Week Five Recap

Apparently it takes me at least half of the next week before I have time to write about "last" week. Week five in my "50 weeks to 50" timeline was August 16-22, and it was a good week, very busy and full.

We traveled home from our VA family reunion on Sunday afternoon, and had a birthday dinner with the kids at Mallory's house that evening. Frank and Bettie stayed with us another couple of days (and left early Wednesday morning), so we had lots of playtime with Gingersnap and Gumdrop. We had a full family dinner on Tuesday evening with the whole gang...all eight of us, plus Frank and Bettie. I wish we'd taken some pictures, but we were too busy eating!

It was a great week for quilting, too! Monday night I pieced the flying geese for the pieced border of my Celtic Solstice while Paula and Laura were here.

Tuesday afternoon I had time to quilt my "Christmas in July" quilt. I chose a great Christmas panto by Patricia Ritter called "Christmas Doodles" and it is so cute on the Holly's Tree Farm fabric. I had my binding ready to go, so I stitched that on first thing Wednesday morning.

I needed a different fabric for the border and binding for my Celtic Solstice quilt, so Dennis and I roadtripped to Goldsboro and visited Thistle Bee Quilt Shoppe to buy the needed fabrics.

Thursday I settled in to finish my Celtic Solstice top. When I was about halfway finished, I went ahead and pieced my backing, and loaded it in my frame so that I could get going on the quilting on Friday. Then I hit a glitch...I don't know how my quilt ended up so much larger than the pattern (but I do like wide borders), but it ended 85" square. My backing was only 82"x 92". I can work with the 92" as width, but of course I'd loaded it as length...and I was going to have to make the back wider anyway. 

SO, I spent Friday piecing a strip to add to the back from leftover block pieces and fabrics, and finally got started quilting on Friday night.

Saturday I woke up anxious to quilt...so I quilted ALL DAY... from 6:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. I forgot to eat, I didn't drink enough water, I just quilted. And I made it to row TWO. This quilt is going to be epic, but it's going to take me the rest of August to finish it, and I really wasn't expecting that. I had a goal to finish it by August 26 (today, as it happens) so that I could enter in a quilt show here in the state. Didn't make it. Maybe the Pitt County Fair? We'll see.

So, in conclusion, when I look back at Week Five, it was all Family, Friends and Finished Projects.

Now is the portion of the post where I need to talk seriously to myself (I don't pretend anyone is listening) about the FIVE categories I claim to value. Where is my balance? I am going to have to change my habits if I'm actually going to get Fitness or Faith into my day regularly. September 1 is my "go to" day for beginning a Whole 30 (and I have actually cleaned out my pantry and fridge and begun eating Paleo-esque in anticipation of that goal), and it is also my plan for beginning 90 days of P90X3. So, if you *have* been reading this stuff, you'll probably get sick of me talking about my physical health by about November if not sooner.

And September 1 is also our training day one for Community Bible Study. I sent a welcome email to my Core group members and am making phone calls today. I'm looking forward to the daily routine of studying with a group of women, and this year's material looks fantastic. I had a little wandering-in-the-desert this summer, but I'm going to put together a real plan for study next summer so that doesn't happen again.

Bottom line, I'm going to happily procrastinate the two areas that I can until September 1, and go back to quilting excessively. Just keeping it real.

One final thing...a little spotted fawn scampered through my front yard on Saturday morning. 

Week Four Almost Escaped...

Here it is, nearly halfway through week five (it's going well, but I'll save that for next week!), and I haven't had time to evaluate or refocus or redefine or whatever it is I'm trying to do week to week. So, a quick summary of week four, then off to today's adventures (which include such tasks as updating my military ID and running by the quilt shop in Goldsboro...keep your fingers crossed I'll find the perfect fabric!).

Faith...Family...Friends...Finished Projects...and (cough, cough) Fitness...

Faith: In week four,  I had a fantastic time in worship, learned so much about missions in the middle east, and then hung out with my church family at our summer pool party. I got to cuddle and allow one of my "covenant grandchildren" a siesta pool-side, and just love the way the body loves each other. I got to visit with my sweet sisters on Monday morning as I picked up the new Community Bible Study materials for 2015-2016 (Covenant Living & Leadership). We start that training next week, and our first week together is September 3!

