My first quilt!

Hurray! I've finished my first quilt! Yes, I am clearly patting myself on the back, but please don't think me anything other than humbled by this experience. I thought I appreciated quilts BEFORE. Now I REALLY get it...

Why I felt the need to make up my own pattern, I still cannot answer. I was definitely stuck in a bit of a black hole while calculating the numbers. Then (after cutting all the pieces) I came to the realization that I should have allowed for the batting and backing pieces to be a bit larger than the anticipated final size. Whoops.

And who the heck knew how much my iron and I would bond over this project. The poor thing has been dropped so many times that the steamer no longer works and it sounds like a baby rattle when I give it a little shake.

I think the most fun I had was the finish work of embroidering through all three layers to stabilize the quilt. I picked the "plainer" looking squares to embroider. Just a few running stitches and some "x" patterns. Though by the time I got to the last color, the orange squares, I got a bit braver and made up my own design. I worked on it during a road trip yesterday, while my husband drove and as I began to second guess my design, I asked him if he knew what it was. "Fireworks?" he guessed. Totally frazzled, I asked the almost six-year-old children in the back seat. "A flower!" they called out. Yes, it was a flower.

Now all that's left is to deliver it to its new owner: baby Samantha Elizabeth, whose proud mama and papa welcomed her a few weeks early. Congratulations to them! (And to us - a new baby in the family is always a miracle to be celebrated!)

Girl's Night Out

Friends. The support of a group that knows you. Feeling safe enough to speak. Being honest. Cutting loose. A little cursing. Girls' night out has a way of feeling a little like therapy, only less expensive and WAY more fun.

Our group, six friends who all used to work for the same company (only three still do) gets together every couple of months, more often if we're lucky. It's such a reminder of how strong women are. We're each in such different places, but doing our best, no matter what the challenges. Guiding each other via our past experiences. Throwing our own dilemmas into the mix.

I come home, full of a little too much wine. Full of hope for the road ahead. (This business of rearing children is no picnic.) And knowing that when the road gets tough, there will be friends to hold my hand along the path.

Yes, mommy does need a girls' night out every so often. It makes me a better mommy, and it makes me happy.