Early Snow

We had an (another) early snow on Friday of about 4 inches. It snowed in big feathery flakes for most of the afternoon. By the time school let out, the roads were pretty bad. I was filling in for the secretary and had to deal with a lot of calls from parents, late buses, etc. A little hectic, but it felt nice to be needed. Saturday brought sunshine and some cool winds, but most of the snow is gone by now. Thought I'd share a few of the pictures I took on Saturday, it was so good to see the sun. Today we had church, spent most of the afternoon with friends celebrating their son's confirmation, and came home to watch last night's hockey game by the fire. So relaxing!

More Quilts

Here's some more of the beautiful quilts from the show I went to on Saturday. By the way, none of these are mine, I just thought they were worth sharing. The first one below is the same pattern from the block of the month group I just finished (without using the blocks). She did an excellent job on the center applique piece. It is for a child's bed, not something I would do, but it's beautiful. I still haven't gotten any quilting of my own done, but we have a little break from school coming up, so I'll have to then. This is the last day of school we have this week, it will be so nice to have Thursday and Friday off. The weather is STILL supposed to be snowy and cold on Thurs. and Fri. , so perfect days to be in the sewing room. It's supposed to be nice on the weekend, so DH is taking the weekend off from work so we can get some projects done around the house. Mostly outside actually, a few loads of leaves I'm sure, some repairs, etc. I hope it will happen. I've really been feeling in need of a few days off, it hasn't been the best of weeks. One of those where I need a money tree to shake!By the way, can you believe this spiral pieced quilt. It was amazing to look at the planning that must have gone into it. Notice that the fabric matches from the center to the outside despite all of the piecing around it. Wow!

Quilts, Snow, and more

Wow, it's been almost two weeks since my last blog entry. More of the same old, same old around here for the most part. Over the weekend I took in our local quilt show and had a nice lunch with my girlfriends afterward. It was either that or drive and hour to sit in a 30 degree wind and maybe watch TB play football. I felt a little guilty about not going to his game, but he said he didn't care and it was nice to get out with the girls. He ended up playing a lot and having his only reception of the season, so I was sorry to miss that. He also got tackled hard and hit in the helmet so hard he was dizzy, so it's good I wasn't there for that. I might have embarrassed him by asking if he was okay or something. I woke up this morning to see the ground white with snow. It was very depressing to me, I certainly hope some nice fall days return or it's going to be a very long winter. Thought I'd post some of the quilts from the show, it was very inspiring. I hope to make a fall themed wall hanging for over the fireplace soon. I'm thinking about a version of one of the leaf quilts I saw. I took a lot of pictures, so I'll put up some more in a day or so.

An Addiction to Confess

I confess, I've become addicted to Facebook. Neglecting my blog is just one of the symptoms. I might have to go into treatment of some kind if the symptoms don't start to subside. It all started innocently enough, but now I'm on there way too many times in a day. It has its pluses, chatting with my kids at college is one, but the downside is getting sucked into playing these stupid and addictive games for hours on end. I need to find a balance for sure.

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Things have basically been okay lately, but it's been kind of a roller coaster. Some of the lows: DH getting his hand cut at the shop he works at very part time thereby losing a week of income, TB straining his foot, worries about money, kids, parents, etc. Some of the highs: Kids off to a great start at school, winning the grand prize for my Block of the Month group (free quilting on my quilt), a winning football season, fun times with friends, good health, etc. Pretty much like everyone else I guess, life has it's highs and lows. I'm thankful my roller coaster is an easy one right now with no extreme highs, powerful drops to a valley, or twisty upside down turns!

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Before said injury, DH completed our new kitchen table. He had worked on it on and off for about 8 or 9 years I think. The wood was from a big pine tree that was in the back yard of the house I grew up in on the family farm. The tree we always had our picture taken in front of. It had to be taken down when the old house was moved so that my brother could build a new one on the same site. The wood was rough cut into 2 inch planks and DH did the rest all by himself. It think it turned out great and it will be a nice memory for me- both of the tree and DH's work on the table.

Asters, etc.

It's been kind of a weird day today. I woke up in the middle of the night not feeling well and attributed it to all of the stuff I had eaten over the course of the evening. I'm too embarrassed to even say what I ate, let's just say it was quite a combination. Anyway, I'm not surprised it woke me up. Then when I got up for real in the morning, I had a bad eye- red and goopy. So I took care of that and it seemed to get a little better. When it was time to go to work, I realized I had locked my keys in the van. About the time I was going to walk to work, DH said "Why don't you take the little car?" Duh, I hadn't even thought of it. So I make it to work, do lunch and recess duty and then realize "I really don't feel well, kinda feverish". So I took my temperature in the nurse's office, and sure enough, I've running a fever. Great. So they sent me home so that I don't infect the whole school with H1N1 or something. Now I'm really aware of just how crappy I feel, so I was happy to go home. Thinking about it now, I really didn't feel well yesterday either. Sooo, what else would I do once I got home but practice taking close up shots of flowers- with bees on them. Umm yeah, that's smart. I think I'll go take a nap now. Happy Friday though!!

Fall Flowers

It's been a good year for my flowers out in front by the street too. I wish I had more mums, but the phlox, black-eyed susans, and autumn sedum are having a good year. I have some asters for the first time this year. They are nearly ready to open, so I'm anxious to see what they look like. After an early morning at church, it was nice to watch a little football and take a nap this afternoon. Then we went back to church for a book group about "The Shack", a book many in the congregation read this summer. It is always interesting to hear the different perspectives people have on something they've read. Tonight we took a nice walk around the lake. It sure gets dark a lot earlier these days. I wish I had brought my camera along, it was quite picturesque as the sun went down over the lake.

Friday Night

It turned out to be a really nice day yesterday. I met some friends for some sewing in the morning. I made it through the first week of school and it went well overall. After school, I went out with a few friends from work, came home to some homemade fettuccine alfredo that DH had ready for me, and we headed off to the football game. We always sit with a large group of friends from church, share some candy, and cheer on the band and the football team. All of us have kids in the marching band. I mentioned the budget cuts another time and the fact that the band wouldn't be marching on the field this year. It was part of the reason TB decided to give football a try for the first time. At 6'6'' and 165, he's not exactly built like a football player, but he has grown some muscles and probably improved his speed some. His real goal is to make the varsity baseball team in the spring, so he'll have to keep in shapefor that. I went to a tiny school in Iowa, so the city atmosphere of a cross-town rivalry, fancy band, and danceline are all new to me. It's a lot of fun to watch though and we won the game 32-6. TB watched the action from the sidelines; he would have played in the JV game this morning, but it was canceled, so we'll have to wait to see him play. After the game, we went to one of the friends home for munchies and drinks and ended up visiting until 12:15.