Holy Wind Batman... and HOT

Alright, alright, alright.... Paul:  SHUSH!  I know, I know....

It was just a couple of weeks ago when we (I) was complaining about being ready for WARM temperatures!  We were DONE with all the snow.  Remember that??!?!

And now...

LOL...

87 degrees and FULL sun.  

And really, I'm NOT complaining...really....

{{It's just a weeeee bit warm for running though}}

Not to mention the wind gusts in excess of 20+ mph.  

LOL

But really.... I'm not complaining! 

:D

Happy Tuesday

T-minus 5 days .... and counting.

My, my... that's quite the "poof" I have going today...

Lazy Sunday; 2010 BOM UFO; Mother's Day running

Two hours of sewing time this morning was all that was needed to piece together the 24 blocks for Bonnie's Lazy Sunday Quiltmaker mystery; Part 2.  I love that I'm all caught up AND that I'm feeling the quilting mojo returning :)

With deadlines done;  Lazy Sunday all caught up;  and having been so long since I was in any kind of "flow" in the sewing room, I elected to tidy, clean, organize, purge...

...and then I came across a buried stack of 2010 Mystery BOM blocks.

After laying them out and coming up with a sashing idea, I was off and running.

Sashed AND the first of three borders attached.    The next little 1.5" white border is prepped, and I'm planning for a final blue border (maybe 4.5" ??).  With summer looming, I realllllly want to set a goal of quilting all of these flimsies I have laying around all over the place!

By 1:30, I turned everything off and started to mentally talk myself into getting prepared for my 9 mile run today.  It was WINDY out, and I wasn't looking forward to it;  in fact, I was putting it off for as long as I could, HOPING the wind would die down :\  No such luck.

BUT, with a nice-n-easy pace in mind, the 1.5 mile windy stretches were tolerable, KNOWING I would have a 1.5 mile tail-wind as soon as I hit the turn-around.  I ran my 3-mile "Brooke Drive" loop again (x3 today);  it's a great training loop AND keeps me close to home.  I also set up a "water stop" at the loop turn-around, so I know that I'll have a water break every 3-miles.  It works out nicely :)

And my lovely lovely Candace had a Mother's Day snack surprise waiting for me when I got home :)

A Fruit-Veggie flower!  LOL.  Ranch dip at the ends of each carrot;  peanut butter in the center of the apple-slices flower, and a banana stem.  

Cassie brought home her first hardware of the track season last Friday night.  She's been working on her 400 meter run, and Friday she was scheduled to run three separate 400 meter runs.  One of them, a 1600M medley relay (200-200-400-800), she ran the 3rd leg, and ended up helping her relay take a Gold :)  I think she slept with the medal Friday night :)

Y'all know the song..."Back to Life....Back to reality..."

Yup.  Starting to sing that right now.

Happy Sunday.

I thought I was done...

After another couple of hours in the sewing room this evening, piecing and pressing the units for the Lazy Sunday mystery - part 2... I THOUGHT I was finished after pressing the final HST pink unit.

But NOPE!  While organizing all the units for a "was-to-be-FINAL-picture"... I glanced at the magazine and saw the pieced BLOCK.  Ahhhh... 

.... Now I know what I can work on tomorrow :)

Of course, that'll be AFTER I clock 10 miles on my feet.  

Tomorrow will be the last 'big' mileage I'll run before next week's marathon.  

I'm ready.

Bring it on :)

Mother's Day plants & Nephew's quilt

Does your school's Ag (FFA) group offer a Mother's Day sale too?  I have to chuckle a little bit every year that "mom" pays for her own flowers :)

BUT, I do enjoy supporting the FFA this way;  it's always nice getting some new color into the house with the first signs of Spring.

Caitlyn picked out two of the same varieties, so I put both of them in this larger pot.  Eventually, when the weather is nice enough, it'll make its way outside by the humming bird feeder.

The fragrance of Marigolds is so strong; it's always a must every year.  

The day has been filled with potting plants, giving some TLC to the seedlings (tomatoes and peppers - no pic), loads of laundry, cleaning house... a bit of normalcy, I guess.

However, I also put ALMOST all of the finishing touches on my nephew's Graduation quilt.

{I don't think any of my in-laws know about my blog, so I think it's safe showing pics}

My portion of the quilt was to do the quilting, binding and labeling.

My Mother-in-Law pieced the top.  My part is so minimal compared to everything my MIL had to do;  to me, it only seemed fitting that she is recognized as the main quilt creator on the label;  A special gift from Grandmother to Grandson on his graduation day.

