Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Just the other day a young mother e-mailed me to tell me she enjoyed my blog very much. She also wrote that she has two children adopted from the country of China and would love to have my New Year's character to celebrate the special day.

As I worked into the evening hours to complete him, my thoughts drifted to the very beginning of my relationship with my husband and his many trips to this beautiful country. I was flooded with the memories of a heart yearning for it's other half.

It's with such sweetness that I look at the little pocket calenders I would keep by my bedside that counted down the days until Pat's return. They were days to "get through" until I would see him again.

I would peek ahead before falling asleep to the day he would return. A heart proclaiming, Pat's Home!

All the days of my marriage, my husband has been away from home more than he has been home. I can attest that the heart truly does grow fonder.

 
What my husband most enjoyed about his travels to China at a time when Westerners had been forbidden to do so for over 50 years, were the sweet faces of the children he would spy from his passing taxi. This memory has made me want to visit again my Around the World ornaments for Christmas.

When my children were little, our Christmas was filled with these little children's faces and their animal pets. They would play "I Spy" trying to be first to find the animal that matched it's child. It helped them connect with the far away places their father often visited. So look for many of these to appear this year on my blog.

For the cutest story about the time my brother tried to "Dig to China" click here.

New Year's Kiss

My third year of marriage found me once again in my Hometown, where streets and houses and yards and trees were all familiar to me. It was the place of my childhood adventures, and adolescent growing pains, and the place where courtship promised everlasting True Love. The winter months found me teaching skating at the very ice rink I had met my husband.

I was completely caught off guard my first day of work to be called to by a voice from the past. Hank was the boy of all my school girl dreams. Rakishly handsome with auburn hair and ruddy complexion, Hank was the student with ease of manner in everything he did. He had grown much taller and much broader than our childhood days. It seemed Hank also worked at the rink during his winter break from college. I couldn't believe he knew my name.

Day after day working together, I found myself the center of Hank's flirtatious attention. The school girl in me blushed with each brief encounter, my heart beat racing just a little faster.

When my last student had left the ice, I would find Hank suddenly by my side a grin from ear to ear, "Come on let's skate!" He would grab my hand and pull me across the ice, our blades and laughter the only sound in the cold winter's air. I would enter the warming room to find my husband suiting up to play hockey, Hank his fellow teammate.

An invitation by Hank to my husband and me found us entering a party of my peers. The lighting dim, the music loud, Hank surrounded by his many admirers. I stayed shyly by my husband's side as the evening drew close to the New Year. Someone distracted my husband at the stroke of midnight. Hank's voice drifted to me from across the room.

"Part the way, guys! I've been waiting for this moment all winter long." Hank locked eyes with mine, stilling the molecules of air that were between us. He made his way to me and grasped me firmly by the shoulders and bent close to my ear.

"How did I miss seeing you all those years. Pat is one lucky guy."  I felt my husband's arm slip around my side and turn me towards him for a New Year's Kiss. The words just whispered in my ear spoken again by my One True Love, "I'm one lucky guy!"

Snowman and New Year's Clock use same pattern. Cut second face circle for clock, cut into center with pinking scissors close to outside edge. Tacky Glue in place.

Please do not Pin Pattern to Pinterest.

"Digging To China"

Every kid at some point in childhood hears the expression, "If you dig deep enough, you can dig your way to China." My brother took this saying literally! He asked my Mom if could he and the neighborhood kids could dig a hole in the backyard. "Of course, just play nice." replied my Mom.

By the end of the week, my mother received a telephone call from the next door neighbor, "Peggy, I didn't know you all were getting a swimming pool." Of course my mother had no idea what she was talking about. "You had better look outside your window!"

There in the middle of our yard was a hole as wide as a small swimming pool, no brother in sight. Going close to edge of the hole, there was my brother and 12 neighborhood boys all digging furiously. "John! What are you doing!" yelled down my Mom. "Digging to China." yelled back up my brother.

My brother and I giggle to this day at the thought of the parade of neighbors that came to see the swimming pool sized hole!