OH MY Four Years

I can't believe I haven't posted in over four years.  I guess I am on Facebook way to much.  I need to step away from Facebook.  While I can find out what is going on, there is an awful lot of negative comments and posts out there.  Funny how people will hide behind the anonymity of Facebook.  Oh well that is their problem.  Life is good and Darby and I are busy. I have started singing again at church, it is slow going but I am improving.  God is working in our lives teaching us lessons as we go.  Funny how He has to practically push us over before we get the message as to what we are to do.  The more I pray and try to get closer to God the better my life is.  I am now leading a Bible Study at St Augustine's in Williamsport, MD and loving it, we are a small but wonderful group that hopes to grow.  i also have a wonderful group of ladies I stitch with every Monday, they have gotten me into quilting which I never thought I would do.  I have made two quilts, my first was for a friend and was made out of his Marine Corp Uniforms, the second one was a flowers of the Bible one.  I am sewing up a storm and have become a fabric collector, some people have wine collections mine is a fabric collection, it is not hording.
God Blesses us in so many ways be open to His call and heed His word.

TaTa For Now

Reports of My Death Have Been Greatly Exagerated.......Mark Twain

I can't believe I have not posted in over a year, that is life I guess.  We love living in Hagerstown and doing all the things that are available to us.  Since Darby and I both like trains we have visited the train museum here and also taken a trip on the Western Maryland Railroad.   Darby has been able to put his trains up and leave them up for fun all year round.  He is excited about expanding his layout with mountains and a bigger board.  We are surrounding by train tracks so we hear them day and night, a very comforting sound to me.

Our children are doing great, Catherine has been at Bethesda Naval in the NICU for 6 years now and loves her job.  Darby and Dawn love San Antonio, TX and have purchased a home there, they and Paisley (the cat) are doing great.

My parents have finally agreed to move to Homewood at Crumland Farms a beautiful retirement community with  lots of activities.  We are trying to go through the house and get rid of things and get things ready for sale.  There is 64 years of things to go through.  If you want to know what it was like in the Depression, talk to someone who was born and lived through it.  They don't get rid of anything, it may be useful someday.  I do not say this as criticism, but just a statement on a time in our countries history.  What will our children find that we have kept for no apparent reason?

I am still knitting; at the moment I have a plain toe up sock on the needles, the Sunshine Shawl and the Pebble Beach Shawl, which is part of a KAL that ends July 5.  I believe I will get it done in time.
I am also sewing a good bit, shorts for Catherine are the latest thing and I am going to start on a dress today.
I want to start weaving and plan to ask for a loom for my birthday in July.  I have sold my spinning wheel to a good home, since it had been almost 2 year since I had spun anything.  I like spindle spinning better, and I have a Kick Spindle that  have not tried yet.

I also believe I am going to try jewelry making since the things I have made have gotten rave reviews.

My Fibromyalgia/Chronic Fatigue are really getting me down and I am going to see a Rheumatologist soon.  I need a nap almost every day.  Of course not sleeping well at night does not help.  And before you say anything, whether I nap or not it doesn't matter.

I have joined the Bible Study group at St James in Boonsboro, MD, we are known as the Bible Babes.  This a wonderful, caring, supportive group of ladies, I am very lucky to have them in my life.

I believe that is all the catching up I can think of, hope you enjoy the pictures.

Time Goes on

What a winter this has been, I hope it is over for good since we are well into Spring and it is almost Easter.  We are settling in to our house nicely.  Although the walls are still white we have pretty much put up all the pictures and decorated like we want.  We still do not have a yard, but it has been to wet to do anything.  I have ventured out into the yard once or twice and sunk to my ankles in mud.
We will be getting a patio poured and I can't wait for that.  Our house is North/South facing with the North in the back, so it will be partially shaded during most of the day.

I have many plans for shrubs and flowers.  Of course I want Hydrangeas and a Butterfly bush.  We are also getting a shed which will be centered along the back of the lot.  I think we are going to plant Crepe Myrtle and Lilacs along the back.

