Hello everyone! It is sort of dreary here today all overcast. It has been busy busy and is going to stay busy busy as we get closer to my mom’s memorial service on Saturday. But I want it to be nice as like the final thing I can do for her, a send off to honor her.

Wyatt and I are back to homeschool, and he is learning about Harriet Tubman and the underground railroad. He loved an activity that we did yesterday, having to do with the quilt maps that enslaved people used to help guide them north. I was fascinated as well to be honest. He was less interested in the quilt aspect and more in the secret code, but whatever works. We read a book called The Patchwork Path, and every time we came to a new secret code block in the text, we found one I had printed out, and he colored it and added it to a Quilt Code Key that we made. It turned out really cool honestly, and he had fun decoding.

Afterwards, I was still thinking about quilts so I listened to an Ologies podcast about quilts. It was super interesting. I love learning all these quiet ways that women rebelled expressed big feelings, through crafts, and quilting has played its part in political history. The AIDS Memorial Quilt comes to mind, which was not only about remembrance but a big gesture that demonstrated that despite how some people felt about AIDS patients, we were not going to forget them. They were used as I said during the Civil War, and also during the suffragette movement. So quilts not only preserved traditional handiwork and avenues for women to get together and be social, but also helped people find freedom and helped women get the right to vote. It’s wild to me. I love stuff like this.

I also love old vintage quilts. I have one of my aunt’s that someone gave her, and another that my besties great-great-great grandmother made. My friend didn’t want it so I scooped it right up! It needs some repair work done which I hope to figure out at some point. And just last month we got a handmade crazy quilt from our local Buy Nothing! It is on Wyatt’s bed and looks really cool. And is super warm!

I was also thinking about how my family is losing its storytellers, our older family members who have shared their stories with us and now my brother and cousins and I need to pass that on to our children for them. My family is very Scottish in background, on both sides, and my mom and my aunt were Highland dancers, and my uncle was the drum major in the pipe band. I even did a little highland dancing as a child too. We ate desserts that were Scottish that my grandmother made, heard all the stories, and I want to preserve some of that for Wyatt, and hopefully for my nieces and my cousins’ children. So, I applied to join the St. Andrews Society here in my area, which is all about being Scottish. Lol. I heard back and they said my application looks good (I had to prove I had Scottish heritage!) and that I will be initiated soon. I think it will be neat to take Wyatt to some of the Scottish Sunday Night dinners and to the Highland Games. Although now we all need to get articles of clothing in our tartan and I need to sort that because I am not sure what we will get? I did find a cute kids t-shirt that has a dragon in your family tartan on it so Wyatt can wear that. I was also thinking about getting a scarf not just in my tartan, but in the official witch tartan, which was created to in remembrance of the women that lost their lives during that horrible time in history.

I am all about fabrics and statements today, and I didn’t even realize it until just now, that these two things dovetail.

Anyway, I am excited about the St. Andrews Society. I am really committed to creating more community for our family in anyway that I can. Which for an introvert is really hard!! But I believe really strongly in community, in people coming together, and so I push myself out of that shell when I need to, and I think that this will be a fun thing to do. They have all sorts of neat events, like a Robbie Burns dinner which I would love to go to, and like I said, the Sunday dinners. I would love to move to Scotland, which I am sure is not in the cards for us, but I will take what I can get.

Wyatt’s baseball wrapped up for the year, and while it was a good time I was ready for it to be done! I will miss the sunsets and the evening sky that I could see from the field though this fall, and the big smile on Wyatt’s face when he and Billy ran the bases!

I’ve been caught more than once woolgathering while looking out at the skyline and enjoying the evening. There was just also a certain contentedness those nights too. I would chat with my friends, laughing and catching up as our kids were playing, and then when the game was over, we would go home to our house and cats, dinner already made, either a slow cooker meal or leftovers and for some reason that food just always tasted better. So while it was tough at times and made our days long, I will miss it. But I am still glad it is over for the year!

I’ve got to get dinner started in a minute, just chili and rice, but I will leave you with some photos from the old camera roll!

I hope that whatever you do this evening, you do something that makes you smile. Or, I hope that something made you smile today! Feel free to share!