Amy's Passions

Pictures on my desktop

2012-01-25T19:11:00.009-06:00

There was a time when my desktop (computer desktop, that is) was a DISASTER!!!! Files scattered all over; clustered together in similar categories in SOME attempt for organization. Now-a-days, I keep my desktop rather neat-n-tidy; files being placed into appropriate folders.

Tonight, I decided to give you a viewing of the random ".jpg" files that currently are on my desktop, in need to being either deleted or filed into appropriate folders... Just cuz.
{{I only have SEVEN image files on my desktop right now. Seven! See......I'm getting much better at keeping my files organized :0) }}

A little math-joke humor that I wanted to share with my students. I really don't have a folder yet for "school jokes" or for "jokes" in general. I guess I simply don't save them all that often.....

Ah! THIS was a coupon I created for Linda; we teach at the same school, and she is on my "list of 5" for 2012 to receive something homemade. Being the quilter she is, I thought I'd offer a free quilting service. When Carol did this for me (2009?), I LOVED the offer!!!! I didn't have my quilt frame/machine yet at that time, so I was SO VERY appreciative of the offer.

Mmm.....I haven't forgotten about this image, but can't seem to file it anywhere OTHER than my desktop. If there EVER was a picture worth a thousand words, huh? It breaks my heart, but is an EXCELLENT reminder of the power we all have in our words towards youth. I can't seem to remove it from my desktop; it's too powerful to "hide away."

Of course, there HAD to be a "dream of someday" quilt picture!!!!!!

OH! Hello Mrs. Skattebo. {{yeah.... "official" school picture}}.

Last night, I was working on our school's website. It's that time of year when scholarships are piling into the Guidance office. As the school's webmaster, I created an image "quick-link" from the District's "For Parents and Students" webpage for our Seniors to find the scholarships easier. This is a good reminder that I can now delete that clipart.

Tee-heee!!!! Some humor is always fun! I sent this to our 7-12 secretary a few weeks ago. I send her "good vibes" as often as I can because without her....oh BOY! Our 7-12 wing would be a completely different place to work!!!! She's amazing and needs to hear it :)

That's all folks. What about your desktop? :D Any goodies? Too MANY goodies?!?!?! :)

Happy Wednesday!

Attitude :0)

2012-01-23T19:04:00.006-06:00

Seriously.....WHERE does the time go day-to-day??? It's January 23rd?!?!? What happen to the other 22 days of January so far? It seems like I blink and the day is over; time at school Fah-LIES by....**insert ZOOM sound affect** and then by the time I tidy my classroom, try to keep things neat and organized for my next day, pick up the girls, get home to make dinner (or HUG Paul when HE makes dinner!!!), shoosh Cassie off to basketball or Destination Imagination, help Caitlyn with her homework, keep Candace out of the other sisters' hair, send them off to bed and put my feet up to breathe..... It's 10:00 WAY too soon most evenings......and I KNOW I need to get my lil' tooshie to bed otherwise I'll pay for it the next day when it all repeats itself......**pant-pant** {{of course, I failed to mention all my evening school work that also gets fit in there}} :D

And lately the weekends have been just as crazy-busy **enter car horn sound**....it's almost like a new voice has taken over control here.......like..."COME ON!!! We've got things to do! Gotta get there, gotta be here, gotta prep for next week's classes"

Oh my word.....

AND...

(BUT?.....)

I keep smiling!

Afterall, it's ALLLLLLLL about attitude!

Oh, lil' grumpy-faced-man.....you are SO RIGHT! You are my new buddy!

Are you still smiling?????

Oh, and nope :( Not a whole lotta quiltin' going on.

Some Basketball and quilting (NYE mystery)

2012-01-15T14:45:00.005-06:00

No sleeping in for us yesterday - nope, nope, nope. It was a Saturday morning full of basketball; the first non-sleep-in-Saturday of five coming up over the next handful of weeks.

Caitlyn had Little Lakers basketball practice and inter-school scrimmage from 8:00 - 10:00. This is her first year playing the game; she says she's enjoying it, but I would put a million dollars on it if our school were to offer gymnastics, she'd dropped basketball in a heart-beat and join gymnastics. However, we're a small school and gymnastics is not an option. (I foresee cheerleading in her future though).

Cassie's first game started at 9:00 in a different school, so we missed it but heard she played well despite a 10-12 loss. I was told she made the last three baskets and almost made a game-tieing shot with a few seconds left on the clock. She's really finding her love for the game.

Her second game was at 11:00, so we all were able to watch. The coaches do an excellent job making sure all fourteen girls (YIKES!!!!) get an opportunity to play. The periods are 6 minutes in duration, and they (coaches) switch out a full 5-person squad every three minutes. Cassie again made some good plays and landed a couple of buckets. She's improving on her dribbling skills and I THINK she's growing into her height nicely, finding her coordination. WHEW!

I didn't do ANY quilting yesterday, unless you call ripping out my 8 rows of Orca Bay while sitting at the games quilting. I suppose it could be considered UN-quilting :0) Then, the rest of the day, I totalllllly relaxed in the glider with my feet up, reading on my Kindle App and reading the back of my eyes from time-to-time too.

However, today, once the morning got started; coffee brewed; laundry well underway....

I spent an hour piecing four more blocks for the NYE mystery quilt's setting triangles. I simply cut them in half diagonally. I KNOW I will lose the points once a border is attached, but it was the price I accepted in order to have the half-blocks as setting triangles. I literally only had 2" of my background fabric left (aside from some crumbs) once finished, so I couldn't do the setting triangles like they needed to be done. {{I still think it'll be great, even though there won't be any pretty points along the center's edge}}

Naturally, all those bonus triangles needed to be pressed and pieced to be put into use. Once completed, I'll have 77 bonus pinwheels that will find their way into the outer border. Somewhere I must have another HST "lost" because I SHOULD have enough for 78 pinwheels. I looked for a bit and then gave up; no biggy. I'll make 'em work :0)

So, now... I have my feet up once again, waiting for the Packer game to start. GO PACK!!!!!

I also have to spend SOME time on my school work; I have yet to do that this weekend. BUT, the upcoming week marks the end of the term, so Pre-Calc will be wrapping up. Two days of review and a final and then....DONE with PC for the year.

What we all need - A quilt along!

2012-01-13T19:48:00.007-06:00

Judy is at it again! She's trying to motivate us all with a quilt-along to help fill some QOV requests from Alycia.

You can never have too many projects going at one time :D, and it's ALWAYS nice to make quilts along-side a bunch of other awesome ladies all over the nation (and WORLD for that matter), all at the same time!

So....jump on over, link her "quilt-along to your blog (I know I have to!!! She posts like a MAD-WOMAN and I have a hard time keeping up with her during my work week), and join in the fun!

Some fabric sanity...subtle Orca Bay differences and NYE Mystery layouts

2012-01-10T17:00:00.001-06:00

Without time to sew lately, I at least played around with the Orca Bay layouts.

You may recall my post last week where I was panicking that my orange strings (Bonnie's blue strings) were going the wrong way. Here are the 8 rows I had pieced, with strings going the WRONG way, that will SOON be ripped apart and fixed. At least only 8 rows were completed and NOT the whole top! Whew.

Pictured: Orange strings going RIGHT way, mimicking Bonnie's 100%. For those of you who say "Ah, Amy, your 'wrong' layout works." I disagree. If you "relax your eyes" with both pictures, you simply MUST agree that a diagonal pattern is CLEARLY visible when the orange string blocks are placed in the CORRECT arrangement as opposed to my WRONG placement pictured at the top of this post. The strings accompany the diagonal pattern created by the Birds in the Air triangular blocks made with the green strings.

However, as I have been watching more and more quilt tops being completed, a few ladies chose to switch around the Dark/Light Ohio stars. So...pictured: Orange strings going RIGHT way with LIGHT Ohio Stars in the center of the green strings. And...me thinks me realllllly likey it!

This project has been an excellent reminder of TAKING A PICTURE and looking at it before making final decisions. Just seeing it in print (on screen) gives such a different perspective than just standing in front of it.

Therefore, since I was downstairs with my camera, I decided to layout my New Year's Eve mystery blocks as well.

Pictured: layout as suggested.

But then came some playtime with an on-point layout. Ooooo.....THIS is a fun a layout! BUT, those green setting triangles just don't work.

Grabbing my extra blocks, and folding them diagonally in half......v'iola! Oh yes. Quite lovely and most likely what I will end up doing in the end PENDING I have enough background fabric to make a few more blocks to create the setting triangles.

So...no sewing, but ideas ideas ideas galore rambling in the mind.

I hope your Tuesday was glorious!

It's back :| grrrrr.....

2012-01-09T19:49:00.003-06:00

Around 1:00 today, the acute twinge of pain returned, and has been growing and building ever since to an [almost] intolerable pain.

It has been MONTHS since I've had this sharp pain, and it frustrates me that it has returned. Ibuprofin hasn't helped much...a bath hasn't helped much...I guess it's time for me to just call it a night, cross my fingers that sleep will come quickly, and catch up with school work tomorrow.

On a quilting note: I hope to get some time in this upcoming weekend, but I am not planning for much of anything during this week's evenings.

A belated Christmas

2012-01-08T08:46:00.012-06:00

Since my sister and her husband were celebrating Christmas in Florida with BIL's family this year (err...last year...), we all got together this weekend to have the family Christmas with my family. As always, lots of fun and thoughtful gifts, lots of games, lots of laughs, lots of food, lots of relaxation.....a whole lot of "lots." ;0)
Riley is the latest addition to our extended family; and was pampered and pampered and pampered all day long.

One of the highlights of the afternoon was the NERF WAR that ensued after everyone opened up their Christmas stockings. "Santa Grandma" gifted everyone a small 3-dart Nerf gun, so with 12 guns out-n-about, the darts were flying like crazy!
Now that Zach has surpasses just about everyone on the growth chart, only "Uncle Paul" and "Uncle Derek" (BIL) were able to reek havoc with him. AND, at one point, Zach brought out the heavy artillery (see the last picture with his head chopped off?). This "war" went on for about a solid hour before a few minor war-wounds were inflicted.

We closed up last night with some birthday celebrations. Candace's birthday was this past Wednesday, and Lindsay's is coming up on Thursday.

So, no sewing/quilting for me this weekend. BUT that didn't mean it wasn't on my mind. Pictured here is the basket of goodies I received as one of my gifts....such FUN and BRIGHT colors. I think I see a "jewel" quilt in my future.

If you don't have a collage-making software, or if you're on the lookout for a different one, these collages were made courtesy of Photovisi. It offers some cute background selections and was quite simple to use.

Happy Sunday everyone!

2011 Running Log wrapup

2012-01-05T20:40:00.002-06:00

With the 2012 new year almost a week gone already, I realized I needed to wrap up my 2011 running log. (specially since I did my FIRST RUN of 2012 TODAY!!!!! Off to a great start!)

So, after a two-year hiatus from running, my 2011 numbers are acceptable. They aren't setting any records, and still not quite where I'd like to be, but it certainly is/was an improvement from '10 and '09.

2011 Running Log
Totals: 219.39 miles

1/26: 1.25 miles
2/7: 1.0 miles
2/13: 1.8 miles
2/14: 2.07 miles
3/8: 1.83 miles
3/14: 2.32 miles
4/12: 1.31 miles
6/7: 1.83 miles
6/18: 3.24 miles (I)
6/19: 3.46 miles (I)
6/21: 2.50 miles (H)
6/24: 3.00 miles (EZ)
6/26: 4.76 miles (L)
6/27: 3.2 miles (W*)
6/28: 3.2 miles (W*)
6/29: 3.2 miles (W*)
6/30: 3.2 miles (W*)
Starting to keep track of weekly miles from this point on.

7/1: 3.12 miles (EZ)
7/3: Ella Smetana 5K
7/4: 3.29 miles (I)
TOTAL: 9.51 miles

7/9: 3.18 miles (EZ)
7/12: 5.93 miles (L)
7/13: 4.00 miles (PW)
TOTAL: 13.11 miles

7/15: 5.87 miles (S)
7/16: 4.76 miles (EZ)
7/21: 8.03 miles (L)
TOTAL: 18.66 miles

7/24: 1.00 miles
TOTAL: 1.00 miles Oh, yuk!

7/29: 3.25 miles (EZ)
7/30: 3.25 miles (EZ)
8/1: 9.9 miles (L)
8/4: 4.0 miles (AI)
TOTAL: 20.4 miles

8/6: 6.18 miles (EZ)
8/7: 3.26 miles (EZ)
8/8: 4.01 miles (T)
8/9: 3.00 miles (W*)
8/11: 4.76 miles (RP)
TOTAL: 21.21 miles (18.21 minus the walk)

8/13: Paavo Nurmi
8/15: 3.26 miles (EZ)
8/16: Strength XT: Squats; Bi-curls; Bench-press; 30-min Billy Blanks Abs/Glutes
8/17: 5.18 miles (T) (11:05/mile pace -- 57:26 total)
8/18: 3.00 miles (EZ & 5xGPUs)
TOTAL: 24.54 miles

8/20: 8.94 miles (L) (11:43/mile pace -- 1:44:44 total)
8/21: 1.83 miles (EZ w/Cassie) (12:00/mile pace -- 21:57 total)
8/22: 3.25 miles (RP) (10:01/mile pace -- 32:33 total)
8/23: Strength XT: wide squats, lunges, bi-curls, incline bench, lateral raises, tricep extentions
8/24: :( Canning corn; no time to run
8/25: :( Canning corn; {{Can I use this excuse reason again?}}
TOTAL: 14.02 miles

8/27: Spanky's 5K (9:38/mile pace -- 29:37 total)
8/28: 3.25 miles (RP) (10:46/mile pace -- 35:00 total)
8/28: 3.25 miles (EZ w/Cassie) (12:38/mile pace -- 41:10)
8/29: 3.02 miles (EZ) (10:52/mile pace -- 32:48 total)
9/1: 2.0 miles (Treadmill -- no watch)
TOTAL: 14.62 miles

9/3: Lake Run 5K w/Cassie (10:56/mile pace -- 33:40)
9/4: 7.96 miles (L) (12:01/mile pace -- 1:35:46)
9/6: 2.5 miles (Treadmill -- no watch)
9/8: 3.84 miles (T & 4x continuous 400's)
TOTAL: 17.4 miles

9/13: 3.29 miles (EZ) (11:05/mile pace -- 36:25)
TOTAL: 3.29 miles OH NO! REALLY!?!?!?!

9/19: 2.45 miles (EZ) (10:03/mile pace -- 24:40)
TOTAL: 2.45 miles OH NO again!!

10/1: 4.31 miles (EZ) (11:24/mile pace -- 49:09)
10/2: 1.34 miles (EZ) (10:55/mile pace -- 14:35)
10/4: 3.15 miles (EZ) (11:11/mile pace -- 35:11)
TOTAL: 8.80 miles

10/15: Whistlestop Half-Marathon 13.1 miles (11:46/mile pace -- 2:34:55)
11/1: 1.26 miles (10:00/mile pace) -- 12:33)
11/7: 2.25 miles (no watch = no numbers)
11/8: 1.75 cross training elliptical miles
11/10: 1.85 miles (I) (treadmill -- 20:00)
11/14: 1.00 miles (treadmill)
11/15: 2.50 miles (H) (treadmill "hill" workout 30:00)

I = Intervals
H = Hills
GPU = General Pick Up
EZ = easy run
L = long run
PW = power walk
RP = Race pace
S = Speed workout
T = Tempo run
XT = Cross Training
W = walk
* = not included in overall total

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - January (Red)

2012-01-01T16:58:00.004-06:00

Angela is motivating us once again this year with her Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

I lost time and ambition last year :\ **shrug** I guess I allowed it to happen by letting school suck up all my extra energy and time at the start of this school year. I don't want that to happen anymore. Don't get me wrong; I LOVE my job; LOVE my students; LOVE the subjects I teach...... but I miss "ME" time in the evenings and weekends.

SO.....I'm off to a great start so far!

Orca Bay's layout had me UN-motivated after two hours!!! Then, after two hours of final prepping for the upcoming school week (ONLY TWO, that's not tooooo bad)....
I thought digging into my bins for reds would be a nice FUN way to burn up a couple of hours.

1.5" bin; 2" bin; 2.5" bin; 3.5" bin; 4.5+" bin .... dug, dug, dug and pulled out ALLL my red fabrics. NO MORE RED in any of those bins.

I liked the idea of Angela's from last year to create a block of each color and create a "rainbow" quilt at the end of the year. So, I pulled out my Quiltmaker magazines to see if a Bonnie Scrap block would fit the trick.

Psht......as IF I had any doubt!!!! :-)

Her "Jack in the Box" block had already been folded open for my "someday" list. Seems like a perfect perfect pattern!

Her 2.5" "flip" method lead to bonus triangles as well, and rather than make the typical pinwheels from them, I decide to make these "diamond squares" that will most likely make their way into a pieced border of the final quilt 12 months from now :0)

Sadly, I haven't touched my 2" or 1.5" strips (OR my STRING BIN for that matter) OR really tackled lots of 2.5" strips (neatly stacked at the right of the pic)... I may also decide to make some string blocks for a second Rainbow Scrap quilt in 12 months. I need to find some inspirational layouts....anyone know of any?

Orca Bay - Step 8 layout

2012-01-01T16:49:00.005-06:00

Wow---two hours = eight rows pieced. I'm not sure about the rest of you, but this is a slow process to make sure the seams are meeting. And---after my 12 years of quilting, I'm STILL making (and LEARNING from my) mistakes. .... Earlier this week, I was thinking how nice it would be to have my Ohio Star units all tidy and trimmed up to 6.5".

