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As we pack away the memories and the decorations of Christmas 2016, you can't help but look forward to 2017.  As the last week in December slips through our fingers, dreams and goals float around our hearts. I was given a gift this last week that I want to share with all of you. It seems this holiday season the process of aging has been taking a grip on those we love and it always makes one reflect on one's own life...Trying to stay out of the conversation in my brain of...how many quilts do I have left in my life...will I ever finish all my projects...I CANNOT buy another yard of fabric!!!  And then, I was given a gift...a delicious, wonderful gift that made my heart grow three times it size!!!

We were picking up a quarter of a beef from a local farmer/quilter which took us through Tumalo, a little community between Sisters and Bend, Oregon. It was a chilly morning, snow on the ground, and G was dreaming of a cup of coffee. I told him to pull over at the Tumalo Coffee House for some coffee and scones. When I went inside, I saw a pastry chef behind the counter that looked familiar?! So I yelled, "Didn't you used to volunteer at the hospital???" I yelled because somewhere in the back of my mind I knew this person was hard of hearing.

She gave me a big smile and said yes! So naturally, always being of a curious nature, I asked what she was doing here. And, so came the gift. For years we passed in the hallways of the hospital, me a busy nurse...her a busy volunteer...always saying hi but never really getting to know the story of each other's lives. Luckily, because G was craving a cup of coffee on the back roads of Deschutes County, I found out this woman, Lois Johnson, used to work for a Fortune 500 company, traveled the world, had a mountain climbing accident, kept traveling, and one day decided to go back to school to become a Microbiologist. Her husband said with all the classes and requirements she would be 90 before she would receive her PhD. He encouraged her to look into something else...something she enjoyed. So, at 66 years of age, she attended the Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Institute for 4 years, apprenticing under the tutelage of a Danish Pastry Chef in Las Vegas. What?!!!! You are only limited by the judgment and rules you force upon yourself. Life is what you want it to be and age is only a number. And so, this chance meeting has caused me not to start baking, LOL, but to release the self judging quilter in me and embrace the process from fabric purchase to creation. I am no longer going to place limitations on my dreams about all the quilts I want to make! Thank you Lois. You are my quilt angel!...and you also bake a wonderful ginger scone!