Thursday, December 30, 2021

I Like Thursday #277

 

are you looking out or am I looking in?
Welcome to this week's list of likes... Christmas 2021 is over, we've eaten well, watched a few movies, and talked about the future. I love lights so I am keeping the lights on in the house for a while. 

I wrote a post yesterday about my word/goals for next year and have received the best comments ever... I felt so much less alone after those people reached out to me with understanding in comments or private emails. From my heart, thank you for your grace and friendship. HERE

I like these peppermint patties better than any I've ever had! 

I like clinique lipsticks so I got these as a Christmas special item

aren't they pretty?

 The cookie making contest favorite for me at our house was the candy cane cookies (link: https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/candy_cane_cookies/)

Best show new to me is Madam Blanc on Prime

books I'm listening to and reading on ebook

reading :   audio:

 I'd like to read it but long wait time and short ability to read at night so I'll hear it! Book 1 was great

tv shows

The Great British Baking show holiday edition was so much fun. Emily in Paris is back, Virgin River is on our list. Happily This is Us is returning but sadly for it's last chapter. Oy.



I like mama's snuggle blanket best but the fox one was my very first puppy gift!

Milo's Moments

I'm going into the new year a sad, hurting pup. My pawrents called a vet to come to our house and by now he's done something to me. Both ears and the poop shoot are sick but I still love my lamb food, my new Christmas chicken, my treat toys and new Salmon Treats in it. One night Daddy was so slow to go up to the big bed, so I put myself in the big bed, for the first time ever.

 Earlier Mama went to bed during daylight from a migraine and I went up there to watch over her. She pushed the chair to the bed so I could jump down myself so I remembered it was there and used it to climb in the big bed alone that night. That was weird but okay. When I was 5 months old I got a rip in my shoulder tendon from a neighbor's dog who hurted me. My shoulder is kinda weak for jumping. 

Mama said to call it an old football injury whatever that is. 

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May 2022 bring us peace and good health, meaning and connection. Love, LeeAnna

craftscaviescontras  

http://goodrandomfun.blogspot.com

rosie and the boys nature pics 



 

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

end of year, start of year, and being real with you... not easy to feel, or read... but real goals

reach

  about this time of year I pick a word focus for the next year... 

not this year. I'm tired.  I'm worried.  I am lonely and not my best self. 

there... that's pretty honest, and I am honest.

So I go into 2022 appreciating what I still have, but with less hope and excitement than I've ever had. Only thing I can do is keep going best I can. It's not enough but it is... what it is....These feelings remind me of a time when...

... long ago, I lost hope at finding love and a family. I acknowledged abuses from childhood and it rocked my world. I prayed to  escape the loneliness, from feeling unwanted, from lack of hope. I went to work daily, I cared for my dog, and from the outside I looked normal. Inside it was like looking in a shattered mirror. 
 
When out walking one day, I crossed a busy street, tears running down my face, and heard an unmistakable voice in my head. I actually stopped for a moment causing some horns to honk. I looked around me for a person,  startled. The voice had said clearly,
 "stop asking me how to die and ask me how to live". 

I am a spiritual woman, I believe there is more under heaven and earth than can be seen, and I believe we as humans come to this world to experience, learn and grow. I instinctively knew that was God's words. I asked, how do I live?

 A therapist told me, during a particularly difficult time of learning to deal with past abuses, that the only thing to do was deal with the pain. There is no easy way out or around it,   just through it to strength. I soldiered on eventually learning how to format my childhood. Miraculously I did meet my soul mate a few years later. However...

 Life continued to send me obstacles this time by way of physical injuries

I continued to learn how to forgive and move forward, this time with support of a husband.

Too much for a blog? Don't want to hear this? All I can say is I betcha I'm not alone in dealing with pain of various kinds and there is support in sharing life with others. We can support each other, and everyone needs support at some time in their lives.  

This is me sharing... at the start of a new year

My goal is to balance the loneliness, hopelessness at instability in my beloved country, and the hate spewed online toward other humans, with creativity, learning and experiencing what I can from the safety of home. I have much and if I can keep my eyes on what is good, then a balance is achievable.

some people say look at the bright side, and there is a bright side. That doesn't negate the other side of uncertainty, lack of security, pain and fear. People are complex and denying the pain doesn't make it go away.Acceptance of both sides of the coin is a tool to power through the darkness.

goals this year for me:

get a new phone and learn to use it (replacing the extinct "barbie" sized one that has failed to keep up, study another language (Italian) sew and paint a lot, trying new techniques and sharing results with you here, talking to friends via zoom or phone to reduce isolation, reading good books and returning those that don't interest me with no guilt, reducing the recordings on my dvr, clearing off the kitchen table, being patient with my good husband and our poodle son. Possibly actually turning in an ancestry test finally. Putting the dust ruffle on our bed that I've meant to do for three years now. Learning to make new recipes, and opening the piano keyboard I've owned for years and maybe taking some lessons. I used to play piano.  Allow myself to find fun where I can online or by resting, or being outside. Pray for goodness to overcome evil, and that our democracy holds with respect for all citizens

Now...a friend of mine recently wrote on her blog, this statement. It stunned me with it's honesty and beauty. ( from SewPreeti quilts)

 I join you, Preeti in choosing to be honest and promote goodness.

"It has been a difficult year beginning with a deadly attack on the very heart of our democracy.  While many Americans resist vaccines, masks and distancing guidelines, the virus continues to evolve with strains that are deadlier and more contagious, resulting in an increasing number of breakthrough infections. The assault on our democracy, our voting rights and our bodies continues. It seems like a helpless situation and I don't have any answers. But we do have choices.

