Christmas Day is coming to an End

Wonderful times with loved ones, yet the fatigue is creeping into my body I am so tired and for us it is not over my sister is coming over to visit she is up from California. I think she came to dry out I do hope I can stay awake tomorrow. I for one will be glad to get my house back in order it will not be until after my sister leaves. It really should be the other way, clean house then see my sister but alas there is no time.... Oh well she has known me for seventy years maybe she will understand.
This has been a busy year, we visited four of our childrens homes and had two parties here and now a house guest no wonder I am tired, but what fun we had I loved every miniute of it until today it is finally getting to me. Christmas is my favorate time of year I love the lights, music, packages and surprises and I love being with my gang and watching the children and their excitment over openning their pachages. and all the surprises of the season Our last batch of young ones are growing so fast and getting so big I have a granddaughter who is only ten and she is almost as tall as I am, I bet by August she will pass me up, I am fast becoming the family runt. I might add a round runt with all the good foods this little girl is swelling up, golly I wonder why?
I am looking forwards to some cozy nights by the fire and at least two naps a day and I am sure Jerry and I will recover. So from us Merry Christmas everyone remember love and hugs are also gifts and they are free.

Remembering Christmas1979'

Christmas of 1979 I had filed for divorce I was living alone in this big house, I could not afford to heat it, so I froze. My children had scattered all my dreams of family were destroyed. My life motto had been "Grow old along with me for the best is yet to be" I had made a cross stitch of that verse in 1959 it still hangs by my phone. My life was in shambles, and if some one had told me how large and wonderful my family would become I would not have believed them.

Sunday was "Our" family gathering and there were twenty-one family members here and the house was full of chatter and laughter; the food was more than any of us could eat, we were missing four of our loved ones. Later two dear friends joined us, and the music started what a lovely day, it was a wonderful day... God has truly bless this house, it was built in 1971 our Church family all came and blessed it, next year it will be forty years old and I hope to have a reeducation party.

I guess the point of all this is, no matter what you are going thru it is only temporary, trust in God's promises and know that His hand is guiding your life even during the hard times. The trials that come our way are opportunities to learn and grow, I am a better woman having gone thru the hard times, I am stronger and I know His hand is on my shoulder no matter what comes my way. So hold tight to your love ones this Christmas season, make it a Holy celebration of joy and love.

We can not change the past, we have today to make the future a time of warm memories, God Bless everybody. I am a happy woman it is hard to believe how my life has changed since that lonely Christmas of 1979 I thought it was the end, it was just the beginning of a better life, a bump in my road, that was only temporary God has truly blessed this house. I found an honest man, my Jerry he restored my faith in marriage and family and our family came together bigger and better than I could ever imagine. If you end up alone, look around there are other lonely people out there, seek them out and make their Christmas a happy one, "because you are with them". Christmas is not about gifts it about sharing and celebrating Christ birthday have a happy one. Mine has just begun each young family has invited us to their house for a holidasy dinner, I had better uncover that treadmill it maybe a chubby Christmas Be Happy

BROKEN CIRCLE

The family circle is broken
Life changes never be the same again
We scamper to close the breach
All the plans of the past are lost
Starting over is painful it must begin
Find a new road re-evaluate
It takes time to heal old wounds
Seek a new understanding to fill the hole
Build a new circle of love
Join those who remain with the new
All must pull together to close the gap
Opening to change is the key
Love is the glue – Patients the mortar
Understanding pulls it together
Slowly a new circle forms
This one will be stronger
Love, patients, forgiveness
Consideration and courtesy must rule
The old and new come together
The broken circle melts away
As a new family circle forms
The breach closes with love

The Red Hat Ladies

I am a Red Hatter, I belong to a group of delightful ladies all full of fun and giggles and today was our Christmas luncheon. Yvonne hosted the party at her home and it was decked out from the front door to the back every nook had eye candy of some sort..Yvonne has traveled extensively and she has the most wonderful collection of beautiful treasures. To top it off the ladies were all deck out in reds and purple making the afternoon a visual delight.
Getting to know these dear ladies is an adventure each one has a story to tell; stories that cover the last ninety years give or take twenty. The longer we meet, the more each one is willing to share their life experience, there are twenty women and their experiences for such a small group are incredible. The rules of our meetings require we laugh and have fun, believe me getting this group together is a party. I love to hear them laugh it is infectious, we have a couple with health issues yet they are right in the middle of the fun. Red Hatters are about fun and fellowship and our group has to be the best, love you ladies....Merry Christmas Ladies