My Studio is still a work in progress and one day it will be exactly like I want it. The sewing machine and serger have a perfect place, but it is the material, yarn and everything else that I keep moving around.

I would like to buy two nice bookshelves for the sitting room and make it kind of like a library, but it has been a bit of a hard sell to Darby, we shall see.

Our children are happy and busy with their lives and Darby and I are loving retirement.  Enjoy these flowers and Bluebirds.

A New Year A New Beginning

Every year many people make New Years resolutions, which most do not keep. I don't, I just look at January as a new beginning.  I will usually try to get organized and go through things, getting rid of what I don't really need.  I always try to watch what I eat, but sometimes on those cold blustery days the best thing in the world is hot chocolate.

We are really starting on a new beginning and a new adventure, on January 22, 2014 we should take possession of our new home in Hagerstown, MD, we can't wait.  There are new rooms to decorate, and many, many walls to paint.  I don't know why builders don't use cream colored paint instead of white.  Those white walls are screaming at me for color already.  I have to be patient, because for most of those rooms Darby is the painter.

We have purchased new things for the house and I already can see where everything will go.  I finally have that French country look I want.  We are using what they say is the dinning room as a sitting room, our Queen Ann Table, Chairs, buffet and breakfront will all go in the great room.  There are plenty of closets and the laundry is right as you come in from the garage.  It is all one level and filled with sunlight.

We start this new year without my wonderful brother, I know he is in heaven looking down on us, but I really miss him.  I hope since we are in Hagerstown we can spend more time with his fiancee, I think of her as my sister-in-law and our nieces.

Hagerstown and the surrounding area are beautiful, I have always loved the area and many times thought of what it would be like to live here.  God works in our lives each and every day, we know he has put us where we are suppose to be.

I wish everyone a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

This picture is of the old train station general store in Ijamsville, MD.  It has been abandoned as long as I can remember and was just recently torn down.  I have so many stories going around in my head about Ijamsville at the turn of the last century and before.  The imagination is a wonderful thing, now if I could only find an illustrator to bring my words to life.  Maybe I will try a drawing class in the New Year.

Two Posts in One Week Oh My

As my husband and I were driving to church on Saturday I saw a Facebook post that said, if you could write a note to your younger self, what would you say in only two words?  That got me to thinking, and I couldn't come up with just two words. During Mass the priest talked about Zachaeus a wealthy  man who cheated people, this man was so small in stature he could not see Jesus for the crowd.  Zachaeus climbed a tree so he could see when this man Jesus walked by. As Jesus came to the spot where Zachaeus was in the tree He looked up and told Zachaeus to come down from the tree, because he, Jesus, was coming to Zachaeus' house for dinner.  When the crowd heard this there were murmurs asking why would Jesus visit the home of a sinner. They were judging Zachaeus and Jesus.  Jesus saw past what Zachaeus was and saw who he could become.

The priest told us we needed to see beyond  rules and laws, to see the person and what they could be if we only cared.  Strip away everything  and see a person as a child of God.  It is said God does not make mistakes and this is true, all we need to do is see each other as God sees us.  The final words to his homily were let people know "you're loved".  Those were the two words I would write to myself.

One Thing Leads To Another

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Pretty fall colors in a different way. I love Roosters.

I recently had to go get blood work and as usual there was a wait, but this time the wait was worth it.  I picked up a copy of Vanity Fair Magazine and was immediately drawn to an article about Harper Lee.  For those of you who do not know whom I am talking about, she wrote the classic To Kill A Mockingbird.  This is one of my all time favorite books and so it seems is America's favorite book.  Harper Lee only wrote one book in her life and it has sold millions of copies in many countries and languages.

