A Contemplative Life

18 June 2006, probably American Mother's Day, lol. Enjoying a spot of afternoon tea before writing reared its amazing head. Twenty years of crafting fiction that is. Ahem.... I feel like Future Me, writing this post. Then suddenly.... I am Future Me. Whoa! It's twenty years since my eldest daughter mentioned a writing gig, not a competition, but a collection of those who dream of crafting fiction. And I'm standing beside Past Me, watching as the future unfolds. I see her excitement. Curiosity. Uncertainty. Which quickly turns into unbridled thrill, bordering on zeal, as a plot emerges as though out of thin air. But many notes are made, character sketches too, as November is less than two months away. Two months that aren't only prep time, but the last two autumnal months Past Me and family will live in Britain. Not only does Past Me begin to write her first novel, she starts to unplug, albeit slowly, from an idyllic life in England. Twenty years on from 2006 saw A LOT O...

My Lavender quilt-in-progress.... How now, suddenly, my heart is drawn to the Lavender EPP quilt when not long ago I didn't think I'd ever finish it. (And now that translates to other things, like certain novel series, Enran ahem....) Over five years ago I started basting shapes for Jodi Godfrey's Lavender quilt . It's from her book The Seedling Quilts , and in Godfrey's pattern, the EPP is surrounded by negative space. I first made the pattern with her Seeding Quilt sampler and I FELL IN LOVE with it, once I understood it. That took a while, staring at this beautiful design but not quite able to get my head around it. Then it was yet another English paper pieced quilt I just HAD TO MAKE. Several of those over the years, lol, but I've completed some. Yet for all my initial love of Lavender, other shinies overtook it. Shunted it to the end of the queue. Demoted it into a tote that despite being feet away from where I sit at night to stitch, it might as well hav...

Finished yesterday afternoon! Sweetness in Shell Rummel's Traverse fabric from her Daybreak collection. This project was far less painful than I imagined. The last time I made curtains was in 2014 for the house my youngest daughter was then living at, and those drapes were produced with the barest of sewing essentials; a machine, an iron and ironing board, tape measure, scissors, pins, um.... Certainly no ample table or cutting mat or rotary cutter. Which might not sound like much, but believe me, they made a big difference this time. My husband recalls me saying, "I am never again sewing curtains!" I don't remember that, which is good because if I did, I wouldn't have made these. Of which I am so pleased, especially since I didn't even think about matching up the waves when choosing the fabric. I simply had plenty, though I ordered and used more, and I LOVE the print, and.... I learned that in future curtain/drapery construction I won't pick prints that ...

Probably. But you never know.... Because novels/very long short stories end as they are wont, both in the form as well as the content. The Deadfern Miracles concluded in a three-chapter marathon over the course of one day, DUDE! I didn't even know I could pull something like that outta my hat. However, this basically untitled tale is taking a more languid course, and equally I am JUST FINE with it. Because, um, the end of this story with no proper name has a slightly, no, definitely darker conclusion. Or the penultimate chapter is chaotic. The one before that one is also on the less stellar side of human reactions. Sometimes those sorts of stories emerge, because life isn't all roses and donuts. Having just read over the entire chapter, all twenty-six hundred-plus words, I'm pleased with the results, if not a little heartsick for the plotline, which I knew was coming from early on. Well, once I grasped this wasn't a short story, then.... Then the eventual end was going...

Seven of eight hens, as one was being camera shy. More about the chickens at the end of this post. While I've placed several excerpts of On Being Brave within this blog, now the end is nearing, so no spoilers. In part for myself, because if I change my mind and drastically alter a chapter, though usually I don't, I also don't need that recorded here. This novel, which wasn't meant to be a novel, carries great hope and some darker undertones. And sometimes it's tricky keeping my head above the rollicking waves, assured of my own safety. I don't write dark fiction. I do write tense, emotionally charged scenes. I write deaths, I write deep loss. But overall a Happily Ever After triumphs because that aligns to my core beliefs. A week or two ago the Sunday reading was about Peter walking on water to meet Christ, standing on the lake. Peter was doing just fine until he took his eyes from Jesus, then promptly began to sink. Jesus hauled him up, and the main takeaway i...

Writing, sewing, um, life. A new day, another chapter in On Being Brave , and the proper photos taken of a brand new quilt! It's a Monday kinda like no other, other than it's simply another Monday afternoon. But joyful bravery adds a new dimension to my life as though I'm the alien, newly arrived on Earth, wondering how cool is this rather gray-skied planet in this little corner of a tremendous world. Washed and decently crinkled; I'll take it! Once again the North Coast is smothered by clouds, but it's good for the Mile Post 18 fire, the inversion layer lessening the oxygen, trapping the smoke, keeping the blaze slightly under wraps. If I was newly landed on this planet, I'd be shocked at how many fires burn, but compared to the enormous fires from years past, California is getting off easy. Canada and the rest of the Pacific Northwest not so much, but as an interloper from outer space, I wouldn't realize that, nor would I actually be aware of how blessed C...

