Mom & Dad

Newsworthy story: A young dog had pups. The boyfriend at the place where she was living became drunk and threw the mama dog and her pups into the river. The mama dog swam to shore by herself, but now the owner doesn’t want her. Fortunately, she is given to a rescue group and eventually ends up in a loving home gaining an older sister.

Happy ending. True story.

Well, no brainer – I’m sure you can guess whose family and older sister this dog ended up with.

Meet Annie, who is about two years old, and very loving and super sweet. She could be Amy in her younger years.

And, of course, if anyone asks “How many children do you have?”, the answer will be (as always): “two girls, two boys, two dogs….and a husband!”.

Who is Lucky Patrick?  Our new horseless carriage of course.  We purchased a 2009 Toyota Sienna XLE yesterday and brought it home with us.  We paid cash for it so it will probably be pancakes for the rest of this pay period.

It has a lot of bells and whistles, but we elected not to get the DVD player this time.  It does have a moon roof (Houston Texas Convertible) that will allow us to check the canoe when we are going down the road on our trips. 

We even made room for it in the garage last night.  Pretty impressive when you consider that we have been parking bikes, wheel barrows, and tools in that spot for the last year.  Mom and I are very excited and hope to put this to good use this year as we tour around to see each of the kids.

Okay – for all y’all that think Mom is a real in-the-box loner, I stepped outside my comfort zone this week and crashed the Methodists’ quilting group.  I got wind of this through the community newsletter and noticed that they were making quilts for charity, to give to people who are going through difficult issues.  I was glad to see that I’m not the only one who thinks that quilts have real comfort power. 

So off I went to St. Peter’s, trailing my sewing machine tote behind me, to be greeted enthusiastically by 8 ladies sitting at tables with their machines busily running.  Some of us sewed 6 inch squares into small quilt tops, while others topstitched the 3 layers together, and one elderly lady hand stitched the final side of the binding.  There were cookies and friendly camaraderie all over the room.  One of the ladies turned out to be an assistant pastor and kept asking the others what they would like to hear from her in future sermon topics, and also sharing some scriptures (New World translation, of course). 

Though it was odd to hear everyone talk about ‘sanctuaries’,  and sermon outlines shown on the big screen on Sundays, and being asked what prayer quilt groups I had been in, the Methodist ladies went out of their way to include me in conversation and quilt decisions even though it was only my first time.  I haven’t seen this standard of ‘friendly’ from a group since we worked in Sealy Branch. 

The final interesting point was when we gathered in a circle at the end of the 3 hours holding the quilts we made that day, each lady offering a short prayer generally about the people who would benefit from the quilts. 

Will I go back?  You betcha!

Well one year and 5 days later, the quilt rack is done.  (I have put the picture out on the family photo site.)  Now I don’t want to hear that it is about time.  After all I am handicapped working here in Houston, where we have summer for 7 months and then 4 really hot months.  That leaves one month to complete all the woodworking projects that you do in the garage.  I am not sure why I don’t get 3 rooms in the air conditioned house to pursue my hobbies, but then I am just an engineer and not an artist. 
 

For those that don’t know the background on this project, here is a description:
 

• The pattern is taken basically from the headboard that Grandpa Paul made for Ann-Maree.
  
• The material is recycled wood from the waterbed that Grandma Pat gave to the boys about 26 years ago.  I used my new bandsaw to resaw them down to usable sizes from the 2 X 12’s that they were originally.
  
• I then designed trees for the end pieces, because of Ann-Maree’s love for trees.