Girls' Night In

It started like this: lots of years ago, when "the boys" – Art and Nick and Tim – would all go off on to Saturday night Priesthood session of Conference together, Sarah and I inaugurated "Girls' Night Out." It used to be simple. We'd go out for dinner and talk about whatever we wanted without snide remarks from the boys. Then, when Laura joined the family, she joined Girls' Night Out. Only then the boys started complaining that they wanted to go out to dinner too. So we started experimenting on other activities and saving the food for later. Pretty soon Aubrey joined us and I finally had all the daughters I was going to get. (YAY! three!) So we've made pottery and had pedicures. But this year, I had a brainstorm.

I've always said that when I retired I was going to quilt. I guess I thought I wouldn't have time till then. But then when I officially became an empty-nester last fall, I decided to move it up and start now, before I retire. So in February I went to a class, all by myself, to learn how to make a patchwork quilt top. I was shocked to find that the room was not full of old retired women and empty-nesters like me, but of younger women and moms, many accompanied by sisters and even 9- or 10-year-old daughters. What?? This hobby isn't just for old gray-hairs? And it's a family thing? I could have shared this with my daughter as she was growing up? And then it hit me! Girls' Night Out!! Perfect.

Only this would be Girls' Night In with 3 sewing machines and a cutting table and lots of advance work done.

So, last week Laura and Aubrey came with me to another class held at a quilt store where we picked out fabrics, pressed them, cut them, and Laura even started stitching!




Then, Saturday (April 4), when Sarah was free, she bought her fabric and joined the fun. While the boys were at Priesthood the girls were cutting, pressing, stitching, and chatting. Babies were playing the floor or rocking in my lap.

We're all about quilting now. Yep, all of us girls. There's just something about picking fabrics of every shade and hue, design, and feel to perfectly fit our personalities. Then we cut and match and pin and stitch. Quilting appeals to the perfectionist in us; the need for control and perfect outcomes; the delight of something unique and beautiful and totally individual. And quilting stretches across generations and cultures and stories are born with every quilt that's made.

Laura will tell her first daughter that this is the quilt she picked with a yet unknown child in mind.

And Aubrey has chosen her quilt for Maya, who loves both bright colors AND blankets – so what could be more perfect than combining the two?


And Sarah will remember her first year of marriage, her first home with her new husband, his eager interst in the colors she chose and the patterns she made.


Quilting isn't just about the past – it's about the present, and I'm guessing, about future too.

A Tale of the Tree Streets

We moved there when I was six. They said it had once been acres of orchards, remaining now only in memory and a few remaining fruit trees here and there. My parents bought a small house on Cedar, and with that, gave me a lifetime of memories. Elementary school, junior high, high school. Then a newer home on a new tree street, and college. Later my parents built their final home on Locust where they welcomed grandbabies, watched them grow, and housed them when it was their turn for college.

Now the time has come to move family out and rent the home to strangers. How can we do that? They won't know about the first little house on Cedar. We had neighbors there, the Finlaysons, who had a traveling carnival every summer. And every spring as they cleaned and repaired their equipment to get ready for a new season, every child in the tree streets got a free ride on the ferris wheel. Sometimes going around and around for so long it seemed like hours, breeze blowing through our hair, popsicles melting and staining our shirts and shorts - time disappeared until one by one the mothers came out on their porches to holler their children home for dinner. And then after dinner, and dishes, we left again, screen doors slamming, to run through the neighborhood playing hide and seek, made all the more exciting in the darkness.

There were no fences then. We "cut through" wherever we needed to make the trip shorter; children were allowed this privilege. We all walked wherever we went, so why not? Even in high school I cut through the Crandalls, through the Bernhards, through the Bullocks, climbed a tree and hopped a fence into the Larsens' back yard where Sara, my best friend, lived. Then we'd walk the "long way" past the Clarks, her cousins. And back down Cherry Lane, past the Bowdens, and oh, so many more familiar names.

We rollerskated as kids with those turn-key roller skates - all the way south on Cherry Lane and around past theHeatons and the Hartvigsens, down the hill onto Apple. Scary corner. If you weren't in control you could fall, and nobody had helmets and knee pads. We just learned to head for the nearest patch of grass if we felt a fall coming on. And we biked up and down the tree streets and around the blocks and past the canal on Birch. Sometimes we even went tubing through the canal when it still ran through Heritage Halls. We could stop in to Carson's Market for a treat, but Mr. Carson didn't like kids much. We ran errands there for our moms, but didn't hang around.

When I married and moved away I loved taking my own children to visit Grandma and Grandpa on Locust. There they met their cousins and ran to play in the orchard behind the house. On the 4th of July we had a "cookout" with hamburgers and hotdogs and games, and then always sleepy children waiting impatiently in deck chairs as we looked toward the stadium, only a mile away as the crow flies, to watch the fireworks before heading home. When the oldest cousins were teens at one of these midsummer gatherings, they were trying out all the latest appreciative adjectives for each new display in the sky: Awesome! Rad! Sweet! We asked my dad, What did you say during World War II when you saw fireworks like these? His answer? DUCK!

And now he's gone and my mom is living close to me where it's now my turn to take care of her after all her many years of taking care of all of us. But how can there not be a Dunn, or a descendant of a Dunn, in the tree streets? We buried treasure there along ditch banks, thinking no one would ever find it - not even thinking, really, that we would ever grow up. But we did. And there is treasure there. But it's not buried. It's in every leaf of the maple trees that line the streets; every bump in the sidewalk that we walked, skated, and biked; every window that still lights with friendly light each evening. There is something magical there that will never leave.

It may be the end of an era for the Dunns, and maybe it's time to share that magic with someone else. But I know, and my mother knows, and my brother knows, and our children know that something special was ours for a while -- and really, always will be.

The End of the Cat Era

January - February were tough months around our house in some ways. My sweet Brindle, our torty-tabby female cat, had to be put to sleep on Jan. 2, just before we left for Costa Rica. She was having trouble breathing and it just got so bad she couldn't even sleep, eat -- nothing but struggle for air. Her end was peaceful and merciful, and we were thankful we still had one "healthy" diabetic, hyperthyroid cat at home. Rob and Sarah house and cat-sat while we were gone, and things seemed normal when we got back.

Sadly, within a couple of weeks, Tiger stopped eating too. He was vomiting and very lethargic. We took him to the vet and they said his kidneys were probably off and to see if we could tempt him back on to any food at all. So we bought his favorite Fancy Feast soft food and hand fed him until he perked up and we thought we'd beat it. But one night Art gave him his insulin at bedtime and Tiger chose not to eat during the night. He was in diabetic shock the next morning and was having seizures. He even lashed out at us which he had NEVER done. So off to the vet again. Not good news, but we asked that they put him on IV all day, just to keep him alive so that we could gather the kids. Tim and Aubrey joined us that evening as we kissed him goodbye also. We now have no pets and no kids in a great big quiet house. Very empty. It's been tougher than I would have thought, and we can't replace the cats because of Aubrey's cat allergies, so we're having to learn to move on. How do you do that?

On the positive side, my job is going well, I'm making my first patchwork quilt, and my mother is healthy for her age. Best of all, spring will soon be here, and my roses will bloom again. My grandchildren are the cutest things EVER, and the gospel is true. I give thanks every day for the good things. Believe me, I recognize that I am greatly blessed. I have some more nostalgia to share in the next post, and then "movin' on"!