2025 OneThing #4 - Pack Away 2024 Cards, Letters, and Notes

I purposely picked an "easy" task for this week since I knew I'd be on vacation through Thursday evening! This was indeed a quick task, but it gave me a "fresh slate" for 2025. I love snail mail and I enjoy looking through cards and letters. As I packed these away, I realized that I'm creating a different "to do" item that will be fairly time demanding . . . what will I do with all the cards, letters, notes, etc. that I've saved for the last five decades?!?!

 

Sadly, I've also got a box of my in-laws' cards and letters. I'm a bit sentimental (and a bit of an historian?) so I'll have to have a plan before I start tackling these boxes. I may scan some to save electronically . . . but I don't have to decide that right now. I did my One Thing for the week and it's on to a new week!

And now my wire basket where I put lovely mail is empty. Perhaps it will motivate me to send out some snail mail! I love to give and I love to receive. Many of my cards and letters from the past year were from my friend Kathy Kendall and my daughter-in-law Mari LaMoore. Seeing them gives me smiles and warm happiness. What a blessing to have kind, encouraging, delightful people in my life!

 

This shows my wire basket before I emptied it. The poem in the front is from my Christmas stocking. Mari chose it for me. I am so blessed!

2025 OneThing #3 - Get ready and pack for Florida Trip!

Again, this was a no-brainer in terms of it WOULD get done. But when I have so many things I'm trying to do, it's nice to get back to a focal point. Reminding myself that prepping and packing were the priority helped me with this One Thing!

Just over a week before our trip, I went to my friend's house to try on dresses. (I have dresses, but she's fancier than I am.) Here are some of the tasks I've been able to do over the past week:

• wrap up church responsibilities for when I'll be gone and communicate with relevant people
• check to make sure I selected our seats on each flight (I did - back when I booked)
• pick out clothing, shoes, etc.
• list the things I need to consider and pack (e.g. sunglasses. I always seem to forget them and I don't need to buy more!)
• hold our mail for when we'll be gone (I love the USPS.)
• prep stuff for our dog to go to the Canine Country Club
• Communicated with my sister about our timeline for leaving and got her a gift for our early morning trip to the airport.
  
• We kept adding things to our list, which was nice. We each think of different things and don't like last-minute panics.
• We're pretty good at coming up with a "plan B" if we need to. We can buy things on our trip if we really feel that we need them.
• I like to run the dishwasher before we go and leave a relatively clean house, but it's not that essential. 
  
• We go up to the lake often enough that turning off the water heater and minimizing HVAC is a given. (I put those on my list anyhow!)
• Got my pedicure!
  

 
Since I'm writing this early, I set it to post on midnight Saturday / Sunday morning. So far, I love my 2025 "OneThing" blogging project. I've been looking ahead and trying to set one important but attainable goal. There are lots of other little things I do each week, of course, but so far I'm really enjoying this. I tried to add a picture to this post, but Google is giving me trouble. I want to move on, so no pic this week!

(I like photos, so I'm adding the one below on February 1st. Louie and I were sitting in Mallory Square on Tuesday, January 21st in Key West, waiting for the sunset and watching all the activity.)

2025 One Thing #2 - Quilt Teresa's Brother's Quilt

My friend Teresa's mom died in August 2023 right as the school year was starting. When I talked to her later in the fall, she said her mom had started a quilt for her brother but it was unfinished. I said I'd take a look at it and see how to move forward with completing it. (I had posted this with "2024" as the date, but it's been a year and a half.)

Their mom had cut, pieced, and started quilting by hand. I'm not sure when she started it, but it looks as though it's a 1980s or 90s vintage quilt. She made a Drunkard's Path pattern and the quilt was in two pieces. 

I started hand quilting where her mom had left off, but quickly realized that would take more hours than I wanted to spend! It sat for almost a year in my sewing room. Then I tried machine quilting it on my domestic machine and quickly realized that that wasn't ideal either. 

My sister Ann recommended I consult with our friend Rose Allen. Initially, I rejected that because it was already partially quilted. When I use Rose's longarm machine, I typically pin on the backing, lay out the batting, and put on the top. Rose said we could do this, though, and I scheduled January 8-10, 2025 with her. (I knew it wasn't likely to get done in November / December with all the hosting we did.)

I did have a coffee date with Teresa in December and I talked about my plan (an overall meander that would allow her brother to still see his mother's quilting stitches) and thread color (she liked the medium brown instead of the off white her mom had started with). I asked her about her mom so I could make a label for the quilt.

This past week, my "One Thing" was to quilt this quilt. I spent time at Rose's on Wednesday and Thursday and got the quilting "done," but here's what's left:

• connecting the two pieces (done on 1/11/25)
• trim and connect the batting (done on 1/11/25)
• trim and stitch the backing over that center seam
• add a leader to the bottom 
• get back to Rose's to finish long-arming the upside down "T" (the center where I connected the two pieces and the bottom where I didn't have the leader)
• I also need to repair a section that had serious bobbin issues (LOTS of thread loops on the back side)
• Trim all to size
• make the binding
• sew the binding on
• hand stitch the binding onto the back
• make a label and stitch it on

I also started composing a letter to her brother Greg in my mind while I was quilting. I want him to know how much time and energy his mother spent on making this quilt for him! I couldn't help sewing some wrinkles in to it because of how she had done the hand quilting in random places. She had used thick green thread to baste the three layers, but it didn't keep from creating some "off" spots. 

 

It looks better than I had expected, and I look forward to finishing it!

(This is before I sewed the two pieces together. I put them on the guest bed so I could pin the center line.)

I have more photos, but this is a good accomplishment for this week. I don't know if I'll be able to get it 100% done this next week, but I definitely want to finish up the quilting at Rose's house.

2025 OneThing #1 - Alex's birthday!

I set this as my week one goal not because I was concerned about doing it, but because it was most important to me. Alex was born on January 4, 1990. With his birthday coming so soon after Christmas, it has sometimes been tricky to come up with something special.

For a while when he was a kid, we went out to a movie in a theatre (not something we did often) and had fried chicken for dinner. Sometimes when he was older, we'd get him a more expensive combo Christmas / birthday gift (like a snowboard and the boots, bindings, etc.). As he's gotten older, it has mostly been 3D printer filament and board games.

This year, I just wanted to give him cash. Louie does not like doing that. He thinks it's too easy / tacky. I disagree! Who doesn't like unexpected money to just do whatever you want with it? Anyhow, I didn't think Alex had updated his family wish list in a long time, so I asked him what he'd like. His response was, "You don't have to give me anything, Mom." As if! I told him he is my son and I wanted to get him a gift.

The only thing he suggested was paint for his 3D print projects. So I went to The Forge in Chaska - what a cool game shop! And I bought him a gift card to Luna di Luna in Bloomington - one of his wife's favorite restaurants. Then I texted him if he'd prefer chocolate chip cookies or molasses sugar cookies . . . or any other birthday treat. He said molasses sugar cookies and Chex mix. So I got to work on mixing up dough, buying some ingredients, and making him treats. 

Last of all, I sewed a gift bag. I don't really have tech / geek (or Dungeons and Dragons) type fabric, but he's always liked music, so I went with that theme.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The "Greek Yogurt" container is filled with spicy Chex mix (lots of sriracha) as well as the Ziploc next to it. The feta cheese container and the thing below it are filled with cookies.

 

I know the whole year won't go this well, but it's Saturday and I've achieved my "one thing" AND I've blogged about it. I'll set this to publish at midnight and look toward next week's One Thing. I have a smile on my face and anticipation in my heart!