Life Interrupted; not really... Dawn's Early Light, Old Town Mystery, Wedding quilt & running

My intentions were good; the execution, however...

.... LOL. It's really been since JULY!?  Oy.  Whoopsies.

Awh shucks!

But life has gone on, and maaaaaaan oh maaaaaaaan, our Wisconsin 'winter' so far has been pretty non-existent!  There have been a few short stretches of snow flurries and a cold-snap.

Bailee-girl and I (and a dear coworker) made a pact to get back into running; thankfully Bailee's been amazingly supportive of me dragging her along, despite feeling like I'm a sleigh she's pulling along some days.

Duo Christmas 5K on our Brooke Drive

Having this extra time during the holiday break from school has been wonderfully enjoyable!  Walking, running, and a fair amount of quilting has ensued.

and yesterday, on December TWENTY-EIGHTH, even though I had COMPLETE intentions of a schedule rest-day, the sunshine & 40s won us over!  Imma be catching up on my running log that was started allll those years ago on my side bar.  Kinda excited to see "where" I'm currently at.  Check it out...

The current POV in my quilting space; quite tidy, neat and organized has been an ongoing goal anytime I get into the space.  Having everything out, ready and NEAT simply makes for efficiency!  

Bonnie's "Dawn's Early Light" has progressed as my leader-ender ...

 A wedding quilt was requested of me and my mother-in-law this summer, and lots of progress has been made between Thanksgiving break and this Christmas break from school on it.  All of the blocks are pieced; tomorrow the hope is to have the center together.

And of COURSE, Bonnie's Old Town mystery is on my list of active WIPs!  I'm just about caught up to Friday's clue #7; another couple of days will get me there.

Kiddo update:

Semester break for the Freshman; wrapped up her first classes at Madison Tech for Finance

MVP Back for UW-Eau Claire is Caitlyn's bragging rights this past semester

Still can't believe this former twig of a middle-schooler has developed into a 6-foot rugby player; currently in her semester break of Junior year, heading into a Chiropractic medicine pathway.

And oldest Cassie is off adulting up in Duluth as a FedEx driver.  What a schedule she's had this past month!!!!

Here's to another great week and another few days of project progress while still on vacation; I head back on Thursday.

Cassie turns 15

Fifteen years later, and the 19 inch lil' baby stands at a height of 5'9"...

... with no boy friends in the near future!  WHEW!

Her sister isn't far behind her either.....

... check out this gem we found while cleaning out a dresser drawer!

The difference of a week

Gone is the winter jacket, snowpants, boots, hat and WINTER gloves...

Replaced with spring hoodie, shorts, tennies and a SOFTBALL glove.

Recall the picture from last Saturday in almost the same location of the yard ;)

This morning's rain subsided and left us with a dreary Spring day, but we're not complaining too much. The snow is almost melted, and the ground is fairly dry, so the girls are outside enjoying some snow-free entertainment.

Caitlyn was asked to feed the goats with some bread scraps we had in the kitchen.  I think she heard "tease the goats" instead of 'feed the goats.'  

Goofball!  When they jumped up on her, she partly squealed and screamed, so Candace went a'runnin' to her rescue.

Eventually, Caitlyn stopped teasing them and they were each rewarded with a slice of bread.

The chickens are out-n-about somewhere in the tall weeds.  They have only been venturing out of the coop for a few recent days; otherwise, they stayed cooped up literally all winter long.
There are only 4 remaining hens after we lost some of the hens last Fall to predators... and then we lost our rooster last week.  :(  We never were able to determine how he died.
The hens we have are laying eggs again -- YAY!!! Farm fresh eggs can finally take over those bland store-purchased ones!

