...........................................................

...........................................................
Blessed by everyday blessings

these are a few of my favorite things

~smiling faces~

~hugs and kisses from grandchildren
and hearing the name Nanny from far away places~

~mostly old sometimes new~

~quilts with love stitched through and through

~Babies and butterflys and all things created~

~To know you are loved makes life sweet with grace traces ~























recipes

Monday, February 23, 2015

Winter smiles......






Cozy home


Blue and white quilt blocks


Snowman on the porch. 

Nothing fancy but it sure turns the frown upside down
 and adds beauty to the day.

Winter...

Winter comes

Day by day
My heart is warm, 
 my nose is cold, 
and my toes are froze.


Wishing to be like the bluebird

Singing a happy song anyway.

This week is the farewell to February.

Winter goes.

Beautiful  Winter  :)

Janita





Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Putting a face on this place






You won't get too many of these opportunities.

There are not too many pictures of just me in the world.

I don't consider myself the most photogenic person.

But for today I thought I'd share

This is me :) 

The woman who is behind the camera on this blog.

In the month of Love

This is my beautiful self. 

Learning to love Me :) today.

Enjoy the moment.

Janita





Sunday, February 15, 2015

Evidence of LOVE

             

Hello February.....Hello Love......

LOVE.... It is what everyone needs... what everyone is searching for.


Faith, Hope, and Love.....

But the greatest of these is LOVE......

Truth is sometimes love in this world is untrue. Sometimes love has seen it's better days. On those days I run to 
       
    The One Who Is True Love


There will never be anything like God's love for me!!!! 
               
             I can always trust 

                      His
                     Unfailing, 
                   Everlasting,
                   Purposeful, 
                   Beginning
                   to end
                   love
                   for 
                   me
                   !

Can you see the heart beginning to take shape?

 I will be Forever grateful that He loved me before I ever loved Him......

I love to  sing this song.
Big Daddy Weave/ The Only Name

"When I wake up in the land of Glory, with the Saints I will tell my story, There will be one name that I proclaim JESUS..... "

The only name that saves me. 



           Today and everyday

                  In small ways
                  In  Big ways

                  look for 
                  His LOVE!
     

     Soak it up....  
                              and
                Let it overflow....
       to the world around you.


          Enjoy a bit of my 
       February overflowing
                 LOVE 
           ***********


Hearts signed by women  I know who love to sew.
Made in 2006  .....  really??? 
I think it is time this project got some serious loving. 





Love that Endures.
Someone couldn't bear to throw an old tattered quilt away 
so they salvaged what love they could and made a heart.




Love Aunt Cassie.....
Love a Birthday Party.....

Love a reason for Cheesecake!


WHY YES we'd Love to help the Birthday girl blow out her candles!

 I've been Loving this Girl for 25 Years!

Hardly seems possible.








Family Love
Circle of love.






Stitching LoVe




Snow angel love





 2 Cousins + snow = Olaf
We made it ourself Love!



Blue and white love.
Working on loving my February list :) 


  
Sugar cookie love.
When it came time to roll them out
Addilyn said... "It's just like the cookies we made
last year with Emmy"
Her eyes were twinkling
as she held the 
rolling pin in her hands!



I'll just have a little taste love.
Clayton is 15 months and he was NOT going to miss this opportunity.

Let's just say the spoons were a little too tempting.

No guarantees on germ free cookies here 
 but the memory sure is sweet!



Nothing better than eating frosted Cookie Love in Piggy Pajamas!

She Loved her first pajama day 
at school too. 




Learning to sew love.
She wanted to make it for her teacher.


And last but not least
Welcoming Love....
Sometimes it is hard 

to decide ....



does the grapevine wreath love


need a rest


Or can I 
Love it through another season?



Makes me think of my little world
encircled by the Bigger Love of God.

Love makes life worth living. 

Janita







Wednesday, February 4, 2015

2014 : Little by Little - Bit by Bit MAKE A LIST!

Do you have the feeling in life that you are gaining ground? Are you getting better with age? I would answer that.... "I hope so but  I am hesitant to say it with an exuberant Yes."  I have rounded the corner in the last era of my life, my daughters have grown up and have moved on. They run their own show now. My job of trying to grow my children into responsible adults is over.  My life now has a different focus.  I am on a mission for the next 50 years....  Growing ME :) going deeper, refining silver into gold if that is possible.  I don't have life all figured out. Yes I am 56 years old and sometimes feeling that I am still in the process of Growing Up.  For the next 50 years I want to feel like I have figured out a few things here and there for Me and I hope to be wiser and happier for it.  I know life is a journey and it will be a mix of  learning new ways to get the most out of my days and other days feeling like somethings will never change.  At this stage of life my patterns of living are pretty established.  I feel like I wouldn't know how to bring about change if change is needed. More than once I have wondered what it would be like to have a Life Coach.  Surely I am not alone in starting well with great enthusiasm, but soon puttering out and not finishing well.  My struggle that last few years has been about being a better finisher.  Last year I bought a pocket size  set of polk-a-dot composition note books.   I needed a little motivation to be a better finisher.  On one notebook I wrote the title...  FINISHED PROJECTS!!  Through the year I wrote down each project that I finished.  A total of 15 things I finished in 2014!!!!  Amazing!
For me I discovered that with days that slip away it was encouraging to keep track of things that I finished.  Some times I still feel like a mother stringing beads on a string with no knot at the end.

Here is my list.

