Wowie zowie…that was a snowstorm!   On Sunday it began to snow, and snow, and snow… when it finally stopped on Monday (yes school was cancelled for the day) we had 11 inches of fresh, WET powder in the driveway and a prodigious snowplow pile.  The photo above is of our house, from the street.  Here is my handy dandy quilting ruler in the snow next to the snowplow ridge…that is an 18 1/2 inch ruler, dwarfed….:

I always take pics of the St. Francis birdbath and the nearby pot.  The latter is large, and buried.  Here, you can see the snow is almost up to the basin!

Paul and Joshua in front of the snow-crusted garage.  See that little bitty orange thing sticking out of the snow?  That’s the 3 foot post to show the plow guys the edge of the driveway…..

Eli took Widgeon for walkies, cross country in the little woods across the street.  Are those not the cutest two things on six feet?  Widgeon LOVES the snow and doesn’t care if his tummy and dangly bits get all cold and red! Silly sweet dog!!

And coming over the plow ridge…if we have much more snow we’ll have to park in the driveway or have a bonfire as there is nowhere else to push the stuff:

Shortly after the Oscars began, the power went out.  For 21 hours.  Since we have a woodstove and gas range, this isn’t too big a deal.  Except the water pump is electric.  That means each toilet has one flush.  Ooops.  So what to do?  Well….melt snow! All this barely made a dent in the mound on the front porch steps:

Then there is the mailbox…see that lump in the middle…that’s it!

The boys were at first at a loss without iPod (battery gave out), cell phone for texting (ditto), laptop (ditto), internet….so they got out the board games and I treated myself to reading a fluff quilty novel! Paul slept or read. Then, at some point, I discovered we had a scant half-loaf of bread, so decided to bake some.  I had forgotten that while we can light the burners (they have knobs), the oven does NOT have a knob.  So I had 12 cups of flour (4 loaves) kneaded, risen, punched down, and formed into rapidly rising loaves.  What to do????  Well, I figured if I could find a metal box (yeah right) I could improvise an oven…Paul’s thermometer on the stovetop tells him when the surface is 500, where he keeps it.  I needed a 375 degree oven.  So….I thunk on it….the canning pot!   Down to the basement.  But the bread would burn on the bottom…hmmm… my sad iron trivet…kinda like this … under the pan.

And here’s the improvised oven:

Guess what…It WORKED!

And one of my favorite pics just because….the ancient bike on the deck:

If you’re like me, you’ll hear Bing Crosby’s voice as he sings to Rosemary Clooney on that one…. For those of you who don’t love the old movie White Christmas, Bing and Rosemary are the older of a pair of war buddies (that would be Bing, to Danny Kaye’s younger corporal) and sisters (with actress Vera Ellen of the impossibly tiny waist and very fast dancing feet).   Theirs is a somewhat rocky courtship, aided and abetted by Danny and Vera’s characters.   Rosemary goes to get a sandwich at the inn, and Bing shows up to make her a liverwurst sandwich with buttermilk (BLEAH…how could anyone think that tastes good?????).  She says she can’t sleep, so of course Bing breaks into song about counting your besslings instead of sheep, and the refrain ends “you’ll fall asleep counting your bleeeeeeesssssss-iiiiiinnnnnnngggggggggs”.

So I decided I should count some of my blessings:

1.  My family is alive and well, and we are blessed to be together.

2.  Mom agreed to move to Maine, and now lives 5 minutes instead of a continent (or more as it has been in years past) away.  Best of all, she has become nice again, and I have my mommy back.  The dementia is getting worse, but she is much kinder,  she gets my sense of humor, and best of all she seems to be happier!

3.  Joshua is alive, well, fully recovered, and seems to have (we think/hope/pray) passed through some of the more tumultuous moments of the teen years.  He is a responsible employee at his job, and is bright and learning.

4.  Eli is a stupendous student, cool kid, devoted son and brother, and great dog-parent to Pigwidgeon.   He is (hooray!, we’ve bred two of them) an inveterate reader, curious, polite, kind, interesting… OK I’ll stop now.  I know I’m biased.  That’s my job.

5.  Paul and I celebrated 25 years of marriage, and we’re still bubbling along. As in all marriages that last, we are always there for each other, and he is my best friend and the first person I go to for most anything (well, except for quilting advice!).

6.  Pigwidgeon (the pug) and Thumper (the 26-toed calico cat) follow me around the house and bring furry love, joy and hair to my life.

7.  Pigwidgeon makes EVERYone, and I mean EVERYONE, smile.  Just last night, when I took him out for nighttime walkies, he had me laughing out loud as he cavorted and chased a snow clod!

