Happy Birthday Mom! I know, you will probably strangle me for writing about you again on my blog, but you know what…that’s okay. I think you need to hear/read these words. You are an amazing individual with a heart the size of Montana (actually bigger but you know what I mean). I am so fortunate to be your daughter, and that you are Emma’s nana. You have provided me with all the wonderful characteristics that you possess, you taught me right from wrong, you taught me how to love, to forgive (I still have a ways to go on that one), to believe good things will happen and to look for the best in people.

When we were at the Wine & Chocolate Festival a couple weeks ago, we were walking to the restroom and passed a man sitting on the bench, he said “excuse me, is that your daughter?” and you replied yes and what he said next surprised me…”He said she is beautiful because of you”. I saw the tears well up in your eyes, because a complete stranger gave you such a compliment, I laughed because I thought you drunk fool. I shouldn’t have laughed, because I took a compliment away from you that you rightly deserve. He was correct, you gave me all your best qualities…unfortunately, I picked up the bad qualities on my own..hehe!

You have been a great role model in my life and for that I am grateful. You have always been there for me whenever I needed a soft place to land, an ear to hear all my thoughts as crazy and random as they might be, a safe place to vent when things just need to come out…you are that ear so I don’t say things to people that I might regret and hurt someone’s feelings. You are always there to support me in whatever adventure I choose, from the smallest of adventures to even my biggest one to date…Emma! Need I say it one more time, she is so lucky to grow up with you and dad, to develop the bond that you have with her and be such an important part of her daily life and upbringing. When we do something fun or for the 1^st time, she always says “call Nana & Papa” so she can share it with you as well.

So mom, we extend the happiest of birthday wishes to you. I hope your day is filled with all of your favorite things! We love you to the moon and back!!! Happy Birthday Mom!!

Xoxo, Emma’s mom

Tis’ the Season….

It’s fall and that means we are heading up to Bishop Ranch Pumpkin Patch again in the very near future.  Mickie, who has been like a mom to me for the past 20+ years…OMG…that makes me sounds old…ugh! and her amazing husband Craig (who I have learned I don’t win any kind of argument with, I thought I was stubborn…hmm, he has me beat)  invited us up last year to the Pumpkin Patch.  It was a great time and I decided this needs to be part of Emma’s fall tradition…so we will all pile in the car…Emma, Mommy, Nana & Papa too! 

They have a petting zoo, a train ride, pony rides (Emma wasn’t too keen on that, but we tried), and pumpkins, huge pumpkins in the patch…it was great.  It will be interesting to see Emma’s reaction to the experience this year.  She is much more sure of herself this time around, look out animals, here we come.  I’m sure she will be climbing on the pumpkins instead of being sat on top and posing for mommy…this year, I will have to be fast J

We had such a great time, I decided the day needed to be preserved and presented to Craig and Mickie in the way I best know how…photos and a quilt.  I had to make all my Christmas gifts last year and when I was going through my stash, I came across this adorable fabric that seemed like a project was already started but certainly not finished (how did that happen?????) and decided this would make the perfect gift!

Mickie and Craig loved receiving it as much as I enjoyed making it…its memories that we will all cherish for a long time to come.   I am so blessed to be Emma’s mom!!!

We are looking forward to our trip in a couple weeks…I haven’t told Emma yet, because she would be asking is it time yet?  Can we go to the patch now?  For now, we will leave it as a surprise!!

Xoxo, Emma’s mom

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday today to a very dear friend of mine, Dawn!  Life would not be the same without you and I hope you know just how much you mean to Emma and me.  Even though we don’t see or talk to each other every day, I know that our friendship works this way.   When we see each other, it is as if no time has passed and I appreciate that aspect of our relationship.

You are such an amazing individual to me…where do I begin.  You have overcome so many obstacles or I should life choices and you share your experiences freely, not many people could or would do that.  You love unconditionally and you help those who need you even if it means giving up another piece of yourself.  Those characteristics are not present in a whole lot of people and you my dear friend possess them.  Thank you!  You were there for me on my biggest day…ready, willing and able!  You were there when Emma blessed us with her presence and that is something I will never forget!  However, you could have spent a lil’ more time talking to me, I had to remind you a few times that I was there…even though I knew with my insides exposed you couldn’t possibly forget I was there…hehe!  But seriously, thank you!!!  There are not words to express my gratitude for your love and support!

I hope today is a day of relaxing (I know, probably not an option), but at least maybe doing something you enjoy, for you!!  I hope all your wishes, hopes and dreams all come true…you deserve them…the sun, the moon and the stars…and a call from Kev!  Have a fantabulous day and enjoy each moment.  We love you!!

Xoxo, Emma and Emma’s mom 

Farmers Market & Manners...do they go together? :)

I am going for Round 2 at the Green Valley Farmer’s Market this Saturday, Sept. 10^th. It was a great time 2 weeks ago, I think Emma enjoyed it the most. She stood on the box right at the table and greeted all the people passing by. “Hi Lady”, “Thank you coming”, “Have good day” were just a few of the greetings Emma threw out there, what a character I heard, or how polite she is. At 2 years old, I love hearing people saying how polite my daughter is! She doesn’t even need to be prompted to say please and thank you or your welcome most days, of course, she is just 2 and there are days that gentle reminders are planted, but she is just 2!

