People are like......Crazy Quilts

So this week I decided to start an old project I have had laying around for about 10 years, that I periodically get obsessed with finishing. About 10 years ago, I got this wild idea, to start a crazy quilt. The directions looked simple enough, the results are beautiful; and I enjoy doing embroidery, so this seemed like a perfect project for me. Had I known it would take what seems to be forever, Im not sure if I would have started it at all. I find that I do this with alot of things. Anything that seems like it will be to much effort or take to long, I just put it off for later or go on to something easier or start and stop several times over the years. This is where I am finding myself right now with this project. Since my eyesight seems to be getting worse, all those tiny stitches give me headaches and make my hands cramp up, I figured pretty soon it could be much worse and I better get in gear and complete it.
Over the years,  I have managed to collect large amounts of material and embroidery threads and ribbons for the above said project. I have organized and re-organized. I have taken 3 weeks to finish one block of embroidery and given up countless times. I have bought book after book with the same stitches and ideas in each one.  I have put it down and started another project and not come back to this one for a whole year at a time. So here I am, with all my "stuff" ready to try and tackle it again. This is not a sudden decision, I have been working myself into this for a couple months now. With the onset of Winter, I seem to get this sudden urge to start sewing again, so I drag everything out and try to remember where I left off, before something else grabs my attention.

After gathering all my assorted books and embroidery paraphernalia, I proceeded to actually get 4 whole seams done with a minimal of effort and only one mishap. Yes, I somehow managed to embroider the quilt block to the table cloth. Silly I know, and took an extra ten minutes to get it undone and had to cut out all the stitches. Sometimes that happens, you do a bunch of work only to find out you have to tear it out and start all over again.
So here it comes, are you ready?
We are all alot like crazy quilt blocks. God pieces us together on the  foundation of Jesus his son. We are put together piece by piece, a little at a time. Sometimes things happen quickly in our walk with God, sometimes everything just stops and we look at it up on the shelf and say, One day I will get back to that. When things seem to get to hard, we walk away and take the easy path. We get distracted easily by the world or even by seemingly Godly ideas that are heavy to bear and have no real purpose other than to steal away our affection from God. Here comes the painful part, every once in a while, stitches have to ripped or cut out, and although this seems to be a terrible thing  at first, as with embroidery, when you go back and do it again, the results are always better than they were before.
Im not trying to sound hyper spiritual, Im not even close to that, but like my quilt project, I am a work in progress, and one day I will be complete, through all the starts and stops and do overs. One day I will be finished, and just like a quilt block, I will be beautiful

Happy New Years! Its "Do Over time!!!"

So I have been thinking alot about all this resolution stuff I hear going around, and I for one have never really made any solid commitments one way or another on New Years day for doing or not doing anything in particular.. Did you catch that? I hope you did because I think I just confused myself! Basically what this means is I am to chicken to say or commit to something I may regret or break later, so I decided to commit to not making any resolutions I don't think I can keep. Does this mean I will make any resolutions? No, I will not, because as sure as I am that the sun will rise I am sure that as soon as I say I will or wont do something I'm gonna do or not do it. You may be lost by now, if so go back and read it again. I had to read it twice just to make sure I am making some sort of sense. If you are not lost, good for you please take a moment an explain it to us.
In lue of making "resolutions" per say, I have decided that I am going to call this my "Do Over List". Please feel free to use this term as your own. Here are some things I would like to "Do Over" this year:

Decluttering My House:
This is a very big one for me as I am a consummate collector of all things, which results in massive amounts of clutter. I tried some "decluttering" techniques last year and some of it went well, and some of it wasnt so great, therefore decluttering will be on my "Do Over List". I have huge amounts of "stuff" to go through and will depend on the Lord to help me be brutal with clutter.

Organizing my desk area:
This is a constant battle and no matter how many times I say Im going to clean it up it never gets done very well. I suppose I could blame it on the kids and the husband, but that wont fix the problem. Being totally un-organized is a sure sign of insanity, and insanity defined is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. With this in mind I will attempt a new organizational plan..not sure what it is yet, but will give whatever it happens to be a shot.