8.  Joyce came to visit; my late half-brother’s wife, Joyce is like a sister to me.  I remember her from when my family and I returned to the US when I was six, and she has been a part of my life ever since.  T.J. gets major bonus points for bringing the best person in the family into it.

9.  The Frayed Edges:  Kathy, Kate, Deborah and Hannah make my life and Maine a better place to be (even tho Deborah  is currently in the wilds of Texas).  They are friends, artists, confidants, and just plain FUN and interesting and wonderful.

10.  Marie is one of those friends that will last through the ages… you know how maybe six or seven times in your life you meet someone and you know you will be friends forever, no matter where you are?  Well, Marie is one of those!   Even tho she is still in Washington State, and I am in Maine,  we are still close….and even tho we can sometimes only keep up by visiting each others’ blogs (hers is here), we are always in each other’s hearts.

11.  The Coastal Quilters:  my local quilt chapter is filled with wonderful, fun, diverse, interesting women (no men yet in the group).

12.  QuiltArt ( click here for the website) is the most wonderful online group (like an extended family spread ’round the world) of kindred (and not so kindred) souls, all of whom love art quilts.   QA was my door into art quilting, my master’s degree, my continuing education, the source of untold friendships and inspiration and ideas…. it’s a great place to be.  Thanks to List Mom Judy for creating such a home, to all who make it the best place in cyber-space….

13.  Kit Robinson, on both the QuiltArt and Janome 6500/6600 groups (the latter is a yahoo group), who invited me to write an article for Machine Quilting Unlimited magazine.  In talking over the proposed subject, tension, I mused that really I needed to write about needles first, because you need the correct needle to get the correct tension.  One article turned into two, then….

14.  Vicki Anderson, publisher of MQU and the sister-magazine for long-arm quilters, Unlimited Possibilities, asked me to be a regular columnist for them… WOOOOHOO!!!! For the first time since 1997, I have predictable income with each quarterly article.  Best of all, I get to write about quilting AND get paid for it… life is truly wonderful.

15.  Quilting Arts magazine accepted two of my ideas for short lessons in their e-Newsletter, Embellishments; not only was I paid a modest sum, but they put my name under theirs and in front of something like 50,000 subscribers!  WOW…. THANK YOU Pokey Bolton (top editor and big kahuna, even tho she is a tiny little thing!) and Cate Prato (editor) . For info on how to subscribe to the e-Newsletter, click here.

16.  Quilting Arts / Cloth Paper Scissors  invited folks to submit ideas to participate in Open Studio, where you get to demonstrate a technique, at the large Quilting Arts zone at quilt festival in Houston; they invited me to participate!!!!   I am thrilled at their confidence in me, and I had a blast.  I hope to be able to do it again.

17.  Festival in Houston:  I get to see great quilts, meet old and new friends, see folks I have originally “met” online mostly on the Quiltart list.   Thanks to Karey Bresenhan and her hard-working cast and crew for all they do for all quilters…. Karey is truly in the business of making dreams come true for so many of us!

18.  Iris Karp of Misty Fuse has been so kind and generous, and I had a ball demonstrating in her booth in Houston….. would LOVE to do it again!   Thanks Iris!

19.  SAQA, the Studio Art Quilt Association. Despite the somewhat steep annual dues, I decided a while back that I needed to join.  Boy was I right!  I’ve had at least one exhibit opportunity thanks to being on their site, and think that at least a couple of the work opportunities that have come my way have been due to being in SAQA (and on their website).  Then, last Christmas Marie (see #10) sent me a copy of Portfolio 14, a SAQA publication that is aimed at galleries, museums and collectors.  I knew within about 20 seconds of seeing it that I needed to upgrade to Professional Artist Member status (if they’d take me) and be in the next one.  Well…. I was accepted as a PAM, and got into Portfolio 15 (now available for sale here) and (drum roll) a thumbnail of my quilt even made the back cover!

20. As a result of adding some information to the SAQA wiki (an online information data base for members), I came to Lisa Chipetine’s attention, and she very kindly invited me to be the fifth person in an online Critique session with quiltartist Sandra Sider.  WOW!   I can’t believe how much I learned, perhaps even more so from listening to the comments and discussion about other quilts being critiqued.  If you’re interested in learning more about the upcoming critique sessions, click here.

21.  The manuscript is nearing completion!  More on that when I can!

22.  I was FLOORED when I pulled up Creative Quilting with Beads early this year on Amazon.com  looking for a publication date…as longtime readers know, I have two projects in the book, and Kate (1), Kathy (1) and Deborah (3!) also have projects.  The COVER was MY pomegranate notebook! Talk about a pipe dream come true!

