Fabric donations for a worthy cause

Hello, lovely and generous blog friends.

:o) ♥

My cousin, Mary Ann, has battled breast cancer over the past year. She has seen her way through a mastectomy and chemo treatments, and she has reconstructive surgery looming in her near future.

After her mastectomy, the hospital gifted Mary Ann with a small heart-shaped pillow to use under her arm where lymph nodes had been removed. A little confused about the value of the pillow initially, she learned first hand what a comfort it was and how much it helped her through such a painful time of healing.

The hearts that the hospital hands out are donated by the generosity of women like my cousin. And now Mary Ann is doing her part to give back to her community by sewing and stuffing heart-shaped pillows. She donates them to the breast cancer center where she received treatment herself.

Several months ago I sent some of my fabric scraps to her and she was able to make more hearts to donate. I love looking at the photo above and seeing some of my mom's fabric in the mix. ♥ Once in a while Mary Ann posts on Facebook, asking for fabric scrap donations and I think she has just about tapped out all her local resources.




So I thought it would be a good idea to reach out to my lovely blog friends and see if any of you might have extra fabric scraps you'd be willing to donate to this worthy cause.

Cotton fabrics are good, and we'll avoid anything that would have a rough or scratchy texture... obviously. The fabric scraps need to measure at least 11" x 11" to be able to be used for Mary Ann's hearts. 

If you are interested in donating some fabric scraps for Mary Ann's community service effort, you can email me at djturtle@cox.net (or send a private message to PaperTurtle on Facebook) and I'll share Mary Ann's mailing information with you.

And if you don't have fabric to donate, maybe you'll lift a sweet little prayer for Mary Ann. We pray for her strength, grace and continued healing, and we give thanks for her unselfish service to her community.

♥

Weekend Recap (plus Carrie's birthday)

Happy birthday to my girl C.

♥

What's the best way to deal with the fact that it's already Monday morning? Why, it's to remember that today is my sweet girl's birthday. In true Gemini fashion, I think we actually start celebrating Carrie's birthday when the calendar page is turned to June. Today it's official and there will be presents and dinner out and birthday messages coming her way. Hooray! {Happy birthday, Carrie!}

I digress. Before Carrie's birthday there was this weekend...

Rexy is so shy that he usually retreats when we come around, but the other day when I fed the turtles I stood still long enough for him to become curious about my toes. He finally sauntered over and I'll admit that I was a tiny bit nervous he might bite my toes as he approached. Turtles do this thing where they nudge potential food with their nose before chomping down, and that's what Rexy did to my toes. Twice. :o) I love turtles.

I took Friday off, so I'm going to say that my "weekend" actually started on Thursday night. My nephew, Ryne, was in town from Nashville, so Carrie and I headed to downtown Phoenix to The Rhythm Room to hear him play. He performed solo first, then with his band, Ike & the Crooked Souls as a final act. So. Much. Fun!

Ryne is recently engaged to be married, and since he was in town it was the perfect opportunity to celebrate him and his fiancé, Emery. My brother and his wife hosted a party in their honor so that's where we were on Friday night.

My sister-in-law, Liz, did such a fun job with a game-night themed party. Every table had a different theme. Loved it!

And I loved being with my family again. My brother, Tim, lives here in Arizona but we hardly ever get the chance to visit. I got to see him three times last week and I loved it!!! And I love that Tim and my sweet hubby, Doug, are such good friends. ♥

 

Saturday night involved a third night out (3 nights in a row!) for us to kick off Carrie's birthday weekend. We went to Top Golf and enjoyed the company of our sweet friends Vee & Heath. Here's Doug, swinging a club...

And all points in between? I was at yoga teacher training...

And doodling mandalas at yoga teacher training...

In other news, Doug tore all the walls off of our master bathroom this weekend. It's the only room that hasn't been remodeled since we purchased this home and boy, did it get the treatment this weekend! When he removed the drywall from around the shower there was some crazy growth behind it and at first glance we thought it might be mold. Instead, it was honeycomb from an old bee hive. Eeeow! It will be a while before everything is put back together, but it's fun to see that project started. I know Doug will make it beautiful eventually. :o)

And now I'm off to take on this new week with some potential changes brewing. You know I'll keep you posted as they take shape.