Family: Lunched with Mal & Mike & Gingersnap and Gumdrop after church, then saw a lot of them as the great-grandparents (my in-laws) arrived on Wednesday. We had a whole big family dinner that evening, although Matt missed out due to his late work schedule, and Maggie's devotion to fitness had her running a bit later. Then Dennis and I took off for Tazewell, VA with his folks on Friday, by way of a brief touristy stop in Mt. Airy's Main Street, and spent the weekend at the Davis/Beavers/Sparks family reunion. (Frank is an "honorary" Davis, and his mother was a Beavers.) It was my fifth time at this gathering, and I saw a lot of folks I remembered, and some of them even remembered me. Sweet people, good cooks...so much food.

By the way, happy 80th birthday to the best father-in-law in the world! After getting to spend Mom's birthday with her last month, it was a treat to be able to spend the day with Frank on his birthday this month.

Great-grandparenting happened a lot this week:

Friends: The Sugar Creek Quilters were here as usual on Monday night, and I got twelve more Celtic Solstice blocks pieced since I'd spent Sunday afternoon putting my sets of block pieces together into stacks. Then Thursday was Greenville Quilters Guild pot luck dinner as well as regular meeting, so I got there early around 3:30 and quilted with Paula until time to eat, then quilted a bit more until time to meet. We had an AWESOME show and tell this month. Many new members, and several of them brought quilts or quilt projects underway to show!

Finished Projects: I was so motivated by my progress on Monday night that I sat down Tuesday morning and got the rest of my Celtic Solstice blocks made...and started assembling rows. As it is with many projects, I found the errors in my block construction as the rows came together, and had to spend a bit of time unsewing and resewing a few four-patches. It turned out great, and now I'm rethinking my border fabric. So far so good, though. I pieced CS geese for the border at guild, and have a few more of those to go.

That's about it...oh, yeah, fitness. NOTHING. I walked a bit, made quite a few trips in and out of the guild meeting, stood over my frame for a while...but not one bit of progress. I think my brain just will not commit to anything because our summer has been so full of one shake-up to the routine after another. Lots of company means company cooking (and Yoder's and Simply Natural Creamery)...but I think I'm seeing the return of a schedule with the beginning of September. September will be Whole30 month for me, and I'm going to start up on P90X3 again. That's the plan. It's a good plan. It works. I'm going to work that plan. (Stay tuned to see if I do.)

I finished another quilt this week (I'll post it on my Week 5 recap), and it caused me to do a quick evaluation of the quilts I've finished this year (not in order of completion):

Cross & Crown
Pilgrimage (commission)
Alphabet Soup
Scrumptious Squares
Lakeside Roses
Persimmon Tweet
Christmas Vacation
Checkerboard
Ravi's Tees (commission)
Lakeside Runner
Dalmatian Christmas mini

Other than Dalmatian Christmas, everything has been begun and finished in 2015 (not really UFQs). When I finish Celtic Solstice, it'll be my first significantly-sized UFQ completed this year. I'd like to say I'm going to focus on UFQs for the rest of the year, but it's just not true. I have about 20 projects lined up to piece and quilt that are brand new ideas and fabrics. My 50/50 idea is not working out so far.

That's all I have time for, and it's fine. This week has not been conducive to self-reflection. Let's hope I get a bit more quiet time in the next few weeks!

Week 3 Recap

August arrived, and the first nine days have flown by. I'm not sure I've been as actively "focused" on my five areas this week, or just swept away by the currents of activity. Either way, it's been busy.

You'll recall my five areas of focus this year: Faith, Family, Friends, Fitness, and Finished Projects. So far, Fitness is definitely getting the short end of the stick, although I include things like adequate rest, stress management, and sunshine in that category, so this week was better than the previous two.

On August 1, our entire tribe made a trek to the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro. We've lived in NC for 11 years, and this was the first time we've gone to the zoo! It's about a three hour drive from where we live, so it took some coordination and planning. We chose a great day--HOT, but beautiful weather--and managed to get all 8 of our gang, plus two other sets of nearly-family (pseudo-family? quasi-family?) to all go with us. My dear Mallory bit off the large task of making everyone a t-shirt, custom-drawn with each person's animal of choice, and Dennis and I made the trip with Maggie & Matt. What a fun day! We laughed, snacked and cuddled our way all around the zoo. We walked all day, made reasonable food choices, and got lots of fresh air and sunshine. I'd call zoo day a "win" in the fitness category!

