Lonesome Heart ~ Mom's Week?

Doggie destruction ~

As I struggled with the bobbin on the sewing machine, I thought to myself, "Mom would know how to fix this!  Stupid sewing machine.  This is the most finicky sewing machine I've ever used!"  I struggled with it for 20 minutes, then finally got it to work.  I was attempting to sew up the holes that my dog had chewed in my backpack, the one I use everyday to go to and from work and carry my lunch.

My mom taught me how to sew.  We spent countless afternoons sewing in the "little room", a den in our Michigan farmhouse.  She also taught me to pack my lunch everyday.  It's rare to have a day that I don't bring my own lunch to work.

This Mother's Day hit me a little harder than most years.  I'm not really sure why.  I started out getting some old photo albums out so that I could scan and post some photos, and ended up crying, looking at how happy I was alongside my mom and the rest of my family.  I really miss being a kid growing up in the Midwest.  So much has changed.  Ahh, adulthood! It feels kind of surreal to think that we live this life trying to find a purpose in it.  Meeting new people and thinking of our future and our past.  I do like to think of how past and future collide in the present.

Patch job ~

Why was I sewing up my backpack at 9pm?  I had gone to an Honors for Nursing banquet (I was an invited guest, for my efforts as a preceptor for the University of Utah College of Nursing) and figured I would talk my friend Suzanne into going (she was also invited, but a little on the fence over whether she wanted to go or not).  Unfortunately, the dogs did not want me to go, and I had left my backpack by the front door on the floor with the remnants of my lunch in it.  The smell of traces of food on the Tupperware were too intoxicating for Franklin to ignore, and he took the pack out the dog door into the back yard and proceeded to dismantle...

Franklin wearing my name tag,
attempting to make me smile.

I was so frustrated to find what I did when I got home.  I'd just had a lovely (free) dinner with friends and gotten a free umbrella, too!  And I come home to 3 pounds of organic sweet potatoes gone, a Tupperware chewed up, and a favorite backpack with holes in it.  I threw the backpack in the trash, but then retrieved it and resolved to put my skills to work on it.  The whole time, as I struggled with the sewing machine, I thought, "Mom would be able to figure this out if she were here!"  And I scowled at the dog and told him how disappointed I was in him.  I took off my name tag from the dinner and stuck it on his head, so that I would laugh at him instead of continuing to be angry.

I got the backpack patched up (after a couple hours of work).  It actually was a good project and sharpened my sewing skills up again after not using them for a while.  I'm pleased with how things turned out:  the backpack, and my life.

Suzanne at the Nursing banquet,
showing off her new umbrella.