CHOOSE HOPE
Do you know what a 'dawn chorus' is? It's the birds singing at dawn. Birds joining their song with each other to greet the gift of another day. Now, folks who know me know that I am not a morning person, but when I am up early enough to hear the birds greet the morn, I feel uplifted, inspired and hopeful.Each of us in our own way, in our ordinary everyday lives have choices to make. Endless choices from the mundane to the extraordinary. What to wear, what to eat, how to feel, what to read, what to watch...endless choices that many of us choose without putting much thought into those decisions.
And many of us, when faced with times full of despair and hopelessness, times when things seem almost too much to bear (when a loved one is terminally ill and dies, when finances are on the edge and a job is lost, when folks through their action seem to have lost their moral compass) without making a decision fall into those same feelings of despair and hopelessness. It's a normal response, and in some ways, an easy choice.
But, think about it. Isn't greeting a new day with hope and thankfulness, even through tears, a better choice? Not a naive hope of everything will turn out just as we want, but a hope for all of this wonderful creation to thrive including our little part of it. Hope is a choice and sometimes a hard one to make in the face of adversity...but without hope what can the future hold?
Hope brings vision, a vision of a better world where all of creation works together, where the 'other' is our neighbor, where we treat our earth with compassion. And isn't the natural response to that hope and vision, action? Action to make our vision a reality. So choose hope, folks, and live a life full of inspiration, of love in action, of caring for each other as we travel together into the future.
QUILTING ROUND ROBIN UPDATES
I am part of two round robins. The first one that I am sharing is the last of the exchanges. This is the center block with one addition...
I believe that that the initial block is the nine-patch in the center. There is some 'out of the box' type of treatment in the second round. I decided to draw them together and stay within a standard technique, I would simply add borders. I choose three which correspond to the colors in the initial center. This is my addition...
The yellow is a bit bold, but does pull out lighter colors and brightens up the entire piece. So what do you think? Does it work with at least a bit of 'out of the box' thinking?
The second round robin that I am a part of is a month behind, so I am the middle contributor. The initial block was more of an out of the box block...
The lace pieces and gold sparkly fabric were an interesting combination. I decided to border it with overlapping fabric strips each with it's own addition of lace or trim. This is my contribution...
Both the butterfly and the orange fabric have gold accents. The top piece is a color between red and purple although it shows up as almost black. I enjoyed playing with this. I pulled out at least fifty pieces of fabric before I came up with these choices.
The next workshop that I am teaching at the Empire Quilt Guild is 'Happy Villages' using a technique developed by Karen Eckmeier. Lots of cut and paste type activity which is always a lot of fun...think adults going to kindergarten!!!
Well, it's a bit cold out today but the high got into the high thirties. Still a lot of snow now but by Thursday, with it's high of sixty, it will probably be gone.
The college playoff game last night was really good. Auburn won it in the last minute. Alas, that is the end of college football for this season. Only a few more NFL playoff games left.
That's it for today...
Thanks for visiting...
Talk to you tomorrow...