Bleeding Hearts

I took these pictures of some of the bleeding hearts in my garden on a rainy morning awhile back. I really like how they turned out and I enjoy the many places that the bleeding hearts turn up in my yard. The purple flowers in the background are a variety of lamium, also known as dead nettle. I think dead nettle is a terrible name for a flower, so I prefer lamium. I'm learning the names of lots of flowers here lately since I've started working at a local nursery and garden center. It has been a very busy time. Between that and my job at school, I just worked a 19 day stretch, had yesterday off and now have a 12 day stretch in front of me. It's not seeming like the greatest idea at this point, but I do get paid tomorrow, so we'll see how I feel then. I don't want to get into a long complaint about our financial woes, but suffice it to say that we need the money and then some. ha We got our college kids moved around this weekend, so that is the other reason for my complete exhaustion. CS moved into an apartment so that he can continue working at his internship this summer and CG moved home and will work here. TB keeps busy with baseball, school, taking naps, and mowing lawns. It has been a beautiful day here and I'm really looking forward to more of the same.

My Trip to "The Cities"

True Minnesotans usually refer to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area as "The Cities" and that's where I had some summer highlights a couple of weeks ago. SD was doing her freshmen orientation for college and since I've been through it all before with CS, I decided to skip most of the parent stuff and head off on my own. While she was having her orientation, I visited several prime locations, some new for me and some that I had visited in the past. Pictured above is the Weisman Art Museum, a wacky building with some wacky art inside. I don't "get" a lot of it. To me, a picture of a cardboard box with other pictures glued onto it (some upside down) isn't really art. Neither is a Petunia that is supposedly a new life form because some scientist put some of his own DNA in it. (An entire room was devoted to this "Etunia") It has a fun gift shop though where I bought a couple of buttons for my daughter's collection that she puts on her purse. On the right, there is a picture up the river where you can see the wreckage of the 35W bridge laid out and the new bridge in the background. I guess the new bridge lights up in different colors at night, but haven't seen that yet.Here's a picture of the stone arch bridge. "A gently S-curving bridge was built by railway baron James J. Hill in 1883 to speed his trains across the Mississippi River. Now beautifully restored, the bridge provides serene transit for walkers, joggers and anybody who wants the best possible view of St. Anthony Falls, whose churning power first made Minneapolis a milling capital." You can see more of the Falls in the picture looking towards downtown. Lastly here is a picture of the Prospect Part Water Tower. It was referred to as a "witch's hat" water tower and was built in 1913 on the highest natural land area in Minneapolis. My son goes by it on the bus every day on his way to work and wondered what it was, so we ventured by while I was there.

It helped that the weather was perfect while I was there. CS and I went and saw the movie UP and then ate at an outdoor restaurant and walked in the St. Anthony Falls area that evening. I thought while I was there that it might be my only vacation this summer and even though it was only a couple of days, it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed spending the time with my kids too. I almost forgot because I don't have pictures, but I also went to Glad Creations, a famous Minneapolis quilt shop and Engebritson's, a Scandinavian shop of epic proportions. I bought a little something at both shops, but could have spent a lot of money if I had it.

Pictures of St. Paul....not!

We had a busy weekend with baseball, church, and moving CS to his summer living arrangements. He's staying in an apt. in St. Paul and continuing to work at his campus job, only full time. It took two trips to get all of his stuff from his dorm room to the house he's sharing this summer, partly because we had the van loaded with a bed and dresser also. The house seems nice and so do the roommates we met, so I hope it will work out well. I'm sad that he won't be at home, but it will be a good experience for him to learn to cook, etc. and these days you have to go where the jobs are. He loves his campus job doing tech support, so I think he'll have a great summer. He's living in quite a nice city neighborhood with lots of cool shops and close enough to some "big box" stores to do his shopping. Looking for a restaurant Sat. night was a little difficult, we ended up in front of the capital bldg. before deciding to turn around and go back. I got out for a photo op. since I had remembered my camera. Took a nice shot of the capital and got the message "no card". I had left my memory card at home on my desk! RATS!! I'll have to get some good city pics another time.

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Tonight is Senior Awards night for SD. They have a separate night to present all of the scholarships and certificates since there are way to many to do it at graduation like they used to do at my tiny school. She's not too excited about going, recognition isn't really her thing, but she got a letter from school saying that she was expected to be there, so we're going. So there will probably be some bragging in a future post.

