The weekend is here!!!

I love weekends. 
Really.
No -  I REALLY,  REALLY LOVE weekends!!

and better than just a weekend is a three day weekend. 

I love my job too, but I do work hard all week - burning brain cells.  And I need my weekends to rest and recover.  By the time Friday comes, my fingers are tired, my brain is tired, my eyes ache ... sometimes I think my hair even aches!! 

I was recounting working this morning on the phone with Mom.  I have been working full time summers in between full time college and so on since 1975.  My mom thinks going to college is not equivalent to working full time.  Hmmm - I don't agree.  In fact, if I had to go back to college full time I think it would be harder than working.   What do you think?

This weekend all of our pollen is out in full force - so I may be hibernating at home.  But I have lots of inside projects to work on, or I could get back to my quilt in progress (one of many in progress) or my new V stitch ripple crochet throw in progress or any other crafty thing I can think up as long as I don't have to go shop for it!! 

I just need to get home and hang my big flag on the front of the house and I will be ready for Memorial Day!! 

See you all next week with some pictures of finished projects I hope!!  Here's a quilt I made a few years ago and we raffled off to support our hospitalized veterans!   

Please buy a poppy this weekend to help those who have sacrificed for our freedom.

13 years in the making!

This past week Mark and I flew to Austin Texas to see our son Thomas graduate from Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX.  My MIL also flew in from NC and we all met in the airport. 

Southwestern is actually the first institute of higher learning in Texas, founded in 1840.  It is a beautiful campus in a wonderfully rejuvenated small town.  We drove around the town square multiple times and altho I was driving I was also salivating over all the cute shops and restaurants, but no shopping for me!  At least not that day! 

The graduation photos are on Mark's phone, so they will have to wait. But suffice to say it was a beautiful (hot) day and our buttons were almost popping off with pride at learning that Thomas graduated Magna Cum Laude with Honors.  Of the 59 students receiving their BS that day only 4 did the honors program. So it was 'big stuff' to us.  Thomas' paper will be bound and retained in the Southwestern library for generations ot come!

The day before heading to Texas I took a day off to get ready, do a doctor's appointment, and do a little home decor project that has been bugging me for 13 years!  Our home built in 1955 originally had a big lava rock wall surrounding the fireplace.  The next owners in the late 70's replaced that with cherry wood paneling.  Nice paneling - but still... (eyes rolling)  Not being a rustic kind of girl that wall has really bugged me.  I tried to get Mark to let me paint it when we repainted the living room in 'Parchment Paper' 3 years ago, to no avail.  To make matters worse the adjacent wall which goes up the stairs to the top level of the house I had painted in Ralph Lauren River Rock in a deep cherry color (trying to disguise the cherry elephant in the room).  So that wall had to be completely sanded to lose the rock texture before any painting could begin.

I hand sanded, taped, applied 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint and the wall was done!  I loved it!!!  I had the mantel decor back up before Mark got home and he loved it too!  Now we sit and wonder why we waited so long!  I guess I should have pushed harder all those years ago.  The almost white wall really opens up the space.  My next project is a family 'rogue's gallery' going up the stairs.  The frames are all purchased, just need to pull pictures and plan the layout - this might be a good task for next weekend when I have 3 days off! 

Timber !!!

Here are some pics from my last posting.  The small trees along the back fence line are about 6 feet tall - so extrapolate that to the spruce and you can see what a loss this huge tree was!

In this next picture you can see the tree on the right which is a Norway Spruce on the back fence line and the CO Blue to the left of the one removed are both trimmed and thinning - in the two weeks since this picture was taken they are even more dead from the ground up.  We will be doing sterile trimming on the CO Blue to try to save it - but the Norway will come down in the next few weeks also.  If we don't contain this it can spread airborne to our other evergreens.  So far all of our front trees are unaffected.

Lots of work ahead for us!

Doing Better!

So - Only a few days since my last post - over a weekend - and while I wish I had a picture to share I left my phone at home today - so pictures will wait until my next posting. 

The big weekend news is that our 60 year old Colorado Blue SPruce which towered over the neighborhood from our back yard is now gone.   It had lost almost all of it's needles since last fall and we are worried it may be a fungus that could spread to our other spruces - but after taking a piece of stem with dead and live needles to the nursery it may be drought related.    I am going to try to get an arborist out to give me guidance this week but hope we can save our other trees. 

So here is something I learned - when trimming branches from trees you should alwyas wipe the saw blade with alcohol between each branch - so if lower branches are sick you don't spread it!  AND especially if you trim from tree to tree!!  Good to know eh?

The tree came down in about 15 minutes - then an hour and a half later, the stump was gone, the trunk wood had been picked up by some neighbors, the branches were at the curb - other than a blank circle in the back yard you would never know there had been a giant tree there!  So sad.  Loved our tree guy - great prices great service - if you are in upper IL, lower WI call Kotierra Tree Service out of Winthrop Harbor. 

So with that done, we spent the rest of the weekend working on smaller gardening projects - planting containers in the front, putting in a new rose bush, general grooming.  The hostas are just peeking through the soil. the magnolia tree is shedding her beautiful flower petals and in a couple of weeks the pool will be open and on it's way to warming!  That's the first sign of our hope for a nice hot summer! 

Today is my nephew Freddie's 24th Birthday!!  Happy Birthday Freddie!!! Where did the years go?   

OMG!!! Two Years!

Can't believe it's been that long!  Well - yeah I can.... no excuses - life has been busy, between work, home and family it's a wonder I even recall my name some days!   But I am back!

