Hearts Full of Joy

wedding quilt

lexi & bear's wedding quilt. lexi designed it, and i'm not sure if she chose this simple pattern to make things easy for her mom, or because it was what she really wanted....maybe a little of both. it features her wedding colors and some of the fabrics from her wedding, many  from my stash and our shop, and several fun fabrics i collected in japa ~ some that i made clothing out of while we lived there. as the wedding drew near, the quilt was only about 1/3 of the way pieced, and my sweet mom offered to take it home and finish piecing it. that made it much more meaningful and fun. i was worried about finding time to get it quilted, and a friend with a long arm quilter quilted it for me. it wasn't done for the june wedding, but lots of loving hands worked on this creation.

(koji the cat loves all things hanging on the clothesline, and when i'm not looking, he'll pull down his favorites and cuddle with them.)

 

she wore my mom's wedding dress - so fun!

the littles in their wedding togs (untucked shirt and silly bands, et all)

~Nauvoo Temple

 

 

japanese festival

two years ago brock & i had the good fortune to stumble upon the japanese festival at the missouri botanical gardens in st. louis. we were on a labor day weekend get-away for our 20th anniversary. we felt that it would be a wonderful experience for our japanese children, who are being rasied away from japan, and for our caucasian children who were raised in japan, almost as japanese. so last year we took the four kids that were at home to the festival, and it is now a family favorite, that we look forward to all year.

unagi (eel) sushi and yaki soba

little one was chosen to assist in a show. he turned a origami frog into a plastic frog. this show was adorable.

water balloon yo-yo and ramiune soda - a must for any japanese festival.

face painting - "shinkansen" (bullet train) and "mia" (beautiful asia)

little man volunteered to go on stage at the sumo exhibition, and was chosen from a huge group of kids. what he didn't know was that he would be wrestling a real osumosan. he admitted later to being terrified, but he didn't show it. this was a highlight that we'll always treasure.

he did push the sumo wretler out of the ring at the end, with lots of cooperation from mr. sumo.

halloween skirts

another  fun project from my new favorite sewing book, and here's another post about it too.

i was thrilled to see that mary abreu, who wrote the book, commented on the second posting!

i should clarify that most of the patterns in the book don't have aprons, but i love using the cute panels we have in our shop for the aprons - can't resist.

the skirt on the left is for my little one, and the one on the right is for her little friend who is turning 3. i made them both last night during the last few hours of summer - quick and easy and ready for fall!

this little girl is at the most scrumptious, delightful age - wish I could keep her this way.

nancy's quilt

i wanted to make a fun, cheerful quilt to be a comfort to nancy during her chemo, surgery, radiation, etc.  i made one for my mom 6.5 years ago when she was fighting breast cancer too. my mom's was intricately pieced to form a pattern of hearts.

for nancy i chose an eclectic assortment of bright novelty prints (featuring two of my loves, asian and vintage - i love to mix the two) from our shop and my own fabric stash, cut large squares and pieced them together. i wanted simple quilting that added some curve and flow to angular squares. i'm happy with how this quilting turned out and how quickly it was done. i quilted during the byu/utah football game, which i wasn't as happy about - good thing the quilt meant more to me than the score of the game!

oh! there's my toe! didn't notice that until it uploaded...funny!

it's harder to choose fabrics that look good together, while making them look random, than it seems. i love the process though, and i adore working with gorgeous and interesting fabric.

one thing i should have done differently is adding another row to the length - i didn't think about the fact that she is 6 feet tall until it was quilted, but designed it for a person about my height - 7 inches shorter!

i also sent nancy a jar of red clover flowers that i picked and dried this summer. they make a tea that is supposed to work wonders on cancer.

 

well, of course i can...

i love to can. and i'll tell you why.

canning has always been a way to save money, be thrifty, and a way to prevent waste - preserving garden produce that would other wise spoil before it was eaten - or, in other words, provident living. and i do love provident living. it seems to be in my genes.

today there are even more reasons to can, at least as i look at it. when i can, i have control over what goes into the jar - so there is no msg, no high fructose corn syrup, no articficial colorings or flavorings, no chemical preservatives. and i control the salt and the sugar content. i love that. and i am generally using my own home grown, organic, non gmo produce - hooray!

there is also a great deal of satisfaction that comes from making a dinner mostly from things i have canned myself - chicken, black beans, salsa for example. and a happy feeling when my kids prefer my applesauce over store-bought, and when they get excited about helping me with the process.

finally, it is a way of making cooking last. i like to do things that last, which is one of the reasons i love to cook and sew. i tend to not feel that way about making a birthday cake, or even a wonderful dinner. i work and work, and then it is eaten and gone. but with canning, i can see the rows of shiney jars on the shelves, and i know it will last...at least longer than tonight's dinner.

