Mariners Compass Wallhanging

I finally got around to putting the binding on my Mariners Compass wall hanging.


I hung it on the stairway by the front door.



This project helped me to get past some of my arc angst. I hope the next one will be more professional.


Evelyn stayed with me while I put on the binding. She really likes hanging out with me in my sewing room.

Azaleas, Painters and Late Night Calls

I’ve posted a different photo of Caleb (see right), the eleven year old son of friends, who continues to fight the good fight against brain cancer. May is Brain Cancer Awareness Month and while I keep Caleb and his family in my prayers all the time, I want to respectfully request that anyone reading this consider offering up a prayer for Caleb and others like him. It is a tough prognosis and the families in this battle have a real fight on their hands. Caleb has been actively battling this monster for over a year. His parents, three brothers, extended family, church family and friends have been with him every step of the way. They are all amazing.




I was in court, yesterday, with a family that is angry, fractured and just doesn’t get along. The father was asking the court to order that the mother be required to undergo a psychological examination based on concerns for her mental health. What concerned him? The other parent had filed multiple rules to show causes (contempt for violating court orders) against him and requests for protective orders, alleging he was abusive. Most of the filings had been thrown out.


Trouble is, the father had filed even more cases against the mother! They’d all mainly been tossed out, too.



The most recent dust up came about when the mother allegedly called him at 11:00 at night to discuss child support and the new wife (who was the subject of a Court Order to have no contact WHATSOEVER with the mother) hung up on her. Mom thought that was rude. So she filed a request for a protective order alleging phone harassment. No, you read that, correctly.

The father also filed a request for a protective order so she wouldn’t call so late. When I asked the mother about it, she became most disgruntled because, she insisted, she did NOT call at 11:00. She had the phone records to prove it. As it turned out, she was correct. She’d called him at 10:53 p.m.

I sighed. I told the mother to not call after 9:00 p.m. (I went to law school for this?). She insisted that she called that late so the kids wouldn’t still be up. I told her that NO ONE was up that late (well, at least at my household). The father, across the hall, was listening in to the conversation and yelled over that she was so stupid that even the GAL thought she was an idiot. The mother puffed up, I gave dad a steely look (the mom look - you know the one I mean) and he threw up his hands as if to apologize (to me – not her).


I’ve worked with this family a long time and for some reason, they didn’t get angry at me when I bluntly tell the court things like, “In my non mental health expert opinion, both sides are nuts.” Yes, I can be quite professional, I admit it. I think that if you say it with affection and a smile, it goes down easier. And this is one of the saddest things about this family – they actually have a sense of humor and can roll with it most of the time – but the parents simply can’t get along and act ridiculous. Normally, things get better with time but they have been at this for years. This petty war is their hobby.

They should get a blog or take up quilting.

I asked the court to order a child custody evaluation, which she did. A child custody evaluation, essentially, is a report done by a mental heath professional to determine the relative strengths and weaknesses of the parents as parents. It is not binding but it gives more information. In this instance, the evaluation will be done by the court psychologist and she will conduct psychological testing for serious mental health problems. I don’t think they will find any and, unfortunately, I don’t think there is a specific test for immaturity. It is like obscenity – you know it when you see it.

Their kids, btw, are just darling. It is a shame that half the time one or the other parent is in jail or in court over something stupid that the other parent filed. Both sides are on a first-name basis with the local police (who are constantly called). At this point they probably exchange Christmas cards. This is one of those tough cases where neither parent is what they ought to be but the kids are thriving nonetheless. The piper will arrive for payment in about five years when the kids hit puberty.


Husband was on the phone to the painter for our Oklahoma house, last night. The painter just finished up a job painting most of the interior where we'd had wallpaper removed. He told husband that they went ahead and painted the utility room, too.

"What do we owe you for the extra?" asked husband.

"Oh," said the painter,"Don't worry about it, we had left over paint. Consider it 'value added.'"

Gotta love Oklahoma tradesmen. And if you need a good painter, we know one...

