"To every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven."

Looking back at the post I made when 2010 began, I am amazed at how much life has changed. The first few months of the year were much as I planned...working in the church office, taking care of our home and working on quilts.

During the spring and summer, I didn't feel quite like myself. In August, I went for my yearly physical and the next day I was in the hospital. I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood. I am presently in chemotherapy and will undergo stem cell transplant later in the fall. There is no cure for myeloma but stem cell transplant has a good success rate for remission of years and even decades.

The past two months have been difficult as my sweetheart and I face months of medical treatment and the uncertainty of the disease. But we are also sustained by the love of our precious family and the friends who are so caring. I am learning so much through dealing with this challenge, especially the peace of leaning on God's love. Even though I don't understand the whys or what will happen, I do have complete faith in the One who controls everything and I know He has a purpose for my life. What a blessing that assurance is!! I am so blessed by the concern and prayers of so many.

One thing I can do during this time of treatment is to quilt. I've been working on baby quilts...they are not needed yet...but I want to be sure and have some made for the future. Here are some works in progress with others still on the cutting table.





















I'm also working on a "Halloween surprise" but I can't show it yet. Quilting is a such a comfort. And I love to watch dvds of the Waltons, Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables, Christy and other old well-loved series.

It's a joy to catch up with some of my favorite blogs and to follow the progress others are making on their quilting and crafting projects.

Hope your day is blessed with "peace and plenty!"

Happy and Blessed New Year!!!

Another year is beginning and time seems to be on "fast forward!" My prayer for my blogging friends on this New Years Day is for health, joy, peace and happy stitching in the year to come. There is something very exciting about a blank calendar and a new year before us...but also very challenging. I don't make resolutions but I have done a lot of thinking about 2010.

We survived the Christmas Eve "blizzard of 2009!" We expect a little snow in Oklahoma each winter but a blizzard with winds 60 mph and almost a foot of snow was quite a surprise. I had mentioned to my sweetheart that I hoped for a white Christmas (which we rarely have)so after the blizzard, he reminded me to be careful what I wish for. Here's the view out my kitchen window and the snow on our back deck!

We did enjoy the white Christmas and the white week after Christmas. Today was the first day of real thawing and another cold front is due in tonight with the forecast calling for more snow and temperatures below freezing for at least the next week!!!

Cold weather and travel advisories mean staying home and working in the sewing room. I've spent the last couple of days housecleaning. I enjoy starting the new year with a clean house. Tomorrow I clean and rearrange a little in the sewing room and then I'll be ready to work on some new projects and finish some UFOs. Two of my Christmas gifts from two very special ladies are calling me to quilting and reading...a Moda Bakeshop Sampler and the new Jennifer Chiaverini novel.

The New Year finds us with two "granddogs." Our younger daughter and her husband adopted a very sweet little Beagle/Dashschund girl...she joins our Boston Terrier granddog who owns our older daughter and her husband. Here's Violet (on the left) and Virginia (on the right.)

Happy New Year!!!!

Where Has the Time Gone?

I can't believe my last post was in the summer and now it's almost Christmas!! So much has happened along my red dirt road that the time has really flown.

Part of the summer was spent healing from pulled muscles in my chest which mimicked symptoms of heart pain. Since I'd just had my yearly check-up and knew all was well, it was a little frightening. There's still a little discomfort but every day is better.

As I have mentioned before, I retired from teaching high school in 2007. I enjoyed being at home, sewing a lot and generally doing "my thing." But God had other plans for me. In September I went back to work...this time as a church secretary at a local church in our denomination. I really didn't want to to back to work, certainly not full time, but this position was laid on my heart and I felt just as I did about teaching...that this is to be my ministry. The church is at a crossroads, without full-time staff and going through a transitional period to prepare for calling a pastor and other staff. The transitional pastor is a wonderful man and the church members have been so welcoming and good to me. I've made a number of new friends and had some opportunities to see the needs of the community as the church acts as the food pantry and utility help for our small town. It's a blessing to me and I'll be there as long as God wants me there.

Needless to say, my sewing has slowed down a bit and most of what I'm doing right now is for gifts so I can't really show pictures. I've missed blogging but one thing nice about my job is that during the quiet times, I'm free to go online and keep up with my blogging friends.

Now that I'm back, I'll try to be more faithful keeping up with my blog. So for now, happy stitching,

Summertime..and the Livin' is Easy!

Summer arrived with a vengeance here on our red dirt road. This week temperatures are around 100 and the sun is blazing!! We usually don't reach 100 until July and August so I'm hoping this isn't an usually hot and dry summer. Thank goodness for a water well that will keep the flowerbeds and garden watered.

Sewing time gives way to taking care of garden produce as my sweetheart has been MOST SUCCESSFUL with the garden this year. We moved to the country a little over two years ago so last year was the first year for the garden. Over the winter, sweetheart worked very hard on enriching the soil organically and this year we are enjoying the "fruits and veggies" of his labor!!! We've been eating onions for weeks and the tomatoes are beginning to ripen. We're getting mostly Romas and cherry tomatoes right now but the big tomato plants are loaded. We're eating sweet green peas and green beans. Peppers, squash and radishes have started coming in as well. I'm freezing what we can't eat quickly and looking forward to garden goodies all year long. My sweetheart is already planning how to enlarge the garden for next year.

Meanwhile, we're enjoying eating our own fresh veggies produced by my sweetheart's labor of love.






We did have a fun outing a couple of weekends ago when we went to Pawnee for the Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show at the original Pawnee Bill's Ranch.

There will be several sewing projects and new quilt blocks to show soon.

Keep cool and happy stitching!!!

Shop Hop

Last weekend was the annual Road to Oklahoma Quilt Shop Hop and Maggie and I had a great time visiting nine quilt shops! We started in Norman and the Oklahoma City metro area and went all the way to Waynoka and Alva. We logged over 700 miles and enjoyed the scenery and the shops. We also stopped at Eischen's in Okarche and had some of the best fried chicken in the world!!

Here is this year's quilt shown at Completely Quilted in Ponca City. We bought a block kit at each shop and the finishing kit at Completely Quilted since we loved the appliqued butterflies, flowers and trees. I think Maggie and I are going to have our own quilt-a-thon and our quilts made quickly because we both love the blocks and the pattern. Can you see the little cow peeking out the barn doors?

The ladies at Completely Quilted took our picture. This was our last shop to visit and we were totally exhausted! Looking at fabric and spending money is a big job!!!!

We did find some wonderful goodies at the various shops. I love 30's reproductions and old-fashioned scrap quilts so these had to come home with me.

And I was very taken with these charm packs, fabrics and patterns. I had been looking for one of the Dresden Plate templates featured on several blogs and found one of those as well.

The interesting fabric with the black background will appeal to a special person who will giggle when she sees this.

Now with all these new goodies, I need to get busy. I'm almost finished cutting ALL my scraps into squares for nine-patches, strings for spider webs and other shapes for future projects. It's so nice to get that huge tub of scrambled scraps into some organization. My reward for all that cutting will be to do some fun sewing.

Hope everyone is well and happily stitching away!!!