Can you tell I love snow? And taking pictures… here, some more winter inspiration, starting with the tree in the cemetary (not that you can tell with all that snow), Mt. Battie in the background:

Here’s the Village Green:

And the Harbor, from in front of the library:

I love the “dinosaur ridges” on the tree branches (near our house):

The reflections in the not-yet-frozen run-off creek near the house:

Eli playing in the snow with ‘Widgeon:

and Joshua playing in the snow, too:

And the snow at least a foot deep blanketing my studio over the garage:

The snow-bound creek (which will freeze over before too long):

And the laden pine boughs alongside the driveway:

Let it snow:

Let is snow (some more):

Let it snow (even more!):

We had a White Christmas this year in spite of the warming weather last week, mostly because there was about 22 inches of snow on the ground. Quite a bit melted off before New Year’s Eve day, when we got more. Then the night of New Year’s Day, we got even more….. We now have more snow than I’ve seen in our short 3 1/2 years here. The snow plow ridge at the end of the driveway is SO high I can’t see over it to look for oncoming cars! So of course, since I love the winter and the cold (and being snug inside our house and quilting and reading and fixing tea and listening to the kids …well…. most of the time listening to them), I took pictures. LOTS of pictures! Here you go! Plenty of inspiration for art quilts, I think…. (a late note…too many pics! will post more tomorrow!)

Here’s our house:

And the mailbox:

The house end of the driveway after being plowed and shovelled…notice how high the pile goes compared to the basketball hoop!

And here’s Eli at the street end of the driveway…Widgeon loves the snow, at least when it is in the 20s. Today it was around 0, yep, ZERO Fahrenheit (which is well below zero centigrade!), currently with a windchill of minus 10! That was a bit too cold on his little tootsies!

More pics tomorrow, including ones of town and the neighborhood.

In a new Christmas miracle (ahem), I actually got our annual “Christmas” newsletter written, printed, in the envelopes and INTO THE MAIL before Christmas! Some years, this event has occurred the week after Christmas (last year), in early January (several previous years), even February. One year, I thought since I was so late I’d make it an Easter newsletter. That holiday came and went, and by June I decided I was SO LATE I’d just skip it and try to do better the following year. So you can see that this is no small feat! Of course, I will never, ever be able to match my friend Gayle, whose letter and card always arrive shortly after Thanksgiving! I may try, but she’ll always beat me, and I look forward to seeing how early she gets ’em out every year <ggg>.

I thought I’d share some of the newsletter here…. the photo above is the one at the end of the letter and was taken a couple of evenings ago. I probably should have included one of the umpteen-zillion other shots taken trying to get them to sit still and behave…. how many years until they do? At least a dozen I think… For regular readers, you’ll recall all these events, as I think they’ve all been in the blog!

The Smith Family Chronicles, 2007 edition

We are looking forward to 2008, since 2007 has been a roller-coaster-ride. The year started out well, with Joshua coming in 5th in the state in his weight class in middle school wrestling, Eli earning his green belt in Tae Kwon Do (Korean) karate and yellow belt with stripes in Isshinriyu (Okinawan) karate, Paul starting out as a white belt in the Isshinriyu dojo, and Sarah’s quilting career taking off quite nicely. In March we added a new member of the family: the world’s most adorable pug, Pigwidgeon. Eli has always wanted a pug, and for his birthday he got one! ‘Widgeon is named after the hapless Weasley family owl in the Harry Potter series, and he makes EVERYone grin — the whole neighborhood loves him.

Just a few weeks after summer vacation began, things took a decided downturn. Paul had torn something in his shoulder and was scheduled for rotator cuff surgery on Tuesday, July 17th. An hour after Paul’s pre-op appointment on the 16th, Joshua decided to dash to the library. He tore down the hill to the T-intersection at the bottom; when he tried to slow down, the brakes didn’t work properly. He cranked the handlebars to make the right turn as hard as he could, but gravel at the bottom of the hill made things worse and he veered across the yellow line, directly into the front left quarter-panel of a Jeep going the 35 mph speed limit.

