2024 All Texas Quilt Shop Hop

Today we were taking the dogs out for a walk and Ryan said "Grab you Quilt Hop Magazine."

We left about 10:00 am and I walked in the door at home again at 5:00 pm.  I had only done one shop before this and I have all of March and April to do 106 shops if I want to.  It is broken into regions.  

We went to 5 shops today.  It rained.  Both dogs were in the van and they slept.

I try to buy something at each shop and support these business. 

I really like batik fabric and I see I really like the blues and reds.  I need some whites and yellows in there.  I am surprised I haven't gotten more greens.  Here is what I have accumulated so far.  

Chicken test

The local Chinese place,  Sonic, Wendy's, McDonalds, Chicken Express, Golden Chicken.

One vote for mcD by a kid.  The other 4 did not like the chicken paste.  One and a half for sonic.  Two and a half for Chicken Express.    

There are another 20 Chicken places within 10 miles of the house,  we may have a round two of Express Chicks against pizza joint chicks.

Desk Repair

Someone built a very nice building in Grapevine Texas for a hotel and food court.

This picture does not fit with the rest of the collection at the Biblical Art Museum

All that will be seen of this walnut is that 4mm nose.  The rest is just structure for the desk.

 

Precious

 

Sadly, six months after adopting the 15 year old kitty it was noticed her behavior was not right.

With in a week, it went from not right to unable to move and laying in her own fluids hiding under the couch.  On Labor day morning we took her to a vet to end her suffering.   Upon entering the building was the only time we heard a full volume meow from this little kitty.  She was not happy to be there, she may have wanted to live, but her body no longer was helping her in that mission.

Weeks later we are no longer watching our steps in the dark, afraid of the skrunkl poof circling our ankles.  We no longer strain our ears listening for the soft  me---ow  of the lost kitty.

She enjoyed long walks, endlessly circling the couch or table leg.

She got to enjoy long texas grass.  Well OK she did not enjoy long grass, it made her trip, she had to rest and was confused how to get back to safety of the patio.  She ran as fast as she could away from the lawn mower as I made her a path from the door to the patio.  In a very very tight circle.  But she enjoyed that path all day.  and the next.   Regularly walking out to the patio resting for a while then wandering around lost trying to get back home.

We took her from a home with 20 other animals, where she learned to sleep with her eyes open.  

Was she blind?  Was she deaf? She certainly had balance issues.  She was too old to jump onto a chair.  Did she have a memory?   Was her routine just habit.

She enjoyed her wet food each morning.  The teaspoons worth she would eat before leaving, turning around in a circle to discover a bright white bowl with YUMMY FOOD.  To do it again after another couple licks.

She learned she like to sit on laps and cuddle.  She loved it when I was on conference calls where I talked, she assumed I was talking to her.

She had 6 months of milk and cream and cuddles to enjoy.

Maple learned to tolerate this weird feline.  kinda.  They never became the friends and cuddle buddies I was hoping for.  

I would have liked to have been part of her life for longer, but sadly her body gave out before she wanted to. 

Think Ahead

You are depressed.  You just moved again.  Not like it hasn't been done before, when you were little the turmoil was often, but your rocks, your parents were by your side.  Not that it wasn't easy when you were tiny, but everything moved.  But this time like the last, your world is bigger, and unlike a friend moving away, you are the friend and everything else was ripped away.  And you, you might as well been plopped down in a muddy field, cold drizzle and hot sun.  A new universe with nothing but a few fragile threads holding onto the familiar past... and sadly you are watching those threads be stressed.  

You watch friends make choices they should not make.  You watch them dream dreams they should not dream.   But you are there too.  Stuck.  Unable to dream those bad dreams.  Fragile, with cracks already showing.  If you were a teapot you would be asked to be set safely in the cupboard for fear that one more round of hot water, one more gentle tap of the spout, and it is over.  Kintsugi is unfathomable, mosaic is not new beauty it is broken pieces locked in the mud, washed by drizzle, baked by the sun.

Oh but there is more!  On top of having to rebuild your castle and rebuild your kingdom you are older now.  Children have it safe, the parents provide, the worries are few.   If life was a waterway being a baby is a tiny puddle able to be held completely in your parents hands.  Childhood a tiny trickle so fun to play in.   Grandparents are a wide lazy river so wide and calm it is comforting.  We are stuck in between, the rapids of maturing, the whitewater of living.  Never can we really go back upstream, it is always down.

Continuing this river allegory.  Some people choose to add rocks and rapids and make life even more of an adventure than it needs to be.  Others try to make the smooth and flat and easy as possible.  Your mom and I chose to combine our streams, and we have chosen to both add more adventure, and make the future easier.  

The biggest thing is, we have listened to the whispering call of God.  We have accepted Jesus.  I was 13 when I figured out God was a prayer away, active in my life, there for the asking.  I was 21 when I realized that I needed Jesus as savior.  You were 2, and I was 32 when I realized that not only was God there for after I die, but for now, and not so much as something to help me removed the rocks from my rapids and make my stream smooth but I am flowing in His giant calm river.  Your mother and I have agreed to be a part of something much much bigger than we can even fathom.  

