Going to State!

Our school's Regional Destination Imagination (DI) competition was held yesterday; Cassie is yet again participating (this is her 3rd year).

Her team was one of the first to compete in the day (8:40 AM), which then lead to LOTS and LOTS of down-time while waiting for their Instant Challenge (12:30) and then MORE down-time until awards at 4:00. The team filled up the downtime with games and karaoke.

But finally, the awards time came.....and "Challenge B, Elementary Division, Solar Stage" was announced. I was in ready-mode with my camera......
3rd place announced....Not us

And then...."2nd place, and going on to state, 'Team ZAANACO/Dunham, Shell Lake'"

From a distance, with no flash, and EXCITED MOVEMENT, LEAPING UP IN THE AIR......this is what I got. :0) Oh well!



State is a few weeks away (April 14), and in a town close to Paul's and my parents. All grandparents are excited to watch the State skit :0)

During OUR downtime, we (Paul, myself, Caitlyn and Candace) headed back home to get some indoor seed planting done. (One advantage of having the Regional Competition in a town only 8 miles away!!!)

This cute "Sprout-n-Grow" contraption was gifted to us from a coworker, so we planted some peas and can't wait to see the germination begin!

In addition to our typical starter pots, we had the girls decorate some styrofoam cups for "their" seeds. Any guesses at the two different styles of seeds in these cups?????


The girls and I have been in cleaning-mode all morning; laundry, dusting, sweeping, dishes, bathroom, dining room. And now, they are upstairs in their rooms, cleaning (even though it sounds a bit more like playing to me)

We hope to hit the Theater matinees today at 1:00 and 1:10 for "The Hunger Games" for Cassie and myself, and "The Lorax" for Paul, Caitlyn and Candace. With the weather as GLORIOUS as it is yet AGAIN, we MAY be postponing those plans until 4:00 and 4:!0. :0)

Happy Sunday

Some scrap work...

Something new to play around with this morning: Rainbow Scrap strings. This block is the 12" March BOM through the Craftsy BOM, so I grabbed my red, green, and pink strings to create another style of block for Angela's monthly rainbow scrap challenge (in addition to the Jack-in-the-Box blocks).

And with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge still on my mind, I pieced together the bonus triangles from the pink blocks yesterday.

My leader-ender area has started mounding up with Jamestown Landing units, so I pressed them up to have a neatly organized area next to my sewing machine again. (Hm, think I need to wash my ironing board cover??)



More tidying consisted of piecing together a few more Scrappy Pieces. They certainly don't make me Ohh-and-Ahh, but I'm hoping if I continue with these, the sheer amount will make the quilt seem cool-n-amazing. Besides, they are super easy and burn through all those icky-yucky scraps that have been sitting and sitting in some of my boxes.

The 2011/12 NYE mystery was also loaded onto the quilting frame and one pass completed. (I actually did this yesterday afternoon). :0)

For those of us in the northern part of the USA, we are now on our fourth day of AMAZING weather!!!!! 80's today......absolutely GORGEOUS and record-breaking temperatures. In fact, we slept with the windows open last night......MARCH SEVENTEENTH, and the WINDOWS are open at night. Cah-razy!

First finish of 2012!

**hanging head**

March 17th

and my FIRST complete finish of 2012 is hitting my blog....

"Maltese Star" - Mystery 24

Now to make and attach a label. This one (and one other) will be mailed out to Alycia's QOV project.

March Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Off to a good start this morning; working with some pink scraps for March's Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I'm READY when Angela posts the Mr. Linky this week :0)

January & February Jack-in-the-Box blocks

The first picnic of 2012

I know I may sound like so many others that are living in the northern part of the USA right now....but gosh-dernit! This weather is GLORIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The mornings are still a bit chilly (40s), so the day usually starts with pants, winter jacket, hat, gloves.....but by the end of the day: near 80s today! Another record breaking day! Tshirts and shorts! HOWEVER, poor dear Candace here....I think we need to go shoe shopping for her this weekend!. She's outgrown her tennis shoes since the beginning of winter, and only has her boots.

