The Strangest of Weeks

Have you noticed that life has a way
of encouraging us to appreciate the basics.

Monday started out fairly normal….I am working on Christmas gifts so unfortunately I can only share some of my sampling of colors and stitching:

 

 

 

 

 

 

But by Wednesday night, my evening could be summarized by this:

What you can just make out barely is my daughter’s violin as she and her husband entertained Judy Kate, me, and their four dogs with some Christmas tunes. We were all bundled in layers and huddled near their gas fireplace, having been without electricity and heat since 3 pm Tuesday. Why? The worst wind storm since about 1995 descended upon Spokane on Tuesday afternoon and by 3 pm the majority of homes were without power. Unfortunately  as I wrote this blog on Thursday evening, lights were still out for many (41% of one major utility company’s customers). Fortunately, for us, my lights and those in my daughter’s home blazed on again about 4:30 am Thursday morning.

Given all that was happening in the world outside Spokane this week, we were wise enough not to complain but to make the best of our discomforts and appreciate our relative good fortune: our properties received very little damage, my daughter’s in-laws offered us a hot breakfast (their power returned quickly), and our favorite take-out place was open by dinner. By Thursday mid-morning we were able to return to life more or less as we know it – a luxury not shared by Parisians or thousands of Syrian refugees today.

And so, I found myself going through today with a deeper appreciation of all I have been blessed with. It is such a gift to be able to stitch and work with fiber again while being so close to some of my family.

Update on my quilt from last week: I was able to continue to monitor my emails on my iPhone throughout the power outage and delighted to learn that Quilts Beyond Borders is sending the quilt I wrote about last week to a Down’s Syndrome School in Guatemala. And, a package is on its way to me with some fabric to use in two more quilts. So, I guess I have found a volunteer project to contribute to in our new ‘second’ home. Excellent timing I would say.

PS Linking to Nina Marie’s Off the Wall Friday blog – check out some other artists!