In every situation we have a choice - to speak the truth and do what is right. I promise to do both.

As I put 2021 in the rear view mirror and the road ahead seems unclear, I pray for goodness to overcome evil, wherever it may be.  I hope you will join me." Preeti's quote


 I saw the mask meme on http://scrappingcavewoman.blogspot.com/

My view: We are in a world wide health crisis that has changed all our lives. 

Denying it is real is unproductive.

people seem to think they have the absolute right to do anything they want as if they are still 2 years old. Noone can do anything they want without consequences. Just my opinion... go about your day if you disagree.

To those who listen and care, thank you, a goodness is never wasted. As my friend Nancy says, it's a Mitzvah.


Saturday, December 25, 2021

sewing Saturday, Table Scraps and Christmas Day

 

Welcome to this week's sewing round up! I've actually been sewing a lot amid all the cooking laundry and other daily work. Above is my Table Scraps offering for December.

I'm listening to this audio book while sewing this week

 

 If you remember I've been working on a big Christmas quilt of octagons, whose blocks are done and some even sewn together

I've written other posts showcasing the prints, and forgive the pic as the sky darkened causing me to have to use a flash in the studio. I will need to quilt in sections and decided to do the 9 center blocks in one, then around the center I took the middle 3 blocks as one, leaving all corners to be quilted alone. All of it will join up invisibly on the front if all goes well. Then I'll add some quilted borders. This fabric will be the center backing... with a little strip sewn around it's going to be large enough.

I like to leave at least one side of prequilted fabric backing large enough to fold over the raw edge and hand stitch to the other side. Clear as mud? 

I quilt everything on my little Bernina 1630 and have a really challenging back injury. I make it work!

Back to the piece formed this week from scrap strips left from the octagon piecing...

I did improv log cabins and combined them with some gifted scrap blocks down the center. I love to look in a scrap bag and figure out what I can make. See the red and white borders? a strip of cool peppermint canes I cut to put in the octagon quilt but didn't use. Perfect for this. I quilted the thick solid green strips with mylar thread and a programmed snowflake, spiral and pine tree stitches

quilted with sulky halogram mylar sparkly thread

I also did more improv flying geese, so I have enough to do something cool with now.

Can you tell I love fabric? Scraps are fabric too. 

I talked to Joy yesterday and am linking up to her Table Scraps party. Wishing you all happy holidays however you celebrate them. Keep in touch, you're my family you know.

Linking to
 
patchwork Sunday                    
oh Scrap Sundays 







Thursday, December 23, 2021

I Like Thursday # 276

 

welcome to this week's list of likes... I love to color in my desk top calendar by Joanna Basford

Here's another one I did this week

I love to paint, draw, color, along with beading, sewing, knitting, reading... a long list. I love my supplies by the computer, including water soluble pencils and markers. If I want a shadow or background I can dampen the marker line with a water pen and scrub in a pale color 

Here's how they start

and finish. I learn by doing.

I've now finished my Christmas quilt center, here it is in progress and have decided how to quilt it in sections. I quilt even king sized quilts on my small domestic machine, so I need to be smart about how to sew the sections together, more on Saturday describing my plans!

a heat wave continues in the front range of the Rockies in Colorado, at over 6000 ft above sea level

I spent some time this week googling hairstyles for women with double chins, and laughed when this came up

nary a double chin to be found!

I enjoyed the finale of the Bachelorette this week and love her choice of husband. I don't know how anyone can go through that weird process but am glad these two found each other. There is precious little on tv now but we're enjoying Madam Blanc on Prime, and a new season of Virgin River. 

coming up Saturday night on Masterpiece (PBS) is the Downton movie, and the Midwives Christmas special... I'll be there for it!

I just finished the audio book,

and cried at the end... beautiful. It is a story that goes back and forth between current time and the civil war in America when Longfellow was writing. One of his quotes gives me solace

I've been watching youtubes on the historical birth and life of Jesus, there are several and I've learned much from the historians, scientists and archeologists. Link to one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXqFvfCaFwY&t=3330s

Fine dining

I'll start with the perogi's we made from this video at Food Wishes. I LOVE his style and voice. Next I'll try his buttermilk pie recipe since we just made another whole wheat buttermilk bread loaf and have some milk left over

here are ours... the recipe makes a lot so we froze them after boiling, and have appetizers ready in minutes now. 

two and a half

There are a lot of steps to this, not difficult but they are a bit time consuming. We felt very accomplished when they were done and so delicious! 

I made two new to me cookie recipes (half) and must stop now. Lime white chocolate cookies that got better as they aged

recipe at https://www.a-kitchen-addiction.com/white-chocolate-lime-cookies/

and these candy cane cookies (not using actual candy canes made of corn syrup)

they taste WONDERFUL and take first place in all I've tried this year. I am sad the food coloring didn't look better, next batch will use more than recipe calls for. The peppermint extract tastes subtle and delish. The dough was quite stiff however and hard to roll around itself, so they are not as cute as they could be.  (who is? aside from Milo) I just looked for the recipe link and saw theirs didn't look much different from ,mine... https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/christmas-candy-cane-cookies/

Milo's moments


 

I'm still eating my Christmas cookies, I don't care if they are stale. PLUS Mama gave me an early present that she was going to wrap but I sniffed it and wanted it right now! she puts rabbit treats in it and I have to figure out how to remove them!

https://www.chewy.com/kong-quest-wishbone-dog-toy-color/dp/51559
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craftscaviescontras  
https://www.mmmquilts.com/2021/12/gratitude-59.html 
 
                                                                  LINKING WITH 

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rosie and the boys nature pics