In the meantime, today I celebrate the 28th anniversary of becoming Carrie's mom. In all my life I can't think of anything I've loved more than carrying her and birthing her and nursing her and being charged with the raising of her sweet soul in this lifetime. It's been an amazing honor - every bit of it.

 

Have a really awesome week, blog friends.

♥

This Weekend's Wedding Road Trip

Good day, blog friends.

♥

This Monday morning finds me holding tight to wonderful memories of the weekend gone by. We had the best time celebrating with friends and family at our niece's wedding in Payson, Arizona. Payson is a two-hour road trip from our home, and we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day for a drive through the desert.

The wedding was held at Kohl's Ranch, a setting I know quite well because my mother loved Kohl's Ranch! Carrie felt sentimental too, having spent some time there with her grandparents and cousins on a few grandkid trips during childhood summers. ♥

We arrived early enough to catch a glimpse of the bride and groom in the midst of their photo shoot by the creek.

Here we are relaxing after our road trip travels, in the cabin where the bride's family was gathered...

 

The wedding backdrop was so beautiful with the soft trickling of that sweet creek in the background.

 

The wedding party consisted of the bride's friends and sisters, and her adorable niece as the flower girl. Little miss flower girl needed a little coaxing, so she walked up the aisle with her mommy.

The bride and groom are a striking couple, and our niece looked incredibly beautiful in her wedding gown. Ah! My eyes tear up once again as I type this! Kaycee is such a beautiful girl, inside and out. We loved being there to enjoy her special day! ♥

 

The new Mr. & Mrs. K. ♥ ♥

The wedding and reception were so beautiful, with so many sweet and perfect little touches. We loved every bit of it. What a blessing to be able to celebrate love with family and friends.

 

Carrie and her beau, Andrew, were along for the trip as well, and we loved being able to spend time with them at Kohl's Ranch. Gosh I'd love a few more days up there to hang out with them and...well...avoid having to go to work this morning! Ha.

 

Anyway! Duty calls and I'm in serious need of some time on my yoga mat before getting ready for work this morning. So with that, I'm off to take on a whole new week.

 

This is a week full of love celebrations. ♥

Carrie and Andrew celebrate their one-year dating anniversary on Wednesday.

And Doug and I celebrate our 11-year wedding anniversary on Saturday.

 

Here's hoping that your week is filled with celebrations of love!

♥

Our long Thanksgiving weekend

Good day, blog friends.

{insert great big giant happy face right here}

♥

I hope this blog post finds you well and happy this morning. We had such a great Thanksgiving weekend celebrating gratitude with people we love. I was a bit preoccupied with preparing food so I don't have as many photos as I would like to have for this weekend recap. I'll share what I do have though, and you'll get the jest of our weekend. :o)

My sister (Valerie) and her family arrived Wednesday evening and she brought us some housewarming gifts. Among the gifts was this cute blue serving tray she found on Etsy. LOVE it! I used it for different purposes throughout the weekend. So fun!

We waited until just before Thanksgiving dinner was served to set up our tables. My sister-in-law, Liz, did some quick work finding a napkin-folding-tutorial on Pinterest! And my 7-year old nephew, Stone, had colored some placemats to use. He wrote what he was thankful for on each placemat. "I am thankful for loving you guys."

Random corner of our house with my quick attempt at...well...I won't even call it chalkboard "art." It served its purpose though, with wifi info and our hashtag for the day. (Those wings at the top of the photo are some that my father-in-law bought back from the Philippines when he was serving in the Marine Corp back in the 1960's.)

And now some random food photos:

Mmmmm... My sister makes these yummy stuffed mushrooms that I was really looking forward to! We had them for appetizers before our Thanksgiving dinner and I grabbed the final four and tucked them away for selfish reasons. I thoroughly enjoyed them the following day as a snack.

I spent a chunk of time on Saturday morning bagging up leftovers and freezing packages of turkey, ham, brownies, and pumpkin pie. Here's what I did with my sister's leftover asparagus that was topped with crumbled bacon and feta cheese:

I used six leftover dinner rolls, four eggs with a little milk/salt/pepper, the leftover asparagus/bacon/feta cheese. Mixed it, baked it for about 20 minutes, and we enjoyed a really yummy breakfast on Saturday morning! I am pretty proud of myself for repurposing (and freezing) all those leftovers this year. We'll see if I actually bust out the frozen turkey at all, or if the entire bag will be tossed this time next year.

