I have been very blessed over this past year. My immediate family are doing fine. As I get older, it is sinking in that I need to do more of what I want to do and not so much what everyone else wants me to do. Sometimes it is one and the same, but often it is not. We had a great Christmas. The girls were here along with their mates. Megan and Patrick came from Brooklyn, New York. Candice is living here and will be for another year or so. Season and Micah were able to come up from Moab. No other family was able to attend. My parents are not doing well. Time has taken it's tole on them. My brother-in-law is in the hospital and has been for some time. Hopefully he will be going home on Wednesday next. We are looking forward to this next year. The fiber art group (PHFA) I belong to are going to be the featured quilters at the Dixie quilt guild's bi-annual show. Which will be held the week after easter this year, not on easter as it has been for years. We have a show in at the Springville Art Museum in September and are working on new pieces for a show that is scheduled in 2016 at the St George Art Museum. I set up a new face book page and that has been where I have been posting.
Over this past year, I have attended to many funerals. I realize as I get older more of us will be passing on, but it seems that I was just 30 and my kids were little. I am almost 60! Where has the time gone? We are not guaranteed our next breath. So each breath should be used to its fullness. I have enjoyed my life so far, for the most part. Even the hard times have been pretty good. There are times when I have felt that my tapestry of life is rather dark. But..... the dark times make the bright moments that much more significant! I often fixate on the condition of my home and obsess over it. I am learning that the windows that need to be replaced will be ok for a while and the hole in the deck... well as long as the table covers that spot we are ok for a while also. I lost my best friend (Debra Smith) this past year to ALS and I did not spend as much time with her during her sickness as I could have. I had clients who need their quilt as soon as possible and the money I am paid for doing those quilts come in very handy. I know I used 'being busy' as a way to live in my own happy world and not see her suffering with ALS. I kept my self insulated from her reality with distance and work. Looking back I know I should nave made different choices. I should have spent every moment I could have with her before she passed. Now it is to late. I know she understood my choices, because I would have understood if our positions had been reversed. She lived up North and my family and my responsibilities were down here in St George. Nothing I do can or could have done would have changed the outcome, but my best friend died of ALS and has left a huge hole in the fabric of all the lives she touched. The past cannot be changed, but I can make different choices in the future.
One of my friends and fellow fiber artist has brought up the point that we each need to decide what our goal is and to focus on what we we need to do to accomplish that goal. Trying to do so many things spreads us to thin and nothing gets accomplished to it fullest, no goal gets realized. My goal this year is to do more things with family and friends, not worry about 'things' so much. I am going to try to not stretch my self so thin, to say no if I need to and not feel guilty about my choices. I am going to let things go that don't really matter too. So if you decide to visit me... my house might be a mess, but as long as you don't stick to the floor and it doesn't smell I am ok with that! I don't mind people dropping by and everyone is welcome.
I have been doing a bit of painting with watercolors and soft pastels as well as fabric painting.
These small pieces will be put on the front of quilted book covers. I am hopping to have a lot of them done by the time our 2016 show is going. I am reproducing some of the large pieces that have been done in fabric with paint and also trying to do some smaller pieces. Hopefully some of them will sell. So far I have had interest, but no one has made a purchase. Big pieces take so much time to do, I can't just sell them for nothing. I look at my creating things as a job and when I spend 3 plus months on a piece, it is worth more to me than $200 or $300.
I need to get busy...... lots to get done. I have a few quilts for clients that need to be done with in the next couple months so they can go home with their owners to have bindings sewn on and finished for the quilt show.
I wish you a wonderful year of happiness and creativity!