Oh Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie.......I'm slappin' my forehead big time!!!!! I've lost the points :\ AND, had I not trimmed up, I think all my pieces would be fitting nicer; come to find out, those stretchy string units realllllly are out-sizing the nicely trimmed up Ohio Star units. :|

Hm.....live and learn.

In the end......It'll still be an AMAZING quilt, with hours and hours and hours of inspiration devoted to it. Those orange strings certainly "SING" though, huh

I haven't revealed a name for my rendition yet; Orca Bay certainly doesn't fit it. I have a few names floating around in my head; playing games with combinations of words that come to mind from this entire process. It actually makes me think about how we name(d) our children; that until you actually see that adorable lil' face in front of you, a name just doesn't "hit home" until that very final moment.

1/2/12 update
Oh No! Self-talk:
*breathe-breathe-breathe*

I was just looking at Jo's quilt on her blog, and I kinda make a "hmm...her strings appear to be going the wrong way...."
And then I looked at my 8 rows sewn together already.....

!!!!!! Mine also are going the "wrong way"; they are going against the grain of the "light diagonals"

So sure enough-----I looked at my printouts from Sunday :\
I used Bonnie' EQ drawing to layout out my blocks, but then used her quilt photo to lay out the direction for the strings....
:\
I didn't realize they were two different layouts (with no rotational symmetry), therefore, the string blocks are going in the wrong direction. SO----IF YOU HAVEN"T GOTTEN TO THIS PART YET!!! TAKE CARE! The pics on her blog directions have been fixed, but the PDF file still has the two "rotated" pics of each other. I don't know if/when she has plans to fix the PDF file.

A set back, but I'm still keeping the smile on my face. I WILL be doing some ripping in the near future of the 8 rows completed so far. This is an amazing pattern an heirloom.

New Year's Eve Mystery [updates all day] - 3

2011-12-31T16:34:00.003-06:00

Still plugging along.....with step #5. More double-sewing here for another 140 bonus triangles.

...and step #6

Step #7 update

And I just checked the file section-----no Step #8 yet. Hm......can't believe I "caught up."

Time to make dinner anyway :0)

New Year's Eve Mystery [updates all day] - 2

2011-12-31T14:15:00.007-06:00

Step #3 took a bit more time than probably it should have. The interruption of lunch took away about an hour... And the double-sewing of the corner-to-corner 2.5" squares ate up some additional time as well.

As with most quilters, I try to save time by keeping the initial chain together and simply refeed them into the machine for the double-sew stitch.

So, three hours after completing step #2, step #3 is now complete. I haven't pressed the 140 bonus triangles, but you can bet they'll show up in a pieced border.

UPDATE 20 minutes later

Okay....step #4 was SUPER FAST! Whew! Gotta love those easy ones.

New Year's Eve Mystery [updates all day]

2011-12-31T11:22:00.007-06:00

The quilting mojo has returned.....inspiration is everywhere. This morning, it came in the form of catching up on emails and ready my Daily Digests from QYMysteryQuilts. Ann has been gearing everyone up all week, and I didn't decide until this morning to join in with the fun. The classic internal conversation was haunting me all night.....

Devil's advocate voice: Oh Amy, you know you want another project. Look at that sidebar; the UFO listed isn't too big, and your WIP list is soooo tiny.
Rational voice: Yes, but, imagine what I could finish off my list if I only were to work on my UFOs and WIPs. I could check off one more project to wrap up 2011 in good fashion.

By the title of the post, you can already determine which voice won :0)

I'll be a bit behind in the posting of the clues all day since I hadn't even chosen my fabrics yet, much let completed all the pre-cutting. It took me a moment to determine whether I wanted to create a R/W/B quilt, or use these wonderfully feeling "fall" Moda/Red Rooster fabric colors I received in a "scrap" box a few months ago.

I haven't done a time-lapsed post in a long time---I thought it would be fun and exciting to create track this way today since I have NO OTHER PLANS besides sewing (and feeding my family as needed).

The actual sewing of step #1 went quick; less than an hour...

So between steps 1 and 2, I assisted Cassie in rearranging my sewing room. She wanted to have her sewing setup in my room rather than be out in the carpeted area. I can't say I blame her; the feeling of being out in the open carpet area is so lonesome as compared to my secluded (heated) TV-equipped sewing room.

Step #2 asked us to "flip-sew" a 1.5" square onto a 2.5" background square. TYPICALLY I double-sew these seams to create bonus triangles.....but even **I** know when enough is enough. No double-sewing for these babies.....trim, trim, trim and toss, toss, toss. They didn't even make my crumb box.

Step #2 completed; just in time for a quick coffee break before starting step #3.

Andee is playing along too....can't wait to see what she, DJ and Kathy come up with :0)

2011 Completed Quilts

2011-12-30T19:44:00.007-06:00

As many of you are also realizing.....

YES! It IS that time of year. ALREADY!!!

Jimminy Crickets!

2011 was a MUCH quieter year for me in the quilting department...

Green Beauty: Completed January 16, 2011. Gifted to Kathy Sutarik, Christmas 2010.
New Year's Eve mystery - Serenity Started Dec 30, 2010; Completed June 13, 2011. Awaiting gifting/donating.
Blue Ridge Beauty: Ongoing L/E in 2010; Completed March 20, 2011. Awaiting gifting/donating.
Red Blossoms: Started February 5, 2011; Completed June 10, 2011. Awaiting gifting/donating.

Roll Roll Cottonboll: Started November 12, 2010; Completed March 29, 2011. Self owned.
Raven Stars: Started January 31, 2011; Completed May 20, 2011. Awaiting gifting/donating.
With Heart: Started June 4, 2011; Completed June 13, 2011. Made for coworker.
Hostess with Heart: Started June 7, 2011; Completed June 9, 2011. Made for a coworker's daughter's bridal shower hostess.

Simple crib quilt: Started March 23, 2011; Completed June 10, 2011. Donated to Zion Lutheran Church.
In Flight: Started Sept 12, 2011; Completed June 19, 2011. Awaiting gifting/donating.
Transitions: Completed July 16, 2011. Gifted to Lindsey for graduation.
Splendidly Marching Along: Started June 14, 2011; Completed August 10, 2011. Awaiting gifting/donating.

Hopscotch: Started: April 3, 2011; Completed: August 16, 2011. Self owned.
Quilts for MIL - quilting time gifted.
Blue -n- Gold Pride: Started June 12, 2011; Completed October 23, 2011. Made for Cassie (and football games!)

Guess who's all caught up??? ;0)

2011-12-30T18:26:00.004-06:00

Pictured: Steps 1-7
As the picture shows, it was a full day in front of the machine, cutting table and ironing board. Can you say....'ahhhhhhhhh' ?? :)

Attaching the 'wing' triangle units to the green strings was first on the to-do list. I grabbed, I stacked, I pieced .....and when I took a break.......I counted.
:\
I was eight short.
Hm....
I counted again.
Yup, still eight short.
:\
...**scratching head**.....thought for sure I sewed 64 strings a few weeks back....**shrug**... but who knows.

So, I was side-lined for a bit to complete those eight.

And then it took a bit to complete Bonnie's 'easy' request to make up "only four more" "wing" triangle units.
Only....I didn't have ANY 2" scrap strips/squares left in my purple. Can you believe that?!!!?!? Seriously. When I finished steps 3 & 5, I used the last 2" purple strip from my scraps/strips/bins.
....so I dug and dug and dug in order to finish those up. Remember the other day when Bonnie was asked if she kept 3.5", 4.5"... strips? I haven't done ANYTHING with my 3.5+" bin in AGES, so I decide to blow the dust off the cover and see what it had to show.
JUST enough purple strips to cut down to 2" is what I found :0)

And while I was sorting and cutting 2" HSTs for those four additional 'wing' triangles, I also cut up the QSTs pieces too.
So......by late afternoon,

I WAS DONE!!!!

It wasn't 5:00 yet (my predetermined ending time)....
I did some tidying.... swept up some dust balls (ick)....moved some projects around.... filled a couple of bags with some old, questionable fabric that I simply WON'T ever use ...

and then......

I pulled out the ScrappyHappy (name????) blocks from Angela's 2011 Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Eight of them had been completed, so I pulled some yellows to make a ninth. And then...quite honestly, while looking around my room for another color and some more scraps......I came up empty (psht, yeah right!!! Do you really believe that????). But, rather than packing them back up for the shelf, I decided that a small crib-style quilt would be ideal for the nine blocks. I SURE hope they don't remain like this on my design-wall for the next few months!!!... :0)

Happy Friday

Orca Bay - (almost) caught up

2011-12-29T17:21:00.005-06:00

I'm on Orca Bay overload right now. I'm seeing purple in my sleep; I'm kinda hoping some more green shows up.....maybe some more orange.....but I hope the purple (black) ship has sailed :0)

Caitlyn wanted to be downstairs with me and was asking how she could help out. Sadly, there wasn't anything with the Orca Bay steps that she could help me out with, so I pulled out some of my Jamestown Landing blue/neutral HSTs and she went to town with trimming off a bunch of dogears.

After lunch, both she and I were getting tired of our tasks, so we pulled out her purple block from.....psht.....August??

After a little batting and pinning and a slow-sew machine setting, she was introduced to Stitch-in-Ditch.

And now....we're all awaiting Paul to come home with some green peppers so we can make up some Sweet-n-Sour Pork for dinner. I finished up all 28 "light" Ohio Stars, but still have 12 more "dark" ones to do before being completely caught up. I COULD work on them tonight, but I highly highly doubt I will. I'll putz along with them tomorrow, depending what step #7 brings from Bonnie.

Happy Thursday

Orca Bay - Steps 3, 5, 6

2011-12-28T18:57:00.005-06:00

I slept until 8:30 this morning..... Hmmm....in actuality, it was more like.... I slept until about 7:30, but laid around in bed until finally feeling I needed to get my day started by 8:30.

After whipping up a batch of muffins for the girls, I was downstairs starting my quilting day by 9:00.

Angela (soscrappy) wrote to me regarding yesterday's slump in quilting mojo...

Seeing the blocks come together should be enough motivation to get through the rough spots. The Ohio stars are pretty cute and don't need any HST units, you could cheat and put some of those together first. It will all get done eventually, right?

So, with that type of mentality this morning, I decided to cut and cut and cut out the pieces needed for step #5 and step #6 before actually doing any sewing today.

And then.....working with a batch of 50 at a time, step #3 HSTs were pressed and one HST "wing" for step #5 was added.

This worked out QUITE slick! I didn't feel bogged down at the ironing board pressing all 350 HSTs at once......ugh---the tedious repetition of extreme boredom!! I was able to stay "entertained" with the changing over of task every 50 units...

I'm absolutely amazed how long I was at my machine, cutting mat and ironing board today......yet.....

It doesn't appear that I have a super lot to show.

All 350 step #3 HSTs have had one "wing" attached, and 100 have been 100% completed with the 2nd "wing." (shown below in the upper corners) Behind the machine, another 100 await pressing and trimming, before tackling the last 150. Pictured above left are all my units waiting for step #6.

Paul informed me that he needs to work yet again tomorrow, so I'm thinking one more full day downstairs and I should be all caught up, just in time for clue #7 on Friday.

Hmmm.....9:00 start; a little break for lunch time and dinner prep; and closed up shop at 5:00. Seven hours today of sewing.

Orca Bay & Puzzle progress

2011-12-27T19:39:00.006-06:00

My quilting mojo is slow on the return. I spend a couple of hours today cutting and sewing the 350 HSTs needed for step #3...

And pressing....UGH! Wasn't in the mood today at ALL for pressing........{{goodness! You think I need to wash that iron board cover?}}

...so after pressing about 60 HSTs, I headed up to make dinner.....

....

and never made it back down. Not in the mood :\

HOWEVER! Cassie and I were successful at finishing up the puzzle together!!!!

500 pieces; Age recommendation: 13+. It got easier once the pieces were getting filled.....but HARD to start!

So now....she's ripping into her new 500 piece from Christmas; another wolf one. We hope to pick up some puzzle-glue tomorrow or Thursday in order to glue and frame today's puzzle for her room. It's quite neat in that it glows in the dark. We tested it out. I attempted taking a picture of it, but it didn't turn out.....all black....too dark.

So now....I think I'll relax with Cassie on the new puzzle. Or read.... or ...... *shrug*.... just relax.

Happy Tuesday

Puzzle Progress

2011-12-27T09:22:00.003-06:00

A couple of hours yesterday, and the sky took shape. A few more hours this AM, and the bottom "river" area has seen loads of progress. But now....Cassie will be fending for herself. I'm off to sew.

Snow tubing at Christie Mountain

2011-12-26T18:50:00.013-06:00

Despite having NO SNOW in our area-------INSANE, AbsoLUTEly INSANE on December 26, 2011----in NORTHERN WISCONSIN!!!!!! I mean...really!?!?!?!? WHERE is all of our snow????????

A-haaaaaaaa.......Christie Mountain stole it all!!!!!!! ;0)

Nah......but I'm glad someone invented a snow-making machine! Because it certainly allowed us to enjoy our day.....

A "NERF" Christmas - 2011

2011-12-26T08:26:00.006-06:00

The girls were super excited to see presents under the tree Saturday morning! I'm super glad Santa is an understanding soul...he was willing to stop by the house on his way to Australia so that we could all enjoy a day of gifts and play since we needed to be on the road on Christmas day.

Even Dad was on Santa's "good" list this year...

Candace was super delighted that she finally received a NERF gun...

And after the initial NERF WAR commenced, Dad needed to doctor up the "extra" darts in order to fit his Automatic Tommy-20 gun....

I found myself dodging bullets for much of the morning!

While the rest of the family was Nerf-warring away.... I was slowly slowly slowly working on Cassie's birthday puzzle. My goodnesss!!!!! I lose patience with puzzles!!!

As for quilting....with a week of vacation, I will get some machine time in. I'm not in much of a hurry (yet).

Today's agenda-----Snowtubing! Pictures to come later - promise!

Weekend interrupted

2011-12-20T18:02:00.004-06:00

My typical relaxing weekend in front of the sewing machine (or school books :\ {{blah}}) was interrupted by......

some AMAZING, RELAXING FUN!!!

And if you ask Cassie on a scale of 1-to-10 about her enjoyment of the day.....she'd say....

"Nine. It WAS a 10 though....before we went on the 65-foot-drop ride!"

Tee-hee......
HOLY BUCKETS! I'm ALLLLLL for thrill rides, but even THAT one was only a one-time-ride deal! Enclosed in a capsule...and the floor opens beneath your feet.....**shudder**.... If you ever are curious as to how many times a person can say "oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, let me live, let me live, let me live" within 5 seconds, just ask me! :0)

Catching up - Orca Bay Mystery

2011-12-11T19:37:00.006-06:00

Today........

it was an ALL ME day.

I pushed the little bit of schoolwork that still remained aside; I'll be certain to drink an extra dose of strong caffeinated coffee tomorrow morning and plow through the last of my work prior to having students tomorrow. I figured 8 hours this weekend devoted to schoolwork was already enough! I needed a break.

Downstairs I went by 8:15, with my coffee in hand. I plopped "The Phantom of the Opera" in the DVD player....and SUNG -n- SUNG -n- SUNG while stringin' -n- stringin' -n- stringin' away. Screeched at a few of the high notes; whew...my voice is out of singing shape. And boy, oh boy....I'm glad there are NO microphones or recording devices in my quilting space. :p

However, with about 10 hours behind me now (with a few hours scattered here-n-there for meals and stoking the wood furnace), I ALMOST caught myself up on Bonnie's mystery.

I had finished my step #2 orange string blocks yesterday. I spent 95% of my time today working AND FINISHING step #4's green (Bonnie's Red) string blocks.

The only step I have not completed yet is step #3; however I grabbed the fabrics today to prep the HSTs for another day.

ALMOST all 350 HSTs are prepped; I have 280 ready to go. These shouldn't take much time to whip out now that they're stacked so nicely.

My colors will no longer fit Bonnie's "Orca Bay" theme (if my hunches are correct with her color uses), BUT....I simply love the color selection I chose; I can't see why they won't fit together nicely in whatever final pattern Bonnie's mystery leads us to.

Work is done; play can commence

2011-12-10T18:53:00.004-06:00

I really loaded myself up with school work for last night and this morning :\ Mid-term cut-off was yesterday, and I scheduled tests in four of my five classes yesterday; duh! BUT....as of 2:00 this afternoon, all my tests were graded, grades were entered, and MOST of my lessons for next week have been planned.

SO......I took my laptop downstairs to continue listening to this AMAZING singer I came across this morning....
Care to see/listen? -- Cecilia Bartoli.... I am "wow'd" :0)

and then dug right back in to my Step #2 orange strings.

Fun, Fun, Fun afternoon!!! And with Caitlyn's help, I was able to get them de-papered and trimmed up in record time. ((well....not RECORD time, because many of you out there have been done with this step for over a week!)) :0)

I haven't started step #3; nor did I spend anytime with it today. However, I pulled out my green strings (my substitute for Bonnie's reds) and cut up a bunch more from some of my 2" and 2.5" strip bins so that I can plow full-speed-ahead tomorrow with step #4.

We are sitting in front of Rudolph the Red-nose Reindeer right now; and there are three pairs of eyes GLUED to the screen. It's truly amazing how this movie (and the deer) REALLY IS going down in history :0)

Thank you all! Finally, a full post.

2011-12-04T18:18:00.008-06:00

You are all amazing! So amazing! Thank you all for your concern and caring words over the past few days. I am breathing lighter now; merely trying to do what I can when I can and the best I can. "Time heals all wounds," so I am patiently waiting out my time for this one.

In the meantime, I am trying to keep life on a positive track and keep my mind occupied.