....oh, and i almost for got one of the most important reasons - it tastes better than store bought - delicious yumminess!

a sampling of this summer's canning:

roasted tomato sauce, dill pickles, pickled beets, french cut green beans, pickled banana peppers, and mandarin (or sweet & sour) sauce.

 

i hoped for bumper crops of green beans and tomatoes this summer, and we got them (to be honest, i prayed, and my prayers were answered). we followed the expert gardener in our neighborhood's advice, and never watered our garden once, even though it was hot and dry - not raining for a month and a half. he was right - it gave us an amazing tomato crop. i never imagined i could fill as many jars as i have. i've lost count, but it's much more than 100.

this summer i've canned (asterisk means it's a first time for me to can it):

strawberry jam

dill pickles

*japlepeno jelly - we usually make crabapple jalepeno jelly, which we like even more, but we had huge amounts of jalepenos that were going to go bad, and our crab apples won't ripen until next month.

green beans - 46 quarts, all french cut

beets & pickled beets

tomatoes

*tomato juice with 5 vegetables (V5 juice)

*roasted tomato salsa

*roasted tomato sauce - base for pasta sauce and tomato soup

*sweet & dill pickle relish

*mandarin (sweet & sour) sauce - 21 quartes!

*pickled banana & jalepeno peppers

 

and i'm looking forward to canning:

green tomato salsa

green enchilada sauce

green tomato ketchup (?)

green toamto chutney (?)

apple juice

applesauce

 

last fall i looked for ways to use the huge amount of green tomatoes that we had, and now green tomato salsa is our family's favorite salsa we've ever had. it's amazing what you can find on the internet. the friend who recommended the sweet & sour (thank you!) also gave me the green enchilada sauce. i will report. and i am interested in green tomato ketchup and chutney recipes that i've found.

my two absolute favorite new canning recipes from this year are:

1 - roasted tomato sauce - lexi found this and recommened it. i can't say enough good about it - our house smells like an italian restaurant while it roasts with the balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and garlic. here's a link:

http://goddesshobbies.blogspot.com/2009/08/preserving-food-roasted-tomato-sauce.html

(i love this girl's blog!)

2 - mandarin (or sweet & sour) sauce. a friend recommended this, and i am in love. i've made three batches for a total of 21 quarts. and each time i've made a batch, it perfectly filled 7 quart jars (the numer of jars that fill a canner). that never happens. it's the perfect recipe. here's a link:

http://idahofergusonfamily.blogspot.com/2010/09/sweet-and-sour-sauce-for-canning.html

 

i'm also enjoying this one, because we have a bumper crop of banana peppers. it is a little too sweet for me, next batch i make i will cut the sugar at least in half. but it is easy and fun (and very pretty). i added a few jalepenos into each jar i made. it's a very small recipe. i tripled it and filled 6 pint jars:

http://www.food.com/recipe/sweet-pickled-banana-peppers-17254

 

if you have favorite canning recipes, i'd love for you to share!

 

 

 

cleaning green

three of most favorite things to discover are ways to simplify my life, ways to save money, and ways to improve my family's health. and when i discover one thing that helps me do all three at once, it is something i just need to share. so, here are some great links with helpful hints about cleaning your entire house and solving household problems with nothing more than  vinegar and baking soda. both are inexpensive (much less expensive than icky chemical cleaning products), both are healthy (unlike the nasty chemicals in most cleaners), and they are very simple to keep stocked.

clean your entire home with baking soda & vinegar, from mother earth news

8 household uses for vinegar, from circle of moms

10 more household uses for vinegar, from circle of  moms

mother earth news points out that you should check the label on tehe vinegar you buy to be sure it's made from natural products (grain, wine, etc), rather than petroleum (yides! i didn't know that was possible!)

i'm excited to get scrubbing!

 

 

 

dear cancer

Dear Cancer,

We have met 3 times before, and have lost 2 beloved family members to you.

