Happy New Year!

 Happy New Year to all my blog friends. 

Thank you for sticking with me into 2022 and listening to me prattle on about life and craft. I especially value my readers in these days when blog writers and those who read blogs are much more scarce than they used to be!

My first Christmas without my husband present with me turned out to be a wonderful day of blessings. I had thought very long and hard how I might incorporate hubby in Aged Care into our family Christmas celebrations. I had thought of bringing him home for Christmas Dinner with the family, but getting him in and out of a car is virtually impossible, and managing him if he was home posed all sorts of problems. The alternative of having all our family visit him in the Ward was not permitted. How then to involve him and still have time with family? It was the subject of many of my prayers in the last few months of 2021, and they were all answered exceedingly abundantly above what I could have imagined! 

We had our traditional Christmas Dinner - roast turkey and vegetables, topped off with Christmas Pudding, (the recipe of which has been handed down through generations of my family). Later in the afternoon, all 17 of us drove to the Aged Care facility where we sat outdoors around tables in the shady gazebos with a gentle breeze keeping the air at a perfect temperature. Hubby was awake (prayer answered), alert (another prayer answered), and responsive (another prayer answered). Our son wheeled him out to see the family, the first time for a year for most of them. Hubby was full of smiles as recognition kicked in, and for more than an hour he was engaged, happy and enjoyed the time with the family.

So many prayers were answered - it didn't rain, it wasn't a day of searing heat, we had a very pleasant place to sit and enjoy each other's company, and hubby was involved. It almost didn't matter that three days later, the Facility was thrust into lockdown for 3½ days, and hubby has ever since been rather disinterested. God knew how important Christmas Day was to me and He blessed my socks off! 

...and now the Christmas tree is packed away, family have all gone, the washing is being done between the rain, things are being put back in place, I've started some of the cleaning, and it's time to face a new year. 

Next weekend I will be launching my 2022 Block of the Month design. I describe it as a "fun design". I don't think you could get bored with either making it, or using it, with its many different parts! So come back next week for the big reveal!

May 2022 be a great year of blessings for each one.

Val