An American Sampler and Parental Progress

Dear friends,

     So many of you have asked me about my folks that I thought I'd give you a quick update for what I can, here.  As you may recall from FB, my dad was on a treadmill at the clubhouse he and my mom belong to when he apparently fainted, bumped his head (several goose eggs) and skinned his knee (to put it mildly).  My mom was in a water aerobics class when he motioned her to get out of the pool.  They went home, got him cleaned up and then he drove them to the hospital (mom no longer drives) but she told him if he didn’t drive himself, she would!  After getting to the hospital, the doctors ran some tests and determined that my dad had some blockages and would likely need surgery and at a minimum, stents.  Turns out he needed more than that and had a triple bi-pass on Wednesday, Sept 16^th.  He had a quadruple bi-pass in 1998 and a stent after that and now the triple.  Like I said on Facebook – we may be thin (relatively speaking) on the outside but our arteries are grossly obese!  It’s genetics.  We don’t smoke or drink (too terribly much ) and we’re not too overweight.  My sister had sextuple bi-pass at 49, about five years ago, at the same hospital my dad was just in.  Cheryl (my younger sister) holds the dubious record for the most bi-passes done at one time at that hospital and a lot of the hospital staff remembered her.  I haven’t had to have bi-pass yet but I do have a stent and fully expect to have to have a bi-pass operation one day.  Anyway, I flew down to Florida to be with my dad and to help my mom for a week.   I’ll fly back down in a couple of weeks to help with the tail end of my dad’s recovery.  Another relative is staying there for the first half of recovery so both mom and dad are in good hands.    This pic is from March, the last time I was there and was of course, just prior to my Dad's bi-pass.

They are the cutest couple!

Here is dad on the day of his release from the hospital:

He is very serious!  

The bandages on his knee are from the fall on the treadmill.  

Thank you all for the kind notes both on FB and via email.  I appreciate them so much and would ask for continued prayers as they continue to recover and we transition as a family to a new living arrangement - my folks are going to move to Michigan in the Spring and will be living with Rob and me.  We are looking forward to having them and are lucky that we have the space, means and relationship to make it work!

Now… on to stitchy news.

Julie and I and Robin all attended the Dyeing to Stitch retreat last Spring and got to meet so many wonderful people to include Paulette, of Plum Street Samplers, and Ann and Pat the sweet owners of Dyeing to Stitch.  We met so many people, "famous" stitchers and bloggers alike - you know who you are!!!  It was great fun!  Here's one of the few pics we slowed down long enough to take of the group.  I was so tickled to meet Ann and Pat and Paulette, in person.  The cutie gal to the left is Robin - you may know her from the Stitchers of Smalls board on FB, then continuing from the left are Pat, Paulette, me, Ann and Julie.  I had such a great time at the retreat and had such fun meeting everyone.  The Dyeing to Stitch store is choc full of inspiration and beautiful fabrics and trims and all sorts of goodies you can hardly live without.  I had such fun!

Paulette's sampler for the retreat was called the American Sampler but to me, it's really a Virginia Sampler.   The flags represent Virginia’s connection to our Republic (8 presidents have been Virginian’s), the flowering dogwood tree is both the Virginia state tree and flower (you may recall the movie “The American President” where the POTUS tries to order flowers for his girlfriend and a discussion between his staff, himself and the florist ensues about whether the dogwood is the state flower or state tree of Virginia.  It’s both.), the cardinal is Virginia’s state bird, the brick home represents many of its type you see in Colonial Williamsburg, there is a beautiful colonial couple, the state motto – “Sic Semper Tyrannis” which translates to “Thus always to tyrants” at the bottom, and of course, one of Virginia’s favorite dates – July 4^th, 1776 when the Commonwealth of Virginia, and all of the 13 colonies, declared independence.   I loved it the minute I saw it.

I did make a few minor changes to Paulette’s design.  I stitched the dogwoods in pink – my favorite.  I stitched the verse in blue rather than red, as it’s going in a house that’s predominately blue, and I centered the verse, which was originally left justified.  Nothing major – just little, itty-bitty changes. 

Sheila doesn’t know it, but this will be a birthday gift for her.  She is not a Virginian by birth but I don’t know of too many folks that are as much a lover of Virginia as she.  She has a sister in law that lives very near Alexandria and a niece that lives right in the heart of old towne Alexandria.  Sheila and her family have been there many, many times over the years and if she could, I think she’d live there.  I can hardly wait till her birthday on October 23^rd!   The day I put the last stitch in this sampler (which I decided to stitch for Sheila the moment I saw it), she asked if she could borrow a few samplers to decorate her walls, for a visit from her family (the Virginians).  Of course I said yes but as I was putting in those last stitches and I thought about her request, I couldn’t help but feel that I really did have the perfect gift for her – a sampler, made by me, especially for her, about a state we both love.  It's perfect.  

I also couldn’t help but wonder if there was a market for the renting of samplers.  Probably not.  

I'm dropping my anniversary sampler off today to be framed and should be back in a couple of weeks to share that with you.  I can't wait.

Until next time, I wish you peace,

Terri