If you could choose a sentence to be inscribed on your tombstone, what would they be and why?

It is from a book by David Laskin, called The Children’s Blizzard. He was describing a woman, Gro Rollag, who immigrated to America from Norway in 1873, “According to family lore, she was not the most conscientious housekeeper because ‘she preferred reading to housework.’”

 

Last week

I went home to visit my family after New Year’s Day. I stay with mom. Between the two of us, we had about a week’s worth of scrap booking and quilting and other things to do. I was only home for 3 ½ days. You would be surprised what we got done though.

To Do List

1. Get Mom’s vacation photos in a scrapbook

2. Make a quilt for Joy, the new Granddaughter

3. Make a quilt for Paul, the new uncle

4. Get my picture book under control

5. Go sledding and play in the snow

We stopped to see the new granddaughter on the way to Mom’s. She is pretty, although she looks like her Daddy, and he is not “pretty.” I got to Mom’s around supper time Tues.

We spent Tues night putting pictures and mementos together from Mom’s trip to New Zealand. The Australia ones will have to wait. I left some pre-made pages so Mom can do some herself too. I am not a huge scrap booker person, but I have plenty of stuff. I try to keep it down to what I can haul in one trip, using only a 12”X12” crate. Probably I should get something else to transport my stuff because the crate thing is pretty unhandy. There must be a good reason that I am the only person who carries a crate to scrap booking get-togethers. You could go broke scrap booking if you don’t watch out.

Wednesday I wanted to make a quilt for the granddaughter, Joy. I don’t know what else to give her. I quit making baby quilts for my friends a few years ago when I realized it was not actually possible for me to make quilts and raise toddlers at the same time. Way too many no-nos, and too much stuff to keep putting away and getting out again. I dug out my two plastic drawers with baby quilt cloth in them and packed them to Mom’s. As I sorted through the fabric, lo and behold, I had a quilt in there! It was not pieced, but I had a good start on it. We got the top put together and Mom plans to machine quilt it. She says whoever cut the pieces out didn’t do it very straight. (oops) We had supper with my Dad and his girlfriend and my Grandparents.

Thursday My kids’ paternal grandmother has 29 grandchildren and a handful of great-grand children, and that is only their Dad’s side of the family. From personal experience I know how hard it can be to keep everyone straight, so I made a book for Mae called “Mae and the Jam Jam Girls” I used photos I already had of Mae and got photos of grandmas and aunts and cousins in their jammies and put it all together with a little plot about going to bed. I can keep adding as necessary. Since Jane was supposed to be Leo, and I didn’t want a bunch of pictures of guys standing around in their underwear, I called hers “Jane Reads a Book” and I got photos of male relatives reading various things from a cousin with the newspaper sports section to my truck driver uncle reading a book on semis, while seated in the open door of his truck. Then along came Leo and Paul. What to do for them…I decided on animals and pets for Leo, we can do counting and species, then for Paul it will be hats and colors. We just keep adding to it, my first cousins and my kids’ cousin’s children and my step-father’s family and baby sitters. I was pretty organized through Jane, but it fell apart after that. Mom and I spent all our free time Thurs getting that put together, so I can complete Leo and Paul’s books. We also worked on Joy’s quilt, and played in the snow a little.

Friday I told Dad we would go out to his place for the morning. He lives where I grew up, a ranch 30 miles from town.  The ladies played with their vintage Little People collection and Leo flirted with breaking the lower hanging glass Christmas ornaments until noon, which was soup and “girl” cheese sandwiches, as the ladies call them. The kids took a nap and then Dad went to town, leaving me to take everyone to town in my car so we could meet him for supper. I spent all day using their wireless internet with my laptop, and getting five year’s worth of digital photos sent to Walgreen’s for printing via wireless rather than dialup. (Only $15 for 142 photos, not bad I thought, and they were ready two hours later!) We had Mexican for supper, I always want to do that when I go back.  After I got back to Mom’s we put together Paul’s quilt. Mom had done the cutting, and I just sewed. We make a pretty good team, one of us pinning and ironing and the other sewing. She had a pattern for a quilt that she said would go together very quickly for Paul, and it did, in just an evening. The back of it is a map of the US. When it is all tied and bound, I will post a photo. I have managed to make a baby quilt for each of my babies, but have finally resorted to making only the occasional Christmas stocking for my friends, see my Christmas photo for examples.

Saturday My cousin had a baby Friday, so I went to see her in the hospital. I thought she was only about six-years-old, but she says she is 26, so that must be old enough to be a mom. It is hard to believe that she is all grown up, I remember when she was born. She had a beautiful 5 lb baby girl, causing me baby envy as well. Paul was nearly twice that. Mom drove with us after lunch to meet my Stepdad who had escaped the chaos at his own home to his son’s house to spend time with his other grandkids. My stepbrother lives somewhere near half way between mom’s house and ours. That worked well for me. Five hours by yourself in a car with four kids can be a little rough.