Granny's Suitcase

This October block for do.Good Stitches is "Going to Grandma's."  Kristen asked for one suitcase in pink and lime green and another in blue and cherry red.

This is the first time I've sewn anything in almost 2 months, and it felt good to pull out the sewing machine.  I have a number of projects that need to be worked on, so I'm going to try to squeeze more sewing into my life.

An Awesome Doctor

My husband doesn't talk a whole lot about his work, because of all the patient confidentiality, and plus, when he gets home he wants to enjoy his family.  Recently I have had several individuals approach me about a friend they know that was talking about what an amazing doctor their child has and how much they love him, and each time they realized their friend was talking about Joel.  This week the head of the nurses mailed a kind thank you note to our home.  Joel doesn't like any special attention given to him, but I want his children to know what a special Dad they have.  He puts his whole heart into everything he does and that includes his job as a Pediatric Oncologist.

 

A Gothic Novel

This month I decided to tackle #7- A Gothic or Horror Classic.  I put off this category, because I kept thinking of Frankenstein as my only option.  When I finally looked at the Goodreads list, I was surprised to see some of my favorite books on the list.  I think the definition in my head was a bit different from reality.  I chose to read Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.  I've been kind of busy, so I thought I would spend the whole month slowly reading it, but I got sucked in and couldn't put it down.  I loved this book!

Can we just talk about the second Mrs. De Winter for a minute?  She's so painfully awkward and backward.  Normally a character like that would drive me crazy, but I rallied around her and desperately wanted to help her gain her footing.  I was thrilled with her evolution as a character.  I loved her almost as much as I couldn't stand Mrs. Danvers.  Creepy, anybody?!  How'd you like to have the head of your house staff in love with your husband's dead first wife?  No thanks!

The mystery of the first Mrs. De Winter and her shadow left hanging over Menderley is so interesting.  The description of Menderley is so vivid that I could picture the grand estate with the beautiful gardens, the field and forest, and the foreboding ocean and bay.  The imagery was stunning.

The book was interesting all the way to the very end of the book.   I'm so glad I gave the Gothic books category a try and read this book. 

These Boots Are Made For Running

Today I participated in the OK Kids Korral 5K.  I have not consistently ran for over 10 years.  I've either been pregnant, nursing, and/or doggie paddling for survival while Joel was in medical training.  Now that that part of my life is over I decided I wanted to do something that's I've wanted to do for a long time.  I wanted to run in an official 5K race.  I ran Cross Country in high school, so I used to run that distance quite often, but as an adult I've never done it.  10 weeks ago I started getting up early in the morning to go running.  I had to be back before Joel left for work, so going to bed early enough to actually be able to get out of bed became my first goal.  I'm not much of a morning person, so it was a bit painful, but I was determined to do it.  I quickly found that I don't love running long distances all that much, but I had already signed up, and I had a goal, so I wasn't going to give up.  This week was the most painful, because Joel was on service at the hospital, so I had to get up even earlier. I trained all by myself and I ended up running all by myself.  The kids had soccer and Joel was coaching them, so I drove downtown and ran the race by myself. 

I chose this particular 5K, because it benefits the kids that Joel takes care of on a daily basis.  The Kids Korral is very similar to the Ronald McDonald House, but it's specifically for the families of children with blood disorders and cancer.  It's maintained through the Toby Keith Foundation.

Before the race I was thinking, "What have I gotten myself into?"  I'm not much for selfies, but since it was just me my options were few.  The weather was perfect.  You can probably walk faster than I run, but hey, I still completed it, so I'm proud of myself.  Visual proof that I survived!

