Should I Be Doing This?

It was cold enough for there to be a light frost overnight...and I was compelled to look closely on our morning walk.

This is the montage I sent to Alyson tonight. Since she is a fan of bones....I'm trying to include bones and skeletons I see on our routes during the Halloween season. And this skeleton was bigger than life.

Margie's story could be any of our stories so sharing it just may be helpful to someone. 

How often has one of us done something and we thought to ourselves....should I be doing this? I know I have. Margie was slipping on her shoes a few days ago as she was heading to lunch. Instead of sitting down to pull them over her heels....she bent down to help get them situated on her feet. Momentum took over and she fell and broke her hip. 

The surgical repair was successful...but she is facing a few medical hurdles before she can move from the hospital to rehab. Her spirits are still fairly good...and we've had some nice visits. But her almost 93 year old body is weary.

So next time you ask yourself should I be doing this? The answer might very well be...probably not.

But if you ask yourself should I be looking closely at the frost...or should I take the time after a long day to walk around the pond?...the answer should be a clear yes!

More Doodle Stitching

I stitched another card from my outdoor fabric remnant...I really enjoy doing this!

This time I enhanced the colors a bit with posca pens and doubled up the stitching lines this time.

  

92 and 11/12

Subtitle: A Call for Community  
Please read to the end.

This is an extra post for Tuesday, October 15th.  The official post for the day is called "The Trees We Planted."

Margie, my mother-in-law is counting birthdays in fractions these days. She will be 92 and 11/12 tomorrow (October 16th)...and on November 16th she will be 93.   

Yesterday...after a lovely morning drive with our house guests....we got a call that Margie had a fall and was on her way to the hospital. Needless to say we dropped our guests at the condo (they had a car so were fine on their own) and spent the rest of the day with Margie and her medical providers when she found out that she had broken her hip. Our boys joined us late in the day and we stood around her bed laughing and talking baseball and sharing her favorite potato chips. Her local family community had gathered...and we knew that all would be well.

Fast forward to this afternoon where she had successful surgery to repair the break. She will spend some time in rehab after her hospital stay....then eventually get back to her assisted living apartment where she can get the continued care she will need to regain her strength and mobility. All will be well.

Here's where you have the opportunity to create community....if you are willing.

Margie is an amazing woman who is attentive to and thoughtful about others and chooses to fill her day with things that bring her understanding....comfort and joy. I have known her for 45+ years...and she has gotten to know another side of me through this blog. She reads it every single morning....so she is an active part of this joyful puttering community.

I had already decided that I was going to nudge friends and family to send her birthday cards....but I am widening the circle and scope and I'm going to ask everyone I know to send her a card if they are willing. Absolutely NO pressure! 

But if you choose to participate you could send a get well card.....or a birthday card. It could be a funny card about life...and growing older (she has a great sense of humor)....or it could be a card about hope and joy.

I want to shower her with words of encouragement during this next month as she heals and rehabs and as she celebrates her 93rd birthday. Let's remind her how big her community is...and that it can even include people she's never met.

Margaret Shupe

620 Ocean Ave

#103

Portland ME 04103

I will leave this post up until she gets back to her computer....then I will delete it. I do want this to be a surprise. 

Thank you in advance! Seriously....there is no pressure! Just sending joyful vibes is enough.

MaryAnn

The Trees We Planted

There's a saying that goes something like this: A society grows great when we plant a tree in whose shade we may never sit.

Yesterday morning in the fog and drizzle...Paul and I drove Jenny and Dave around the greater Portland area.

They had seen some of the sights on their own...so we hit some they hadn't...and meandered through our old neighborhoods. The fall colors were near peak and the coast eerily beautiful in the fog.

We drove by our first house in Maine...the Foreside Community Church parsonage on Foreside Road in Cumberland.  We planted a cherry tree in the front yard that was a gift from the youth group.

Jenny and Dave had visited us at this home when all our kids were young. We all have good memories of those days.

We drove past our next house which was the first one we ever owned. 

Paul and I planted two small maples in the front yard and we were in awe of how big they had gotten. They were just started to turn. 

And we were completely gobsmacked with the fringe tree in the backyard. 