Another WWII vet and dear friend dies

My cousins husband died, what a beautiful man Gordon was he came back from the war and fell in love with Pat and they lived the good life, loving and working together they raised a wonderful family of boys. His passing started me thinking about the circle of life:
Our lives fly by so fast it is hard to savor the days we spent with loved ones. I realized we are not just ordinary women. We come from a family of women who were exceptional and they taught us how to love and be proud they gave us a dignity that not everyone had the privilege to receive. We had wonderful parents but it was our mothers and their influence that shaped our lives.
It is amazing how fast life changes, we start out as little girls at our mothers apron strings content to play with our dolls and making mud pies, as we grew our mothers took charge of our education, they taught us the meaning of being a young lady and they taught us how to be a woman... They taught decorum and manners, how to stand up straight, and to understand the ways of the world... Our mother's prepared us for womanhood in their gentle way with out really telling us anything, they taught how to keep a clean house and tend the garden, to do your nails and hair to take pride in our appearance. Cooking was an important lesson they prepared us to be wives and mothers, to live upright lives and the importance of honesty and integrity and most of all they gave us love and taught us how to love and the importance of loyalty. They stood by as our lives began and we always felt safe and loved because of them. My mother has been gone almost forty years and yet, I feel my mother’s presence; her spirit is always with me.
We have changed from being those little girls growing up with our mothers, and how fortunate we were to come from such lovely ladies they were good gentle people. They got us thru those awkward teenage years and then the courting began and the young hopefuls came a calling.
For Pat it was Gordon; a handsome young man, just back from a long and terrible war and he was ready to settle down and saw her and fell in love, he was a lovyal and loving husband for over sixty years.
As young brides, our lives really changed; we were in love and thought we knew it all that is when the real lessons in life began. We were in charge of our own destiny so with our young men we walked into the future. Those first years of marriage were fun and trying; then the babies came. Our mothers circled around and stood ready to help with lessons and stories of their time with newborn babes.
Once the babies came, life went in to warp speed those busy years went by so fast, there were difficulties, with each one a new lesson learned. We became stronger woman who could manage anything that came our way. We became the teachers. Our children grew so fast, they leaned on us to answer their questions, and they needed us to teach them, they needed our guidance. It is funny how short that time really was. Our children leaped into life, it was not long, they became young adults, and one by one, they left home…
About that time our parents passed. No longer children we became the older generation. The tools to raise our children came from our strong upbringing and our guidance made our children strong and able to stand on their own two feet. We taught them to be independent and self-sufficient we became our mothers.
Time passed so fast, they call it the empty nest syndrome it is just another bump in our road and we changed again this time we rekindle our love and started a new life as empty Nester's…
A new happiness would be ours, being a grandparent. Grandchildren are the frosting on our cake of life. oh how wonderful to watch them grow, when our children were young we were so busy we were not able to giggle and play with them like you can with grandchildren, oh my I do love my grand children.
Life settles into a softer slower speed, and we grow into retirement, these years are warm and comfortable with family and friends life is sweet.
Our minds still sharp but our bodies begin to warble and change comes to each of us.
Because of the things, our mothers taught us and what we passed on to our children our walk into old age will not be lonely. Our families will circle around us and we will lean on them. They will stand with us through the remainder of our lives because we taught them how to love and honor family...With Gordon's passing the circle changes yet remains steady this is about the full circle of life we all hold on but the choices are ours the lessons we take to heart shape our lives. Gordon and Pat's lives represent their parents teaching they set a fine example and so did Pat and Gordon they established a wonderful family and Pat will be protected and loved as the circle of life goes on..

ANOTHER GOOD DAY AHEAD

Tomorrow will be the pits, but today is a lazy day of straightening up this house and setting some goals as to what to do next clean house or create? I have a doll almost completed and two wall hangings started, in my minds eye well I have way too much to do so maybe a meditation nap should be first on the agenda. I have our family Christmas card flooting around in my head but nothing to paper as yet, I did buy the stamps so you could say the job is half done.
Something has happened to my get up and go since my birthday, I just wander around the house stirring it up so to speak and leaving a trail of incompletes. Jerry likes order, it seems to be slipping on my end I have good intentions but what can I say my list of do's is getting longer and the done's seems to be incomplete.
Our family does Christmas a little different, we gather as "The Family" at our house before Christmas then the satilite families do their own thing on Christmas Eve and day, Jerry always does a Christmas Morning brunch and who ever wants to come, comes. We sort of float on Christmas Eve and Day and go where invited or where the best meal is Ho Ho. To me that makes it easier on the young families, I feel they need to make their own traditions and we will not always be there.

Circle of Friends

Today I sat in a room full of women; they were my Quilt Guild friends. I was excited because it was my birthday so I went around the room making a point to speak to each woman, to tell of my birthday and do a bit of chit chatting, I marveled at the diversity of these women as I looked in to their faces and wondered what their story was. I knew many of the women but not all.
It was a festive meeting with a guest speaker who spoke on Woman’s suffrage and the fight to get the right to vote, she told of the long painful struggle that took seventy-eight years and the grit and determination of the suffragists was phenomenal.
As I looked around the room, I realized just how much I admired the women in my guild I can see their determination and tenacity in their faces. Their creative spirit is alive and well they formed a sisterhood that has reached out to around the world, the sisterhood that started hundreds of years ago continue to this day.
I am a quilter and antique quilt collector. Each time I find an unknown maker’s quilt I wonder what was the makers story, was she living in poverty; did she make the quilt to raise money to subsidize her family’s income or did she make it for someone special; did a harsh husband dominated her, did she have to work from sun up to sun down. Did she have children, how many did she bury, how old was she when she died? I question how someone could part with a family heir loam without honoring the maker.
The women in my guild have each made wonderful quilts they are works of art, but their quilts do not tell their stories. You cannot see the cancer survivors, or the widow three times around or the mother of an injured vet or the one who lost her son in an auto accident, the ex-marine cook. No, you do not know which of the women’s husband has cancer or the one with heart disease or the woman who was homeless and lived in her car for a year; you cannot tell who lost her daughter to breast cancer, and the who struggles with an alcoholic husband. You cannot tell which one has acute osteoporosis or the one raising her two grandchildren because of an addicted daughter. The face of the caregiver of an Alzheimer’s parent smiles and her hands dance as she talks; they all come to the quilter’s circle leaving their burdens behind and they come to share their gifts and knowledge and they help each other create quilts of beauty. They make quilts that say I love you, quilts that hug your soul. Today was a wonderful day because I was in the company of great women, ordinary, wonderful women who happen to quilt I belong to a sisterhood of quilters...with a few good men.