Us following God's call has brought you most of the biggest turmoils of your life.  Following God's call we took you to India as a young blond girl.  India where you are good luck charm.  Pinch the cheeks and maybe some god will look favorable to you.  We took you to Iowa to grow.  Then right when you were branching out we moved you to Michigan, where it was hard to figure out what was real.   After getting stable there another move, Texas during a pandemic.  Thrown into new pond, where again first impressions will brand you for life... for now.

God's whispering moved us from Iowa to Michigan, the town, the house, the church.  After that we were on our own.  God's whispering has done it again, the town, the house, and the church.  All I know is someday we will be looking back at both these moves we will be even more thankful for God's providence this time that last.  Yes your father has faith that the turmoil of our future is better than past.

Why if God is a calm ocean are we being put on the edges, crashing waves, flowing tides and currents?  Stagnant water does not do much.  Think of that little pool of water I keep filling in the back yard.  At first is it cold and refreshing in a hot day, but after a week all the surfaces are slimy, if I kept the water in there it would be worse and worse.  Instead I get out a hose, the water had a rest, it needs to flow again, out onto the grass, to refresh the grass and filter down through the earth to a well to be used again.   God does the same thing he gives us rest, then uses us, then rest, then uses us, then rest through life until we can finally rest with him.

Oh but why not skip that path and carefully remove everything ending with a nice calm laminar flow.  Where is that flow going?  Rejecting God leads to a final point completely separated from Him.  As an amoeba can not comprehend a human such is my comprehension of God, we humans are all such a simple life form able to comprehend only to the extent of how God has tried to explain.  

Angels know God.  All of him know of his power and goodness.  1/3rd of them were cast out, away from God.  Where to?  This created universe where you now live.  They will never be returning to where God is.  They are on a slow slide away from God.  Soon to be forever separated.   Earth is the strange place, it is where there is both the goodness of God and the not goodness of those 1/3rd are intertwined.  Where there is a third spiritual gang, not God, not angels, humans, able to reproduce, grow and decide for themselves.  They know so little of everything, yet have so much wonderful power.  Will they admit they are babies and need to be held in God's giant hands?   Or will they embrace their own strengths and do it on their own, crawl, walk, fly and crash all on their own.  Those 1/3 of angels are not gone, were they the nephilim?  Those 1/3 and 2/3rds are in a war, most of it outside of the universe we live in.  God has protected us, they can only whisper on this earth to call future warriors who are stronger than them to join them in the fight.  To rip apart everything good in this seed, all the way down to the DNA so that when the plant finally grows it is not the beautiful glory God desires, it is a cancerous festering mess, a failed experiment where the minority are the laughing victors and the majority and the great power is a failure.  Man is more powerful than angles the 1/3 need us on their side to win.  

If both sides are whispering how do we know who to listen to?  God may be good but he guides us into rapids and makes us scour the rock, so much pain in this life and He is good?  Another whisper leads us to a calm pool, and we don't know is it the middle of the river or a toilet?  We don't know what's next, we don't know.  We are but a tiny amoeba fighting to move mere millimeters in a race a million miles long.  Look at the past where the clear whisper of God is written.  Invite the Holy Spirit into your life and let Him guide you.  Use the Bible as a resource of history and guidance, learn from the examples within, the people who have failed, the God who is good.  The suggested rules that will guide is through the rapids of life.

But you are depressed now, stuck in Texas, longing to go back, but as your parents have learned we are all in a stream, we can't go back, the rocks have been scoured, the rest of the water has moved downstream.  The past does not exist, except in our memories.  Your future is scary, but you have to go forward.   You are stuck, scared, muddy.  Anna walk forward, do the basics no mater how much it hurts, help out around the house.  Turn off the noise of television, embrace the silence of your own mind, you are drowning out the whispers there to help you, If you pray and ask God to whisper into your life he will, just like when I was 13.  He wants you to ask every day, so He can prove He is there every day, every hour if you need it.  Take each step one at a time, as if you were a baby there to walk.  Your parents and siblings are right here by your side.   Imagine two futures for yourself, one where you ask if you can join God in his river, where he will guide you in and out of the rocks and another where you do it on your own.  For today make your future about tomorrow.  Tomorrow we can all work on next week, next week we will work on next month, next month maybe we can dream about next year, and next year we can dream about all decades to come.

And when all those decades are past, you will realize those dreams did not come true, and you will forget about all good that has happened, you will remember all your failures, the whispers reminding you how bad they felt and and flood you with those awful feelings again.   Bad whispers that tell me that my future is going to be more mud and muck and grime.  Me thinking that about myself.  Thinking of so many dead dreams.  Dreams are meant to be like a dandelion seed, to grow and be blown off on the wind in to wonderful clear skies.  Not stomped into the mud.  I have forgotten that a seed needs to be put into the mud to have a chance to grow and grow and bloom and send out seeds.  To be fruitful and multiply.

Tulip Time

 

Those cupboard beds always intrigued me I kinda would like one to hide away in sometimes.  I learned recently that they are not long enough to sleep flat in, they were slept in a sitting position.

I think this is in Kansas, maybe it was Oklahoma.

For a donation to the historical society you can get your own pram for the parade.

This one was interesting.

Mom and aunt allowed us to get some pictures of the kids.

I ran a train of hoppers at the train show.  I may have enough of them now.... well maybe not, I dont have 3 dozen.

Our kids enjoying the arboretum.