On August 2, we had a great worship experience in the morning, then Dennis and I *finally* made a flight over to Howard's Pub on Ocracoke Island for lunch. Typically we'd like to fly over several times a year, but this spring has been so wet and the weather has been so inconsistent...and then we've had lots of company. It was a fun flight over, a marvelous lunch of fresh wahoo and crab cakes, and then a great trip home that even gave us time to nap when we got back!

Monday I did some quick house prep for my family (including grocery-stocking), and then continued working on my Celtic Solstice project. I got a lot of pieces sewn while catching up with my dearest friends at quilting on Monday night. It'll feel great to finish the Celtic Solstice project this month!

My brother and his girls traveled to Virginia Beach for the Jr. Olympics track events, where his older daughter had qualified to run in the 800m, 1500m, and 4x800m relay. She ran Monday and Tuesday, then they came down to our house for a short but wonderful visit Tuesday-Thursday. They came 3 years ago to meet our first granddaughter Gingersnap, then came again the following summer for Maggie's wedding, but it was so good for them to come and meet Gumdrop, who turned 7 months old while they were here. We had lots of family fun while they were in town. We ate too much (another Yoder's trip, another Creamery trip!), drank too much (so weird to have a house full of adults), laughed just the right amount...and marveled at how tall everyone is getting and how much older we must be. This one is from 2012...

What a difference three years makes! 2015...

I spent Thursday and Friday and Saturday with my Gingersnap. Like parents of young children everywhere, her mommy was feeling a bit sleep deprived, so we had Grams-sleepovers for two nights, and we binge-watched a lot of cartoons (including introducing her to Fraggle Rock), as well as lots of playtime. She earned a great mask and a date out to Five Guys with her marvelous behavior. She's growing up fast.

I'd say the big wins for this week personally were the Family and Friends categories. We were so busy just enjoying each other all week. It kept my kitchen hopping and my sewing machines very deprived.

On the other hand, I met with a new customer on Saturday, who commissioned me to finish eight quilts that her mother had pieced but was unable to complete before she passed away several years ago. Five of them are very large (queen or king-sized) quilts, with three smaller art pieces. I'll get to work on those during September and October. I already have August full, so I'm just a few pieces away from finishing out my 2015 calendar at Island Time Quilting. What a joy it has been to work from home, around my life and family and doing exactly what I adore.

What's up for next week? I'll be finishing a couple of projects for clients, and piecing the Celtic Solstice for myself, as well as quilting two pieces I have prepared for the frame. I will pick up my new workbook for Community Bible Study, and praying for the women who will be in my Core Group this year. I cannot wait to see what the Lord teaches me through this year's study. We'll have Greenville Quilters Guild on Thursday, including a "yard sale" where if I'm good, I may have a few things to sell or trade. :) And next weekend, I'll travel with Dennis to Virginia for a fun family reunion, and get to visit with his parents (who I hope are coming here the following week!). Onward and upward...week four will be as busy as ever.

Lori

Week Two Report: Where are my priorities?

Not on Fitness, I guarantee you that. Sigh.

Week two has come and gone (well, as good as gone) and I'm still not making my physical health a priority. I'm just NOT. I eat when I'm hungry (and not always the best choices), and I sleep when I want to (and not for enough hours each night), and I do not exercise. I do not. I have actively chosen NOT to exercise when I claim I want to "get healthy" and what I really mean is take up less space. You know, wear smaller pants. To be honest, I don't even have a plan. Actually, I do have a plan. My plan is to fill my day with so many things to do that I don't "have time" to exercise. UGH.

What about faith? Well, again, I'm so glad I don't earn salvation, because I'd be doomed. Ha! I'm really looking forward to getting in the routine of Community Bible Study, but no matter how uplifting some of the fiction is that I read (Brothers Karamazov is a doozy, y'all), I'm just not spending enough of my long summer days in the Word. I am grateful that I have always used my quilting time as prayer time, but I'm going to have to stop sewing for a little while and start reading and feeding my soul.

Family...Friends...Finished Project--these are my areas of success. We had a marvelous time at our "Christmas in July" sewing day on Saturday. I hung out with a different bunch of friends than my typical Monday night crowd. We ate too much, laughed a lot, and heard each other's woes and wisdom.

