Love Story and other loves

Today, Ali MacGraw is on the Oprah show.  Of course the movie Love Story came up.  I remember seeing that in my youth.  I also remember when Ali's character uttered the famous line "Love means never having to say you're sorry.".  I also remember even then, at the tender age of 10 or so (it came out in 1970 when I was 10) thinking bullshit!  Love is work.  Love is -- if you mess up, you damn well better apologize and mean it.  You better change your ways.  You better not need to apologize again for the same thing.  To me, that particular line is the most idiotic one ever written in a movie or a book (because it was indeed a book first -- written by Erich Segal).  I'll admit that I have not read every book or watched every movie, so there could indeed be a more idiotic sentence out there, but this is my choice.  I'll also admit that I loved the movie back then.  I cried when the movie ended and I've only seen the movie once.  (The photo is of a blob of tar in a parking lot.  Looks like a heart to me.  So, of course I had to take a photo of it.  I'm finding more and more of them since my sister passed.)

I got pictures of my granddaughters yesterday.  They got new hair cuts and I think they look darling.  Granddaughter #1 has wanted to have bangs like her younger sister, but she has a cowlick like her gramma.  So, she finally figured out how to do it.  She got bangs on only one side.  I was worried about what this would look like, but it looks great!

Granddaughter #2 is just precious too.  I love her red hair.  Love, love, love it. 

I also got some great postal love today.  From my friend Tracey (!) and postcrossing! First, I feel that I owe Tracey a public apology.  I think I've been misspelling her name this whole time!  I think I've been leaving the "e" out each time I've written her or written about her.  If I have indeed done that Tracey, I'm very sorry.  Second, a public thank you since I'm posting about your sweet gift!  Thank you!  You shouldn't have, but it was so sweet and I'm so glad you did.  I love the photo card you made!  It is wonderful.  Such great fall color.  I can only dream about color like that here in Texas.  Loved the cheerful stationary, the supportive card and the book is right up my ally.  Thank you so much for the wonderful surprise!

The postcard is from San Diego and shows a local lighthouse   -- the Cabrillo National Monument.  I've loved lighthouses since we lived in Biloxi, Mississippi for 4 years while my husband was stationed at Keesler in the Air Force early in our marriage.  Our son was born there.  Found memories. 


The tiny heart rock is one I found when I got home from visiting my mom this afternoon. 

This last photo is a postcard that I'm sending to someone here in the United States.  It is one of a few that I have purchased.  This person asked for a postcard with a recipe and I just happened to have one, but not on a photo postcard that I had taken.  Thought you might like to see it.  I have not tried the recipe.  If you try it, let me know if you like it.

Postcrossing Love

I got two postcrossing postcards in the mail today! 

My very first from China.  Sometimes the English translations are not quite "proper", but I find them endearing and often more loving and perfect than what it should have been.  For instance, his salutation is "Warmly greetings from China."  I absolutely love that!  So much more than just "warm greetings".  To me it is just beautiful.  If it had not been for that small mistake in grammar, I would have thought this postcard came from a person living in China who's first language was indeed English because the rest was written so very perfectly!  The photo on the card is of the Taihao Mausoleum at Huaiyang. 


The next came from Ohio.  She sent a postcard of Niagara Falls.  This is my second Niagara Falls postcard and they are starting to make me want to go there.   

New Post Cards, a Book, a Heart Rock and a new Project

I found another heart rock in my walk way yesterday on my way to the car to go to Dallas to sew with my mini group friends.  I picked it up, scraped off the mud (we've had a little rain lately) and dropped it in my basket to take with me.  I remembered to show it to only one friend while there, Andrea.  I photographed it on one of the postcards -- it's in the last photo.  I saw this heart shaped cloud while driving home from Dallas and sewing.

While there, I started a new project.  I've been wanting to make a "grief" quilt for some months now.  I asked if anyone could remember the stages of grief and Shelley and Andrea both got online and found them for me.  Andrea's website had 7 stages: 1. denial/shock, 2. pain/guilt, 3. anger/bargaining, 4. depression/loneliness/reflection, 5. upward turn, 6. reconstruction/working through, 7. acceptance/hope.  Shelley printed out the 5 stages that I am more familiar with: 1. denial, 2. anger/resentment, 3. bargaining, 4. depression, 5 acceptance.

I decided to go with the 5 stages that Shelley found and possibly throw in a little of Andrea's findings also because I didn't want the fabrics to be too think to sew.  I found fabrics to represent the different stages of grief for me.  For "denial" I used the orange and grey originally, but that wasn't really enough.  I later added the purples they are on the top of the quilt, thanks to Maxine and Kari for suggesting it needed diagonal movement and purple.  Everything on top of the red, represents "denial and shock".  Red represents "anger", the next fabric is a blue with red and blue freckles (or dots) which represents bargaining, then the black is for "depression" and finally the yellow peeking through is for "hope and acceptance".  I'm not there yet, but I'm hopeful that I will be one day.

