Pumpkin Passion

It’s been difficult getting back into the swing of blogging again. I had so many great ideas for the 2011 Pumpkin Eatin’ Season. To start the season off I was all set to participate in NaBloPoMo’s blogging every day marathon for the month of September. My first and only post went up on September 1st but the next day, my grandmother died.

The first few weeks of September went by in a blur of activity. We made the unexpected trip to Idaho for the funeral and then there was the cleaning out of her apartment. After the chaos is when the blahs set deeply in my bones. Writing about pumpkin in the face of all that’s been going on seemed like a sacrilege. My thoughts were too melancholy for Pumpkin Passion. Eventhough I wasn’t blogging, my life has been revolving around pumpkins since July for good reasons that are better left to a future blog post.

My grandmother was the ruling matriarch of our family. As a kid, I thought she was the most glamorous adventurer to walk the planet. She left the small mormon town in Idaho where our family had lived for generations around the time that I was born. I knew her as the “Granny” that would come for visits in her fur coat and take us all out for nice dinners at the town’s most fancy restaurant. She traveled to places that this mormon kid could barely believe were real: New Orleans, Seattle, Hawaii, Ireland, and England. She was my real life celebrity.

Eventually, we moved out of Idaho and in with her while I was in high school. Moving from Idaho to Orange County, California, was a complete culture shock. She kept me sane.

From her I received my strong-as-steel independence (“God helps those that help themselves”), my wanderlust, and my love of crafting. She taught me how to sew and how to embroider. When we were cleaning out her apartment I took pictures of all the quilts, wall hangings, and embroidery that she’d been working on for years. She’d given away several pieces over the years but she still had over a 100 pieces jammed in every closet. I photographed all of her work but I thought I’d share these two with Pumpkin Passion.

I’m still sad but the blahhhs are subsiding a little.