Hodge Podge

Because the wind is blowing too hard to do yard work (really, I said that in my saddest tone so you would believe that I feel bad about it)... Because gas is near $4.00/gallon and I live in the boonies... Because I forgot to run a load of laundry yesterday so it's Pantsless Day at my house...For all these really good reasons, I'm here in the house with nothing major to blog about so here's a smattering of things you probably don't really care about:

The Great Bird Rescue - This is Dave rescuing a bird stuck in the downspout.  I don't know how he got in there, but he (the bird, not Dave) was sticking his head out of the top of the pipe and making a horrible racket struggling to get free.  I assumed he was stuck between the pipe and the house so I attempted to pry the pipe out a bit so he could squeeze back out.  No luck.  He was inside the spout where, evidently, there is a hole big enough for his head, but not his body.  So Dave disconnected the two sections of pipe, propped them apart with a stick and we waited for the bird to discover his escape route, which he eventually did.  And they all lived happily ever after.

More Things Bloom at Green Acres - I have no idea what these are but they are blooming abundantly around the base of the mailbox.  Very pretty!

This is Green Acres, at least part of it.  The landlord supplied a riding mower along with the house (Yahoo!) but I broke it the first time I used it - typical for me.  So I'm mowing all this (and there's more behind the house and to the right of this pic) with a push mower while we wait for parts.  

This is Molly, faithful friend and Frisbee fetcher.  "Come on, Mom.  Stop taking pictures and throw it already."

This is the view from the swing on my patio.  I love building a fire in the evening.

And finally, a confession....Yes, I was one of the nerds who got up at 3:30 A.M. to watch the Royal Wedding.  I may have dozed a time or two, but I don't think I missed anything important.  It was beautiful, it was romantic ... well, it was a fairy tale and I loved every minute of it.  There, I said it!  I'm a sentimental, soft-hearted, idealist who got a little weepy when Prince Charming married his Cinderella.  

And I loved the hats!  Women should wear more hats.  Except Victoria Beckham.  She looked like she was wearing a black wart on her forehead.   But the Queen was lovely!

National Infertility Awareness Week

It was the summer of 1983, Dave had just graduated from college and gotten his first job in the grain industry.  We were living in western Kansas and had our first house.  It was just a one bedroom, one bath rental, but it had a yard and a dining room and we felt all grown up.  We were on our way to the American Dream:  college (check), marriage (check), jobs (check), dog (check), new car (stupid move, but check), house (check), children...   That crash you heard was our perfect plan falling apart.

This week is National Infertility Awareness Week.  RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association, is encouraging infertility survivors to share their stories.  I know what you're thinking... "Survivor?  Infertility is not a disease that can take your life, like cancer."  And you're right - infertility is not life-threatening, not in the physical sense - but it is a disease to be fought.   Infertility may not directly threaten lives, but it threatens marriages, it threatens self-worth, it threatens hopes and dreams.  That day in the summer of 1983, when we made the decision to begin our family, was the beginning of a battle that would last six years and eight months.  

At first we weren't terribly concerned, lots of couples don't conceive in the first year.  I had been on birth control pills.  Maybe they were just taking a while to clear my system.  But two years passed.  Medical exams divulged no reason I wasn't conceiving.   I felt the beginning of panic.  

More years passed with no babies and no concrete explanations.  A list of issues made conception unlikely, but not impossible.  My irregular cycles, one of the contributing factors, made every month a roller-coaster of counting days, taking my temperature, being "late", then being disappointed again.  Sex became a scheduled event.  I stopped attending baby showers or going to church on Mother's Day.  I hated meeting new people because it inevitably led to the question "Do you have a family?"  I always wanted to answer, "Yes, I have a husband, parents, siblings and tons of aunts, uncles and cousins."   When people questioned our childless state I pretended it was by choice.  There were always "helpful" comments.

• If you just relax, you'll get pregnant.  
• I can get pregnant just by passing my husband in the hallway.
• You're so lucky not to be tied down with kids.
• What do you do with all your free time since you don't have kids?
• Try putting a pillow under your butt following sex.  That worked for my husband's third-cousin's best friend.

The list of uninformed and downright hurtful comments was endless.  Sitting in a bar one evening (since we had no family to go home to), Dave and I got into a conversation with  total strangers at the next table.  Predictably, the topic turned to children.  We listened in rising anger as this couple bemoaned every aspect of raising children.  The camel's back broke when one of them said "My cousin just paid $5,000 to adopt a baby.  Can you imagine someone PAYING to get a kid?"  My response, "We would pay double that in a heartbeat for the chance of having a child," was pretty much the end of the conversation.

In fact, while we would gladly have given everything we had, several options were out of our reach financially.  Many of the medical procedures available today were not common twenty-five years ago and certainly weren't covered by insurance.  We made the decision to pursue adoption.  This was pre-internet, so finding options wasn't easy.  We sent letters to several agencies but the responses were not encouraging.  The number of perspective parents greatly outnumbered the newborns being placed for adoption.  In some cases, expectant mothers were treated like athletic recruits, with childless couples offering financial packages and perks to procure a signed contract.  We couldn't possibly compete.

