Service Rendered, 3 Years Later

I have been Ashlea White's visiting teacher for over 3 years now. I remember visiting her one day when Grace was a few months old. Ashlea had asked me if I would teach her how to sew and of course I said yes. It was summer and I had a lot of time on my hands. Well Grace is now 3 and guess what????? I finally went over and taught Ashlea some basic sewing techniques.
Before I left my house a thought ran through my mind about bringing some of my sewing necessities: scissors, pins, seam rippers, you get the idea. My next thought was, no, she'll have those things if we are planning to sew.
I showed up at her house around 1:30. I couldn't wait to see the material and pattern that she picked out. She began to show me what she had bought at JoAnns. There wasn't a pattern or material. It was an adult sun dress piece that we would somehow turn into a child's dress. I thought, "She must think I sew all the time." I've never made anything from scratch in my life. Ashlea was giving me the opportunity to stretch myself.
It took us a while to get the machine threaded. It was different from my 27 year old machine. That's right, my machine is older than Ashlea. We were ready to start. This is when the sewing adventure became quite interesting. Ashlea handed me her every day scissors. Boy, did they need a sharpening job. Then she handed me a pair of scissors that had a blade no longer than 2 inches. I knew I should have brought my scissors along. We just laughed. When we were ready to pin the fabric together I asked her for the pins. Ashlea didn't have pins, but she scrounged around and found about 10 needles. We laughed some more. I don't think I have ever used needles to pin fabric together, but it worked.
When the first mistake was made I asked Ashlea if she had a seam ripper. She said, "A what?" So, as you can tell she didn't have one and we used a needle instead. Needles saved the day for us. It wasn't until later when we were sewing a small area and I needed the bottom of the machine to come off. I was pulling this, pushing that and nothing was coming off. Then I pulled on something and a compartment opened up and we discovered a bag full of goodies. Guess what we found in the bag. A seam ripper! That came in handy until Grace got a hold of it and broke it. So, it was back to the needle again.
Ashlea had many good ideas as the dress was being created. I think we must have changed our ideas about how the dress should look 5 or more times. I was proud of her creative ideas and how we changed things around. She learned a lot, laughed a lot and did some great sewing on that dress. Grace was a trooper too. I think she had to try that dress on about 15 times. And trying to keep a 3 year old still was an even bigger challenge. The dress was finally finished at 10:00. Since Grace was still up we had her put it on one last time. It was sweet how she just twirled around like a princess in her dress.
Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to serve you and your family. I feel bad that it took so long. Let's do it again sometime.

Time Together

The other night I was upset about something and needed to leave the house, so I decided to go to Lake Dalhousie and walk. I really enjoyed being out in the open and talking to Heavenly Father. It started to drizzle on my walk, which was quite refreshing. Near the end of my walk I saw a rainbow. There is something beautiful about a rainbow and I just smiled when I saw it. So now, I have decided to start walking each night. They say it's good for you. Tonight there was another drizzle, but this one was heavier so I decided to wait until tomorrow. Taylor and I sat down and played a game of checkers, I won. It was 8:35 when we finished and he went over to the door and pointed outside with a big smile. I told him that it was almost dark. He really wanted to go so I thought this would be a nice thing to do together. He rode his bike while I did my fast walk. His comment during the walk was this, "Boy mom, you go really fast." I'm gald I took his lead and we were able to do that together.

Death in the Family

My family spent two weeks out in Texas for a couple of reasons. The main reason is because Mark's father was being moved from the hospital to another facility. The hospital couldn't do anymore for him. They also did some sight seeing around the state. They returned home on Monday night around 9:00. Mark had said that the facility he was in had to move him to yet another facility. He must have been in bad shape. Anyways, shortly after they returned the phone rang and it was his mom calling to tell us that he had died. I told Mark that he should have just stayed out there because now he is going to have to go back. His comment was this, "He is going to be cremated and doesn't want a service or anyone to be around." Wow, how sad is that. Death, in a way, is a celebration of the life you have lived. I hope when I die one day that many people will be there to say good-bye. I hope that I will have been an influence for good and will have touched people's lives in some way that they will want to talk about it.

Fun in the Sun

My family has been gone for a little over two weeks. I have been relaxing, reading and watching some good movies. When I got home from returning my books and videos I noticed there was a message from Melody asking me if I would like to come over and swim. I have been waiting for the invite for a while now, even though I know she wouldn't care if I just showed up. So I called her back, no answer. I had a visiting teaching appointment with Katelyn so I figured when I was finished there I would just show up and say, "Surprise it's me!" So I showed up, put on my suit and had a great time. It's nice to spend a day sitting around talking with a friend. Thanks, Melody.

I Am Finished

I spent the past two days at school organizing my books and cleaning all my shelves. It's a lot of work at the end of the year. Many teachers just throw paper over their things, call it done and walk out the door. However, when they come back in August they have much work to do. I like to come back and have my room all clean and organized. This way I can get ready for the new year. If anyone knows me, I am all about having things in order. I think there are others things in my life that I need to get in order. Maybe that will be my summer goal.

Having Fun!

I got invited to the Shofkam's for dinner tonight. It was great. I told them that I created a new blog. So.......... guess what? She wanted to create one too. We had so much fun choosing a horse background for her. She encouraged me to do the same. Here it is. Do you like my rainbows??????

Hello Out There

Debbie has twisted my arm into creating a blog. So here it is! This summer I will make it a little more me.