Harvest time.

While I was up north Chris harvested our butternut squash crop. We tried one tonight and it was very good. Chris has also been painting Teresa's room. It is almost done, mostly the ceiling to do.

This past weekend Laura and I went up to Jonathan and Tonia's and Tonia showed us how to make theses lovely christmas ornaments. Tonia's family has been making them since she was a little girl. We plan to add it to our traditions as well.
Also this weekend we visited Rich and Bev and family and celebrated Gloria's and Rich's birthday. It was fun to get together again.

This is a poor picture of the growth chart I am making for my friend Kaylene who just had a baby girl last Wednesday. There is room for pictures between the "flying geese" triangle designs.

Duty or desire

I have finally finished a job making rugs for a lady at church. I am very grateful for the money it provided but must say I feel a new sense of freedom. Even though I am sitting in the same chair, using the same sewing machine I am now working on my desires instead of doing my duty. It makes all the difference. I am currently working on a growth chart for my coworker, Kaylene who just had a baby girl this morning at 2:30 AM.

I also attended a local quilting guild for the first time last night. I enjoyed listening to the speaker and got some good ideas. I only saw one person that I knew so next time I hope to bring a friend. I joined for the year as it was more economical than paying for each visit. So I plan to attend again.

I am thankful for more days off now so I will have more time for quilting and projects around the house. Chris is off for the next week so hopes to do some painting of Teresa's room. He started on one wall last weekend.

What's been happening?

I much prefer to blog with pictures because a picture is like a thousand words but alas I have no new pictures so will have to make do with words. Thursday Linda Stilts (I am still getting use to calling her that!) and I drove to Portland and placed program bags on the seats of the Rose Garden arena for the Women of Faith conference. The literature we had said to expect 4 or more hours of work but we were done in a record 1 hour and 45 minutes. For this effort we received a free ticket for the main conference (Friday night and Saturday). It was well worth the effort and an easy way to enjoy a free ticket. We even had seats five rows from the front on the floor so we had a good view. The conference was great with some new faces and lots of familiar ones. I rarely laugh as much anywhere as I do at the Women of Faith sessions... or get as many tears in my eyes as they share such heart touching issues and truths. If you haven't gone before I highly recommend it and if cost is an issue go to the website and volunteer for bag distribution.

I have been plugging away at making applesauce before the first frost and have successfully picked all the apples I can reach (there is one branch with about 5 apples that are much too high but I will leave them without guilt). I just have about 20 more to process into pies or applesauce. We will be eating good this winter. I am trying to determine just the right time to pick the many butternut squash.. Soon I think as we had frost yesterday morning. The many tomatoes are now no more but I did make some into sauce for the freezer.

Chris has been trying to do some fishing and explored the Kalama River but still has had no success except to enjoy the beauty and peacefulness of the outdoors. (Or mostly peacefulness as he does have to put up with rude people sometimes)

I have also been trying to finish some sewing projects. I have worked on several but still haven't finished them. Maybe this week. That is most of what is going on.

Keep your eyes on Jesus during this turbulent time.