Fourteen

I finally know just what it means to let someone in
To see the side of me that no one does or ever will
So if you’re ever lost and find yourself all alone
I'd search forever just to bring you home
Here and now, this I vow

By now you know that,
I'd come for you,
No one but you,
Yes I'd come for you,
But only if you told me to,
And I'd fight for you,
I'd lie it's true,
Give my life for you,
You know I'd always come for you,
You know I'd always come for you.
–Nickelback, I'd Come For You

Mr. Bug and I were married 14 years ago today, at 7:40 am {which is why my hair looks a little ratty} in the Salt Lake LDS Temple. It has been an adventure. We've had our ups and downs. The mundane takes its toll. But despite {or perhaps because of} all the hard times, the good times are worth it. I love Mr. Bug and I want to commemorate our 14 years together with a little bit of the why I love him. I solicited his help and together we put together a playlist of {you guessed it} fourteen songs that remind us of us.

I also made a little list of a few things that I love about Mr. Bug. I decided to write this next part as if I were speaking directly to him rather than to an audience. After all, it is for him {but you are welcome to read it too if you're not overly grossed out by all the mush going on around here today}. In no particular order:

14 Reasons Why I Love You
1. I love your sense of humor . You make me laugh and I love to hear you laugh. Dinner is a favorite time of the day for me, because I know you're going to say something funny and make us all laugh.
2. I love that your smile reaches your eyes {which are brown, not hazel, which I also love}.
3. I love your curly hair. Thanks for wearing it longer for me the last little while. I know you like it shorter.
4. I think it is incredibly sexy and manly that you can go from clean-shaven to a full beard in 1.9 days. Thank you for wearing a beard for me all these years. You're my kind of tall, dark and handsome.
5. You are a wonderful father to our children.
6. I'm proud to be married to a military veteran {and so glad you served before we met and were kept safe and protected so we could meet}. I love to hear about all places you've been. My favorite is that you, personally, navigated the Panama Canal. How cool is that?
7. I like that we fall asleep holding hands most nights.
8. I love that there are secrets that only you and I know.
9. Thanks for letting me do my thing and be me. Thanks for letting me have my projects {and not complaining that they are everywhere instead of neat and orderly and contained} and discover lots of ways to be creative.
10. I love that our date nights are predictably almost always dinner and a movie. It is so fun to go out with you. And I look forward to our stay-in-and-watch-TV-{with-snacks}-after-the-kids-have-gone-to-bed dates too.
11. I love that you are an incredibly non-picky eater and while you love variety and are always looking for yummy things to eat, you eat {and love} tuna casserole and you don't complain if dinner sometimes doesn't come out a culinary masterpiece.
12. I am ever amazed at your infinite capacity to see things in a positive light.
13. I love that you are {mostly} calm and patient and rational when I am {mostly} not. Thanks for being the Petruchio to my Katherina, the Pooh Bear to my Eyeore, the Buzz Lightyear to my Sheriff Woody, the Chandler to my Monica, the yin to my yang.
14. While you are not classically romantic, you hold onto me in your own quiet way. You don't keep score but you play to win. And we make it work. Thanks for that.

Happy Anniversary, Mr Bug. I love you.

{November 1, 2008}

Sunday Sermons: Tender Mercies

The Lord's tender mercies are the very personal and individualized blessings, strengths, protection, assurances, guidance, loving kindnesses, consolation, support and spiritual gifts which we receive from and because of and through the Lord Jesus Christ. –David A. Bednar



* This is a re-broadcast of my first Sunday Sermons post, but it has been a week full of Tender Mercies and my Sunday posts are mostly for me.

300th Post Giveaway Winners

The Lord loveth a cheerful giver. He also accepteth from a grouch.
–Catherine Hall

Welcome to my new followers and thank you so much to everyone who entered my 300^th post giveaway! I was tickled with the great response and I loved reading all of your comments. It was a bright spot in my week.

There were 97 comments on my giveaway post; 20 for the Noah's Ark Pack, 35 for the Christmas Pack and 42 for the Way Back Pack. I printed the comments out, separated them into their categories and had my super cute assistants draw the winners.

Grasshopper drew the winner for the Noah's Ark pack.

Congratulations to

Ronda

who said: I love the Noah's Ark Pack, this would be great for a child's room. Thanks for the great giveaway.

LadyBug pulled out the winner for the Christmas Pack.

Congratulations to

JJ

of Inchworm Fabrics

who said: All three of those are very nice and the decision is a hard one but I think since I have to choose I would go with the Christmas pack. Thanks for the giveaway and congrats on your 300^th post.

And Mr. Bug did the honors for the Way Back Pack.

Congratulations to

Parsley

at Seasons of My Mind

who said: Please also enter me in the Way Back Pack. (crossing fingers)

Ladies, check your inboxes! I'll need your snail mail address {I promise not to send any snails} so I can get your prizes in the mail to you. Oh, and I would love to see what you make with all these fabulous fabrics, so make sure to send me photos or post links or both so I can check them out!

