Another One of Those Trips

A couple of weeks ago hubby and I made a trip back to the Midwest. As we were driving along Interstate 35 somewhere in Kansas or Missouri or Iowa, I told Hubby I felt like we have two lives, one in the Midwest where our family is and another in South Carolina where people just know us as the two of us. It's weird for me to know that the people we interact with here don't know our kids and don't know us as a family.

Anyway.....back to our trip.

We flew to Wichita, Kansas late on a Thursday. Wichita is where we lived when we were first married. It's where our first born was born. While being there is quite nostalgic for us, we flew there in order to be able to visit hubby's aunt and uncle who are living about an hour from there. They have spent the last 51 years on the mission field in Peru and a few months ago retired and moved back to the USA because of health (aging) issues and to be near their two children. It had been 25 years since we last saw them. We had a really good visit with them even though Uncle was in the hospital. Thankfully, he was having a pretty good day and we were able to talk and catch up with each other for several hours. Aunt was very sweet and I got a kick out of seeing her similar mannerisms as my mother-in-law. We also enjoyed a fun dinner out with Hubby's cousins. We haven't seen them much over the years, but the family bond and the common faith in Jesus makes it easy to connect. We found out later that next week that Uncle has serious cancer and we are even more grateful we were able to spend some time with him.

We hopped in the car and headed north on Interstate 35 to spend some days with our son and daughter-in-law. On the drive, I was quite struck by the beauty and expanse of the Kansas countryside. Funny how I used to think it was a boring drive. But somehow living in South Carolina where one doesn't see the countryside when driving because of the trees and hilly terrain, I have a new appreciation for the expanse of the Midwest.

We had a great few days in Kansas City with our son and daughter-in-law. Hubby worked on painting (he's good at it -- he painted the stripes and hexagons in the nursery),

I helped sort baby clothes and played with their puppy.

I learned through Facebook that my cousin and his wife were in Kansas City, so I invited them over to my son's house the morning of the 4th. It had been a couple of years since we had seen them. She has always been one of my favorite people. She married my cousin when I was 11 years old and I remember trying to sit by her whenever the family was together. She always talked to me and made me feel important. As the youngest, that meant a lot to me.

We spent the 4th of July with another aunt and cousin of Hubby's.

Can you believe she's 84? Me neither. We always enjoy our time with this aunt.

We did a little sight-seeing at Union Station in Kansas City. The history of this place is so interesting. And it's huge.

We had such a good time with our son and daughter-in-law. It's always hard to say goodbye. But we were super anxious for our next stop.

We were headed to Iowa to spend five days taking care of our granddaughter!!! Her mommy and daddy went on a vacation to Seattle to visit friends.

Next post: lots and lots and lots of pictures of Lydia.  Wheeeeee!

A Baby Quilt

With two more grandbabies on the way, that means more baby quilts to make!

I put this 38"x44" quilt together quickly since we had planned a trip to see our son and daughter-in-law and I wanted to take it to them rather than mail it or wait until after the baby is here.

I used black and white fabrics with a splash of orange.

I will say that I enjoy the piecing part of quilting a whole lot more than the actual quilting. Once in a while I'll tackle the quilting myself and when I do, I always use some blue painters tape to help me. I thought this quilt would look good with some straight-line quilting. That sure did take a lot of tape! I think it took me 30-40 minutes to tape this all up.

 I just sewed in the space between the strips of tape.

It worked pretty well!

I found on-line a pretty gray flannel with tiny stars for the backing.

But just wait and see how it looks in the nursery of our soon-to-be grandson!

Isn't the paint on the wall awesome? My son dreamed up the idea and my hubby did the taping and painting. I love how it turned out! And the quilt looks so good in there. I am happy with my choice of the orange for the binding!

Hodgepodge Wednesday

Ooooo...blogging two days in a row!
Here's this week's Hodgepodge. Click on the button and hop over to Joyce's blog to read others answers to this week's questions.

1. Do you find yourself influencing your world, or is it more the other way around?
I don't think I'm very influenced by the world around me. I tend to be a skeptic at first. But I also don't think I influence others around me. I'd have to ask my hubby what he thinks about this. He sees me more objectively than I see myself.

2. July 14th is National Tape Measure Day...the device was patented on this date in 1868. 

When did you last use a tape measure? 

I last used a tape measure about two weeks ago to measure a baby quilt I had just made. I needed to know how much binding to make.

Do you always know where to find one in your house? 

We have a retractable tape measure in the desk drawer in the kitchen. I have two or three of them in my sewing room. It can be a little bit more of a challenge to find a tape measure in my sewing room because it can get buried under some fabric or I just don't remember where I last dropped it.

Tell us one way in which you feel blessed 'beyond measure'.

