Slowpoke Saturday

I have often seen myself as one of the Husky Dogs pulling a sled through the Winter snow. They have one speed---fast, and only know one word---mush. In order to stop a dog sled, they either have a spin out, someone or something gets in their way, or they get so exhausted from running they cannot take another step. They are a driving force to be reckoned with, literally. I miss running those Huskies. There was a thrill of speed and a thrill of flying through the air not knowing how I would land when we had a spin-out. I think members of my family all seem to have this drive. We go and go and go. Sometimes it takes something really huge in our life to stop us from keeping on. 

My Niece Manda went into the hospital around this time last year. They put her in a coma hoping that her body would somehow heal with more time resting and less time being out there going full out being a Mom to three very active grrrlie-grrls. None of the medical treatments were working for her for all the reasons that they don't when they don't. Her form of leukemia gave such a slim chance of recovery in the first year, and we said good bye to her at the end of that week. I am not sure any of us have recovered that deep loss. We have gone on as best we could, but feel the absence her death created.

I put together this comfort quilt using scraps from my stash, and doing two dark rows on one side and two lighter of the same color on the other side. Its a modified log cabin and just keeps adding the logs. The diagonal line is how those colors worked. She loved the quilt. I've posted this pic before, and took it the afternoon I gave it to her in MN (with her youngest of 3 Daughters, Sophia).

I'm working on several projects today that include a birthday gift, and a few quilts. Obviously, most anyone I make a quilt for is important to me. Every project that engages my time is important. Yes, important.

Over the long years of my life, I have learned that it is energetically enhancing to take a nap, sleep a few minutes longer in the morning, sit on the sunny porch and watch the bees dance on the flowers, or read a book....all those lazy dazy things I never did when I was younger. I waver between the compulsion to 'quilt til I wilt' and to do some self-nurturing.

Its going to be a week of being slow for me. I want to remember them all...all the members of my family and those few friends who have passed along. I take joy in their memories and how they laughed and played hard, and lived full out. This is the energy going into my projects this week; part of it slowpoking along and part of it full speed on.