We had a surprise visit Saturday evening from Dennis's sister who is working in DC so she was able to catch the train down for a quick visit to see Gumdrop for a first visit. We had a Christmas dinner on Saturday night with all the children, and laughed at baby antics.  Family time continued on to Sunday morning. We went to 8:30 worship, then ducked out to Cracker Barrel for brunch and back to Mallory's house for more time to visit. After we took Claudette back to Wilson to catch the afternoon train, we managed to get the requisite Sunday afternoon nap, and I even got some work done.

This week, I had three client projects. I quilted two in the frame on Monday, and got their bindings attached by Thursday. Monday night I had a smaller crowd than typical, but it meant that Paula, April and I could try to outtalk each other. (I'm sure I won.) It was a red-letter night, because April arrived early and actually sewed! She's got a fun new project planned, so it's just a matter of practice and choosing fabrics for her, and she'll be off. Paula was working on the new project from Christmas in July, and I had a leftovers quilt to piece from scraps from Gumdrop's baby quilt. I guess my project was "new" but it also falls under scrap management. Either way, it was a stress buster!

My third client quilt for the week was a vintage top. I had a friend come over on Wednesday and bring me a large quilt her mom had pieced (probably in 1980 or late 1970s), so we loaded it and talked through the quilting process, then went out for a lovely lunch. That's two weeks in a row of successfully having lunch with a friend at least one day. It would be cool to do that 50 times in a row this year. Who's up for next week?

We had a spontaneous dinner invitation on Wednesday night at the Gwennaps, and it was so much fun to just sit and visit with Todd and Jenn and their lively bunch of children, who taught us that 'sert is the best part of the meal. It's so fun to know people who are just your kind of people...the same kind of weird as us. Even a generation apart. Oh, and Jenn is a great cook. Yum.

I started a new project for "Christmas in July" and got it pieced on Sunday evening. I had to order border fabric and flannel for the back, but both arrived on Wednesday, so it's ready to finish! Believe it or not, I'm running out of batting (at this rate!), so I've got to make a trip to town to buy two more 30 yard bundles of 80/20 and bamboo, my favorites. I think I counted five quilts for me that are ready to be quilted, and about that many client quilts in the queue. My sweet little machine is busy!

I still have a mountainous pile of projects waiting to be pieced and completed. My next two UFQs are a Civil War reproduction/traditional quilt, and my Celtic Solstice that has many parts to go. Stacked up and waiting for me are several bundles of fabric...a Christmas applique quilt, a red and beige quilt, a blue and tan quilt, some great Daysail fabric by Bonnie & Camille, a whole Halloween fat quarter bundle, and then lots more Scrumptious scraps. Speaking of scraps, I have an entire upstairs (two rooms full!) of stash fabric waiting for me to SLOW DOWN enough to fold and organize it. Scrap management is a bane of my existence, but I just have yardage that is in piles and I don't even remember why I bought it. That's the challenge of a 25 year old stash.

Okay, so what's up for week 3? Well, my dear brother John and his two beautiful daughters are arriving on Sunday. Mira is running in the NATIONALS in Virginia Beach. That child can RUN. So, he's going to be in and out all week long, plus we may spend two days up there so we can actually attend a race or two. I'll have quilters over as usual on Monday, and for a few of them, it'll be 3+ weeks of "catching up" because July was crazy-busy for all of us.

Saturday is August 1. I don't know if that's the magic number I was waiting for to get my act in gear with exercise and diet and quiet times...but we'll see if my priorities begin to shift. Obviously I can't get any busier...but I can definitely find some balance. Stay tuned for the report from week three.

Week 1 Report: Focused on Finishing, Friends and Family

Last week, I shared that I planned FIVE areas of focus for the next fifty weeks:

1) Faith
2) Family
3) Friendships
4) Fitness (and I lied when I called it FUN)
5) Finished Projects (50/50, new and previously-begun)

So, now that the first week of intention is over, what did I do?

I had ONE day that I made my quiet time a priority. (To be fair, the week isn't over, so I might make it three days...but it's not looking promising. Sigh.) I don't have a legalistic requirement to "do" things to earn my salvation (and thank goodness, because what a wretched person I am!), but it sure would be nice to do what I intend. You know the verse...the very thing I intend to do, I don't do, and the very thing I plan not to do, well, that's what I do. #goodcompany I'm very grateful to the extremely edifying and enlightening teaching at worship last weekend, and a wonderful Sunday School discussion on intergenerational relationships. I also had a full day of preparing for Community Bible Study's children's ministry craft projects, and got to spend that day with Mallory and the girls as well. I'm a fan when the areas of my life allow for multiple focuses at the same time. It was awesome to see how well Gumdrop does when passed from person to person for hours. She's a really chill baby. Her redheaded sister was and is not, but she had a great day playing with older girls all day.

