Blogging Is Hard Work

I'm not doing so well with the blog, but not quite ready to throw in the towel. School starts next week, so I'll be back in a regular routine and perhaps have some time to blog without someone reading over my shoulder. I like to keep my blogging private from everyone in my non-blog life. My family knows I have a blog, but I don't want them to read it. I don't know why this is, but it feels like a private journal to me. The idea of complete strangers reading however is okay? Does this seem strange to anyone else? For now, I'm keeping the names of my family private and not showing identifying pictures or giving information that could lead to people showing up on my doorstep. I'd be interested to know how other bloggers decided when or if to post pictures of their family members or themselves. I do enjoy seeing pictures of other's children and it seems that some bloggers have formed close friendships, so I know there are benefits both ways. My other issue is the learning curve. Right now it seems to take forever to get something with a current picture posted. I know I just need to take the time to learn the best way with my camera and computer, but it all takes sooo much time. I know there's got to be an easier way because some of the bloggers I read have newborns and post multiple times a day. How is it that they have time for that? It used to take me all day to get my teeth brushed when my kids were babies. Here's the other thing--comments. I can tell that I'm not alone in loving comments and now that they've dropped off I don't even care as much about writing. There is a catch-22 there I know, because if I'm not blogging I won't get anymore comments. Maybe I will write myself some comments in a weird self-talk kind of therapy. :)

Pot Holders

Here are the pot-holders I made this afternoon. They are made with the Minnesota shop-hop fabric I got earlier this month. I'm going to give one each to my friends when we go out to Applebee's to celebrate our birthdays. I'll probably put a hand towel in the bag too.

Busy Week

Well, despite my pledge to do better with the blog this week, it hasn't happened and I've resorted to doing a weekly re-cap of happenings around here.
*Had a lovely birthday last week and had both lunch and dinner out. That's a real treat since I'm really in the summer doldrums with my cooking.
*Spent Friday evening at our friends house drinking wine and watching the Olympics. I've watched a LOT of Olympics this week, which would partly explain why I've got little else done.
*Went to a local baseball college league game in the Outback Steakhouse box. It was fun and the food was great and there was a "fireworks spectacular" afterwards. They won the game which was rare and it was a nice evening weather wise too.
* Sunday we had our annual outdoor church service and potluck lunch. It was very well attended and again a lovely day. The verses of the day were some of my favorites from Romans. My son brought his girlfriend to see what our church was like. Her's is a much more contemporary type church I guess.
*The rest of the week has been driving to band camp, getting the high school kids registered for school, and getting college son ready to move back to campus tomorrow. It is really seeming like summer is nearly over and I'm really bummed. NOT looking forward to going back to work.
*Tonight I'm going out to dinner with a bunch of girlfriends to celebrate our August birthdays.
* I've been doing a little sewing and I'm trying to make a cute potholder for each friend for tonight, but it's not going well. I'll post a picture if they miraculously work out.

A New Window on the World

We just finished putting in a new picture window in the living room. The old one had a broken seal when we bought the house 8 years ago. It was cloudy and dirty looking between the glass where we couldn't clean it. So we finally broke down and got a new window. I think it looks great and it matches the side windows very well. It is vinyl inside and out, but the vinyl inside is made to look like wood and it matches our dark wood work pretty well. I got the painting and staining the little pieces of wood done and now I just have to clean up and put the furniture back where it belongs. I was teasing hubby that now that I have all of this light I can see that I need new furniture too. That won't happen for now, but what was I thinking buying a floral couch? By the way, hubby did all the installation, I'm so glad he's handy that way.

I went to the first class for my new sewing machine last night. I thought it might be boring, but it was really informative and I learned a lot. My new machine can do a lot and I have these grandiose ideas of making things and selling them on-line and making so much money that I quit my other job and stay home and sew all the time and go to lots of quilt retreats with my girlfriends. It could happen! :)

Dog beauty shop

It was bath and haircut day for Sammy, our 10 year old Maltese, today. He was looking pretty shaggy and stinky too. I still need to trim his nails, the poor guy hates that! I have been his "beautician" for several years, he is a very patient customer and it seems like the older he gets, the better he is about sitting still for his haircut. He has fine, non-shedding, hair so I do it all with a special dog scissors that has rounded tips so I don't poke him in the eye or something. Doesn't he look cute?

