Moment to Moment

I read once that the world doesn't need any more spectators. I usually like being part of the action rather than sitting on the sidelines. It makes me feel alive to be involved.

Long ago, I thought that women who stayed at home opted out of being in the high action of life. Long ago, I thought that quilters led boring lives. 

Yet, here I am at home and quilting. I am not bored nor am I boring.

This morning I cut the scraps from Jer's quilt into squares for my shoe-box stash, and put the bits into the basket for the pet blankets I want to make my Grand-dogs. 

Then I set myself to the task of cleaning up the kitchen and planning a shepherd's pie for dinner tonight. This week, I have two days set aside for other work, such as the paper crafting and the Winter Solstice project. Because the scraps have been building up in my basket, the first thing I will do is make up the pillow form for one of them.

While I do have another project requiring some handwork, my next big quilt project is the paper piecing one. All my prep work is done for it...the patterns for each block are copied and they are swatched out with the fabric / colors.

At one time, I might have looked down my nose at those home-bodies. Goodness, I WAS part of the women's movement and heated discussions regarding those who were stay-at-home mothers or those who went to work and left their kids in day care. I know that there is neither a right nor a wrong with differing values and preferences. I know the difference between Pro-Life and Pro-Choice, and its more than just birth control. 

Life and Choice. Its not an either / or. It is an AND.

I just didn't get it for me about quilting. I thought that my higher energy would always keep me in intense physical action. I never saw that this kind of action is just as intense, just as important, and just as much a contribution to how the world keeps spinning. I thought it was...well, I had no idea how much intensity there is to this sort of life and this sort of choice.

We do our part in so many ways. In this moment, I do my part by smiling, by knowing, by being alive.