Beautiful Hands

Me and my little sister. Circa 1964

I am almost done with my Christmas preparations. I still have some shopping to do. Rachel and I will go tomorrow morning and then to lunch. I will come home and start wrapping gifts. Hopefully I can get it all done in one day!! The weather outside is frightful....sounds familiar somehow...with temps today reaching a HIGH of -6. It did get up to -3 in the evening and the 50+ mph winds were a highlight of the day, making the wind chills drop to -30 below. Tomorrow is more of the same. Zach even wore his hat to breakfast!!!

I spent the weekend inside. I played with grandbabies while Rachel ran an errand for me. Sweetheart went to Chicago to get our son who is home for 2 weeks now. I am so excited for him. He is on the road alot! If you live in the US, I am sure you have seen him on the highway and one time or another this last year! He is home most weekends, and if not, then he usually has several days home in a row to make up for it. His goal, of course, is a local trucking job. For now he does what he has to do, though he does love it!

I did not do much housework, though I got some laundry done.I spent most of the weekend quilting. I finished the Whirl Into Winter giveaway...you'll have to wait til January 1st to see it. I also finished a gift up. I will show you the whole thing when it is received. With all the hand quilting on my list marked off, I was able to spend a good amount of time this weekend working on the Pink and Brown, which is back in the hoop. Will I ever finish it??? I was able to get 2+ hoop fulls quilted!Also, I was able to do some goal setting for the coming year. Have you done any goal setting for 2009 yet? I still have more categories to cover, but my quilting goals are pretty much set. I know other things will be added to the list, but for now this is it.I put this in my Home Management Binder under "Quilting". I will have no problem crossing these off in BLACK ink and making the page ugly!!

I looked at my hands today. Do you ever do that? Hands are the heart of a homemaker. Some of us have long, thin fingers, some have short stubby fingers, some of us have age spots and wrinkles, and are watching our skin thin out, while others have youthful looking hands with firm unmarred skin. Some have manicured nails, while others have chewed nubs....Niki's daughter, Jennifer, has some of the most beautiful hands I have ever seen, as I have watched the fruit of those unique hands create a wonderful new home. Our hands show love as they stroke the head of a sick child. They show understanding as they write out a sympathy card to a friend who lost a father. They show provision as they take simple ingredients and prepare a delicious meal for those they love. They show creativity as they work with needle and thread in many forms, or maybe through pottery or a set of paints and a brush. Now, look at your hands. They are beautiful.

The hands of a hand quilter are unique. A hand quilter will have a thick callous on the pad of her index and middle fingers...if they are diligent their ring finger may also be calloused. To others this would not be a beautiful sight. It would appear quite ugly even, and I have actually been asked if there was an injury. Still, I look at those callouses and I see something beautiful. It is the hand of a quilter. It means I am doing something to promote comfort and beauty for someone. Have your hands done anything similar lately? Maybe as you set goals for 2009, you can make a goal to get creative with those beautiful hands God gave you!

In case, you haven't figured out, I do go into some deep (and some not so deep) thought while hand quilting!! That is a good thing!

I will close for now and plan to post one more time before Christmas....just a quick Merry Christmas post, but if I don't make it, you all have a blessed Christmas as we celebrate the birth of our most precious gift...Jesus.