The article spoke of a fight (lawsuit) she was waging with her agent who dishonestly persuaded her to sign over the rights to To Kill A Mockingbird.  It continues to make millions of dollars. She is living in assisted living, is almost completely deaf and blind, but knows what is happening.  The interesting part of the article was the insight into the writing of To Kill A Mockingbird, a veiled autobiography.  It spoke of her lifetime friend and fellow author Truman Capote, who lived next door to her.  The character of Dill is modeled after Capote.

This is where one thing leads to another.  I knew of Truman Capote but had never read any of his books, but that changed when the article stated that Harper Lee had helped Capote research his book In Cold Blood a real life story fictionalized. This type of writing had never been done before, what started out as an article for the NewYorker Magazine became a best selling novel.  Lee accompanied Capote to Holcomb Kansas where a prominent farmer and his family had been murdered in cold blood.  Lee was the normal grounding person compared to Capote's flamboyant personality.  Lee was down to earth and was able to relate to the people of Holcomb better than Capote, she was the one who could get him in to see people who normally would have dismissed him.

There were two movies made about Capote and his quest to understand the two men who murdered a family for a presumed cache of money, which there was none.  They shed light on a men who though different, especially for the time period of the 1960's, was brilliant in his writing.  The second movie, Infamous, I did not like as well.  The director sensationalized Capote into a caricature of himself taking away from the story line.

So as one story lead me to another, I have found yet more books to add to my Kindle.  Who knew that reading an article on one of my favorite authors would lead me to another famous author and more stories to read.  I want to go back and reread To Kill A Mockingbird and watch the movie again with these new insights.

It seems as though I am posting fall and summer and not much else.  A lot has happened in the ensuing months.  My brother Chip passed away in August he fought the good fight and is now in heaven free of pain and illness.

We sold our house in July, finally, with two bidders. Our home in Hagerstown is coming along slowly, and we are looking at a mid January settlement, not what we had planned.  Our life is busy living with Catherine (our daughter) and her house is looking pretty good with the little extras her daddy has added (molding and book shelves).

Life goes on and you never know that simply reading a magazine article will lead to expanding your mind and reading list.

I will try to post more often I hope.

Catching UP

I can't believe that November was the last time I wrote in my blog, I need to remedy that right now.  A lot has happened since November.  We have put our house on the market (April of 2013) and have contracted with Dan Ryan in Hagerstown to build a new one story home.

We have been waiting patiently for a buyer, but I am getting a little antsy. Before we put our house on the market, there were few houses for sale and those that were, were going for top dollar.  Of course as soon as we put ours on the market, it became flooded with listings.  People for some reason want four bedrooms, even if those bedrooms are the size of a walk in closet.  We have three bedrooms and another room downstairs that could be used as a bedroom.  We have even buried St Joseph upside down in the yard to help sell the house.  It is a tradition that usually works.  He has been slow finding us a buyer, but I think he will.

In other news our son Darby and his wife Dawn are moving to San Antonio, TX.  Dawn got a job ( a lateral move ) down there and they are really looking forward to it.   I will miss my baby boy terribly, but I am happy for them. Darby works for Lowes and they are trying to find him a position down there, but if not he will find something, maybe even in a different field.

My brother Chip is not doing so well and has been going down to Duke in hopes of beating the cancer.  There is a new drug that will most probably work, but it does not come out until next year.  The Dr. at Duke are trying very hard to get him into remission until this new drug comes out.  Please keep him in your prayers.

My knitting is coming along as usually and I am getting a kick spindle for my birthday. Here is a picture of one.  Mine looks basically the same with the exception that the block part has a Celtic Knot design carved into it.  I can't wait to get it.

I started out spinning with a drop spindle and picked it up very quickly, so this should be easy.  I do better with the drop spindle then I so with my wheel. This is  basically a drop spindle, but instead of putting the spin in the spindle by rolling it across your lap, you kick the attached wheel with your foot.  You can drop spindle this way any where, even sitting in a car.

You see my favorite flower in the picture above, and mine are blooming their heads off in my backyard.

I will try and stay up to date, and hopefully not go so long between posts. TTFN