Category: Musings on Life and Beauty

Quiet Morning

Musings on Life and Beauty, Quilting and Sewing

Around 4:30 a.m. I heard the click of my front door closing as my parents left for their journey home.  Two hours later I was quietly getting my oldest two students and husband out the door for the day while the other children slept.  They have no school today.  The house was so still… the only noise being the breeze making it’s way through various open windows throughout the house.  It’s a cloudy, cool morning.


My life is loud most of the time, so I chose to sit quietly in the stillness of the morning for a bit.  From the living room couch I watched the curtains flutter in the wind as I tried something new:


I’m finally caving in to the hand quilting trend.  It was kind of nice to snuggle under the quilt I was working on while being productive!


It lasted long enough for one stitching line in one small area before I heard the sound of footsteps upstairs.  Then came quiet voices and a “Mommy!” from the three year old.  A few seconds later there was an eruption of sound and my real day is officially begun.  I’m off to do laundry, pay bills, clean the house, prepare food, organize play dates, and so forth.

But there is also this single running stitch to smile about.


A beautiful start to a gray but happy day.

HH

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Dresses and Piggy Tails…

Musings on Life and Beauty



What can be better than two little girls in pretty dresses with their hair in pigtails?  I’m simply loving having these two to myself during the day.  They are such good friends and so delightful to be around.  It’s a precious time.


I’ve got about 40 different posts all jumping around in my head, thoughts I’m trying to sort out, lessons I’m trying to learn, things I’m working on, and no time to just type!  I had this same feeling at the beginning of the summer.  Things were so crazy and there was so much in my brain that I wanted to remember.  The second week of summer vacation I thought to myself, “We’re so blessed.  It feels like we’ve already gathered a summer’s worth of memories in the first 10 days of June.”  I was sure I’d remember it all, sure I’d record it.  And then my husband got hurt and the entire summer was re-written.  The sad part?  I can’t remember that summer’s worth of memories.  Taking care of my husband after his surgery and figuring out how to be a one man show, deal with major problems with the insurance company, and on and on just overloaded my brain, I guess, and now all I can remember is that I felt that way, but no details.  In my mind it’s really just the summer of the knee surgery.  So sad.

So even though blogging (our simply journaling) is rarely urgent, or at the top of our priority list, I’ve also learned the hard way that you’ve got to fit it in somehow, or you’ll lose the finest parts of life.

As I’ve said before, life feels breathless around here right now, and is likely to be that way for years.  Somehow I’ve got to squeeze things in, not only here at Hopeful Homemaker, but in our journals and photo books and so forth.  It’s hard to do, for even when I’m fully present the moment vanishes so quickly, but I can work at it.

Which is why I took those pictures of my little girls.  Dresses and pigtails, arms around each other, ready to greet the day with a smile, my little friends that go everywhere with me.

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Vintage Holiday Blocks 7-10

Musings on Life and Beauty, Quilting and Sewing

I’m rushing out the door to pick up the children from school, which means these are the final moments of the clock ticking as we await the explosion.  Whatever I get done before I pick them up is generally undone before they go to bed, so these last few minutes often have me frantic.

For some reason getting them all out the door felt harder than usual this morning, and the entire day has carried the same feeling with it.  I’ve been working on all the things I should be, only they’re not coming together quite how I pictured and, as usual, are taking more time.  Oh well, such is life.

I did squeeze in a few minutes on Labor Day to get caught up on the Vintage Holiday blocks.  (Yeah, I joined the quilt along, got caught up, and immediately fell behind.)  Thankfully this quilt is coming together so easily that I know I’ll finish without trouble.

So here they are, blocks seven and eight:


And blocks nine and ten:


I went a little heavy on the reds, I think.  I should have laid out all the blocks before I got going, but it will work out.  I’ll get more green in there on the last two, and then I’ll be piecing this together!  Hooray!

And I’m off to three schools….

Life is good!

HH

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