One Year Ago...

I started my blog. I guess that means it's my blogiversary today. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before that word ends up in the dictionary along with frenemy, staycation, and vlog. As an aside, I wonder if the current definition of "sick" includes the way TB uses it- meaning something that is good in a very cool, surprising, or awesome way. Ha When I was watching golf for a while today, the commentator even described Tiger Woods' 33 foot putt as "sick", so I guess it's catching on or the commentator is actually 16. Anyway, I've had fun with my blog and it's been a bit of a creative outlet which is good for everyone to have. It's been a rather eventful week around here; time for the always loved bullets...
*SD left for a pre-college camp called Nature of Life, a requirement for freshmen majoring in Biology. She had a good time up at Lake Itasca. I told her that she has traveled from the beginning to the end of the Mississippi in less than a week and she said she'd already had that thought.
*My mom was finally able to move home from the nursing home and seems to be doing well now that her neck is healed.
*DH's parents had a bit of a set-back when his mom was admitted to the hospital today with pneumonia. His dad is doing real well, but I'm sure this will prevent them from moving home from their nursing home for awhile. DH is down there visiting this weekend.
*TB started football camp. He's never played football, but wanted to give it a try to keep up his conditioning and try to put on some muscle. At 6'6" he only weighs 165, so he'd like to gain some weight. He has been so happy this week that DH and I can't decide if it's the endorphins or if there's a girl he likes. Ha
*I finished summer school on Thursday. It wasn't too bad, but I'm glad it's over since it started so early in the morning. I deleted my rant about getting a new job since I thought it seemed so lame, but I'm still thinking about it nonetheless.
That's about it, thanks for listening!

Finally Something Quilty

As I mentioned, I went to several quilt shops on Friday. I didn't get much in the way of new things, but I did find a couple of pieces of fabric and a new book. I went with my friends to our Block of the Month club first, so I thought I'd put a picture of this month's block and some of the other things I found.
Here's this month's block, it's from a book called "Wildflower Sampler". The fabrics this year are all batiks and I'm really enjoying the colors. The quilt has a large appliqued piece of a bunch of flowers in the center. I haven't done much with that yet. Here are the rest of the blocks on my design wall in my sewing room. After my experience with last year's BOM, I swore I wouldn't make any mistakes on the blocks, but that went out the window the first month. This month the center block is put together wrong ( the greens should all line up) and I cut the blue blocks with the wrong angle. Oh well, it will all look okay when it's put together.


I found a neat pattern book at the shop in Decorah. It's for making quilts with hexagon blocks. I used the ruler making the block above, but it will be right for these blocks. I got my first Jellyroll (roll of 2 1/2 in. fabric strips) last summer and I'm going to use a pattern from this book to make something from it. I love the look of the 30's style fabrics, so I can't wait to get started on it.By the way I was inspired to post my block of the month by Mrs. Quilty, who has a new blog and happened by to leave some comments for me the other day. Stop over an see her blog if you have a chance.

Goodbye Picture

Okay, so I removed my picture from my profile again. Thanks for the nice comment about my neck, Janelle. :) I was somewhat horrified to realize that my picture shows up when I make a comment on someone else's blog, so I decided to take it off again. Occasionally my comments might seem a little snarky, so the thought of my picture sitting there beside what I said was just too much. Recently someone actually called me a bully in response to one of my comments. I had dared to say that this previous commentor appeared to have "major issues". It's true that you come across all types if you're on the internet long enough. However, the blogs I read regularly seem to be written by lovely people with lots of great ideas, beautiful pictures, thoughtful commentary, or all of the above. No signs of "major issues". Thanks!

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We got some much needed rain last night and today. It seems like everything is greening up over night. TB has another double header tomorrow afternoon and its predicted to be cool, but not rainy by then. We hauled another load of leaves, etc. to the dump yesterday before it started to rain. I can't remember doing so much yard work so early other years, but like I told DH, other years I've been a lot busier driving people around. All of the kids driving themselves where they need to go frees up a lot of my time.