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Speaking of bragging, TB got the game winning hit in his game on Saturday afternoon. It was really cold and windy and I had to bring out the winter coat and gloves along with a blanket to stay warm. His season has been less than stellar, but they're down to just a couple of games, so it was nice to see him have success at the plate. He went 2-2 since he didn't get in until later in the game. We have the last two games tonight and tomorrow night and that will be it until his summer league starts. I'm hoping for a little break to get through graduation.

Mother's Day Etc.

Here's a somewhat belated Mother's Day report. It turned out to be a really nice day, long, but nice. SD and I play in our church bell choir. We play at church only about once a month, so we play at both services that Sunday. That meant trying to be at church by 7:30, which for me means 7:35. The first service performance was somewhat of a disaster and included a page turning mistake of epic proportions. Oh well. We did a lot better the second time around, but I was more focused on the earlier failure. It was nice that we had a little volunteer appreciation coffee between services, so with all of the down time we got to enjoy some treats and some good Fair Trade coffee.

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In the afternoon we went to a concert by a local choral group in conjunction with Monroe Crossing, a Twin Cities Bluegrass group. (There is a link on the lower right of the page to hear some of their newest music) It was a wonderful concert, but the room was pretty warm and I was very tired, so I nearly dozed off a time or two. Fortunately, more coffee and some cookies at intermission perked me up. Part of the concert was a "Bluegrass Mass" and had all the elements of a worship service, very interesting. After the concert, we returned home with the two couples we went to the concert with and their families joined us for dinner at our house. We provided the main dish and everyone else brought something. DH made Key Lime chicken on the grill and homemade asparagus pasta with a yummy alfredo sauce with asparagus in it. It was very delicious, I wish I'd taken pictures. The others brought a salad, bread, cheese and crackers, and strawberry shortcake for dessert.

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I'm feeling a little down about the state of our school system. We had a meeting at work yesterday. There was more of the same-"no news yet" -where my hours for next year are concerned, but I'm becoming pretty sure I'll lose some time. They've raised class sizes to the point that there will be as many as 32 in each third grade class next year and even more in 5th grade. Just two sections of each. Each will, I'm sure, have some challenging kids, so when you throw in some para cuts, etc., that will (in my opinion) make for a disastrous situation. We've got some great teachers, but it is going to be really tough and not fair for the kids. Think about that when you hear someone talking about how great teachers have it with "three months vacation" and all. We have a parent meeting tonight for band parents to hear about the "enhancements" for next year. Our new superintendent (once again IMO) wants to get rid of music in the schools so those areas are seeing lots of cuts as well. It will be interesting to see how they are going to sell it as an enhancement. It's discouraging and I feel bad that I've been taking my kids quality education for granted up to now.

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I almost forgot to mention that TB provided me with my only Mother's Day gift this year. He had been shopping with a friend the night before and picked me up a copy of Dream Girls. I thought it was very sweet. In all fairness, SD has promised to help me with some of the yard work I can't do because of my back. DH allowed me to buy tickets for a play in the cities in a couple weeks as a special outing as well. CS remembered to call, so that was nice. He has finals this week, so he's super busy.

Spring Cleaning

The weather has been great the last couple of days so I've been hitting the yard work hard. After three trips to the yard waste dump and I feel like things are starting to look a little better. I'd like to get a little more raking done before it rains because I know that with the warm weather we've been having, a little rain would make everything shoot up like crazy. We're starting to see a little green in the grass and some of my perennials are starting to grow. Oddly enough though, when I was raking yesterday I uncovered some areas still frozen with ice. That's Minnesota for ya I guess.

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Today is College Son's 20th birthday. Have those years ever gone fast! The weird thing is when he tells me about some of his college experiences, it seems like just yesterday that I was doing some of the same things. I really envy the new parents today that are able to document their kids lives so completely and easily with blogs, facebook, etc. To think about that when my son was a baby I had to take a photo with a film camera, get the film developed, then remember to mail the photos out to people so they could see him. A friend just got a new grandson the other day and immediately had a picture of him sent to her on her phone. Pretty amazing. Anyway I hope he won't kill me for this, but here's a picture of him from when we dropped him off at school in the fall.

Skywatch Friday!

