1. Getting 50 new-to-me quilt books
2. Getting an incredible addition to my fabric stash
3. Taking photographs of my morning walk with the dog: photos include the dames rockets at peak bloom, all the different kinds of ferns on our property, up river on a sunny day from the north point, Mom and Dad Goose and the 5 goslings, red peonies, purple columbine, blue bachelor buttons, white snow in summer.
4. Listening to frogs sing love songs on my birthday
5. Watching fireflies flitting among the trees
6. Creating a new garden where the planter boxes used to be.
7. Finding ways to make my mother's living conditions better in the nursing home. Creativity also means using your gifts (in my case, writing and researching) to make someone else's life better.
8. Spend a Saturday with my Mom going through old pictures so she could identify them for me. Now I can finish the huge scrapbook project I started years ago.
9. Receiving a gift of a path of red peony petals from my studio to the house from my husband.
10. Getting treated to my morning tea and a coffee for my Mom by a complete stranger at a Dunkin Donuts on Cape Cod. To keep the kindness going, I paid the toll on I-93 in Manchester, NH for the guy behind me.
11. Spending time reminiscing with my oldest brother and getting to know his youngest son over a weekend in early June.
12. Taking a trip to Cider Hill Gardens in Windsor, VT in the rain.
13. Going to the Scott Ainslie concert at Vermont Instruments
14. Finding the tern eggs down on the swimming rocks, a first for us. They are so beautiful.
15. Paddling the full length of North Hartland Lake in Hartland, Vermont
16. Making a small, towel-sized quilt of log cabin blocks left over from my big quilting book for my mother. This becomes the last quilt I ever make for her and she is buried with it.
17. Seeing Jimmy Cliff at Suicide Six with the Refugee All Stars
18. Picking blueberries at Moore's and finding a psychadelic caterpillar
19. Getting the cover story about Vermont Instruments in the July issue.
20. Seeing Rusted Root at the Hopkins Center
21. Paddling on Spectacle Pond
22. Watching a porcupine saunter across my front lawn at high noon.
23. Paddling Lake Ninevah in Mount Holly, Vermont
24. Seeing a bald eagle on our gravel patch
25. Paddling Rescue Lake in Plymouth, Vermont
26. Seeing a snake with babies just before I left for the Cape to see Mom for the last time.
27. Walking South Cape Beach with my sister and brother-in-law on a brilliant blue day with the wind in my face. We were giving Mom the space we thought she needed to move onto the next world. Two hours later, she was gone from us.
28. Appliquéing eight hearts while standing vigil for Mom.
29. Paddling Woodard Reservoir in West Bridgewater, Vermont—twice!
29. Paddling Woodard Reservoir in West Bridgewater, Vermont—twice!
30. Watching Spiky spin his cocoon.
31. Paddling on the Connecticut River from Wilder to the Montshire Museum
31. Paddling on the Connecticut River from Wilder to the Montshire Museum
32. Walking among the swirling leaves on the path through our woods.
33. Spending a long time talking with Sue over lunch not too long after I got back from the Cape. She really made me feel better.
34. Designing bling bags to gift Mom's jewelry to the people she loved.
35. Planning and executing a wonderful, warm and loving tribute to my Mom with my sister and getting to enjoy so many members of my family. Did my heart so much good.
36. Traveling to Nashua, NH with my friend Sue to visit A Quilter's Gathering and having a great time all the way down and back.
37. Organizing the stash in my newly shelved closet.
38. Create a cover that I like for the Hands-On Guide to Book Publishing for Everyone.
39. Finish my sister's quilt and love it.
40. Make a freak flag for Terry for his birthday and it's fun and he loves it.
41. Make my own website, www.sonjahakala.com.
42. Set up a photo studio.
43. Spending an hour with Michael Jarvis and learning the right way to thread the bobbin on a sewing machine.
44. Create temporary shrubs of box elder branches covered with Christmas lights in front of the house.
45. Create a candle of beach glass, a plain glass vase and a votive.
46. Start designing the first of the scrap quilts for my Marcia series.
47. Create and mail 2011 Hakalendars.
48. Visiting Kindlenook gift shop at Christmas time and realizing how much Mom is with me.
49. Getting in touch with Diane Church of the Parkinson's Center and setting up a project to donate lap quilts to folks with Parkinson's.
50. Making a small quilt from the hearts I appliquéd while I sat with Mom. The quilt will be featured on the literature for the Parkinson's symposium that takes place in April.
51. Speaking to the Parkinson's symposium and meeting a woman who used to quilt and brought pictures to show me.
52. Donating my own quilt to a man with Parkinson's disease.
53. Having 20 people agree to give me their time to read and review Your Book, Your Way on Amazon.
54. Finishing Your Book, Your Way.
55. Snagging a wonderful cache of 20 books from the Five Colleges Book Sale.
