Days of sunshine and rain

The days seem to be flying by, and I have to keep reminding myself that it is summer, well technically not till later this week, but this is the season.  I need to be doing the summer things.  We spend most evening and weekends in the yard and we love it.  I've been a tad bit obsessed with following total strangers on instagram-English ladies with lovely rock-walled gardens and bunnies and hedgehogs roaming about.  I have a vision in my mind of creating that here-the corner cottage (I'm calling it a cottage now, not a house) in Vancouver USA.  I'll just keep dreaming and planting.

 The beginnings of the baby quilt for grandbaby #7 who will be here next week.  I used 3 charm packs of "Hometown" by Sweetwater (Moda).  It is at the quilter now .  I've been obsessed with triangles lately, but now that I've done a few quilts that way I may lay off them for awhile, they aren't as easy as squares to line-up.  Grandbaby #8 will be here next month, his quilt is also triangles, I should finish it this week.

 Calvin's veggie garden: carrots, beets, peas, beans, zucchini, peppers...

 A new spot he dug up this year, tomatoes and corn.

 This has been done for quite a while, I needed a little island in the kitchen so we used an Ikea cart, took off the back and repainted it yellow-use to be red (needs some touch-ups now).  It works great for holding more stuff and another prep area. 

 Maybe put it on wheels?

 She saw that I had the camera out...just posin'

 The Morning Glory is moving inches each day.

 The finished Trip Around the World top, now to get it quilted.

Scrappy Trip

 I've been slowly working on the Instagram sensation-Scrappy Trip Along-I don't know how those other quilters get done so quickly, most of them are young Mom's, I guess they stay up late and they are faster sewers than I am!

 I am using mostly scraps for this, I bought a few new fabrics.  But I'm really trying to work from what I have.

 I've never made one of these so I'm not sure how the finished product should look, I'm going with the red/coral/pink as my outside diagonal.

I have 21 squares to finish, and then for the fun part-putting them all together!

The Beginning



4th grade



I've been knee-deep in Family History the last few weeks, since starting a new class in Sunday School.  I've always been drawn to my ancestors and love doing the work (and it is sometimes work).  Even as a teenager I loved getting out the papers and learning the names, hearing the stories over and over.  I just wanted to know these people and know what their lives were like, what did they wear, how did they live their everyday lives?  I've kept at it over the years, here a little, there a little, until finding my birth families in 2007 kind of exploded it all~so many people who are new to me and I have a burning desire to know them and know where they came from, to know where I came from.  Let me begin at the beginning....

I don't remember an exact moment of knowing that I was adopted, I just always knew, it was a part of my story, and it was wonderful.  I grew up in the 60's in Portland Oregon, happy and loved, moved to Eastern Oregon in the 70's even happier and more loved, but always knowing there was that part of me that I didn't know about.  Who were the people that I came from and what was their story?  This was as much as I knew:
My birth mother was young, 16 and in high school, from the Weiser ID area, birth father a little older but still in high school.  When they told their parents it was decided that the baby would be adopted out.  My Mom and Dad (adopted Mom and Dad, I will refer to them as Mom and Dad, and my birth Mom as Janet, birth father as John) had previously adopted my older brother with the help of Mom's doctor-Dr.Schirmer.  Janet went to live with Dr.Schirmer in Portland, until I was born, and then she went back to the Weiser area and finished high school and resumed her life.  John joined the military.  There were other bits and pieces that I knew, but that was the main story.

I began searching sometime in the late 80's, starting with high school yearbooks in the Weiser/Payette area finding nothing.  I had Janet's birth date and full name, but could find nothing on her.  When it became legal in the state of Oregon to get my original birth certificate I did so, but there was no information on there that I didn't already know.  I just kept hitting a dead end, which was frustrating because I thought I had some really good information.  Once the internet era began I used that as much as possible and still...nothing. I thought I would have to wait till I had some extra money and hire someone to help me, so it ended up in the back of my mind.

In 2006 I was sent an angel-I met Tami through my brother, he met her through another friend.  She loves researching and finding people and she was willing to do so with no charge.  I gave her all the information I had and she began searching and kept hitting the same dead-ends I did.  She asked more and more questions and I gathered all the info I could.  In my possession was some notes written by Dr. Schirmer, as if she had been jotting things down while on the phone.  Names and addresses, not sure of how they were connected I gave them to her.  I didn't hear from her for a few months and had kind of forgotten about it, assuming she had been unsuccessful.  In April of 2007 I got the phone call-are you sitting down? " I found your birth mother."

