Fanciful Quilts

First and always, the rose. This marks 7 Tuesdays - give or take a Tuesday or two - before my beloved & I are reunited. It's been awhile since I last wrote. Why, I don't know. There were periods of intense longing for my beloved....there were periods of feeling so very much alone....and there were periods when I just wasn't feeling well. I remember the self-advice of counting one's blessings. I find it amusing how we can offer such sage advice to others, but neglect to take one's own advice. My blessings which I have neglected to remember..... * A husband who God gave me to be my soul mate, my friend, my lover, my husband.... * A mother-in-law who is more than a mom-in-law. Though she lost her husband just mere months ago, she has shown great fortitude, strength and love. * Two visits from ladies whom I knew only through emails. Email is a wonderous invention. * The gift of sewing - and seeing quilts emerge from pieces of fabric *The ability to cry over...

Always first up - the 16th of December rose. This one fairly shouted Merry Christmas with springs of Christmas sprigs. Oh yes.... And my beloved - thank you. Today was a fairly nice day - even if it did start off a little rocky. Fell asleep around 10:30pm & woke up promptly at 1:30am. No problem. I can handle those wake up calls with the best of them....unless I.cannot.get.back.to.sleep. Yes, indeed. I couldn't get back to sleep. After 30 minutes of tossing & turning (much to the delight of kitty cat Faith who thought it was a marvelous game of find-the-feet-and-attack), I gave up and actually did some sewing for 3 hours. By 5am, I was wonderfully tired. I slept until 8:30am. Alas, my body wasn't too cooperative at this interrupted sleep business and a headache attached itself until well after 10am. I had pizza with our son at lunch. That's always nice even if he DID have 3 days of pizza prior to mom's invite. Now - that's the epitome of politeness. Dewey...

...before reflecting, I've been remiss in not posting for awhile. Life's ups and downs perhaps....and there was the momentary oh-my-gosh-another-weekend-tournament-I-have-to-deal-with panic. The bright spot in my life is the weekly rose from Riley...and his wonderful messages that accompany the rose. This is the 9 December rose...and each message is a warm hug. Riley - how you manage to be so romantic thousands of miles away in Iraq is ...well, words cannot describe - other than, I love you. Now - on to the reflections of a weekend chess tournament. It was a small tournament - 14 in all. God provided an even number of players in the 2 small sections. At 10:15am, I was starting to have these doubts (sorry, God - but it's the truth) about the uneven number of players in the top rated section. And in walks a young man whose rating is quite high. What a gift! I still have these doubts about running a chess tournament. I don't read the chess rule book like I should (I think ...

First things first....2 December 2008 rose from DH. 11 Tuesdays to go before we are together again. Oh yes! Now - the story of the hand therapy. Let me tell you one thing to always keep in mind: Doctors do not have a clue as to what is done in their therapy clinic. In the event you have not kept up to date on my extremely fascinating life, I learned my sore arm was due to a case of tendonitis. I refused a cortisone shot in his office....something about extreme pain for all of ten seconds (make that agonizing pain) for relief of maybe a week or so just doesn't make sense to me. So he offers something called "sonic therapy" and to go across the hall and make an appointment to come back for treatment. I make the appointment for the following Monday. I showed up at the clinic 5 minutes ahead of schedule...finally was ushered into the sacred hall of pain about 45 minutes later. Ironically, there's a sign next to the 'greeting window' that reads "If you arrive ...