The difference of another week :)

Just before lunch yesterday, we got the Public Announcement...."Due to the inclimate weather, school will be closing at 1:00 today."  

My 5th hour math class was a bit hyped up, but we plugged through a lesson on y=mx+b regardless, and it went remarkably well! 

This was our 2nd early-dismissal day this schoolyear due to weather.  Last time, I had the girls ride home with me, but this time, Caitlyn and Candace were told to take the bus home.  I wanted to spend a few moments in my classroom, packing up and wrapping up a few things seeing I was losing my Prep period (8th period).  PLUS, I wanted to get packed up in the event we would have a snow day TODAY (which, clearly we have), so that I could be prepared to plan lessons for next week over the weekend seeing that Friday is a vacation day for us.

Cassie (being in the 'big' school) rode home with me and grabbed my phone on the ride home.  Four-five inches were already on the ground, but by this time of year, EVERYONE knows how to drive in winter weather!  Slow-going....

Despite sticking around in my classroom for about 25 additional minutes and stopping at the grocery store on the way home, we STILL beat the bus home!  Clearly it was safe, slow-going for Trish, our bus driver, too!

We kept ourselves occupied by doing chores and making an Easter celebration snack for Candace's class.  At the time, I was still quite certain we WOULD have school today, and.....well..... snack needed to be ready!   

The afternoon "extra" hours flew by super quick!  Paul (who needed to work the late-shift) knew he'd need to leave quite a bit earlier than normal.  He volunteered to take the van to work so that I'd have the 4-wheel drive Escape for the morning drive to work.....

Hmpf.   Five minutes after heading out, he came back in the house saying..."Sorry Hun.  I need to take the Escape.  If you end up having school in the morning.....ummmm.....good luck."

He failed to tell me that he got the van STUCK!  {{I deduced that fact after he left and peered out the window}}. 

Therefore, Cassie and I embarked on the ordeal of shoveling, figuring out how to blow snow with the tractor, and getting this van ready for the morning.  

TWO hours later----success!  LOL.

It truly was nice out.  Candace even came out for some playtime!  38 degrees with only a bit of wind.  

By the time I was done, my hair was definitely sopping.  Silly me.  Where was my hat?!?!?!?!

Heading to bed, I was beginning to accept the idea that we MAY truly not have school today.  It was still snowing....and we easily had 10" on the ground already.

5:50AM -- the call came in.  Early vacation for our school.  Snow day.

There really was only a few mile stretch of area that got hit with some big snow;  a town 20 miles south of us ended up with about 6".  I was curious, so I grabbed my quilting ruler and headed out to the MIDDLE of our yard where drifts don't accumulate.  Legitimate 12".  As predicted.

Yah, it's April 17th.

Yah, there are people who are IRATE at the amount of snow we've had this year.

Yah, there are coworkers who are irritated that we have yet ANOTHER snow day that needs to be made up... {{I think this is our 8th snow day this year; we need to make up at least 3 of those days}}

But.... it's actually pretty out there.  

Besides, by Sunday---it'll all be melted and gone away ..... again.

Happy Thursday everyone!

An Extra Day...

The picture says it all.  

Let the weekend begin

Ahhhh! Saturday!

March 29th, and we are FINALLY expecting a decent weekend of weather ahead of us.  Forecast:  FIFTIES (50s!) tomorrow!  

Thursday, March 27.  School parking lot.

However, with this being a state in the North, we have LOTS of potential winter left, and LOTS LOTS LOTS of snow to melt off before gardening can truly even HOPE to occur.   {{Did I say we have LOTS of snow out there???}} 

Saturday March 29.  But LOOK at that blue sky!

Typically, Memorial weekend is the planting weekend in these parts of the world.  BUT, the seedlings have broken ground.  Candace was just doing her saturday morning chore of watering plants, and she asked if she should water the seeds.  When she opened up the cover, I heard... "MOM!  COME QUICK!!!!!  They're GROWING!!!" 

Other goings-on around here --- the bats have made their presence known again.  We found a dead bat on the deck a couple of weeks ago, and the other night, we heard one flying around in the open space between our vaulted ceiling rafters and the roof.  Knowing that the bat I saw last summer flew into the area of the loft-lights (remember THAT post???? and then the Super-Heroin follow-up???), Paul brought out some filler-stuffy-stuff to seal off the spaces of possible 'living-space' entry for those lil' annoyances.

We have birthday parties to get to and pick up from, but other than that... today is a day of openness!  It's already 9:30, and I've puttered the morning away online.  I think a little breakfast is looming, and then I'll head down to see what status my quilting/sewing room is in.  It's been awhile :\

Happy Saturday

Snow - more of it; what else is new? ;)

As predicted, the snow storm hit.  I haven't watched any news to know our official amounts, but... obviously----A LOT.  LOL.

Definitely enough to cancel school today and most government offices in our area.

  

Sadly, Paul had to the work the nightshift --- and he's currently on the road on his way home right now.  Typically, it's a 50 minute drive (8AM arrival home) ---- I don't expect him before 8:30, if even then.

I packed my school work when leaving school yesterday (oh yeah...we were sent home early yesterday due to the incoming storm), but I have no intention of doing school work today.  Instead, laundry is on the schedule.  And probably some crochet -- MAYBE some quilting.

Happy Friday

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.

Snow tubing at Christie Mountain

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.....

RRCB Step #7 progress

Since I didn't bring home any school work, I really didn't have much of anything to do other than sew and clean today for the snow day. Cleaning needed to be done because the parents are coming up tomorrow for the weekend.