Happy May Day

Happy May Day! May Day coincides with the Pagan fertility festival of Beltane and is sort of the New Year easing us into the summer. In the old days, they’d light bonfires and cavort around being silly on the hillsides. Babies born nine months later were considered blessed. I think it was primarily an excuse to go off and smooch in the moonlight.

I turned in my notice to the Court, yesterday. I expected immediate buyer’s remorse but so far, it hasn’t hit. Honestly, I think it is time but ask me again when the bills come due. A large part of me is already starting to think about missing the interaction with the families. While stressful, I really do enjoy the work. Regardless, taking this step makes it easier to shift, mentally, into thinking about what I want to do, next. From a practical standpoint, now I know when my schedule will open up enough to devote significant time to something else. I love my flexible schedule but an open hour here and three hours there while great for part-time work, doesn’t lend itself to committing to a different job. I don’t plan to take on a regular nine to five. I want to continue to work from home.

A friend suggested I stitch up dog beds.

Pearl lost her last baby canine, this morning.

I made the mistake of not insisting that she sleep in her crate, last night. Turns out, she isn’t ready to be a free range dog so as of 2:00 a.m., she was back in her crate and will continue sleeping there for the time being.

I knew better than that.

GAL stuff: Perhaps it has always taken place, but I seem to have a lot of female wards whose parents allow them to move in with their high school boyfriend. Almost invariably, these girls don’t have a father living in the home. I suspect the wimpiest dad wouldn’t put up with that. The mothers invariably look me in the eye and insist that the kids aren’t sleeping together. I can’t decide if they are idiots or they think I am.

Anyway you look at it, rest assured that I think these parents are idiotic. It isn’t simply a moral question. By allowing their teenaged daughter to move in with her teenaged boyfriend (good god - who would want THAT burden?), they are shoving her down the road to a partnership that she (and he) isn’t mature enough to handle. When she lives under his roof, her “power” is diminished. If they have a disagreement, she can’t retreat. She has no safe place. She is, at an early age, dependant on him. If his parents take her side, the energy in that home is going to get pretty ugly. This has all kinds of alarming connotations and the uneven dynamic is likely to shape both their relationship and any subsequent relationships she may have.

Teen romances sometimes turn out like a happy fairy tale. But most don’t. Why parents (many of whom are divorced multiple times) think their kids are going to live happily ever after when they are taking on so much responsibility at such a tender age leaves me shaking my head.

A broken heart is a miserable, frequently life changing experience at any age. Depositing your teenaged daughter into the house (and bed) of a teenaged lover places her at high risk to not only end up pregnant, but be faced with the humiliation of living in her beau’s home if he decides Susie Q down the street looks pretty fetching. Teenaged boys are notoriously fickle. It is one thing for a teenager to find out her boyfriend is a cheater, slap his lying face, turn on her heel and refuse to accept his pathetic calls begging for forgiveness. That is practically a rite of passage and serves to steel her spine, deepen her character, and learn that she doesn’t have to put up with that nonsense – surrounded by supportive family who assure her that she is lovable, wonderful and that she will be better off without him because it wasn’t a good match.

Contrast that with the female who is living in the youthful cad’s home and dependant on his mom to feed her. Even if she gets the gumption to move out, she is more or less going with her tail between her legs. And frankly, the chances that his parents are going to pressure the two of them to kiss and make up is high. So you frequently end up with one of those volatile, angry relationships characterized by fighting and cheating and making up and staying together out of guilt and parental pressure when it would have been better to maintain their youthful dignity and walk away.

Alternatively, if daughter gets the itch, she has been set up to be dishonest and a cheater – a road fraught with all kinds of negative long term consequences. It is hard enough to do the right thing when you haven’t completely structured your life around your boyfriend with the blessing of his family. Not only would she be cheating on her boyfriend but, if discovered, she is going to enrage his parents who are her landlords and have probably been treating her like a member of the family and dreaming of grandbabies.

Parents who allow their teenager to live with her boyfriend set her up. This shouldn’t even be a topic of discussion, should it?