It seemed to me that I could live to be 100 years old. After all, both George Burns and Bob Hope lived to be 100– how hard could it be? Well I’ve got to tell you, folks– this might be a little harder to accomplish than I originally thought. After 40, things seem to creak and wobble a bit. Right at the moment, I am typing one-handed– it seems that I have somehow managed to pinch a nerve in my left hand and I have been gimping along for almost a month now. I’m getting antsy as it’s hard to do any artwork without the use of your hands…. In the next day or two I will be out of pills, so I guess I will be going to see that specialist pretty soon... In the grand scheme of things, this wouldn’t seem all that bad. I can suck it up and deal if I have to– what’s the point of having that hereditary stubborn streak if you can’t put it to work for you? Trouble is, I am starting to see what I am headed for down the road in another 20 years– seems like everyone I know has had issues this past year. At the first of the year we received the abrupt and distressing news that Aunt Sharon had passed. We lost Uncle Gary just the year before and sometimes I think she just couldn’t bear to be without him. Dad had been ill over the winter and never seemed to get quite well. In April, he gave us all a good scare and ended up in the hospital with blood clots. The weather was uncooperative and I took a whole series of flights across the country to get home. While I was busy finding out what was up with Dad, Dave called and announced that someone had just clobbered him in a hit-and-run accident. Some days you just can’t win. Then again, I spent all day Easter Sunday stranded in an airport in the pouring rain trying to get home to Dallas and thanking the Lord that Dad was OK. So maybe you do win, on occasion. Other assorted friends and family have been having issues, too…. Mom seems to be doing OK but needs to keep eating– it looks as if a good strong wind could blow her away. Martha and Dave have been in & out of the hospital for their assorted problems and Molly’s Dad Rich has been dealing with some complications from surgery for quite a while this year. I guess there’s quite a few of you that I keep track of through Mom & Dad– I hope that you are all doing better and my prayers are with you. In retrospect, it seems like this has been a rough sort of year, but I guess I find it encouraging that everybody is still struggling along. Bad as things may be, I’ve been noticing lately that there are people around that are seriously worse off. When it comes right down to it, I am living a remarkably blessed life and am spending a lot of time this year being especially thankful for it. |
Okay, it's been way too long since I was out here....I got to the end of 2011 and realized that I had not blogged or worked on a quilt since March. This is just no good at all.
I spent most of the year working my tail off and did very little for my own enjoyment. Well, it just needs to stop.
My new plan is to work on one quilt project and one pastel project a month. I am only 4 days into the year, but already I can tell this is a little ambitious... I'll let you know my progress soon, but I thought I would post my Christmas newsletter out here to get all my long-lost friends up to speed on what has been going on in the last year or so...
Age is a privilege
Once upon a time, I had a marvelous plan...
It seemed to me that I could live to be 100 years old. After all, both George Burns and Bob Hope lived to be 100– how hard could it be?
Well I’ve got to tell you, folks– this might be a little harder to accomplish than I originally thought. After 40, things seem to creak and wobble a bit. Right at the moment, I am typing one-handed– it seems that I have somehow managed to pinch a nerve in my left hand and I have been gimping along for almost a month now. I’m getting antsy as it’s hard to do any artwork without the use of your hands…. In the next day or two I will be out of pills, so I guess I will be going to see that specialist pretty soon...
In the grand scheme of things, this wouldn’t seem all that bad. I can suck it up and deal if I have to– what’s the point of having that hereditary stubborn streak if you can’t put it to work for you? Trouble is, I am starting to see what I am headed for down the road in another 20 years– seems like everyone I know has had issues this past year. At the first of the year we received the abrupt and distressing news that Aunt Sharon had passed. We lost Uncle Gary just the year before and sometimes I think she just couldn’t bear to be without him. Dad had been ill over the winter and never seemed to get quite well. In April, he gave us all a good scare and ended up in the hospital with blood clots. The weather was uncooperative and I took a whole series of flights across the country to get home. While I was busy finding out what was up with Dad, Dave called and announced that someone had just clobbered him in a hit-and-run accident. Some days you just can’t win. Then again, I spent all day Easter Sunday stranded in an airport in the pouring rain trying to get home to Dallas and thanking the Lord that Dad was OK. So maybe you do win, on occasion.
Other assorted friends and family have been having issues, too…. Mom seems to be doing OK but needs to keep eating– it looks as if a good strong wind could blow her away. Martha and Dave have been in & out of the hospital for their assorted problems and Molly’s Dad Rich has been dealing with some complications from surgery for quite a while this year. I guess there’s quite a few of you that I keep track of through Mom & Dad– I hope that you are all doing better and my prayers are with you.
In retrospect, it seems like this has been a rough sort of year, but I guess I find it encouraging that everybody is still struggling along. Bad as things may be, I’ve been noticing lately that there are people around that are seriously worse off. When it comes right down to it, I am living a remarkably blessed life and am spending a lot of time this year being especially thankful for it.
European Vacation
Okay, so the really, really exciting thing I did this year was travel to Europe!
I’ve never left the country before, but Dave had done some overseas traveling in his younger days and we have been talking about going someplace for years and years. This year we decided it was time to go. We finagled an invitation on the trip that our friends Barb & Gary were already planning early in the spring. (Are they great friends, or what?) I was completely stressed out by the time we left in September– it was an incredible amount of planning to get everything situated at work so that I could leave. Barb did a fantastic job finding places for us to stay that were centered right in the middle of all the sights and incredibly reasonably priced.
Dave and I arrived in Buda exhausted, located Barb and Gary and immediately took a nap. After some recovery time, we all went out with and found a café to have dinner. Later we roamed the Liberty Bridge on the Danube River and saw the Great Market Hall all lit up at night.
Day 2 we toured St. Stephen’s Basilica– it has the most incredible ceiling in the main church and the stained glass in the chapel is incredible. The guys wanted to climb to the top of the church and look out over the city, so we hiked up stone steps and metal ladders and more stairs. And then more stairs… Dave and Gary left us girls in the dust (no surprise). I was panting away by the time Barb and I got to another platform where you could see up the inside of the dome. There were about 50 more stairs up there and some old guy told us we were “halfway” to the top. (Really it was 10 feet over our heads.) By that point I was picturing Dave and Gary dangling from the spire. After lunch, Dave and I went off by ourselves to roam the Buda Castle District. The castle was occupied with a festival, so we roamed in the other direction down to Fisherman’s Bastion. It was down in this area that we found some beautiful crystal. I spent a lot of time trying to decide if I wanted to risk carrying it for the rest of the trip, but finally caved and bought two beautiful vases. Dave (who is the ultimate researcher of finding the best deal) later determined that I had gotten an exceptional price, so I am very glad I did it even if I did have to lug it all over the country.
Day 3 was one of my choices– I persuaded everyone to take a ferry trip up the river to the tourist town of Szentendre. This is a beautiful little scenic village where there a lot of crafty items available. This is also where the blue-dyeing Kovacs family run their shop. (Yes, I will travel halfway around the world to buy fabric!) But the process is very interesting and we got to see all the templates that they use to stamp the fabric with. I am so lucky to have friends that put up with me!
Day 4 Dave and I took the train to Vienna and toured around a little. Day 5 we saw the Vienna Opera House and the Albertina Museum. We wandered by the National Library and toured the Imperial Apartments (mostly china and dishes, who would have guessed?)
Day 6 we took a train off to see the summer residence- Schonbrunn Palace. The palace is incredible and I swear they think that Sisi was a Disney princess. We toured the coach museum and the gardens. The Neptune Fountain at the opposite end of the garden must be as long as the castle. We missed the apple strudel making demonstration, but ate some in the café at lunch– it was incredible. In the afternoon, we went off to the
Lichtenstein Museum and got to see a concert performance they were having in one of the galleries. Afterwards, Dave wanted to go off on his own little adventure. I headed back to the hotel on the trolley, but wandered off to the BurgGarten where the local harvest festival Erntedankfest was being attended by the locals. There was some great music being performed and I got to browse the sausage tents and see the chainsaw competition. Did you know that Husqvarna Viking not only makes sewing machines– they make chainsaws too! Who knew? Dave was a little surprised to find me tipsy when I met him back at the hotel for dinner after a giant stein of beer and a pretzel! I don’t normally like beer, but a harvest brew is a whole different experience.