For me, this was the low point.  We had now been fighting this battle for over five years. Lying on the bed, clutching a hope-crushing letter from an adoption agency, I realized it was over.  There was no chance I would be a mother.  If it hadn't happened physically by now, it wasn't going to.  Even my doctor didn't hold out hope any more.  And, based on the letter in my hand, adoption was a fantasy as well.  I cried - painful, wracking sobs - for our loss, for the end of our dream and, mostly, for my failure.  Women are created to bear children, to nurture them, but I couldn't do that.  I was a failure!

Through all the doctor visits, calendar watching, and monthly let-downs, Dave was with me.  He never criticized, he never gave up and he never let it come between us.  He held my hand when he knew I was fighting tears over someone's careless remark.  He did his portion of the medical testing.  He helped research adoption possibilities.  But, even when the tests showed that he also had factors that contributed to our infertility, I still felt it was my failure.  I had let him down.

Then we were blessed by three miracles.  First, we found the Nebraska Children's Home Society.   This fantastic group of people gave us hope again.  They didn't place children to the highest bidder.  They worked with us, educated us, and exposed us to options we hadn't considered.  We began adoption classes and for the first time in six years, I felt hope!  We met other couples sharing our experiences.  We met expectant girls who were facing their own pain.  We even met the Grandmother of a child who had been placed for adoption.  She would never know her first grandchild except through occasional pictures, but she supported the choice her child had made.  Our case worker came for our home visit and we were approved and placed on the waiting list.  Now began the nervous jump at every phone call.  What we didn't know was that miracle #2 was already on the way. 

I was pregnant.  The doctor had no explanation.  Somehow all the "contributing factors" had finally aligned perfectly and we were expecting.  Since I had long since stopped counting days, it took us a couple of months to catch on.  Mitchell was born in 1990, more than eight years after we got married, and over seven years since our quest for parenthood began.  He was followed, just eighteen months later, by miracle #3, Amanda.

Even twenty years later, I still cringe when I hear someone make an insensitive comment about a childless couple, or when a pastor preaches a thoughtless Mother's Day sermon.  I still tear up when I see women oohing and aaahing over a baby while one woman stands apart and feigns disinterest.  My heart still feels the stab just like it did all those years ago.  Infertility is part of our story and we will always have a special compassion for anyone experiencing it.  If you are one of them, we offer you our love and support.  However infertility may be touching your life - personally, through your child, or through a friend - I am available to listen, console, answer questions and encourage.  You can contact me at hcl_tami@yahoo.com.  God bless you with your own miracle - in whatever form that may be. 

Find out more about the myths of infertility and how you can get (and give) support by visiting the RESOLVE website.  If you are considering adoption or placing a child for adoption, please visit the Nebraska Children's Home.  A financial contribution to either of these organizations would make a beautiful Mother's Day gift!

Needlework Tuesday

It's Tuesday, which means it's time to share the progress I've made on sewing projects this week.  Although I did get quite a bit done on the Christmas stocking, in a small picture it would look pretty much like last week's photo.  So, I decided to drag another work-in-progress out of the closet.  Maybe sharing it with you will get me motivated to finish it.  

Six years ago, I took a class to make a Bargello quilt.  We had a fun day cutting and piecing the entire quilt top in a day.  I'm not a professional quilter.  I'm barely a beginning quilter!  But I'm also cheap and didn't want to pay a more skilled craftsperson to quilt it for me, so I decided to do a simple machine-quilting pattern following the curves in the quilt.  I began on one of the light colored rows and stitched diagonally across each block, which hopefully you can see in the close-up shot below. 

I ran into problems, though, when I got to one of the purple rows.  The light beige thread stood out too much against the dark fabric and was distracting.  So, I found thread in that deep plum color (high dollar thread from the quilting shop, not that Wal-Mart stuff).  Then I got a job.  The quilt lay on my sewing table for months, until the dust began to build up and I packed it away for safe-keeping.   When I pulled it out several years later, the perfect plum thread was gone. Just vanished!  After that, whenever I found time to sew, I would remember that I didn't have the proper thread and move on to something else.  Of course it didn't dawn on my to go thread shopping until the next time I wanted to sew.

The thread didn't turn up in the move, so it's time to write it off and go find more purple thread.  The actual quilting will only take a couple of afternoons.  The binding fabric is already cut in strips, so attaching that is one more afternoon's work.  An evening or two of hand stitching while watching American Idol and I'll finally have my Bargello quilt.  

Now if I just remember to get thread when I go to town...



Needlework Tuesday is hosted by Heather at Books and Quilts.  Visit her blog to see what other crafters are working on this week.

Happy Easter!

Wishing you all a blessed Easter!  

