Word Quilt ~ Word Quilt

I don’t sew, but I write — patching together pieces of my life.

Young Relatives Meeting

One of the silly things about our lock-down is that my earring holes keep trying to close. This is odd to me since I regularly work from home and wouldn’t think I would be putting in earrings any less. Ah well. As Chris and I drove down the road I mentioned that the last time […]

Balance Rock

Things are starting to get better in my world. I’m done whinging 🙂 My colleague and friend is also on sabbatical, and he came to visit us in Massachusetts. We had several great days of cooking, movies, yakking, and hiking. My daughter-in-law, Lauren, had told me about https://www.alltrails.com/ a few years ago so we opened […]

A Pain in the Neck

I wrote about initial plans for sabbatical a bit ago. Those did not work thanks to Covid. Two weeks into Plan B, I’m learning that perhaps my lesson of the time off is to step back and not plan and let life happen. Every idea that flitted through my mind as a great thing to […]

Kisses from Charlie - also mentioned in https://chrissie.blog/2019/12/18/a-birthday-to-remember/

Lazy Days of June

Highlights during the past few weeks: The final patch of snow melted June 6, and I got to see the change. Summer activities are going to happen, and I get to see the prep for the June 27th opening of resort activities. My friend Gail visited. We walked and talked and enjoyed being the first […]

Adventure Bite

Every day or so I get a new Avalon picture, because the kids are great sports. I try not to bug them too much. But I am addicted to the little girl. She eats regular food as shown in one of the recent pics, and it reminds me of the days when we ran a […]

A Fresh Start

Sabbatical doesn’t start until Monday. However, I pushed my four day/10-hour-a-day work week into the beginning of this one, and now I am on weekend then sabbatical. So, technically completely off. I thought I would have a nice transition of a few days casually checking into the channels, but I think I needed this break […]

Sabbatical Kick-off

Three months ago we had the best plans ever. Wait. Let me go back in time a bit. Last September I hit my five-year mark of being an Automattician — a Happiness Engineer working at Automattic, Inc. The company spoils us rotten. We get a specialized computer with a logo for our fourth year anniversary, […]

Chris is figuring he plan of attack for setting in the wood floor

Floored

We just put in a new floor. We meaning Chris did. And I cheered him on. My man who does everything. Naming this post was tricky. Should I call it Grounded? This was a project we had planned to do in August after we traveled around the world during my sabbatical (more on that in […]

Are you Okay?

I’m just asking because I’m telling everyone I’m okay. But I’m not really, terribly okay. So yeah, in first world things, I’m okay. Embarrassingly okay. But I miss people. Like, live people not on a screen. I miss hugs and real life conversations and direct eye contact. I picked two fights at work. One with […]

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My Aunt Anne’s Wonderful Posts

Wrap Up and a Rainbow

Daughter Lise was eager to walk to the creek, knowing she would be sitting for almost 24 hours flying to Denmark. On the way, we spotted a wild berry bush extending unripe berries toward us. It’s a common bush, one that we had in our woods on Long Island. The berries look like raspberries until […]

Holidays Fly By

Grandson Nathaniel was with us about 45 hours – not long enough to raise and lower the hall mirror! John picked him up in Charlotte on Friday, and daughter Lise and grandson David took him back on Sunday. The day between was July 4th. The time may have been short, but we visited with him […]

Neighbors Celebrate July 4th

Despite neighbor Shawn’s phone being broken, word got around that we would have a cookout on our street. People converged on Shawn and Bob’s lawn, because they had the largest flat, shady space. Logan had a grand view of us all. We had a three-armed toy that Nathaniel threw with Logan, and it sailed into […]

Lighthearted Logan and Lise

Daughter Lise was walking up the street with John and me when we heard something behind us. It was neighbor Logan (10) asking if he could walk to the creek with us. Yes, he had already asked his parents. Of course, we were delighted. He may have run off a little energy while making our […]

Connie and Marla

Daughter Lise and I were delighted to spend an evening with our former neighbors, Connie and Marla. Our mother/daughter friends moved during the COVID-19 shutdown. The times were/are strange. When John and I should have given them a warm send-off, we felt a great virus-wall looming between us. We read about their move and saw […]

Oldest and Youngest

Daughter Lise and son John $pencer planned to meet for lunch at a Thai restaurant halfway between our homes. It was perfect! We knew the dining room was not open, so John and $ thought about getting take-out and going to a park. On line, we found that parks are still closed. John packed a […]

Party for People and Dogs

We had another reunion meal together while daughter Lise was here. Niece Julie, friend Michael, son John $pencer, and friend Rose joined us on the porch. Lise, Julie, and $ were close years ago when $ first moved to North Carolina. Those bonds were lasting, even though they rarely see each other now. While we […]

Leavings

Daughter Kate and grandson Nathaniel had driven together to visit us, but they left in different directions. I didn’t get a photo of her as she headed home to New Jersey early in the morning. I can show you what she looked like about 25 hours before, when we walked to the creek. I don’t […]

Cataloochee

The closest part of the Smoky Mountain National Park is Cataloochee Valley. That was our destination for Kate’s and Nathaniel’s last day with us. We walked up to a lookout point where I took a photo of daughter Lise and grandsons David and Nathaniel. We were stopped, not by rain, but by a bridge closing. […]

Party after Mount Mitchell Hike

Son John $pencer planned a hike near Mount Mitchell for his siblings and nephews. The only comment I can make is that all of them enjoyed the scenery, the exercise, and the company. John and I had his car serviced, and we met them on the mountain. We were going to a restaurant for a […]