Two blog posts in one day! But, this I had to share. This is one of the things that would have had me running into the house yelling “Honey! Look what I found!” I found a real treasure today.  I was pulling some weeds and overgrown herbs, and it’s a wonder I didn’t step right on it. I saw it just in time. How precious is this?!

I sure hope this little one survives and stays around in the yard. I looked for others, but didn’t find anymore.

My son and I went to my parents’ house yesterday. I made up my mind yesterday to try to focus on life and the loved ones still in my life, rather than spend the whole day obsessing over the one that is no longer in it. My Daddy is still alive and I did not want to regret not going to celebrate that fact on this Father’s Day weekend because I let my sadness dominate. It wasn’t necessarily easy, but I’m glad we went. I did enjoy the time with my son, my mother and my father. As much as I can enjoy anything right now. Every experience is just “different” now. I am “different”. The world looks “different”. I don’t know how to explain it really. It’s almost like you have entered a different realm. I guess it’s just a different reality. But, when you have lost someone so near and dear to you, it really does change everything. Nothing feels normal.

This transition from we, us and ours to I, me and mine is so difficult and unpleasant. Quite frankly, I hate it. You built this identity as a couple, and it’s gone in an instant. You find yourself in a position of starting over, basically. Finding a “new normal”. I am fortunate, in many regards. I realize that. I am still thankful for the many blessings in my life. I don’t want to sound as if I am not. I am fortunate in the fact that I am not in a situation many widows find themselves in…having to suddenly go out and find a job, or losing their home because they can no longer afford to live in it. I was independent in that regard, before Greg, and I am still in a position of being able to be self-sufficient, on my own.

I have been perusing quilting blogs and forums, trying to be inspired to work on my own projects again. I even went to a fabric shop open house yesterday, Lillie’s Thimble, in Pampa. I love going to fabric shops and rarely leave one without buying something, even if it’s just a spool of thread. I left empty handed. Wasn’t even tempted. The desire just isn’t there yet. I am thinking that today I might try to straighten up my quilting room…and maybe that will begin to light a fire again. It’s somewhat of a disaster in there right now. Greg was my biggest quilting fan and supporter. The first one I wanted to show when I quilted something I thought was really good. He would be just as happy and excited as I was. He bought me both of my sewing machines, my embroidery machine, and a big portion of my quilting machine. There isn’t a part of my life that he hadn’t become a big part of, as well. Quilting is no exception.

I have decisions to make, as far as my quilting is concerned. While I have no doubt that I will again be quilting…and probably sooner rather than later…it is possible that I may only be quilting for myself. I may let the customer quilting go. I will be selling our business to Greg’s son-in-law.  I run all my quilting work through it.  Sales tax collecting and reporting, etc. I’m not sure that I will want to have to go through setting up a new business on my own, and one thing I won’t do is run it “under the table”. It was easy to do before, since we already had a successful business established, to just add the quilting work in with it. The other side of that coin is that I will actually have more spare time now, on the weekends, in which to do customer quilting. Or, it could just be lots of spare time to work on my own stuff. Lots of things for me to ponder.

Hopefully, before long, there will be some quilting content returning. For today, I leave you with pics of four little friends on the patio:

I leave the patio light on for them at night, to draw insects. I call it the “buffet”. Haha.