But we do not fear you.

You cannot take anything that God doesn't want taken.

You can create positive change that God does want in our lives, if we allow it.

We are better because of our unwanted experiences with you.

We pray that this outcome will be like the one we have had with you, and not the other two.

We put all in God's hands and trust Him far above any power you have over us.

Sincerely,

Our Family

 

...my facebook status from August 23rd.

a bump in the road

what a week this has been! tashi flew to utah to start her new life at BYU (very emotional for us all to let her go, and sad to see how hard it was for the little ones), and as my mom picked her up at the airport, she called and told us that my brother's wife was waiting for a breast cancer biopsy result. this was almost eerie, because last year on the same day, my dad found a lump under his arm, and i got the call that he had cancer just as i was dropping lexi at her college dorm for the first time. both diagnoses, last year and this year, happened at my mother's birthday, which has been very difficult for her.

also this week, our littlest started pre-K, and brock started a doctorate program several states away. he traveled there this week for one round of classes, and he will travel there 2 more times this semester. he was accepted to teh program in may, but we have been waiting for news of a fellowship to determine if we was going to do it or not. he left on wednesday, still not sure of the fellowship, but it has come through. we also had visits from lexi & bear, on their was back to SVU (southern virginia) after their summer in california, and brock's parents. and our garden is producing faster than we can keep up with it, so there has been lots and lots, and lots, of canning, which i love, but we're tired - emotionally, physically, and mentally.

there has been roller coaster news about my sweet sister in law, but things are looking better than at first. my brother has started a blog to follow their journey:

A Bump in the Road

 

my sister lost her husband to bone cancer when he was only 25, my mother survived breast cancer 7 years ago, my father died of neuro-endocrine cancer in april, and so this is our family's fourth time around. we are very hopeful and i do strongly believe there will be a positive outcome.

grace on the 4th

this book was recommended to me by amazon.com, where their computer has apparantly discovered my passion for sewing.... and i LOVE it.

my first project it inspired is a patriotic dress for little grace. we visited brock's parents in the wilds of missouri for the 4th of july weekend, and had a wonderful time. i took these photos there.

my dad

my father passed away on april 6th, and i haven't blogged about it until now. it was neuro-lymphatic cancer that took his life at age 66, something i had never heard of before it took the life of a friend and neighbor of my parents' last september, just a month after my father's own diagnosis.

as difficult as it has been, it was beautiful too. capturing & expressing the beauty and the varied deep emotions is a difficult thing, and it has kept me from attempting to write about it.

it was a healing time when i realized a lot of things about myself and my family. things to be grateful for, and things that needed to change. that was a real blessing. we have felt great peace as a family. that is another great blessing.

another blessing was being touched by friends, and even by people who i didn't know well who reached out asn shared the ways my dad had touched their lives and shared stories i had never heard. much of this happened on facebook, and it has given me a new appreciation for that social medium.

my dad....

a young man, shortly before serving as a missioary in scotland...probably 1963

 

wedding day, june 18, 1969

a young father and pre-med student in 1971

a father of two, soon to be three (i am sitting behind him, and about 3 years old) and medical student.

as a father of probalby four or five, and young new doctore establishing his practice (yes, my little sister was naughty:)

on his sailboat, one of his great love, early 80's

he passed much earlier than expected, which was a blessing, rather than lingering in prolonged suffering. he planned his funeral when he was still doing well, but it turned out to be one of his last good days before he quickly went down hill. he put me on the program as a speaker, as his oldest child, something i had a feeling he would do, but was really hoping he wouldn't.

this is the rough draft of my talk, my tribute to my father. i added scriptures and thoughts afterwards, but i seem to have lost my final draft:

"I had a life-changing experience about a month ago that began with a sleepless night full of agitation and thoughts of our friends & neighborhood in Japan. In the morning, while I was still in bed I received a phone call about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and as the day wore on, we learned that our last neighborhood had been hit and many of our closest friends had been affected. The main lesson I learned from the following weeks as we hoped & prayed & waited for news is that we are all connected much more than we realize. How one life touches so many others, and that what happens to any one person affects us all, whether we fully realize it or not.

