Liam's Quilt

I meant to put these pictures up a long time ago since I finished Liam's quilt in February. I had great dreams of having this photo shoot with it so you could really see the the whole thing, but that hasn't happened and three months have passed. I said while I was working on this that I never wanted to do a quilt again, but now I'm having the itch. The learning curve was big, but I think I could do one again in less time. Also, maybe I need to make the next one bigger since this quilt only has room for Liam and I.

This was a trial run of laying out the fabric to see what it would look like together. This was before the solids were added.

Here is all the fabric with solids and my plan for attack. You are really supposed to do this at random, but I wanted all the colors to be distributed evenly.

My first strip sewn together. Only 9 more to go.

My collection of strips

Skip a few steps ahead and this is me quilting all the layers together. A very long process

A horrible picture of the finished product with black binding and a solid grey back. I like how it came out, just wish it was a little bigger. Oh well, maybe next time.

The Tough Transition into Motherhood

Last week I spent sometime evaluating different areas of my life and was really disappointed to find that I'm not doing so well. Once Liam came, life stopped and I hoped at this point I would be back to the familiar me, but I'm not. My life isn't much different than it was one year ago. The only area that I can see growth is in my mothering skills. Everything else, like my relationship with God, time with friends, doing things that refresh me, managing my home, etc., has taken a major downturn. It's like I don't know how to be me in this new role as a mother and keep up with all these other areas in life. I mean, I good day for me is Liam eating and sleeping well, beyond that, I make no promises. At this point I was hoping to be thriving again, having a deep relationship with God, enjoying my family, spending great time with friends, being healthy and taking care of my body, and having a clean home. I don't know how to merge what was true of my life before into this new role as a mother. It's not that I have high expectations on what my life should look like, I just don't know how to put it all together. I've been in survival mode for over a year now and I don't know how to move on to a more sustainable life.

Preparing for Easter

As I've been reflecting this week on Christ and his death and resurrection, there have been a couple of songs that have been playing over and over in my mind. I don't really care about these videos but it was the easiest way to share these songs. The first is by Matt Maher and the second by Phil Wickham. When I first heard them a couple years ago, I remember kind of being stopped in my tracks because of the lyrics. I hope that they will help usher you into a time of thanksgiving and praise for Gods love and for Christ's sacrifice and triumph over death.

Blogging Fail

It turns out that I'm not really good at blogging. At least in frequency. There are so many times I think about writing something but by the time I actually get a chance to blog, I've totally forgotten about it. I wish that there were just a way to have your thoughts recorded cause when I go to bed at the end of the day I have many thoughts about life. And they are really well put, but in the morning, it's all gone. My problem is that I'm a semi-perfectionist. I want the things I say to sound cohesive and well thought out, so it takes me a while to write anything. And by the time I've thought out exactly what I want to say, it's no longer relevant cause the moment has passed. Maybe I just need to write down a little at a time in my journal and transfer it over, then it wouldn't feel so burdensome.

Ok, that's all I'm gonna say for now.