100th Post- Weather, etc.

Well, today's my 100th post. After much thought, I've decided not to do "100 things about me". I hope no one is too disappointed. Maybe I'll save that for the 200th. Anyway, I've enjoyed the blogging thing more than I thought I would and I plan to keep plugging along at it. I appreciated everyone who visits my blog and if you're a lurker, today would be a great day to say "hello". I think I flatter myself that I have any lurkers. I'll also solicit any constructive comments for my blog such as "no one cares about the weather, so quit talking about it all the time" or "quit referring to your family by those stupid initials". I promise I can take it. As an aside, I actually deleted a blog I visited quite frequently when the person went to a new format to be more private and started calling her kids and husband by the stupidest names I'd ever heard. I'm shallow that way. :) I also decided to post a picture of myself for my profile that I don't hate, at least for a few days. I had just finished my diet, was tan, and happy because I cropped Joshua Bell out of the picture. Actually maybe I should just put the picture of Joshua Bell. We went to his concert last summer and it was fabulous by the way. Have a great day and enjoy the weather!!!

PS. Here's week two or three of the greenhouse.

Gratitude

I was getting tired of looking at those puppies every time I pulled up my blog, so I decided I'd better get busy and get something new posted. I go to my blog first when I'm visiting around to other blogs, so I've been looking at them for several days. I still haven't gotten around to adding any new blogs to my list even though I've got a few in mind. I'm a little hesitant to do anything that will lead anyone I know back to my blog, but maybe I'll have to get over that. I guess I need a little self confidence when it comes to putting my thoughts out there. Of course there isn't usually much in the way of thought on this blog and I guess I intend to keep it that way, so it probably doesn't make much difference. Anyway, back to my topic...gratitude. I was given a gratitude journal in the beginning of Lent and have written in it exactly two times. I need to really buckle down and give it a good try. When I have written, I think about it throughout the day and it makes the bad stuff seem less important. If I can come up with so many things to list in my gratitude journal, things can't be all that bad, right? It also helps me to remember that others have so much more difficult things in their lives. Not all of my gratitude journal entries are "at least I'm not" or "at least that's not happening to me", but I can't help but have some entries like that. If you haven't tried it, think of some things you are grateful for, make a list of at least three at the end of every day and pray about it if you want to. Try it for at least a week and see if it makes a difference in your everyday life. I'm on Spring break this week, so I should have no excuses about giving this a try. You should try it to! It will be an automatic blog topic for next Sunday afternoon. I'll try to write some kind of a deep and thoughtful commentary on my findings at that time.

Got It!!

Here's Wilbur checking out the squirrel we caught from the fireplace. We caught him shortly after yesterday's post when I changed the bait to dry roasted peanuts. Surprisingly, both were very calm and after awhile, Wilbur even started rubbing his chin on the cage. We took the squirrel for a ride and dropped him off by a farm on the edge of town. He ran away and seemed no worse for wear. I hope he'll be happy there and not return to my fireplace. The animal control lady said that their range is 16 miles when DH went to borrow the cage. I really don't believe he could find his way back though.

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I'm paring down my blog list a little, in case anyone notices. I'm grouping some in a different place in my computer, so not deleting entirely. I'm probably kidding myself that anyone will notice or care, but I'm always worried about offending someone. I'm going to try adding in some new blogs that I've been looking at recently, and maybe some with a little more local flavor. I've been looking for some local blogs that I like and I've found an interesting phenomenon. There are several where their entire group of friends and family must have blogs since there are so many in their sidebar. It would be a fun way to keep in touch. I still haven't told any of my friends or family about my blog. I kind of enjoy keeping it personal and anonymous and let's be honest, I'm always worried about what people will think. Hopefully I'll get over it someday!! Incidentally, I am on Facebook and have a grand total of about 13 friends!