My family and I had a great week. I spent a couple of days with the Grands, especially last Friday morning with both girls while Mallory got a much needed break, and then all afternoon with the three of them. I got to hold a sleeping baby for more than two hours that day, and that is a perfectly wonderful use of my time.

 Gumdrop sleeps with her eyes open. I can't decide if it's self-defense. It's adorable, anyway.

Dennis and I had a lovely date night with a nice dinner thanks to a not-yet-spent Christmas gift card, then Ant-Man at the movies. We had a great time serving our first Community Crossroads Center dinner meal (formerly known as the Greenville Community Shelter), along with good friends and our precious Maggie.

I have fabulous friends. Paula stopped by Monday afternoon to visit after her weekend away at a wedding. Barb, Liz and Laura all came over on Monday to sew and visit at our regular Sugar Creek Quilters, and Barb is nice enough to bring Ricky for Dennis. Just as the others were leaving, April arrived, and we had a great time catching up and planning her next project. Then Tuesday, I had a great lunch at Coffee Shack with my sweet friend Ainslie. We had much to celebrate and share and catch up on and cry about. We agreed that we should do that more often, so I'm putting it on my calendar again next month. It's nice to be in a stage of life where I can set some lunch appointments. We also had fun friend times with our EAA crowd on Thursday evening.

Then there's fitness. I did NOTHING. NADA. SQUAT. No, no squats. Anyway, I am still just as fluffy and lazy as I was a week ago. This is an area that I must change my mind about, or I'm going to be exactly as I am (or worse) in 49 more weeks. So, more on that next week!

Finally, as far as finished projects go...well, this month has been PHENOMENAL. I finished Maggie's Cross & Crown quilt (named "Yellow Roses, Lakeside"), Bev's Alphabet Soup, Scrumptious Squares is all bound and ready to gift, and my to-do list has only two partially-pieced projects on it! I counted SEVEN quilts I finished this month, despite travel, family visits and lots of time with friends and family. My focus was really on OLD projects, not new ones, but I do have a few project piles ready to be started.

Yes, I routinely have on one sock. So what? :)

In fact, tomorrow I'm hosting "Christmas in July" with my quilting friends (and am expecting a different set than were here on Monday, so that's fun in and of itself!), and I'm starting a new project I've collected for my house. It's "Gingerbread Village" from The Quilt Company, and it should be very challenging.

I'd say week one was a great week...and perhaps it was too busy to also make fitness much of a priority. (Says the queen of excuses...) There's always next week!

50 Weeks to 50

I had a square birthday at the beginning of the month (you know, 7-squared?), which means a birthday ending in a zero is just around the corner. Due to craziness of life, I was away on a mission trip on my typically-self-reflection-filled anniversary of birth, and then have had a wonderful first half of July with family in town to celebrate my perfect mom and her own day-ending-in-a-zero. Plus, her little sequel/namesake was baptized on Sunday, and D's cousin and family stopped by for two days...anyway, fun family times ensued!

But I finally had a quiet day of meditation and reflection yesterday (which is what I call days when I stay home and do laundry), and set some focus areas for the next fifty weeks as I approach the magic number of 50. When I set goals, it's really about budgeting my time. I have a terrible habit of looking around at bedtime and asking, "What did I do today?" but if I really, really work at it, I can schedule and achieve actual desired outcomes each day...little things that add up to the life I want to live over the course of a year. I have been using the Passion Planner, and I really like the calendar and planning features, especially when it comes to brainstorming what I want five years from now, or a year from now, or just three months from now.

First, my priority category is FAITH. I've gotten so busy this summer that I've been saying things like, "Hey, God, great day, thanks for it!" and crashing off to sleep. Or, "Hey, God, today's got a lot going on, so hang with me and hold me up, 'kay?" But generally I like to have a bit more theology in my life than that, so I'm ready to set aside time and schedule my day around our date time together. Once CBS starts back in the fall, I have Thursdays with the ladies as part of my routine, which in turn pushes good quality study and reading on my daily work. But I include in this category all the things I do to lean fully on the Gospel every day, including things I do to love on other people and to love my city where God has placed me. So, I'm stepping up my charitable works and my social involvement in areas that are important to me, and that's all part of my FAITH.