The last heart, almost done! Ten hearts remained after Friday night's stitching. Ten out of over two hundred. Ten hearts that were randomly scattered, a few clumped together. And now all those hearts are hand-quilted, and I'll wash it tomorrow, then mail it off to a lovely person who adores hearts. What could be better? Yet, an English paper-pieced quilt doesn't happen overnight. This particular project began late in 2024, a kit by Jodi Godfrey . I dove into it as, well, as hearts seemed wholly necessary to embrace, as my country fell under an influence absolutely dark and menacing. As I cut fabrics, basted jewel shapes, then stitched them into hearts, my chest muscle was slightly assuaged. And the more I worked on it, amid learning the Kawandi method, the better I felt. Defiant hearts. Strong hearts. Supple hearts. Beating hearts. Wearing my heart on my sleeve hearts. You get the idea. June 2025 Then in June of 2025, I finished the top. What a monumental completion! And a...

The wind stirred as I began snapping pictures. This is the last one, haha.   Butt-ugly was its moniker, lol, until earlier this week. Sticking to the design wall like an unwanted, an unwished for, an undesired....something. That's what this formerly bad idea was until I trimmed the lower edges into something resembling uniformity. Then suddenly I liked it. Suddenly it wasn't egads-awful. It was magical, crazy-quilt magical! It was love that a mother has for a previously unruly child that proffers one heartfelt apology and all the aged hysterics and backslides are forgotten. Ahem. After I trimmed it, I took a picture, then captioned it the Whatnot Quilt. But I think Crazy-Magical Quilt better sums up how I see it. Because I've been staring at it in the photo below for nearly two months every time I do my stretches where the design wall lives, where this bunch of rows that have little in common has been sticking out its tongue with impunity at me. An experiment in sewing rows...

The sunset at Samoa Beach from a few days ago.... Yesterday morning I sat down to write. Which meant first I read over the previous chapter, which took about fifteen or twenty minutes. Maybe fifteen. I had written perhaps two paragraphs, then my computer and monitor died. For seconds I inwardly shrieked. Going to my feet, I turned on the light, which worked. Which was even more frightening; what the heck was wrong? I called for my husband, who is a superhero; he noticed I had inadvertently with my shoe unplugged the power strip my computer and monition are both plugged into. DUDE! The computer turned on fine, my document saved, though not completely. A few sentences from that day's writing were all to remain before the document self-saved everything. For another few seconds I was.... Not terrified, merely slightly downcast. Yet I was also greatly appreciative that everything in the previous chapter I had altered was SAFE. No idea what I had changed, but those changes weren't af...

 Contemplating what drives someone to kill another person because of racial/ethnic/sexuality-gender hatred, and what if instead of hating the murderer,  we loved them? It's probably not what they want. They might prefer to be feared. Or loathed. They might act in heinous manners to further their malicious agenda, hoping their devious actions will continue to stir chaos, which could encourage additional misdeeds. I'm stitching hearts into little sections of quilt sandwiches, pondering the murder of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Texas earlier this week. Slowly affixing this quilt into one coherent cozy, kind of the opposite of what the person who shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in the chest did. And yet, I'm trying to not project anger on that ICE agent. I'm trying to extend grace while attempting to understand why ending a person's life seemed to matter more than allowing them to live. You might say, "Well you didn't know Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, so it's...

Sunny starts, near finishes, and how we are here to love one another.... I woke EARLY this morning, probably going to be a more than usual caffeinated kind of day. Sometimes that's how life goes. Amazing how that tiny star is an enormous planet visible to our naked eyes. (Kind of how our tiny efforts translate into the largest gifts methinks, insert smiley face here.) But! I did get to view, and take adequate photos of, the waning crescent moon AND Saturn! A formidable ridge of high pressure is building into a heat dome for us on the Pacific West Coast, which means no marine layer, allowing for clear nights and early dawn skies, permitting planetary marvels to be appreciated. Saturn became invisible before five thirty a.m., and the sun peeked over the eastern hills at 6.02. Most mornings begin cloaked in cloud and fog, it's truly a gift to watch that sun emerge, as well as enjoy a planet many millions of miles away. Yesterday I finished the last round of edits for Can't Be ...