I haven't participated in Skywatch Friday for awhile, but when I was outside earlier in the week and saw this beautiful shade of blue and such white puffy clouds, I thought I had to share this. I can't wait until we get a few leaves on these trees! I hope to have the time to check out some other Skywatch entries also. We've had a lot of wind this week with temps in the 50's, so it is finally starting to feel more like Spring. Green grass and flowers can't be far behind, right? The in-laws down in Iowa got a foot of snow last week; I'm glad the storm missed us. Looking at any more snow would be cruel.

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It's going to be a very busy weekend for us with all of the activities at church. We've had extra music practices and I still have to bake several dozen rolls for the youth breakfast on Sunday. CS was able to get a ride home from college today, so that really helped. TB has his first baseball game this afternoon. I'm glad the weather will be nice and I hope he will get some playing time and it will all go well for him. We will most likely need to head to church before the game is over for the Good Friday service. I hope everyone will have a nice Easter weekend!

Quilt Rack

Here's a couple of shots of the quilt rack DH made for me. It's kind of a prototype for the ones he's making for the silent auction at church. I really like how it turned out. It has a notch in the shelf on top, so I could put some plates or what-not up there to display. I've asked my friends for dimensions of quilt racks they might like to bid on. If they wanted one anyway, I thought the money just as well go for a good cause. Several of the kids from church, mine included are raising fund for a trip to a national youth gathering for our church that will be held in New Orleans in July. DH is going along as a chaperone, so that will leave me home alone. Providing of course that CS finds himself a summer job. It's a rather expensive trip, so I hope that this auction will be a success. Looking at this picture, it reminds me that you should sew a straight seam when attaching borders!

Finished projects

Like I mentioned last week, I spent most of the day on Friday at a sewing get-together with a couple of friends. We take our sewing machines and supplies over to our church where we can spread out, work part of the day, go for lunch, and come back and finish up without having to worry about leaving everything out. I worked on what I'm calling the Cardinal Quilt the entire day. I had worked on it a lot before Christmas, but it took me the whole day to cut and sew the last two rows of blocks and the dark purple border. On Saturday I finished up the borders and pieced the back, so it's ready to be quilted once I get it put together with the batting. Last night I made the table runner. It was a fun pattern I saw online. I used a charm square pack, sewed into two nine patch blocks and then cut in half from top to bottom and side to side. I ended up with 8 smaller blocks to randomly sew together. I was complaining Friday that I'm not good at "random". My cardinal quilt was supposed to have the printed blocks in a random pattern, but I ended up with three in a row down the middle, but I'm hoping no one but me will notice. The cardinal quilt is for CS, so his bed looks nice when he's not home. Ha. It turned out pretty large for a twin bed, so I think he'll be able to use it for a larger bed too. Hopefully he'll appreciate it some day. The runner is for a silent auction we're having at church. It's to raise funds for the summer youth trip my younger two and my husband are going on in July. My idea with naming my blog "Sew Many Days" was that I would have projects like this to show quite often. Hopefully it won't be so long before the next one.

My Long Weekend

The weekend sure flew by and here it is Monday already. We don't have school today for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, so I'll be trying to tie up the loose ends from my weekend as I do most Mondays. Do you ever notice how so many things never get done because of all the mundane things that we feel must be done first? I don't think I ever really get done with the house cleaning, dishes, laundry, etc. and I have the mind-set that I need to before I do the fun stuff like sewing and going through photographs. It's funny how I find time for blogging and drinking coffee.

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One of the highlights of the weekend was going out with friends to see Gran Torino and have dinner out afterward. It was a great movie, both funny and touching, really the kind of movie where you laugh and cry. Clint Eastwood played the lead, a recently widowed retired Detroit autoworker who still lives in the old neighborhood. The neighborhood has vastly changed, becoming home to many immigrants, mostly Hmong, and the movie follows his relationship with the family next door. Their son, Thao is the other main character. He's a young man trying to find his way without a lot of opportunity except for the local gang trying to recruit and initiate him. It had a lot of themes, but mostly had to do with the racism of Clint's character and his enlightenment as the movie went on. I think most people can relate to it and probably know older people in their family very similar to him. Even without all of the racial epithets, there are a lot of people out there with the same kind of racism born from ignorance and lack of opportunity to experience diversity. Of course there are plenty of others who are taught to be racist and pursue it with a vengeance. Naming their child Adolf Hitler comes to mind. It will be an exciting day tomorrow with the inauguration. I believe that it's a great sign, but there is still a long way to go where racism is concerned in this country. In reading blogs before the election, I was appalled at some of the anti-Obama entries. Not all of them were coming from a racist perspective, but many were. Sweet little ladies who suddenly had this voracious interest in politics and would never have admitted that it had anything to do with racism. Anyway, I would highly recommend this movie, there was complete silence and many people in tears when it was over, attesting to its' powerful message.(Edited: I decided that I had better put in a cautionary note that this movie is rated "R", has a significant amount of foul language, violence, and racial epithets. I know that it is not everyone's cup of tea, however, I saw many older folks in the audience, really a cross section of (white) society.)

