Go with the flow

Evan is back in the shack with the temperature warm enough to bake most humans. Add to the heat generated by the wood stove, a gaggle of hounds, and you have the cozy atmosphere he likes most. He spends a good deal of his time out there when he's home, which is getting to be for longer spans now. His last appointment in Minneapolis was Wednesday, and he doesn't have to return now until Tuesday, which makes all of us happy.

Last year at this time, we felt as though everything was up in the air. This year is a little better. I'm actually going to bake Christmas cookies tomorrow. It's been a while since I carried off planned baking, so this will be a welcome change of pace. It's surprising that this is our third year of hoping Evan will be OK for Christmas and the first year of those three, that I'm fairly certain that he will be just fine. In fact, we are planning on going to Racine. All of us. I talked to Kit today and he'll be able to swing it. Violet will be spending Christmas in Tulsa with her family. Unfortunately, her grandmother died this week, so she headed to Oklahoma for the funeral and will stay through Christmas. It sounds as if Alyssa and Karl will be able to make the trip as well, so it will be the Ruesch caravan to Racine. If it weren't so far and if we still had a decent horse around here, we could take the one-horse open sleigh, but darn, that just won't work.

It's time to put up the Christmas tree again. This year, like last, we cannot have a real tree in the house. I am going to put up the cute little primitive tree I bought at the last minute last year and truth be told, I'm happy not to have to fuss with a big tree. I feel a little guilty about that. I have lots of beautiful ornaments and trims stashed away, but rather than wasting time fretting about that, I'll look for a Springele recipe and put that special rolling pin to use for the first time ever. I think I should have done this a couple of weeks ago to let the cookies age properly, but it's silly to worry about perfection at this point in my life.

I spent a good deal of time fussing and fuming this week. I committed to making 28 pot holders for a friend to give as Christmas gifts. Making 28 of anything is stupid. Making 28 appliqued pot holders with free-form leaves that had to be stitched, turned inside out and pressed is a reason to be committed. I am including this here only because it will be witnessed by a few other people when I say NEVER AGAIN. Now, I say this not to make by friend feel guilty, but because I do this kind of thing to myself repeatedly. Plain pot holders could have been made, but no, I had to improve them. I made the pattern myself and made it more difficult than it needed to be, but dang, they were really cute. Apples with photo transferred recipe cards appliqued to them. Really cute. But 28?! That's nuts. And of course, I fooled around with the pattern until I thought it was perfect. Tonight at supper, however, Ned used the prototype to take a pan from the oven and made sure to register his opinion on the slightly less than perfect design with a turned up nose. Well, they were perfect for my hand. Almost. That leaf did kind of get in the way. Too bad. They're done and delivered and that's that.

This morning found me finishing a quilt for the fundraiser raffle. The quilt is almost perfect. I do get a little fussy about some things after all. It's just a simple flannel quilt and I figured a little short on yardage for the backing. As is true with almost all of my quilts, I decided a pieced backing is entirely acceptable. In the end, it's even more attractive than one perfect piece. Maybe being able to wing it is even more valuable than perfection. I hope so.

Over the past two years, we've all gotten to be pretty practiced at going with the flow. Evan with his entire life. The rest of us with accepting things as they come and realizing the things we can and can't control. It's true that we'd all appreciate much less practice at being so accepting of uncertainty, but since that is one of the things we can't control, we just keep going.