Category Archives: Family Therapy

A Tale of Two Techniques

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I had to make this quilt for my SIL’s boyfriend.  He chose two colors for the quilt.  That’s it.  TWO colors.  UGH  I’m just not a two-color quilter, that’s for sure.  😉

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But, this post isn’t about his color choices (or lack thereof) – it’s about variation on a theme.  I wanted to do SIMPLE (he’s a MAN, afterall), yet needed to try to create depth and some design fun. 

And then I ran out of fabric – which is totally amazing in and of itself!  And I live 45 min. away from the nearest quilt shop.  <thud>

So, I did what any quilter would do in the face of adversity – I punted!

Five of the blocks are simply pieced nine-patch blocks, with a border around the nine-patch. 

The center block is a 25-square pieced block.

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Four of the blocks are raw-edge applique, on top of the background fabric – giving the illusion that I’ve pieced them!

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Once my quilter is finished with her part, the appliqued fabrics will be stabilized and no one will know that I ran out of fabric and took a short-cut to get this quilt pieced!  Plus, I like the final results, a variation of pieced and raw-edge applique – gives a MAN quilt much more funshine than just pieced blocks.

Try it – and have FUN in designing or making a quilt that isn’t the norm!

Food Pantry Rant

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My GS co-leader is also the person in charge of our local food pantry.  They had so many new people come to the last food pantry day that they ran out of food.  Her husband went to the local stop-and-rob and bought food (with his own money) to help those in need….but, they still ran out and all he could do was close and lock the door.

Our Girl Scouts are helping out for Christmas, with donating children’s books so parents can give their child(ren) the gift of reading as gifts.  The girls will also be making “mom and dad” gifts so that the children who come with their parents can perhaps choose a gift to give to them, too.

But, it’s FOOD the pantry needs, not just Christmas gifts.

The local school did a canned food drive contest this past week – gathering over 800 cans of non-perishable food.  I emailed the principal, to find out where the food was going, and he informed me it was going to the food pantry over in our county seat.  Not here.  Not locally, where the children who actually gathered and donated the food will have immediate access to it.  No, it’s going 30 miles away. 

We have approximately 2000 people who live in our little community.  Also in our school district is the Medina Children’s Home, which I’ve spoken of before.  It has two programs, one consists of group homes that have eight children in each parented home.  The other is the single mother’s and children’s portion, where they help to give a lift up for single mothers and their kids.  I’d venture to say one-fourth of these population numbers and half of the school children live at the Home.  So, removing those numbers from the population count, if you figure a family consists of 2-4 children, probably some grandparents, too – then I would guess we have about 250 families in the area.  At *least* 15% of those are needing the LOCAL food pantry right now (they can drive to our county seat to get food at that food pantry, but if they can afford the gas to drive that far, that’s less money they are using to feed their families).

And that doesn’t account for the holidays coming up, where the need always increases. 

Now, I’ve lit a fire under my MIL’s behind, and her church is rising to the occasion and asking for more donations of food and funds to help the food pantry.  Every little bit helps, that’s for sure – and, hey, we’re all in this together.  The more we help out those in need, the better chances that those children will grow up to be giving members of society in the future – just as I have.

I do not understand the school and their decision to send the food they collected out of the immediate area.  But, I’m not about to sit on my behind and do nothing about this problem.  Families, especially those with KIDS, are going hungry.  That is NOT RIGHT, my friends.

I pray that each of you are doing something for the communities you live in.  We don’t have much, but we will certainly do what we can to help out those who are in worse shape than we are.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Halloween

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My kids wanted to go trick-or-treating.  We usually hit some friends’ homes, the local church’s trunk-or-treat and then a few houses along the path home.   This year, there weren’t many lights on, on main street, so I took them on the side roads of the big city of Medina – population around 200.  They were a little leery of going up to houses and knocking on the doors of strangers, since that’s not something they would normally do…so, it took a few houses for them to get comfy (and cocky) about the whole process.