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The rest of the weekend was quickly consumed by painting the basement floor (pictures another day), taking CS back to college, bringing Quicken up to date, laundry, cleaning, etc. Oh yeah, and watching the Gopher hockey team sweep St. Cloud. I hope to get some sewing done today, but first I have to clean up the cat barf on the carpet and wash the dishes.

Super Weekend!!!

Who'd have expected that my weekend would begin at 4:00 pm on Wednesday? A benefit of the ridiculously cold weather we've been having is that school was canceled today and they've already canceled it for tomorrow. Monday is Martin Luther King Day, so there you have it...a super long weekend!! I finally got my Christmas tree put away on Tuesday, so I've been gradually cleaning the house, doing and redoing laundry, cooking meals, etc. as usual. I think a couple of extra days calls for something out of the ordinary. I haven't been down in my sewing room for well over a week. Our basement floor project is still half done. I haven't started on my photo organizing project yet. No excuses now, I'll have to get to each of those. We've also got plans to get together with friends for a matinee of "Grand Torino" and dinner on Saturday. We'll be taking CS back to school on Sunday. I think he's ready to go back and get away from me bugging him about getting a summer job.

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We got a new load of firewood this afternoon, so we're staying snug and warm despite the bitter cold outside. The actual temp this morning was -24 with a windchill of -49. I helped TB with his route yesterday and just about froze my fingers; I made CS help him today. Hope you're keeping warm wherever you are, be glad you're not here!

Catch Up Blog

Wow! I've had quite a break from blogging, so I thought I'd better catch up my reader(s) on everything I've been doing instead of blogging.
***I hurt my back shoveling snow and was laid up for a couple of days with back pain. I found that the old "push and scrape move" with one foot on top of the shovel is a sure killer. I missed church and one day of work. When I went back I foolishly demonstrated to a coworker the "move" sans shovel, that hurt too, but fortunately there was no reinjury. I've got to find a new move!
***Baked more cookies. Ate a lot of cookies. Baked more cookies. DH made two kinds of lefse. He's still feeling proud that his kringla made one of my coworkers say she was weak in the knees. A friend tells me that someone may try to steal him away.
***Moved CS home from college late last Weds. night. It was great to get that done and nice to have him home although he spent most of the weekend at his girlfriend's family Christmas somewhere up North.
***Surviving bitterly cold weather and lots and lots of snow. The actual temp was -13 F. this morning. More snow predicted tonight and tomorrow. I mean come on, this is getting a little ridiculous! But we've passed the winter solstice, so the days are getting longer!! Yay!!
***Went caroling to a couple of area nursing homes. Very heartwarming and the old folks appreciate it so much.
***Read the "Twilight" book and DH took me out to eat and to the movie last Friday night. I liked the book, liked the movie better I think. Not fantastic or anything, but enjoyable and I'm reading the second book now. DH has read the entire series already, SD owns all of the books.
***Watched a lot of movies at home, some from TV, some from Netflix, some from our own collection. Watched "ELF" from TV last night. Looking forward to our annual watching of "A Muppet Christmas Carol". I love that movie, the music is great too.
***Had a "Snow Day" from school finally. Last Friday was our final day of school before winter break, so it was a little weird to miss that, but the kids are so excited that day anyway that noone missed much. Some classes watch a movie or play a game, but there aren't any real parties or anything anymore. The high school kids have a huge assembly, so it was too bad they missed that. They spend the month of Dec. raising funds for a particular charity and then have the assembly as a final push and celebration. Each of the high schools in town pick a charity and there is always competition to see who raises the most money. They do all sorts of creative things like selling "Saran Wrapping" where they go into a class and plastic wrap someone either alone or with another person (maybe a potential couple or something) or even a teacher. The person has to pay an equal amount to get out of the saran wrap, so it makes a lot of money.
***I finished all of my decorating and cleaning once. Things are a little messy again, so I need to do a little more cleaning, wrapping a few gifts, and a little shopping to be totally ready for Christmas. We are keeping things a little more low key this year with the amount spent on gifts, traveling, cards, decorating, entertaining, etc. Really the only place we've overdone is the baking.
So, I think that's about it, all has not been wonderful, but I'm focusing on all that is and there's a lot to be thankful for. More holiday cheer later!!