We had a great weekend with the kids and extended family, gathered at my mom's house.  Good to spend time with everyone and to see the kids all spiffied up.  

Hope you each had family/friends to share the day and some time to reflect on the amazing gift of our Savior.

Peach Keeper

I adore all of Sarah Addison Allen's books!  Every time I read one, I struggle for words to describe her writing other than "magical" - bewitching? enchanting? charming? entrancing? - but no other word captures the essence of her stories like "magic".  

It’s the dubious distinction of thirty-year-old Willa Jackson to hail from a fine old Southern family of means that met with financial ruin generations ago. The Blue Ridge Madam—built by Willa’s great-great-grandfather during Walls of Water’s heyday, and once the town’s grandest home—has stood for years as a lonely monument to misfortune and scandal. But Willa has lately learned that an old classmate—socialite do-gooder Paxton Osgood—of the very prominent Osgood family, has restored the Blue Ridge Madam to her former glory. (synopsis from book jacket)

 The restoration project uncovers secrets buried, literally, since Willa's and Paxton's grandmothers were teens, when a traveling salesman named Tucker Devlin enchanted the entire town.  He reminded me of The Music Man, but instead of conning them into creating a band, he charmed all the women and convinced the men that a peach orchard was the answer to the towns unemployment and financial woes.  But he also had a dark side that turned friends against each other.

Willa and Paxton work together to uncover the truth of what happened all those years ago, but they learn some deeper lessons about true friendship and acceptance.  This story is part mystery, part romance and part fable.  And, as with all of Ms. Addison's books, just a touch of magic

Once again, I was amazed at the way this author can put simple words together to paint a picture and an emotion that is so much more than the sum of the parts.  Here are some of my favorite lines:

Being met by the sharp scent of chocolate mingling with the moist scent of brewing coffee had a dark, secretive feel to it, like Willa had finally found the perfect place to hide.  (p. 6)

He had abuse written all over him.  It had happened to him.  He had delivered it.  It was so much a part of his psyche that he couldn't look at another person and not imagine what they would look like with bruises.  (p. 103)

As she walked across the parking lot to her Jeep, she thought she saw a few silver party streamers float into the night sky.  But she blinked and they were gone. (p. 146)

Their futures were sparkles in the air, waiting to be caught like fireflies. (p. 144)

Needlework Tuesday

This week, I actually have measurable progress on my stitching.  If you read last week's Needlework Tuesday, you'll remember that I'm making Christmas stockings for my grandkids.  Here are the three I have finished for Hubby and two of our kids.  I also made one for Amy and her ex-husband, but they are in Albuquerque.

And here is the work-in-progress for Grandson #1.

As you can see, I got frustrated finishing the cross-stitch on the small items at the bottom.  With just a few stitches of each color, I was spending more time threading needles than stitching, so I moved back to the top to add in some of the backstitching.  It helps to see at least a little of what it will look like when complete.  Eventually, I'm going to have to finish those details, but for now at least I feel like I'm getting something done.


I need information from other crafters who have tried needle-punch embroidery.  I saw a demonstration on TV this morning and it looks interesting.  Anyone tried it and care to share their opinion?


Be sure to visit Heather at Books and Quilts to see what other crafters are working on this week.

Everything's Coming Up Roses

 Well, maybe not roses, but definitely some beautiful flowering shrubs and trees.  I have no idea what most of these are, but I'm certainly enjoying the explosion of color in the yard. 

 

One that I do recognize - and one of my favorite flowers - is lilac.  We have both the purple and white varieties.  If there is another name for the white, someone please let me know.  There is a bouquet of both shades on my kitchen table and the house is filled with their wonderful fragrance.  There are also crocus (or are they daffodils?) and a huge patch of what I believe to be hydrangeas - we'll know for sure when they bloom.  You're probably catching on by now that I'm not a florist or horticulturist.  There are several other plants coming up that I have no clue about, so we'll have continuing surprises all summer.  

But, along with the beautiful blooms, you know, just stuck in among the zinnias, is this thing:  Audrey II???   

The pod is at the top of a three foot woody stalk.  The leaves bear a striking resemblance to a certain illegal plant, but the stalk and blooms are different.   My best guess is that it's some sort of thistle that shouldn't be in the flower bed, but it has obviously been there for several years, so I'm going to let it bloom before I decide for sure.  Anyone have a clue?  If I'm about to get busted, someone give me a warning.

 I was walkin' in the wholesale flower district that day and I passed by this place where this old Chinese man, he sometimes sells me weird and exotic cuttings, cause he knows, you see, that strange plants are my hobby. He didn't have anything unusal there that day, so I was just about to, you know, walk on by, when suddenly and without warning there was a total eclipse of the sun.  It got very dark and there was this strange sound like something from another world.  And when the light came back this weird plant was just sitting there, just, you konw, stuck in among the zinnias.  I coulda sworn it hadn't been there before, but the old Chinese man sold it to me anyways, for a dollar ninety-five. - Little Shop of Horrors