Holy Moly...

life sure has been crazy! Highlights:

-closed up the camper after weekends in September
-went to a quiltchicks retreat and completed the bookcase quilt top
-went to a medieval feast with our friends who are in SCA
-already have first report cards and parent/teacher conferences done
-quilted Chainsaw Massacre (finally) this weekend
-getting ready for the Rahr Art Gallery show which is Dec. I should have 5 things in it if I can get them done (a good thing to have a deadline)
- have read a couple of books
-going to Yoga
-going to the chiropractor for pay in my neck and TMJ
-still not getting enough sleep
-DH had his 61st birthday and is now counting months until retirement
-DGD is in 6th grade this year!
-slowly am getting things done around the house; today I was cleaning in my studio. closets are done, drawers are done. I am learning to get rid of things. have to make another visit to donate at St. Vinnie's.
-cats are doing great. Daisy loves to cuddle and Darwin acts like a dog. woof
-have a new phone- a blackberry, or crackberry as I call it.

that's it for now!
Angel

I fell asleep...

after supper and now I am awake late! We had a work day today for school and I was exhausted when I came home. So I let myself sleep. I thought I'd be able to fall asleep again at the regular time because I took a muscle relaxer about 4 hours ago. That's from my trip to the oral surgeon yesterday. He says I have muscle spasms in my jaw muscles. the good news is that I don't have wearing bones or arthritis in my jaw. We are trying a month of muscle relaxers, wearing my splint at night (which I always do), heat application and soft food. Hopefully that will calm my perpetual jaw muscle spasms! It was easy to get back into the grind at school, and I am looking forward to meeting my new students next Tuesday. Now I just need to figure out when I am going to exercise. I want to keep up with yoga, and walking. Tomorrow DH and I are going out for breakfast and then taking a trip up to Door County. Hopefully we'll get a chance to see some of our former camping buddies.

And so it begins...

another school year. I fell asleep right away and woke up at 2:00 to go to the bathroom. Then Daisy comes and cuddles and I don't fall back to sleep. Lots of stuff on my mind. We had inservice today (yesterday??? it is almost 3 AM). It was all about data and what the data team did in June. I had my department in my room later, and it was a big waste of time. Today we go to hear the superintendent talk and then back to school for more. I have no idea what we'll be doing today.

After school I took the cats to the vet for their annual check ups and shots.

After leftovers for supper I painted a second coat of paint on the bench for the front porch, and two shelves. I did the first coat on Tuesday. Nothing like waiting till the last moment to do something that's from my list of things to do this summer!

I still haven't been able to get the thread I need to quilt Chainsaw Massacre.

Is it June yet?

It's a start...

I have the quilt, "De Pere Chainsaw Massacre" on my machine. This is in reference to the unfortunate and untimely death of some baby squirrels when my DH was cutting down a tree in our front yard at our last house. My DH and I love squirrels and feed them so they will come play in our yard. We name them by what they look like, examples, White Ears, Scruffy Tail, etc. One we had was One Eye. Poor One Eye must have had a run in with another animal or man made contraption, and had lost an eye. It was a small squirrel and we discovered, too late, a female. She had made a nest in a dead tree in our yard, but we didn't know it. When DH went at it with his chainsaw, at the point of cutting down part of the trunk, we heard a horrible screaming and blood flew everywhere. Oh, the horror! DH felt TERRIBLE! We found he had gone through a nest of baby squirrels. Later, One Eye would go sit on the tree stump for long periods of time. More guilt on DH's part. So, like the good wife I am, I decided to commemorate it with a quilt. The center was made with my friends group, Seamster's Union. We all bought two fabrics and then traded squares and made crazy nine patches. It looked to me like a chainsaw had at the fabric. I put a border around it with leaves. That part looks like an peaceful beautiful scene and then the chain saw comes along. I have a squirrel applique in each corner. It's for DH, of course. So, finally, after all these years, I am going to finish it. I got it on the machine yesterday (with some help from my cats) and am going to go start quilting it right now. I'll keep you posted.

Only a week left...

until I go back to school. It goes too darn fast!!! I've been in a cleaning frenzy- cleaning out cupboards and drawers and closets. I've made three trips to St. Vincent de Paul with donations so far. I've wanted to do that for a couple of years, I think. My best friend at school, Kathy, spent almost her whole summer with her sister who died recently from kidney cancer. I helped her clean out her sister's closets, and then came home and started doing my own. I have some more to do in the kitchen and the closet in the laundry room, but got a lot finished. Of course, that means other things didn't get done and I haven't been getting a lot of quilting done. I did finish my Christmas blocks, and did my blocks for a mystery quilt with my former quilting group in Two Rivers. We got three fabrics from someone and had to make a quilt with those, adding other fabrics, too, if we wanted. I made flower blocks, and have to get them together and quilted before November. Today I am going to finally get a quilt on my quilting machine and start quilting! I have a number of others that I want to quilt. Maybe I can get on a roll. More soon!

Some Photos of quilt tops...

The first picture is a lap size quilt top I made during "Scrap Therapy" at Silver Thimble Quilt Shoppe. We take leftover scraps, cut them into 5", 3.5", and 2" squares. We get two patterns every two months that use these sizes.