Last week Hubby and I were blessed beyond measure to take care of our 16 month old granddaughter while her mommy and daddy took a vacation. We had more fun than we could have ever imagined. She is at such a fun age! She is sweet. She is adorable.

We are blessed and honored that her mommy and daddy trusted us to take care of her.

3.The Plaza Hotel, The Land of Oz (The Wizard of Oz), Narnia (The Chronicles of Narnia), The Hundred Acre Wood (Winnie the Pooh), Wonderland (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), or Never Never Land (Peter Pan)...which storybook land (on this list!) would you most like to visit and why?
It's a toss up between Narnia and The Hundred Acre Wood because I love those books! Just last week we were singing the Winnie The Pooh song to our granddaughter and Hubby was reading about The Hundred Acre Wood to her. 

 4. Where and when do you get your best ideas?
Probably late at night when I can't sleep.
 

5. So what have you been watching on TV this summer? Anything good? 

I have been watching my usual... a couple of soaps. Yes, I watch soaps. No apologies. I plan on watching "The Great British Baking Show". We've been out of town and haven't been able to watch it yet but the DVR is set!

6. 'Don't swim for an hour after you eat', 'Dog days of summer', 'Knee high by the Fourth of July'...choose a summer saying from the list or share one of your own, then tell us what image or memory comes to mind when you hear it spoken.

'Knee high by the Fourth of July' doesn't really happen any more. It refers to how tall the corn has grown. Here's a picture on the 9th of July of some corn in Iowa (and a couple of my favorite people). That corn is a bit taller than knee high!

7. In a single sentence, sum up one life lesson you've learned.
Living for Christ is worth everything.

8. Insert your own random thought here.
I went swimming last night in our neighborhood pool. It was such a nice night. I enjoyed the swim and hope to do a little more. I used to swim a lot when I was younger but haven't done it in years. I'm thankful we have a nearby pool we can use.

June Highlights

Oh jeepers, I've become one of those bloggers. You know, one who only writes something every couple of months. Sigh. I did not write one single blog post in the month of June. If I want to remember these years in South Carolina, I better change my habits.

Highlights of June:

*Celebrating my dad's 85th birthday with the family in North Carolina.

*Seeing a childhood friend. I recently discovered that she lives very near my parents in North Carolina! We spent so much time together in grades 6-12. Lots of walks to school, lots of time after school, there was even that one time we thought we should jog together in the evenings. ha. We hadn't seen each other for 30ish years. I hope to be able to see her again.

*Having more dentist appointments in one month than is tolerable. (I had to get a crown which meant a temporary crown and then another temporary crown to replace that one and then the permanent crown and then some adjustments to that crown. I still have periodic mild pain and am hoping that I won't have to have a root canal.) My dentist thinks I am a really funny person because I kept cracking jokes while she was digging around in my mouth. But what she doesn't know is that I was trying to be sarcastic because it kept me from crying. After one of those appointments I sat in the car and cried for 5 minutes because I felt overwhelmed. The upside of all that dental work is I felt like I needed a chocolate malt after every time my mouth was numbed. Yum.

*Throwing a dinner party for 12 people. We invited our Community Bible Study group over for a meal. We grilled and everyone else brought side dishes. It was fun to have our dining room full. We haven't had friends over like that for probably seven years.

*Finishing two quilts, one for my daughter-in-law and one for my soon-to-be grandson.

*Having a follow-up appointment with my cardiologist. I still am feeling some mild symptoms so the nurse practitioner I was seeing made me wear an event monitor. I've worn those before and I despise them. I negotiated her down to two weeks instead of four. I don't see the cardiologist about that until August. I am so ready to be done with all this health stuff.

*Flying to the Midwest the last day of June for ten days of seeing family. More on that coming up.

The Long Weekend Recap

I love a long weekend. This one was very welcome since Hubby had been out of town earlier last week for four days. When he is gone I usually get to the point that I don't know what to do with myself and can't wait for him to get home. I think that after almost 32 years of marriage, that is a very good thing.

Friday night we started off on a good foot. We went out for BBQ at a place we kind of stumbled upon. I really, really like the ribs. I am, however, thankful that it's a 25 minute drive away or else I would want to go there more often.

We debated about spending the weekend up in the mountains, but opted for a day trip instead. Saturday morning we hit the road heading towards the mountains of North Carolina. I had read in a quilting magazine about a quilt shop in a town called Franklin and the town sounded like a cute town with fun shops to explore.

As we were making our way through a small South Carolina town, Hubby all of a sudden pulled the car over and said there was a police car behind him with the lights flashing. He thought the police car would go on by, but it stopped behind us.

Uh-oh.

Turns out we didn't see the 35mph speed limit sign and the police Chief clocked us going 50mph.

Oops.

