Grandpa's Quilt (and my Resolutions of 2025 Reflections)

Be the kind of woman who, 

when your feet hit the floor in the morning, 

the devil says 

"Oh no!  She's up!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am”

― John Newton

Looking at last year's goals, here is how I stacked up...

~ Read Paradise Lost and take Hillsdale's College free course on it .  (NAILED it!  Sort of.  I read the entire book but didn't finish all the video lessons.  Finishing the Hillsdale course on it will be a roll-over goal for this year.)

~ Make a quilt (NAILED it!  I can't describe to you how proud and happy (and surprised!) I am to have accomplished this task.  And I am so pleased with the end result!  Even moreso, my Father-in-law was pleased, as it was for him.  I don't know that I would recommend a first quilt being done with misshaped and odd pieces that you must somehow jigsaw puzzled together, but it somehow miraculously worked.)  Photos of it at the end of this post)

~ Repaint the Dining Room (FAILED.   Another roll-over into the new year... this goal has been rolled over three times now. Third times a charm?!)

~ Create a monthly budget and use the envelope system to be sure it is implemented. (FAILED.)

~ Begin a SAPHOUSE FUND (Well, we set aside extra but it wasn't earmarked for the saphouse.  I am gonna call this a success because it can always be used for the saphouse if Matt wants to.)

~ Keep a home journal this year.  (Nailed it!)

~ Use up enough of my cotton yarn to fill a single basket- or less.  (NAILED IT! I still have cotton yarn leftover, but I used up a basket worth of yarn this past year- which is kinda crazy to me since I didn't knit or crochet anything impressive, really. Just a few sweaters, hats, a dress, a tiny purse and lotsa dishcloths)

~ Try to make a new variety of cheese (Nailed the attempts.  Did NOT nail creating a delicious cheese.  I tried three times to make Gouda- but all three wound up being ruined in one way or another. I discovered that I am very bad at babysitting cheese.)

~ Invite individual families from church over once a month.  (FAILED IT.  We did have families over but not once a month and not all the families of our church.  Still, better than nothing.)

~ Read through the Children's Story Bible with the Littles.  (While we spent time reading this book together,  we did not finish the entire book -and we could have- so I call this a FAIL.)

~ Create a better schooling schedule for the Littles- and then implement it.  (FAIL.  Once again, the Littles get less than they deserve.)

~ Make Morning Time Great Again.  (Overall, better than the year previous.  Could do a lot better.)

~ Keep my commonplace book more faithfully.  (NAILED IT!)

And the HEALTH GOALS:

~ I AM NOT GOING TO WEIGH MYSELF for all of 2025.  (Nailed it.  That was easy.  And freeing.)

~ I AM NOT GOING TO TRY TO LOSE WEIGHT.  Instead, my only focus will be to EXERCISE (in some capacity) at least 3x/week. (Nailed it with the exercise.  Every SINGLE week last year, I did some sort of exercise three (or more times) except the last three weeks in December, when I was only able to squeeze in two.  I am very proud of this accomplishment because there were many times that I just chose to do it even when I DID.NOT.WANT.TO but my track record was so good, I didn't want to ruin it.  And I was always happy I had done it after the fact.  Soooo happy with this accomplishment.

~ I AM NOT GOING TO CUT OUT FOOD GROUPS.    And I will be tracking my protein because I know I don't eat enough of it.  NAILED.  I upped my protein to consistently getting between 100-175 grams of protein a day.  (I ate A LOT of yogurt.)  And I tracked my calories and protein the whole year- probably 75% or more of the time.  I ate breads and pasta and potatoes every now and again which is healing for me because I've struggled with a lot of internal guilt by labelling those things 'bad'.  And I spent the majority of the year in a calorie deficit.  

~ I AM NOT GOING TO DRINK MORE THAN 12 DIET COKES this year (I had way more than 12.  Let's leave it at that, shall we?)

I weighed myself the first day of last year, and the first day of this year.  And entire year of exercising three (or more!) times a week, establishing routines, tracking my food, eating in a deficit, upping my protein...and guess what?!

I only lost three pounds.  

Which is about what my weight fluctuates on a day to day basis.  So, basically, I didn't lose any weight.

I know that my goals were to NOT try to lose weight, but of course, making so many improvements to my lifestyle would result in that naturally.  I mean sheesh!  I am not gonna lie, I am super depressed about this!  I am going to continue to implement these goals because I know they are much healthier for me than the way I was before... I can actually squat in the garden without pain again... and my body will thank me later for being stronger as I age.  But I hate to think I am going to be 'thick' for the rest of my life, no matter how hard I work at it and that just seems to be my sad, sad reality.

And yet, I can honestly say, I did everything I could to change that reality... and I am really proud of myself for doing it.

Over all of my goals, not just the health ones, I saw a lot of improvements and successes.  I count 2025 as a win for my goals, overall.

(Tomorrow, I'll share my goals for 2026)

And now for Grandpa's quilt:

My floor was a scrappy mess a lot of the time as I tried to sort things out.  Over and over again.  And then, because we LIVE here, I'd have to pack it all up and start all over the next time.

I had some completed blocks to work with, lots of strips of fabric to work with, and then I filled it all in with blocks of my own to make it all 'fit'.