Wait----scratch that!  We have FIVE hens!  In the fall, when White Mama hatched out 4 babies, ONE of them ended up surviving; only after we put it in safe-keeping with the ducks.  Three of the other babies all died, and we never were able to determine why/how they died either, although my hunch was that either the rooster or the other hens were SOMEHOW involved >:{

Today, the duck-raised-hen was introduced with the other hens;  I hope those girls treat her nicely and allow her to work her way into the clutch.  She's been laying eggs this past week too!  So, all five of our girls are doing their job.  BUT, without a 'man' in the group, we know there will be no more babies being hatched despite having two known brooders.  Therefore, Paul went out and brought home 10 baby chicks yesterday (5 Rhode Island Reds and 5 Barrocks).  We actually are hoping at least one is a rooster!

Lots going on; always something to do

I most certainly enjoyed my 'extra' day on Friday by spending much of it downstairs in the sewing room.  Celtic Solstice is STILL in pieces at various locations in my sewing room.  I pressed this set of 21 blocks and set them to the side to be a L/E project as I worked on something else.  I haven't been in the CS mood for far too long :\  Someday, someday... it'll take the forefront again.

Instead, I was motivated to FINALLY pull fabrics for Kevin's QOV Block Drive....

One set of blocks lead to another, lead to another, and lead to another... and now, I'm striving to finish off 30 blocks total to piece into a full-fledged quilt top.  By this time of the afternoon Friday, though, the weather outside had started cooperating; the snow having subsided, so we headed out as a family to get some last minute shopping done for Caitlyn's BDay party being held on Saturday.

10th birthdays are special in this house;  it's the age of ear-piercing!

As part of the shopping trip, Caitlyn's ears were pierced!

And, of course, she needed to receive earrings as a present despite not being able to wear them for a couple of months ;)

The weather for Caitlyn's party was absolutely GORGEOUS!!!!!!!  With the 10 inches of fresh snow, the girls played outside on our sledding hill for an hour, and had snowball fights.  There was NO wind, and the temps were in the upper 40s.  ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS!!!!

Some party-crafting time happened too, all the while singing to Frozen playing the background.  Ah yes... the Frozen frenzy has hit this part of the world too!

The crafted stained-glass sun-catchers are giving us HOPE that Spring is nearing, so all that time was very worthwhile!  ;)  With the forecast of temps to be in the 40s/50s and even 60s! over the next 5 days, I'll be curious to see how much snow remains once Friday hits.  

The seedlings are growing, giving us hopeful reminders as well that Spring and Summer loom on the horizon.

And check this out!  While shopping Friday night, I peeked over the plants that were on sale.  

It says, "I am COFFEE PLANT."

Psht!  I'll take it!  We'll see if it does anything special besides just "be green."

Last weekend, I started a new project using one of the designs from my Crochet Stitch Designs book.  I'm calling this Harmonic.  I have intentions of going big with it as a throw afghan, but it IS a bit putzier than many of the stitches I've done before.  

When shopping, I was pulled into the yarn section and couldn't resist grabbing some new colors to play around with...

After the birthday party concluded, I set aside Harmonic and I started a NEW lil' ripple project.  Candace decided on the order of the colors, and NATURALLY she assumed....."And it'll be a new blanket for me, right Mom?"

There's plenty going on, and I'm sure there are a few things that should be placed higher on the priority list, but right now... I like working with these Aztec colors.  

There ya go then.

Happy Sunday.

School projects

I finished my garden-harvest processing last night at 11:00PM.  The burner was turned off, I put a movie in the DVD player in the bedroom, and I stretched out in the bed.  Ummm...... I don't think I lasted past the 007 intro music!  LOL.

And man oh man oh man....

Around 1:00AM, I woke up.... with a headache and terribly sore throat.  People, let me simply say.... I RARELY have a headache.  So when I do... something's up.

The rest of the night was .... just .... kinda miserable :(  I finally broke down around 1:30 and went to the kitchen to get a cough drop.  The rest of the night, I was in-and-out of light sleep.  At 6:00, I gave up and got up.

