Attic Treasures

Yesterday I went to put something in the attic storage space and became.....well annoyed with the mess. I don't tackle the attic in the summer, it's too hot up there, and things have a tendency to pile up. This time, I opened one of the trunks I've been carrying with me since--well pre-marriage. I found some things I had been bugging my Aunt for--pictures and papers from my father's family. The treasures ended up consuming my day and I am still scanning and photocopying everything so I can make a scrapbook for my son.

Tomorrow Aunt Carole and I are getting together to go over everything and take a ride out to some of the old family houses. I can't wait to find out who this precious girl is! She has the sweetest face and look at her bracelet! The boy I know is Ralph, his name is on the back of the photo. I love that he has a cane and a gold pocket watch. Love the piano shawl he is leaning on; I think it is a tapestry....

Well off to do cleaning and some shopping. I need to buy cookie pans before the holiday baking commences.....

Challenge wallhanging

Our guild has a challenge every September meeting. We were to take a normal name of a quilt block and change one letter in it or rearrange the letters to invent a new quilt block. I made Irish China out of Irish Chain. I used photos of my grandparents and my Dad and also copied Nana's recipes onto fabric.

Here's a close up. I think I found the cups and teapot on fatcat.com as a free download. The embroidery is actually a photocopy of Nana's embroidery. When I was a little girl, all my pillowcases were embroidered by her.

We were supposed to do 4 blocks but my wallhanging was getting too big. I made a matching tea cozy with the remaining teapot and recipes. Thats all for today!

Challenges:

I haven't posted much lately because things here have been hectic or I've just been in a bad mood. Everytime I start posting anything negative on my blog, I end up going back and erasing it or not posting it at all. I don't want my blog to be an energy sucking space in my world. I want it to be full of positive things so that I want to return and be reminded of all that is good in the world.

So some of my challenges lately have included caring for my 70 year old mother who had major surgery, caring for everything at home and the hardest thing of all, cutting back on what I do. It's difficult to admit I am not Superwoman anymore. I used to be able to juggle the needs of family and friends so much better.

Maybe this weariness is just part of middle age; more likely though, it is the idea of not accepting this feeling that I think is really the big part of middle age, taking on the challenge of saying "no". Everytime I say "no" or "I can't handle that right now" I feel AWFUL. I feel like I let my kids down and abandoned my friends in need.

At times I think: how often are these people here for me? How often have they offered to lighten my load or have shared their joy with me? Some relationships in my world are simply defined by me doing something for them; outside of that, we have no interaction or exchanges at all. My challenge is to not go to that resentment place right away. My challenge is to acknowledge my part in that relationship and then (the really difficult part) change my lifestyle to one that is more positive for me.

Other challenges in my life have been more rewarding. For everything that was depleting my energy, I had some good things balancing my world: good friends, dogs, and oddly enough--my quilt guild's annual challenge. This is the first year I am entering something. I made my first memory quilt. I tried new methods and had a ball exploring outside my comfort zone. It was like combining scrapbooking with quilting and was a blast!

Below is one of the photographs I put on the quilt, it is my grandmother, Nana Elsie when she was only 16.


I love this photograph of her. She looks so pretty and her face seems so open and full of life. No wonder Pop was nuts about her! :) This photograph of her would have been taken around 1921.


I rarely show my guild anything I make because I am self-concious about my skill (or lack thereof) as a quiltmaker. I may have been doing this for a long time but I am just never going to be an award winning quilter. Accepting that at 50+ and acknowledging that I just want to play with fabric has been very liberating. I am hoping to borrow some other things from family members so I can continue to make more memory quilts. In the meantime, I will post my photography of my little wall hanging challenge thing after our meeting on Tuesday.


That's all I got for today, gotta get working.............

Jack and Elsie

I've been a bit under the weather and maybe even a bit blue this past week which is why I haven't posted lately. One thing about getting old(er) is that you are repeatedly reminded of how few people are left that share the same memories as you do.

I've been spending a lot of time with my only remaining grandmother, Nana Betty, and thinking of my paternal grandparents, Jack and Elsie. Nana is doing fairly well now; whenever she gets any kind of infection it affects her brain and she becomes very confused and bewildered, not unlike an abandoned child. As soon as the antibiotics kick in, she becomes herself again until she is ill (or overtired). Yesterday she asked me to bring her some pretzels on Tuesday and things are going back to normal...

During the July 4th holiday, I thought a lot about Pop-Pop and Nana Elsie. July 4th is Pop's birthday; he would be 105 this year. Nana and he were married on his 21st birthday (1925).

Theirs was the only anniversary that I remember being celebrated as a child. Each year we would go to Willow Park for a family reunion picnic. It was a magical day for my brother, cousins and I. Nana would buy us each a present of our choice and Pop would hand us a fistful of tickets for the rides. There was plenty of food, (I remember watermelon in particular and spitting our seeds the furtherest distance) and an unusual amount of freedom for we children. Somewhere in the park there was a large pool but I only remember one year when we actually went swimming there. The park is gone now and my grandparents have been gone for a long time but I still feel them around me, especially this time of year and I am filled with such a yearning to see photos and share memories with others that remember.

In my father's family--besides my brothers--I have only one Aunt and a few cousins. My aunt is going to let me pillage through her scrapbooks and memory boxes to photograph and record what I can before all the history is gone. It's important. It's who were are as a people. My family--both paternal and maternal--was built by strong self-made individuals and all of them were storytellers. A story, told well, was valued in our tradition. So I'll be starting a blog for all these memories and hope to hear from you family members who read the blog on a regular basis....let's post all our memories and give a gift to the future generations. I will share what stories I hear from Aunt Carole and what I can remember. Also as I scan photos, let me know if you want me to make you a CD of the photos. I'm going to do both the Wilson and McLaughlin family on the one blog but I'll always post which side I'm writing about, both are such colorful families it should be fun. The blog will be at http://www.toadjuggyhill.blogspot.com/ and I will do some work on it later this week. In the meantime enjoy Nana Elsie and Pop, this pic says on the back, "LVRR (Lehigh Valley Railroad?) Bethlehem 24977 for (illegible)"

Nana Elsie and Pop-Pop. I'm not sure which son this is, possibly my father (he has curls)?