Back story::: Hubby tends to get pulled over for speeding every couple of years. He's not a crazy fast driver by any means, but neither of us can remember the last time he actually got a speeding ticket. He seems to only get a warning and more often, just a verbal warning.

So, back to Saturday morning.... the Chief of Police stopped us because Hubby was going 50mph in a 35mph.....as the policeman was checking things out I told Hubby there was no was he was getting anything less than a speeding ticket and I was wondering how much it was going to be when the chief came back and handed Hubby a ...... WARNING!!!!! I tried my hardest to wait until the policeman was back to his car before I burst out laughing! Of course my next move was to text the kids. They just shake their heads in amazement and think their dad is the luckiest person when it comes to speeding tickets. 

Back on the road....we arrived in Franklin and found an interesting restaurant for late lunch. The restaurant was attached to a gas station. The ambiance of the restaurant was quite nice and more than we expected given the location. The food was very good, too.

As we were waiting for our food, I looked up the quilt shop I was wanting to go to on my  phone to pull up the directions and saw that the shop had closed 45 minutes earlier! Phooey. I should have investigated this before we took off on our road trip. Oh well. The town of Franklin turned out to be a disappointment.

We decided to head back towards home, but stop at antique stores and farmer's markets along the way.

We found lots of yummy produce at the farmer's markets. We came home with strawberries, cucumbers a watermelon and lots of peaches (my favorite).

We stopped at an interesting store that had lots and lots and lots of architectural pieces. Think piles of table legs, piles of brackets, stacks of doors and windows, etc.  I have be wanting an interesting window to hang in our bedroom. Just look at what I found! I was excited that it is not just rectangular.

 
We also found some brackets and a basket.

Even though our initial purpose for our road trip was a total bomb, we ended up having a really good day together.


Sunday was a low-key day with church in the morning, lunch at a bagel place and a quiet afternoon at home. Sunday night we watched a movie I had saved on the DVR. Neither one of us had ever seen Dirty Dancing. When I saw that it was released in 1987 I knew why. That was the year our son was born. I doubt we saw any movies that year. But now that we have finally seen it, I feel like we are part of the 80s. ha. ha.

Monday evening we went downtown Greenville and hung out in a beautiful park by the river. Supper was at a really good burger place that was new to us. As we were paying our bill I got a text from our daughter wanting to know if we wanted to Skype. My answer to that text is always YES!

I think this Skype session was the most that Lydia (14.5 months old) has interacted with us. We had so much fun! We sing You Are My Sunshine to her every time we Skype and try to sing it to her when we see her in person. We hope she starts to make the connection that we are the same people she sees on her mommy's phone. The last couple of times we sang to her, Lydia smiled and did her cute baby wiggle-her-bottom-and-stomp-her-feet-dance. We also got a wave good-bye and a kiss blown to us.


It was a perfect ending to a good long weekend.

Oh, and one more thing.

Last week when Hubby was gone I tackled this job:

What are all those things hanging on the drying rack? Neckties. 199 neckties. (I think the total number of neckties was close to 210. Hubby kept a couple for himself, and I threw out a couple of knit ties and some horribly ugly ones that I knew I wouldn't be able to make myself use.) These all belonged to my dad. I spent a couple of days taking them apart, removing the interfacing and lining. I washed them all (in the washing machine) and hung them up to air dry. I hope to make a quilt or two with these someday. Probably a table runner or a wall hanging.

March and May Visits

Time for some cuteness here the the ole blog....


This sweet, little girl came to visit us in March. And she brought her mom and dad along!

I remember telling Hubby several years ago that I wanted a blue-eyed grand-baby. Just look at those eyes! They melt my heart so easily.

 She loved my spaghetti. I love those orange cheeks.

We got her this cute tent from IKEA. It's really not very big, but can you see her mommy in there? (Her daddy was in there at one time, too.) They all had fun with it. 

 The tent will make another appearance on another visit. I hope that Lydia and her new little brother or sister (due in December!!) will have a lot of fun playing in the tent.

The five of us drove up to Asheville, NC for a day and toured the Biltmore Estate.  Hubby and I had fun playing with Lydia on the lawn while her parents explored the gardens.

Lydia got her first skinned knee while she was visiting us. Her mommy seemed to always have skinned knees when she was little.

 Hubby had meetings in Minnesota earlier this month, so of course I tagged along so we could make a side trip to see Lydia and her mom and dad. See the dress she is wearing? My mom made it for me when I was a little girl. The hand-prints are tracings of my hands. My daughter wore this dress and I love that now my granddaughter can wear it.

Lydia loves to play with her blocks. Just look at this stack! Quite awesome for a 14 month old. Her mommy loved to do things like that, too.

