i may need an introduction . . .

It's been a year.

Technically, it's not even been a half year, but it still feels like a whole, full, 12-month year, and I'm ready to be through with it!  Is that wrong?

My daddy passed away late in January.  

He'd been in hospice care since December of 2021, so it wasn't a complete surprise, but I still wasn't ready for him to be gone.  I'm glad he's no longer suffering.  

He was witty and clear-minded right to the very end, making us laugh with his quick sense of humor.  Such a good dad. I miss him.

Todd was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer late in December.  He started chemo on the last day of January, and has had seven rounds so far.  We're taking a break now, and waiting on PET scan results, hoping that it hasn't spread anywhere else, and he can have surgery. His oncologist is treating to cure, but it's aggressive and grueling for Todd.  I'd take the burden for him, if I could.  

Have I mentioned it's been a year?

All that being said . . . it's been hard to write.  Even now, as I wrote the above paragraphs, it was hard to not shed a few (hundred) tears.  But that doesn't mean there hasn't been good things, happy times, and sweet accomplishments.  We've enjoyed loads of sweet family time and celebrations . . . 

Lots of family gathered for my dad's funeral.  So happy to see my James!

   

My oldest grandson holding my youngest grandson.  Sweet capture!

 

Celebrating my mom's and my sister's February birthdays at a new tea house!

Craft fair with my mom.

 

Ballet recitals in May -- in the books!

End of school year program.

 

Playing in the creek at the Camp!

I've enjoyed sweet time with friends . . .

I've created (and even completed some creations) . . . 

Todd's Alabama quilt!  He's toted it to every chemo treatment he's had so far.

These little "stuffies" were made from a dress that all three girls wore and loved. ♥

Stuffable fabric Easter eggs!

Finished Primitive Blessings, designed by Kathy Schmitz.

This is my most proud accomplishment of the year so far.  My version in wool of the Hospital Sketches BOM that Barbara Brackman offered on her Civil War Quilts blog in 2019.  

And we're making it. God is good.  All the time.

:)

whirlwind . . .

Well, all I can think of to say is that it's been a wild ride, this past week or so (and I'm not talking about the tornado watch we're currently under)!

We had a lovely Christmas . . . but there were some sad things, too.  Most notably, my dad went to the hospital by ambulance on Monday, December 20, with an exacerbated COPD episode. We (and the doctors) had hoped he would be home by Christmas, but complications arose and that was not to be.  He came home late this afternoon, by the same method he went.  Hospice has been called in, but as my dad stresses, it's for comfort care, not end-of-life care.  ♥

It's an odd thing to balance all these emotions. On the one hand, I spent the week before Christmas meeting with stitching friends, baking, wrapping, and watching Christmas movies. 

Our traditional Buche de Noel dessert!

I got a sweet photo of ballerina Olivia with the congratulatory bouquet we sent her for her performance in The Nutcracker:

We spent a lovely Christmas Eve with the local grandgirls—Oh! and grandson!—and their parents. 

This was the first year we departed from tradition and allowed the girls to open their gifts from us on Christmas Eve.  It was actually lovely!  

Santa Baby!

Edith spotting Santa from the top of the fire truck ... a tradition in their neighborhood!

Then Todd and I enjoyed a sweet Christmas morning together exchanging gifts and celebrating the birth of our Savior!

But in the back of my mind, through it all, was my dad and mom, if I wasn't at the hospital with him/them. I'm so glad he's finally home today and am looking forward to the opportunity to celebrate with him when he's home (he didn't want to do so while in the hospital) and settled!

I also feel the distance of my son and his family all the more keenly over the holidays.

Luckily, this Christmas, all the kiddos got iPads, with the ability to text and FaceTime certain key family members (like ME!!), when they want to ... which is so lovely!! I chatted back and forth with all three of them on Christmas day, and on Sunday, June, Olivia and I had a FT tea party!

It was such fun.  Olivia used the tea set we had gotten her for Christmas.  What a lovely way to 'break it in'.  Cheers!

I did receive a very lovely assortment of quilty/stitchy gifts from family and friends . . . 

I also got a digital subscription to Punch Needle & Primitive Stitcher.  What fun! The nice thing is that it (1) allows you to download and print the quarterly issues and (2) you have access to the past year's issues!  Then, as if all that wasn't enough (and not including all the lovely non-stitching gifts I got), Todd got me this wonderful sign for my nook:

Isn't that just perfect??!! It made me cry, I was so touched by this very unexpected gift. ♥

We have had temps in the 70's this past week.  One day we spent outside, touring around the camp.

It was so nice, I even put my feet in the creek ... can you imagine?!  We also went down to the marina and pulled the pontoon out of the water, for its annual service/maintenance.  

We drove it around for just a bit before putting it on the trailer.  I mean, if you can, you do!

So, like I said ... full of activity and fun ... but also hard times.  Life is like that, isn't it?  Looking forward to a new year filled with laughter, love, family and friends.  Wishing that for YOU, too!