23.  About this time last year, I wrote a quick note to Bonnie Browning, who is a big kahuna at the AQS quilt shows, related to a posting she had made on the QuiltArt list.  She must have clicked on my signature links and visited my website, and she invited me to apply to TEACH for AQS!  The kicker:  this was Sunday, and applications needed to be in her office Monday.  I quickly turned my brochure into a PDF and e-mailed her all the info.  The result:  Bonnie and AQS took a chance and hired me to teach in PADUCAH (Paducah and Houston are the two biggest, most prestigious quilt shows in the US and honestly, in the world!).  I had a ball, student reviews were good, and I did it….hoooray!

24.  Lowell Quilt Festival (Massachusetts) also hired me to teach, and I had a ball there, too.   That show is only about 4 hours from me, so I was able to take LOTS of extra goodies since I could drive.  I had the most amazing time, and they treated the teachers like royalty!  I learned so much from so many amazing teachers…. Nancy Prince and Joanie Zeier Poole were incredibly generous in sharing tips and tricks of teaching on the road…. all of us who ate dinner together… totally fantastic!

25.  Blogging and the internet and all of you!  One of the joys of my mornings is checking flags…. I use a couple of sitemeters, and I LOVE looking at where people are who visit my blog… the sitemeters don’t tell me your e-mail, but they do give a location (more or less… depending on the company, my address in Camden shows up as Camden, Rockland, Tenant’s Harbor….at least it is a general location).  I’ve now had visitors from over 129 nations and every state in the US and almost every province in Canada.  WAY COOL!   I love how the internet has brought us closer, how I can e-mail my friend Lisa in Sydney (literally almost halfway ’round the world), hear back a moment later, reply, and carry on an instant conversation.  I love how those of us who worked in isolated splendor can now share and learn, so THANK YOU for being out there and surfing in to here!

I could go on, but I will stop here, or I really will put all of you to sleep.

Thank you and blessings and peace to you and all of yours,

Sarah

Yep, my mama is now official NINETY…. hard to believe eh?  All things considered, she is doing pretty well and, as we both say from time to time, it beats the alternative!  My dear sister-in-law (soul sister) Joyce (my late half-brother T.J. gets the prize for bringing the best person in the family into the family by marrying her back in the 60s) flew out for a weekend from Los Angeles.  It has been 6 or 7 years since she has been able to visit us and see the boys.  She is their absolute favorite relative, she is SOOOOO good to them!  Anyway, we had a wonderful visit….

Joyce arrived on a COLD Friday (it was late January/February temps…. highs in the low 20s, lows down to ten, plus breezy!) evening, and we gave her the evening tour through all 2 blocks of lit-up downtown Camden, passing the lobster-trap-Christmas-tree (topped by our favorite crustacean) in downtown Rockland en route from the small Knox County airport.  I think Joyce was stunned to be in a 9-seat plane!   I guess we are so used to pipsqueak planes that it seems normal…..

This is a LOVELY picture of Joyce in the frigid air outside Quarry Hill, the retirement community where mom lives (it has independent and assisted living areas, a demetia unit and a small nursing care unit, used mostly for folks who get ill but will recover enough to return to their regular apartments).  That light stuff you see in the middle of the photo is not a camera flare…that’s frozen breath!

On Saturday night, we went out to a lovely restaurant, Atlantica, right on Camden Harbor.  I took my camera.  I forgot to use it!  But we had a lovely dinner, all six of us.  The boys were well behaved, and Mom really seemed to enjoy the outing.  The chef was very kind… it is a seafood restaurant, but mom is vegetarian.  When I called to see about reservations he said “no problem, I’d be glad to make a vegetarian plate for her”.  WONDERFUL!

On Sunday, I fixed dinner for us at home:

Then Eli helped out…he is becoming quite the photographer:

If anyone knows, by the way, someplace that still has the fabric I used in the apron, let me know… I’d love to buy another couple yards!

Joyce gave mom a small watercolor of Bermuda, where mom and dad lived (and I was conceived) when she and my brother first met, and where Joyce and T. vacationed.  I gave mom my 2007 journal quilt because it uses a photo she bought in Japan when she lived and worked there in 1946-47 with the US Occupation Army and which she still has on her dresser, of the little girls.  The photos of  Hiroshima are ones I took when Mom and I visited there in 1996…and she loves the quilt:

After gifties, we did a real birthday cake.  Rather than risk setting the house on fire, I used the boys’ birthday candles to make a “90” (I bought each of them a numeral candle for each year, then we double up those 0-9 candles for their teen years–currently the “1” candles are getting a real workout during the teen years).

