Good morning. I woke up at 4:53 this morning to the squawk of a chicken and something larger than a squirrel racing across the roof. And I'm thankful enough that I expressed as such before even realizing it's Thanksgiving Day. You see, to be able to sleep completely through until 4:53am without a single disturbance is blissful. All you parents nod in agreement.
Our county fair ended a couple weeks ago and I'm still stunned that I won the Homemaker of the Year award. To qualify for this award, one must enter homemade items in 5 different categories: plants, canning/preserving, sewing, crafts, and baking. I happen to have a really tenacious competitive side and entered up to the limit in every category that was feasible for me... the main reason why I won. No one else, I've learned, would even think of entering 42 items. Now picture me blushing from embarrassment.
But anyway, the purpose of this post is not to detail my shame, my victory or even my items, but all the people... all those AMAZING people... that have passed through my life and imparted to me some skill. I know I've lived a rare life, even in just my 34 years, but I really do think the people that have come into it are what make it unique so much more than the places I've been.
And I really must start with my Grandma Schmidt. I honestly don't know if she'd be proud of me, rolling over in her grave because of all the things I didn't do right, or flaming with jealousy. I'm called Little Arleen by my mom and aunt for a reason... I'm her, 50 years younger. I can't say she taught me much. She wasn't a great one for teaching, but she did inspire just by doing. She did teach me how to thread a bobbin. I think that's as much as she could stand. I was maybe 10 years old when I got her bread recipe and started making her cinnamon and pecan rolls. I had watched her enough to know how to do it. I inherited her canning equipment and her knitting needles. She got me interested in sewing and quilting. She was a whirlwind. She could do everything, and do it all so perfectly. I'm not there. I lack the patience to rip out stitches that aren't just right. My quilts shift and pucker. If I'm short on a spice for a batch of pickles, it gets done without it. But she always had things just right. She was an amazing woman. We called her the bionic grandma.
My great aunt Mim was the one who actually taught me how to knit. She also taught me how to do head and hand stands when she was in her 70s. And yes, she demonstrated. I don't remember the occasion, but I remember sitting in her tiny living room at her home in a retirement community and watching her knit. Then she let me do it and she guided my hands. It really stuck with me because that was NOT something my grandma would have done! And for whatever reason, I never forgot how, even when it was years before I really started doing it on my own, that one lesson was so memorable to me it just stuck. But she was a teacher. A PE teacher. An athlete before women's athletics were celebrated. She's in the Hall of Fame at Boston University. She also taught me how to play tennis and do a few goofy acrobatic tricks. One very amazing woman.
My dad taught me gardening. He let me carve a little spot out of his landscaping to plant flowering annuals or veggies. He doted on his fruit trees and gave me a love for walking barefoot in the grass. He taught me composting. He taught me how fun it is to have your hands in the warm fluffy dirt... and how to add that warm fluffy dirt to the flat heavy sand to make it sustain life. I have no problems getting dirty. I'm comfortable dirty. I have no desire to wear gloves or work carefully sparing my clothes and body the evidence of outside. That's from him. Wear grubby clothes and roll in it. Savor it. Lay in the grass. Stick toes in the mud. I would never be able to plant as much as I do without that love. Gardening is my haven. Dirt is my therapy. My dad is the giver of that beautiful gift.
I was a young teenager when a family friend taught me how to sew. She worked with my mom at a local drug store and also worked for my dad at the laundromat. I'm not sure which association came first. She was just Sandy. A spitfire of a lady with a tongue as fast as her hands. She told me to buy a pattern and some fabric and come to her house. I did and she taught me how to follow a pattern, how to backstitch, how to hem, even how to cheat. She got me off and running and the rest just took practice.
We had a little stretch of time where a family friend came to live with us. She was a forlorn woman who found great joy in crafting. So crafting she did and I did it with her every chance I got. She made chocolate candies in molds and taught me the tricks of that trade. We once made an entire candy train for Christmas and filled each car with various goodies. She also taught me the various uses of wonder under (fusible interfacing) which is a major component in a good number of my creations. She let me work with her, tag along with her, ask a million questions and maybe actually help her some too. Sometimes I wonder where she is now, if she's still as sad and forlorn as she was those days, or did she find the Joy that comes even when crafting is not possible?
Then there are 2 wonderful ladies I met in China, one who taught me how to quilt and another who taught me that canning really isn't as scary as it seemed. And a recent friend who introduced me to the bread cookbook. And my father-in-law who gave us a Mother Earth News subscription where I've learned yet more. Our landlord that shared his Countryside magazines with us.
So many awesome people. Who love me. Who invest in me. Not for crafts, but for relationship. I am so amazingly blessed. Thank you, Jesus.