I never got around to posting my progress from last week; I finished up about 40 (?) of my string blocks; not trimmed yet, but de-papered. I attempted to sew some more yesterday, but due to the fact that it was such a mindless task, my mind kept drifting back to the upsetting moments from earlier this week, so, I turned everything off and tried finding things to keep my mind occupied. Paul was just about to leave for some winter shopping for Caitlyn and Candace, so I quickly got dressed and bummed along with the family.

The rest of the day, I forced myself to "get into" a new book that has come highly recommended. The first chapter was SOOOO hard to get through; I kept drifting away from the words and then found myself re-reading the same paragraph over and over. But finally, I drew up a bath, relaxed with the jets on full-blast, and hunkered in. Chapter 1 did not appeal to me; many words were unrecognizable to me since they were Swedish-related terms. It was just hard to follow, characters were introduced and I struggled keeping names straight.

Even at the start of Chapter 2, it was discipline that kept me reading.
However, by the end of Chapter 2, the story was finally making progress and I was slowly getting hooked. I am now through Chapter 3 and am looking forward to some reading later tonight.

I could have read some today, however, sadly, much of my day today has consisted of this. Now that I've come to grips and peace with many of my school tasks, today's hours in front of the textbooks and Standards were quite tolerable.

Back to last week: it was filled with turning our house into a Christmas house. The tree was trimmed...

and the Nativity scene was set up, and other Christmas decorations were set up around the living room. We (I) am NOT an outside decorator (yet). Too much work.

Another event of this past week was Cassie's 11th birthday. She told Grandma "anything with wolves," so that is exactly what she received. Wolf calendar, wolf figurine, wolf puzzle, wolf tie-your-own fleece blanket. She was in heaven.

And from us, she was given a Kindle Touch; part Bday and part Cmas present. Prior to her opening it, I downloaded the Hunger Games trilogy as part of her present as well; she is well into Book #1 already, a week later.

I hope this slump is nearing an end. It's absolutely amazing how, within two weeks, I've gone from "life is awesome and couldn't be any better" to ..... THIS! I've read a lot of quotes on attitude lately, and I am mentally listening to my own attitude and trying to turn it all back around to the positive side of life. I don't like controversy. I don't like being grumpy and depressed. And I CERTAINLY don't like being considered "insubordinate" when I work so hard at my job.

3rd time is the charm - Living Life #3

2011-12-03T13:49:00.001-06:00

‎"Like success, failure is many things to many people. With Positive Mental Attitude, failure is a learning experience, a rung on the ladder, a plateau at which to get your thoughts in order and prepare to try again."

- W. Clement Stone

Dear W. C. Stone.

Thank you. I needed to find your words today.

Sincerely,

Amy

Living Life #2

2011-12-02T19:04:00.003-06:00

You're never given anything in this world you cannot handle. But if you keep looking in the rearview mirror, you're eventually going to get into a wreck.
-author unknown

A former student of mine posted this on FB today, and with the emotionally charged week I've had... the timing was perfect. I simply must keep these words in my mind and allow time to do its healing and resist continually dredging up the events of this past week.

I am hoping to find some therapy time in front of my sewing machine this weekend...my mind needs to stay occupied.

It has been a difficult week.

Living Life

2011-11-22T06:50:00.003-06:00

"When playing music (instrumental), you should listen to everyone but yourself...and I find that is a good way to live life as well."

Hm: an interesting quote to think about as you go through your day.

Orca Bay - Step 1

2011-11-20T17:58:00.007-06:00

Thank you Michael Buble'
Thank you Bonnie Hunter
Thank you Green Bay Packers

All of you helped me have a most, most wonderful day!

I was beboppin' with my iron right off this morning with Buble' blaring in the background. I'm sure I was quite the sight with my tush a wigglin' to "I just haven't met you yet..." and all those other jazzy tunes. I was hoping to have all the units sewn by noon when the Pack played so I could cut off the dogears in front of the TV, but.... it just wasn't meant to be. No biggy! I just tuned into the game on the radio and kept sewing (sadly, I needed to turn off the Buble' though!) Come to find out, the game wasn't aired on local channels anyway. So it worked out just fine.

Trimming all of those hourglass units left my garbage looking like the outcome of an evening of confetti. What a fun looking garbage can!

And remember how I mentioned that I was trimming off the ends of the strips with my EZAngle ruler before cutting with the Companion Ruler?

I ended up sewing 20 "bonus" pinwheels from those ends.

**heavenly sigh**
I've missed this.

A day ahead of quilting, quilting, quilting.

2011-11-20T08:19:00.002-06:00

Digging through last year's snow suits, success! The girls are now set to enjoy the first snow of the year.

And **I'M** off to do some quilting......Michael Buble playing in the background. Yeah....today will be a good day :)

Orca Bay action

2011-11-19T15:50:00.004-06:00

I spent a good hour auditioning fabrics for Bonnie's Orca Bay Mystery; tried some blues, tried some browns....in the end, I kept coming back to the greens, purples and oranges. I veered away from Bonnie's "sunset" theme and I'm playing around with a name, but that will come at a later date. I only have a few purples shown here, but there is another short stack that will add a bit more of a variety. Yeah....these are still speaking to me; I'm extremely excited to see how these colors will work out.

And as Bonnie wrote in her directions: cut, sew, cut, sew, cut, sew, (and some pressing inbetween)... my morning and early afternoon was eaten up. More than half of the pairs have been cut and sewn; no pressing yet. I had a nice pattern established; starch/press/stack two full strip sets of neutrals/purples... then cut with the EZ Angle* and Companion rulers, and then taken to the machine to be sewn up right away. So, every 10-15 minutes, another 20-22 pairs were added to organized piles.
* the EZ Angle was used to cut off the end pieces of the strips before using the Companion ruler. I figure why waste the small triangles from the ends?!?!!? I've sewn those little buggars up as well and have set them aside (in the upper left corner of the picture)

The first snow of the season is hitting today. And the weather was deteriorating fairly quickly, so we hit the road to get a few groceries and to pick up the Harry Potter movie. I'm looking forward to watching it again and for Cassie to see it, however a commercial was just shown that Tinker Bell is coming on shortly, and they all seemed pretty enthused about watching THAT...so..... we'll see.

A reflective morning

2011-11-19T08:23:00.002-06:00

After school on Thursday (and 6 hours of Parent-Teacher conferences), I was all set to just kick back in front of my machine with my day off yesterday and sew, sew, sew on Bonnie's new mystery.

It's annoyingly amazing how life's events can alter a mood at the snap of a fingers. :/

I was in a slump yesterday; just some pent up negative energy that wouldn't go away. It didn't help that I couldn't convince myself to just head downstairs and try some quilting therapy; nope! I wasn't having ANY of it. I mean....even BONNIE could get me out of this slump :\ Not good.

So I moped...
I went through the motions with the girls and some friends they had over...
I allowed myself to just.....blehhhhh around; I couldn't shake it.

This morning, I'm feeling better. Reading Bonnie's post of tips is the first positive of the day, so I'm stating it off better than yesterday already. I haven't chosen my fabrics yet, so reading how she defined her focal vs. accent colors will help me when I pull fabrics shortly.

Cassie spent the night at a friend's house. The other two are eating bagels with nutella in front of Phineas & Ferb. Paul is gone for a week of deer hunting. Ideal for a whole lot of quilting to commence, right?

So, my plan (goal?) for the day. Sew for as long and as much as I can. Shop later for milk and Harry Potter Part 7 #2 (the necessities, right?). And then watch the movie with the girls later tonight.

Awesome helpers with Bear Paw

2011-11-13T19:06:00.005-06:00

Quilting with helpers SUUUURE makes for more progress!

Caitlyn joined me by 7:15 this morning (since she decided to wake up at 5:30 with a sore throat :|). With our little assembly line going, the HSTs had their dogears trimmed at the same time as they were pieced into twosies for the Bear Paw edges.

Shortly after 8:00, Candace joined us and wanted to help too. So, I grabbed my stacks of Blue/Neutral HSTs for Jamestown Landing that hadn't had their dogears trimmed and let her have at 'em.

I'd LOVE to say that all 25 blocks for Bear Paw were completed, but not quite. Each corner unit measures 9" finished, with a 1" sash. So....19" blocks, set 5-by-5, will make for a big quilt. :0)

This will simply have to wait until my next quilting moment.

I have NOT set fabrics aside for Bonnie's mystery (YET!), but I have FULLLLL intentions of joining in! We have the day off of school on Friday; Cassie will be with a friend, and I've invited playdates over for Caitlyn and Candace each, so I am hoping to get some good quilting time in on Friday once Bonnie posts the first clue.

Happy Sunday!

Bear Paw beginnings

2011-11-12T19:18:00.005-06:00

Ahhhhh.........a full day with the rotary cutter and sewing machine FINALLY! The Bear Paw fabrics that were purchased two weeks ago were pressed first off, and then almost two hours of cutting commenced before I finally sat at the machine to piece 400 HSTs.

I have completed 11 full blocks (44 "corner" units), but haven't cut any sashing yet. The sashing will be a butterscotch/gold fabric with some dark brown highlights.

The pattern itself is simply simple (um.....is that redundant?) BUT, the real labor will come from the size. It'll be the largest quilt I've made to date, a full KING 120"x120" (or SLIGHTLY smaller so that it will fit on my quilting frame).

After dinner, the girls and I sat at the kitchen table, coloring. Our school collects boxtops, Cambell's labels, and a few other "fundraising" labels, milk tops, ink cartridges, etc... On Friday, all the girls came home with a informational packet that included some boxtop organizational sheets.

After some coloring, cutting, and gluing, 55 boxtop labels will be making their way to school on Monday, in addition to some of the other collection items.

And now, we are all sitting watching Harry Potter #7 - Part #1. This afternoon, Cassie finished reading the chapter where the first movie ends, and she's been pleading and pleading to watch the movie :0) I haven't gone out to purchase Part #2 yet, and I have the restraint and control not to run out like a crazed Harry Potter fan to pick one up. Since Cass has started the 7th book and all the previews have been out for the DVD release, Paul has been asking questions again...."Does Harry die? Does Dumbledore come back?".... I just smile and say "Read the book." Cassie and I had some fun teasing Paul too....by having her repeat after me "I promise....not to tell Dad....what happens in the book."

Cassie came home so excited yesterday after school. She used her AR (Accelerated Reader) points to buy ALMOST the complete HP set. She now has books 1-5. Book #1 is on loan to a friend. So tonight, Caitlyn (2nd grade!) grabbed book number 2 and read the first two pages before we started the movie. We'll see how long she stays motivated on THAT book.

Halloween came-n-went; State Vball with Cassie

2011-11-07T21:25:00.006-06:00

Yup---Halloween came and went. Zoooooooooooom! And despite having good intentions of updating the blog every day last week.......

Welll.....Friday came along just tooooooo fast!

And by the time Friday rolled around, we were on the road traveling to Gma's house to pitstop before heading to State Volleyball Saturday morning in Green Bay.

Not everyone understand the choice of traveling 5 hours one way to watch volleyball for less than 4 hours, and then......travel 5 hours back home.

BUT....the memories created will never go away.

There weren't any teams playing that we knew....but it was simply a way to enjoy some time together, and {{hopefully}} be inspired for her volleyball years ahead.

THANKS for meeting up with us, Sister Jenny! Sadly, Cassie ended up getting sick Saturday night, so the rest of her weekend was NOT as enjoyable.

This picture was taken on Halloween evening. It was a GLORIOUS autumn Wisconsin evening! 50's.

The time change almost caught me off guard tonight. I finished my run (at school) just after the sun had set, FORGETTING that the sun will set before 5:00 now.....so, I don't think I'll be seeing too many more of these pictures at home until next Spring.

SO yeah.......trying to get back to some running. Thinking about signing up for a gym membership since our insurance offers an incentive program for reimbursement of partial membership fees. Actually, it was to the gym where I ran tonight from school (~1.25 miles one way). The owner was pleasant; toggling between talking with me and instructing a small fitness class (which I'm also thinking of signing up for; 3xweek). I used to be a member of this gym YEARS ago before the management had changed. The new owner has REALLLLLy done a nice job with updating it and it's purdy dang schnazzy now!

As for quilting......

**insert super big sad face**

I was hoping to spend some time with the machine yesterday, but.....I spent NINE HOURS at my kitchen table grading papers, tests and prepping for the week ahead. IN-SANE! I was quite thankful for the "extra" hour.

Tidying lead to a quilt center

2011-10-30T16:44:00.007-05:00

I didn't think I was going to have any time this weekend for quilting. However, after almost 3 hours of prepping this morning, I decided that enough time was spent on it; I feel I'm ready for the week well enough.

Yesterday afternoon, my mother (visiting for the weekend) and I went shopping for fabrics for the quilt she requested a few months ago for their "new bedroom." Come to find out, they haven't even painted their bedroom yet!!!! Guess I don't feel so bad anymore.

The quilt pictured was a google find, and thankfully my mother liked the simple elegance of it (... keyword being SIMPLE!)

I fell in love with it; both for the ease of pattern and for the simple geometric beauty of it. Plus---she needs it in King size! This will be the first quilt I will have made where I spared no cost. All the fabric for the top was purchased at full quilt shop prices ('cept for the 20% discount for finishing off TWO bolts. THAT worked out nicely!) With all the batting that my mother has purchased for me, it's really the least I can do.

So, when I headed downstairs today, I had full intensions of cutting into some LOVELY new fabric!!!!

However, since I haven't been sewing much, I wanted to do some tidying up from my previous projects. Blue-n-Gold Pride scraps were cut down and filed into drawers.....

And these Buckeye Beauty units have been moved around for the past two months. I wasn't about to move them around one more time.....therefore they were sewed up, and added to my design wall.

These blocks have been up on the wall for the past month. Rather than have them spend another few months up there, I sewed them too.

And a 64"x80" quilt center was pieced. An inner border is yet to come, and perhaps a pieced border using these extra 4-patch blocks I found....

Unfortunately, this WILL now be set aside until I decide to get back to it again.

Paul snuck downstairs and took a picture of Caitlyn hanging around with me.

Time for me to make sure we're ready for Halloween tomorrow. Nothing like the last minute.

FINALLY a finish!

2011-10-23T15:03:00.006-05:00

Last night, the volleyball team brought home some hardware and are now the 2011 Regional Champions!!! Being the #3 seeded team, we knew the team had their work cut out for themselves, but the championship was attainable. The match was exciting from the start, and our girls upset the #1 seeded team in three straight sets (25-6, 25-20, 25-16). Waaahhhhhoooooooooo!

Our seniors lead the team with motivation and inspiration last night! Joining in with the picture is Emma, former teammate who switched over to Cross-Country. She ALSO had reason to celebrate last night; yesterday morning, she placed 3rd at the Sectional meet and is heading off to State Cross Country!!! I love the support they have for each other!

"Blue-n-Gold Pride
So, with the Blue-n-Gold fever still flowing in the veins, I awoke this morning with the ambition to finally finish this baby.

Hind-sight is 20-20 and I wish I would have made this a bit larger, but it'll still going to be used and used and used.

Cassie is excited to finally have it on her bed. She's upstairs cleaning up her room right now :0)

2011 Whistlestop Half-Marathon

2011-10-16T19:35:00.005-05:00

Saturday, 10/15/11
2011 Ashland, WI Whistlestop Half-Marathon

I didn't have my photographer (aka: my sister, Jen) with me this year, so I don't have any pictures from Saturday. The shot to the left is from 2008 when I ran my last full marathon (black leggings/baby-blue top is me); and the trees were in FULL bloom with 100% coloring.

NOT SO this year. All day Friday and throughout the entire race on Saturday, the wind was blowing 15-30 mph with gusts up to 45 mph, so all the leaves were GONE. Thankfully, the race director spoke with Mother-Nature though; the wind was a tail-wind for most of the race. Whew!

The first three miles were over in a blur! My sister-in-law, BethAnn, was also running the half, so she and I paced together, holding between 10:00-10:20/miles. However, I took a pitstop at mile 3, sending her off with a big GOODLUCK wish! She was hoping to improve her current PR of 2:20. {{Which she DID!!!!! Her chip-time was 2:13, so she took 30 seconds off her mile average. Wooohoooo!}}

I, on the other hand, knew all I could hope for was to just finish. Not going to make any excuses, but it is what it is. Two years off in 2009/2010, and mediocre (at best) training for the past 2 months...... I kept my goals realistic :0)

the next few miles also were gone in a blur. There were enough runners to keep your mind busy; watching others' form, listening to the relaxed conversations of those of us in the back-of-the-pack; I really can't remember all that went through my mind. At one point, I remember thinking about what I needed to do for the upcoming weeks in my Junior High math classes with the Wisconsin State tests looming at the end of the month. Funny, huh?

Once I crossed the 8-mile marker, I recall thinking..."What!? 8 miles already?!? This race is going fast!"

I mean....really....the whole thing was just a blur. It CERTAINLY didn't feel like 2 and a half hours of running!!!! I didn't really watch my time/pace too closely -- in the back of my mind, I was hoping to keep my race under a 2:30 Half-marathon, and I was definitely pacing better than what I did on the Paavo course. But as I came into mile 10 at a time of 1:57, with some quick mental calculation, I knew it would be a challenge without my legs having had the endurance training of years past. 11:00/miles for the last 3 miles???? Could it be done?????

Well, take a look at all those low-bumps in my speed graph :/ I was taking my walk breaks and kept staying as strong as I could during my jogging spurts to bring me to the finish.

2:34:55 is my official chip time; so if you take off 1:00-1:30 for my mile-3 pitstop, I'm satisfied with my day.

