Its's Like A Jungle Again

I am truly not holding up to my personal bargain with myself to blog more often. Life for me is still hectic, living between two cities, working several part time jobs, quilting,getting laptop fixed and living my life to its fullest. Yes I would like a moment to stop and breath, but for every free moment I have I fill it up with something I call my relaxation ~ quilting. Last Wednesday I was able to go a quild meeting and it felt so good. I had not been able to visit the first quild I joined due to traveling. Saturday I was able to visit my African American quilting sistahs and spend some time with them. The show and tell was nice and I hope one day soon to be able to show all of the projects I am working on. As a fabric junkie, I also make fabric postcards, mousepads, koozie, and journal quilts . I had began working on some fabric gifts to sell at my church family conference this June but I have been told that there is no room for any new vendors only the previous year vendors will be allowed to vend again???? So I am going to move forward making my gifts and I have Faith that the opportunity to exhibit and sell my work will come soon. I have been so blessed to have embroidery friends that turn me on to free sites and if I keep working on this program I have called EMBIRD I might soon be able to digitize my own designs.

2009

Well I am finally back. I was going to post on December 4, 2008 my 49th birthday and that didn't happen. Then I was going to post when the new year came in and that didn't happen. I ended the year with cellphone, digital camera and laptop problems. It seemed as if all my favorite electronics were causing me stress at the same time. I have vowed to keep better control of my stress level for 2009 and to keep my faith and know that God is my source of strength and I will be alright. I purchased a new cell phone in December, finally deposited my laptop to Fry's for repair and sent my camera off to Canon for repair. The camera is back and I presume working I have no done anything to it but powered it on. I am being told my laptop is ready by the manufacturer but Fry's claim it will take 8 - 10 weeks for it to be sent back to them fro Fujitsu. I love Motorola phones so I now own the Krave. It is a touch screen phone and I probably should have listened to my daughter and not gotten a fully touch phone. I am enjoying the new toy but there are times the screens blacks on me and my pics disappear. I am participating in numerous swaps and have decided to start my own online swap group (imani swappers). Like most things in my life right now I have built the group but need to go further and send out my invites. I have finally started journal quilting. My first was a collage and my second will be a crazy patch. The creative juices are flowing....all in my head. Now if I can just get them to the sewing machine things will be better.

Thanksgiving Holiday

I am ever so thankful for family. My family met in Shrveport, LA for Thanksgiving and we had a wonderful time. 8 of my 9 siblings met along with neices, nephews and one friend. Since many of us will not be together for the Christmas and Kwanzaa celebration we discussed Kwanzaa and participated in an litany to encourage us to think of the respect, pride, dignity, truth and love we have as a family. I have been in Shreveport for a week and have done more cooking than ever in my life. I can cook but choose not to being the baby of 11 we never had to do much except assist at holiday celebrations. Lenora and I cooked, decorated , helped coordinate the event and washed a many of dishes. This is the second anniversary of my mom not being present with us and we shared many of laughs about things she would say at this time and also a few tears as one of my neices has a video of mom expressing her views in a comical way of all her kids during her last months. We miss her and we truly wish she was here to witness November 4, 2008 and January 20, 2009.

My Baby is 21 now! September 19, 2008

Lawdy where did the time go... I started off remembering her birth by her phone call at 12:15am the morning of her birthday telling me she was now legal. I was sitting in my dark(no electricity due to IKE) house and thinking, un un un I can no longer tell her where she can't go. Around 6:30 that morning I send out text messages to my family and friends telling them that "21years ago around this time I was being blessed with a beautiful baby girl". As the replies started coming back to me it was my neice Lynns reply that she was with me throughout the birth that brought the tears down. Lynn, my sister Linda and a friend Chirine had rushed me to the hospital when I called to say my water had broke and they spent the entire time with me (12 hours) until I delivered. Lauren's dad came in from Austin a few hours after I got to the hospital and my good friend Audrey showed up and stayed with me also. The hospital wouldn't give her any information so she came and spent the night with us also. My twin (Lauren's other mom) showed up from Dallas about 3 hours after Lauren was born and the visits and phone calls continued. I can't remember if my mom came the first day or the second but I know I was waiting to tell her I DID IT! I had arrived at Herman Hospital in Houston, TX around 7 pm with just some leakage. Well they decided to break the bag more and then the pains began. I was having the epidural shot so I thought where is the anesthesia dr. My failed epidural will always be in my mind. For some reason I deadened on one side of my body and the other side allowed me to feel those contractions. He kept coming and giving me those shots until I reached the limit trying to get me out of my discomfort. Soon they gave me something to sleep I thought it was morphine I can't remember what it was but I slept and slept. Lynn later told me they had shaved me and other things, I do not remember any of that. What I remember is my nurse waking me at 6:30a.m. and said "come on Laura my shift is almost over let's have this baby" and I did. Nurse Linda had just came on duty when I arrived and she tended to me and some others her entire shift. Steve and Audrey had went downstairs and when they returned Lauren Stephanie Gary was here.

I made Lauren a quilt to commemorate her 21st bd and she celebrated by going to a casino Boomtown in Shreveport LA. Lauren had been asking me to make her a pink quilt for years and this actually was the 3rd one I had started but I was determined to finish it by the birthday weekend. When she arrived in Shreveport my sister Linda and I was still quilting the quilt on the sewing machine. I sewed the label on Saturday the day after the BD and after she spent her first night under it. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMAGIRL

Class Reunion

Well 30 years have passed since I walked across the stage and received my diploma from high school. My friends and I celebrated with a fun filled weekend reminding us of the good clean fun we used to have. Lawdy if only this young set would be able to understand "good, clean, innocent...fun" this world might just be a little better. I was able to see friends I had not seen in 30 years and we all picked up just like it was yesterday. No one wanted the weekend to end and we have vowed to get together yearly since it has taken us so long to reunite. Thank God for the internet and for those that are just getting it to be connected with us more often.

Mama

Yesterday marked the 1 year anniversary of the date my loving mother took her last breath out of this world. As I look back on the year I think I have been just exisitng, living in a fog, knowing what I should be doing but also knowing I was not doing it, encouraging others to hold on and accepting encouragment from others to hold on myself. My family promised to get together twice a year as we had been doing the last years of Mom's life ~ for her birthday and for at least one holiday. We got together in March , went to her gravestie had prayer and song and on Sunday just like we had been doing for the last 10 or 15 years per her instructions we all piled into her church and sat on her pew as she would have had it. For Thanksgiving we had dinner at the family home and again went to her gravesite and had family prayer and song. These past 365 days have been dark for Sylvina Marks Casmore's children but as I stood at her gravesite alone yesterday and sang "This Little Light of Mine" I prayed and the sun shined and I can could hear mama saying to all of her children as she did whenever something was not going right for us "Behind every dark cloud there is sunshine". I miss her and from this day forward I look forward to waking up and welcoming the sunshine.

Faith

It's a few minutes until a new day began and a day that may turn my world on a different course. I am having a not so routine mamogram in a few hours due to a lump found during my well woman checkup two weeks ago. This is not my first lump I have had several in the past which turned out to be fluid filled cyst and one just some fatty tissue. Yes I am hoping this is the same scenario for I am physically and mentally running on fumes right about now. My body is tired from the constant moving trying to survive and my mind is tired from overworking it making things happen. A test of faith I am not ready for but will survive it for I do believe and trust that all things work for the Good of the Lord and that the Lord will not put more on you than you can bear.