The second picture is a quilt top for a baby quilt that I used the leftover pieces from making Ana's Crib Bumpers. I just cut 6"strips out of the already sewed together strips, sewed them together and added the borders.

The third picture is a rail fence baby quilt top. I made two of these. The first like this is quilted and given away. This one I finally added borders to.



Lots of bright fabrics! Not my palette for my house, but I like the brights for baby/toddler quilts. That is what each of these will be. Now I need to get QUILTING!!!

My body is screaming...

with using it so much lately! I've finally been home and right now I ache all over with all I have been doing.

I sewed two days ago and put borders on two quilts. Yesterday I started Gentle Yoga. Yesterday and today I worked in the garden. Today I also finally went to the Chiropractor about my neck pain. I actually have some degeneration in between two vertebrae. He is working on some things with me, though and also I had a treatment to try to get the inflammation down. I have exercises to work on the strengthen the muscles in my neck that hold up the head.

I put a few more perennials in the garden and have been weeding, cleaning up and trimming plants. I didn't get into the garden much until now and have to make up for it. Very pretty. I love my flowers. I bought plants that will bloom now, as that is what is needed in a few different areas.

I've had a couple of emotional days. My friend Kathy's sister died and I went to the funeral on Monday. Right now Kathy is in Missouri where Carla is being buried near her father. Next week Kathy and I are going to go to Wyoming. More about that later.

I am going to take some quilt photos and post them soon. I pinned the scrap one up on the wall to photograph it.

Off to do some more fun stuff!

Middle of July???!!!???

Oh- my- gosh- my summer is half over and I have not been home at all until this week. I don't know what to do first! I sew for awhile and then go weed in the garden and then take a walk and then read and then clean something, and then I start all over again. I feel like I am running in circles. I need to be able to slow down and actually live in the moment! It isn't that I haven't had fun, but just am waaaaaaaay too busy.

I bought a new phone today. One I can use to e-mail, etc. I will have to play with it and read the book and look at the CD they included with it to figure out how to use it.

I joined "Scrap Therapy" at Silver Thimble. I cut fabric into 5", 3.5", and 2" squares. Then they give you patterns to use them with. One each time (bi-monthly) we get a commercial pattern and our wonderful teacher does at least one more that she writes up directions for herself. It is fun. I made one quilt top, but am not going to do the July one because I need to FINISH some of my "aged" quilt projects. I want to get my Nolting machine going again and get some tops quilted. I will continue cutting up scraps along the way. It's good to do when watching TV (not that I do that much!).

Although I HAVE been watching some of the movies I buy all of the time. I love movies!

I'm going to try to do this more often (write) and if I do that it will be shorter and it won't take much time. How's that for a plan? I want to post more photos, too! My photo download program doesn't work for Vista, so I have to do it on the computer that has XP on it., and put it on a jump drive and transfer it to another computer. I've been using my laptop a lot more, but still need to put the printer software on it or network it to this computer. I really do love new technology. I just wish I had more time to figure it all out!

Well, that's it for tonight. Daisy is on my lap and arm and half on the keyboard!

Where did the last three months go?

Christmas, then going to California and then being very SICK. Yesterday and today Rich and I took down the Christmas decorations... finally. I came downstairs to get the Swiffer electric broom and instead read my e-mail. So soon I will take that up and clean the kitchen floor and then I'll get my Scooba going to wash it. Really, we are getting a lot done and finally it won't be overwhelming me!

California was more fun than I thought it would be. Going with school kids wasn't my idea of a good time, but since I didn't have to pay for the trip, I decided to "go with the flow." The USS Green Bay was awesome, and the commissioning ceremony was fantastic. We went on Thursday to do the "Geography Bowl" on the ship and our students performed for the crew and then we all had tours. What a great experience. The actual commissioning was on Saturday, and when they were finished and the sailors all ran up the stairs to go on board and they all lined up along the rail of the top deck and saluted it gave me shivers.

We also went to Disneyland on Friday and the show choir and jazz band preformed there. That was fun except it rained most of the day. I was lucky that I was a chaperone with another teacher and a mom for 8 girls who were really good. No problems with them. We also saw the Getty Art Museum (mostly outdoor gardens because it was the first day we arrived and the kids needed to run around), ate at Bubba Gump's Shrimp Co. and went to Hollywood and Venice Beach (but both of those were too quick for me- we didn't get to stay long enough!) The flights went well.

A lot of the kids got a cold, and I got it when we got home. I ended up staying home from school Thursday and Friday. Then over the weekend I got the stomach flu to boot! The ugh awful kind where you are sitting on the toilet holding a bucket to barf in...

So now I am finally feeling better and can catch up a bit here. I haven't caught up at school with correcting. I missed a total of 5 days with the trip and then being sick, and I just keep plugging away at it for correcting. Grades are in a couple of weeks, so I will be ready for that, I hope!

DH and I are driving to FL for spring break. We'll stop in Chattannooga on the way down, to see my sister. We will spend a few days with our DS there and then come back taking our time. We are planning to go to Universal Studios Park. Haven't been there yet. DS is coming with us there.

Can't wait to see DS. He is finally feeling happier. Things are going better for him. I got a text one day; "Life's good!" =-)

Better get back to work!