Life has a way of changing on a dime at times doesn’t it? On August 26th we had to say goodbye to our last living dog. Gypsy had a wonderful long life, passing at the age of 17 1/2, but it was hard to let go all the same.
I have had Cavaliers for 30 years and many of those years I not only bred Cavaliers, I showed them as well. I also worked for the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club,USA as the National Registration Supervisor for 12 years. My signature was on the pedigrees of all the dogs registered in those years.

I’m not ready for another dog just yet. It will probably be a few years but I can’t imagine life with a dog by my side.

I also received notice that Typepad, the blogging platform that I had used for 24 years was shutting down that same week. Snap!! They gave us a month to figure out how to export all of the data and hopefully all of the pictures. The data part was easy….the pictures, not so much until a friend of mine mentioned a website called “Save my blog”. It was a little pricey not knowing if it was going to work, but “voila” it worked!!

I moved everything here to WordPress. Learning a new platform is going to take time, but I have the bones of a new blog to start with and I am very much looking to moving away from Social Media platforms and spending more time both writing and also reconnecting with the few friends who still blog and hopefully meet some new friends.

Thank you to all of my friends who have stuck by my blog for the better part of 24 years and here’s to 24 more!

This is the Jolly Bar Jazz Quilt Pattern from Fat Quarters Fabric Shop. I will post a little more information about the pattern and the fabric when I post  the final pictures.
This really was an easy quilt pattern to put together, so don't let my procrastination deter anyone for doing this quilt.

~

To all of you Moms out there, have a WONDERFUL MOTHER'S DAY!!

"Be still to know the absolute.
Be active to know the outer.
The two spring from the same source,
All of life is one whole."
Deng Ming~Dao

It's been a little while since I have visited, but here I am again like a bad penny that keeps coming back..LOL

I have found that I am feeling less and less comfortable spending time on Facebook.  I miss the uncomplicated days of getting to know new friends through blogging, so I thought that I would try to spend my more of my time here blogging and reading blogs again.

So in the world of "makers", May is a dedicated month of concentrated making, whether it be sewing, quilting, knitting, etc.  Every year on Instagram, I see all of the fun things that people I know both personally and from afar are creating and I love it!  I find it so inspirational.  This year I thought I would take a little jump into this effort.

Now, I will be lucky to finish a few things, but knowing that I have such a hard time finding clothes that fit correctly, I wanted to concentrate on sewing some new things. Taking it slow and spending more time on quality over quantity and learning new skills.  I am always amazed at the people who can consistently crank out both beautiful quality items and doing it quickly.  I'm sure that I won't be one of them, at least for a spell for sure.

I'm also going to try to sew with a purpose by trying to create somewhat of a capsule wardrobe to mix and match and commit to keeping and having less.  I think it will help create more space in my brain if that makes sense, ha!  If nothing else, it will make getting ready for a day or traveling much simpler.

What do you think?  Do any of you live with capsule wardrobes?

Now that the Christmas tree and decorations have been taken down, we are coming into one of my favorite seasons minus the cold weather.

As much as I love the craziness of the holidays and spending time with my big family, I love when we settle into the hum-drum days of winter.  The days are now getting lighter, ever be it so slowly and the demands on our time are much less.

Last year my friend, Terry, sent me this puzzle knowing how much I love the ocean and how much I loved the puzzle when she pieced it together.  I didn't dare put it on my kitchen table however with a young cat in the house who notices "EVERYTHING!" 
I wasn't quite sure if I was ever going to be able to do this, even this year.  Such a dilemma!

After Christmas, I presented this dilemma to Ken knowing he enjoys doing puzzles with me.  He hemmed and hawed a bit at first about what building materials would work without breaking the bank and this is what he came up with.
I love it!  
The material is lightweight and the handle makes it so easy to take on and off while keeping little "Miss Nosey" away from the puzzle pieces.  
Looking back at one of Terry's posts when she was putting this together, I noticed that she found this one a bit challenging because the colors in the picture are not quite true.  Hmmm, if she found this a bit challenging, then I am going to probably find it very challenging as she is a puzzle aficionado!  Wish me luck over the next few weeks..ha!

How do you like to pass the winter days?

It's no surprise when it is in the teens and single numbers here in New Hampshire in January, but with all of the warmer weather we have been having these last few years, it always makes you suck your breath in when the usual winter weather makes her cold appearance!

I have been working on this beautiful shawl, designed by Woolenberry, named Spotlight and I am knitting this in my Opal yarn. Using the colorways "Cornhusk" and "au naturale", I am loving how soft and squishy this is knitting up and looking forward to the lacework that comes at the end of this shawl.  It's been a while since I have done some real lacework!  
I may have a larger lace project on the horizon this year, so this will be good training for reading those lace charts again.

