New Quilts

My life has shifted in the last three months. Chris and I went from being happy go lucky, to over stressed and broke. Thankfully he started a new job last week, and although he no loger "works" for God, I know that God would be proud of any work he is doing. The hardest part of our whole situation was the loss of friendships we had made and the sudden loss of them we have to deal with.

With that being said, one way I deal with stress (other than laying in bed and watching hours of Netflix) is to quilt. Thankfully my mom and I have enough supplies (ok more than two humans could ever quilt) to get me through this stressful time. My mom and I have a standing quilt date every Wednesday night. During this time we lose ourselves in our quilts and a little HGTV (thanks for the TV for the quilt room dad!).

Our quilt room is above my parents garage, it includes two sewing machines, a quilting machine, a GO! cutter, large cutting table, and more fabric than necessary. I like this picture, it was our first day in our new room, and the last time it was this clean!

So far this year I have been buring through the fabric, making purses, bags, quilts and wall hangings. Just yesterday I made this sunflower wall hanging. I purchased the pattern at the Houston Quilt Show, rummaged for the fabric through our stash, added a little amount of crystals for some bling, and viola! I needed something to bring a little cheer into my living room for the spring and summer months ahead, after all, today is the last day of winter!

Round Top Inn

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting the Round Top Inn for a scrapbooking retreat. The weather was perfect adn Round Top was beautiful. The inn did everything for us, they picked up after us, the cooked every meal for us, and best of all they did the dishes! It was the perfect setting to get away for a couple days, the only thing missing was my hubby (I doubt he wanted to sit around and watch me scrapbook!) If you ever get invited to go on a scrapbook retreat or quilt retreat at this inn I will whole heartedly recomend it! (or if you are ever going to round top for some reason they rent to non-retreats too!) Next spring or fall I want Chris to come back to this place with me, I think he would really enjoy the peace I found here!

St.John's Girls

I love these girls! We had an all girl sleepover called the Princess Party. We are all The Kings daughters, therefore we are all princess in the eyes of our Father God. These girls have amazing spirits and souls. They are kind hearted, loving and giving to their fellow human beings. It is a joy to know them! My brother-in-law, Matt, took these pictures and I edited them, I think they turned out amazing!

Sometimes being a teacher gets rough!

So Chris has been off most of this week and last due to "forced vacation" if he didn't take it he was going to lose it.! But now he's at work on his normal day off, I guess that the joys of working for God, he doesn't care how ironic it is we he needs you to do his work. I wish I had forced vacation, especially after this week, it was one of the hardest this year. I actually had a student tell me I couldn't write him up for refusing to do class work...to which I responded watch me. It was all too much to handle this week, the kids are acting like it was the day before school gets out. The sad part is my few really good kids that have to suffer because of it. So I sit here on Saturday morning dreading Monday which makes me sad, but lets not dwell on that! Before Chris left this morning he gave me a task to design something for our princess party at church. It is a girls only lock-in ran by yours truly! I think its awesome, and it makes me happy to do things for youth I know appreciate it, unlike some fourth graders I know!

An old friend...

A few weeks ago I had the chance to go back to a place I love. A place that was very much a part of my life for almost 22 years. In fact one of the saddest and hardest days of my life is when I left here and never thought I could come back. My husband gave me that chance, who says you can't go home again? My family's place on Lake Travis was a piece of property that my grandfather bought in 1950 for his future family to enjoy. Like I did, my mother and her three sisters grew up here in the warm summer months. When his children (my aunts) got married he gave them each a piece of his land to build a hose on for their family. I remember learing how to ski at the age of three, hanging out on top of the dock looking for meteor showers, family reuions, riding four across with tubes behind Uncle Don's boat, smashing my face in on Dave's jet-ski, late nights of watching our parents play dominoes, and the sad moment I learned we had to sell it. Two weeks ago chris rented out the houses from their current owners for his youth winter retreat. Three months ago I was estatic, and as the trip drew closer I started to lose sleep over the decision. Through my tears I was able to step back into time to a place I still love. Leaving wasn't as hard this time, but I still cried. I was also greatful that Chris finally was able to see where all of my family's stories come from. The curtains on the windows were still the same, as was the furniture and the dishes we left behind, but it wasn' mine anymore. The houses stood their like empty memories of the past, reminders of what I couldn't have anymore. As I drove away I tried not to look back in my rear-view mirror and tried to look forward to making new memories that mean as much to me.

The first...

A new year, a new hobby, blogging that is, not scrapbooking. Just another lazy Saturday morning and although it is a new year we are up to the same habbits! It's my day off and I'm up at 6:30 this morning while Chris will sleep to 10 if I let him. Its peacful, and it gives me time play on the computer and work on my scrapbooking which is so far behind that its hard to do because I can't remember 6 months ago! This morning when looking through my pictures I came across our snow pictures from December 10. After much work am learning how to use my new version of Adobe (I never thought that a simple thing like double clicking would get on my nerves soo much!). Well don't tell Chris, but I cut him out! and made the papers black-er because the photos just didn't go with happy cheery snow paper, it was just too dark out that night!