Thanks you again to everyone who commented and posted {and followed!}. I wish I had a little prize for each of you.

Favourite Things Friday: Blogger's Quilt Festival Favorites

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
–Jack London

Sew and Tell is one of my Favourite things. I love to do it and I love to see what others sew and tell about. Amy has figured out a way to bring Sew and Tell to a whole new level. Twice a year she hosts the Blogger's Quilt Festival, a virtual feast of inspiration and a celebration of the common thread that binds all of us as quilters. You may have noticed my fall entry {or the one I did last spring; yes I know, blatant self-promotion }. As I browsed through the quilts last spring, I started making a collection of links to quilts that stood out to me with the intention of sharing my favorites after I finished visiting {and commenting on} all 579 quilts . I only made it through about a hundred quilts in that Festival and never got back to it. Now a new Quilt Festival is here {ending today}. I didn't want to waste my effort {this is the original post made-over; I've saved it as a draft for the last six months }, because these are still really beautiful quilts. Here are the quilts I wanted to highlight from the Spring Festival {highlight and not recreate the festival because you can go there and browse for yourself }.

• Y2K10 Watercolor Quilt by Sew Inspired. After she put her quilt in the Quilt Festival, she took it on tour, bringing it here for the Springville Art Museum Quilt Show this summer. I got to see it in person and snapped a picture for evidence. It was even better in person.

• Sudoku Quilt by So Happy
• Pinwheel Sampler in Blush by Dolls from the Loft {Sigh. Someday I'll finish mine.}

My approach to the Festival this time around is a little different as the festival is a little different. Unless I want my house to fall down around me, I won't be able to see all the quilts. So, every day I've browsed {and commented — if I visited your quilt you know I was there. And if I didn't visit you, I'm sorry!} a little bit, clicking on the thumbnail links that stand out to me with the time I have available. And again, I wanted to share a few favorites {still trying not to recreate the festival here but finding it difficult with all the amazing eye candy}. I hope you'll click on one or two links and see these amazing quilts.

• Mosaic Circles by Kameleon
• Sheer Whim by Original Art Quilts by Maria Elkins {I linked to all posts tagged under that quilt because her BQF post isn't very detail specific. The process was fascinating, so if you have the time, click through her posts as she worked on it. Or for the Cliff's Notes version, you can check out her Gallery Post}
• Pink Lemonade by Ypsilanti Dilettante
• WallFlowers: #5 by D.E.signed

Today's post brought to you by:

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Rainbow Sherbet Snowball Quilt

In the crazy quilt of life, I'm glad you're in my block of friends.
–Unknown

Now, on to the really important stuff. I chose my Rainbow Sherbet Snowball Quilt to share for the Blogger's Quilt Festival. This quilt was a journey for me; it was the first quilt I did from start to finish — the first quilt I machine quilted. Well, not counting the table runner. Or the Wedding Ring Wall Hanging. Or the scripture covers . Those were all small projects with the walking foot, though. Practice. Warming up. This was the first actual quilt-size project with real free-motion quilting that I did {instead of taking it to professional}.

I started out loving this quilt. I pulled the fabrics for the snowballs from my stash {which was a revelation because I consider my stash to be pretty small and certainly not developed or diversified enough to make a whole quilt}. And I bought the white-on-ivory background fabric at 50% off {getting a good deal is one of my absolute most favorite things; the out-of-pocket cost for the background, backing, binding and batting was $16.30. It doesn't get better than that!}. The colors were so bright and cheerful that I decided to make two quilts; one for me and one to give to my youngest sister as a wedding gift. But after I got the top together I didn't like it as much. Thanks to some kind encouragement from the blogishpere, I pushed ahead hoping that I'd love the quilt again when it was finished.

But then came the scary part — the free-motion quilting. By me. A complete novice. My intention when I started this quilt was to do it myself. All along I planned to do a stipple {or meander} but my practice attempts were pretty craptastic and when it came time to actually commit needle and thread to fabric I was, to say the least, a little intimidated and found myself wishing to take it to a machine quilter. Again with the encouragement of some excellent bloggersI dove in. It didn't take too long for me to get into a groove and some of the quilting actually came out pretty nicely. This is a section that I am particularly fond of {if you click on the picture you can see the quilting better}. And once the quilt was quilted and washed and bumpy and wrinkly and soft, I did love it again.

One of my favorite parts was the baby snowballs on the back. I saved the corners I cut away from the snowball blocks and made them into half-square triangles. Then I sewed them all together to make baby snowballs. While I was working on it, I wondered if it was really worth my time, but as it turned out, they were completely adorable and perfect.

The artsy pictures are fun and interesting to look at, but I always find myself wanting to see the whole thing, so for those of you who are like me, I've got your back. Thanks for stopping by.