Random Musings

I guess I'm officially in. I recieved the first e-mail today, and the next one should arrive on January 1st. I'm a little giddy with excitement, a little horrified at the mere thought, and a tad bit relieved after reading posts from last year's quilters. It's from Australia, and it's called the 365 challenge. For the entire year of 2018, there will be a pattern sent for either a 3" or 6" block. At the end of the year, the blocks are placed together to form a queen size quilt. Insane. And yet, I've put my name on the list. http://www.365challenge.com.au As long as I can keep up with downloading the patterns every day, then it's okay if I miss a day or two of quilting. Previous quilters cut out the fabric pieces each day and placed them with the pattern in a ziplock bag with the day's number on it so they could easily access it and keep up with what had been completed or not. And that seems somewhat manageable. So even if I don't ha...

Tuesday night, December 19th - Jr Church Caroling  Not the most promoted of our year's activities, but we pulled it off nonetheless. We narrowed our road map this year and attempted to sing to all the widows plus two other families in the church. One wasn't home; one was a little bittersweet as her husband was barely hanging on this time last year (and the kids clearly remembered she had made them cookies last year!), but the funniest was when we visited the home of a younger widow who has recently started attending our church. The sidewalk to her front door was a little narrow, and when the leader got beside her car and started walking, he jumped back in shock. There was a HUGE cat sitting on the trunk, and it was at the same level as his face! Once the initial shock was gone everyone was laughing. Wednesday, Dec 20th - Packing Day Bobby got up early to take a friend to the hospital to have a pacemaker put in, and I headed out in the rain towards Washington, NC. There were...

We drove to meet up with one of Bobby's nieces today. It was amazing to see how much the littlest ones have grown. Natalie is actually talking and wasn't scared of Bobby today (actually set across from us at the table and laughed at his faces and told him he was silly). I think her favorite food is ketchup. She not only dipped her chicken pieces and french fries in it, she mostly dipped her finger in it and licked the ketchup off. At one point she even lifted the little cup holding the ketchup and attempted to drink it. I couldn't help but think about two people in my church who have t-shirts about ketchup, one which reads "I eat ketchup with my ketchup." We had a small rocking horse for the youngest, who is not quite two. It has plastic runners on the bottom, and stuffed horse on the top. She was terrified of it. Natalie showed her how to ride it, but she was still having no part of it. We couldn't help but laugh. The older siblings seemed excited by their ...

Tuesday night we met with some friends and had a good time. They stayed later than I anticipated, but they helped clean up the kitchen and it felt a lot like being with family. Tonight we made our yearly trip to Meadow Restaurant and Meadow Lights. A lot of memories; a lot of wishes. I'll leave it at that. Tomorrow we'll visit with one of Bobby's nieces and her family. We don't get to see them often, but we've never had time with them that wasn't a joy. Saturday morning is housework and some baking followed by a wedding Sunday evening. Monday is hopefully our Star Wars day, followed by a night of more family time with Bobby's nephew. Tuesday is packing and laundry day, followed by a night of caroling with kids from church. Wednesday is loading/moving day for my sister. Thursday we head to Gallatin and help unload the moving truck. Friday is helping them unpack a little then heading to AL...and then it's crazy work/rest/play time. We'll cram...

Instead of rushing to the holiday season and then relaxing, as I thought we would, we've only seemed to pick up steam. But we are getting things done and enjoying a lot of activities as well. Our Pastor turned 50 the first Sunday in December, and we've been planning for many weeks a surprise birthday party on Dec 3, his actual birthday. Except the night before, all of our plans got tossed out the window the week before when he e-mailed the deacons and informed them we were having a business meeting that night and as a prelude to it he was going to dedicate the entire service into sharing his heart about some decisions and changes. They encouraged him to wait a week and let people pray about it. He was concerned enough time had passed and there was no need to wait, and began to wonder if the deacons weren't really behind the decisions that had been made. After a lot of e-mails, they finally made the call to postpone the party a week and proceed with the business meeting as...