And last but not least, my people:

The best part and biggest blessing is that we got to spend time with this amazing group of people. I love that our family is growing and changing. This year we added Carrie's beau, Andrew, and his son (little man with his hand on my arm ♥), and my step-dad brought his lady-friend, Natalia. There we are, in all our glory, cluttered countertop and all. My favorite photo of the entire weekend (thanks to Carrie!).

I just checked the calendar and counted. Christmas is three weeks from this Friday! Gulp. And how?!?! I'm making the choice to remain perfectly calm. Well...I'm making the choice to remain as calm as possible. Time to start prioritizing and letting go of some items that may not be totally necessary.

I'm off to hit my yoga mat and then make my way through this work week. Super fun news is that the office where I work is closed for two weeks around Christmas, so there's some vacation time in my near future. :o)

If you live on a piece of the planet where Thanksgiving was celebrated last week, I hope your holiday was as wonderful as ours. And regardless of where you live on this planet, I am grateful that you visit my blog from time to time and read my words.

Happy holiday season, sweet friends!

♥

A weekend of cupcakes, family, and packing.

Hello, my friends.

♥

When my alarm went off this morning I was right in the middle of a dream where I was preparing to deliver a Sunday sermon to a large church congregation. I had just minutes to prepare what I was going to say and could feel the panic rising in my body. "Gratitude!" I thought. "When in doubt, I'll speak of gratitude."

A great reminder for me on this Monday morning when my mind is full of all kinds of things - sorting out details of our upcoming move and dealing with some work issues that are super annoying right now but when kept in perspective, aren't that big of a deal in the big scheme of things. Still, I'd really rather not go to work today. ~sigh~

Anyway! This isn't supposed to be a post about my Monday morning disposition, it's about the awesome weekend that I'm grateful for. Let's shift gears, shall we?

After yoga class on Saturday morning, I came home and made the most delicious lemon cupcakes to take to a party at Doug's brother's house that afternoon. I wanted to try a new recipe so I went to my Pinterest cupcake board and homed in on this one. Wow - SO yummy!!!

The gathering with my in-laws on Saturday was a celebration of many things: a nephew returning home from a long stay in China, a niece moving away to California, a brother-in-law's retirement, and a new baby in the family...

We sisters-in-law passed this little peach around all night - SO much fun to have a new baby in the family and she is just the sweetest - never really fussed at all and went between smiling and snoozing the entire evening. Her big sister swam and played and ate cupcakes until the end of the evening. Here she is: "Grandma, you've been holding Ellie all night. I want you to hold me now." ♥

Saturday night's get together was so much fun. We stayed late talking and laughing and having just one more glass of wine...  Sunday morning was a slow start. ;o)

 

Then yesterday I started packing boxes for our upcoming house move. We get the keys for our new house on August 17th but aren't actually moving until mid-September. This gives me plenty of time to pack, and I'm taking advantage of these next several weeks to go through our belongings and purge a few things. Whiskers is happy and oblivious to his future - loves having random boxes to explore but is not a fan of change. He's the pet I'm most concerned about for our upcoming move.

I am so grateful for this home we've lived in for the past four years. My gosh, a lot has changed in that time! Today I will practice an attitude of gratitude, as suggested by my own Monday morning dream state. I'm setting my sights on tonight's session of mandala drawing with my friend B and my girl C. Time to hit the yoga mat and face the day...

 

Here's wishing each of you a week full of blessings,

and the ability to recognize those blessings with gratitude.

♥

When I loved summer...

I've lived in Arizona long enough that I had forgotten I actually used to LOVE summer! The stifling heat night and day, day after day has kind of jaded my feelings about summertime. So when I came across this idea - to write a list of favorite memories from my childhood summers - I was surprised at how many sweet summer memories came up for me. {The prompt was from a newsletter I subscribe to by Chookooloonks.}

Here, in no particular order, are 10 of my favorite summertime childhood memories.

☀ ☀ ☀

My nephews (Cris & Tyler) and niece (Britny) ~ photo by my brother Ron

☀ No school. It's not that I disliked school, I just loved summer a whole lot more. So the first thing on my list of favorite things about summer when I was a kid? It has to be the no school part!