After catching up with BethAnn and giving her high-5's and hugs for her amazing finish, I shared that I wasn't completely giving up on these longer distances, but my training has to improve. :0)

So, now to update my Running Page:
To date, I've completed three marathons, ELEVEN half-marathons, and too many 5K's and 10K's to count :0)

Happy Sunday Everyone!

Blue-n-Gold Pride & Placemats

2011-10-09T17:01:00.008-05:00

Blue-n-Gold Pride has finally been loaded onto the frame, and a few paths completed. The nice reality now.... anytime I have 10-15 minutes, I can go downstairs, turn the machine on, and get a path or two finished. However, a comment from Paul sidetracked me today from further quilting on BnG Pride.

"Cassie, go iron the placemats."

These annoying things!!! Paul bought them a few months ago; we never had used placemats before. I kinda rolled my eyes at him at the time, and said...whatever.

However, I have learned....I really like the benefits of having a placemat.

BUT NOT THESE!!!!!
I've tried ironing them. It didn't help.
I've tried washing them, and laying them flat while drying. It didn't help.

So, I went downstairs and dug around to see what fabric I could find. This chosen fabric is a heavier selection that was buried in one of my many donation boxes; it reminds me of a heavier decorative fabric (upholstery or such).

As you can see---nothing fancy-schmancy at all! Just mere function at this point. Then....later on when I really get inspired, I'll see about coming up with something nicer.

I figured these would be good for now. Orangey-autumn colors (AND I burned through some ORANGE for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge --even those these aren't scraps.)

Speaking of Autumn-----we are having UNSEASONABLY warm temperatures!!!!!! We've had 8 days of 80+ degrees so far this October!!! (The 5:00 news just stated that this hasn't happened since 1953). That is just NOT-NORMAL for us northern states. However, this "borrowed time" will end by mid-week, and then we'll be back to normal (and even BELOW normal temperatures!) :0( So, my half-marathon next weekend will be NOTHING like the Chicago marathon today; temps are predicted for 50s (HIGH), which means.....30s(???) at the start????

Missing all of you

2011-10-07T18:21:00.002-05:00

So, does this earn your forgiveness for leaving you all without a SINGLE word for over a week????

It's so true. I miss you all and hope to catch up with all of you over the weekend.....
((in addition to 10 hours of school work, 15 loads of laundry and HOPEFULLLLLY a few hours of sewing))

Just a quick hello... and a smile (?)

2011-09-29T22:23:00.004-05:00

Wooooooooo---eeeeeeeeee!!! It's been my first Ca-raaazy week of the school year! Tests, tests and more tests; Parent-teacher conferences last night, early morning meeting today, and worked the volleyball game tonight. Today, it was all I could do to hang on by my fingernails! I was shootin' from the hip in one of my classes, and it actually ended up being a great lesson! :0)

So....time for BED now that my Pre-Calculaus test is written.

.......for my Canadian readers, I just couldn't resist sharing this! It showed up on Facebook tonight, and I simply chuckled and shook my head. :0)

Happy weekend! Heading out of town, to the farm.

{{and for those of you unfamiliar with Mt. Rushmore, here it is "from the front."}} :0)

Something new on my design wall

2011-09-25T21:49:00.006-05:00

Blue-n-Gold Pride ended up getting pieced today, as well as a backing prepped for it. I was not able to get it loaded onto the frame by dinner time, though. And......frankly, after dinner, I no longer had any ambition to load it.

I wasn't completely unmotivated, though.

I hadn't just "looked" around the sewing room in a bit, so......I stood....turned...... and eyed.

The Fall Buckeye Beauty swap blocks from last year caught my eye. Since Fall is DEFINITELY in the air, I thought it would be nice to see what the status of the layout was.

I could leave this as an 8x8 layout and put those three extra blocks on the back. OR....

I could spend some time cutting into some more scraps in order to make thirteen more blocks to complete the bottom row and an additional row on the top.

And OF COURSE!!!! Once I was done cutting and piecing.... I found a HUGE stack of "extra" 4-patches from the swap. **hitting forehead** I guess I'll have to see about doing some kind of pieced border on this one.

I also haven't posted a Stash Report in QUITE a while. With the additional Buckeye Beauty units tonight, and the Jamestown Landing HSTs this morning, and the 9-patches of the Blue-n-Gold Pride piecing from last week.....
Stash Report: September 5 - 25
Used/wk: 4.819 yds
Purch/wk: 0.00 yds

Used/yr: 145.645 yds
Purch/yr: 81.917 yds

Net Used: 63.728 yds

I am definitely further behind in my "used" category than where I was last year, but my "Net" is MUCH nicer than last year :0)

Aren't these FUN!??? Candace has snack tomorrow, and a cousin of Paul had posted sunflower cupcakes like this on Facebook last week that she had made for HER daughter's snack day. With the girls' help, we made up 24 cupcakes, and enjoyed eating a couple too :0) {{Candace only needs 17 for her class}}.

Another weekend coming to an end. This one kinda FLEW by. You too?

Leader-Ender (Jamestown) & Blue-n-Gold updates...

2011-09-25T10:53:00.006-05:00

I resisted starting the QOV mystery. At this point, only the fabric requirements have been posted, so I'm hoping I can get some progress done on others before the cutting clue is available. BUT, I am most definitely going to participate. I've done the last four mysteries; and it's always nice to work on a project along with others :0)

Instead, I spent a couple of hours this morning cutting up the rest of my HSTs for Jamestown Landing. 420 HSTs awaiting here, and will be my leader-ender until finished up with Blue-n-Gold Pride.

Yup.....BnG Pride is up next! :0)

While I'm doing that, Paul has potatoes on his mind for today. He checked "pigs" off his list yesterday. And even though he requested that the girls stay inside...."they don't need to watch this".... the girls had other thoughts!!! They were peering out the window, watching him with fascination, so he finally just said "Well, you might as well come out and learn something then!" They were pretty enrapt with how the tendons/muscles worked to move the pig foot. Besides, this is about the only "non-gross" picture I took, and I didn't want to push my luck here on the blog :0)

Loads to do ; Must resist a QOV Mystery!

2011-09-24T06:51:00.006-05:00

Another Homecoming week (almost) wrapped up....The Homecoming Dance remains, scheduled for tonight, but I have no plans of attending.
We truly have a great student-body this year; some amazing seniors! (and yeah...even that clown peeking through from the background. :0) )

And our Queen didn't let us down (although our King did) :0) {{In all reality, I'm actually glad our King Jesse decided to back-off on the icecream eating. Afterall, he had a big football game to play a couple of hours after this craziness!!!}}

And our amazing Mrs. Amanda, 7-12 secretary, kept the days running smoothly with her lovely southern-drawl announcing over the PA system. I don't remember where she hails from, but she CLEARLY came from the south somewhere; her southern hospitality is always shining through when she needs to bring out her "people-skills."

So now....bright-n-early awake on a Saturday. Loads on the agenda; For Paul -- butcher piggies (ewww) and dig potatoes. For me: LOTS of school work lesson planning and documentation..... I think it could be an all-day thing, so I will get busy very shortly!!!! Because......

Mystery Quilts 4 Military is started a mystery, and I'm really interested in starting. BUT.....I've been resisting it so far :0) {{It started yesterday}}

The "Crazy but Fun" week (aka: Homecoming!)

2011-09-20T18:55:00.019-05:00

A definition:
Homecoming is the tradition of welcoming back former residents of an area or alumni of a school. It most commonly refers to a tradition in many universities, colleges and high schools in North America. It usually includes activities for students and alumni, such as sports and culture events and a parade through the streets of the city or town. {{courtesy of wikipedia}}

I would agree with MOST of that.....but more is needed!!!

The Homecoming "Royalty" - pictured is our 2011 Homecoming court. Upper middle shows our King and Queen. (yay Kellie!!! My volleyball captain from last year, and once again a captain this year, was voted Queen!)

The crazy Homecoming Pep Rallies and CRAZY games to fire up the School Spirit. {{Pictured in Grade 4 teacher: Mr. Kevan. ALWAYS a crowd favorite!!!!!}}

The wacky "dress-up" days all week long. Our 8th grade class is showing off some of the "Pirates" that were wandering the halls yesterday.....

ALLLLLLL of these events lead up to one finality: THE HOMECOMING FOOTBALL GAME ON FRIDAY NIGHT!

Ya see---we Americans LOVE our football. (Not that soccer game....no, no, no......the game of the genuine "pig skin", oblong brown ball) :0)

The week of Homecoming at our school often is quite chaotic, but ALWAYS great fun and an excellent demonstration in school spirit! Having missed out on "Pirate Day" yesterday, my partner-in-crime for the last 13 years, Miss Everson (aka: Jan) and I were NOT going to miss out on "Identical Day." And....ya see?!?!?!?! MORE FOOTBALL LOVERS!!! Sportin' our Green-n-Gold (and white) Green Bay Packer jerseys!!!!!

My first 6 years, I was teaching in the High School wing, but when the Junior High math teacher retired 7 years ago....I JUMPED at the opportunity to move over a wing with the the amazing close-knit Junior High Staff! Jan teaches English to our Junior High students, and we have been "neighbors" since my transition. When I first started teaching 14 years ago, I was also hired on as the Assistant Volleyball Coach (JV squad), and this is truly what brought Jan and I super-close together :0) She was the Head Coach at the time. We were a dynamic-duo coaching staff for 8 years, and I learned so much from her. A TRUE, good-hearted, respectful mentor! LOVE HER TO DEATH!!!! And I couldn't imagine the work place without her!

These two characters are the two crazies that are in charge of much of the Homecoming ~~chaos~~ organization. And YES-----"they got spirit!" {{Hmmm...notice the Packer football picture in the background. Did I NOT say that we American's (Wisconsinites in parTICular) LOVE our boys of the grid-iron (football field, for those of not "up" on your football lingo)!!!!}} Deb (left) is a relatively new-comer to our District; I believe this is the 4th year since she and her husband moved their family into our neck of the woods. From day #1, she has been very active in the school! Last year, she was hired on as a Teacher's Assistant and we are SO LUCKY to have her. This year, she ventured one step further to add "Student Council Advisor" to her plate. Additional, Patti (pictured right), put her Student Council Advisor hat BACK on after taking a few years "off" from the duty. Both of these two make another SUPER GREAT dynamic-duo for our school!

So....despite some poo-poo-butts that exist in EVERY corner of the world, and EVERY job environment that exists....I'm happy to say that there are also some AMAZING people in every corner of the world as well! :0)

Happy Tuesday!

Tomorrow's Homecoming Dress-up Day: "Senior Citizen Day." Hmmm...wonder if I have some old polyester pants hiding in my sewing stash inherited from Grandma???!?!?!? ;0)

SO.......7:05 PM. The girls are hanging around Dad outside...... I don't know if it pays to head downstairs when I'll have to wrangle them up in 25 minutes to get ready for bed.

Hmmm.....wonder if I'll lose ambition once they get settled in bed.

The Run that almost wasn't [2011 Running]

2011-09-19T20:57:00.008-05:00

GOODNESS! It's no wonder (sometimes) that kids forget this or that at school......specially when they live in a situation where they are at Mom's for one week, and then Dad's the next week.

This morning, while rummaging through my closet looking to see if anything would pass for a "Pirate" outfit (yeah....Homecoming week!), I started throwing my "running clothes" into my running bag to be prepared to run once school ended today. NAUGHTY MOM! I should KNOW better than to procrastinate and wait 'til the morning of a school day. This SHOULD have been done last night!!!!!

Anyway....so after school today, I head to the locker room to change. Before I even reached the door, it hit me!!! I forGOT to pack a sports bra. Gah!!!!! Stupid, stupid, stupid. **hitting forehead** I wasn't about to let that hold me back; rather I asked a fellow coach if she could "hook me up." Sadly.....she couldn't.

Oh well-----I only was planning a short run; I think I can manage with the "standard" over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder. {{snort...haven't called it THAT in a long time!!! Besides...mine is more like an 'over-the-shoulder-pebble-holder. Tee-heeeee! {too much information there???}}}

So.....as I'm getting dressed, the next thing hit me! NO HAIR TIE!!!!!! Really Amy!??!!?!? You're just TRYING to come up with anything so you DON'T have to run!!!!

BUT......I ran anyway. Long, curly hair a'flyin and pebbles a'bouncin! ;0)

Okay...fast forward to just a few moments ago.....

I was getting frustrated that my watch (Garmin Forerunner 305) wasn't transferring information over to my new computer!!! The software appeared to be installed correctly on the new machine, and appeared to be running alright. But it kept crashing whenever transferring info over.

SO-----off a'googlin' I went!!!

And here's what I found!!! A free upgrade!!!

And the new graphs-----ooooooohhhhhhh. This math teacher is in LOVE!!!!!

I always was able to install my "speed zones," but they never really did anything before. NOW.....with one lil' checkbox, they can now be shown on the "speed" graph to get an idea of how ~~fast~~ slow I ran.

Yay!!!! :0) I'm off to play some more to see what "new stuff" can get my butt motivated again! OMGoodness! I hadn't run since LAST TUESDAY!!!!! That's just NOT acceptable!

{{Oh, BTW...never did find anything for Pirate Day :0( But tomorrow, I'm ALL OVER "Twin Day"; a coworker and I are going as crazy Packer fans, pigtails-n-all}}

Sunday afternoon down-time

2011-09-18T19:51:00.010-05:00

The go-go-go energy from yesterday finally subsided. After coming upstairs at noon to put some dinner on the table, I sat down with the laptop to read over some blog updates, and I ended up resting my eyes for a small moment while listening to the Packers on the radio. By 2:00, a warm bath sounded perfect......so that's what I did.

Fall weather has hit full-bore in Wisconsin; rainy and cold all day. I've been bundled up in my favorite sweats, wool fuzzy socks and long-sleeve shirt.

I grabbed a new book for my soaking time: Linda Howard's "Mackenzie's Mountain." I haven't read a paperback in a bit; I've mainly been reading stories on my Kindle for my iTouch. However, I wasn't about to try that in the water :0)

After the bath, I found a little bit of motivation to get back downstairs. However, Blue-n-Gold Pride stayed exactly where it was; still in rows waiting to be pieced into a top. A few of you had been asking about the pattern used: this is one that has been stewing patiently on my "To be made someday" list. The design is Scrappy Stars by Melissa Erickson. I didn't follow her cutting directions nor some of her piecing directions, but the design is all hers.

Instead, I started cutting more Blue/Neutral HSTs for Jamestown Landing.
And I pressed the HSTs I already had finished. The quilt needs 840 HSTs, and I had exactly HALF completed already! As a mathematician, that was just TOO FUN of a coincidence!!! Go figure!!!

When walking through the living room, this was what I saw. They are under there with the laptop playing a DVD; their own "homemade theatre" :0) Eventually, they made their way to our bedroom, which is MUCH DARKER once the door is closed and the blinds are drawn.

Paul helped a buddy butcher his pigs yesterday morning, so on his way back home, he stopped by a meat shop and picked up some steaks. Paul definitely loves his mushrooms and onions; I pass on that topping. I cut up some pieces of steak for the girls, and after Candace took her first bite, she asked: "What is this?"
Me: "That's steak honey; from a cow."
{{and without missing a beat}}
Candace: Dad. We HAVE to get some cows!!!

Oh boy. Pigs and Chickens already on our hobby-farm. We tried a cow already, but she kept breaking free of the fencing. So frustrating. I can't foresee having cows again any time soon.

To finish up this post: I can't resist showing one (final?) garden goodie shot. These are the ingredients for the vegetable juice I made up after dinner last night. It all looked SO YUMMY, and the final cooked product certainly was!

Blue-n-Gold Pride layout

2011-09-18T12:17:00.001-05:00

Yup...Angela was right. It didn't take too long to whip up the missing blocks {{and IF I actually DID make them originally, and IF they decide to show up.....they'll either make some great backing additions OR an excellent pillow accessory.}}

Lunch time; glancing over this picture to make sure all blocks are turned correctly before sewing the rows together into the top.

Homecoming game is this Friday-----oooohhhhhh......push, push, push. Would be so great to have this completed and USED in the cheer section!

Houston quilt center - We have a problem

2011-09-18T10:40:00.001-05:00

?!?!?!!?!?

How did THIS happen?????

I've searched high-n-low; did I really fail to make these blocks???????

Tired of seeing my tomatoes yet?

2011-09-17T16:22:00.007-05:00

Here is my 2nd load of tomatoes for the day; the first load is in the canner for their 45 minute bath. Always something to do during the process, and once started, there isn't much downtime. {{Obviously I have some downtime right now, though!!!}}

The 2nd load has since been skinned and cored, and is currently getting up to boiling temperature. Then, they'll be loaded in the jars and OFF for their 45 min. bath too.

Now, the sad reality.....

I will only be doing one more partial load (5 quarts), because that'll be the END of our jars.

Sure, sure....that should be HAPPPPY reality! But the reason it's a sad reality.......

LOOOOOOK at all the tomatoes we still have on the tables!!!!! Not to mention what still remains out on the vines!!!

;0) Guess we don't need to plant 38 tomato plants next year :0)

So.....5 quarts left.

Hmmm....... straight canned tomatoes? Or tomato juice? I need to count what we have and try to "equal" them out. When I make chili, I plan to use one jar of canned tomatoes, one jar of tom. juice and probably one jar of vegetable juice too.

Hmmmm.....me thinks MAYBE I need another batch of vegetable juice!!!!

Always an exciting stage [updated]

2011-09-17T10:25:00.006-05:00

With those Blue-n-Gold Pride units waiting patiently all week long, I was anxious to get downstairs this morning to start the FUN-n-EXCITING stage of staring to piece them all together.

