Is it Wednesday already?

I'm tucked up in my basement studio wondering if it is too soon to start a fire in my wood stove! It's definitely chilly, but I know when I fire up the beast, I'll soon open the windows and doors and try not to cook. This is one powerful wood stove....and it HEATS.

I do love the coziness and crackle of a wood fire....and candles burning....and hot tea in a big mug! My favorite things about late fall/winter.

The 3rd quilt is on the bed, adding a delicious weight and keeping all the warmth in. I love sleeping all tucked up, surrounded in my little quilt cocoon, one cat on either side preventing me from rolling in either, or any, directon! I think the best sleep comes with a cold nose, don't you agree?

This morning I was pondering on the feeling of GRATITUDE. Here in the US, our Thanksgiving is approaching. And you know what? This past 10 days off has given me the opportunity to just slow down and be grateful for little things.

The change of season outdoors, the smell of autumn in the air, the beauty of the falling leaves, the adventure of making it from the backdoor to the hottub without being beaned by falling acorns!

Are you too busy, too rushed, too hectic, so much on your plate that you don't even think about the joy of feeling grateful? I know I have been guilty of this. I'm not talking necessarily feeling grateful in any kind if "religious" way. We all have our own convictions, I am just talking about the little ordinary-every-day beauties that we can miss in our rush to get to the next "to-do" on our lists. There is joy in the mundane routine day-in-day-out doings. We just have to see them and acknowledge them with a smile and a nod to life for giving it to us so abundantly.

Okay, so this post isn't even quilt-related. It's just how I'm feeling this morning. But to put a bit of quilt-speak in here, I've been BUSY! The mystery quilt is now quilted, and I'm ready to start binding! HA! ((How's that for rubbing it in?!)) And I am loving the chatter I am reading on the quiltville friends page on facebook, and on the quiltvillechat@yahoogroups.com list about the colors that people are planning on and the excitement is building....and I am so grateful for all of this abundance too!

I'm busy quilting a baby quilt for a friend expecting her first grandchild. I'm sure she is feeling excitement and gratitude.....it's palpable! The expectation.....

Today is also a mundane chore kind of day, but I'm doing it with gratitude. I'm doing laundry! ((But I have a stacked hi-efficiency washer and dryer, I'm not pounding clothing on a rock down by the river!)) I've got book orders to mail out! ((I'm grateful for each and every one of those orders and the people they bring across my path!)) I've got to pack a suitcase, repack the trunk show, get all settled and sorted for a trip to Michigan in the morning. ((I'm grateful to be flying and to be there in a few short hours, vs DRIVING it like I did last October!))

Let's face it! If the worst thing that happens to me today is crawling groggily out of a warm bed and stepping barefootedly into dog puke on the way to the bathroom...I've got it pretty darned great!

I have my eyes to see, my ears to hear, my heart to love, my hands to sew. I have a roof over my head, a beyond-life-expectancy basement full of fabric and miscellaneous quilt-neccessities. I have family, terrific friends, and you.

For it all...I'm grateful!