The quilt top, finally put together!

The back.  (An old flat sheet and some piecing to make it big enough. And more interesting.)

I love the red and blue block in the corner.  It's my favorite.

These are the oldest blocks on the quilt... all handstitched, fragile fabric and even some of the small squares were pieced using two tiny scraps sewn together to make a complete little square   Very impractical to include in the quilt, but I just had to.  

blowing in the wind

I had to decide how I was going to actually quilt it... without a longarm sewing machine, the options were hand-quilting and tying it off.  I was under serious time constraints so hand-quilting was out of the question.  Tying it off would have required borrowing a frame and would have resulted in those little ties sticking out, which felt like it would take away from the beautiful top.)  A friend from church has an "in" with a reasonably inexpensive Mennonite quilter, so I decided to send it off to her to be 'professionally' done.

This was the hardest decision to make and I regretted it so much- until it was actually done a week before I had to give it to Gary.  Then I was SO THANKFUL I was not killing myself to get it done in time.

Finished the binding.  By the last corner, I actually did a good job. :-)

Guess you'll never know who my holder-uppers were!

I'm pretty sure he liked it.

The Misfits

Just like the Island of Misfit Toys, this post is piled high with the photos of 2022 that might be a bit disheveled, a little bit quirky... and don't really have a nice home to go to.  

But deserving of a place, nonetheless.

In no particular order (because who has time for that on the last day to get caught up on the blog?!)...

The message rock had a visitor one day

This is Matt's and my tree.  It is an apt representation of us.
He, the strong stalwart one and me draping myself all over him.

Oh how I miss those eyes.  

Learning to sing parts and harmonize at church

The state of Andrew's boots when mowing season was over.  

A real live Ransom can fit into a doll baby stroller!

From the angle, I suspect a Miss Ineke took this picture of Papa, home from work

A shocking comparison...

As Judah is only twelve.

It is possible I may have blogged this one, but even if I did, I include it now.  Because= FLOWERS!

Another project: 

Resurrecting the old sidewalk to make a new walkway.  You can see where old stones are buried by the dead spots in the grass. 

Not only is the end result elegant, but it should help with the mud situation in spring. 

BONUS!  The leftover sand was made into a BEACH!

Els and Falko!  A very special visit from very special people, come all the way from England!

A hearty wave to you folks again, Els!  Ineke was remembering your visit and said "I love her smile.  It is hard not to be happy when she smiles."  It's true.  She also said of Falko "He was such a kind man!"  So you both have a fan (or several!) in PA.

Matt's famous!  The boys spy him on the wall at his work.

There's a bit of redneck in this boy

Lookie here!  I found another handmade from last year!  A thunderstorm satchel for a niece who is terrified of thunderstorms and hides out when the sky even hints at a storm.

Apple Day: 

In the fall, I have access to cheap bulk "seconds" of apples.  Usually they are beautiful.  This year they were half mangled and bruised but they had already been shipped locally so I was committed.

 I spent a day turning 7 bushels of them into deliciousness.  Poof!  Edible once again!

As they say, many hands make light work.  (I am so thankful for my helpers!)

The cows enjoyed apple day!

In addition to this apple sauce and apple butter, we made 3ish gallons of apple cider and a dehydrator full of apple slices.  All in a day's work!

A wedding present Corynn made for a friend.  Wish she had been my friend when I was married! ;-)

Just hours before Corynn cut her hair off...
  She loves it short.  Short hair suits her.
But I wish I had been able to attach that extra hair to my own head.  Just saying.

Uncle Nate, a ladies man

Our bedroom is ugly.  I hate it.  I hide it.  Through the years, when we have worked on the house, we have worked on the spaces that other people see.  Then we worked on the childrens' rooms, because they were a bigger priority.  Everything is a bigger priority than this one. 

It is shameful- there are water stains running down an entire wall.  The ceiling is flaking.  The wallpaper is rubbed and faded.  There is a hole in the wall.  And because of this, I have never made any effort to make it anything more lovable.

I decided last year to do something to make it a little bit nicer, even though we can't really tackle fixing up this big of a project right now.  

For Christmas several years ago, Corynn made me a beautiful drawing of her and I when she was little.  I got the idea that I needed to put it on the wall.   And then I wondered why not add to the wall by my bed a picture of me with each of my treasures?  So I stopped by the dollar store and bought a stack of frames and found a favorite picture of everyone.

It instantly made me so, so happy!  

So happy, in fact, I didn't stop there.  Rather than have nightstands full of piles of books, I asked Matt if he would make me a shelf to line the top of the wall over our bed.  He being the kind husband he is, he did.  And he did it just exactly how I had envisioned it.

Ignore the water stains, wallpaper, holes and flakes and ADMIRE THE BOOKSHELVES!  And the PICTURE FRAMES!  (And the tiger on my bed...)

It's amazing what just a TINY effort can do for a perspective.

Although: Full Disclosure: our nightstands have new stacks of books.

Speaking of our bedroom:  One night, hours after I had tucked this Little Mister into his own bed in his own room, I went to bed to find that he had snuck into our bed and had read himself to sleep.  What a cherub.

What a naughty little cherub!

PHEW!  I did it!  Not a single old photo left to blog. Welcome February!  I am ready for you.