We actually thought had died the first year we planted it.....but it eventually leafed out and has grown into a show stopper. Maybe someday I'll knock on the door and ask to sit in the shade of these trees we planted.

 

We drove past our little weekend house in South Portland where we planted a couple trees in the backyard including a seven-son tree. We got a glimpse of it from the road. It's the same type of tree we planted at the corner of our patio at the condo. The white blooms in in South Portland have fallen and the pink bracts have appeared. You can see the South Portland tree in the middle of this second photo. 

Ours at the condo is just starting to turn pink. 

Jenny and Dave went on their way this morning....and I'm sure they will enjoy the trees other people planted as they finish their New England fall foliage tour. 

Go With The Flow

Some days just don't go as planned....and you just have to go with the flow. 

Tonight I'm going to share three photos from my friend Janice sent me last Thursday of the Northern Lights from Florida. She was seeing them at the same time we were!  

 

We're all still basking in the glow of that magical night.

Oh Happy Day!

Paul was installed as the new Worship Minister at Blue Point Congregational Church this morning.  

He has been filling in on Sundays for over a year while they were looking for a part time pastor. But they have shifted their model and he has signed on long term to continue what he has been doing. It's good for Paul....and it's good for them. Oh Happy Day! (The choir sang that song during the service this morning....and did a fabulous job.)

celebratory carrot cake

It's a lovely church along the salt marsh in Scarborough, Maine....

with warm and friendly people working for the common good. Oh Happy Day!

   

Jenny and Dave...our friends from Lexington, KY also arrived today...and we will spend a couple days catching up and poking around Southern Maine! 

They timed it well....the fall colors are nearing peak...and the ducks are back on the pond!  Oh Happy Day!

Connectedness

"I do believe in an everyday sort of magic - the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we're alone." Charles de Lint

This is one of the photos my son Nate sent to the family when he told us to go outside to see the northern lights a few nights ago. I love everything about it....and am just now noticing the green on the horizon. Pure Joy!

Since that evening....I've seen dozens and dozens of photos of the lights on Facebook and Instagram from people all over the United States....and the world...in every color that you can imagine.

Then I got a delightful email this morning from Kate from the UK also celebrating the aurora borealis from across the Atlantic. 

Kate pointed out that this Charles de Lint quote that sits at the header of the online version of my blog was even more meaningful at a time like this. So many of us were experiencing the the color...light and beauty of the northern lights all at the very same time. And it all happened in the darkness. Kate pointed out the "eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity."  Inexplicable connectedness at its best! 

We are not alone! Thanks Kate!

Go Outside!

Nate texted the family last evening around 7:30 and told us all to go outside and look at the northern lights. 

The four of us were all in three different locations....and connected and chatted by texted about magnificent color.

Paul and I were also greeted by other neighbors enjoying the show too. It was an unexpected moment of joy...just by going outside. 

At the beginning of the Fabulous Free Motion course we made linen and lace backgrounds....and it was time to add a focal point. The lesson was to create delicate flowers or leaves out of painted paper towels. I hope to try that....but this time I used what I had on hand.

I've had this sheer painted curtain fabric from another class for quite sometime...and I thought it would work well for this lesson. 

I applied fusible to the back of the sheer strip....cut out my leaf shapes then fused and stitched them to the lacy background. I think it turned out pretty well. In the end it may not quite be my style...but I think the idea can evolve into something that's a little bit more me.

I went outside again a little later last night...and the northern lights had changed to a soft green. It kind of has the same soft vibe as my linen and lace piece.

On this second piece I used the same sheer curtain swatch...but used black stitching. 

It might be a little too strong for the lacy background...but I do like the doodleness of the black stitching. 

And now....I'm going to go back outside and see if there's another show tonight!

Stitch Doodling

Bob and Nancy are in the second phase of their vacation....and Dave and Jenny  arrive on Sunday for a few days. Paul and I just slid back into our routines today....but we're looking forward to more time with old friends.

We have beautiful a pin oak in the front yard...and I've always loved the somewhat wonky shapes of the slender leaves. 

And this one is especially pretty in a vivid October red kind of way.

