I am aware that I never completed my 2017 year in review post series....but at this point I am not going to worry about that! :D
But I will try to complete 2018's year in review series...Today I am just going to start with January.

Hope you enjoy!

 Greetings Dear Readers!

I am sorry I have taken such a long and unintentional "sabbatical" from posting...It has been in large part due to computer difficulties, which makes operating this large image heavy site very difficult if not impossible!

But I am giving it a try today, and we'll see how far I get!

I found the following poem in an old post draft:

"Striving and never getting done,
Is that how I am doomed to always run?
That doesn't mean that in between the mess,
We don't also have some fun...
But one always returns to the stress of mess,
And things undone."

Perhaps I was feeling a little overwhelmed at the time I wrote that? Of course there is truth in it, as there are those moments or even seasons of life...

Actually though, I am here to say HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! :)

I do hope that everyone has had a "growthful" 2018, even if all of those things which have edified and taught, have not necessarily been pleasant... I hope that each one of us can say that we have departed 2018 more mature than we entered it!

There are so many things to be grateful for that happened in 2018...but that which sticks out the most recent and largely in my mind, is that I am grateful for the particular hardships that I have experienced this year, as I have really seen that the Lord has used these to strengthen my faith and trust in Him--two things I have really learned this year, GOD IS SOVEREIGN! And in some small measure, I have gained a better understanding of the love of Christ for us, and how we should love as He has loved. It is amazing--not because of one's self, but because of God--to be able to look at your life and see the work of the Lord in it...To be able to say, "Wow! That is from the hand of God, because if that was just "me-power", I wouldn't be able to, or even want to think/do/act that way!" God is good. We may have "big problems", or think we have big problems, but God has got this... My God is bigger than any problem or situation. My God is Great, and He does great things! He answers prayer. He may not answer a "big" prayer that you have been praying for two years, only by answering it in another way at the end of that time, following only two days! It happens folks...God always answers prayer--big ones and little ones--at the time when He will be most glorified, and we most up-built.

Just kind of as a re-cap of the year, here is a trimmed down version of my family's end of year newsletter (and if you're one of the folks who got this in your Christmas card, you can skip this part! ;) Unless you just want to read it again...):

The year 2018 has found our life as full as ever of the many “novelties” and changes that seem to continually punctuate our “Murphey’s Law” filled life, which we of necessity call our “normality”!
 
Winter/Spring 2018 found Dad, Mom and G-ma in the Other State, kept busy with Ranch work, renovations, and the like.
 
Meanwhile, Racheal and Katherine remained holding down the fort here—they and their 5 cats! Unfortunately, Racheal suffered an infection on her feet all of last winter, and so couldn’t get out much.
 
Spring found us reunited again, and lunching into out gardening/farmers market season. Farmers Markets, as usual, began in June and ran through the end of September. This year marked Racheal’s first as our local Market Master, for which position she received a certificate of appreciation from the Main Street Association, for a job well done! The second market we vend at received new management this year, and changed day, time and location, landing both of our markets on Saturday mornings. So after Friday’s filled with preparations (think oven-loads of baked goods), we would “divide and conquer”! And the Lord really blessed our efforts this year, providing us with many profitable weekends, despite it being a strange garden year…
 
Katherine continues to work doing housekeeping locally, though the end of August saw her flying out of sate, where she spent three weeks with her sister and Co. As they were needing some assistance, between getting things settled back in place after their house tenting, having little Malcolm to care for, and with Baby #2 on the way… Katherine flew back the end of September, and was dropped right into sewing chaos, as that month had seen Mom and Racheal frantically sewing aprons and doll clothes, in preparation for a vending event the last weekend of September. That event was the Remembering WWII reenactment, in Linden TN, which this year we were all able to attend, even Grandma. We participated varyingly, as vendors, reenactors, and volunteers.
 
Racheal and Katherine drove from Tennessee to visit Savannah and Co. for two weeks, the second week of which they were joined by a dear friend.
 
The “highlights” of October and November were Racheal’s 27th and Grandma’s 95th birthdays, and the weekly choir practices attended by the girls, in preparation for an annual, two-day presentation of Handel’s Messiah, which was the first weekend of December.
 
We also vended at two craft fairs this fall, at which we did tolerably well…
 
Early December saw the usual contingents departure for the winter. Their earlier than usual departure date was due to trying to beat the frost line—for more convenient and comfortable traveling in the RV—and G-ma’s anticipation of spending Christmas with her great-grandson...
 
Health wise, we all continue to battle chronic illness in varying degrees, but are praising God for continued improvement from where we have been in the past. Dad and Katherine have appointments with a new doctor this coming May…
 
And that briefly, brings y’all about up to date!
 
2018 has been a very hard year, full of labors, travels and difficult emotional journeys…
But we praise God for every valley as well as every mountain peak!
 
