Kindness

 

It's been such a long, long time - please forgive my blogging break. I just needed the time to regroup. In the meantime, I've got some good news - Mima started attending adult daycare on January 2! This has been wonderful for both of us. She gets to get out of the house for companionship and activities, which has made her more alert. I get to have some solid hours for work, running errands, and getting the house organized, uninterrupted by caregiving duties.

I even took some time to finally think about changes I need to make in my life. I did not make any New Year's resolutions on January 1, but I've been thinking about it a lot.  I've decided I'll do some now as I move along building my 53rd year of life (my birthday was yesterday).



Noun: The quality of being warm-hearted and considerate and humane and sympathetic.
(WordNet Dictionary)

It seems the thing to do this year is to have a one-word goal for everything you do. So here's mine: Kindness. These are my broad-based goals for the year:

• I will show myself kindness by eating and living more healthfully.
• I will treat others with more kindness by being gentle and encouraging (this may just mean keeping my mouth shut sometimes).
• I will treat my budget more kindly by building my business and cutting out "gotta have it now" spending.

I chose kindness because that is a quality I highly admire in others, and have lately seen lacking in myself. Especially when dealing with Mima.

We are just getting used to the new schedule (we have to coordinate rides for getting her to and from the daycare). Mornings are a little more rushed than normal. We had a rough few mornings last week. I have not responded kindly to some unexpected bathroom habits. ('nuff said for now). So, I'm practicing kindness.

Today has gone well, we've even laughed a bit. I also decided to resurrect one of the sweet things Mima used to do before Alzheimer's stole it away. Mima would call each of her kids and grandkids on their birthdays, and sing them happy birthday. Today is my niece's birthday, so I grabbed Mima's phone and we made the call. I'm sure we sounded like this Saturday Night Live skit, but we did it, and Mima smiled through it all.

I'm going to try my best to keep it up, piecing little bits of kindness together until it is habit.

Speaking of piecing things together, I've been working on a Riley Blake fabric challenge through the Modern Quilt Guild and the Fort Worth MQG. Here are the six fabrics I was given for the challenge:

At first glance I had no clue how to approach the design for this project (kind of like approaching each morning of caregiving a person with Alzheimer's). I decided both cases can benefit from a bit of fun and improvisation, so that's the route I took with the fabric challenge. Here is the result:

Front of Bed Runner

Back of Bed Runner

 

I love improvisational piecing for a couple of reasons - there is very little measuring, and the end results are always a surprise! The back of the runner was pieced in curvy waves, which I've been itching to do for a while. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

 

The final product is perfect for the guestroom/office-previously-known-as-my-son's-room.

 

Well, that's it for today. I'll post a tutorial for my take on improv piecing early next week. Until then remember:

 

"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." Aesop