Join Us at Sunshine Quilt Guild

Being helpful to others makes one happy. If you want to get in on the happiness, join us at Sunshine Online Quilt Guild and help us make quilts for kids and teens. We support two programs: Wrap a Smile (make quilts for kids having cleft lip/palate surgery) and Quilts Beyond Borders (quilts for kids in underserved areas, often in orphanages in hard-to-reach places). We have a lot of fun, and the service is rewarding. Join us at our group at MeWe (similar to Facebook but no ads and no privacy invasions). Here is the link:
https://mewe.com/join/sunshineonlinequiltguild


Examples of some of the fun we have:

Round Robin quilts

Block Lotto challenges

Quilts made from the Lotto blocks

Just for fun quilts

Occasional Retreats

Best of all, the kids who receive our quilts are comforted at a scary or unpredictable time in their lives. We are happy we can help them in this small but beautiful way.

(This quilt was made at our 2017 retreat in Omaha.)

(This quilt is the one shown above at Quilts made from Lotto blocks.)

Friday Books: Nothing Today but a Broken Heart

No book report today! I'm reading two books simultaneously and am about halfway through both of them. I don't like reading this way. It slows me down on both books! Hopefully I'll have something to report next week.

Meanwhile, I want to tell you a sad story. About three weeks ago a young mother was driving her children and some nieces home from a fun event. No one knows exactly what happened. She probably hit some ice; somehow she lost control. (It has been a bad ice season.) Her car spun around and ended up slamming into a truck. Three little children died. They were 11, 5, and 5. They were cousins: each of them was the daughter of one of three grown sisters. The driver lost a daughter, and so did her two sisters. The driver was badly hurt and has been in the hospital in ICU for three weeks, unable to speak and barely moving.

Here's where the story circles around to my family. While sitting in the ICU waiting room this last week, waiting for Mother-in-Law to recover from a stroke, we realized that the family sharing our space was the family from the above tragedy. They had been camped out in ICU for a long time; we could see that from the boxes of food, blankets, pillows, and other supplies they had with them.

We spoke to various of the survivors: two children, one of whom survived the accident, the husband of the injured driver, and the grandmother.

I cannot begin to imagine their pain. Their lives are forever altered. I literally hurt inside my chest, thinking about what they are going through. While we were there the young mother was transferred from ICU into a rehab hospital, so we no longer shared waiting room space with that family. I am glad we were able to speak with them and give them our condolences.

I know people all over the world are hurting from some terrible things. This family has touched my heart because I saw them up close. If you are a praying person, please pray for the M/P families as well as for other families around the world who are touched by tragedy, loss, fear, and pain. I believe we can help each other through prayer and hope.

I Feel Like Secret Santa

This is the story of collecting gifts for families in need. I am the coordinator (at church) of the donations to Food Shelf and other items that our local service agency requests for families. Lately it has been so much fun to be "in charge." I get to see all the goodness flowing from our church to people who need help.

The little tree contains gift requests ... red tags are for the family that we "adopt" and white tags are general gifts for families who do not get adopted; the agency we work through tries to fulfill their wishes and needs as much as possible. Only about half the families who apply to be adopted actually get adopted. There are not enough volunteers to serve all the needs.

the gifts assembled at the altar for a special blessing before they depart

We put them into my car; I felt like I was driving Santa's sleigh

Here they all are in my living room. I had to sort and assemble into groups for two different programs.

I was really impressed with the wonderful and generous gifts that people at my church provided.. lots of toys ranging from stuffed animals to craft and science kits to jewelry items for teens, electronic stuff, remote control cars, AND 23 sets of pajamas! Twenty-three kids will get to be warm and snuggly in bed because of all those pajamas.

Husband and I packed it all back into Santa's sleigh...

...and delivered it all to the agency today. The three boxes contain lots of wrapped gifts for the family we adopted -- three kids and two parents. Without our help, they would not have been able to afford gifts for their kids. Now their tree is going to be full and happy, and the kids will get what they want and need. Parents get a couple gifts, too, along with a grocery store gift card to provide a happy Christmas dinner.

I LOVE BEING INVOLVED IN THIS! It is so much fun. We don't know who we are helping, and we won't see their shining faces on Christmas morning, but we have shown them some love from strangers, and I feel blessed to be a part of it.

Blog 4 Peace Day!

Today is Blog Blast 4 Peace Day... I've been pondering this topic and not sure what I would write about. Peace is a seemingly simple thing, yet it's not at all. It's deep and complicated. It's not just the absence of war. I believe the Buddhists have come pretty close to an understanding of peace and how to achieve it. Being mindful, enjoying every moment, sharing your joys, and devoting one's life to this process. It's not just an inner achievement, but should also be shared and encouraged so that peace can spread and shape our world.



We're a long way from it these days. What's weighing heavily on my heart currently is the killing of innocent children, grandmothers, families through the drone attacks carried out by my home land, the USofA. It breaks my heart. At first I wanted to believe that the government was being very careful in discerning who they targeted. The more I learn about it, the less trust I have in this program. I believe it should be halted completely. Too many innocent people are dying. This is not the path to peace.



In my quest for peace I am going to try to be mindful of my every move today, will try to be kind to people, will pray for peace and for the cessation of the drone attacks, and I will write to President Obama and to my congress reps to encourage them to stop the drones.

May peace prevail. See other blog blasts here.

Be the Best Buttonhole You Can Be

This poem was quoted today in church:


Famous
By Naomi Shihab Nye

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.


I like this a lot. I want to try to be the best buttonhole I can be. Over my lifetime I have let some buttons down. I didn't hold on tightly enough, and they fell out, or I grabbed too tightly and squeezed the life out of the buttons.

I'm working on trying to be a better buttonhole. Will the people who know me IRL please help me to be open to you at just the right comfort level? And please be kind when I forget and let you fall or when I squeeze too hard. I'll be back at just the right buttonhole-ness as soon as I get back on my path. Just remember that I love you!

photo is borrowed from the blog, Sew Mama Sew