Piecing-n-Pressing has been much of my morning

And the first glimmer of a quilt top is enough to keep me pushing along at warp speed :0)

Takin' a small mid-breakfast break; jam-n-toast with coffee.

I see alllll those tomatoes on the table, just a-waitin' to see some processing today. And they will!!! Just a little bit later; after lunch, maybe.

For now.....I wonder if I can get that top together by lunch time.

Hmmm....1.5 hours away; I don't think so, but I'll do the best I can.

12:15 update
Too much of a good thing isn't always good when other things are also pressing in for time! With lunch needing to be made, and an afternoon of processing tomatoes on the priority list, I must set my B-n-G Pride sewing aside for now. The good news, though.......I was motivated and busy last night prepping for all of my classes and grading all my homework papers. Therefore, I have NO SCHOOLWORK looming over me for the rest of the weekend. I'm betting I'll be back with B-n-G later this evening :0)

Happy Saturday!

MORE tomatoes!!!

2011-09-14T20:51:00.005-05:00

Holy tomatoes Batman! With the 100% certainty that frost/freezing temps are hitting tonight (24 degrees F forecasted), I ditched out of school shortly after gathering up my girls directly after the ending bell in order to get home and into the garden. With the girls' help, we picked a whopping load of tomatoes! Bag upon bag upon bag was emptied onto the tables (see the little one in the background?).

It was Cassie's idea to get this angle to show that we simply didn't have enough table to lay the tomatoes in one layer; many have been doubled up.

And we STILL have tomatoes outside on the vines.

I have been going like the energizer bunny; pushing tomatoes through the food strainer, with MUCH assistance from the girls! A true assembly line; Cassie washing the tomatoes, me cutting them into the hopper, Candace mushing them down in the hopper, and Caitlyn turning the crank. BOY! Did that save ME some time tonight while I made another 11 quarts of juice; just straight tomato juice tonight. And sadly, barely a dent was made in the tomato population on the tables! This weekend, the game plan will be to tackle canning whole tomatoes.

While we were doing that, Paul was outside covering up much of the garden and picking basil.

After hanging the basil up on our kitchen over-hang, he snapped this picture.

You really CAN say a picture is worth a 1000 words. There's so much going on in this picture! (That's better than saying the kitchen is a total disaster, right????):0)

OFF with her hair!

2011-09-13T21:27:00.006-05:00

Yeah, yeah. It wasn't too long ago that Cassie had her hair cut to make a donation to Locks of Love. And lil' Candace begged and begged to have her hair cut. Recall at the time....MOM was NOT too keen on the idea. I LOVE her hair!

But after a week of school mornings and combing through her wind-blown-from-playing-outside hair snarls.....

When she begged once more this morning with tears in her eyes from the "gentle" hair brushing....I was PERFECTLY fine with her request.

My response: "Tonight Candace, okay?"

Her response: "Do you pwomise, Mom? Cuz you CAN'T break a pwomise!"

Me: "Promise!"

This is the FIRST time her hair has been cut, other than a lil' trim here-n-there, and of COURSE her bang cuts.....

She was nervous! Every time I grabbed another hair-tie, she thought I was grabbing the scissors to cut her hair, and she pulled away from me.

"I'm afwaid Mom..." she kept saying. {{She's trying so hard on those hard 'r-sounds'. She's ALMOST there!}}

I calmed her, as did her bigger sisters. And I asked her ONE FINAL TIME if she was SURE she wanted the shorter hair....

"YES MOM!!!!! Just DO it already!"

She BOLTED to the bathroom mirror once I made the complete cut across the pony-tail, squeeeeeling and giggggling! Caitlyn wasn't far behind her, either.

I had to convince her to sit still a bit longer so that I could trim up and even out the cuts.

And if she weren't a whole foot (and then some) shorter than Cassie, I would have a hard time telling the two of them apart from the back.

The first "real" Monday

2011-09-12T20:34:00.005-05:00

I don't teach Health of any biological sciences, BUT.....

I DEFINITELY can tell you where my "turbinates" are; as mine are quite painful and touchy from my day of nose-blowing yesterday. I think they are talking directly to the upper-middle of my brain too! My head has hurt all day; my nose continued giving me the daily sniffles; and I tried NOT to blow my nose as much as possible because I didn't think my head could take any more pressure!!!!!!! My students pointed out that I looked "under the weather;" my voice was "tired" .... and I can only guess that I sounded as stuffy as my head felt all day.

Yeah....exactly! Now imagine some water in that bubble, .....yup! That's the ticket! Exactly how my hearing came across today.

Despite, the day merried its way along without much of a hitch; classes were fine; students were okay; and my work-load was tolerable.

Homefront: I even have the laundry under way, dishes done, counters cleaned, supper made, homework completed, girls to bed, .... and feet up with a cup of "Sleepy Time" tea. Yum! Main ingredient: speariment, with no caffeine.

UGH! I NEEEEEED to sleep better tonight! After another 90 degree day, and 82!!!! in my classroom. Yeah, I suppose that didn't really help my mood today. I caved and turned the AC on when we got home; Paul wasn't too keen on that move (since it's supposed to plummet to 50/60s tomorrow--gotta love crazy weather patterns!), BUT.... I have faith that the AC will allow me to sleep better tonight! No windows open to let in any NASTY NASTY pollen!

I REALLLLLLLLY wanted to work on Blue-n-Gold Pride, just like I realllllly should have gotten out to run 4-5 miles tonight. Psht! I'm riding this sinus head business out; but no excuses tomorrow! I MUST run!

Somehow, we fit it all in!

2011-09-11T20:17:00.012-05:00

As much as I want to get those few extra minutes of sleep during the work-week....once my eyes open on the weekend, I'm UP! Soooo much to do all the time, and quite literally, there is NOT enough daytime to get it all done.

BUT....today, we did pretty good!

Yesterday in the mail, I received the give-away scrap box that Nancy (Patchwork Penguin) graciously gave-away earlier last week. I didn't even open it yesterday with all the tomato fun we were having :0).....

But nothing held me back today. My GOODNESS!!!! The "scraps" were JAM-PACKED in there! And....WOW! So many GOOOOOODIES!

In fact, I put one of the fabrics to work straight-away as I started piecing more 9-patches together -- a blue strip here, a yellow strip there

an hour here....

an hour there....

another hour there.... (working at WARP speed because I just wanted to get all 165 9-patches DONE today!)

And it worked!!!! ALLLLL the units for Blue-n-Gold Pride are now completed. And as BADLY as I wanted to keep going and start piecing the blocks together.....it was already 11:00, and I had LOADS to do yet if we were going to get out on that boat in the afternoon to enjoy the last NICE day we'll probably have before Fall weather really takes over.

From 11:00 - 1:30 ... more canning! 6 half-pints of pickle relish, and another 10 half-pints of salsa. Amidst that time, I also made up some lunch and picked up a friend of Cassie's who we invited to tag along on the boating excursion.

And EVEN though I KNOW Paul would rather have kept working on his yard tasks, (just like I would have LOVED to have kept working on B-n-G Pride.....

We did get on the road around 2:30 to enjoy the rest of the afternoon on the water. As we were heading through town, the Bank's sign was letting us know EXACTLY how beautiful of a day it was!!! 91 degrees! LOVELY!

Now, for those of you in the south, hearing 91 probably makes you say "ugh!!!!!!!!" But, up here, we may have set a record for the latest 90-degree day in September (I'll have to watch news tonight).

As for the water.....

Fa-Reeeeeeezing!

{{alright, alright. So it probably wasn't 32 degrees F, but.....it was COLD!!!!!!}}

But it didn't stop the girls (too much) from enjoying the afternoon. Even I dived in to cool off........and that water CERTAINLY did the job today!!! However, after lounging in the sun on the boat with legs propped up, face looking up towards the sun..... ahhhhhhhhH! It was a BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL toasty warm afternoon on the lake!!!!!

By 6:00, we were rolling back home to make sure we had time for dinner, baths, and getting everything ready for school. And again, amazingly, we got it all in, with the girls climbing in bed by 8:00.

While dinner was cooking and the girls were finishing their baths, I took the basil leaves out of the dehydrator to give 'em a whirl in the small food processor.

Using the words of Judy L, ..... they were pulverized to a lovely fine seasoning flake.

Paul knew what he was doing when he "recycled" some old seasoning jars after we emptied them. Golly...all I'd have to do now is print off an adorable little label, and I could sell basil seasoning for a living!!! ;0) As for the dehydrated tomatoes -- they weren't quite dry enough yet. I'm predicting tomorrow :0)

The most annoying part of the day: MY ALLERGIES!!!!!!! My goodness! The pollen count must have been SUPER-HIGH today! I even took a second 24-hour-time-released tablet (about 6 hours after my first).... and the meds didn't even TOUCH my allergies today! My poor nose! Thank goodness for Puffs Plus w/Lotion!

I didn't do much of any prepping this weekend, but I think I'm set for at least tomorrow since I prepped for two-weeks last weekend. Kinda nice being ahead. :0)

Still tomato-ing along

2011-09-10T16:39:00.006-05:00

With assistance from the girls, 22 pounds of cooked tomatoes along with carrots, celery, and onions were sent through the food strainer. Although this recipe stated that it would make 7 quarts, I actually ended with 9 quarts of vegetable juice. YUM! A bit "richer" flavor than JUST tomato juice for those cold winter days when we make Chili!

Since the large soup pot was used to cook the veggies together and I was still unloading the goods into the food strainer, I used our next largest pot to collect the "puree" as it was coming out of the strainer.....

BOY! It was JUST large enough for the juice of this batch!!!!

We're still going strong; Paul and the girls just headed out to pick up some vinegar so we can try ketchup next.

In the meantime, taking a moment to update y'all while the pizza sauce is simmering (another 6 pounds of tomatoes here). And yet another 6 pounds has already been sent through the strainer, awaiting the ketchup recipe....and that'll be the lot of the tomatoes today.

22 pounds tomatoes -> vegetable juice (9 quarts made)
6 pounds tomatoes -> pizza sauce (which'll make 10 half-pints; enough for 10 pizzas)
6 pounds tomatoes -> ketchup (should be ~ 5 pints)

OH!!!!
I forgot....I also cut up about 2 pounds and those slices are currently in the food dehydrator, along with 2 trays of basil. The house has a YUMMMMMY aroma right now.

so....35-36 pounds of tomatoes used today (so far). I may head out in a bit to pick some more if the ketchup recipe works out. PLUS, the girls already polished off one of my jars of salsa the other day, so I have to make more of that....

Hmm....haven't even gotten to just simply canning whole tomatoes!!! That may happen throughout the week, or next weekend.

Red, Juicy and IN ABUNDANCE!

2011-09-10T10:07:00.006-05:00

Oh boy! Bet you can guess what the vast majority of my day entails :0)

And this only shows a small portion of what we have on the vines..... Oh THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for such a harvest!!!!

Canned tomatoes
Stewed tomatoes
Salsa
Ketchup??? worth a try?
Spaghetti sauce??? Need to find a recipe to try...
Pizza sauce??? Have a recipe to try!

AND....Paul received a Food Dehydrator for Christmas last year that I'm curious to try out!!! I remember Judy dehydrating basil and tomatoes to create her own seasoning (blogged here), so I will attempt that as well, but I will actually MIX THEM TOGETHER! I LOVE tomato-basil EVERYTHING! Chips, crackers.....so...why not try to see what creativity can lead to if we have our own home-made "seasoning."

Happy Saturday!

Love today's date...

2011-09-10T07:18:00.004-05:00

9 - 10 - 11

As a math teacher, today's date is "fun!"

SO....what a great day to HAVE FUN!!!

My plans:

The Blue-n-Gold Pride quilt!!!
{{but i also have TONs and TONs of tomatoes to take care of at some point}} ;0)

Hmmmm.......and at 12:13 PM I simply HAVE to take a moment to say "I love mathematical patterns!!!" {{I missed the 12:13 AM moment, so I only have the PM moment left}} :0)

;0)

Typin' on the brand new MacBookPro

2011-09-07T20:09:00.003-05:00

It arrived today!!!

Turned it on 40 minutes ago....
Set up the email program...
set up some other settings...

And starting tomorrow----will transfer over EVERYTHING that my coworker buddy Darin saved from my old MacBook hard drive. WHEW! I owe him BIG TIME!!!

Have others of you had this thought cross your mind? .....
"back in the day".... there came a time where it was considered 'normal' that each household had more than one Television....
"now"...... it almost seems that it's becoming a time where every household has more than one Computer/Laptop.

How many computers/laptops are in YOUR home?

We are only sitting at 2 laptops now; we had a third computer, but it was "old" and too much of a pain to update. However....I foresee within the next 2 years, we'll need to get a third computer/laptop. We also have one iTouch with wireless capabilities if we really get "hard up" to get online.

Blue-n-Gold Pride :0)

2011-09-05T21:50:00.003-05:00

Lunch was made
Dishes were done
Laundry was started
Salsa got made (10 half-pints)

and I STILL had time to play around with my Blue-n-Gold Pride leader-ender units. Lots of pressing; lots of dog-ear trimming; lots of subcutting for the 9-patches. I only have 1/3 of the 9-patches completed and about 1/2 of the gold/gold HSTs. ALL of the B/G HSTs are completed, and I started piecing some "diamond" units...

I hope to make some quick progress on this now that I'm moving it off the L/E pile so that it can be used yet this Football season! Blue-n-Gold are our school colors.

Happy Monday!

Smith Mountain Morning top

2011-09-05T11:11:00.004-05:00

Smith Mountain Morning (71"x83")

Two words:

WOW BONNIE!!!

This pattern is AMAZING! Love it!!!

I'm still in the piecing mood, but lunch is looming and the kitchen is a mess and the laundry still needs my attention and the tomatoes want to be made into salsa........

So yeah....don't think I'll get back downstairs today. BUT...happy with my morning!!

Smith Mountain Morning layout

2011-09-03T13:23:00.004-05:00

While waiting for a load of clothes to be done, I figured "WHY NOT?" Since I spent some time outside trimming the edge of the lawn for Cassie to finish up the mowing....and now that I'm paying the consequences of that move thanks to my Ragweed allergy.... :\

I grabbed the Smith Mountain Morning blocks and organized them into the center of the quilt. Learning from experience...before sewing blocks together into rwos, I snapped a picture and blew it up on the computer to make sure everything was correct. I sure don't think I can find any incorrect block placement here....and the scrappiness seems to fit just fine; no "like" fabrics near each other....

I might just get this center done before taking off to the farm tonight.

WHEW! Three posts so far in one day.

TOMATOES!!!!

2011-09-03T11:35:00.005-05:00

They've survived AND arrived :0)

I wasn't sure what I was going to find when I went outside just now to check the status of the tomato-patch. If you can look past the dead leaves and non-existant leaves.......the FRUIT is arriving BEAUTIFULLY!!! THANK GOODNESS!

I have a feeling.....next weekend; we're going to be canning tomatoes. YES!

Heading back to the house, the girls were "hanging out" in the garage with the new babes.

They never grow tired of handling the baby chicks. :0) These 24 will be raised strictly for meat; in 10 weeks, they'll be in the freezer. Harsh, yes.....but 'tis life.

The OTHER chicks from a couple of months ago.....I couldn't find any of them around to snap a picture, but imagine a "middle-size" chicken. They've grown QUITE big and we can't wait 'til they start producing eggs next year.

Alright....the decision has been made: we're heading up to the farm later tonight, so I have the day. As bad as I'd love to get some quilting in, there are too many other outside projects that need attention.

If you didn't read up on Cassie's SUPER 5K run this morning, be sure to check that post out. {{If you look close at the picture of Caitlyn holding the chick, Cassie is in the background STILL wearing her medal. :0) Think she's still tickled pink???}}

The Shell Lake 5K Success!

2011-09-03T10:21:00.006-05:00

With thunder and lightening in 6AM sky, Cassie and I started to prepare for the race. And thankfully, by race-start, the sky was clearing, the rain disappeared, and the temps held in the low 60's.

Our game plan today: try to hold at 11:00/mile pace.

The outcome:

from 38:08 in July, to 33:40 today! 10:57/mile average :0) And a 2nd place medal to boot!

I love the home-town race! LOTS of familiar faces willing to snap pictures of "Cass and Mom."

And familiar faces out on the course. High school senior (Varsity Volleyball starting setter) Emma made the 9-mile finish look effortless as she strolled to an Overall First Place Female victory. There wasn't another lady in sight for a LONG time!!

And then there's Pam (left) and Keri (middle) {{and some lil' man I don't know}} who were racing to the finish line.

What a fun morning!!!!!

Next on the agenda:
I have NO idea!
Paul wants to take the boat out; he still has plans to head up for the farm for part of the weekend; I have school lesson planning that needs attention......**shrug**.....
I'm sure it'll all happen eventually :0)

HAPPPPPPPPY SATURDAY!

When does life slow down?

2011-09-02T17:07:00.008-05:00

Alright folks out there who have (perhaps) reached the happy age of retirement.....

Does life EVER slow down? When? 40's? 50's? 30's??

The first day of school came and went yesterday with its own "normal" craziness, but then add to that....a 5:55AM phone call from the post office that "Your chicks have arrived. Please pick them up ASAP"

SERIOUSLY!!?!?!? The FIRST day of school!?!??!!? It's crazy enough to make sure all the girls are up, fed, and ready for the bus on the first day....to add to that missing Paul for 20 minutes while he drives to pick up the chicks.

BUT! The morning was a success! Everyone was able to eat...get dressed in their "First Day" outfit... even teeth brushed and hair combed... :0)

Out the door by 6:55 AM to catch the "typical" 7:00 AM bus.

Big Sister Caitlyn excitedly pointed to First-Time-Bus-Rider Candace that the bus was coming.