Strangely enough, I probably stopped blogging much around the same time I stopped spending so much time in the quilting studio.  Most days I dream of stealing some time in there.  No longer do I get up and stay in jammies all day on Saturday or Sunday and just sew to my hearts content!  More often I am busy with something else - some house project or shopping, or cooking, or gardening and in the evenings I am just worn out! 

I did a lot of travel for work in the last 18 months - I went to Argentina, Peru, Mexico City, UK, Paris, Philadelphia a couple of times, Florida, Milwaukee, Las Vegas, Quebec City, Lexington, KY and Boston, then we added a 3 week road trip at year end that took us from Illinois to North Carolina, down the East Coast to Port St Lucie, FL. down and over to Naples, then back up.  We were changing locations about every three days and drove almost 4,000 miles in 21 days.  We also shuttled 2 kids to 4 different airports on 4 different days!  I needed to come back to work to rest!!

I do love to travel and I enjoy meeting new people.  So it's not a hardship for me other than the rest of my work doesn't go away when I travel and I do know Mark did not marry me thinking I would be travelling so much!    This past year was a bit more extreme than usual (but it was fun!!)

Here's some great pictures I took in Paris - at least they were great for me!  I did find a little quilt shop in Saint Germain - Le Rouvray - and indulged in some wonderful fabric in fact I just picked up some coordinating fabrics last week at my new haunt in Elmhurst so maybe I'll get back in the studio some day soon.   Still researching designs.  Be back soon!  Toby

Baby no more...

My 'baby' turned 24 on the 24th. We spent the day together up until he went to work (with birthday cake) then the next morning he jumped on a train to go catch the Megabus to go to Omaha, Nebraska to see his GF. If you have not heard about Megabus - do check it out for travel in the east or midwest US. Super Cheap - with free wifi and electrical connections on double decker buses. I'll share Stephen's review when he gets home but hope it turns out to be a good way for weekend getaways when we don't want to drive!

Stephen will be back Thursday morning, I can't wait. Everytime he does something new (like traveling by bus away from me) I find I revert to worrying mother mode. Does that ever end?

Vacation is over - but more excitement coming!

Vacation was great!! Didn't realize how old my last post was until I signed in this morning. Wish I had some pictures to share - but we were so busy having fun we didn't really snap many pics!

Day one in SFO Mark and I walked from Market Street and Third all the way down to and around the waterfront. Straight through Chinatown, stopped at a little local pub and watched everyone queeing to get into the Sunday performance of Beach Blanket Babylon. Don't know why but on Sunday you have to be over 18 to get in - is it a differnt show than the other nights? hmmm...... no theater for us on this trip -

Lots of water though! We did the catamaran trip up the bay and under the Golden Gate bridge, took the passenger ferry from Oakland to SFO on Day 2 and then did the Emerald Bay paddlewheel boat in South Lake Tahoe and finished up with white water rafting on the middle fork of the American river. It was an awesome day shared with good friends.

The black mustang convertible was perfect - the top was down every day and the weather could not have been netter - we drove over 1200 miles.

Now - above is my review - my husband's varies. He enjoyed the trip also - but would have been happier with less 'driving and scenery' and more water. We did some long drives on dangerous mountain roads (curves at 10 mph) where we didn't see another vehicle for hours in either direction and while I felt in control after a while it did get very tedious and I was so glad when it was over! One road knocked us off schedule we did not get to overnight in Lake Tahoe but stayed about 45 minutes south of the lake and drove in the next day.

While on the paddlewheel boat (I highly recommend to anyone who visits Lake Tahoe) a local was talkign about other points of interest around the lake. Including the old CalNeva resort which at one time Frank sinatra was part owner in and the rat pack used to hang out there. It si on the north end of the lake, just where the road from Truckee comes in. We drove the long way around the lake to find it! It was kinda sad. Obviously the growth has really been at the south end of the lake. The north end is older and more residential than tourist - it's more snow-skiing than water sports. But it was interesting to see. there was some neat architectural elements and decoration that I wish someone whould come in and restore the place but I don't know what would draw the people back in this economy. Outside the showroom, there was a 'walk of fame' with pictures of Frank and other performes who appeared at the CalNeva, it was funny I had seen most of them and my husband didn't know some of them.

Since getting home I have been trying to find more time to relax and doing pretty well at that. Still wishing I had three day weekends....

On the quilting front - I have finished piecing the top for the Crayola challenge. Needed fushia thread for quilting and could not get in 100% cotton, so going to try a blend and see if I have breakage problems or not. I still have to get going on the Scraps to Treasures challenge which is due in 2 weeks!! I have the cutting done - but assembly is pending. If I fall behind I think it's okay - because this is a charity quilt that we decide who to donate to. I am thinking mine will go to NC to be donated to the children's home down there.

This weekend I made the '10 minute table runner' that I bought in a kit from my LQS. No Quilting, no batting and it was faster than 10 minutes. I love it and plan to make many more for gifts for friends and family. Seasonal changes - look out and easy to enlarge to be mantle length too! I'll post a picture next time!

Struggling with holiday gift for co-workers - may have to go get some ideas - and see if I can get started on them soon!

Oh - the excitement to come - so after we go back from SFO I squezzed in a 2 day trip to Florida for work. Had a great time with a co-worker staying ina small town just north of Sebastian. Old style Florida right on A1A. Long walk on the beach, beautiful sunsets and good work too! Then came back to find that I am going to be heading down to Buenos Aires, Argentina and Lima, Peru. Also for work - just 9 days and three of those will be travel days but going with a great team of co-workers and I am really looking forward to it in the middle of October.