She's not the only one hitting some serious growth spurts! Cassie "graduated" another pair of her pants this morning that she hasn't worn all that much lately. Rightfully so! There was some full-blown "highwaters" action going on :0)

AND



THE BEST BEST BEST NEWS


I
LEFT
ALL (almost)
OF MY SCHOOLWORK AT SCHOOL this weekend!!!!!!!!!!

It will be a ME weekend!
Quilting for most certainty......
reading for some certainty.....
laundry for necessity

and with temps being forecasted in the 70s for both Saturday and Sunday....RUNNING will most likely be on my schedule too.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Another BEAUTIFUL day!

And I RAN (again)! :0)

Oh, oh, oh......the discipline and constant 'mental-talk' I need to give myself.......

to remind myself that it takes TIME to get back into running shape....

and then the kick-in-the-keester that I do to myself,
....YELLING internally to myself "WHY DO YOU LET THE RUNNING SHAPE GO once winter hits? KNOWING how difficult it is to get back into good running shape!!!"

Only two (2) miles today, but they kicked my butt. If you look closely at the graph above (from my Garmin Forerunner), you'll see a moment early on in the run, and again at the end of the run when I surpass my Max (100%) heart rate. YIKKKERS!

But I survived. No heart attack. :0)

Oh Mother Nature----please allow Wisconsin to keep this weather; please don't merely tease us this week and then drop us back to the 20s and snow. Back in April, 2008, we had a snow day on April 1, again on April 11th, and then yet more snow on April 26th. :0( Can't winter be over for 2012???????? :0)

This weather is SUCH a tease!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

70's.....

in Wisconsin !!!!!!

in MARCH !!!!!!!!


H-E-A-V-E-N!!!!!

Also, HAPPY PI DAY everyone!

Playing with scrappy pieces

Goodness! I go almost a month without a post, and then BAM! Three in one day!!!! :0)

Just wanting to play in the quilting room, I grabbed some 5" squares that have been collecting dust for years, some 1.5" strips from the bin....and played around a bit.

Signs of Spring; definitely a LOVELY day!

With temps like today, pictures should be enough to say what a beautiful day it is!






Our garbage adventure





And when we returned back home, Caitlyn finally got her chicken.

Bear Paw and A BEAUTIFUL MARCH DAY!

While laying awake last night, I started thinking ahead to what my school plans would be for the upcoming week. I concluded that I will worry about it Monday morning and take one day at a time, rather than plan all 5 days and wittle away my Sunday by doing only work.

Therefore, ...

After some delicious coffee and a piece of toast (and tossing a load of clothes in the washing machine), I headed downstairs and decided to pull out the Bear Paw units and turned them into 19" blocks. This quilt will be BIG!!!! I have to be sure not to surpass the limit of my quilting frame, so it'll probably end up being about 105-110" square.

Just now, I came upstairs, looked at the outside temp, and went right back downstairs to shut everything off. Mind you, the thermometer is sitting in the sun, BUT STILL!!!!!



Going from a snow-storm last week that dropped 9-10" in our yard and offered me a LOVELY snowday....



to all the snow melted and temps in the 60's a week later.....

I am having a quick brunch with the girls....and OUTSIDE WE GO!!!! Our plan: take a garbage bag, put on some gloves, and go garbage picking while taking a walk along our road.

Some quilting for MIL

Since my quilting frame was finally open again, I loaded a quilt that my MIL requested for me to finish up for her. The fabrics are absolutely GORGEOUS!!!!!!!

I chose a simple pantograph---really simple. Start-to-finish: this quilt took under three hours to load/quilt/trim.

The other evening, Paul fried up some freshly caught pan-fish (oh yes. YUM!!!!!!) and he double-dog-dared Cassie to eat an entire wedge of lemon.
The FUNNY thing though.......notice that completely eaten wedge on her plate. Yeah...that was her FIRST wedge from the dare. And the face she made was so hilarious, that I said DO IT AGAIN for the camera!!!!!!!!!

A new record.....

But not one to be proud of or happy about.

It's officially Day #69 of 2012, and I have YET to have a quilty finish :/
I would love to change that this weekend, but I DARE NOT say I will, because lately.......gah.....
life just has had different priorities, and I'm not too happy about having needed to rearrange my priority list :(

One thing is for sure: I AM HOME THIS WEEKEND and am looking forward to it!!!!!!!!!