I did okay the 1^st market, was totally excited and caught up in the day that I plum forgot to take photos of my booth set up….duh! The only one I do have is from my cell phone, so it is not the best….but here it is.

My mind is constantly working to think of different ways to display product. One thing for sure is that the burlap table cover needs to say “Dragonfly Stitches and Birdie Wishes” so you all know who we are! That’s on my list of things to do…and hmmm, purses, hard thing to display…any ideas out there? I am open to hearing them.

The Green Valley market has been a great opening experience to getting exposure, I am very glad that I tried it and took the chance. www.gvagconservancy.org They are extending the market to October 22 instead of October 1 being the last day. Hope I can maybe make one more date at the market before they close for the season!

Back to being polite and being proud of my daughter, I was once told that you don’t need to say please and thank you, it is all in how you ask for something. WRONG!!!! Hate to say it but I strongly disagree with this statement. I was raised with manners and I have every intention on raising Emma in the same fashion. It is quite obvious to me this is a lost art, manners that is. The reason I say that is because so many times I hear what a polite little girl she is and people seem utterly amazed. I think it shows a good upbringing, while some may think its old school I feel it is how children should be raised, with respect for themselves and towards others. (“Respect” now that’s a whole different blog post for me and someday I will get there but not today). Kids these days are just not the same as when I was growing up, not sure why that is, maybe parents just don’t have the time or take the time to discipline, not really sure. I do know that if you give someone an inch, they will take a mile, children especially. I know that Emma will try to push the limit with me and I just pull her right back in. She TRIES to be very demanding, “I want my bottle now!” hmm, and then she will say it again in the same way…I wait a good 30 seconds, and then say “ Is that how you ask for something, please try again.” Guess what I get…”May I have a bottle please?” It takes patience, love, understanding and more patience. What may work at one house, may not necessarily work at another home…it is not too early to start teaching this and believe it or not, Emma already knows. That’s why it changes to “May I have a bottle please?”. One of the things I strive for in raising Emma is for family and friends to look forward to Emma & I coming, not saying oh no, here they come. I think thus far I have been successful, and it is a learning experience each day for both of us…together I think we can accomplish great things! Patience, love and understanding go a long way!

Until next time…Xoxo, Emma’s mom

"The Help"

It’s been awhile since I have posted…I have no excuse other than life happens!  I am really excited to say that I am participating this weekend in the Green Valley “Totally Local” farmers market.  I have a collection of purses, bags, aprons, pincushions, etc and I am ready to start selling my wares!  Thank you Jeri  Sue for turning me onto this venue and encouraging me to give it a try.  We all need a little encouragement at times and with that said…hehe…we need to pick a date and sit down and write your pattern for your table runner!  You are talented and your talent needs to be recognized and credited, so mark my words, it might take a little time to convince you but we are going to do this.  My friend, you are also going to teach a class!!  Woo hoo…if I can do it so can you!!! 

I am also going to participate in the Wine and Chocolate Festival at the Suisun Waterfront on Saturday, October 1^st!  So feel free to come on out and visit!

I read on Little Miss Momma’s blog that you need to be real and honest so that your readers can connect with you…that’s hard to do. I often times want to use my blog as a journal, but feel so vulnerable and feel I may be criticized for my thoughts and feelings, but I have chosen to work on that.  I know I don’t have any followers (not yet anyway) but I hope to in the future.  I also know that I need to be more committed to my writing, so I thought I would share a little something.

I tell Emma on a daily basis that she is a strong, independent and beautiful little girl!  Seriously, I tell her daily and even when she is staying at her father’s house, I talk to her in spirit and I tell her that to stay strong.  I send her “angel kisses” and she knows it.  Recently I saw the movie The Help.  I loved the scene where Aibileen was telling the little girl “You are kind, you are smart, you are important”.  I have since added that to Emma’s little saying and now…she says it back to me.  Just the other day, Emma and I were driving to nana’s house before I went to work and I heard Emma talking to herself…”I am kind, I am portant, I am pendant”  Those simple little words were monumental and music to my ears!!  Even when you think your child is not listening to you or they don’t get it…this is proof they do listen!  When we lay down at night for bedtime we say those words, both of us and now she will say to me, “again mommy, again”. 

I developed this saying a few years back when my wedding was called off just 2 weeks before the big day.  Everything was set, in fact just the day before we picked up our wedding bands in San Francisco, and the day before that we finalized our wedding ceremony with the priest, we were ready!  Not really I guess because that Friday night the wedding was canceled…he didn’t love me!  I had two choices that night after I called the wedding party to let them know it was canceled.  I sit there and cry and be an angry bitter woman, or I pick myself up and move on!  I chose to pick myself up, there were tears along the way and not a lot of good feelings about myself, but if I couldn’t love myself who else would.  So I had post it notes in places around the house as a reminder that said “You are a strong, beautiful, independent woman!”  In time I started to believe it, most days it is just 2 out of 3, but there are those rare and special days when we are 3 for 3. 