And one more of mom:

Joyce departed on Monday, one day before the official birthday.  Because it was SO cold, we decided Mom shouldn’t go out, so we took sandwiches and ate with her at Quarry Hill.   I used the timer on my camera to take this picture on mom’s living room sofa:

With abiding thanks…..

That great whoooshing sound you hear is time whizzing by yet again….since the last blogpost, since  summer 2007 when Joshua got hit and was in the hospital, since this past summer when I finally (in the heat of July) finished both Joshua’s and Eli’s quilts. It took FOREVER to get Joshua to let me take a picture, but I so wanted to thank everyone for their kindness and support for all of us!

Within a few days of Joshua getting hit by the jeep (on July 17, 2007…posts start that week), a kind and thoughtful soul on the Janome 6600 yahoo group had a kind and wonderful idea:  instead of sending get well cards, send blocks!  She chose a simple one:  an 8 inch (finished square) surrounded by 2 inch sashing, to finish at 12 inches.  Fabrics:  something a teenaged boy might like, all colors, scrappy.    A friend relayed the post to the QuiltArt e-list, and eventually more than 75 blocks arrived!  Many folks sent extras, including ones special for Eli, since he too was greatly affected by the accident (and he logged more miles than anyone going to the hospital up in Bangor, nearly 90 minutes each way, almost every single day for three weeks as Paul and I traded off spending the night there with Joshua or coming home to care for Eli and the animals).

Here, at long last—all healed and well, is Joshua doing what he loves best, playing guitar, on his quilt.  When I asked him if he wanted  to use sashing or a border he said no, I want as many blocks as possible!  So his quilt is 6 feet by 8 feet, 48 blocks!

Each of the boys picked their favorites, with Joshua requesting all the musical ones, Eli wanting the one with the orca/lobster, the wolves and the soccer balls!  They both love their quilts, and I am so grateful for the kindness and support these blocks represent at a time that was really kinda scary!   It is a jolt when you are told your healthy-until-4 days ago 13-year old son needs a large transfusion because he is so anemic (from internal blood loss from the three broken leg bones and the consequent loss of red-blood-cell-generating bones), and then needs another one.  We knew he would live, but not if he would keep his leg, or how well he would live.  The  thoughts and kindness of so many were a great support to all of us, and especially to Joshua who kept saying “these are for me?!?”  The blocks came from Australia, Singapore, Europe, Scotland, England, Canada, all over the United States, and I mean ALL over….. If the maker hadn’t signed the block, I wrote her name and city/state/country on each block so we can look at the quilt and say, look, this one is from “xxxx.”

And here is Eli on his bed with his quilt, made from 25 blocks.

Cindy Sissler Simms is a maven at Mariner’s Compass blocks, so she sent two awesome ones, which I made into coordinating pillows, one for each boy.  I love the way they turned out…. I machine quilted them simply with the walking foot, proving that sometimes simple is PERFECT!

Again, thank you (which seems so small and not enough) from the bottom of our hearts, hugs, Sarah

The birthday boy, waking up, waiting for Dad to get up so he can open his gifties….

Opening the box…gee…what do I do with it?

Oh!  Open it…good….a check from Nana!

Next…envelopes…hmmm…what could be in them?

Hmmm…another card, from Mom and Dad, an annoying one that you have to turn upside down and around and around to read…..but it has a check!

Now what are those pesky parents of mine doing?

AH!   Heaven, also known as pumpkin pie (yes, Joshua vastly prefers his pumpkin pie to cake…..)

The “1” candle is getting shorter….. I bought year candles every year from 1 to 10…now we are recycling them, and as he goes through his teen years, the 1 is getting a lot of use!

And what will Joshua do with those checks?  Well, they were spent before I left the house to give a lecture at 8:30… his old iPod got crushed, then stepped on (in his backpack, on the floor next to his desk at school), so he has a new red iPod nano which is just about permanently attached to his ears.  And here is what he does when he’s NOT listening to music…he makes it:
If you look carefully at the (unmade) bed, and below the (nearly naked) blond girl in bikini, you’ll see my laptop on top of the quilt made from blocks from the quiltart list… I am having a devil of a time getting him to let me take a photo of him with it to share with you all.  If he doesn’t soon, I’ll use the one of him sound asleep on the TOP of his bed, on top of the quilt….. blackmail works?????PS…if anyone knows how to embed youtube videos so that the formatting on my blog stays the same, drop me a note!