Mid-Winter Nothingness

Here's a few random thoughts, not a lot different from most of my posts, but at least you're forewarned. I keep thinking I need to work on being able to do a 5-minute post. I think too much about what I'm writing, processing as I go along, which is great sometimes, but sometimes I just need to get it out there and move on. I like it when my posts are pretty, well thought out, and perhaps even meaningful, but like they say about quilting, "done is better than perfect". I don't think I'm alone in feeling that my blog posts are like my journal. I've been known to look back to check on dates things happened to reinforce my poor memory. Perhaps that's why I feel that I should be posting more frequently, it's certainly not the public clamoring for my every word. I do really appreciate my readers and the comments I get however.

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I really enjoyed watching so much of the inauguration festivities on Tuesday. I'm not a very political person, so it's not that, but there are several reasons I liked it. Seeing so many people gathered peacefully in one place and thinking about those gathered in many, many other places around the country and the world really meant something to me. I realize there are a lot of dissenters, but I think the majority of those watching felt hope and pride in our country for the first time in a long time, the first time ever for some. It was profound to think of the dream of Martin Luther King coming true in one aspect anyway. I admit that I liked the pageantry also; the words, the music, the parade, the coming together of past leaders and their families, our new and past leaders showing respect towards one another. The other thing is the feeling that despite obvious differences, the Obamas are more like me than any other first family in the past. We're practically contemporaries age-wise, we're parents of school age children, we're not from a background of privilege and wealth. I think others identify with them also. I'm going to give them a chance anyway, something not everyone is willing to do unfortunately. I definitely have the hope that my family will be better off in four years than we are now, but I'm willing to accept that it will probably get worse before it gets better.

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Speaking of getting worse, I'm not going to be at all surprised if I lose my job at the end of this school year. My school district is planning to cut nearly 15 million dollars from the budget in the next year. It's really unfortunate and I know many will lose jobs, many necessary programs will be cut, and the educational quality for the students can't help but be adversely affected. I hate to say it, but I'm glad my kids are nearly done with high school if this is going to be what it's like.

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Today was the last day of the semester for school, we're halfway done. We have the day off tomorrow. The kids have a ski trip with the church youth and I'm getting together with a bunch of friends to sew all day. Yeah!! Poor DH is working all day, but he found out unexpectedly that he has Saturday off, so that will be nice.

Phone Flashback

As I mentioned on Saturday, it was TB's 16th birthday on Saturday and like any 16 yr. old, his own cell phone was his fondest wish. We're able to add him on to our plan for $9.99 a month, so that's what we did and told him he could pick from any of the "free" phones they are offering right now. As it turned out, DH and I both decided to upgrade our phones at the same time as it was "free"and we had both been having a couple of issues with the ones we had. We paid for insurance on all three phones so if they get dropped in the toilet or left at a baseball field somewhere we can get them replaced hence the "not really free" part. I wrapped the phone above, one DH had back in the 90's, to give him as his birthday present. All three of the kids laughed about it and DH's story about how he had chosen it because it was so small and how he wore it on his belt at work. I'll say one thing for it, it was sturdy. That old phone was simply a phone, but seemed quite amazing at the time. Our new one is also a camera, MP3 player, radio, calculator, alarm clock, and can synch with my computer to carry my calendar with all of my appointments intact and can also transfer pictures and music quite easily. I took the picture above with it. It's surprising how much the technology has advanced in just a few years. I guess there's a lot of money driving it. It shows that with enough money amazing innovations, those thought unbelievable a few years ago, are possible. I guess there has been innovation everywhere, but it's too bad we don't see a similar advancement in fuel economy or cancer treatment. That is advancements that are affordable for everyone to access.

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I can't stop myself from mentioning the weather again. Our actual temp. this morning was -18, not fit for man nor beast. Another big storm is on the way for tonight, it would be nice to get a snow day out of the deal, but I doubt it.

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I've joined my first group blog called A Place for Everything. It's topic is conquering clutter and each of us will blog about a particular area, things we're working on, etc. My main area is photographs. Check it out when you have a chance.

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. :)