To make this long story short, Dr. Schirmer had changed the information on my birth certificate, it was false.  The address on the note was that of Janet's grandparents.  She had lived with them and it was through that address that Tami eventually found Janet.  Janet was happy to hear from me, that was a great conversation and beginning of our great friendship.  I was then able to find and meet John's side, he had passed away a few years earlier, his 3 daughters were happy to meet me.  They had been searching as well, and had also been given false information.  This has opened up a whole new world for me, questions have been answered and new ones in their place~



This is with Janet and my half-Sisters.



I've learned many things throughout this process, one-that little things can make a big difference, don't overlook the smallest detail, it may be important.  I guess I'm sharing this today because it's time, I have felt the impression to do so many times and haven't.  Getting involved in Family History again has opened my heart to my ancestors, and there may be others out there who are searching and I hope this will help them keep going.

Parlez-vous francais?

Some of my vintage Valentines

 I've slowly been working on the Scrappy Trip Along

And I am obsessed with Family History right now-see all that empty space? 

The days go by and I don't seem to finish anything, just lots of little starts and stops and thinking about what I should also be doing.  I've managed to get a few blocks done on my "Scrappy Trip".

I've been working on my birth family's history, there is so much to do and I keep hitting dead-ends.  Right now I'm concentrating on France in the 1860's, reading French would come in handy right now!

What's up?

 I'm always surprised at how long it's been in between posts, it seems like I'm always composing great things to share in my mind, but they don't always make it to the blog.  This was my Fall/Thanksgiving mantle, I tried a dozen different things and this was all I could agree on.  I always thought it would be great to have a mantle to decorate, now it seems daunting.  This is so boring, I'm going to try harder with Christmas~

 I had a sudden (thinking about it for 5-6 years now) urge to paint my Grandmother's buffet.  It was just wood-brown with some of the laminate coming off and I couldn't decide what color to go with, white, blue, black...well you see that white won.  I just decided one Saturday to do it and used some leftover wall paint, mixed two colors together and went for it.  I love how it turned out and it makes the whole room look better.  Please don't mind the dirty floor, I should have swept first!

 A wall hanging from the project box, I have been taking a "class" (thanks Jenny) trying to improve my quilting skills and working mainly on points, man they are hard, I don't know how my Mom did it so perfectly.  I picked a few of these seams out more than once!  I still need to write all the words and then do the embroidery.  I got this fabric years ago at a quilt shop in Bozeman Montana, I love it and I am also using it for my "Farmer's Wife" blocks-another project in the pile!

 Two quilts from my scrap stash, still need to be quilted~

 A baby blanket for Natalie's friend, made with a charm pack, so easy. Still needs to be quilted and bound.

I have been obsessed with pinwheels, even thinking about them as I went to sleep last night.  Oh, I could make a pillow and table runners and....If only I didn't have to sleep, and make dinner, or leave the house.  I am content to live in my sewing room and watch old movies and sew!

I Never Promised you a Rose Garden...

 On our first cloudy and rainy weekend in a long time we decided to visit the Portland temple and the Rose Gardens.  I thought the gardens would be done, but not so, they were in full bloom-just gorgeous.  The temple grounds were beautiful as usual with fall pansies everywhere.

 The roses are stunning, I couldn't stop taking pictures, thinking that I could capture their beauty, but not the fragrance.  The smell of the roses mixed with the green foresty smell, fresh from a rain-lovely.

 Go ahead, just stick you face right down in there and take a whiff-heavenly.

 You can see the city of Portland peeking through the trees there.

 We sat on a park bench here and just enjoyed the view and smell, and made plans for our home rose garden, the weather was perfect for a day outside.

Simple Life

Some random shots from my phone, as I look through I can tell the story of my days, pretty dull.  Maybe a different way to describe it would be simple, I like that better.
A quilt that I quickly made for a dear friend's son who was married last month-how did that happen it seems like it was just last year I was driving him to seminary!
The cow skull that I drug home from eastern Oregon (thank-you Kathy) I love it!  I soaked it bleach water for a few days and scrubbed around on it and dug out the gross things.  It's like a piece of art work to me.
The creepy guy I found in the sink the other morning, I swear he was way bigger than it looks here-what a way to get my heart rate going first thing!
Yummy dinner from our favorite teriyaki place YouSkyMe~
And for Shirley-here is the black door.  I've been wanting to do this for awhile now, and finally just did it, inside and out.  I like the color but the finish is a little rough, I may have to sand and re-paint......later.