☀ Being barefoot. We were country kids and we were barefoot all summer long! I remember walking on the hot blacktop road to Grandma's house - feet tough enough that the hot surface felt warm but didn't really make me dance. The way it felt to step onto the cool, lush green grass, and ending each day with super dirty feet that needed a good scrubbing in the tub before bed time.

☀ Water play. With sprinklers, garden hose, wading pools, water balloons and dangling our feet into the muddy water of nearby irrigation ditches.

☀ Crawdad fishing. Our great-uncle Homer would tie a piece of meat on a string for us and we'd pull dozens of crawdads out of the muddy irrigation ditch. {I wrote a story about our crawdad fishing days and you can read that here.}

☀ The ice cream truck. Running to the sidewalk with a fist full of change, waiting for the ice cream truck to stop for us. My favorite treat was always the creamsicle pop-ups. Yum...haven't had one of those in forever...

☀ Our cousins from Chicago came to visit. For a few summers in a row, our three cousins from Chicago came to spend several weeks in California. Our grandmas were sisters and lived on the same country road, and we spent hours building forts, crawdad fishing, riding our bikes, and just having fun. When the day would come for them to go back to Chicago, my siblings and I would sob like it was the end of the world. Ahhh. Those were such fun times!

☀ Iced tea. My mom made the best, fresh brewed iced tea, and she always had a pitcher made. I remember for a while she made ice by freezing water in an empty paper milk carton. Once frozen, she'd break it up with an ice pick - stabbing several times right through the paper carton. She'd pour the crushed ice into a glass and then cover it with fresh brewed tea. Ah - such a refreshing way to cool off! {My sis and I still make tea just like our mama, though we don't do that ice part.}

☀ Bike riding. We rode our bikes all over the place back then. We lived in a small town and friends were always a bike ride away. There was such a feeling of freedom and independence, riding off on my bike to go to a friend's house. As I write these words, I'm struck by the way I miss that simple pleasure.

☀ Being hot. It seems weird to remember a time when I actually enjoyed the heat. Our home had a small evaporative cooler in one window and that was enough "back then." We slept with our windows open and didn't really complain about being too hot. Heat meant that it was SUMMER and we loved that so much!

☀ Shopping for school supplies. As much as I loved summer and the whole no-school-gig, I always loved shopping for new school clothes and supplies. The anticipation of new teachers, seeing friends, a fresh notebook and a hint of fall in the air? Awesome! And although this memory signified the end of summer, it's still one of my favorites.

☀ ☀ ☀

What would your list of top ten summer memories include?

Flashback Weekend Recap

Hey there, blog friends.

:o) ♥

I'm coming off of a busy weekend without photos or a whole lot of news to share, so today I'm giving you photos that were actually taken last weekend while Carrie and I were in California.

It just so happened that my sister and her husband had plans to be out of town the weekend that we were visiting - poor timing on our part. But! It also just so happened that my 6-year old nephew, Stone, needed a date for his school's annual mother/son dance - great timing on my part! When he called me a month before our trip and asked me to go with him I was so happy I almost cried.

The dance theme was Hawaiian so Stone and I were appropriately decked out. We had heard there was going to be a hula dance contest, so we worked out a little routine to bust a few moves when the time came. Here's a photo of how we planned to finish our dance routine. Makes me smile every time...

No date would be complete without dinner before the dance, so Stone and I went to his favorite restaurant. When we got there he told me he had a favorite table there too, so we asked the hostess to be seated there. Oh my gosh he was so cute during dinner. His menu is standing up in the next photo to hide the picture he was drawing for me.

 

And there was this:

So the hula dance contest? Well, it turned out to be a hula hoop contest. They invited five mom/son teams at a time up to the stage and Stone was reluctant to go. {See his mad hula hoop skillz at 1:34 in this video.} I told him, "Dude! I've got this! Let's go up there!!!" so he trusted my lead and up we went.

Once on the stage, five "moms" and five "sons" spun the hoops and in a flash there was one little boy left spinning, along with yours truly. sigh. I could've gone all night but then I thought, "Uh, Deb! You can't beat a little kid!!!" so I let my hoop drop. LOL - you should have seen the look of disappointment on Stone's face. {Sorry, Stoney!}

Boy oh boy! A whole room of little boys, aged 5 - 11, was a crazy, crazy time. Something quite different for this aunt, but I loved every minute of it!!!