I want Emma to grow up with a strong sense of who she is and be proud to be Emma!  There are some not so nice people in the world, whether it be strangers, kids at school when she starts to go to school, and unfortunately, there may even be members of her very own family that may try to put negative thoughts in her head, but if I start now with the positive, maybe it will help her develop a thicker skin and not let those negative thoughts and words into her heart so easily.  My job as a mom is to teach, love, nurture and protect her on a daily basis…it is never too early to start.  If I help instill a strong self esteem in her now at an early age, she is 5 steps ahead of the game and maybe when the negative words come at her, she can deflect instead of taking them in!

Be strong my sweet girl!
Xoxo, Emma's mom

Tattered and worn:

That’s how I feel some days, tattered and worn…mostly from emotional struggles that sometimes come with the day. But this time, it wasn’t me that was feeling this way, instead it was a quilt. A quilt in need of some serious TLC!!! It has been a challenge, but I am one border away from returning these precious memories to its rightful owner. This quilt has been shown some serious love and has been used until the fabric is wearing thin, which is great, I can only hope that quilts I have given to people get as much use out of them as this quilt has. When I picked it up, the whole quilt was together minus the borders, which the owner patiently sat and picked out all the stitches for me, so I would just be able to add the new pieces on to give it new life. I was extremely intimidated by the quilt, funny….it is just fabric, but I know it was very important to the family that I was fixing it for. I sat and looked at it for a couple days(only because I was finishing a couple other projects I needed to complete) and finally I dove in. Hmm, I am a perfectionist most times and therefore, this is a little difficult for me. My stitches are not matching up with the old stitches and it drove me crazy…I took it to work Saturday and it was put to me this way when I was feeling very insecure about my job. Dawn said, “Princess you are saving a life!” She equated it to open heart surgery, the scars may not look pretty but you are still alive. Great analogy for me, it put things in perspective and allowed me to let go just a little bit and just repair the quilt! So tonight….the last border and the binding will go on!!

 

Until next time...xoxo, Emma's mom

Do you ever wonder when you meet someone what makes your personalities either click or clash?  A chance meeting, what makes you stop and talk to someone?  Is it their smile, the look in their eyes, the cute shoes they are wearing…

I met Diana completely by chance several months ago.  Dawn passed Diana’s name onto me because she was looking for someone to make two quilts, one for each of her boys out of their old sports t-shirts and jerseys.  I have to admit I kind of snickered to myself, two t-shirt quilts, really…so I asked Dawn again just to be sure and she was confident this is what Diana wanted.  So I called Diana and we agreed to meet the next morning.  I am so happy I made that phone call, I met such an amazing and caring woman who wanted to do something special for her boys…I suppose I should say grown young men.  The boy’s father passed away unexpectedly (they were no longer married—which I think her doing this for the boys and the sentiment behind it makes me hold Diana in such high regard, I truly hope to be the kind of person she is in my future-I am working on that by the way…daily).  Diana had been holding onto the shirts from their childhood days, and now she knew just what to do with them…she wanted a quilt.  That’s where I came in…

We spent some time together one Saturday morning going through the shirts, which ones to use, the whole shirt or just pieces, what color to bring out to make the actual quilt, because I didn’t want to just sew a bunch of squares together, it needed a story, each shirt needed to be separated from the next…I chuckled to myself, because they both had pink shirts…bright pink shirts (my favorite color) and she wanted both front & back used from that specific shirt (so guys when you wonder why the pink shirt, while I was delighted as it put a little of my personality into the quilt, it was your mom that wanted it not once but twice!!) and to top it all off most of them were from Tamarack Dental and my M-F is a dental office…it was meant for me to make these quilts! 

The prep work of the t-shirts takes the longest (& it’s a little scary cutting up something that isn’t yours and you can’t run to the fabric store if you screw it up).  I got the first few blocks together and emailed a picture to Diana so she didn’t think I forgot about her, and then I was on a roll.  The first quilt was completed so we needed to choose a backing, so we met at the quilt store again…do you know what touched me the most (well besides the warm and caring nature of this woman that I had just met- we hugged on our first visit-love that!).  She went around the quilt and touched each and every block and it almost looked as if she relived a small fleeting moment of their childhood and happy times as she touched each one.  Tears were rolling down my face the same time they were welling up in hers (yes, I am wiping them away as I write this as well, I just feel truly impacted and inspired by this woman after just a few brief meetings). She seemed very pleased with my work and so the second quilt was started and made just the same as the first with a slightly different border fabric so they wouldn’t be exact.  When she saw the 2^nd completed quilt, she touched each and every block again the same feeling as the first!

After a little more time passed than I promised, I am happy to say that I am meeting with Diana to give her both completed quilts this Saturday, I am so excited.    

So Diana, thank you from the bottom of my heart for adding to my journey of becoming a better person, you are one of the most selfless and caring mothers a child could have, your boys are lucky to have a mom like you (but I am certain I don’t need to tell them that).  I hope our journey doesn’t end here, besides maybe when the grandkids come I can have the honor of making their first quilt!  Enjoy the quilts and can’t wait to hear the boy’s reaction to their gift!

Xoxo, Emma’s mom