The temperatures are supposed to moderate a bit this weekend, it will be nice to get outside again without freezing!
Yay!!!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend in your corner of the world!
xoxo

“A moving door hinge never corrodes. Flowing water never grows stagnant.”
Deng Ming Dao

I was up bright and early this morning to shape this lovely pumpkin sourdough bread and put it in the refrigerator for its long slow fermentation sleep. I had Corelli quietly playing in the background along with the quiet sounds of the much needed rainfall as I let my mind wander to the things I wanted to get done today.

Next week will be a busy one getting the house ready for Thanksgiving and family.  All of my kids will be here to celebrate this season of giving thanks with us.  I am so incredibly thankful that all of my kids enjoy each other's company and I am even more thankful that I will get to spend some quality time with my "littles" (pictures next week!)

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend in your corner of the world!!

How cute is this little scarf?  I just love it!
Pattern:  Just Enough Ruffles
Designer:  Laura Chau
Yarn: The Woolen Rabbit ~ Wren
Colorway:  Blue Moon

A few weeks ago I saw a sweet picture that my friend, Ann Falcone, posted of this lovely ruffle scarf that she made for her young granddaughter.  The extremely pleased smile on her little face just made me chuckle.  I loved it and immediately wanted to make one for each of my little granddaughters.  This one is for little June and a pretty pink one is on the needles for my other granddaughter Raegan.

I think they will love them too!

"Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change – this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress."
Bruce Barton

 I didn't mean to stay away so long again!

I retired at the beginning of Summer this year and while I have enjoyed the freedoms that it represents from schedules, I have also found that some of the demons that I struggled with during covid have reared their heads again.  I have had a very hard time explaining how I have felt for a long time because I can't find the right words, so I've just kept it all in and I've stayed quiet. It's almost a mental paralysis that keeps me from doing simple things and a loss of my voice.
It's a lack of ability to really put myself out there, finding it is easier just to stay home than to venture out where people are most of the time, even though I do enjoy the time I spend with family and friends.

One of the things that has really helped me focus on getting things done and feeling a sense of accomplishment has been creating short daily "to do lists". Crossing off each one of those to do's makes me smile and motivates me to do the next one. I'm feeling a sense of rhythm as the days go by.
Top of my list to day was to sit down and write this blog post..ha!

I have been following Kim Klassen for a long time going way back in my early blog days.  Her classes helped me learn how to use Lightroom and Photoshop more effectively.  I hadn't received an email from her in a while but this showed up in my mailbox this weekend and I immediately resonated with it.  It was about "Self Gatekeeping", something that I have never heard before.  I completely recognized myself in her words, it was like a light bulb going off in my head.

So, I started researching this a little further and came upon this post from Juan Reyes where he describes Self Gatekeeping "as  as the act of imposing barriers or limitations on oneself, often driven by self-doubt or a belief that one does not belong or deserve to participate in a certain community, activity, or opportunity." 

While a lot of his post doesn't completely pertain to me, I can still see so much of what I struggle with in his words and it's nice to know that I am not alone.

Whew…this one was a hard blog post for me to write, especially given that I don't usually put many of my personal struggles out there but this post has been marinating for a long time, I just found the right words thanks to the information that I read this past weekend.  Knowing that there is a name for some of the paralysis that I have struggled with since covid has helped so much.

So to close, I am just going to say that I working on finding both my social voice and my creative voice again. I know for me it's not going to be easy, but I am going to try to show up in places that matter to me more often.
Photo by: Matthew Henry

What a fun weekend we had, but did I take any pictures?  Of course not, mostly because I was enjoying the moments, but I do need to remember to take out my phone and record more of the moments now and then.  

Saturday afternoon we drove down to Southern Maine to watch my grandson, Finley's, championship playoff game, as we have done most weekends this fall.  The boys won their ticket into the championship with a win, so we will go back down again this weekend. We will also watch my other grandson Asher's championship football game on Thursday.
(I love that the boys love to play sports!)

Last night we went to a friends house for a birthday get together.  The birthday boy made us incredible pizza's in his amazing and big outdoor fire pizza oven.  Those pizza's were cooking in less than 10 minutes and were so light and fluffy.  It was a fun night of good food and good conversation.


In between, I have been working on a three cute quilts, all the same. I had hoped to have them all completed by Halloween, but time will tell if I can get all of them finished.  I have to admit, I stole this quilt pattern from my friend, Terry @knittingtheblues who made them last year for her grandchildren.  She was kind enough to tell me where some of the cute Halloween prints came from so I ordered them right away before they sold out.  

Of course, I should have started these quilts months ago, but I've had some life challenges that I wasn't expecting and all of the planning for our amazing trip that took up many happy hours.
Don't you just love those little girls in their "trick or treat costumes"?  I know I do!