Next, FAMILY. You'll notice that three of my five categories are relational, and that's typical of me. I set all these relational goals, then I focus on the ones I "can control" (when will I give up the mythology that I am in control of anything????). Anyway, I am prioritizing my FAMILY over the next year. It's not that I've ignored my family. Hey, I home schooled my kids, and I love their husbands, and I have seen both my sister and parents already this summer...and my brother is coming next month. You only have to follow my Instagram to know that I adore my beautiful granddaughters, Gingersnap and Gumdrop (so cool they have aliases). But I want to be more intentional in our relationships, so they go on my calendar first. Plus, my girls have gotten very busy with their active lives, and it's only fair and respectful for me to treat our time together as precious. Scheduling them in regularly is important to me. You'd think that since we all live in the same town we see each other routinely, but that is not the case without intentionality. My FAMILY deserves more than an occasional text of a funny meme.

After that...FRIENDSHIPS. I have lived here eleven years (next month), and I have been blessed with some long-time friendships. Not only do I have the Sugar Creek Quilters who come over every week, and who have raised teenagers with me, married off kids with me, and become grandparents with me...or at least continue to do life with me...but I also have an amazing church family, a sweet small group, and precious friends through D's flying club. I'm going to focus on being a better friend, and intentionally make time to deepen those relationships. They are my people.

Okay, so after the relational areas...what are those mythical areas I can control? Well, I'm calling it FITNESS FUN, but I'm not sure my brain believes it yet. Even so, I'm scheduling my Whole9Life around all the areas that I need for physical and emotional balance. You know I'm human, right? I'm not sure I remember that all the time. It's one reason I "retired" from teaching, because often both the organization and I forgot that I was human. Turns out, I'm still forgetting. So, you'll see me set aside time for nutrition, training, sleep (who needs sleep? Oh, I guess I do.), stress management, socialization, getting my nature on (natural environment), personal growth, fun & play, and temperance. Yes, temperance. If you wonder about these categories, check out Whole9Life. You've probably heard of Whole30, because it's all the buzz right now, but a balanced life is way more than nutrition.

Last, but certainly not least, is a category I'm calling 50/50 FINISHED PROJECTS. It's going to include room for new projects and completion of previously begun "unfinished" projects. What first comes to mind are my art/quilt projects, but it has implications for all other areas of my life. I'm going to divide my work time pretty equally between finishing up projects I've designed and begun, and starting new projects that excite me.

So, here's the wrap up:

Five Areas of Focus in 50 Weeks to 50

1) FAITH
2) FAMILY
3) FRIENDSHIPS
4) FITNESS FUN
5)50/50 FINISHED PROJECTS

I'm going to use this space to keep me accountable and evaluate my trajectory toward 50 as the weeks go. That means probably one post a week, which will more than double the length of this blog. The 50/50 posts will more than likely end up over at Island Time Quilting instead of here, and I'll leave all the angsty-personal stuff for this space where I just say whatever I think.

Oh, and like all good goal-setting posts...this all starts next week. Ha! My birthday falls on a Friday next year...but I'll start weeks on Sundays, so I'll be in my 50th week when I hit the magic number. I'm okay with that.

If you are local, and you want to join me on any part of this adventure, let me know! Community Bible Study meets on Thursday mornings at Grace Church from 9:45-11:45 this fall, and follows the school calendar pretty closely (so you get breaks for holidays). If you are my friend, let's schedule lunch! Or shopping! Or just coffee, if you are busy. And if you want to change the direction of your FITNESS FUN (face it, I mean feel better, sleep better, snore less, eat delicious food, and get real exercise that causes you to sweat), read It Starts With Food. I'm reading it again to see what my brain needs to believe to get serious about healthy living.

And as always, Quilters...I love to see what you are doing, and you know I'm going to post about mine. Sorry for your luck if you don't like quilts.

50 weeks to 50! (You should see the goofy things I'll write as goals for 55...)

Evening Prayer

O Lord, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights; Give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey thy godly motions in righteousness, and true holiness, to thy honour and glory, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made and dost forgive the sins of all them that are penitent; Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins, and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.