Remembering Rosita

November Gratitude Day 3 : Love. My beloved Aunt Rosita is fading away in Hospice as I write this.

She and my mom got me into quilting back in 2004. A few years ago, I made a quilt for my Unca Ray (her husband). It was a Red Barn Quilt--because he grew up on one of those classic Wisconsin Family Farms with a Red Barn. While Auntie has been so sick these past few months, she sort of "took over" that Red Barn Quilt. My mom told me today that very Red Barn Quilt covers her now in Hospice in her final days.  She is wrapped in Love.  If you are a quilter, you know what an incredible honor that is! I can't be there in person, but I am there in spirit.

 Photo from Quilt Camp in 2010.    

Holly Matucheski (Ma), Rosita (in red), me and Carrie Z.

From Quilt Camp 2009.

Rosita, me and Holly (Ma)

Though Rosita and my mom were sisters-in-law, many people thought they were blood sisters, or Mother and daughter.  An honest mistake : See the resemblance?

It was my Birthday.  ;-)

This quilt top was made by my Aunt Rosita in her Quilting Connection class at Cutting Edge Quilt Shop in Antigo, WI. When she showed it to me, I liked it so much that she gave it to me, along with the book. - See more at: http://sweetleafnotes.blogspot.com/search?q=bargello#sthash.s4OoS6Sb.dpuf

This quilt top was made by Rosita.  She'd taken a class on Twisted Bargello Quilts.  I liked it so much she gave it to me.  I finished the quilting on it and got to keep it.  I brought this quilt to put on display at her funeral.   There were MANY of her quilts there.  Her specialty was machine embroidery.

Here's a link to Rosita's toffee recipe.  She would bring this over on Christmas.  Yum!

Every time I would go home to visit my parents, Ray and Rosita would come for dinner.  I saw them almost every time I went back home.  They sort of took the place of the grandparents in our family after Gramma and Grappa Matucheski died.  They became the kindly, funny, and encouraging elders of the family.

Saturday-After-Thanksgiving in Oshkosh 2012 :

Farewell, Mike

We lost a family friend last weekend.  Mike Clark -- May he rest in peace.

This is from a March day in 2004 at Cherokee Marsh, one of my all-time favorite places in the world.
Mike and Caroline liked it, too.  Mike wanted to go there for his birthday that year.  And we got to go along.

Mike and Caroline were the adults who watched over me when I lived in Madison during my college years and after.  I am still grateful for their friendship, and gentle guidance.  Such kind and interesting people, reading great books, and traveling the world.  And their kids were really interesting people, too!

I met Caroline when I worked at the Cancer Prevention Clinic on the UW campus.  When Dr Love lost interest and moved on to other projects, Caroline told me to go down to the Health Science Library, that they'd give me a job.  They did ...  and every time I needed a job, they hired me in the ILL Dept.  After I got my Masters in Library & Info Studies, they hired me as a professional Librarian.  That's when I got to work with Mike.  He took care of the computers there -- back when Medline was updated with a dozen CD-Roms that had to be installed on a tower.  Mike would load them to a test server, and he wanted me to search on it, try to break it, and figure out if things were working as it should before he made it live.  Although he knew the computer end of it, he wasn't a searcher.   It was the best of both worlds.  I liked working with Mike -- It was a tempo thing.  He was quiet, but content, and a much calmer pace than the usual fray.

Farewell, Mike.