Just to clarify, the rumors that I fell off the face of the Earth are patently false. While it’s true that I was skipping about all over the face of the Earth, at no time did I actually tumble into the stratosphere. So, where have I been? First I went up to Kentucky for two weeks with my daughter and her brood.

Then I flew out to Los Angeles with my sister to spend a week with her daughter, my dear niece, and her daughter, my new grandniece. We pondered the question of why, while I’m a great aunt, baby Eliza is my grandniece. After all, I’m the grandmother to my grandchildren and, someday (not too soon, please), will be the great grandmother to my great grandchildren. At the conclusion of that two or three minute discussion, my niece decided that I would be Grant Ann from then on. While in Los Angeles I visited the Santa Monica Pier and Venice Beach, attended performances of Fiddler on the Roof (with Topol!) and Spamalot, ate all manner of new to me foods and spent countless hours enjoying that baby.

After that I flew to Holland to visit with my friends Loes (Pre-design Studio II) and Theo van der Heijden. I re-visited a Rijker’s Naaimachines in Veghel where I was greeted warmly and generously by Leo Rijker and his staff, after which we drove to Denmark, visiting Odense (Hans Christian Anderson), Legoland, and Roskilde (the Viking Ship Museum) before heading to Copenhagen for a two day Pre-design seminar sponsored by Conny Rasmussen’s AJ Strik. I got to actually take the classes for Pre-design in English and get a real handle on this helpful program. Whenever Loes had been teaching here, I’d been teaching at the same time and whenever she has been teaching in Holland she’s been teaching in Dutch so this was my first opportunity to spend some quality time learning my way around the program.

In October I spent 5 days at Disney World with my Kentucky daughter and her family. Living in Orlando I’d been to the Disney parks numerous times but this was the first time I actually stayed down there and played tourist. It was great fun, especially with a 5-year-old along.

I wasn’t home long before I left to spend 10 days with a dear embroidery friend in Maryland. We visited Colonial Williamsburg, Mount Vernon and the World War II Memorial in D.C. and spent a day scrapbooking.

Interspersed with those travels, I drove up to Tallahassee six or seven times to visit my sister, who is undergoing treatment for CLL, and my mother, who is slowly forgetting the names of her grandchildren and great grandchildren, and for Thanksgiving and an after Christmas family get-together.

Now I’m out of frequent flier miles and grounded for a while. What did I learn from all that traveling? I learned that there’s no place far enough away to escape your heartache and that you can be lonely in a room full of people and surrounded by friends and family in an empty house. When push comes to shove, there really is no place like home.

Buried Treasure

While digging through my linen closet I found this little treasure. It’s the only thing I have made by maternal grandmother, after whom I was named. Annie May Brobst Levenson died in 1933, when my mother was only 14 years old, so, of course, I never knew her. That makes this little embroidery even more precious. I’d like to find a way to display it safely and with honor and am open to suggestions. It’s a rather large towel and the design isn’t centered. I do think I’m going to trace the pattern with Pre-design Studio II and create a new pattern. Thankfully, now, I can do the whole job in one program.

On My Agenda

Other than the usual eat healthfully, get some exercise, finish combining my office and sewing rooms into one room (more about that later), get out more, sew something, etc., the first item on my agenda is to finish the bibs I started for my grandniece. I’ve finished the embroidery on 4 and need to finish about 6 more. I’m not happy with the way the backs of the bibs look so I’m going to line them. I’ve figured out a quick and easy way to do it and will post pictures and instructions in my next post. That will give me the incentive I need to get those bibs finished and in the mail before Eliza doesn’t need them any more.

That’s all I’ve got. It’s good to be home. Let me hear from you. TTYL