Skywatch Friday and a Good Day!

For this Skywatch post, I'll give credit to my daughter. She took this photo of a summer sunset from our front yard in July. I've been using this photo as my desktop background for a few weeks. The actual temp. when I got up this morning was -3 F., so it's nice to think back to July and a warm summer evening.

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We had a late start for staff training for school today and the topic was CPR and AED (Automatic External Defibrillator) certification. Every school here has an AED, so it was good to learn how to use it. It was surprisingly easy, so if you're ever in that situation, don't be afraid to try to use it. The device automatically calls 911 and gives audible instructions of exactly what to do. In our county they have made a Google map with pin points for all of the available AED's and also lives saved by CPR or AED's. I would suggest that you Google it for your county and see if a similar thing is available.

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It's been kind of tough week with some ongoing extended family issues, but I'm feeling like the worst is over in that I'm trying to be able to let go of what is out of my control. It's important to remember that we can take control of our own attitudes and how we react to difficulty, so that's what I've been working on. There has been good news in that my mom is recovering well from her broken hip and may be going home quite soon.

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Our staff training ended early today, so I went out for coffee with three of my coworkers. It was very enjoyable to have a chance to visit outside of work and catch up with each other. Tonight, SD has a piano recital, probably her last ever, so it will be nice to hear all the Christmas music. She has made her decision on college and will be attending the same one as CS, so we're all happy about that. She bought herself a lap-top this week and is in the process of getting signed up for housing, so things are moving along. Happy Friday everyone!!

Days Flying By

Wow, where did August go? I can't believe it's September already. Everyone in the family, except DH, had their first day of school yesterday. It seemed to go well for everyone, although I haven't gotten a full report from college son(CS). He has already been back at college for two weeks, training for his job and working as a computer lab and tech support person. He was more than ready to go back to a new dorm and roommate both of which seem better than last year. I was most excited about him having a sink in his room, but that paled in comparison when he visited some friends from last year who are living off-campus. He was totally wowed by their awesome apartment, so I'm sure it's only a matter of time before he'll want to move out.
Senior Daughter (SD) and I had a nice trip to Iowa last week for a college visit to the old alma mater, ISU. We also managed to stop at one of my favorite quilt shops and stayed over with the in-laws and helped them with a few tasks. The campus was beautiful as always, but they didn't do such a great sales job otherwise. She is interested in Biology and Pre-Vet and the old prof they had us meet with was neither encouraging nor welcoming and barely tried to make her feel interested in going there. The music dept. however was great and arranged a meeting with the guy who would be her music teacher. It was fun to walk around campus with her, it brought back a lot of memories and I enjoyed telling her stories about my college days and showing her the dorm where DH and I met. I'll post some more pictures of campus another time.
I'm back to work at the elementary school nearest to our home. After working full time the last few months last spring, I'm back to my regular hours, just afternoons. I will miss the benefits, but it is a great schedule and I really like my coworkers and being so close to work. Not to mention time alone in the morning at home. No more excuses for not blogging or doing the other things I need to at home. We're gone from home most nights with different activities, so that time is precious and needed.
Our youngest son is a sophomore in high school. The upperclassmen started late yesterday, so this was his first day with the early wake up. Their bus comes at 6:50, so for a boy who could sleep all morning during the summer it will be a big adjustment for awhile. He got up on his own this morning, so I hope that will keep up. His blog nickname will be The Tall Beast or TB for short. I'm stealing that name from the Olympic volleyball player Phil Dahlhauser. He's 6'5" at 15 and still growing, so the name fits.