Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement The Tulip Tree We picked up a beautiful flower lying with many other blooms on the ground in a wooded area. Craning our necks, we looked up to see a lovely mass of flowers blooming far above our heads on a Tulip Tree. What a spectacular sight. The tree

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement Patches A rescued turtle living at the Virginia Living Museum is named Patches because the museum managed to patch his broken shell when he was brought to his new home. Unable to live in the wild any more, he enjoys good care, a healthy diet, and safety in the

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement Sherbet The Virginia Living Museum found the perfect name for the unusually colored snake brought to the animal center. His name is Sherbet because of his orange and white coloring. The snake is actually quite pretty if you can use that word for a snake. He is a partial

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement Faces Faces, the faces of people I love. Your faces that’s what I miss most in the midst of this Pandemic. I even miss encountering faces I don’t know at all, but had the privilege to see as I used to walk into a store or when I used

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement Easter Resilience The Webster’s dictionary defines the adjective resilient as, “capable of withstanding shock without permanent deformation or rupture.” Resilience, the noun, is “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” With the historical coronavirus pandemic raging around us, our circumstances scream for resilience. We

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement Spring Blooms I love the perky daffodils, cheery forsythia, and ornamental pear trees bearing lovely blossoms. After the cold and gray skies of winter, the appearance of first spring flowers always surprises me. The weather seems way too chilly for flowers, yet there they are in all their splendor,

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement Coronavirus The TV news is enough to make us want to climb in bed, pull the covers over our head and say, “Wake me when it’s over.” How many young couples across the nation are experiencing the frustration of scraping eagerly awaited wedding plans? A huge disappointment, but everything

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement Raining Cats and Dogs—or Fish? We were enjoying a perfect day for a walk, not too cold nor too hot. Sunshine and lovely spring blossoms brought a bounce to our steps. We were wondering about the name of some of the less common flowers when we were startled by

Mary’s Monday musings to Quilt Encouragement Screech Owl The screech Owl is a surprisingly small bird for the owl family. In contrast to his size, his large screech at night is eerie enough to send shivers down the spines of small creatures in the area as well as sends uneasiness to humans within earshot. When

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement Weakness So often, winter seems to bring colds, flu, or worse. When we recover from some sicknesses, there may follow a period of weakness as we work to recover our strength. The sense of weakness is annoying. We find our endurance seriously reduced, our muscular strength lacking, or our