Patchwork Quilt

Since I was a little girl, I fell asleep under patchwork quilts.  Quilts patched together of pieces of fabric from all kinds of things floating throughout the daily lives of the women who stitched them together. Flour sacks, old shirts worn too many days in a garden, dresses past their prime, leftovers from a pattern that made clothes for one of the family...every quilt was a merger of the leftover, over used, not-good-for-anything-else material left behind from daily life.

I guess you could say it was my first lesson in how God uses even the smallest of scraps in a beautiful way. Over the years, life (& the world) changed. Now, every nook and cranny in my house holds quilts made by my grandmothers and mom.  Some made of new fabric bought just for that purpose, some so old it took a lot of thinking and memories to piece together their stories, some just as average as they come but just as useful as their counterparts with unique stories.

It was while snuggled under one of these quilts one evening, that it hit me: MY LIFE is a patchwork quilt. Full of used parts, failures, mis-stitches, worn places, and yes....beauty.

And so, the idea was born for my blog. A place to share my crazy, random thoughts. A place to talk about self-forgiveness (& forgiving others). A place to share the stories that make my life what it is today. A life that is far from perfect, but still beautiful and purposeful.

Like some of the quilts I've "retired" through the years to preserve when I see them becoming tattered, my patchwork quilt of life is worn around the edges. It's mismatched. It's got a few rips and tears. Still, what can be learned of life it we live it safely?

Welcome

Welcome to a little corner of my mind...

For me, writing has always been both therapeutic and a way for me to journal the things that matter to me. Why blog? I guess mostly because it's a place to throw down my thoughts.

A few things you won't find here:

• Ads or "affiliate" links: for those people who blog for a living..go you!  For me, this is just personal and I have no desire to clutter my pages with links to click on.  This is a personal choice. No offense intended to those who use these on their blog (some of my favorite bloggers have them and I totally get it!)
• Email newsletters or daily updates:  I work full time, I write for pleasure.  Obviously, one of them gets first dibs on my brain. 
• Writing with any goals other than to simply journal my life electronically

What you will find here:

• A peek into my crazy mind (consider yourself warned!)
• Stories of happiness, love, & hope
• Lots of pictures and stories of the things that make my life have quality: *read* my husband and my mini-me
• Positivity: I work hard to stay positive even in the most trying of times.  I fail sometimes but my overall goal is to avoid negativity.
• Failure: I am a self-confessed failure at many things and I feel strongly this does not mean that I actually am a failure as a human being.  You'll see me write about my fears and my short comings, but (I hope) within the context of learning from my mistakes
• Faith: I'm a believer in God. I'm one of His "problem" kids for sure, but I'm still His. 
• Laughter: which is the glue that holds my life together

And, so, having said all that, let me start by explaining the title of the blog...