I am always amazed with how much I love this little girl. How fun it has been to watch her grow. Each time we get to spend time with her I like to see how she has changed since we saw her last. By the end of the year she will have a new baby brother or sister and a new cousin (boy)! I can hardly grasp that I will have three grandchildren.

I told my hubby the other night that sometimes it seems like the first 25 years of our marriage and raising our children zoomed by so quickly. And now we are into the grand-parenting stage.

And thus the name of this blog...

Ampersand &

Health ::: The Deep Stuff and All the Feelings

I wrote in my last post about all the health stuff I've been through so far this year. But I've been thinking a lot about how God has been working in me and what He's been teaching me through all of this.

The morning after my thyroid surgery, before I left the hospital, the surgeon stopped in for a brief visit. He mentioned in his comments that he would be calling me before the day was over with results from the pathology report. First of all, I was surprised that there would be a pathology report because I understood that the biopsy done earlier had come back as benign. Second of all, I was surprised that I would hear results that day.

As it turns out, I did not hear anything that day or for the next week. And I think I only finally heard because I called the office and my wonderful, caring husband called the office to ask what in the world was going on. As I said before, every day spent waiting for medical test results seems soooo loooong. I should never have been promised something that might not happen.  

The night before I got the call was a tough one for me. I was praying that God would spare me from cancer. I was convinced that I was going to die soon and never get to see my grandchildren grow up. (I can be be quite the drama queen in my own head and am an expert at jumping to the worse case scenario. It's exhausting.) I thought about some close friends who had gotten news that the prostate cancer was all gone. I was convinced that God used up all His goodness on them and there wasn't any left for me. In other words, I was listening to all the doubts that Satan could muster up. I woke up my dear, patient hubby at 2 or 3 in the morning and poured all this out to him. I asked what could I do to make God be favorable to me. Dearest Hubby assured me that Christ had already done everything for me by His death on the cross and the fact that I had accepted Jesus into my life, well, that alone found me favor in God's eyes. Hubby assured me that I am precious to God. These are truths that I know in my head, but sometimes I have a hard time really believing. I also know in my head that life in heaven is so beyond what I can comprehend here. I have a feeling that whenever I get to heaven that I will smack myself and wonder why I wanted to fight so hard to stay on earth.

So, finally, a week after the thyroid surgery, I got a call from the surgeon's office with the results of the pathology test. The summary of the report was that the large nodule was benign. There was a tiny nodule that wasn't seen on the ultrasound. And in that was a very small microscopic bit of cancer that could only be seen through a microscope. The surgeon was able to remove all of what cancer there was and I have not had to go through any cancer treatments. (!!!)

This news just knocked me off my feet. I cried for an hour. And by cry, I mean I sobbed. I called Hubby and my kids. They rejoiced with me. Even sweet little Lydia clapped her hands when her mommy cheered. I called a good friend in Minnesota and talked for an hour. (I thanked her recently for being there for me and for listening while I processed the whole thing.)

Just think ..... If my heart would not have starting racing and I would not have gone to the ER back in December, I would not have had the CT scan that showed something on my thyroid. I would not have had an ultrasound that showed nodules (the doctor couldn't feel any lumps on my neck). I would not have had the surgery that removed the half of the thyroid that had the microscopic bit of cancer. The cancer would have grown undetected until it got to the point that someone felt a lump in my throat and I would have had to go through cancer treatments.

Talk about answers to impossible prayers!! I am seriously trying to wrap my mind around all of this. God did all that for ME?? Whoa. He must think more of me than I give Him credit for.

(This next paragraph may seem like I'm changing subjects, but bear with me, it all ties together.)

I am the youngest in the family I grew up in. For several years for family events, I have quite often felt like I was there only to fill a quota. Because there are four kids in my family, then there must be four kids present at family gatherings. I don't feel acknowledged for the person I uniquely am. I realized a while ago that is exactly how I think God views me. Sure, He loves me because I am His child, but generally I am just one of the gang, one of the swarm of believers. There's nothing particularly special about me.

(Isn't it interesting how the earthly relationships we have can affect how we view God? I find that fascinating.)

So, when I got that pathology report, I realized that God said that He notices ME. (That's why I sobbed. It was a mind boggling revelation.) He really does think of me more than I give Him credit for. Heck, Psalm 139 specifically speaks to that. (Click on the link and go read it.) His kindness is staggering. His unconditional love is more than I can ever hope to comprehend.

I know that in all likelihood I will experience more health issues in the future. They might even be scarier and harder to deal with. That will not change the fact that God notices me and that He loves me and He is kind. I am oh, so very thankful for God showing me these things right here, right now. It's all a part of His plan. It's all a part of growing more like Christ. It's all a part of being a Christian.

I'm thankful to be a (unique) part of the family of God.