Ya think Candace was excited??? ;0) And Cassie, the ol' pro heading off to 5th grade, simply gave the "staged" smile.

For those of you with my Facebook page....you already know. Behind the lense of this photo, some Proud Mommy tears were welling up in the eyes. MILESTONE at the Skattebo house: ALL THREE OFF TO SCHOOL.

MY first day----FLEWWWWWWWW by! A whole lot of excitement; a whole lot of organized chaos. For those of you who don't teach 7th grade.....BOY! This is a WHOLE NEW WORLD for them! At our school, students transition from 6th grade elementary to 7th grade Junior High / Middle School. And LOCKERS are introduced to their daily routine.

OH

BOY!

I was ready though.....or at least my patience was ready. :D

THEN.....
afterschool, a few errands needed to be run; pick up perscriptions; pick up my new glasses; buy a few supplies needed for school yet......

and during all of this, we get a call from Cassie's dentist that she won the NO CAVITY CLUB award for the month of August. Wa-hoooooo! The nurse admited that she was a bit worried picking the winner this month since ALL THREE GIRLS had NO CAVITIES at Wednesday's appointments. WoW! Mark that on the calendar!!!!

And now...the weekend is here.
LOTS of goals and ambitions for school plans/lessons. Oh lordy...where to begin. New texts for Math 7A and Math 8. Only the 2nd year using the Pre-Calc textbooks (that I taught TWO years ago), so it'll be almost like starting new again.... New Common Core Standards for the Nation's math, so as I plan, I'll be making sure I'm aligned to those......a rewrite on the Algebra curriculum since we've been progressing so much with the younger grades; these students KNOW much of the first quarter material.....

:0)

LOADS to keep me busy this year.

Cassie and I have our 5K race in the morning...
We're off to a football game tonight...
heading up to the Farm after the race tomorrow...
hoping to come back early enough to get laundry done...
dishes have piled the last few nights because no one has done them while I've been at school working and watching Vball......

Yeah......WHEN does it slow down?

Happpppppyy Weeeeekend!

Swoopin' In....

2011-08-30T22:18:00.003-05:00

Aggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!

NEEEEEEEEED
MOOOOORE
TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME!!

School starts for students on Thursday; tomorrow is the final day of Teacher-Inservice, loaded with a full-day meeting.

My room is SOOOOOOO NOT ready!

I was "kindly" kicked out of the school at 9:00 tonight.......what?!?!? What happened to 11:30PM deadline (the typical cut-off during the school year).

Oh dear
Oh dear
Oh dear

;0)

Whew
Okay
That's out of my system....

In all honesty......
Thursday (First Day) is CRAZY for students; NOT a normal schedule AT ALL. It'll be kinda a "coast" day for the 7/8 Grade staff, so I think I'm set.
Friday (first "real" day) follows a normal schedule, and I THINK I'm mostly set for classes, syllabi, books, binders, first "fun" projects.....

And that'll give me the weekend to REALLY make sure I'm ready for Tuesday, the first "real-real" day :0)

On the garden-forefront:
We're DONE with corn. We decided to give our remaining corn away to friends/family.
We're DONE with beans. Anything that comes now will merely remain on the bushes.
We're DONE with cucumbers. Same as beans.
Tomatoes are slowly turning red; must peek at them tomorrow because I haven't seen them in three days. I don't know how our leaf-less babies are doing.....I wonder if the Septoria Leaf Spot is attacking again.....yup. MUST get to the garden before leaving tomorrow....just for a peek.
Potatoes.....no clue. Must ask Paul about those.
Ummm......carrots. Oh my word! I have no idea what Paul has in mind for them this year. Yet to come.
Onions....still in ground.
Melons.....still growing.

Okay.

Quilting forefront:
At a complete standstill until life gets back on a schedule. LOL...yeah, you teachers out there know what I mean. Give me another week and I should be bringing quilting back into my schedule.

Family forefront:
Candace's Kindergarten openhouse: 5:00 tonight. Check.
Caitlyn's 2nd grade openhouse: 6:00 tonight. Check.
Cassie's 5th grade openhouse: 6:30 tonight. Check.
Dentist appts tomorrow: 3:30, 3:50, 4:20. Check.

Okay.

Have I mentioned that I am SO GLAD I don't have volleyball on my plate right now?!?!?!!? {{The team is starting off great, BTW!!! 5-1 going into tonight's match! I'm their #1 Fan!!!!!}}

I miss summer already and will enjoy next June when it eventually gets here, but....
....in the meantime, I AM excited for what this new school year will bring!

Final day of vacation.... and some catchup

2011-08-26T03:57:00.003-05:00

Morning! Bright -n- early up -n- at 'em! 3:30 AM and I gave up the fight...again.

With today being my last day of summer vacation, I SURELY hope this sleepless "can't shut brain down" thing gets under control before back-to-school next week. I wouldn't want to be a GRUMP to my students, afterall :(

There's so much I could be updating right now....

Stash Report! Gosh---haven't calculated those numbers since the beginning of August. Sadly, though....my notebook is downstairs, and I'm all snuggled up with a quilt and the laptop and simply don't want to get up and go down to get it. Wisconsin August temperatures aren't letting me down this August!!!! I dare say, it's 59 degrees outside right now, so we have ALL the windows open. It's a wee bit chilly in the house, but after it reached 90 degrees inside yesterday, the house has cooled down nicely.

Garden update! The REASON it was 90 degrees in the house yesterday is because the canner had been going full-bore! For the past two days, it's been CORN, CORN, CORN! By the time I turned everything off yesterday, I had only tackled 3 rows of corns (of our 9), and have completed 47 pints of corns (only!). BOY! This is my first year actually canning corn; we usually freeze it. Canning it is QUITE the lengthy process! With 6 rows left to do, I think the game plan is to can up another case (or so) of pints, but then to freeze the rest like we've done in the past.

Smith Mountain Morning update! Sorry no pics; I plead the same laziness about getting the camera as I did for the stash report notebook. Before I tackled the corn yesterday, I spent a couple of hours cutting and piecing the units for the border. All blocks and border units are complete, so it's simply a matter of putting it all together.

I truly apologize about a "no-picture" post. They ARE kinda boring to read.......but if you took to time to read all the black-n-white, THANKS!!!

Today, I head to my parents. The girls will spend the afternoon and evening "camping" with my parents. They are SOOO excited! I will spend the afternoon doing my own school shopping, and then this evening I'll spend with my childhood BFF. We haven't seen each other in years!!!!! Via facebook earlier this week, she put a call-out that she's in need of some motivation to get back into her running (BOY, THAT sounds familiar, huh????) I wrote back....one thing lead to another....and we're running a race on Saturday close to the home town (where she still lives).

Anyway...enough of the black-n-white.
**sigh**
I wish I could sleep. It's 4:10 AM now; and I know it will be pointless crawling back into bed.
I wish there were more blogs to read up on; I may have to start clicking everything on everyone else's blogs.

Here's wishing you a happy Friday and weekend to come!

Locks of Love [Cassie] - The sequal

2011-08-24T13:08:00.008-05:00

Back on February 13, 2009, Cassie received her first EVER hair cut and donated 10 inches to Locks of Love.

Today, we upped that by an inch.

She loves it and is SOOOO excited for school to start next week. All that remains on our back-to-school shopping list is new shoes for all three girls.

As for the computer; ;| Still deader-n-a-doornail! :0(

BUT....my day is much better than yesterday (so far).

I've spent much of the morning piecing together the 28 chimney blocks for Smith Mountain Morning
Caitlyn joined me; practically begging to help. With some training and supervision, she worked the iron to press the final blocks.

To close....

When Candace saw Cassie's hair, she whined and pleaded for me to cut HER hair too.

**sucking in breath**
Oooooo........that one has to grow on ME for a little bit before I allow it to happen. I admit----I am in LOVE with her hair. Would it be terrible for me to tell her a lil' white lie? .... that her hair needs to be just a little bit longer in order to donate it to Locks of Love??? .... JUST to buy me some more time to grieve the passing of her hair before we really cut it???.....

:D

This day needs to get better

2011-08-23T16:35:00.011-05:00

To start..... our tomatoes are in DANGER!!!! Either Leaf Blight or Septoria Leaf Spot is spreading like wild-fire through the tomatoes. Over half are infected with it and about 1/4 are completely bare now that all the bad, naughty BAD BAD leaves have been removed. Four hour ordeal there.....back-breaking work :\ {{yeah, yeah...roll your eyes Paul}}

These poor buggars :0( Will they survive the heat without their protective leaves???? Oh, I'll be soooooo ~~saddened~~ UPSET if they don't survive. I have so many hopes for canned tomatoes and juice. I mean.....just LOOK at all those tomatoes!!!!!

Okay....at least SOME of them aren't infected (yet???) Paul went out to buy some fungicide and just sprayed them. *crossing finger and toes*

From a distance, the patch doesn't look ALL that bad, I guess. But.... :\ .... these front two rows aren't that bad....but those back two....

alright......I need to move onto something positive......

since I had the camera, I figured I'd show you the SUCCESS with Paul's cucumber trellis idea.

With some training as the plant spread, the 'arms' climbed nicely up the trellis.

It makes harvesting the cuks SO much nicer! We usually have a 2-person picking team with one person underneath while the other is on the outside. You don't miss too many cuks this way.

The girls usually get a bit freaked out with these guys around doing their job. And there are LOTS of them around.....working their magic with the cuks, tomatoes AND green beans. Hat's off to ya buddy :0) WOW! I REALLY like this camera!!!!!---hey, there's ANOTHER postive :0)

Okay....so then....let's get back to the headline of this post.....

Not only did the tomato-deleafing already put me in a not-so-pleasant mood... after lunch I decided to take a small break to check emails, etc.

Cassie: {[seeing me with the computer, making a face as to why I can't turn it on}} Oh, ummm...Mom. [[gulp]]. Somehow your coffee mug spilled.
Me: not a sound
Cassie: I don't really know how it happened.....I wiped it up right away.....
Me: [[leaving table to wipe dishes}}

{{10 minutes later}}
Me: Cassie, where exactly did it spill?

So, she went on to give me the run-down.....I REALLY was doing my best not to blow up.....I know it could have happened to anyone.....{{well, maybe not Paul because he thinks he perfect far too often}}
I grabbed the other laptop and started googling away......"spilled coffee on MacBook"..... read up on a lot. But, in the end....

This is what she looks like right now. I contacted a coworker who has a computer side-job.
Me: Hiya Darin.
Darin: Hi Amy. How are you?
Me: Darin, I'm calling you; it's never good when I call you.
Darin: uh-oh
I went on to explain to HIM everything that happened. The power-cord lights up; the battery actually shows a full-charge, I simply get no response when I try to turn it on. He agreed with me that it's most likely the logic board (the board that runs the keyboard) and NOT the hard-drive. AND.....the most IMPORTANT news..... he's fairly certain that he'll be able to recover all of my hard drive.

I have one more idea to try, but it'll mean getting a special keyboard from school that has a power button on it. You may recall last year when we spilled Coke on THIS laptop (the family one I'm using right now); we lost the top row of letters on the keyboard; no action what-so-ever from them (logic board was partially damaged). Repairing/replacing a logic board is INSANELY expensive! It's the classic..."you might as well buy a NEW one for that price!" Anyway.....we simply attach a USB keyboard to it and it works beautifully. ... Well, not BEAUTIFULLY; it's a bit of a pain that you can't actually USE the laptop as a laptop.... but.... it still gets the job done. Anyway.... I'd like to try this idea out with our newly damaged one. **crossing fingers and toes for the 2nd time today**

{{Do you think we've learned to establish a new rule: NO LIQUIDS NEAR THE COMPUTERS!!!!" ????}}

Okay.....so, I'm going on strike 2 right now. You KNOW bad things always come in THREE's! What else could possibly go wrong? It's 5:00... lots of evening left yet. I don't care to go to bed yet....no...no....that would be giving up. It's my day off of running, but I hope to do some strength training..... :/ maybe I shouldn't? I'll probably drop a weight on my foot and will be joining Caitlyn in the Gimp-races! Hmmm.....Cassie should get some miles on her feet after having a day off; the 3-mile course is most likely in my future tonight. ... DEFINITELY no quilting! I wouldn't want THAT machine to break on me.....

To close.....and for the needed laugh.....
Paul is doing his best to cheer me up. I want to believe he knows how hard I'm working on "lightening up" with the whole laptop incident....otherwise he probably wouldn't DARE talk to me cuz he'd just receive "the glare."
Butt.....I mean......
But....
No wait....no.....I DO mean BUTT!

He JUST walked up to me..... and asked...."What does this say?" To which I look over and see him bearing his butt cheek with the words "Kiss Here" on it
**giggling after the fact....**
No fret! THAT picture won't be shown :0)

I'm progressing!!! [2011 Running]

2011-08-22T21:45:00.005-05:00

Tonight's 3.25 mile out-n-back. No walks, and in fact....I felt GOOOOOOOD! FINALLY! AND.....10:01/mile pace!!!! Where did THAT come from?

From the 2-3 hours of sleep last night?

From the wee "drugged state" I feel from my allergy meds?

From the 3 hour back-to-school shopping spree?

From the chicken strips for lunch?

From the amazing lunch company?

Me and my former Volleyball Captain, Lindsey

Lindsey reading the 'Transitions' quilt label

Lovely role model for my girls

From Cassie's and my 2 mile run LAST night??? Which, BTW, Cassie surprised me on! The first mile, I had us pacing right around 10:30, which made me a bit nervous since her last run with me was at ~12:00's. Then, at the mile-turn-around, after a short walk break, we started back up. And she kept pulling away from me! I tried to keep her reigned in, but she insisted she was "fine." SO......onward we continued at 9:00/mile pace! Sadly, about half mile down the road, we found ourselves walking MORE than what we wanted. BUT....... for good reason! Our neighbor just invited a new bull into his meadow. Normally, I don't pay too much mind to the cows in the pasture, but....I found it odd that his electric fence was OBVIOUSLY on! Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick.... There was no MISSING the fence noise. So....I peered around. And sure enough.........oooooo......MEAN looking fella! I swear his neck was bigger than his body's total girth. HUGE HUGE HUGE and a bit ..... unsettling. I tried getting us back to running after a short hill climb, but his head popped up right away. Nuh-uh! I was freaked! So, we walked until we cleared the meadow. Needless to say, I probably won't be running the 2-mile route again anytime soon. "You just take care of those ladies, Buddy. Earn your keep and I'll keep my distance."

Anyway....
tonight's numbers:
3.25 miles (10:01/mile for a total of 32:33). HR: 174 avg

Design Wall - Rolling Star make way for Smith Mountain Morning!

2011-08-22T08:18:00.008-05:00

For reasons not completely known, I simply could NOT sleep last night!!! It took forever for me to finally fall asleep (1:00 maybe????), and then toss-n-turn-n-toss-n-turn......by 3:30, I gave up and just got up!!!! I had a Diet Mt. Dew with dinner; that may have caused it since I haven't had a Dew in a while. ??? I also took an allergy pill last night around 8:00, which isn't the norm for me. My ragweed allergy started acting up on Friday....**sigh**....due to the lateness of EVERYTHING this year, when my allergies didn't show up at the normal time (usually 2nd week in August), I ALMOST had myself convinced that I was magically CURED!!!!! :\ Oh well.

Paul was outside for most of the day mowing weeds; I think that stirred up the pollen something fierce (AND we had the windows open enjoying the GORGEOUS!!!! August Wisconsin weather!!!!). So, I was getting pretty miserable as the day went on.

My actual theory for my sleeplessness is that it's a combination of the meds AND the Dew. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Regardless....I was UP at 3:30 AM. Watching news. Reading emails and blogs. By 5:00, I was ready to start something, but I didn't dare start up the machine for fear of waking Paul. And I didn't feel like loading a quilt to the frame. So....I surfed some more until Paul woke at 6:00.

At 6:00AM, I was piecing away and finished up the sixteen blue star blocks for Smith Mountain Morning. I am absolutely in love with all these fabrics from the swap; and blue-n-brown are SPECTACULAR together!!! And I think it goes without saying.....coffee is STILL a must despite having been awake for nearly 3 hours!

My Rolling Star blocks have been on the design wall for toooooo long. Let's face it; they ain't gonna see any progress any time soon; not with Smith Mountain Morning and Jamestown Landing in the works!!! Therefore.....they were neatly stacked and set aside on the shelf for NEXT year's UFO challenge!! LOL.....oh goodness! I haven't done too well on the UFO challenge this year :]

Next came trimming up the hourglass units.

And then an hour of cutting the log units for the final 28 blocks. I can't wait to tackle these nicely organized piles, but I need to be patient a little while longer. Hopefully SOON, all these blocks and units will take over the design wall!

Today has a POSSIBLE full schedule even though it's still really loose. Candace and Caitlyn need to shower with me this morning. I can't even THINK of when the last time was they had a REAL bath/shower and not just lake water or "showers" from the sprinkler. Ick, right????
Then we need to do some errands; (pick up Cassie's glasses, order a pair for myself; small grocery supply list).
We have a lunch date scheduled with my former volleyball captain and her parents. What a sweet lil' gal!! She's receiving Transitions as her belated graduation gift, and as a "good luck in college" gift.

Finally, I hope to tackle all the school shopping today! THREE girls this year and not just two. Hmmm.....can I handle all of them at the same time? School supplies are one thing.....but clothes?!?! Oh, I don't know if I have the strength!!! Specially after a night of little sleep.

Happy Monday!

SMM and Saturday happenings...