Getting Stone to slow down for some selfies was a bit tricky but I came up with the idea of holding out my phone and letting him press the button. Score. He also called out, "Smile" - "smile with no teeth" - "silly face..." And so it went...

Needless to say, I loved my time with Stone that night. It's a time I will always remember and I hope he will too.

And with that I'm off to discover what surprises this week holds.

Keep smiling, my friends. Keep smiling!

♥

A quilt for my niece

I have been wanting to try my hand at sewing triangles for the longest time, and was inspired by a quilt I saw on Pinterest last year. I loved the herringbone pattern as opposed to the more common chevron designs, so I pinned it and then started the process. I bought the fabric, cut all the squares, cut them into triangles, sewed half of the rows, and then set it aside. Once I'd started my yoga teacher training last summer the whole quilt making gig was moved to the back burner for a while.

This quilt is for my niece, Britny, and I knew we'd be seeing her when Carrie and I traveled to California last week. I really wanted to give her the quilt in person, so after Christmas I got back to it with sheer determination to finish it before our trip.

Oh my gosh I loved making this quilt for Britny! I loved thinking of her as I sewed, remembering what a sweet little girl she had been, and feeling so proud of the amazing young woman she's grown into. All those gray and white triangles came together nicely in a true labor of love.

It was so cool to give the quilt to Britny in person last week. She stayed in our hotel room with Carrie and me for the first two nights of our California trip, so I actually got to spend a couple of days seeing her wrapped in her quilt. It was so awesome to see it finished, off of my sewing table, and wrapped around the sweet girl it was meant for.

Next quilting project?
Well, I have a friendship quilt to assemble...

♥
Inspiration for this quilt was found here.
I used this tutorial for a quick and easy way to make half-square triangles.

A quilt for baby Carter

Today I'm sharing a few photos of the quilt I made recently for my nephew and his wife. They're expecting a baby boy after the first of the year - my first official great-nephew (I'm already a great-aunt on Doug's side of the family) and also my mom's first great-grandchild. Oh my gosh, she would be beyond excited for the birth of this little one!!! ♥



Don't you just love these colors? The baby's room is painted gray and is decorated with animals in this color scheme. I was so excited when I found this fabric!

I used a strip of washi tape as a marker so I could sew a straight line from corner to corner.

I can't wait to hold that little man next year, hopefully with this blanket wrapped snuggly around him.

♥ 

A weekend recap on Tuesday

Good morning, blog friends!

Oh what a wonderful, whirlwind weekend we had!

Three days packed with driving and celebrating with family.

♥ 

My sister surprised her hubby (our brother-in-law Brad) with a 50th birthday party, and Doug and I wavered back and forth a bit on whether or not to make the trip. Even though we are a bit worn out this morning, we are both so happy that we did it. This morning I have some random photos from the weekend to share with you, then I'm off to tackle a busy week ahead. Yay!

 

My sister chose "The Godfather" theme for Brad's party and all of the details were so much fun. I was assigned as the photo girl for the night, but in our rush to leave our hotel and get to the party, I left my camera lens and external flash behind. Nice. So we ended up with a bunch of grainy photos from my phone. ~sigh~

 

Fantastic party, the guest of honor was super surprised, and a great time was had by all! :o) Sunday morning we met at my sister's house for a big breakfast and a day of relaxing with family. I loved spending time with my nieces and nephews, and even got to give this little peach her first Christmas present.

 

Sweet baby Olivia. She's growing so fast! She let out a sad little cry when the paper was torn back to reveal a little dolly underneath. The baby in the box scared her just a little. Aw!

 

If you had told me two years ago that either my sister or I would be dog owners I would have laughed. And if you had told me how much we would love our pups, I probably would have said you were crazy. But it's true! We have Lucky, and my sister has Walker: 

 

Have I mentioned before how much I love being an aunt? This photo of Presley, Stone, and me makes my heart want to explode. Gosh I love these kiddos!

 

And now it's game on. The rest of this week is jam-packed with places to go, people to see, yoga to practice and teach(!!!), and Christmas to prepare for.

 

Taking deep breaths and trusting that everything will fall right into place...

Enjoy the rest of your week, my friends!

♥