As we drove around, there was one house that didn’t have a porch light on, but did have strings of orange lights all around their carport.  It was in the middle of a street, and just happened to be the last house we stopped at. 

GOOD thing, too!

A man, dressed in prison garb, came walking to the edge of his carport when the kids came up.  They politely said TRICK-OR-TREAT and he started handing them candy.

Then he started talking “Halloween Trash” to them – we could hear him from the car, and the kids were laughing and joking with him.  Then, he told them they needed to be careful on such a scary night, that he heard a man with a chainsaw was loose in the neighborhood.

They laughed and joked about it.

Then, all of a sudden, a man came out of the bushes and revved up his chainsaw.  You have never seen four kids jump completely off the ground and move 10 feet without their feet ever touching the ground in your life!  JD and I were watching all of this unfold, and we showed our “bad parent” side by bursting out laughing.

When DD#2 came to the car, she said all she could think of was to grab onto her brother and save him – when in reality, what she did was to grab him and put herself behind him – basically so she could be spared!  I asked her how it felt to SAVE her BROTHER and she laughed, said it wasn’t something she thought of.

DD#3 walked very slowly to the car, tears streaming down her face.  Poor thing!  Of course, JD and I couldn’t stop laughing, so once she got in the car, she realized it was a scary halloween trick, and she then proclaimed (a half-dozen times) that he scared the BEJEEBERS out of her!

Lucky for them, they have no clue about the movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and neither do I (nor do I want to!). 

It gave us all a good laugh – and we’ll just have to see if they beg to go to THAT house again next year!

Party Like a Pumpkin with the Third Grade!

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The note I received from the teacher was that the homeroom mom had decided it would be best to offer the kids a HEALTHY Halloween party, so they asked for heatlthy foods to go with that theme.  Fine, I whipped up a lovely display of fruits:

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And then I get to the classroom to help set up and enjoy the party with the kids – and am met with a table of food that I can only describe as a redneck’s definition of HEALTHY….

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Yup, got this bug in the zapper, and it was still alive and kickin’ enough that I frosted it and served it.

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Nuts and raisins are certainly healthy – but, ummm, what about those little chocolate pieces of candy in there?  No worries, chocolate comes from a BEAN doesn’t it?

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Road kill cats – Git ‘r Done!

 

Call it What you Might

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There are many names used for tomorrow – traditionally a holiday to celebrate the eve of a holy day, that of All Saint’s Day on November 1st.  The kids learned in their Sacred Arts class this week that the word Halloween is derived from holy evening. 

Of course, we have all sorts of various groups who claim Halloween as their own – Day of the Dead is celebrated in the Hispanic culture, pagans claim it as their special day to rise above the religious, fall festivals by some denominations who claim the holiday itself is satanic…and then the old-world Irish and Celts mark it as the difference between the “light” months (spring & summer) and the “dark” months (fall & winter).

In our house, Halloween is first celebrated as being Reformation Day, and my hubster was very pleased to see that our praise team (during the second, blended service) held up the traditional hymn last Sunday that is known throughout the Lutheran world as the one sung for the reformation – A Mighty Fortress is Our God.  It’s always funny when one of “his” traditional hymns comes up on the screen at church, because the kids think he somehow had something to do with it.  hehe

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In light of all of that, we’ll be celebrating a lot this weekend.  Today, I’ll go help DD#3’s third-grade class with their party by bringing a healthy fruit tray (filled with RED fruit) and assisting in their craft project.  Tomorrow, we’ll say special prayers of thanks as we mark Reformation day.  Tomorrow night, we’ll take the kids to town for a trunk-or-treat at a local church, and then on to some houses for some serious trick-or-treating.  Then on Sunday, we’ll celebrate All Saint’s Day in church, with recognition to those who have passed on to their just reward this past year.

And I’ll enjoy every bit of it – because the joy that will be found on my children’s faces makes it all worthwhile.