:)

a long debriefing (and a giveaway) . . .

So it's that time of year when you *blink* and two (or more) days weeks have passed.  LOL!  Can I get an amen on that?!  I always struggle, when I finally make my way back to the ol' blog (which I always do), with what to post. Do I go back and fill in the blanks?  Or just pick up at 'today' and pretend nothing happened?

Because I use my blog primarily for me ... as a means to remember events, projects, and life, over the course of the year ... my tendency is to go ahead and fill in the blanks.  Case in point:  I just stopped blogging after my May 13 post this year.  Until October (when I got the itch).  And then I went back and BACK DATED at least twenty posts. <insert sheepish grin here>  That, my friends, is how I roll.  Which I guess answers my original question.  Buckle up . . . there are a LOT of photos!  ;)

We celebrated Thanksgiving at my folk's house this year.  It was Joc's year to celebrate on the day with her in-laws, so we chose to celebrate together on Friday. Since it's more about the giving thanks than the date, it wasn't a problem for us! One of my sisters was even able to fly in with her youngest, and celebrate with us.  

The more the merrier, right? Plus it was great-grandpa's first time to meet/hold Ezra!

Four generations . . . oldest and youngest of our family (for the time-being, anyway)! Ezra wanted to spend time with his Pawpaw, though . . .

He really wanted to get a fistful of that beard! Maybe he thought he was being held in Santa's lap??!

We missed our California crew, but they checked in from a Thanksgiving morning walk! ♥

That Sunday evening a group of us traveled out to see the light show at the Toyota Field Stadium.  It was a first for me and it was lots of fun!

We would have had a bigger crew, but Everley had stepped on a pencil earlier in the day, and broke 1/2" off in her poor little foot! She's fine ... after a trip to the pediatric ER.  Whew!

So the transition from Fall to Christmas kicked off with the lights. Next was the RV decor . . .

I love decorating our little space for the holidays!

I also love this darling little chub-a-lub!

On December 2, we had our Christmas Open House at work. Not only am I on staff, but Todd is volunteer staff, so it's a family affair. 

We didn't do it last year (covid), so we were excited to be able to advertise it this year -- but there were still some concerns for keeping it safe.  We decided to pre-bag everything we weren't serving pre-packaged. 

We did a good job (if I say so myself) and a number of guests commented how much they appreciated our efforts in that regard.  My favorite was the pretty little fruit cups . . .

I had the vision for these.  Kind of like the jar-cuterie, only done with just fruit. They were very festive looking and a big hit, plus we found we had a lot less (of everything) leftover this year!

Friday we had a most unseasonally beautiful day.  In the 70s with no winds, sunshine with just a tad of cloud cover ... we had planned to hit the lake (in DECEMBER!) but Todd was not feeling well, so we decided to stay home and I headed to the Nook.

I had stitched up a couple of the simple snowman stitchery I'd created for Ellie, and while I'd made a wall-hanging with one, the other was just sitting in the hoop.  Rather than leave him there, I decided to use him to make the center of a pillow cover for the completely-out-of-place brown pillow (see RV holiday picture above).

It looks really cute (again, if I do say so myself)!  Ellie has decided this is how she's going to finish her project, too!

I feel like we jumped into the season with both feet! Two days later we had our Stitcher's Etc. Christmas party. (This group is different from our guild group; this is a smaller subset.) We had a great group of women gathered—twenty-four in total—which is the biggest gathering we've had in a while!

There was stitching, lunch, an ornament exchange, desserts, show 'n tell and more stitching!  Grand time.  

And both my "affirmation sisters" were there, too, which was the cherry on top!

These two are precious to me.  :)

Then came late Saturday afternoon ... time for the SEC Conference Championship game.  

I won't say I wasn't a tad bit anxious going into this game (I mean -- we were the underdog!), but I sure was super-excited about the outcome!

Sunday morning was the second Sunday of Advent. My old Advent wreath was looking a little shabby and covered in candle wax, so I decided to do something a little different this year . . .

The Nativity candle will, appropriately, be my Christ candle. I think it looks pretty and fun and outside the box, which I believe Jesus was (at least as far as the Pharisees were concerned), so totally appropriate!  

If you've hung in all the way through this post ... way to go, you! To reward you, leave a comment (make sure if you're a no-reply blogger that you leave some way for me to contact you) and I'll choose one lucky winner to be the recipient of one of the sweet ornaments the girls have made this year:

This is Ellie and Evey's 6th annual ornament fundraiser! The girls made yarn angel ornaments and sold them for $5. I bought four! All proceeds go to Food for the Hungry, to purchase things like seeds, animals, tools, medication, water purification, shoes, Bibles, and more!  The girls select the items and then [Jocelyn makes] Ellie call the order in herself.  This sweet little handcrafted angel represents the fulfillment of a basic need. ♥ So I'll make a pick and announce it on Monday!

Whew ... this was long. I need to do a better job of staying on top of this thing!!

:)