A cup of coffee tasted good... but I knew I was going to be draggin' a bit today :\

By 8:00, most of the household was awake (not Cassie yet), so the TV was turned off and everyone got busy with their chores.   The girls needed to clean their rooms, and I had to tackle my school work.

I was hoping to be done by noon, but around 10:30, my brain simply was struggling to focus anymore. I reread one problem about 6 times in 10 minutes before putting my pencil down and saying...."nope.  Brain isn't working right now."

I made up some lasagna with some spaghetti sauce that didn't fit into one last quart jar.  And by the time it hit the oven, I tried tackling the school work again... and was a little bit successful... until 1:30.   Paul slumbered out from the bedroom (he worked night shift last night), and after eating a couple of pieces of lasagna, he moved to the couch for a little Football time for the afternoon.  So, I put the schoolwork aside for the moment, and grabbed some yarn and my crochet hook.

I've been working on some Blue-n-Gold scarves to give to our School Store advisor.  I'll be delivering 7 scarves to her tomorrow, and I have enough yarn skeins to make 2 more.  Sadly, the shop I purchased the bulk deal from is backordered on this yarn until OCTOBER 25!  So, when these are gone, they are gone.

This evening, after finalizing paperwork for school tomorrow and getting backpacks ready for the morning, I asked Caitlyn if she wanted to start one of her projects for "Pioneer Day" coming up in school.  (I don't know when yet.... but it's coming up....sometime!)  LOL

Caitlyn is bound and determined to earn an A on her Pioneer projects, and in order to do so, she needs to make four different "pioneery" projects/crafts.

First off..... weaving.

We grabbed a cardboard box, cut 'er up, and starting setting up our "looms."   Naturally, lil' sister wanted to make one too.

Caitlyn is choosing to use Red, White and Blue colors -- the yarns that were left over from her RWB afghan.

It was a slow-go start, but she is hoping to make a little bit of progress every night.

Once this project sees a finish, next on her list for Pioneer Day.....

 -- make a lantern (with Dad's assistance)

 -- make either a corn-husk doll, or a yarn doll

 -- make butter

 -- bake... umm.... some kinda cake, but I can't remember the name.  I recall one of the ingredients being 'corn meal.'  

Happy Sunday everyone!

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.

Garden Prep and a Birthday

I figured it was time to get this post written seeing that all of these "garden prep" pictures were taken last Sunday!

We have been asking my parents for the past two years if they would be willing to bag up leaves they rake up each fall. And of course they come through. THANKS MOM!!! {{as a side-note, now that Mom is freshly retired (first full week of retirement under her belt), she should have LOADS of time to help bag leaves for their OWN garden :0)}}

Anyway.....Cassie and Candace helped load up bags onto the tractor bucket in order to deliver them to the garden.
Meanwhile, Caitlyn spent some time raking out some "old" dead stems from last year's growing season
Kicking around the piles of leaves to spread them out.....
Ummm......work turned into play time?


What's a kid to do, right?!?!?!

Strawberries having a good seasonal beginning.


Paul moved a group of chickens we had to a new run. They immediately took to the grass!
All except this one. She watched from the doorway for quite some time before venturing out.

The day was another warm (unseasonal) day. So, it kept me away from my sewing machine; therefore, NO QUILTING PICS to share :0( That should change with my 4-day weekend looming ahead of me :0)


We celebrated Caitlyn's 8th birthday yesterday.

I wish she would show a little excitement :0)

Cassie informed me of a Highest Points award she earned with her Accelerated Reader points, so I took the camera to school yesterday to get a snapshot. I'm certainly happy that she enjoys reading so much.

So...that's a quick update! Not much writing but lots of pictures :0)
I'm looking forward to a weekend HOME for the holiday! As badly as the house needs a top-to-bottom cleaning...... I don't have the gumption right now this minute to take it on. Rather......some coffee, a bagel and a couple of hours in my sewing room sound AMAZING!!!!!

Happy Friday