::Legacy of Lessons::

Monday Musing

Grandma & Auntie

Recently I traveled across the country to Spokane, Washington to visit my 93 year-old grandmother. She is doing pretty well, all things considered. Even though I have lived in Iowa for over 20 years, I miss being able to see her regularly.

I am so thankful that she passed on to me:

1. A deep love for creation: camping, gardening, just walking in the woods where she grew up. She took the trouble to learn the names of butterflies, trees, flowers. She made sure everyone in the family always picked up ALL litter rather than leaving it.
2. Pie-baking lessons: When I was 9, she announced it was time for me to learn to bake a pie. We made huckleberry and my uncle ate most of it. Homemade pie--chocolate cream, lemon meringue, fruit of any kind--the best comfort food around. And getting messy in the kitchen is no big deal.
3. A love of the arts: She is always reading at least 3 or 4 books.When she retired from teaching at 58, she took piano lessons AGAIN for 30 years--her own teachers kept retiring! She was quite good and played in the student recitals for years. She bought both my flutes and took me to all kinds of concerts. Travel always included a stop at a local museum. (In college I majored in music and English so this stuff must have stuck.) Arts for their own sake is good enough--they need no "practical" purpose.
4. A curious attitude. Learn all you can, do all you can. She was the grandmother who took me and my friends swimming, skating, hiking, museuming and always joined in, too. She volunteered for the museum, music events and political organizations into her 80s as well. She went camping on her own until she was about 85, pulling a little pop-up trailer behind her pick-up.
5. A firm conviction that everyone matters. While no one would exactly call her nurturing, she respected all kinds of people. We nearly always had a guest at Thanksgiving or Christmas--often someone so totally different from us. I now have her red coat with the button that reads "Every mother is a working mother" even though she was never a stay-at-home mom. She firmly believes all are created equal.

 What a blessing she has been in my life! (and she deserves an exclamation point).

 

 

+Hope+

1st Sunday in Advent

God of Advent, kindle within me the flame of hope. As I walk through this day, may that hope remind me of your promise that something good is coming. Amen.    ~ Beth A. Richardson, The Uncluttered Heart

My hope is that each of you knows you are always and truly loved.

Peace, QuiltyBee

Gratitude

Today's Praise

How easily we can forget how precious life is! So long as we can remember, we've just been here, being alive. Unlike other things for which we have a comparison--black to white, day to night, good to bad--we are so immersed in life that we can see it only in the context of itself. We don't see life as compared to anything, to not-being, for example, to never having been born. Life just is.

But life itself is a gift. It's a compliment just being born: to feel, breathe, think, play, dance, sing, work, make love, for this particular lifetime.

Today, let's give thanks for life. For life itself! For simply being born!

~Daphne Rose Kingma

My prayer this week is that, as the holidays begin to rev up, each of you can remember The Gift we have been given, and that you are LOVED.

On the 12th Day of Christmas . . .

WIP Wednesday

Lovely fabrics from Kate Spain's 12 Days of Christmas line.
Lots of red (she said she LOVES red).
All coming together for the Modern Christmas Stocking swap on Flickr.
I will admit to a bit of unsewing (no pattern, after all). But all in all, I might just want to keep it.
Or I might just have to make a guitar version for DH, who has had no stocking in the last 18 years. Poor man.

Today's Praises

• lovely crisp nearly winter day
• the prospect of popovers tonight--my fave
• general good humor--it helps to have a smiling 17 yo

::I think I'll do it again::

Monday Musing

The BIG 5-0 that is.

Thanks to my kind and generous friends & family, I received LOTS of birthday money (out of pity, out of love??). My first thought was "chocolate!" Then my mind raced with all the things I want, all the things I need, all the things. Finally, after much contemplation, I knew how to spend all that moolah . . .

Let me introduce you to my mid-life crisis milestone birks--soft bed, no less.

I love them. They make me feel just a little edgy, just a little younger. So I vote for being 50 again next year--let's see what I get!

Today's Praise

• red shoes--every girl oughta have 'em
• great h.s. youth group--they'll try anything
• back to sewing--see a sneak peek on Wednesday

Today's Praise

Gratitude is heaven itself.

~ William Blake

And gratitude will keep you warm are the temperatures outside fall.