Long Time Gone

I hope someone missed me in the extended time I've been away from blogging. It's been a bit over 3 months; I never meant to stay away so long. First interference was getting sick & sicker over the Christmas & New Years holidays. That lasted about 4 weeks so Jan. was shot.

Feburary was totally nose to the grindstone as the deadline rushed toward us to get ready for the Abbotts to vacate their apartment and move into Rocking Oaks. That only happened with lots of very long days & more painting than I want to see for a long time to come. Karl & I followed on March 6th with basic furniture. Art on the walls is yet to come. We have lots more house details & projects to finish; lots of unpacking & sorting with accompanying decisions to be made on what to keep and what to let go.

If you've read here before you know that we;ve built Rocking Oaks with another couple, Kathy & Phil Abbott. Kathy & I have been close friends since we met the summer we were 10. We  approached this as creating a new family and it has been and will continue to be an interesting  adventure. I'll do updates from time to time. For now here is where things are.

                                                    Utility room sink "just the right size"

              We did take off a day during spring break to take Karlie to Sea World. She loved it.

Our first family gathering was Sunday to celebrate Easter. We'll do a repeat for Karl's birthday on Sat. I'm excited that Ashley & Frank are coming to visit. After that my goal is to get back to some art making.

Community

Like most everyone in the world I have felt a rollercoaster of sadness, stress & confussion this last  week. The world mourns the senseless killings of 20 young children & 6 adults at their school in Connecticut on Dec. 14th. "This is NOT supposed to happen" & "We deserve better" I have heard people say. Still I wonder can we really change things to reduce the liklihood of this happening again. I pray that we can & I am committed to working toward that end.

I was sewing at midday on Friday when the tv came on of it's own accord & the horror hit me. I had to take it in in small bits. One of the themes I kept hearing was "community", small town USA. 

The work I was finishing was a group of small quilts for MY community, 7 wonderful women artist friends in north Texas. Before I left that area in June this group feted me with a fabulous birthday/going away party. Knowing my propensity to work with small bits they presented me with tokens of their friendship and support in the forms of bits & pieces for creating art & boxes for storage. I was overwhelmed. It took me until Dec. to create tokens of my gratitude.

As I sewed these pieces and then cut them apart into seperate unites I feel the connections that scissors can't cut.

Monday I traveled north to attend the Christmas DAFA meeting, potluck & auction & stay with Lu. I won a few goodies but the best was yet to come when the WONDERS gathered on Tues. for lunch and our annual gawking trip to the downtown Dallas Niemans store. I'm more of a country chic girl but it's always fun to check out the fashions & Flo entertained us with her pose in VERY high heels.  It was a great 2 days.

I came back with a super bad cough and it's no fun. I hope no one else gets it. I'm doctoring up for Christmas and then we travel back north to pick up our cabinets, counters, & doors. We'll also extend our celebration with Ashley & Frank. I wish everyone a beautiful & blessed Christmas and an abundantly creative New Year. I'll be back here in 2013.

Thankfulness

The weatherman says that it's about to get cooler. It's been near 80 the last few weeks and doesn't feel at all like "Christmas is coming".  Last night Karl & I walked around the Winter's Eve event in Wimberley & he wasn't the only guy in shorts.

 

I'm slower than usual getting into the Christmas spirit as there's not much room in the rv to decorate & that's if I could find stuff from storage. Today I decided to check out the lights I saw the other day in tool shed. If they work I'll string up a few. We saw Karlie today and some of her excitement rubbed off.

 

Before jumping to Christmas I wanted to share the Thanksgiving weekend adventure & what fall can look like in Texas. This is a very special place near Utopia (yes, a real Texas town). Our friend April lives and works out here and we are privileged to get to visit. This area never fails to nourish my heart & soul & inpires me beyond measure.

 Thanks to April for sharing her world. She is the kind of friend I would wish for everyone to have.