This is ONE HEAVY quilt!  It's long too!  Shown here on my King size bed, it'll be plenty plenty, plenty large enough {{and then some!!}}

All that remains is for me to hand-stitch the label onto the back.  I plan to deliver it to my MIL next weekend on the way to my Green Bay marathon.

Paul is working the night-shift tonight, so I might find myself heading downstairs for some Lazy Sunday mystery piecing.  ALL of my deadlines have officially been crossed off.  Boy, that feels good :)

On the school-front...

My students and I counted down the days yesterday;  15 1/2 days left.  Suddenly, the end is looming incredibly close!  Specially with graduation only two weeks away!

My AP-Statistics students had their big AP test yesterday afternoon.  If there were ever times/days when to NOT schedule an exam...it's Monday mornings and Friday afternoons!!!   Our school day ends at 3:24, and the kiddos were still in the exam room finishing up.  I felt like I was waiting outside a labor-and-delivery room for a child to be born!  Pacing, pacing, biting nails....

When they emerged, after some initial goofy-hugginess and fake exaggerated tears (...LOL... these really ARE awesomely funny kids!!!!).....one of my boys said...."Mrs. S.  I think you over prepared us.  It really didn't seem that bad."  .... to which there were a few other nods of agreement.  

BOY!  That made me feel relieved.

So now, we all wait until July for the scores.  First year AP-Statistics - DONE.

Happy Saturday.

More Lazy Sunday progress

This will be a super quick post... as I need to be out the door in 5 minutes...

Lazy Sunday part 1 was completely finished this morning; bright-n-early.

And the rest of the morning and early afternoon was spent cutting, trimming and sewing up some of the Part 2 units...

 YES!   It does feel good to be back in the sewing room.  Specially with the BRIGHT colors for Bonnie's mystery.  She hasn't had a bad one yet :)

Today has been filled with friends and parties, which is why I'm out the door now.  Take home Friend #3 (who made a Build-a-Bear with Candace), then to pick up Child #2 from her birthday pool party, and then off to pick up Child #1 from her birthday Skating party... and then cart her off to softball for an hour of practice.  

Happy Sunday everyone :)

Lazy Sunday mystery

My camera batteries were dead and are currently recharging, so the pictures are via my phone;  definitely not the best quality, BUT.....

The afternoon was spent organizing and cutting into some fabrics for Bonnie's Lazy Sunday mystery in the Quiltmaker magazines.  FINALLY!

I didn't veer too far off of Bonnie's suggested colors;  besides, I LOVE all the brights!!!!

Actually, before I dug into some mystery fabrics, I chose to finish up a wall-hanging for my mother-in-law by sewing on some binding.  The red/black quilt in the background is the "top-secret" King size graduation quilt.  It is almost finished; simply needing trimming, labeling and binding yet.  

I can't remember the last time I dug into some new fabrics.  It was so enjoyable, and I'm looking forward to digging back in this morning.  Right now, I'm enjoying a cup of coffee and will take a few moments to catch up on all of your blogs.  It's been sooooooo long since I've relaxed with coffee and blogs!  LOL.

Happy Sunday!

Life interrupted...

So, Andee put a call out to my Facebook page last week, saying she missed my posts....

Can I just claim that we're still working on digging ourselves out from all the SNOW we've been getting?!?!?!?!!?

SERIOUSLY!  May 2nd -- 8 inches!  May 3rd -- another 1 inch dusting. 

What'cha gonna do?

Wisconsin and Minnesota have quite literally gone from one extreme Spring last year to the opposite-end extreme Spring this year.

Farmers and gardeners were already putting in crops and seeds at this time last year.  But today.... we still have a good 4 inches on the ground.  

What'cha gonna do?

Last Friday, the weather was actually AMAZING!!!!!!  The first 70 degree day we've had since October.  That's a long haul!  

The first track meet of the season finally got underway... and of course there were jokes about still having snow piles on the ground.  (NOW, the track is completely covered, and all the track meets from this week were cancelled.)

It goes without saying... those of us in the North are ready for some sun and no more white stuff.  LOL.

Life has really been interrupted over the past few weeks;  once again different priorities keeping me away.

I'm neck deep right now in preparing one of my classes for the Advanced Placement (Statistics) exam that is scheduled for this upcoming Friday.  Looking at the calendar, it's crazy to think we are already 4 1/2 weeks away from summer break.  Summer?  What is summer?  How 'bout some Spring first!?!?!?!

To close up this post, I want to fill you all in with one of the biggest events of the past three weeks...

