Settling back in...

We are now settling back into a routine around here, although you may not have thought so from my few blog posts. I hope to start doing better soon.

Among other things, I'm very happy to have returned to stitching after having not done any for five weeks (yes, you read that right!) in November and December. In fact, I've stitched some each of the past 16 days. Boy does that feel good! My goal is not to miss any days of stitching during 2012, but we'll see now that goes. Sometimes travel is not very conducive to stitching between being busy and having poor lighting. (I've become pretty dependent upon my Dazor magnifying light.)

I'm now almost finished stitching Ann Rayner from Threads Through Time, and with any luck I can show you a photo in a week or so. I actually started stitching on Ann back in April. Unfortunately, with all our travels and family issues, my progress had been very, very slow. Ann has been a well-traveled sampler having gone with me to England and France and also on our many trips to Florida. Poor Ann never saw the light of day in France, and on our last trip to Florida (22 days) she never came out of my stitching bag. She probably thought she had been abandoned for good.

Yesterday a moving company delivered five pieces of furniture and three boxes from my father's home. (You may remember that we had already brought back a carload mainly of irreplaceable items such as photographs.) Today I've managed to unpack two of the boxes, but the third one (which is quite large) is still in the garage with the furniture. That box was supposed to go to my brother in New York, so tomorrow we will arrange to have it picked up. We still need to decide where in the house that the furniture will go. All the pieces we inherited have been in the family for several generations, which makes them very special. However, we need to make room for them by removing others.

They say that every family needs a "keeper" who will take care of family items and history. My poor children--I think both my parents instilled that passion in me. Over the years my mother would tell me (and have me write down) the family history of items. Both of my parents also gave me papers with family history. When our lives calm down some more, I need to go through those papers again, and also the containers of old photos I brought back with me from Orlando. I really want to get things organized. The reason I earlier said 'my poor children' is because I couldn't throw away anything that had any family connection. Perhaps some of you are that way also.

In addition to all the photos and papers I brought back from Orlando, I also brought back a bellpull my mother made. Although my mother did various forms of needlework during her lifetime, I think she cross stitched only two things—a stamped cross stitched sampler she made when she was 13 years old and the bellpull. She had it hanging in her home for quite a few years. When Daddy downsized after her death, he kept the bellpull. On my first visit to his new apartment, I was puzzled when looking at the piece.

Then I realized what had happened. The person who had hung everything on his walls, had hung the bellpull upside down. For months, no one had noticed.  Doesn't this look better?

I'm thrilled that today both of Mother's cross stitched pieces hang in our home—her sampler is in our bedroom and her bellpull in our living room. What treasures!! I need to jot down the family history of the pieces for our children.

I leave you with some Christmas photos.  The first two are from Christmas morning in Fort Wayne with Stephen, Michelle, and Garrett.  Garrett is now 15 months old and is very, very active!!

Then last Sunday (New Years Day) we went to Columbus (Ohio) to celebrate Christmas with Carolyn, Greg, and Haiden who is nearly 4 years old.

A good time was had by all!!