Miraculously, and probably with the help of an entire host of angels, he suffered only a severely broken left leg—all three major bones broken, the tib-fib into a compound fracture—a gash on his head (he was NOT!!!! wearing a helmet!) and scrapes and bruises. A friend of Joshua’s who lives near the accident scene heard the crash and called to tell us Joshua had been hit. Paul and Sarah flew down the hill in suspended terror until they saw Joshua sitting up, clutching his left leg, surrounded by helpers including a nurse practitioner who was passing by who was phenomenal—and we don’t even know her name to tell her how much her competence and calm helped us all.
After what seemed like eternity, an ambulance with a patient in the back stopped and dropped off an EMT. The EMT took one look at Joshua and before even kneeling down to examine him, got on her radio to call Life Flight to helicopter Joshua to a regional emergency center since the degree of injury was too much for a local hospital. The poor young woman who hit Joshua was devastated—Paul and I both went over to let her know he would be OK. Later, her dad told us she said her eyes and Joshua’s locked over the hood of the car—terrifying! Fortunately, Joshua only remembers thinking “oh this isn’t gonna be good” as he saw the car approach, and then sitting up and the pain in his leg—he has no recall of being hit.

To make a long story a bit shorter, Joshua endured four surgeries in seven days, including the seven-hour operation two days after the accident to insert a rod into his thigh and apply an “external fixator” to his shinbones. The “ex-fix” was six screws about 6 inches long drilled into his bones, with rods on the outside to keep the bones in position. The pressure from the swelling tissues was so great the surgeons had to do two fasciotomies, basically long slices from knee to ankle on both sides of his shin; without this, the pressure on the tissue would have caused it to turn gangrenous and die. Paul and Sarah rotated spending the night at the hospital: one of us was with Joshua 24/7 for the 3 weeks he was in hospital. Eli was a major trooper throughout this ordeal, and was always helpful and cooperative despite having to ride to and fro for 3 hours nearly every day.

After nearly a week, Joshua slept all day. Between the morphine and other heavy-duty IV drip painkillers and blood loss, he had become severely anemic. He ended up needing two transfusions. After a second week, it was time to close up the fasciotomies, requiring a skin graft from Joshua’s left thigh. Another week of rehab and healing followed. Once the skin graft was pronounced “good to go”, Joshua was released to home, three weeks nearly to the hour after the accident.

August was quiet except for Paul’s surgery and being able to go to the Maine Air Show (in September) and see the Blue Angels aerobatic team—awesome! After two days home, Joshua got fed up with the slowness of the walker and gutted his way to walking with crutches and healed with the speed of youth. Paul’s recovery has been remarkable, amazing his physical therapist and doctor! The local quilters were awesome, several coming to us with meals to feed an army, but instead we ate them with appreciation for their love and compassion. And quilters around the world (on Sarah’s e-lists) sent get-well quilt blocks to Joshua, who will have a huge new quilt as a result.

School began, life assumed some normalcy, and Eli played on his first soccer team. He proved to be a quick study once again—his proud Mom and Dad think he can excel at anything he sets his mind to! And we’re proud he was selected for Horizons, the gifted student program, for the fourth grade. Eli also competed in Maine’s biggest martial-arts tournament as an Isshinryu student and took 2nd out of 26 kids in kata (forms), and 4th out of 26 kids in fighting—way to go Eli! Joshua’s leg hardware came off in early November in his sixth and hopefully final surgery (there could be one more in about a year if the rod inside his femur bothers him and needs to come out). He will heal completely!