My half marathon in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

As the pictures show, the weather was NOT snow covered, but there was a 15 mph wind and the temps were in the 30s.  All in all, not a TERRIBLE day weather-wise, although......that wind ended up being a full head wind at miles 3-4 and again 9-10.

Despite......   I STILL rocked the course with a new personal best!!!  I broke 10:00/mile pace (my goal) and THEN some!!!!   Training certainly pays off.

Sadly.... I have not run since then :(

Scarily.... the full marathon is two weeks away from this weekend  :\

Today, I have to break through my mental 'blah' and get out on the roads, snow covered as they are, with sleeting weather - n - all!  Honestly, I'm not extremely worried about the two weeks off.  My mileage and training build up prior to the half marathon were in excess of any training I've ever done.  My marathon goal is to hold 11:00/mile pace;  that should still be an attainable and comfortable goal.

On the quilting front:  I actually HAVE been working on a massive King size quilt, BUT it's "top secret" right now.  Graduation gift :)   HOWEVER, I do hope to finally dig into some fabrics for Bonnie's mystery in the Quiltmakers magazine now that most of my deadlines of the past couple of months have been met.

Happy Weekend everyone!

Thanks for catching up on me :)

Finally, a substantial post :)

Yes folks, there are quilting related photos in this post.  Can you believe it?!?!?  :D

My mother-in-law sequestered me into quilting a couple of tops; one for a customer of hers, and one for a family member.  This earth-toned one has such beautiful colors!  The customer left all design aspects to my MIL.  I love the framework that MIL came up with.

I quilted it with an Edge-2-Edge feather pantograph, but I left the center photo section untouched.  It has a poofy effect now that I'm not a big fan of, but the decision of quilting/not-quilting over the picture wasn't mine to make.  Overall, it still turned out alright.

Total quilting time and machine binding sewn on:  About 7 hours on and off during this past week.

This little thing was a smaller wall-hanging that a cousin of my husband asked my MIL to make, and for me to quilt.  I again used the E2E overall feather pantograph in a taupe color.  I loaded and quilted it today in just under 3 hours.  Pretty quick.  Nice-n-small.

THEN, I decided to actually shower up for the day :) LOL

I know I'm not the only one who goes for one (both?) days of the weekend without "looking human."  BUT, there is an article being written about the QOV program; my name was shared with the writer of the article by the Wisconsin QOV representative.  Last weekend, there was a presentation in a local city where two of my quilts were given to local QOV recipients.  Sadly, I could not make the event due to Hunter Safety and needing to be a single mom for the day, driving everyone around to where they needed to be.  So, the writer asked if I could share a picture of me either working on a QOV quilt, or presenting one.  Well....psht!  I didn't have one!  In all my pictures, .... nada.

So, I got all "humanified" and had Cassie take a picture this afternoon.

{{sign of a happy quilter = clutter and mess. Right??}}

 But yeah....THIS is part of the reason I couldn't make the event last week.

Not only did Cassie sign up for Hunter's Safety Education... I did too :)  

And we both passed :)  People keep joking with Paul (husband) about needing to share his hunting gear.  He just laughs and says..."HA!  It just means I can buy MORE tree stands, blaze orange, food plot land, .....etc...etc...etc..."

Last weekend was also Caitlyn's birthday.  Nine this year.  And that girl...... yup.  She wanted jeans.  

On the running front... 

I hit a mental wall after a botched 20-mile run last Saturday.  At mile 7, I texted Paul to come get me if he could.  By the time he got to me, I had run 8.9 miles....a far cry from the 20 I had set out to run.  I just wasn't feeling it.  And I've been fighting the mental block of "failure" all week, ONLY having run once since that day.

But today, despite the weather yet AGAIN bringing on blizzard-like conditions.... I ran .... and this was the view from my treadmill.   Only 5 miles, but they felt good.  And truth be known;  I'm considering jumping back on the 'mill once I'm done with this update post.  Time is still on my side;  Five more weeks until the Green Bay marathon.  Next weekend, there is a Half-Marathon that I'm pretty certain to run in.  I haven't completed my registration yet, but... yeah.  Pretty sure I'll be running it.  {{Amy--it's in Oshkosh.  Interested?  There's a 5K too, I think}} :)

Oh!  Need a funny to close your weekend before heading back to work?

One of my 7th grade advanced math students.  And I honestly don't know whether to laugh or not at this.  Does this show proficiency in mathematical reasoning???

LOL

I think we all need sunshine and 70s!  {{Heck, most of us will even settle for 40s!!!!!}}

Happy Sunday everyone.