1.   Made 3 Christmas ornaments for my Grand children
      romancing the polar vortex here
2.   Hung an mirror in my daughters massage room
3.   Finished My Frost Bite quilt     tips from a turtle here
4.   Finished textured flowers picture     love flowers, love fabric here 
5.   Made a little pillow for my little red rocking chair out of scraps
6.   Made 3 Christmas sweater stockings made for my daughter
      view stockings here
7.   Remade some Fall leaf coasters     the sweet of life here
8.   Made 4 Sweater pumpkins    simply-delightful-here
9.   Restored a Quilt for  my daughter Ariann


New border and binding.

Happy Happy Happy!



This is her couch snuggle blanket.

10. Made 6 kitchen towels for people I love.       Christmas love here
11. Finished painting a Red dresser for my ironing station.
      LOVE IT! the-best-of-home -here
12. Teaching a young woman how to quilt and we finished her quilt!
13.  Assisted with curtains for Ariann's bedroom!   8 Windows.
14.  Made window draft stoppers.   Our dining pleasure has increased dramatically.



15.  Made curtains for Cassie's Massage room.


 I am not going to amaze anyone with wowing accomplishments each month.   My style is a slow steady rhythm.  I am like a flower growing from seed.  Some days I hardly notice any change on the outside but inside I'm pondering, thinking and growing.  Blooming in season.....then fading into Winter.  Each year the process repeats itself.  January makes me feel like I'm starting the new year all over again from a seed tucked safely in the ground.  I know the days of my life are numbered and no one needs to remind me days pass quickly.  Someday I will be old and my children will be taking care of me.  They love that thought. Ha.  When the end is near I want to say .... I have lived a good life.... I'm ready for Heaven.

So much to learn yet to make the most of my days.

Little by little, bit by bit I will gain understanding of what it takes to live the life that God has created me for.

Once again another year has come and gone....    I think it has been a good year.

Now 2015 is rolling along..... once again at a speedy rate.   Hello FEBRUARY.

My one word for the year................BEGINNING.     I have been paying more attention to how I begin my days.  Morning time is Prime Time for me.  I have more energy,  I spend less time thinking about what to do and more time just doing it in the morning.  I have a better chance of solving a problem in the morning.  I have moved more projects forward before lunch than I have after lunch.  My days have a greater sense of God's presence if I spend time with Him in the morning.  For various reasons I have neglected a daily quiet time in the last couple of years.  I found myself in a season of Winter in my spiritual life.  I'm  starting again at the beginning, reading the New Testament  One chapter at a time.  It has been good for me.

http://www.navigators.org/www_navigators_org/media/navigators/tools/Resources/5x5x5-Bible-Reading-Plan.pdf

January Insights ..........

* I  have decided I was spending too much time in the morning on the computer.

* I am not a list maker.  I once knew why some people are list makers and some are not.  Reasons I don't do well with lists.....  Things always take me longer than I think they will....  I am discouraged by lists of things I need to do each day.....  There is always more on my list than I can possibly do in a days time.  I once made a list of projects that I wanted to complete in the year 2010. It is still on my fridge with over half of the projects remaining to be done.  I am a list maker drop out but I think people who make lists get more accomplished.

So what did I do in January????
I made a list!  I made a list on a small piece of paper so the list couldn't be too long.  It is a list not for the day or the week but for the month.
Things to work on in January.
I wrote down 8 things I could work on this month.   And I keep it tucked in my other little book titled

"Quilts I want to make", because You know there are more quilts than I'll ever have time to make that I'm dreaming of  and I need to keep moving forward on things.

So here was my January list.......

1.  Finish 2 more kitchen towels.    Sweet and done!






2. Work on Snowman block for my Blue and White snow theme quilt.

Inspired by Anne Sutton's "Snowbound" quilt pattern   Block # 11
https://bunnyhilldesigns.com/index.php/patterns/seasonal-patterns/winter/snowbound.html

Using scrap triangles and Changing it up a bit....  Lots of trial and error here. The stripes were going up and down.... It was all puckery after stitching on the snowman so I started over.  I like the diagonal stripes much better.

More Decisions.....
I'm trying to decide if I like the white or the dark blue stitching on the tree .



The snowman is made out of wool.




Inspiration  :)



Views outside my window.




I went with the white thread 
because I thought it looked like snow on the branches

Adding falling snow flakes too.




The colors are showing up overly bright here for some reason.

I actually finished this in February
 on a day when there really was 
NO SCHOOL!
Nice memory of a snow storm :)




Another SWEET AND DONE!






3.  Put borders on Christmas quilts  ......   One out of three done.   Moving forward!

This is the project that never ends.  The project that I have been slow as molasses on.

After making one I had a bright idea to make 3 more.... Silly me.





 

4.  Baste above Christmas quilts -  Negatory




5.  Cut more pieces for my Polka-dot- Quilt  for my Leaders and Enders Project.

     Just cutting pieces has led to this pile of pretty.







They are sew sweet. 





6.   Prepare backing for Mama Said Sew Quilt    -  Negatory




7. Work on Embroidery for Addilyn's quilt  -   Negatory




8.  Make Christmas Gift bags.-   Negatory





And there you have it girlfriends.......  the story of my lists.

Make it small, make it encouraging, celebrate each step of the journey.

 I know I am slow.  It is OK to be slow.  Just keep moving forward.

And now it is February.  I can throw out the old list and make a new list.

This month if I get those Christmas quilts done I am going to be

ONE HAPPY CAMPER!


Put some Happy in your day :) and Get 'er Done!

Janita






















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