Old picture...New post

Wow, this blogging thing is harder than I thought. I look at some of these other blogs that find interesting things to blog about everyday and I feel like I'm not making the cut. In the last few days I've done no interesting sewing to take a picture of. I did some yard work, but I forgot to take any pictures. I was just thinking "I could take a picture now", but realized I can't. Why? Well, I'm wearing pajama pants and the top I wore to church this morning. At 5:45 in the afternoon. It has been a good day and I just got up from an afternoon nap in case you're wondering. If you've never been to Minnesota in the summer, this was one of those glorious days that we dream about in the middle of the winter when it's been below zero for a week straight and all you see anywhere is dirty snow and ice. 75 degrees, low humidity, bright blue sky, light winds...perfect! This afternoon, we went to a friends house for her belated graduation party. It was nice to be with so many friends and have some really yummy snacks while sitting outside in this wonderful weather.

Tonight, we are going to the Sunday night concert in the park. It's hip-hop week. I'm not really into the hip-hop, but I've had fun talking to my kids about the concert. I told them I was going to "get jiggy with it", but they told me that reference was about 15 years out of date. Whatever. Then we starting talking about Will Smith and college son recited the entire intro "rap" to the old TV show "The Fresh Prince of Belair". How he can remember that, but not anything I tell him is beyond me. Well, I'd better go and get some pants on so that I can be seen in public.

Regarding my blog...I'll try harder this week. Oh and I forgot the point I was making that I've added an old picture containing some evening primrose (the yellow flowers) for the benefit of Jeannelle one of my first readers.

Not much new

Today was one of those days that flew by. Band camp has started, so it is the re-start of the many trips to and from school for the year. We are trying to finish up some of the house projects we've been working on. We repaired and repainted a lot of storm windows. College son is working on painting the last 4 storm windows and he loves it. Ha I cleaned out the aforementioned bathroom closet and pitched a lot of stuff and I have another basket to donate. The only sewing I have done the last couple of days has been mending, which is good to get done too, but not much fun. I also babysat my friends dog. They were having a new roof, siding, and windows all in the same day and the poor thing was going bonkers with all the activity so she (the dog) came to our house to escape. I should have taken a picture of her and my dog together. They make a cute couple. I'm looking forward to some fun activities this weekend and I'll try to post some pictures too.

New Towels

Okay, here's a simple pleasure...new bath towels! I bought a few new towels to match our bathroom when we moved here 8 years ago and they were totally worn out. I've been sick of them for months, they are stringy, stiff, torn, and sometimes they smell funny. I also still have some from our wedding 22 years ago and let me tell you, they are thin. So I bought these wonderfully fluffy yellow and blue towels and wash cloths and I can't wait to use them. Tomorrow, I'm going to take all of the old ones out of the cupboard and have my daughter take them to the animal shelter. I hope she'll be out the door before I decide to use them a little while longer and save the new ones for "good". When my Great Aunt left her home to move to a nursing home she had drawers full of lovely gifts (including towels) that she had never used. So here's my challenge for today. Pull out that stuff you're saving for when company comes or for special occasions only and use it!! Life is too short. Let me know what you did.

What should I do with this ugly crooked thing?

Here's a project I've been working on for the last couple of days. The problem is, that I used all leftovers and scraps and consequently have nothing left matching. Anyone out there have any ideas? I thought about a two color border, but I'm not wild about the choices I have. I also thought about setting in on point with the red in the corners and then adding a green border. Of course I could take it to a quilt shop and buy something that matches better, but then it wouldn't be free stuff from my stash and that was kind of the point.

