Has it been 8 years?

I made myself baste at least one quilt before sitting down to blog today. Two more quilts-for-hire to baste, one of them is another S. Sue...

But I haven't been thinking much about the work at hand, instead I'm thinking of Mother.

Marilyn Johnson
June 11, 1932 - May 31, 2000

Huh. I had to look that up. I thought she was born in 1933, but I've got 1932 in ink in my daughter's baby book. For some reason I thought this would have been Mother's 75th birthday, but I guess it would have been 76. She always wanted her age to be a mystery, "Let them guess!" and she didn't want to get old. She kind of got her wish, although not the way she'd wished it. She wanted to be young in spirit, but with length of years. I guess it's one of those "be careful what you wish for" scenarios...you just might get it.

This is one of my favorite pictures of her. I took it at the Lair of the Bear, the Cal Alumni camp in the Sierra Nevadas. She looks so relaxed and happy. She always looked like this when she was at the Lair. Usually she posed for pictures, but not this one. The only other picture I have in which she looks this relaxed and happy is one that was taken at our wedding reception. She was beaming. :) Good memories. :)

Thanks for walking down Memory Road with me. I guess it's time to get back to work. Those quilts won't baste themselves...