War and Peace

I bought the book years ago.  I think it was right when I graduated from college and thought of myself as an intellectual.  I was going to finally read books of my choosing and they were going to be the great classics!  Ha!  Ya.  It's been sitting on my shelf for years collecting dust.  When I saw that the last category for the Classics Challenge was A Russian Classic, I knew which book I needed to read.  I started War and Peace in February, but unfortunately, I was already reading another rather long book at the time:

I decided to focus on the book I was already reading and just read 5 or 10 pages here and there of War and Peace.  PS- The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt also happens to be an absolutely fascinating book if you like biographies.  It stands out as one of my favorites.  Anyway, since I started out just reading a few pages at a time, I got into the habit of reading it that way, so I continued on in that fashion long after I finished the other book.  On this past Sunday, I realized I only had about 100 pages left, so I decided to just sit down and get 'er done!  I didn't realize that the last 50 pages had nothing to do with the actual novel plot.  They're Tolstoy's philosophical ramblings on how history should be recorded.  I powered through those pages.

I've given myself a day to just be happy about the fact that I can finally check this book of my bucket list, but I have to say that I enjoyed the book a lot more than I thought I would.  I was prepared to appreciate it for its literary value, but I found that I actually really liked the book.  The sheer volume of characters in this book (over 500) made it a bit tricky to navigate at the beginning, but I started to really become interested in the development of some of the characters even if I didn't always necessarily "like" them.  For example, Pierre irritated me for at least the first half of the book.  He just couldn't seem to get his act together, and was always doing ridiculous things, but then all of a sudden he grew on me and I genuinely wanted to know what was going to happen to him.

I was surprised by Tolstoy's sharp tongue.  He really had a few choice things to say about military historians.  The detailed military minutia was not my favorite, but I did really like learning more about the Napoleonic War and the invasion of Russia by the French.

It's definitely not a novel for the faint of heart, but War and Peace deserves its title as a masterful classic.

Time Out For Women

This weekend I went to Time Out for Women in Dallas.  I almost didn't go, because the friend I was driving and sharing a hotel with had to back out last minute.   I knew a couple of other people from church going, so I thought I'd see if it would work out.  We had different schedules, so I ended up driving to Dallas by myself, and meeting them at the hotel.  I'm so glad I went though, because I had a lot of wonderful experiences and it was truly a much needed respite. 

Tracy sandwiched with 2 Becky's

I ran into one of my mission companions.  So fun!  It's such a small world, because I sent our picture together to our 3rd companion (we were a threesome for 3 weeks at the very beginning of my mission).  Hinckels, my trainer and the 3rd companion, found out we were in Dallas and told me that she's good friends with one of the presenters.  Her good friend, Brooke, was a member of Mercy River, a female trio.  I went up to her and said "hi" for Hinckels.  She laughed, because it turns out Hinckels was watching Brooke's children for her, so that she could sing at the conference that weekend!  It's such a small world!

For lunch break the ladies introduced me to Torchy's Tacos.  They felt it was very important to document the occasion.

 It lived up to the hype.

I had a wonderful weekend being uplifted by awesome speakers and wonderful friends.  I spent the drive home praying and pondering about quite a few things that made an impression on me during TOFW, and I came away really feeling renewed and ready to face the new challenges awaiting me in my life.

 

Quick Sews

One of Joel's colleagues was expecting a baby girl yesterday.  In their culture it's bad luck to give gifts before the baby is born, so they waited until today to celebrate the arrival.  I made a flannel receiving blanket for her. 

I have a friend who has family in Houston.  She and her husband are headed down to Texas this weekend to help with the clean up, and they are filling their car with things a local church requested.  This particular church is short on items for babies, so I made another receiving blanket and put a gift card with it for them to take.  That way there's a personal touch but it still has practicality.

I amused myself by changing the bobbin colors on the blankets - green on one and yellow on the other.  I used a turquoise blue thread on the front. 

HSTs

My first attempt to be a productive human being again now that my children are back in school was to complete my August do.Good Stitches blocks.  Kathrin asked us to cut out eight 5" squares of bright, solid fabrics, and then sew them to form eight 4.5" half-square triangles.  She's going to arrange them all together with Kona Navy for a background.

I'm in charge of September, so my next task is to figure out which block I would like all the ladies to sew for me.  There are so many options it's hard to choose!