I didn't have anything much in mind when I headed downstairs; I SURELY didn't have RRCB on the mind. BUT... finishing up the color blocks from step #7 just kinda happened today, and the top is finally coming together, nearing completion.

The batteries in the camera died, so I snapped these pics with my phone camera; most definitely not the best quality. Speaking of pics---I didn't think of taking a picture of the Winter Wonderland that we have outside again. 10.5" of new snow when just yesterday just about all the brown grass was clear of it.

Back to quilting. I grabbed these 6.5" blocks and pieced them together as leaders-enders today. I'll be donating this to my Mom's church for their baptismal quilts.

Yikes---terrible picture; the pinks are very light and those purpley squares are actually a very light blue with polkadots.

Alright; I'm off to read before heading off to bed. Still working through Harry Potter, but have slowed a bit. Book #4 is taking me a bit longer to "get into it" ({{But, I suppose it doesn't help that I watched the movie already after having my arm twisted by my family, so the suspense is already gone}})

Happy Wednesday

Linda's dream came true!

Linda's "This is Spring?" post worked. With the record snowfall we've had this winter season, we FINALLLLLLLLY have our first snow day.

NOT that I want more snow.....ugh! SOOOOOOOOooooooo ready for the snow to be GONE; the sun to SHINE its beautiful shine; the temperatures to WARM! Oh yeah....very much ready for warmer, sunnier weather.

BUT, I'll take the snow day ;0)

A snow-in quilting day! Rollin' along again!

Well...late, but certainly plentiful! It's been snowing non-stop since it started last night. I tried getting a picture to show how the wind is literally making it look like the snow is coming down completely sideways, but it didn't turn out. This picture is on the "quiet" side of the house; I'm quite certain if I were to head out and check out the driveway, there will be drifts well over 2 feet tall due to the wind.

Brrrrrr! No going outside for me! However, DH headed out this AM to spend the day ice-fishing. Double brrrrr!


While looking over blogs with my coffee in hand this morning, I really didn't have any specific quilting plans for the day; just another "whatever-I-feel-like-working-on" day. But, as I was in the stairwell on my way to my sewing room---it hit me! ROLL ROLL COTTONBOLL will see action today!!!

I left off with 240 HSTs the last time I worked on RRCB (on Feb. 5). So.......zooooooooooooooooooooooom! A couple of hours later, ALL 600 DONE DONE DONE!

And then some more zooooooooooooooooooooooming! The HSTs pieced into the 5er sets!

And then.....ya guessed it....ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOmin some more and step #6 was completely finished!

LOL....okay. So the day hasn't completely zoomed by! I've been at it for 7 hours finishing up step #5 and step #6. I'm startin' in on step #7 but came up to change the load of clothes and check on the girls. They're playing the Wii game and still getting along so far. (They've been at it for only 15 minutes).

I live in Wisconsin; we expect snow through April...

If you follow any blogs of those of us in the Minnesota and Wisconsin areas, you may have already read..."We have snow.....again." After such BEAUTIFUL temperatures last week! Remember my running posts? (Run 1 | Run 2)

The original forecast said we were to get snow Saturday night. As always, the meteorologists were paid to be wrong. {I wasn't complaining!}


Then all day yesterday, I was just a-waitin' for the snow to start. Again.....nothing! Although just 30 minutes south, the snow was falling and falling plentifully.

Then this morning.....yeah; winter-wonderland all over again. I don't think I'm complaining because it IS pretty out there AND I don't need to go anywhere today. As a coworker said on Saturday...."We're gonna get robbed of another snow day." (since we have a Holiday today, there is no school). Watching news this AM, our area has a seasonal average of 55" of snow; we've had 72" already. The record: 76". Think we're gonna make it??? And what's absolutely amazing me: with ALLLLLL of the snow we've had, we haven't had a SINGLE snowday! All of the storms have hit over the weekends.

I AM thinking of the Northeastern states of the nation though. If this is yet another system that makes its way that-away (which I don't think it will; it's traveling northeast from us), the Northeast is already hurting on days allowed off of school :0( I'm thinking of you Nancy!!! Andra also spoke about having had too many snowdays because she needs to work today. However, when I looked at her profile, not remembering where she was at, it listed....New Mexico??? Andra? Am I missing something? ;0)

What happened to my "ME" day???

DH's pleading.....that's what!

That would be DH's body you see there...pulling stakes out from the pigpen area......

So who's driving the tractor???? ME!


And since I was out there, I figured I'd get some pictures......

As I was taking this picture of the trees, I suddenly paid attention to the FOREGROUND! Can you determine what that red piece of machinery is????

Yeah..that'd be the snowblower attachment!

Ummm....looks like DH has some other "get-ready-for-snow" prep to do later today.....

...because this MOWER sure isn't going to get the job done anymore....

As we finished and I was driving the tractor back to the garage...

...we witnessed one of the first casualties of the 2010 snow season. By the time we realized what had happened, two other good samaritans traveling by already stopped and were hookin' up to pull this lil' blue car out of the ditch.....

Ahhhhh......welcome Winter 2010!!!




BEFORE DH's pleading, I did manage to finish up Judy's June Mystery quilt with the final borders. Oh boy-----I need a name for this quilt! Tired of calling it Judy's June Mystery.......



And I pulled fabrics that I will most likely be using in Bonnie's Roll, Roll, Cottonboll mystery quilt....

The blues were tickling my fancy better than any greens I had in my stash. And some of the pinks make me say..."ehh...." but I'm game to use them up!!!

Okay---this ended up being a good break anyway---lunch is on the stove, and afterwards, I hope to get back downstairs for Round #2 of an Almost "ME" day....

Happy Saturday!