Category Archives: Gratitude

Happy Thanksgiving!

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This year we are keeping it easy. I worked the first part of the week and we ordered our Thanksgiving meal from our favorite place to order it from. My daughter is bringing over a couple of friends who isn’t able to go home for the holiday.

Tomorrow is the start of Bonnie Hunter’s annual mystery quilt along and I will not be participating. I will collect the clues for a future make. My friends picked up the paint chips for me. They are so sweet and I’m thankful for them this year.

~Happy quilting!

Melanie

Happy Thanksgiving!

TurkeyCartoon

We are still on our PNW college tour. I haven’t posted much about it but I’ve prepped them just so I would remember what happened and they’ll get published eventually.

While we’ve had memorable experiences and I’m grateful for a lot. -a whole lot… I really miss quilting. The past few years we’ve been holed up – and not just due to Covid. I have spent Thanksgiving week quilting and I didn’t bring any with me on this trip- not even any hand work! I have knitting and cross stitch.

Tomorrow is the start of Bonnie Hunter’s mystery quilt and I will not be participating. I will collect the clues for a future make. My friends picked up the paint chips for me. they are so sweet and I’m thankful for them this year.

~Happy quilting!

Melanie

Happy Thanksgiving!

TurkeyCartoon

This year it’s just me, hubby and the boy.  The girl is with her grandparents in Northern California.  She’ll be flying in on Saturday and will be staying for the rest of the semester until spring semester starts in January (I think).  

We drove back from Northern CA Tuesday and it’s been a nice few days getting some work in, some crafting in, and even a trip to Ikea.  

The trip up north was nice too.  We ended up not doing too much in the garage as it was mostly my sister’s stuff that my mom wanted out.  The remaining items were already things my parents had gone through and decided to keep. So I sat around and knit for the most part.  My mom has been collecting fruit trees for me too.  Now that we have our own place I am being given fruit trees to plant and nurture.  I have a Meyer lemon tree, 3 banana plants – one of which is a java banana (ice cream banana), brazilian guava, mexican mango (2), dragon fruit, sugar apples, and cherimoya.  Hopefully they bear fruit and they are yummy.  I planted the trees in pots for right now until I can figure out where I want them to go.  Since the 2 big trees were trimmed we have a lot more sun now and I have more planting options. 

Here’s what I’ve been doing today while the turkey is in the oven. 

I was practice quilting. I have 1 more orphan block to quilt and then on to the quilt tops I’ve finished this past year!

But first, tomorrow is the start of Bonnie Hunter’s mystery quilt and I can’t wait!!!

~Happy quilting!

Melanie

Going off Social Media

Lately, I’ve been feeling down. I’m sad, frustrated, upset, and immobilized.  The pandemic, quarantine, loss of people, friends, and family and the social things that kept my small tiny little life happy has really gotten to me.  The politics and obvious blatant racism and pain in the world. Just pain everywhere.  It’s awful and horrible. 

I am on Instagram and Facebook. I have a Twitter account that I don’t really use but periodically get pulled to when I click on something that brings me to it.  I watch YouTube and I do not even know what qualifies as social media anymore because just being on my computer or phone brings up notifications that pull me away from what I want to do and draws me down into a rabbit hole.

I am reading a book called, “Digital Minimalism” by Cal Newport.  I loved his book, “Deep Work” and I’m enjoying this book.  It’s about our digital life and how we no longer have control over our actions, thoughts, uses.  He’s much more eloquent than I am and I’m probably saying it wrong.  But I realize that I’m letting social media control my moods – I get sad, upset, jealous/envious, and angry after I check Insta/FB to see what’s going on.  I know I should know better than to feel this way when I see friends post certain things.  I know I should be better at putting my phone down, shutting my computer off, and doing the things that really matter.  I’ve often thought of deactivating my accounts and I still haven’t done it.

But some things have got to change. I am tired of this unmotivated, sad, angry feeling that has consumed me recently.

I can’t go off completely. I run the Facebook group for my quilt guild. I am also technically in charge of the guild’s Instagram account and by technically, it’s because I created the account and I monitor it. But since Covid, I’ve not really posted anything on it. I also run our zoom weekly quilting bee on Sundays to help keep the guild connected to each other.  I moved the apps on my phone to another page further away from my home screen that is slightly more difficult for me to get to.  That way it’s more of a conscious choice to get to it.  I may apply more rules to myself but so far, I’ve decreased my contact on social media and taking back more of my time and becoming more positive.

As part of my evening ritual, I am not allowed to check Facebook or Instagram after 7pm. I just started doing this in the last couple of weeks and my sleep has improved dramatically.  My fit bit broke a recently so I can’t give you real numbers but in terms of feeling, I’m waking up much better each day more regularly than before. 

~always,

Melanie

Day 46, What I miss most …

#1 – hanging out with friends and our craft days. Generally we have knit nights on Thursday nights. And every few weeks we do a craft Saturday or a craft Friday. We are doing zoom to meet virtually but it is just not the same.

#2 – I miss my retreats. There is something about taking all my quilty stuff and working on just quilts for 3 or 5 days.  I get so much done.

#3 – Popping over to the store – my LQS for some fabric, my LYS for some yarn, and even my LNS to hang out and stitch with my stitchy ladies. And, even Joann’s or CVS or Petco for that one thing that I need.  The hubby is our point person when going out in public and those things I needed before – well, I don’t need them so much anymore.

#4 – Making plans. It’s hard to make plans for the future because we don’t know what it will bring. How life will be and how we will need to adjust when we are allowed to go out again. International travel is definitely not in the books this year but what about domestic? I’m itching to go camping which we haven’t done in YEARS but for some reason I am feeling the call to do.  Anyone else?

