/2 year old take such delight in the world around her. Every day was an adventure with new things to learn, absorb & conquer. This included dancing, riding her new Strider bike, pretending, laughing, reading & cuddling.

On one of the prettiest days (it seemed more like April than Jan.) we met Ashley and visited the Japanese Garden in Ft. Worth. Karlie most loved feeding the fish. The fish are beautiful but one of my favorties sites was a hawk. This one had obviously figured out where to get a good meal. We saw him swoop down a couple of times and fly low past visitors. Exciting.

 Karlie is in Midland this week with Mommy so I'm playing a bit of catchup. Yesterday was errands, haircut, groceries, general shopping and a more involved dinner of sesame chicken and grilled veggies. Today the new dishwasher was installed early and I've done multiple loads of laundry & prepping fabric for dye. I did a bit of baking (Biscotti for tomorrow & chocolate chip cookies for the guys) and gathered my supplies.

This afternoon I finished my first art of the year, a postcard for Art Quilt Elements. They offered a catalog of this year's show for a fiber postcard donated for their fund raising; I am glad to participate and hope there's more sewing this week & next.

Tomorrow the Wonders are doing printmaking and I hope to have good things to show.