We look forward to whatever the Lord brings in 2019…
 
Wishing you all a very Happy, Joyful New Year!!


And that's all for now folks!!

I hope that 2019 will be your best year yet!!

So last year, a friend of ours (Mrs. E.), asked us to make a bedroom set for her out of material she had bought 10 years ago, for that purpose. We agreed, but due to other sewing projects and procrastination, we didn't get around to making it until this spring. She was in no rush to have it, she said she had waited 10 years, what was a little more time? So she graciously didn't hound us though we deserved it!

Racheal made the bed skirt, and I took on the task of making the coverlet and the throw pillow covers. As it turned out, there was not enough of the material to self-back the coverlet, so I had to find just the right piece of just the right color with which to back it...

My labors on this project spanned from late February to March 15th (including a couple of days mostly spent in fabric shopping for the coverlet backing).

There were several firsts for me throughout this project, and I definitely learned a few things.

And now I'll share some photos:

And there you have that sewing project...

Some of the firsts for me were:

-First of all making a coverlet.
-Working with that many yards of material (I can't say I am really relishing the idea of working with that much yardage again in a hurry...)
-I know I have matched patterns before, but this was by far the most extensive matching I've done (and I am pleased with how well it turned out!)
-Doing any sort of "quilting".
-Putting on this kind of bias/blanket binding.
-Making pillow covers.
-Making pipping.

I hope you have enjoyed my little tale...

Have a Happy Day!

Good day all!
I wanted to share what I did yesterday...
Well, aside from doing our grocery run, which would be quite boring for me to detail...after I came home, I planted (with a little photographic help from my sister) two cherry trees gifted us by some friends from church. Remember when Racheal and I stopped to help picked cherries last June? Well, Mr. Russell promised to give us a couple of his volunteer trees, and2017-year-in-review-the-first-6-months.html everything finally worked out for us to receive them.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day, with perfect temperatures and warm sunshine, just my favorite kind of Spring day!

There are no pictures of the second tree, as the photographer was hungry and went it! :) Besides, if you've seen one tree planted how much different can another be! The second tree is probably about 1/2 the size of the one pictured, or a little smaller.

So without further adieu, here are some pictures:

So, there you have it! :)

I hope you have a lovely day!

P.S. I have several posts I have been wanting to get up here, but I have been having technical computer/web-site issues which are being prohibitive...Just so you know. :)

So, I'm a little late with this post, but for any of you who know me, you know that:

...so, I'm sure you'll bear with me! :)

I do apologize, these photo's loaded all scrambled...
Most of these are from "Little Christmas", Epiphany, January 6th.

And I didn't really give Daddy a bottle of pills...with so many pills in this house, I just thought I'd get a little fun with the packaging...it was actually cuff links!

The last photo is a representation of what you do when your washing machine decided to start working only half of the time...Including in the middle of a load. I quickly learned that blisters on one's hands would be very easy to come by if  one had to do all of their laundry this way! (I didn't get any blisters, but could tell I would have had I had to rinse large quantities of laundry this way.)

Stay tuned for the next 6 months!

Hope to see you here again soon!

Hello all!
Just thought I might share a few of my "recent" sewing projects with you!
October:

 I lengthened this dress for Racheal--using a window valance...

I think it looks nice, what do you think?

November:
I attempted to make a blouse, using my old tired bed sheet for the trial...well, it didn't work out right at all, and never got past the trial stage. Oh well, you gotta roll with the punches...

Tired bed sheet, see what I mean?

Then in December I made three bow-ties...

Then the bow-tie all these trials were leading up to!
Red velvet, lined in red silk.
A Christmas gift for a friend...

I also made two place-mats with matching napkins for my sister Savannah for Christmas...That was a kind of fun, spur of the moment project!
(The napkins are on the left, gray print, with a lighthouse/sailboat border. The mats are backed in the same gray print.)

A few weeks ago I took up this dress...it had room for an extra pair of hips that I don't own along the sides. So I had to rip out the hem, take it up along the hips, and then re-stitch the lining to the hem of the dress. That was a bit interesting because of the way it was constructed...I had never finished a garment like that before, and it was a little challenging, but I think I got the hang of it after a while.
Mom found this dress at our favorite department store, the G&W (okay folks, the laugh's on me...the Goodwill Store! :) ). When we looked up the brand (we do that kind of weird thing sometimes) we learned that new, this dress probably ran somewhere in the 2-300 dollar range! I'm sure that's a drop in the bucket to a lot of folks, but that's a pretty good chunk of money to me!
I like it when rich people donate their perfectly useful clothes to the Goodwill!! :)

It's not exactly "sewing" but I also recently crocheted a pair of sandal's for my little nephew, though unfortunately I don't have a picture of them...they just look like a little pair of black crocheted flip-flops, with a heel strap, I'm sure you can imagine that!

Anyway, that's all for now folks!
I hope you've enjoyed!