2011-08-21T17:09:00.012-05:00

Gimp-girl joined me downstairs for most of the afternoon while Paul kept the other two busy with chores/tasks/etc. Tscha....poor girl, huh??? :0)

With Caitlyn's trimming help, all of the Smith Mountain Morning 3.5" units were tackled today. LOTS of cutting this AM to make the star points!

All twelve of the brown star blocks were completed. {{Andee----you see your fabrics??????}}

And the sixteen blue star blocks have been pieced into rows, but this is the stage I'm leaving them for the day. LOADS completed though; can't remember the last time I sat and sewed for 8 hours. WOW!

So, let me catch you back up with yesterday's events.....

The day started with my 9 mile jog around the lake (Shell Lake, the lake our town is named after.) Start-to-finish, beach-back to-beach, it was actually 8.95 miles, but that's close enough to 9 for me! Initially, I ~~wanted~~ needed to run 11 miles according to my training schedule. Nine was enough for me though :0)

The temperatures were quite ideal! 52 degrees at the start (7:00 AM), and 74 by the end (~8:45 AM), according to the bank sign. WIthin my first three miles, I came across 6 different people, either biking, walking or running. One gentleman who I ran into shortly after starting (not even half mile into my run) was running in the opposite direction I was. Just before the halfway point around the lake, there he was again! He was also running the Lake Drive, just in the opposite direction. And THEN....shortly before returning to my starting point......there he was-AGAIN!!!! Obviously he was running faster than I was, and obviously running MUCH further than me! I was thinking about joking with him about how many "laps" he was planning....but decided to let it go. Not all runners care to be disturbed when running.

So, in the end: 8.94 miles (11:43/mile pace -- Total: 1:44:44). My goal for the day was to hold a 11:22 pace, so I was a bit off, although many of my miles WERE under that time. I simply took a couple too many walks towards the end again :\

Upon returning....

... I joined Paul out in the garden to pick beans.

Rather than help Ma and Pa, the girls spent their time in the boat, practicing their casting skills. Great caption: "What's missing from this picture??" :0)

Feeling a bit drained, I took a wee break on the computer before tackling the canning of the green beans.

In the afternoon, Nikki, our babysitter decided to spend some time with the girls before needing to head back to college. She's a GREAT kid!!!!!!!! What other 20 year-old would spend her Saturday just spending time with her babysitting kids?????

By the end of the day, after all the work and "toe" events......two lil' ladies were tuckered out. (Well, we ALL were to be completely honest!)

Short-n-sweet update :0)
And now.....Cass and I are going to try to beat the sprinkles and head out for a 2-mile EZ jog. She was all thumbs-up when I asked if she wanted to be signed up for the 5K our town has over Labor Day weekend. So....every 2-3 days, she'll be out with me doing 2- and 3- mile training runs.

Some final touches

2011-08-21T10:44:00.002-05:00

Four quilts get 100% COMPLETELY marked off now.

Splendidly Marching Along and Transitions only needed labels to be complete. SMA will be sent to Alycia as soon as Maltese Star gets finished (my next to be loaded on the frame). Transitions will be in the hands of a new owner by the end of this week as she heads off to college.

Hopscotch needed binding; I had LOADS of this burgundy in my 2.5" strip drawer; NO IDEA where it was from???? But, used most of it :0) FINISHED!

Despite having had Roll, Roll Cottonboll marked off as" finished" in May, it still needed binding as well as a label even though it had been living on our bed :0). So, using some yellow and blue 2.5" strips from the drawer....it's FINISHED!

Feels good having those putzy tiny finishing tasks DONE! ;0)

Check
Check
Check
and
Check!

Cabbage - guess its use

2011-08-21T07:22:00.005-05:00

Because I want to get downstairs quilting ASAP, I am electing NOT to give a step-by-step rundown of ONE of our tasks yesterday. Instead.....those "gardeny-people" that all of you are out there...... I give you a task: What are we prepping/making in these series of photos?

My job, shredding cabbage via food-processor, that, surprisingly, took a couple of hours to complete! I couldn't IMAGINE how long it would have taken had I not had the food processor!

Cassie's job; sprinkle the salt

Paul's job; pressing it down

A late supper delayed even longer

2011-08-20T21:41:00.008-05:00

Oh....we did plenty today around the Skattebo-Ranch; but all of that will need to wait until tomorrow. I haven't uploaded all the pics from the day and simply don't have the heart or energy to edit them.

Instead....

We ate a lunch late: 2:30. {{Paul made some homemade Cream of Broccoli soup---QUITE Da-LISH!}}

Therefore, we were destined to have supper late, too.

However....THIS lil' lady had other things in mind....

7:30 pm

She's not wearing the "Hello, My name is TROUBLE" shirt for nothin'!

7:50 PM

"So, tell me Caitlyn, what happened?"

Caitlyn: Well, Mom was making dinner, and we needed to finish up drying the dishes. Dad made us. I just finished drying a glass, and I was reaching for another dish. Somehow the glass was bumped and fell to the floor, breaking in lots of pieces. I jumped up, and cut my toe when I came down."

The on-call doc is a friend of ours, and I felt kinda bad having him come in for what COULD be something minor. But, thankfully, even he said it was a tough call....."it's one of those in-between lacerations. Too deep to ignore. But I think glue will work nicely."

An intern also came in for the ER-call. Quite surprised was I when "Intern Tim" came strolling in; he's a former student of mine. He took lead.....and glued the cut shut. SLICK! And quite a bit less painful than stitches!!!! Two thumbs up from this Mom.

8:45 PM
We made it home happy and safe; reheated dinner that had been covered up on the table when we headed to town, and finally sat down to eat.

6:32 AM----do I realllllly have to run?

2011-08-20T06:35:00.002-05:00

I can do it
I can do it
I can do it

**struggling to find motivation**

UPDATE
But I DID run - 9 miles; details to come later after done with picking beans, cutting beans, canning beans........and repeat with cucumbers? and maybe some quilting?

Smith Mountain Morning time!

2011-08-19T21:09:00.005-05:00

After dinner this evening, I meandered outside to watch the girls play, and I headed over to the playset for a little bit of swinging myself.

It hit me that I hadn't checked the mailbox yet today.......

The Smith Mountain Morning fabrics arrived from the swap!!!!!

And look Andee!!! I received some of your 1.5" sets and HSTs!!!! :0)

I even received one of your 4" sets. Wahoo!

Working with the "new" fabrics was a perfect way to spend my evening after allowing myself to "be okay" with backing out of my plans to attend the home-opener Football game tonight. :\

Outcome after two hours: All 48 blue/white and all 64 brown/white 3.5" HSTs pieced, pressed and de-dog-eared.

After closing shop, I headed upstairs to be a witness to THIS. Paul was playing surgeon to Caitlyn, attempting to remove a sliver. Caitlyn may look tormented here....but she was great! No crying...and actually laughing at times.

My plans now: sit back n relax. I have plans to awake at 6 AM tomorrow to have some coffee/oatmeal before heading into town by 7:00 for an 11 mile training run. I'll head around the lake -- Shell Lake....which is only 'bout 9 miles around the perimeter road, so I'll need to head out along the snowmobile trail once the lake run is completed. I'm getting out of picking beans, too :0) Tee-heeee. Paul has been asked to handle the picking; I'll take care of the canning.

Another recipe (Chicken Dumpling Soup)

2011-08-19T16:58:00.005-05:00

A request was made by Paul last night for me to make Chicken Dumpling soup again :0)
Whew! At least there are SOME meals of mine that he likes!!!!

The soup itself utilizes our own chicken meat that we raise. The breasts are usually reserved for chinese recipes or home-made chicken-strips. The legs/thighs aren't a family favorite, so they are PERFECTLY utilzed in soups!!!!!! (Chicken noodle is another family favorite).

I don't follow a strict recipe for the soup portion; whatever we have on-hand. Carrots, beans, onions, potatoes, celery... Naturally, during harvest time, we have ALL of this on-hand ('cept Celery :0( Too bad, I LOVE celery in soups!!!!) :0) I added about 1-1.5 cups of carrots and potatoes to the soup today; only a handful of cut-up beans from Cassie's plant (that I had FORGOTTEN about!!!!), and a medium onion that has started to flower this past week.

I usually put the legs/thighs (from one chicken) in the crock-pot on high for a few hours with 4-cups of water; to the point the meats falls off the bone (no seasonings yet). I set the meat aside (to cool) and strain the liquid into a soup-pot. I add 8 more cups of water to the pot and then add enough Chicken-boullion to the liquid as prescribed by the package. I'll admit....this boullion is the SELLING POINT of the soup!!!! It adds the PERFECT amount of flavoring! I've tried both the boullion cubes AND the boullion "paste"---I like both equally well.

Anyway----once veggies are chopped up, they get added to the soup and boiling....
While that's cooking (~15 minutes???), I start cutting up (pulling apart) the chicken meat.
Once I add the meat, I start mixing up the Dumpling recipe. THIS is the part that I follow without making any changes since I found this yummy version on Cooks.com :0)
The ingredients:
2 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. white or black pepper
1 egg, well beaten
2 tbsp. melted butter
2/3 c. milk

On a quilting note: I DID make up 5 labels today!!!!! But then found myself "resting my eyes" at 1:00, and haven't sewn them to the actual quilts yet.......(the LABELS, not my eyes!!!) :0)

Heavenly-Sinful Brownies!!!!!

2011-08-19T09:42:00.002-05:00

I absolutely MUST share this recipe with all of you out there who are brownie fans!!!!!!

This is the recipe Paul used for the brownies last night------

Since I couldn't decide on "heavenly" or "sinful" to describe them, I'm going with the oxy-moron "Heavenly-Sinful!"

Easy Homemade Brownie Recipe

Paul added a marshmallow to the top of each "piece" of brownie; {{I think he cut a marshmallow in half and placed it on top.}}

Corn on the Cob; not for everyone :/

2011-08-18T19:35:00.011-05:00

The first corn-on-the-cob meal of the season is ALWAYS memorable!!!! Crispy, Snappy, SWEEEET....and kernals just POP off the cob in your mouth. Yummmmmmmmmmmmm.......

BUT........

:\

When a 7-year-old loses her THIRD top tooth (JUST TODAY!!), corn-on-the-cob simply can't be enjoyed like it should be to really appreciate it.

She knew we needed to help her along... and was okay having us cut it off the cob for her.

AND THEN.....

a few moments later.....

Candace: OW! Mom....this hurts my mouth.....
Me: Where, honey?
Candace: Right here....

Me: CANDACE! You have a loose tooth too!
Candace: {{pouty face}}
Me: Why are you sad?
Candace: I don't want the blood like Cailtyn.

LOL......oh, what we have to look forward to over the next week? month? Who knows how long this tooth is going to take to actually be ready to come out.

Meanwhile.....

Cassie was sitting back, smiling, and gnawing away on her FIFTH cob :0)

Nah.....Paul wasn't going to be forgotten ;0) He was enjoying his first taste this season of fried-green-tomatoes.

And after dinner.....

Paul decided to make home-made brownies with the girls. So that only means ONE thing. Time for me to get out on the road for my easy 2-miles so that I can allow myself a WEEEEE indulgence when finished :) Cassie is going to run along with me, so it'll be a nice-easy pace.

Happy Thursday!!!!!!!! Tomorrow, I hope to get some quilting in, so watch for a quilting post (FINALLY) :0)

Workout Update
Cassie did very well on her 2 mile run with me, only needing 3 very small walk breaks. Upon returning, I added 5 GPU (general pickups) where each was ~100-200 meters in length. AND THEN....when I started heading toward the door, Candace and Caitlyn came out to meet me to run. They were disappointed when I said "not on the road" (it was getting quite dark already!), so we did 3 laps on our driveway, which added another ~200 meters per lap. So....between the GPUs and the driveway laps, I'll beg to say I ran about 3 miles total tonight. Sadly, my watch died before the first mile :0( I don't think I've charged it since the Marathon-relay last weekend :0( OopS!!!!!!!!

School mode slowly starting and a workout (or two) [2011 Running]

2011-08-17T18:09:00.005-05:00

Today was a school day for an 7.5 hour Data Retreat. It is the first time our District has planned its 2-day Data Retreat a few weeks before the school year starts. Typically, it was scheduled during the first week of October, or last summer, it was in June. For a brief time today, we discussed the newly scheduled time-frame, and we all felt this really is ideal! With a couple of weeks before the school-year starting, we are able to look over last years assessments, analyze goals and implementation plans from last year, and then update/create new goals and an Implementation plan for the upcoming school year. Besides....it's also a nice way to slowly prepare mentally for the start of a new school year. So, tomorrow is the 2nd day of the retreat with the goal of writing District-wide Goals based on last year's data trends..... Being a math/number person, I LOVE Data Retreat!!!!! ;0)

Onto a new topic....

Have you had the opportunity to "meet" my buddy Billy Blanks here? He was my BEST PAL in 2003 when I hit my fitness-OBSESSION. One of his 30-minute Tae-Bo workouts was in my repertoir at LEAST 2x week back then.

WELL............

last night after doing a bit of strength-training on my home Smith-Machine (LOVE that machine, but it needs a little TLC for me to really hit it full-bore; the slide is sticking a little from the long down-time in the damp basement). Anyway...... so..... I have NO IDEA what made me think of my buddy, Billy, but I went to our VHS shelf to see if he was still there. Sure enough!!!!! :0) Eight years later, he still KICKED MY BUTT!!!! ;0)

30 minutes and a bucket of sweat later, my Abs and Glutes were SCREAMING at me!... "Enough! Enough! You're 8 years older than you were the last time you did this workout! Ease INTO it girl!!!!!"

Then tonight, after the close of Data Retreat, I hit the Lake Drive for what SHOULD have been a 6- mile Tempo run, but turned into only 5 (a bit too sunny and WARM!).
My goal: 6 miles with 2-3 miles @ 9:40/mile tempo pace.

Here are my numbers....with all the honest "in-your-face; you've-got-a-ways-to-go-yet" truth:
Warmup: .83 miles @11:11/mile
1st tempo mile: .96 miles @ 9:30/mile YES!!!! :0)
Recovery: .14 miles @ 14:14/mile
2nd tempo mile: .98 miles @ 11:03/mile POOP! POOP! POOP! I walked twice; just mentally shut down with the sun beating down (no shade in most of this mile) :0(
Recovery: .12 miles @ 16:13/mile (yup....even walking slower now)
At this point, I KNEW I needed to attempt another Tempo mile since my 2nd one was POOPY!
3rd tempo mile: .99 miles @ 10:25/mile (Okay.....better than 11:03, but still not at my 9:40 goal) :\
Cooldown: 1.15 miles @ 12:04/mile
Total: 5.18 miles @ 11:06/mile (average)
To note: my maximum speed had me running @ 6:47/mile pace IF I could have maintained that pace. Psht.....I don't THINK so! I still have my work cut out for me to find a happy Tempo pace; and even more importantly, is finding the happy "I-can-keep-this-pace-for-a-race" pace.

For a change of pace, I pulled out my 2007 training booklet (this was my Pre-BLOG recording method). I would consider 2007 to be the year I was best trained; the year I ran a 2:11 TWICE for my Half-marathons, on NON easy courses; the year I ran my PR for the marathon.
At this time in 2007, running a similar workout, but was geared a bit more for Speed then a Tempo run. It was a progressive 2-mile (2x1600) workout.
Phase 1 goal: 2xmile @ 10:00/mile. Accomplished: 2xmile @ 9:02/mile. YIKES! Way too fast! (18:04 total phase 1 time)
Phase 2 goal: 2xmile @ 9:32/mile. Accomplished: 2xmile @ 9:25/mile. OK! ;0)
Recovery: 400M walk
Phase 3 goal: 2xmile @ 9:32/mile. Accomplished: 2xmile @ 9:25/mile. OK! :0)
Recovery: 400M walk
Phase 4 goal: 2xmile @ 10:00/mile. Accomplished: 1xmile @ 10:00. IBS kicked in :\
Totals: 1:25:24. 739 cals burned. In HR zone: 19:16. Avg HR: 174

I like looking back at former training plans, SPECIALLY my 2007 training journal due to its motivation factor!!! Will I EVER get back to that fitness level? 2 straight miles holding 9:25's.....no down-time between them......WHEW! Yah...a WAYS to go girl!

Okay....enough fitness stuff for one post :0)
Happy Wednesday!

Hopscotch & Tater Tot casserole

2011-08-16T17:14:00.008-05:00

Hopscotch (70" x 85")
After picking beans from 7:00 - 8:00 AM, I headed downstairs and decided to try to get some more finishes during my last few days of summer vacation. Nope....no canning today. I'll keep the beans safely waiting in the fridge until the next picking tomorrow or Thursday, so I had the WHOLE day open for quilting.

Around 9:00, I had two lil' girls joining me since I had "Balto" on as my background-noise movie of choice. Yeah....LOL.....not really an adult-female choice, but.....**shrug**....it's just background noise! :0)

By lunch-time, the quilt was taken off the frame and trimmed up. The pantograph used was Snapdragons (petite 4 3/4") and I used 6 bobbins of Aurifil thread. I can't remember the exact name of the color, but it's a taupe-like color that blended well with the various scrappy colors.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle at its fullest with this quilt! The backing was a $3.00 Goodwill bedsheet purchase. It feels SO good...100% cotton; almost a shame NOT to use it as a sheet :0)

The batting used was one of those old blankets.....hmmmm....I think I still have the tag downstairs. I'm kinda curious to know the actual makeup of the material.....but it's providing LOTS of weight to this quilt. I LOVE heavy-feeling quilts.....I don't think I can give this one away. I'm kind of partial to it....I think it's going to be kept for ME!

I haven't been able to get back downstairs since lunch time; had some afternoon errands to run. Binding remains to be done yet; I plan on using some 2.5" scrap strips from the 2.5" strip-bin.