#5 – Food, eating out, going out to eat with friends and chatting about our lives

and I’m sure there are more… but these are just the top 5 that come to mind.

💕

Melanie

Gratitude

A long time ago I started writing about 3 things I’m grateful for in a gratitude journal. And it’s helped my mental and emotional well being a lot over the years.  Here are the 3 items on my list today –

  1. dad came out of the hospital after another incident of fluid in his lungs. They tested him for covid-19 and he is negative!
  2. my sourdough bread is so scrumptious
  3. I had the ability to support my LQS and I’m thankful to be in a position to do that.

<3

Melanie

Happy Thanksgiving!

TurkeyCartoon

 

This year, we stayed home and kept things easy.  It seems that as I get older I’m all for easy.  We ordered everything from Claim Jumpers and Kayla decided to make candied yams and Jacob wanted to make pumpkin pie.  Both came out surprisingly tasty.  But the hard stuff – turkey and ham – came already made so nothing for me to stress about on my end.  I did buy a turkey and I’m baking it today, Saturday, so we can have turkey everything over the next few weeks.  I know, it’s weird.  But it works for me so that’s how I do it.  I remember my mom doing the same when we were younger.  A huge turkey on Thanksgiving for the big family gathering and a smaller turkey just for us to enjoy over the next few weeks.

I spent the holiday break crafting on my projects and spent Black Friday on the first clue of Bonnie Hunter’s mystery QAL (Quilt-a-long).  There’s only 50-9 patches so I hope I can get those done by Monday!

~Happy crafting!

Melanie

 

Gratitude Diaries: Day 70

I’m grateful for…

… Creme Caramel.  The hubby has been wanting to take me here for awhile and we just never had a chance to go.  Today, we went and I loved the bread pudding.  We also had the ube upside down pie and while it was good, the bread pudding won my heart.  I’m hoping to order a dozen for our upcoming new year’s eve party.  Not only was the desert good, but the customer service made the whole experience that much better.  The owner (as I believe the person who helped us was based on her convo in the shop) took the time to learn each of her customer’s names.  She asked the hubby and mines when she took our order and greeted each customer by name that came in.  I’m so grateful when smart, talented, young women start up businesses that excel.  I hope that this business continues to grow as she truly deserves it.

… having a day to run errands.  I worked a bit in the morning and once I got through the emails and urgent stuff, the hubby and I went off.  First to Fry’s and they have horrible customer service but we suffered through it and I looked at the various laptops they have.  My old laptop is no longer usable and with our upcoming Florida trip, I need a very good laptop to use over the 3 weeks we’ll be gone.  So I’m doing shopping now so I’ll have the next 6 months to get it up to speed.  Anyway, I didn’t like what I saw so off we went to have lunch in Van Nuys.  The first spot we went to was a place my friend has been raving about.  Unfortunately, they’re closed over the holidays as they are doing some remodelling.  So we were at a lost since we were both hungry and had no idea where to go.  It couldn’t just be anywhere – we wanted something great!  We ended up at Pita Kitchen – one of the hubby’s favorite mediterranean places.  They have a great steak plate.  I’m sure that’s not what it is really called but I never order here so I can’t tell you what it is.  I hold down the table (it’s a small space so I sit down as soon as I find a spot, while the hubby orders).  It was a great last minute choice for lunch.  Afterwards, we went to Creme Caramel for dessert.  Then to Best Buy to see what they had to offer for laptops.  And then to the groceries.  Whew!  By the time we got home, I was beat.  Checked the emails again and spent some time cutting fabric for Scrapitude 2016!

… being able to shop for a new laptop.  Many people can’t just do that, with cash, so I’m so grateful to be in a position now where I can.  The hubby and I are working hard on getting our finances up to snuff and moving towards living a debt free life.  Don’t get me wrong, we’re nowhere near where we want to be but we’re trying to make the right choices every day to get us there.  (and sometimes we make wrong choices that we have to live with!)

… being able to live the life I want to live.  When work is busy I work my butt off.  When it is slow (like it is now) I get to live life the way I want.  I’m grateful for how life is right now.  Of course, it can’t always be this way because if it is slow – then I won’t have any money to pay the bills! 🙂  But it is nice to have it like this temporarily during the holidays.

Have a great evening!

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Gratitude Diaries: Day 64-69

I’ve been gone and I didn’t take the time to post one of these while I was out of town.  I’ve neglected this and I’ll try to be better over the next year.

I’m grateful for…

… living in Los Angeles.  I do not like being cold and I love the weather here.  We still need rain and thankfully it’s been raining a bit here and there.

… spending some time with family.  It was short and sweet but I enjoyed the brief time with the family.  I need to spend more time with them but I’m not sure how I’ll be able to do that.  I’ll have to think about it and see what we can do.

… my children and their enthusiasm.  For Christmas, this year the boy got a gaming headset.  These could run on the expensive side but I didn’t get him anything expensive.  He didn’t know the difference and he LOVED it.  The girl got new underwear.  I know, underwear!  There’s a story there but she might be embarrassed so I’m not going to tell it here unless she says I can.  Just know that she LOVED it too.  Such simple gifts but the hubby and I got them what they wanted and they are happy.  They know that the big gift comes in June when we all go to Florida! 🙂

… watching a movie in the middle of the day.  I’m off this week (or just checking emails for anything important) and the kids are spending time with their grandparents up North.  That means the hubby and I can go to the movies in the middle of the day!

… while we were away, apparently there were high winds and the tree broke off huge chunks of limbs and branches in our front yard.  Thankfully, they didn’t fall onto the house but fell on the other side and only a piece of our fence broke.  I’m so grateful that the house didn’t get affected and our cars parked in front didn’t get damaged.

Have a great evening!

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