Is it December Already?

My goodness. Where has the time gone? It seems like just a few days ago I was packing  my bags to go to England and Poland.Then after I was  home for 2 days I flew off to New Brunswick to spend time with my daughter and grandson. Now they have been here for the weekend for my husband's family annual Christmas dinner, which now takes place the Saturday after the American thanksgiving so his brother's family can all come back to Canada to celebrate with us. Since we were hosting this year, I made 3 turkeys and now  all the turkey bones and leftovers are in the freezer awaiting another day to make gallons of soup, since I cooked way too much. Not to mention that as I sat at the dinner, my throat started to close up and here I am, 3 days later with laryngitis and a deep bronchial cough. But I did spend lots of time looking after Devan when she was sick last week so, I guess she shared. 

Last night I printed off and taped together 5 pattern layouts for the Ben Biggs quilt that I am way behind in. I traced off the patterns onto wash away fuseable web and took time to cut them all out. I did remember to label them first. Two boxes of new fat quarters arrived from Craftsy. I had them in my cart and responded to a flash sale 2 1/2 weeks ago and got a better price then than they were offering last week, so I am happy. I have been slowly, oh so slowly, working on my simple tutorials for the Bright Jane quilt blocks. The sun is shining so brightly in here today.

In 2 weeks the house guest start to arrive for Christmas. Most recent count is 4 guests staying at my house, and 24 for Christmas dinner here at the Farm. Six of the nine coming from Saskatchewan will be staying in other homes. First guest arrives from Qatar Dec 18 and the last 2 leave for New Brunswick Jan 10. Both of these will be making quilts while they are here. Now, in order to sit 24 people at the same time in the same room, I need all 4 of my quilt tables cleared off, moved to the living room, that is 25 feet long, and I think there are enough chairs throughout the house to seat everyone at the same time. I have more than enough dishes since I bought all of them from a hotel auction 30 years ago and only broke one so far. Stacking chairs came from a local church auction 25 years ago.  One of the joys of living in a really big ole farm house, is that stuff seldom gets thrown out since there is so much room to store things. However, I did give away the 100 year old church piano (bought from the same auction) last week so have a whole wall empty in the living room. I am dying to fill that space with book shelves to house the hundreds of books sitting in boxes right now. Maybe. Just maybe, I could ask for bookshelves for Christmas? My daughter and my husband have had an annual luncheon date for the past 30 years to go out and buy my Christmas present. She always asks to make sure that I am happy. Hhmm.

And I drew up a 2015 goals diagram. Instead of writing a linear list like I usually do, I thought this might be more effective. Its like putting rocks into a jar. Only a very few large ones will fit, so the largest rock is completing my doctorate. The smaller stones are also important but not so big. Sand to fill in the gaps will be regular stuff like blogging, retreats, quilting, travel. And water to fill all the tiny spaces is everyday stuff.  I might change it but that is what came to mind immediately when I started.

Somehow, all the farm files made their way into the quilt room and this is the priority this week. The corn got combined yesterday and looks like a good crop this year so should have enough from selling it to pay for all the fertilizers, spraying, seed, combining, drying, silo filling, fuel for tractor and wages for workers. Then we get to start all over again with orders for next year's seed corn in the bills to pay file.

Blessings,
Chris