Moving to the Dungeon

I'm relinquishing my multiple crafting spaces around the house in order to have one consolidated space to do all my crafting. However, this space is down in the basement. Yuck. It will take me a bit to get the space workable and to my liking..
Pictures when it's done!

Summer Vacay 2009

Hubby and I went on a vacation in late August. It was our "last hurrah" before I headed back to school. We went up to Northern Wisconsin to our "usual hangout" near St. Germain, Sayner, and Eagle River. We had a fabulous relaxing week doing whatever we wanted. Mostly that meant we toodled around on the boat, slept in every morning, watched some movies, did some shopping, and ate out a lot. Woohoo!
One day we drove up into the UP of Michigan to see Bond Falls. It was really pretty and had some good hiking trails.
We toodled around in the boats a lot for the first few days. Our friends Bill & Scott were with us for the first half of the week and the weather was great. The water is always a bit too cold for me to go swimming, though.
And I made another feline friend while out shopping on Thursday. I always seem to find a surrogate kitty to spend some time with while away from Stinky. By Thursday, the weather had turned cold and drizzly, so no more boating for us. It wasn't too hard to convince hubby to go see the sights and visit some stores.

And of course, we had to stop by my favorite breakfast place, the cook shanty. I really just like the homemade doughnuts they make fresh every morning. Next time, I think I'll just run in for some doughnuts and skip the family style breakfast. All in all.. great trip!

Maiden Voyage

Hubby and I splurged and bought a canoe this year. It was something we had been researching for a while, but just hadn't pulled the trigger yet.

We finally did and took it out on it's maiden voyage a few weeks ago. We went up to Lake Delavan in Wisconsin to the lake house of a friend of the family.

Lake Delavan isn't the most pristine, gorgeous lake, but it was fun to practice paddling away in.

We saw lots of critters - turtles, birds, big fish, and even a deer.

Hopefully more outdoor adventures to come!

Fourth of July

We drove up to Door County, Wisconsin for the 4th of July weekend. We had great weather, fun bike rides (that almost killed me!), artsy shops, pebbly beaches, light houses, goats on a roof, and of course, lots of cherries! Yum!

Visit to Florida

Hubby & I went to Florida for a short week last week. He had a conference in Orlando and I got to spend some time with my family.

It was gosh-durn-it hot with temps in the high 90's and a heat index above 100.

I visited with my friend Valarie - we hadn't seen each other in ages!






I saw lots of birds on my walks around Lake Hollingsworth with both my cousins and then again with my mom.









I got to visit my dad's apiary and saw some bees.












We then spent some quiet time at our hotel in Orlando playing in the pool (and with the giant slugs!).





Fun times all around!

Because They Wanted It

So some of my students have discovered my blog. I'm ok with that, really. I post only occasionally and it's mostly about sewing and boring-to-a-teenager stuff. But they were wanting to know when I was going to post about THEM.

They originally found my blog by googling the words "peach Nehi." I had written an ode and included a picture of myself with a bottle of peach Nehi that I had found while on vacation in Kentucky. Well, apparently now, when you google the words "peach Nehi," my picture comes up with a link to my blog. (Word to those of you fellow bloggers - if you don't want to be found, be careful what you post!)

So here's my "Ode to my Middle School Students":

It was real.
It was fun.
But was it really fun?
Yes! Of course it was!
It was middle school!
And you know the most fun part?
It's OVER!
You've graduated.
moved on.
physically, anyway.
Oh, you know you'll be back to visit.
Especially that first year of High School...
When you're the "low man on the totem pole"
the "small fish in the pond."
Just to get a taste of what it was like to be the big fish.
And we'll be glad to see you.

Working on Green Bed Quilt

Here's some photos of a green quilt in progress right now. It's partially laid out on the floor of the spare bedroom and partially on the sewing table downstairs.

The floor of the bedroom is the only place I have large enough to see all the blocks laid out, so I have to carefully transport them downstairs so they can be sewn correctly. I've developed a number pinning system that seems to be working so far.

My only problem has been that even after lots of calculating, the top is turning out to be wider than the backing. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong, but this means I'm either going to have to shorten the width of the top or add some border panels to the backing. Which is the lesser of two evils? Probably narrowing the top. I think I've used up all the green backing fabric that I had and I have no idea where I got that shade of green. oh well.