Sarah’s quilting is going gangbusters! She had two articles published in Quilting Arts magazine this past year, the top quilting magazine for art quilters. As well: two projects were selected to be in a book to be published in May 2008 called Quilting with Beads, the Frayed Edges (Sarah and four friends) had a month-long show in the gallery space at the beautiful Camden library, and (drum roll please) she got a contract from AQS (one of the three largest quilt publishing houses) to write a book! The book is tentatively titled “Unraveling Threadwork,” and is about using thread on the surface of a quilt: appliqué, embellishment and quilting by machine. She had hoped it would be out in Fall 2008, but the hurly burly of the summer may cause the date to slip. Sarah’s teaching is also taking off, with three big-time teaching gigs in 2008 including at the HUGE AQS Quilt Show in Paducah, Kentucky.

In early December, Sarah traveled to California for her mom’s 89th birthday! We are all hoping that Nana will be able to move to Camden (on the waiting list for the retirement community there) in 2008. Joyce, Sarah’s beloved sister in law, came up from L.A. Sarah’s half-brother Tom J. passed away at the age of nearly 75 in late June, and Sarah had been scheduled to go out in July for the celebration of his life. Joshua’s accident changed those plans, so we were all thrilled that the three remaining “Maleady’s” were able to be together.

So that’s it for a crazy year! We are all looking forward to a less-eventful 2008!

With love, cheer and good will,

Paul, Sarah, Joshua and Eli
And the many critters:
Zeus, Tyger, Hannah, Thumper,
Yeti and ‘Widgeon

This summer, as many of you have read, Joshua got hit by a car and had a lengthy hospitalization. One kind soul had an idea: make simple blocks to send Joshua to let folks know they were thinking of him…he was floored! They spread the word on the Janome 6500 list, the QuiltArt list, my pattern testers yahoo group and more. Well, we have 73 blocks (ten from Sue Franck!) coming from the length and breadth of not only the US, but also Canada, Australia, Singapore, England, Scotland… amazing!

After many distractions, family upsets, surgeries, healing, laughter and joy, I finally was able to put up nearly 35 of the blocks on the design wall. This is what love looks like:

Cindy Sissler Simms also sent each of the boys a gorgeous Mariner’s Compass block:

Joshua wants a single large bedquilt, which is what that many blocks will make! And thanks to another generous soul (K.McN) from the QuiltArt list, we have a queen sized batt to make that happen, too! Joshua will give Eli some of the blocks, and I’m sure it will take me months to get the tops done and the quilt quilted, but I’ll be sure to let you know when I do. Ilana in Lancaster, Calif., sent Eli a pillowcase with cats and dogs which is well-loved and used already, and the Blockbuster video card was well enjoyed. Rosemary Claus-Grey’s boy with a broken leg mini fiber artwork was on the wall in Joshua’s hospital room, and is on the wall here at home now! The generosity of so many whom we have never even met in person is overwhelming.

We cannot express how much this outpouring of affection and concern means to all of us. Before separating the blocks from the cards and envelopes, I wrote each person’s name, town and state/country on the block, so we can look at each block in the quilt and know who sent it and where it began its journey. Thank you, thank you, thank you, from all of us, with abiding love.

I know I’ve said it before, but I LOVE winter, and I love winter in Maine. Imagine getting to see this sort of beauty and inspiration within (literally) a snowball’s throw from the garage doors and while walking the dog-beasties?!!! I’m on to do a small challenge quilt by the end of February on “Winter,” and I think after my walk at 5 yesterday (pitch dark!) I’ll do moon on snow with trees…… Here’s the neighborhood:

In the backyard:

The woodpiles:

Taking a gamboling puppy out for walkies (bunnies do the bunny hop, ‘Widgeon does the pug hop!)—and the deeper the snow, the more his short little doggie body loves it!

St. Francis on watch…. this was in my late father-in-law’s garden in southern California, moved with him to Washington state, moved to our house on San Juan Island when he died (St. Francis’ feast day is the same date as my birthday… I knew I liked him!), and then came to Maine:

The snowy branches, undisturbed by winds, look like the tracery on medeival cathedral windows:

And the trees in front of the Squibb’s house and the dangly branch next door: