Counting Our Blessings

Job lay-offs are sudden and often unexpected.  Even if fears of being laid off are "entertained" prior to an actual lay-off, it seems that denial protects us from ever truly dealing with the realities and  fears that go with  actually being unemployed.  Of course, we all entertain brief thoughts of “what if”, and then somehow try to envision just how strong we would be.

We are learning fast  how to survive.  My husband jumps at any chance to work, even if only part-time and not being healthy enough to go out and work myself, I pray as though our life depended on God and then cut and sew like everything depends on me! This combination of praying and then working as hard as we can has always seemed to work, albeit, we sometimes work harder but not always smarter!

There are, however, dark nights of the soul when fear and anxiety seem to take hold and I struggle to think and plan what is next. I have found this to happen when I am too tired to really be up to solving small issues let alone big ones and how big our problems can seem during such times! I have recently realized that it is best to count our blessings instead, and remember other times when things looked bleak and tiny miracles seemed to find us, making life brighter again.  I am also learning that “acting if” and “faking it till you make it” are strategies needed when my faith is shaky and all seems bleak.*

I have always considered myself a mentally strong person and my determination never lacking, but sustaining such attitudes, especially with health issues is very hard, and perhaps impossible. Never did I envision that age and illness, much less cloudy thinking would be my partners when I faced such trials of life.  No wonder seniors fall prey to scams and lotteries.  Gambling appears a real solution when the chips are down.  I smile and count my first blessing, that I haven’t succumbed to desperation, as I have in the past (see my previous blog).

So number one blessing: I am NOT desperate YET.  Number two: the sun will come up again today and push the darkness and gloominess away, and it won't cost me anything, except a little less sleep and effort to reassure myself that there is enough means for tomorrow, and there is number three.  And number four: I still have a lifetime of collected materials and scraps and notions in my craft storage room and number five: hands eager to make special creations to delight my heart and soul and hopefully those of others as well.

What about food and shelter and heat?  They are needed too.  Today I have a roof over my head and just as my stored materials, I have a reserve of fat and no hunger yet.  There’s six and seven, and eight: I have many quilts with scraps to make more, so I have heat as well.

Number nine: I have a store on ETSY and the love and support of my husband and daughter to keep my wares posted, and number ten: purpose to my day, to stitch and create, no matter my present physical limits keeping me from my careers in nursing or teaching as before.

Ten blessings and I haven’t even gotten out of bed yet!  That’s enough to start my day and I’ve always said, “Starting is half the battle”.  See my friends, if you are like me and facing what appears to be overwhelming challenges that weigh you down, look around. What are your blessings?

Each day starts anew with enough light to push away the darkness and with much prayer, God’s grace and a bit of my own effort,  there is enough for today, and a day filled with purpose besides!  Mustering a bit of  courage and “acting as if” or “faking it till we make it” and we will  and you will too! And number eleven: the lilacs are in bloom again.  Could there be anything nicer? Can you smell them?

*Credit to my good friend, CC, for this great advice!

A Mother’s Day I Will Never Forget

In my next blog, I write of NOT succumbing to lotteries or scammers yet as I presently have more sense than that. Well, I must confess this has not always been the case.  Years ago, we went through another financially difficult time, and so I entertained bizarre ways of making money and I took me and my kids to play Bingo one night at our local parish hall.  If we won, great, and it we didn’t, I rationalized, the experience would support our church, though I admit, minimally and it would renew an old lesson learned that I have never forgotten from the days of my youth and perhaps teach my kids that same lesson.

I was about eight or nine, and had gone with a girlfriend to our local shopping center.  It was the Saturday before Mother’s Day, and I needed to get my mother a gift, besides which there was to be a local fair.  Sure enough, it was all we expected it to be!  There was a nickel toss where you could win beautiful prizes, and I saw a set of dishes that I was sure my mother would love.  A few nickels to win them, and I would have the remainder of my five or six dollars to spend on myself. It was a brilliant plan!

In those days my wants weren’t big and this would be just what was needed to spread my wealth and delight  both my mother and myself. She would be thrilled with what my money otherwise couldn’t have bought and  I envisioned a week’s supply of bubblegum cigars for myself, an ice-cream cone and perhaps even a painted turtle from the Five and Ten Store?

How fortunate I was to have such a good brain that could scheme so well!  Only an hour later, I returned home, my pocket full of booby prizes: Chinese finger pull traps, balloons, little ring puzzles and a yoyo.  Still stunned that I had run out of nickels with no new dishes or bubblegum cigars for me, I reported to my father, hoping I could gain his sympathy and another allowance for a Mother’s Day gift.  He chuckled and said, “Mmmm, so you learned your lesson-- that gambling doesn’t pay?”.  He then offered to help me wrap my bizarre assortment of the worst Mother’s Day presents ever.  No sympathy or extra money was given to me despite my tears.

Yes, my kids and I would have an inexpensive night out, have fun, and either win the bingo lottery, or learn (again) that gambling doesn’t pay. We went with just about the same sort of cash as in my first gambling venture, a jug of Kool-aid and a bag full of cookies. With the help of my newly acquired and much experienced bingo friends who saw our innocent green faces and watched over our single cards to be sure we didn’t miss any called number, along with their dozens of cards in front of them, we won!! It was no big lottery, but enough to “wet our whistle” to try again next week for a bigger pot of gold.

Mom, I am thinking of you this Mother’s Day and am still wondering what you did with those Chinese finger traps, ring puzzles, balloons and yoyo?  And I have to smile now, for as life comes full circle, I remember other such silly booby prizes in your drawers, as I cleaned out your home.  You had succumbed to playing lotteries and were scammed to enter many a sweepstake.  Now I know it is from your genes that I come with such crazy schemes and it makes you more dear to me than ever!  I have grown up to be like my mother, in more ways than I ever imagined!  I love you forever Mom!!

April Showers Bring May Flowers

April showers bring May flowers and I am excited to share my new flower pot pincushions with my readers. They are now posted in Etsy! Flowers never grow at  at my house without dandelions and wild clover and so I created these as well. I am using new techniques, all using felted wool.  No watering is needed though they may need an occasional dusting with a tape roller.  All are hand sewn and richly detailed.  Don't miss them!

Coming soon will be one of my most favorite creations that I hope will bring the country right into your home. I will be revealing them in another several weeks.  I am ever so busy sewing after a bit of re-organizing my studio spaces, and dealing with an onslaught of challenges following the loss of my husband's job as well as my beloved doctor of many years.  Challenges are just speed bumps in the road of life, but the slow down seems to have stimulated new creative ventures, so do keep visiting Little House!

May's Common Thread Give-Away Winner

Congratulations to Peggy Davalt for being May's Common Thread Give-Away Winner! How lucky you are to have won Kim Gifford's boxed set of cards!

We are excited to be adding more artists to our Common Thread group. Be sure to tune in at the beginning of each month to see who the featured artist will be and leave a comment on their website to register yourself for the free monthly give-away! It is as simple as that! Again congratulations to this month's winner!

May's Common Thread Give-Away Artist is Kim Gifford!

May's Common Thread Give-Away Artist is Kim Gifford and her free give-away is not to be missed!! It is a perfect gift for yourself as well as the special mom-figure in your life, and you will notice that I didn't use the word or.  She is offering a set of her own special collage-designed cards, and each set comes with two cards of four different designs!  This means you can individually frame them and frame them collectively as a set to decorate your house and the house of a significant other in your life!  Or you can use them to send what counts most in any gift-giving: your own personal message in a classy and treasured art card.

Kim's beautiful photographs combined with her humor and thought provoking collages make her cards a perfect and delightful give-away. Each card has the story of her art piece on the back. They will be absolutely free to the lucky winner of The Common Thread Give-Away drawing that is sponsored monthly by one of our artists.

All you need to do to register to win, is to go to Kim's website at pugs&pics.com  and leave a comment for Kim. While there, don't miss treating yourself  to the delight of getting to know one of my favorite artists. She is a wonderfully sensitive and beautiful person, whose professional writings will delight you, and whose artwork captures the ordinary in an non-ordinary way. Artwork and photography combined with her humor and perspective makes each of her writings and artwork "elevate" the common experiences to us all.