As you can see the top fabrics are ripped and woven through each other.  They are very confusing, just like the feelings in the beginnings of grief.  The denial and the shock are so confusing, my very fiber feels ripped apart at times.  I had not trimmed the quilt to the point that it's at in this photo when I had taken it over to a part of the quilt shop that has all the thread.  I was looking for black and grey and maybe a dark purple.  An older woman saw my quilt at that point and said "oh what a mess!".   I turned to her and thanked her.  I told her it that it represents grief.  She said "Grace?"  "No," I said "grief.".  She said "Greece?"  "No, grief as in someone has died and I am grieving for them".  At which point she just looked at me with disdain and confusion and her friend dragged her away.  She just could not comprehend a quilt that was not of a traditional making/pattern/design.  That's OK.  Someday she may feel like ripping fabric and remember my "mess" and give herself permission.   

I've already stitched a broken heart into the quilt.  I plan to stitch tears into it at some point, but other than that, I'll just stitch and see what happens.  I don't know if it will be donated to the Quilter's Guild of Dallas' live mini auction in March or if I'll put it in the show.  Right now, the only thing I know for sure about it is that is not messy enough. 

My momma sent me a book that I got in yesterday's mail.  It's Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt.  She said in her letter to me "It is amazing how it applied to both of our lives this terrible year."  She also said she felt that she was guided to the yard sale that had it.  I agree.  I loved every word of this book.  I read it very quickly and I plan to reread it again soon.  Then I may return it to momma and buy another one for myself, so that we can both have a copy.  It just feels like we'll need it.  I don't know. 











I've got some postcrossing postcards to share with you too.  The first is from Louisiana and is of the Superdome.  I didn't know the facts that are listed on the front of the card.  Fun.  Click on the photo if you want to read them yourself. 

The next one is from Spain and shows the Ebro River. 

Then I got a surprise card from a young woman that I had sent a card to in the past.  She didn't need to send me a card in response or as a thank you, but she did.  Very sweet.  It shows a fountain in St. Petersburg, Russia. 

The last one I have to show you today actually came in an envelope!  Also from Russia.  It shows a lovely hotel and speaks of hot air balloon rides!  That would be so nice.  Isn't the envelope pretty?  I love the stamps too. 

The Mail has been Fun

First there were some postcards from my Postcrossing friends across the globe.  The first one (above) arrived while I was still in Oklahoma.  It's from Michigan.  The second came today from Poland.  

Saturday is when my wonderful, beautiful feather touchstone arrived!  This is where I went to buy the feather touchstone.  Julie has a wonderful blog -- Moments of Perfect Clarity and an etsy shop with lots great photos for sale (at this time).   I first heard of Julie and all of her wonderful artistic talents through the *gift of jewels* exchange on Se'Lah's blog Necessary Room.  So many talented, giving people pass through there.  Be sure to notice her wonderful (moo.com) postcard and moo mini cards too!

Monday brought more fun with "Rock My World" love!  What can I say, Kim is a fast favorite of mine and a very talented artist.  Also discovered on the Necessary Room blog.  Check out her blog Queen of Arts to find her etsy shops, rocks and cards.  Talent abounds!  This photo is really pretty horrible.  The colors are much more vibrant than they show here. 

Last, but not least, was a treasure of my own making that I had ordered for a dear friend and for myself.  Catherine got hers late last week.  I was going nuts waiting on mine.  But it's here and now I'm going to read it and then save it for my grandchildren.  The Blog - part one is the first several months of this blog in book form.  Catherine doesn't have a computer at home and had trouble keeping up with the blog at first.  Actually she still misses quite a bit of my postings now, especially when I get going and post three times in one day, but she does the best she can.  She's such a close friend, that I actually think of her as my heart-sister.  For the most part, I've been very blessed in the sister, sister-in-law, friend department.  Very blessed.

Wait for it......

As you know, my daughter-in-law passed away a little over 5 months ago. My grandchildren are dealing with this with various degrees of difficulty. Right now, my oldest granddaughter (she's 9) is having a very hard time with it. The kids and their dad came down here to see us and other family members this weekend. Tomorrow, I'm headed up to Oklahoma about the same time they do. I'm hoping that having me up there for a little while will help her some.

I'll be checking in and trying to keep up with all of my fun things -- like postcrossing and the gift of jewels. :) I don't know when I'll be able to show you what I've gotten through the mail though because I don't know how long I'll be up in OK. So, y'all will just have to be patient and wait for all the extra fun when I get back. OK?

By the way, "wait" was the Sunday Scribblings prompt word for this week.

I want to Share

I told you a while back that I joined Postcrossing. Well, I've had two days that I've gone to the post office and had postcards in my mail box from other postcrossing folks! I want to share them with you as I get them. So, today, I'm playing a little bit of catch up, but not too much, because today I got four in the mail and I'd received two in the past. So, I'm only behind on two. Here are the first two:

From Ohio:













From France:














Now, here are the ones I got today.
From the Czech Republic:

















From Great Brittan, a photo she took herself of Mozart's grave in Vienna! I do love the ones that are made of photos they took themselves.

















This one is from California. It's also made from a photo taken by the sender. The plant is occitillo and the background is the coachella valley.

















Last, but certainly not least, this postcard is from a part of Holland called Fryslan.