Stitch by stitch

These are my nephews Nathan and Noah. Some days I am blessed with their company. They found out today they are going to have a baby brother. They are excited. Well Nathan is. Noah is oblivious.

I know it seems I have made no progress, but I have. In the last picture of this quilt my body was pieced to the background colors. When I sewed all around it was bunched and not square. As anyone knows the foundation is the most important part. If the foundation is crooked so well the rest. i was tempted to carry on as is. I mean one point of the quilt is to show how asymmetrical and crooked I really am. A fact I have tried to hide for years. My dear husband told me I would not be happy in the end and it would be too late. Although I knew he was right, I was sad. Progress is what keeps me going, visible progress. I undid and picked each stitch. Stitch by stitch I was grateful I had the ability to undo my wrong stitches. It gave me a hope that is hard to find in life at times. A hope that I can change and make a difference in the world giving the best possible version of myself.

The Frog Princess

I have inherited many things from my mother. We are mistaken in childhood pictures and in crowded room. I talk with my hands just like she does. We live in the same city, go to the same church. We are in the same book club. I talk in analogies just like she does. One needs to see a movie store inventory of movies to know what we are talking about, and a book shelf of books. However, there are surprising other amounts of similarities. One of my sisters this week explained how hard it is to relate to others at times as mouthed by my mother. My mother and I have lived a completely different life. We have found ourselves in the same spot at certain seasons of our lives. I am going to steal her recent analogy. I feel like a toad in the moat waiting to talk to the princess and we cannot speak the same language. How will we ever live in the same world? Yes, I am the frog or toad waiting in the moat. I am trying to love the swamp.