I recently finished a large cross stitch project and took it to Michael’s to be framed. While that may not be anything amazing in and of itself, it IS amazing in that it took me thirteen years to finish it! It is a beautiful wedding sampler with our names, date, church name, etc. on it. It is composed of primarily rich roses, pinks and greens. It will be a beautiful testimony of our marriage covenant and love as it hangs in our living room.

I can imagine at this point that some careful blog reader is saying to himself or herself – but wait! Your blog says you’ve been married for eight years. How could it have taken you thirteen years to finish the sampler?

Back in the day, I was seeing someone who summarily dumped me. Being the kind of woman who could hear her biological clock ticking at age 24, I was naturally very disappointed. But one day shortly after the dumping, I was in a local cross stitching store and saw this sampler hanging on the wall. I thought it was so beautiful I had to make it. Of course, I had no boyfriend, let alone a groom! But I decided I would start on it in faith and trust that someday, by God’s grace, I WOULD have a name to put on there with mine. (And I comforted myself with the thought if no groom ever appeared, it would make a really nice gift for a friend.)

So I worked on it fairly steadily for a while until life got in the way and it got set aside, only partially begun. A few years later, David came into my life and I did have a groom’s name to put on it! I wish I could say I whipped it out and finished it right away, but I didn’t. I worked on it from time to time, but could never really get moving on it again. Finally, I decided that 2005 was” The Year of Finishing Projects So I Don’t Have to Look at Them in Their Unfinished State Anymore”. The sampler is my first major accomplishment in this area and it feels SO GOOD to have it done!