Husband Attention Time:
This is something I have had alot of trouble with recently, like say for the past couple years. It seems as though I always have time for everything BUT my husband, which should not be. Since I am homeschooling, a good part of the day consists of dealing with the inevitable " Mom, what do I do here?" questions, which is probably the bulk of the time I spend going from child to child. The other thing that tends to take my time and sap my energy is cleaning the house, or coercing the kids to do it, whatever the case may be. My husband needs to have my undivided, non-resentful attention occasionally so this is something I will be "doing Over" during the day. Pray for me.

Servant Hearted:
I really need to work on this, as I am learning I am not as Servant Hearted as I had originally thought I was. Oh I have no problem giving things, but try and volunteer me for something, watch it, your going to get hurt. This year I would like to try to serve my family and friends a bit better than I have, and not be so...so...mean, for lack of a better word, when my husband or a friend "accidentally" volunteers me for something I don't really want to do. Please pray for me..again.

I am sure if I sat and thought about it I could come up with some more things to "Do Over" this year, but I wouldn't want to overwhelm myself, or you with all the prayer requests I would be needing. By the way, I started up my Craft Business again, which without the help and prodding of my daughter,  would not have gotten done, so if you don't mind, you can pray about that also:)

Happy New Years!

Merry Christmas From The Hawkins Family

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family! In celebration of getting my tree early and all my cards done and sent, here is probably my final blog post for the year, unless of course I decide to do another one!

Since my last post, my husband, with a little help from a friend, managed to bring home a beautiful full tree for the kids and I to decorate. My husband told me if it hadn't been for our friend, who dragged it through the woods for a few miles, we wouldn't have one, so thank you Eric, and thank you Tracy for loaning us his time and energy. At any rate, even though I had cleaned the house, windows, and carpet in preparation for this event, I still managed to end up  with more cleaning before it could be brought in. I have no idea how it gets so messy, seriously, its amazing the amount of things that can pile up in a short time.

Since I KNOW everyone wants to see the tree, here it is.

The Tree before.......

As you will notice in the background, my pile of ornaments and decorations are forlornly sitting on the couch waiting for the tree to be trimmed and set. I could hear them calling to me.."tree... tree...tree...". Just kidding, ornaments don't talk, silly people! It only took 20 minutes or so to get it all ready and off we went. After stringing the lights,  Alyssa and I took turns finding places for all the ornaments I had collected over the years. It was actually alot of fun, and we had a place for every ornament. I used to collect one for each of the kids, but when you don't get a tree every year sometimes its hit and miss, I was just glad I managed to find the Babies First Christmas ones.

The tree after....

Okay so we got the tree up and I decided this year EVERYTHING was going out, and I mean Everything. I haven't decorated this much in years and it was a blast, although I think at a certain point my husband was saying, "are you done yet?", and Im like "uhhh...NO". I worked on it the rest of that day, and then some the next day, and then some the next day...you get the picture. I think I was bordering on obsessed. Lets just say it is a good thing I ran out of stuff to put out, or I might still be decorating. After my husband came home and saw what I had done, he proceeded to make a new word to describe my decorating attempts "hick-lectic". For those of you who don't know what this means, join the club, the only part I actually caught was the "Hick" part, which I assure you did not earn him any points. I think if you look up "hick" then "eclectic" and put the two definitions together you will get it. 

Tree and sitting area.

Here is another picture from a different angle, or at least I hope so, as I seem to be having a technology dysfunctional moment at this time.....

Another view....

So I totally decked out the place and proceeded to help Winter make a wreath for the front door. I have only made one other wreath...ever...so we decided to use a metal hanger form, good thing too or it never would have got done. Here are a couple pictures.....

A work in progress...

It didn't really take that long and I think she did a wonderful job, and Im not just saying that because Im her mom!

Finished wreath...

So we are all done for the moment and breathing a collective sigh of relief, not sure if this will happen next year but Im looking forward to the Irish and Australian Ornaments for next year. Come to think of it, I may have too much on the tree right now as its starting to lean forward and my husband is positive its from all the weight. Maybe I will have to send some ornaments to my daughter so we can both have leaning trees:)

Merry Christmas!