February's Block

This week I finished my first blocks. The February blocks are the bigger ones on the bottom. The top ones are filler blocks to make the quilt a little bigger. I did my February ones so I'm ready to go for March and once I get my January ones I'll get those done. It was fun. Tuesday Reianna and I got together to sew. We got started a bit late just because by the time we got together it was time to get dinner going. We had a lovely dinner of pizza and carrot sticks and then got right to work. It was an adventure between monitoring children and making sure we sewed straight lines. At the end of the night we had managed to get one block almost done and Hannah's bed frame was in the crib while the mattress was in my room to avoid jumping on the bed. Apparently something way too tempting for two three year olds and an 17 month old. It was fun and last night I finished up the other blocks. I am really excited and thinking that maybe some of my old piles of material will turn into a similar quilt while I'm at it.

Block of the Month

Yesterday a friend and I signed up to do a Block of the Month quilt project through a local quilt store. I am really excited and I hope she is too. I love to make quilt tops. Actually quilting them can be a project but I love creating something that though someone might have the same fabrics you do, it will still be unique and all my creation. I am really excited and hopefully I can remember to post pictures of our blocks as I go through the year. Someday maybe I'll even have a finished quilt to display.

Happy Brithday to . . . me!

On Monday I turned 26. Pretty crazy. I look at my life and really it's pretty much how I figured things would work out. Granted, I wasn't planning on living in Texas and having a husband still in grad school but I'll take it.

I spent my birthday cooking and doing some minor picking up. In Provo there is a fantastic little Mexican fast food place with a great vibe. It is always busy. A few years ago I got recipes copying a few of their signature items. Now I can have Cafe Rio anytime I want, so Sunday the pork and black beans went in to cook. By Monday we had lovely Pork Barbacoa, with black beans, cilantro rice and the creamy tomatillo dressing. Yum. We washed it down with a great Boston Cream Pie. I love good food so it was a great birthday meal.

Hyrum surprised me with a fancy diploma frame for my diploma. It's something that I wanted but would never have bought so that was a really great present. Now my diploma looks nice in its new home. We just have to get Hyrum some for his diplomas so they can all look nice and fancy together. Hannah gave me a little piggy bank to save my pennies in. And Jonathan just smiled a lot. It was a good day.

I am so grateful to have my family. I love Hyrum and the kids so much. The Lord has greatly blessed us with more things than we could ever define. I look forward to another year of adventures. Hopefully I can be wiser, not just older by this time next year.

Racoons, Opossums, and Skunks, oh my!

I've been running in the mornings for almost a year now, well eight months, and I see an amazing amount of wildlife. Sometimes it's scary. This morning I came across not one, but two skunks. Luckily they were going the opposite direction I was. The last time I saw one, I almost had a tomato bath when I got home.

Then, on my way home saw a little critter scurry across the road. At firt I thought it was cat or raccoon. We have no shortage of either one of those. It was a opossum though. I have always wanted to see one those, alive. They are really about as ugly as they are alive though the light was bad. Considering they are nocturnal though I don't think I'll ever get better light.

I kind of wish all of the critters knew that they should be back in their beds by 5:30 am, in time for me to get out of mine. Hopefully, I get to keep seeing them from a distance, a great distance.

Rumblings

I noticed the other day that our blog has become more of a travel log. Maybe that is for the best but I would like to share a bit of me.

As a kid I loved books. I loved being transported to another world or time or both. I could see the action of a story within my mind and get so engrossed that time seemed to fly by without me. There were several occasions when I was suppose to be cleaning the bathroom and instead of cleaning the toilet I was sitting on the seat cover with a book in my face. My mom hidden more than one story from me and I didn't get them back until my chores were finished. I remember reading a good mystery on a summer night with my lights on and jumping from fright when the June bugs flew into the screen on my window.

These simple pleasures were something I wanted to give someone. To be a novelist was my dream. It was a dream I carried with me through the years. Sometimes it was buried under other concerns or interests but it never got thrown out. My senior year of college I took a couple creative writing classes and loved them. My grades weren't stellar but I figured that with time I could work something out that would knock the socks off a publisher.

As more time went by, I realized that I probably wouldn't blow away the literary world. I certainly wouldn't be a J.K. Rowling. or Stephanie Meyer. Finally after sitting down to work on my novel in the works about a year and a half ago I realized that I would never be a novelist. I am a lecturer, not a creator of fiction. I could never tell good stories, or even attempt comedy. I have come to the realization that I am a researcher. I love the thought of sitting down in a quite library, in a hard chair and a pile of books. I love thinking about writing with a pencil and making notes. I love the smell of such an environment.

Talk about self-discovery. I think this must happen through out our lives. It doesn't diminish who we are but helps us become the best we can be as ourselves.

Now I just have to find time to sit in that library with books for hours so I can finish a couple research papers.