So......Tater Tot casserole for dinner tonight. We haven't had this in a while, and I THINK it's one of Paul's more enjoyed meals that I make. There are so many variations out there......this is how I've adapted them to fit my family:

Tater Tot Casserole
1 lb. ground beef, browned
1 med. onion (optional--I don't always add it).
1 package frozen tater tots
1 can corn (or 1 bag of our frozen corn) :0)
1 can cream/potato (most recipes call for cream/mushroom----YUCK!)
Grated cheese (to your liking)

Brown beef with onion; drain.
Drain corn, reserving juice .
Add soup, corn, and 1 soup can of liquid (1/2 milk and 1/2 corn juice). Mix well.
Pour mixture into 9x13 baking dish.
Spread cheese over mixture (to your liking---I usually cover the mixture lightly) ~1 cup?
Top with frozen tater tots.
Bake at 425 for 30 minutes, or until tater tots are brown and crispy.

**smacking lips**
Just typing up that recipe is making me hungry! 10 more minutes remaining on timer :D

10 minutes later
Looks like Candace is a fan, too :0) Too bad she needs to wait for a bit while it cools down.

Putting the sun to bed [2011 Running]

2011-08-15T21:38:00.006-05:00

Not boating this time, but rather....out for a run. Just an easy 3-miler. After running 13 on Saturday, only THREE is do-able :D

Even the graph showed that it was an easy run. NO walks; not even on the turn-around hill. And look at that Heart-Rate % line....not once over 91%. 'Bout time!!!!!!

Why couldn't I have maintained this on Saturday. I felt GOOD tonight....

Hmmmmm.......could the sunset COOOL temps have anything to do with that?

As a statistics teacher, I LOVE looking at graphs and making sense of them. Notice how the heart-rate % increases as the elevation increases. DUH, right!?

3.26 miles in 35:15 [10:49 pace]

This week's plan per Runnersworld.com SmartCoach training page:
"Rest" day tomorrow: Looks like strength-training starts then......

Other weekend moments...

2011-08-15T13:31:00.019-05:00

Friday, before leaving for the farm, I DID decide to load a quilt to the frame for it to be ready whenever the next available opportunity hit.

Hopscotch was loaded, the machine was cleaned and threaded with Aurifil thread....and I did a few passes trying out another new pantograph: Snapdragons (petite 4 3/4"). It's definitely a simple pantograph and I know it'll be a new favorite.

While I was doing that, Paul and the girls were out in one of the sweet-corn patches picking some baby-corn ears. It's hard to see, but there is a wheelbarrow plump full of baby-corn on the other side of the picnic table.

It was a family shucking ceremony in order to get all the corn ready for canning; and I really didn't want to be stuck ALL DAY shucking and canning when we needed to get to the farm SOMETIME before midnight!

This lil' critter gave us some entertainment for a few moments when it decided to hop off of Paul's arm when Candace was getting a little closer look. After a few dance steps from Candace (and myself when it jumped into my personal space), it hopped onto the siding of the house.

Still trying out the new camera, I snapped a few zoomed-in closeups before getting back to the shucking.

At 3:30, we were finished shucking so Paul headed out to pick up some more pig food while I started working on preserving some of the cobs in pints.

Outcome: 14 pints of pickled Baby Corn. This is the first year we have preserved our own baby-corn; we have intentions of using it in some stir-fries and other chinese food dishes.

And I barely made a dent in what had been picked! But, it was 5:00....and time to get packed up for the farm before it got to be TOO late. The rest of the corn was bagged up and taken up with us so that Paul could do some canning on Saturday.

Saturday......well, you all know what most of that day consisted of! :0) Later that afternoon, back at the farm, Bethann was relaxing with a good book on her Kindle while I started downloading/editing the pictures from the day.

We left quite early on Sunday; 9:30 AM! That's a new record, I think. But both myself and Paul were of the same mindset; the garden awaited and we had "things to do" at home.

Unpacking the car took a whole 5 minutes since it was a quick visit. We were out in the garden picking beans and cucumbers by 11:30AM, and done an hour later. It was quite warm.....Candace and Caitlyn both made sure we all knew how warm it was!

Candace: {{wiping hair from face, sighing loudly}} It's HOT out here!
Caitlyn: {{sighing even louder}} Oh, I KNOW! Can we go inside yet?

The whip was cracked and we stuck to the picking. Then after a short simple sandwich lunch, I said.....let's go boating and swimming! And that's exactly what we did for the rest of the afternoon.

Hmmm.......Candace, is it STILL HOT out here??? ;0) This pose just looks TOO relaxing! Can't you just see her brain saying...."THIS is the life, Mom!"

Or maybe she was talking to Dad? :0)

Last night I spent much of the evening relaxing in my glider while blogging about the Paavo Nurmi Marathon relay.

By 10:00, I was pretty tuckered out and looked forward to saying goodnight to the world. My camera may be pretty cool, but it can't quite zoom in to get a great shot of the moon. Shucks :0)

This post is complete enough, so I'll save my morning of bean cutting, cucumber slicing, pickling and canning stories for the next one. Then again, how many posts can one write about canning beans and cucumbers????

Paavo Nurmi 2011 [2011 Running]

2011-08-14T18:52:00.034-05:00

Saturday, 8/13/11
5:00 AM
Bright and early out of bed to shower, eat some oatmeal and drink some eye-opening coffee.
Temperature: 60 degrees F, mostly cloudy

5:45 AM
Hitting the road to pick up Bethann's dad, who lives 5 minutes away from the farm up in Ashland, and then settling in for the hour drive to Upson, WI, the start of the Paavo Nurmi Marathon and Marathon relays.

6:45 AM
Arrival at Upson, and smiling for the happy-smiling-before-race picture
Temperature: 61 degrees F, mostly cloudy

After a little bit of loosening up with a walk after that long ride, a bit of Fatherly advice was passed along to daughter. Jerry (Bethann's dad) is a former marathon runner; his marathon of choice being Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, WI.

In the background is the lovely shuttle bus that transports the 2nd-leg runner to the mile 5 marker for those participating in the 5-person relay. These groups ALWAYS keep the course lively, having exchanges at miles 5, 10, 15 and 20.

And what's a race without the lovely porta-potty lines!! :0)

By the time the race was to start, I think the caption for Bethann here is......."ummm.......time to get this show on the road already?!?!?!?" ;0) **rubbing her hands together impatiently?**

7:30 AM
Right on the spot, the gun sounded to start the race, and Bethann was off!

All we could do was give her a hoot-n-hollar and send her on her way. The first 6 miles of the course is closed to vehicles.......so she was on her own, along with the other 555 marathon runners and 66 relay teams (that added another 300+ individuals to the course sidelines).

In addition to Bethann's dad joining us, Ryan also played along as chauffeur for the day.

8:40 AM
After skirting around for an hour trying to pass the time, we were so excited to see Bethann in the distance coming off of mile 6.

With two cameras going (ya see mine in my hands?), it was nice to have shots of both of us supporting the other. As the pictures tell, the clouds were breaking up; mostly cloudy turned into partly cloudy, with temperatures holding around 65 degrees F.

It was cute seeing the high-five between Ryan and BA....just bummed that I missed it in this picture. :(

9:01 AM
Just passing mile 8 a few moments back, she shared later on that this was the best she was feeling. She had a moment of "oh my goodness....8 already?" The miles were flying by......in her own words.

9:15 AM
Just past mile 10, she was still looking strong, not having walked once.

9:28
We were able to give her one more HURRAH at mile 11 to push her to her finish before needing to get me to the hand-off point.

9:47
The little town of Gile, WI was the host of the Half-marathon start and the point of the 2-person relay handoff. Banners and flags were strewn along all the streets; a festive looking moment for Bethann to finish to.

AND 2:19 (10:36 pace!) after she started, she was handed 2 dozen baby roses by DH Ryan, but sadly no pic. Awesome PR for Bethann, who ran her first Half in 2:24!!!!

And with skies clearing :(, temperatures reaching 69 degrees F, I was off.

9:58 AM
The first time I expected to see them was at mile 15, NOT mile 14. What a fun little surprise, not even a full mile into my run {{later to find out that BA needed to pee, so they stopped at the gas station that just happened to be at mile 14, so the boys snapped a picture}} :0) I don't try to be a gadgety runner......ipod strapped to upper arm; Garmin Forerunner on wrist....and I elected to run with my favorite water bottle not really knowing if the temps were going to keep climbing. The visor is wonderful for sunny running days; with my eyes being so light-sensitive, most of the direct light doesn't need to hit my sunglasses.

10:09 AM
Moments after mile 15, a high-5 exchange between BA and myself was captured. With only 2 miles into my run and relatively flat roads, I was doing alright. Holding right around 10:30's.....

And at this point, the course is once again closed to vehicles ...... until mile 21 (mile 8 for my Half).
Okay....so what can I remember about miles 15-21?
Sun, LOTS of sun
Wind; a nice breeze on any other day, but a bit too strong for my running convenience today
Hills; my legs just AREN't trained strong enough (yet)
:/

Mile 16 (mile 3) had a nice down hill and I capitalized by hitting 9:15 pace for much of the 300-400 meters (according to my Garmin).
Mile 17 (mile 4)----psht......it's a blur. I don't even remember seeing a mile marker......must have been zoning out
Mile 18 (mile 5) I DO recall because I knew there would be an aid station. And yup...there was....right at the top of another climb. The sponges that were shared were PERFECT! And ICE BAGS!!!! I had forgotten completely about ice bags at these aid stations from running back in 2006. At least once nice thing about miles 18-21 is the aid stations at every mile, and actually an aid station every mile to the finish line. But the ice bags and sponges.....and there was a fire-hose out somewhere around mile 18......it was at least nice to be able to stay relatively cool! The breeze finally was able to be relieving once I dumped water on me and sponged down; it offered its cooling effect on the skin.

Ummm...miles 19 and 20....I just remember too many hills that I had forgotten about. Bigger hills than what are present on my training roads at home. There were a few men that I ended up piggy-backing with since we all were taking on a run-walk pace; all at different paces and times. THEY, however, were running the full-marathon.....and were actually HITTING miles 19-20, whereas I was only hitting miles 6-7. WHAT?!?!?!? 6 and 7 only?!!?!?!? Oh boy! BUT.......at 6.55 (MY half-way point), I looked at my watch and saw 1:14 ticking. HEY! Alright.......that's good! Even if I continue at this pace, I'll finish at 2:28, which is sub-2:30 (my goal time).

11:22 AM
Ahhhhhhh.......coming around a curve after mile 21 (mile 8 for me).......what a sight!
Bethann saw me walking and came out greeting me, trying to get me running again. Nahhh.....nahhh...Bethann. A walk'll do me good right now! GOOD TO SEE YOU, THOUGH!!!!!! I handed my water bottle over to her since there was going to be an Aid Station every mile now until the finish.

And for the next 2 miles...I was on my own again. At least a few things had now changed since the course veered North...
The sun was behind me; and the cloud cover was picking back up
The wind/breeze seemed to be gone
The hills....yeah.....they were pretty non-existent too!!! :0)

11:47 AM
The fan-crew caught back up with me just after the mile 23 aid station. There are so many thoughts that run through my head while running.....being a math person, I usually run my numbers. But since I purchased my Garmin, the numbers didn't take much effort. However, I DO run the numbers that would be needed to make my goal time. With about 40 minutes left before reaching my goal time of 2:30, and a little over 3 miles left.....I figured I was sitting pretty good!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh.....those poor marathon runners!!!!!!! EVERY one that I trudged past, I gave a "WAY TO GO! My hat goes off to you for running this whole marathon!!!"

And shortly after passing this gentleman at mile 23......my legs said....."hey! That was 10 miles! Good job! We're done." LOL.....oh, I laugh about it now, but at the time......I kept saying....only a little walk! Only a little.....or I'll lose my 2:30 time....

and....hey! Where did this head-strong breeze come from??? :/

12:06 PM
SO.....a walk turned into a power walk all the way to mile 24 (at about a 14:10 pace, according to my buddy Garmin). And there's something about this picture that I absolutely LOVE! Jerry (BA's dad) snapped this one. I love the CAUTION sign right next to me.......the runners all lined up along the road. Oh....and the traffic! There were some GREAT horn honks (ALL GOOD!) and yells out the windows from the passing-by traffic. Traffic was much better this year than I remember in years past. Although Jerry has different thoughts....which are understandable. But....Hwy 51 is a major highway into Hurley; it simply can't be shut-down on race days. Hmmm......maybe a 45MPH sign would be nice (kinda like 'Men-at-Work; construction speed limits'. **shrug** It didn't bother me this year like it did in years past.

And after mile 24 (11 of my stretch).....my legs still were on vacation. With about 20 minutes left before my 2:30 goal time.....I simply shrugged and shouted to Bethann.....I'll see you in 30 minutes at the finish line, having full intentions of just power-walking to the finish.

Somewhere between miles 24 and 25 (miles 11-12), I made a mental connection with my legs to just run a little bit. And they did....for about 2 telephone pole lengths, and then I was back to power-walking. Heading out of Mile 25, a climb was ahead of me, and I power-walked it the best I could....watching the 2:30 tick away on my clock. **shrug**....I'm really okay with it all....truly!

And then....at the crest of the hill...with 12.6 miles showing on my distance-traveled window on the Garmin....I convinced my legs to find a little something again. And they did ..... for a little while at least :0)

Just before the corner leading to the final stretch of the race, Bethann met up with me. She did the best she could to get me running again, and once we turned the corner....I did :0)

If you've never run a race before......I wish I could explain the exhilaration you feel when you hear .....first, the music blaring......and then.....the crowd cheering.....and then...with a BOOMING voice...."And coming down the stretch we have Amy Skattebo, part of the 2-person relay "BOO x2" from Shell Lake, Wisconsin." BOY! If THAT isn't enough for the legs to find energy to run the final 400 meters....!

So, OFFICIAL finishing time: 5:02:12 for our marathon relay. My watch showing 2:42:50 (12:25 pace) for my half :\

My legs were SO HAPPY to just be able to stop...... ;0)

All-in-All; the day was fabulous! I'll openly admit that the conditions weren't the ideal for me (INCLUDING not being back to the running-shape I was three years ago after 9 weeks of training and two years off).

BUT......I CAN run. And I DID run. And I did it with BETHANN, who had an AMAZING run and got my butt back INTO running!!!

{{LOL...and for my former running buddy, Julie-----There was NO hurling in Hurley this year!}}

So....was this enough motivation to keep me running and improving to the next race????

T'scha!!! You bet'cha!!!!!

August 27: 12-mile rutabega fest
Sept 3: 5K OR 15K (Lake Run) in hometown, Shell Lake
Sept. 17: Half-marathon in Barron, WI
Oct. 15: Half-Marathon in Ashland, WI; the same course that I have run my marathon on three times. I would LOVE to try for a PR since it's an ideal course! But, I don't know if (realistically) I'll be physically there yet.

More packages (delayed) and a run

2011-08-12T10:53:00.007-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, Natalie (Piece-n-quilt) posted some scrap boxes she was selling. For WHATEVER reason....I liked the look of the fabrics AND the idea of having more fabrics.......

It arrived two weeks ago (I think?)...but just haven't gotten to unpacking it yet. Hmm....is that a sign of TOO MUCH fabric? Or a sign of a busy life?? ;0)

A good amount of yardage was included; I'll have to determine how much when I find the motivation later on. Some magazines.....a couple of Moda nickles (solids); some FQs. All-in-all, I'm pleased with the box of unknown "scraps". :0)

Some ACTUAL scraps were thrown in too; some good sized light scraps.

Also, a couple of weeks ago, Julie Me-n-My Stitches was requesting some of the lighter QOV fabric that I purchased and blogged about here. So, rather than sending $$, she was open to the idea of swapping fabric-for-fabric. Here are the two YUMMY FQs she sent me; civil war repros :0)

Paul just arrived home, early from work, already done with what needed to be finished off today. He is outside tinkering with the boat. Cassie is finishing up the dishes (she's new to washing dishes, so it's a honeymoon period!!! We'll milk it out for what it's worth!). Caitlyn and Candace are feeding the chickens. I'm working on laundry. **shrug** Pretty normal, huh?

We will be heading out to the farm later on; we don't really have a schedule "must-leave" time. Bethann is already up there with FIL & MIL; she's heading over to the race registration booth today to pick up our race-packets for tomorrow AM. The race (Hurley, WI) is about an hour from the farm, which resides in Ashland, WI. It'll be an early morning for sure! Up around 5:15; heading out around 6:00 in order to arrive at start by 7:00; race starts at 7:30. Bethann is running the first half (remember-----HILLS!!!!) :]

Here is the elevation map I had posted about back in 2008 when I ran with Julie. The yellow highlights are when aid stations are planned. Bethann has the first 13......gah! I REMEMBER that MONSTER starting at mile 6 and lasting till just after 9. She hasn't seen the map (yet); she's trying not to get panicked about the whole thing!!! ;0) Ah......she'll be fine! I simply keep telling her that she'll live and hang in there for mile 12. Almost allllllll downhill before coming into the hand-off area. :0) I figure I'll be starting my part around 9:45ish (give or take 15 minutes), so by noon-12:30, I should be finishing up. I haven't really paid attention to the forecast for up there....it is what it is!

I ran my final 5 miles last night at what I anticipate to be my "race pace." I ended up averaging 10:35, so......**shrug**.....we'll see. I'm hoping to stay around 11:00's as the average, which would bring me to the finish at 2hr 24min. Anyway......

what to do...what to do. Quilt? Load a quilt to the frame? yeah.....that worked well last time! That might have to be the ticket!!!!