One of the assignments this week in the Fabulous Free Motion class was to use floral wallpaper scraps to practice outlining more complicated shapes. I didn't have wallpaper...but I did have upholstery scraps in my stash from thrift stores....and here and there. I sometimes rescue scraps from friends' trash.

We were to cut them into squares and create a doodle quilt of sorts. It was absolutely fun...and hard to stop! 

It does remind me of the watercolor doodle flowers I've done in the past....which is why I liked used black thread making it look like ink.

Moving away from the small squares....I did outline a larger piece of this outdoor fabric. I found that double stitching the lines helped it show up more....and made it more doodly. I will lean into that a bit more next time. I may even add some paint giving it some depth of color. This fabric is going to be fun to play with.

I turned a smaller piece into a card.

I could have done this for hours. But then again...I guess I did!

There's nothing but potential!

Speaking of florals....look what Margie had finished on her board.  

It was a 1000 piece challenge...but she stuck with it...and it was gorgeous sitting on her coffee table when I walked in today! 

Well done Margie! I'm looking forward to doing this one!

Friendship

We love sharing some of our favorite coastal spots with people that we love! And...I think I've taken you along to these sites over and over too.

The weather has been just perfect and it's been so nice having Bob and Nancy here. Bob is one of Paul's seminary buddies that he goes to Colorado with....

....and we've known Nancy for almost just as long as we've known Bob.

Kettle Cove

It was a blue sky fluffy white cloud kind of day....

and Bug Light Park was postcard perfect.

I have mixed feelings about cruise ships...but they are important to the Portland downtown economy. This large Norwegian ship dominated the view of the city from Bug Light Park from across Portland Harbor.

I have a few more pieces in the puzzle.....so let's celebrate a couple more inspirational suffragettes!

Lucretia Mott was born in 1793. She was a Quaker minister, a women's rights activist and the first president of the American Equal Rights Association.  

Sojourner Truth was born into slavery in 1797. She risked her life to escape with her young son and lived her entire life in the fight for justice and women's rights. "Ain't I a woman" is a famous line from one of her speeches".....and Paul used to have a poster highlighting the words from this speech.

Inez Milholland Boissevain was born in 1886 and was a lawyer and public speaker. She led a women's suffrage parade through Washington DC in 1913 all dressed in white and wearing a crown. On her dying bed in 1916 her last words were "Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?"

Love Each Other

"There are things you do because they feel right & may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & eat each other's cooking and say it was good." Brian Andreas

Limelight

As I walked around the pond yesterday morning I was quite smitten with how this wabi-sabi branch glowed in the sun. It was most certainly in the limelight...in color and form.

There was a warm October glow everywhere...and today is a much needed rainy day. Our good friends Bob and Nancy from Minneapolis arrive this afternoon....and the chili is simmering.

And just today I got Brenda's changing seasons card in the mail....so I can share the other two Tiny Pages Art Exchange cards. I couldn't photograph in the backyard because of the rain...but I could stand in the natural light at the patio door....still better than artificial light inside.

Brenda used colored pencil to create fall to winter her card.  She was worried about the texture of the paper...but I think it's adds the essence of fall. 

And I'm pretty sure she knows how much I like ginkgo leaves!  Thanks Brenda!

Becky depicted all the seasons on her card she sent to Tracie. 

And I love her wreath of fall leaves on the back.  Well done Becky!

And there nothing better than the glow of a clean house....all ready for guests.

The Games People Play

I love going to the farm stand in the fall!

I came home with an teeny tiny pumpkin with a pretty darn good stem.        

And I love bringing home a beautiful pile of fresh produce.

I played a little mind game today....I cleaned a little then I sewed a little. I dusted a little then I sewed a little. I vacuumed a little...then I sewed a little. And it made for a delightfully joyful puttering day. 

This ended up being kind of a goofy piece...but the assignment...and the goal was to practice free motion stitching around objects and in directions.

There are a few lines that are programmed decorative stitches on my machine...but most of them are free motion patterns over fused fabrics.

It's wonky...it's whacky....and it was fun.

These stitchy doodles are a little wacky too.

Oh...the games people play!