Lazy days of summer

Not a lot going on around here, no schedule, no appointments, no ball games, no work.....it's awesome. Looking at the calendar has been strange, absolutely nothing on my calendar for today and tomorrow. Most people go on vacation when that happens, but for a variety of reasons, that won't be happening so I'm just enjoying my home vacation. I think there's a newly coined word for that....oh yeah, the "staycation". That's totally me!
Last night I went to a retirement party for one of the guys from work. He just turned 65 a couple of weeks ago. Working at school, it has always been a little strange to me to go a few months without seeing coworkers. It was nice to see lots of them at the party and and catch up on all the personal news and work scuttlebutt. One of my favorite coworkers got a promotion and will be moving to a different school. Isn't that the way it works? Fortunately we're still left with a lot of good ones...and a couple that it would be nice to see on their way. We don't start back to school here until after Labor Day, so I've got awhile yet to enjoy.
We found out today that college son has to move back to the dorm Aug. 20th to be there for training that starts on the 21st for hall staff. So just a couple of weeks left at home for him. I think he will be glad to get back to school though. Moms have a way of finding little projects, usually undesirable, for kids sitting around not doing much. Today it was painting storm windows. Yesterday, digging a hole. Ha. I'm finally getting around to some of those things too. I cleaned out drawers in my bathroom today. I was in the right frame of mind for throwing things out, so I got rid of quite an assortment of old make-up, expired meds., lots of other icky stuff. I cleaned my husband's drawers too, we'll see if he even notices. We always joke when I get around to a task like that that he should start looking for a pod since the real me has probably been abducted by aliens. Off to clean under the fridge. :)

R and R

Yeah, a little rest and relaxation, but also a little about reading...and racism. One thing I wouldn't recommend is reading a great classic like To Kill a Mockingbird and then switching to a run of the mill "Christian/Amish" romance type novel. Ha. I had never read TKAM, so I read it recently. I actually got a first book club edition from my uncle when he cleaned out a bunch of books in the process of moving to an assisted living facility. Anyway, it took me a while to get into it, but I really enjoyed it and it was very thought provoking. One of my older friends had told me that she read it in college and really changed the way she felt about race and I can see that. Our church book group read it last year, so as usual, I'm a little behind them and now I'm sorry I missed the discussion. For some reason I have never liked "assigned" reading, so I had to get to it in my own time. Our city and the school district I work for have recently had some pretty serious race related issues. Although we have come a long ways on many fronts, it still amazing that race it such an issue. On a national level, I know there will be many deciding who to vote for in the fall simply by race. It's a sad commentary on our society. Education can make a difference to some extent, but sometimes all it takes is a person of a certain race taking a particular action to set everything back to square one. How do you get by that?

On a lighter note, we had a really nice lunch today with family friends. Our older sons are good friends, our middle two (boy and girl :) ) are dating and the two younger boys came along too. A good time was had by all. I got a haircut and hit another quilt shop this afternoon and we have our free downtown concert tonight. We have a concert every Sunday night for a few weeks in the summer and we always make a point of going. Usually there is a group of our church friends. Last week it was just hubby and I, so that was nice too. There is a different style of music every week, it always brings out a different segment of society, so the people watching is fun too. I hope the weather holds out, you can't beat 75 and overcast in July!

A Slow Saturday

Kind of a slow day today. We've been doing yard work with plenty of breaks. Surprisingly the weather is perfect today, low 80's without the humidity we've had. My two sons and my daughter aren't always to excited about helping with yardwork, but we got the rest of the bushes trimmed and a lot of weeds pulled. The boys also cleaned the basement lair as college son is having a bunch of friends over tonight for pizza and a movie. We thought about a trip to the county fair tonight, but that may not happen. We have a few more days to make it out there. I like to see the farm animals and the quilts and eat some really great fair food, so it would be fun to go. I still hope to get a little sewing done tonight. I have been working on a little wallhanging that seems to have had about every seam ripped out at one time, bleagh! I think it will look okay when it's done though.

Here's the pic of my purse.

First Post

Here it is, my very first blog post!! I've been thinking about creating a blog for some time and decided there's no time like the present. I'll probably be blogging mostly about family, my hobby, quilting, and maybe some other items of interest. I'm sure there will be a steep learning curve until I get to the polished looking blog I want. So here goes....

Today one of my quilting friends and I went to our block of the month class and stayed for the little informational session the shop has. Four of us have been going to this class and only have two blocks left until we start again in the fall. It has been a fun way to get at least a little sewing done every month. We usually go out for breakfast after the class, so of course that is fun too. Today was the first time we stayed at the "VIP" session, so we both got a little gift and I got an extra fat quarter for showing the new bag I just made. Maybe I'll try to post a picture of it! It is also the opening day of the Minnesota Quilt Shop Hop, so I got some of the special MN fabric. There are 12 or 13 stores in our region that each are giving away a quilt block and fat quarter with $15 purchase, so we may make another run at some stores next week.