Day 7 was another travel day to get to Prague to meet up with Barb and Gary once again. Meet up for dinner and tour the beautiful Charles Bridge at night when the moon was full.
Day 8 we got to see the bridge in the light of day. We took the funicular up the hill to the Ruzovy Sad Rose Garden and hiked around the hill to get to Prague Castle and St. Vitus. If St. Stephen’s is stunning, then St. Vitus is overwhelming. All the windows are made out of glass pieces the size of the end of your thumb and the architecture is stunning. After touring the cathedral and castle we walked down the hill on the back side and through the vineyard. I had mentioned that one of the places to look for was the Wallenstein Gardens and when we got to the bottom of the hill, Gary found the gardens tucked back in a corner. How clever is he?
Day 9 we moved to the other side of the river and went to see the Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square. We went to the top of the clock (which was packed like sardines, by the way) and in back of us was a couple from Rhode Island who lived not too far from where Dad grew up. The world is smaller than you think, I guess. It was very claustrophobic at the top of the clock, so we didn’t stay too long. Excellent bratwursts in the Square, too! (Have you noticed a pattern yet? Walk, walk, walk… sit down and have a bite and a giant stein of beer. Walk, walk... walk… sit down, eat some more and have another giant stein of beer.) We hiked down to St. Vanice Island and by the time we were close to getting back to the apartment I was really dragging. After resting, we did manage to get out and get some more night photos of the bridge, though.
Day 10 we had to leave, but Dave and I did manage a short hike upstream where I got a couple of great shots of the Charles Bridge with Prague Castle in the background. And then another interminable flight home.
So, aside from the travel– most amazing trip ever. Dad had set me up with this most wonderful little Canon SX230 and it took every picture imaginable. I think I took almost 1,000 pictures in ten days. Close ups, night shots you name it. It also has a SD card that will automatically load to your computer and you can set it to load to your website, too. Had some technical difficulties with overseas WIFI– thank goodness for Barb who brought her computer and allowed me to load up my pictures nightly! There were a lot of people here at home following along with our trip and waiting for pictures each day...
Here is a link to the photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/118396955874695358047/EpicVacation2011
Quilts
Now, normally I would have a lot to say about all my quilting over the course of the year. Usually I am trying to get at least one project a month completed. But just recently I have been tallying up my artistic accomplishments and realized that I have gotten almost nothing done this year. I’m going to have to work on that– my life/ work balance is definitely out of kilter.
Birds are still definitely on the agenda– the two things I did manage to get done were a cell phone cover for myself and an Ipad cover that Dad had requested. This little guy spent the winter scavenging seeds from their bird feeder. I guess bugs are kind of hard to find in all that snow.
The Long Road Home is still not quite done– I need to cut down the edges and bind it. Hopefully I will get my hand straightened out soon or I may get impatient enough to go ahead and sew it up on the machine.
I should be ready to start some new projects after the new year– a local quilt shop is going out of business so there are some deals to be had for those of us who don’t have enough fabric yet!
Time to Spare
Now that I’ve been griping about all the sewing I didn’t get done, it’s time to confess. I think that I have been sucked in to another new hobby….
Dave has started drawing with pastels. I apparently just can’t stand to be left out of anything because here I am, neck and neck in a smear competition with him. Although at this point we have both only done a couple of pictures… (maybe this is a pastel color collecting hobby?) We have been taking progress shots with the camera as we go along- the other day I thought he was taking a photo of the picture I was working on but after he left I realized that he had taken a picture of all my pastels!
Do you think he is counting up all my colors?