My understanding of these concept was strengthened in the past two weeks as I have received messages both from friends and also from people that I don’t know extremely well who connected to me and touched my life as they told me about how my dad had connected to them and touched their life. Some of these comments include:

“Your parents were both so, so good to my mom when she was going through “her cancer.”

“Not only did he deliver me, he was the 1st person I worked for, he married me, and influenced my life in so many ways.”

“I remember him coming through the line at mom’s funeral with tears in his eyes and said how grateful he was to have known her. She felt likewise about your dad.”

 “Your dad was a wonderful man - who also stitched me up more times than I can count while I grew up.”

“I will always be grateful to your Dad for helping us through hard times when “our baby” was born.”

“Thank-You for sharing your dad with our community for the many years.”

“He was my bishop through some amazing times in my life. I am glad to have those memories.”

“Mom worked with him for 25 years and had a great respect for him. I am sure that both mom and dad greeted him, among all the other friends that he had in the world of spirits.”

These friends connected with me by sharing how my father had connected with them. My father spent his life connecting iwth others in meaningful ways.

As John (my brother who also spoke) referred to, it was difficult to understand why Dad was always at work, and why he was so exhausted when he was home. I think he may have gone for years without a full night’s sleep, especially during the time when he was the only doctor in the community. When I was a teenager I started working at his office and I began to understand the reasons for his overload and his fatigue. He truly listened to his patients and gave them every bit of time that they felt that they needed. This was difficult for his office staff and also for the patients in the waiting room, because he was always behind schedule, but it was a true blessing to the patient who was the focus of his attention. He gave everything he had emotionally, mentally, and physically to being the best doctor he could be, and that is how he did everything he did.

I was dropping our oldest daughter Alexa at her dorm at Southern Virginia University last August when I got the call about my Dad’s cancer. When I got back to my hotel that night I prayed about it, and I immediately knew that it was terminal, and with that knowledge came a peace that it was ok, it was the way that things were meant to be. Dad has felt the same from the beginning of his journey through cancer. He has been at peace. He hasn’t been afraid to go, and hasn’t had regrets. That has been such a blessing to our family. He understood that death is just a natural part of our eternal progression.

As Russell M. Nelson said in last week’s general conference….

“We live to die, and we die to live again. From an eternal perspective, the only death that is truly premature is the death of one who is not prepared to meet God.”

I am certain that my father would want the plan of salvation to be discussed at his funeral, and thanks to an idea from my brother John, I felt it best to express his understanding of these principles in his own words. When he first received his diagnosis last Spetember, he went home and started writing his life history. He has bound it and given it to each member of his family. I quote from it:

“The greatest blessing in my life has been having certain knowledge of the Restored gospel of Jesus Christ. This testimony overlies everything else in my life. I have experienced many times the whisperings of the Holy Ghost, confirming to me that Jesus Christ lives and is our Redeemer, who has provided the way by which we can return to live with Him and the Father. I have a long way to go in developing the Christ-like attributes that will be necessary, but I know that there is where I want to be. Through Christ’s Atonement, I can do it. I know that this mortal life is a continuation from the existence we all had before. Likewise, life continues on after we die. Our Savior and our Heavenly Father are acutely aware of us as individuals and of our struggles and concerns. They love us infinitely and want us to return to their presence. We each struggle with difficulties at times and we make mistakes. Our problems allow us to grow and overcome. When we make mistakes we are able to repent and be forgiven through the Atonement. It requires sincere effort on our part. When we do the best we can, the Savior makes up the difference and balances the scales of justice. We must work at developing a personal relationship with our Savior….”

“Among the most important things we can do while here on Earth is to live worthy of entering the temple and there receive the sacred ordinances that will help prepare us for exaltation and Eternal Life in the Celestial Kingdom.

He concludes by saying:

“In additional to my testimony of Jesus Christ my other greatest treasure is my family. My greatest desire is to attain the Celestial Kingdom for myself and to be there with all of you (meaning his family). I know that it is worth doing whatever may be required in order to receive this reward of eternal happiness.” (unquote)

 Other ways that my father was able to connect with others in his life that brougth him great joy were:

 - being able to focus on being bisho, as he was called right after his early retirement, brought on by health problems. he was an always available, always on call bishop, and he loved that.

 - being able to serve missions, first as a youn gman in Scotland, and later with my mother in Guatemala and in Chile. The only thing that really bothered him about his cancer diagnosis is that it cut the mission in Chile short.