Her reverence for what is dear in life, along with her humor will make you see the world through her eyes and change your perspective!  I think this is the value of art, and Kim does it well!  Don't miss visiting her and leave a comment and you could be the lucky winner of this month's give-away!

Peepers

Peepers are a right of passage from winter to spring.  It is time to again throw our bedroom window open and listen to them sing away as we fade into a peaceful sleep.  There is nothing like it, fresh air filled with peeper’s songs.

I remember the first time I heard a whole chorus of them.  It was like being part of an enchanted forest with these melodious creatures delightfully singing away.

I am tuning into the other signs of spring: the budding of the trees, the grape hyacinths, and all the other bulbs poking up in the gardens. Hannah, my daughter, loves to garden and I used to love it as well, though didn’t get enough of it in my better days, especially here in Vermont, which is so different than the arid climate of Colorado. Miss a day of watering there and whatever you had planted withered. Here in Vermont, you put something in the ground and nature takes over. The rain comes, along with the sunshine along with the weeds and before you know it you have a whole garden full of delightful finds!

Hannah works at a garden shop and so she has access to plants at a discount.  It is her delight to have too many things to get into the ground.  Somehow she manages to find space for all of them.

She also works with children to encourage them to explore their gardening skills and brings her five year old twins that she nannies over to the garden.  I can sometimes feel a lack of privacy, until I realize that they have no interest being inside the house.  They have come to be in the garden. Besides gardening, they make mud pies and other such delicacies, and are thoroughly entertained for hours at a time!

Peepers, flowers, junior gardeners, senior gardeners, they are all about spring and the summer to follow. It doesn’t get better than this.  A  little bit of paradise right here in Vermont!

The Lost Art of Mending

Mending seems to be an art of the past, at least at my house.  I still collect things to mend, but they seem to sit and wait an eternity for me to get around to them.  My husband shortens his own pants,  lest he have to go “pantless”.  He can sew on buttons too.  Despite my button collection and sewing a zillion on a small bag, I don’t do buttons either.

Recently all this has changed.  Moose, one of my youngest daughter’s friends from college, has recently stopped by and brought me his weight lifting pants and shirts to take in.  I am not sure what they are made of, but each time I take a tuck in them, I know I am to stitch each seam several times over.  These weight lifting suits protect muscles from herniating, and Moose must wet them to allow the stitching to stretch as he puts them on to be sure that my seams won’t break and leave him unprotected. These under suits are very expensive and so each tuck carefully done extends the garment’s function by several months. This is a huge savings to a serious weight lifter.

Moose didn’t stop with his weight lifting clothes, and he recently brought me his work blue jeans to mend.  I scratched my head and questioned the point of mending them, as they were so worn and stained. Whatever happened to “a stitch in time saves nine”?  These were going to take more than nine stitches to be sure. I knew it would be a challenge to find strong enough material to hold the patches secure.  “I love them”, he said.  “They are so soft and comfortable now, besides which, I like to support the locals”, he added proudly, knowing that my husband still hasn’t found full-time work.

There was no pressure on the timing of mending these.  Judging by the looks of them, they had been retired for some time, and he added that his wife was wanting to just throw them out, but he had carefully rescued them from such a fate.

Dreading the task, I got to them and as with any sewing job, I was soon enjoying the task.  The challenge was there, and with my bag of iron-on-denim patches, I was soon trimming the holes of their fabric- free threads, reinforcing what needed to be reinforced with iron on patches and then sewing on nice big patches.  He will be surprised at the sizes of the patches, but they had to be that big to find solid enough fabric to stitch them to.  I am proud of my mending, and will not charge him a lot.  He is a hard working lad and working equally as hard to stretch his dollars and thoughtful enough to support us locals (or should that be locos?).

I am remembering the days when I remodeled hand me downs, and covered stains on my two favorite sweaters with some wool cross stitch designs and then saved them for they had become real works of art. Mending can be one of the most creative tasks for a sewer!  I am learning too that many long term projects need creative fixing for what doesn’t come out just perfect.  Mending is like doing a challenging puzzle and stretches my brain, giving me practice for those other creative ventures.  Of course in this day and age when time and money are at a premium, it must be a well-loved item to deserve this attention!