Just one More

To all you northerners: just think of it as inspiration. (spring is coming)

I'm in a funk

I'm not sure if its the weather, the lack of blogging, or the sudden disappearance of my buddies, but I'm in a funk. So what do you do to get rid of the blahs? This is my list from today.

-Did a little "Singing in the Rain" number with my umbrella
-Ran to the gym in the rain
-Complimented the guy on the bike with the umbrella hat
-Made plans with my good friend to catch up. And not just the type of plans that go "oh, we should do that sometime". The type of plans that actually happen. Catching up over beer and cheese curds. So much for that run to the gym. Catching up is so worth it.

Hopefully my funk is mellowed soon...

Spring! Really?

This was our Easter Sunday activity -

a great walk along Lake Superior with a little snow and ice

4/16/09 - my spring flowers would like to bloom but still hidden in the snowbank

Spring has Sprung!!!

The PROOF:

While the Cat is Away

B is on vacation for a week, so I'm a lonely mouse in the house for a bit. I find that when I'm on my own, I either eat cereal every night, or I experiment with new meals. A chance to make food that only I eat, hunker down with some comfort hotdish, or experiment with lonely leftovers in the freezer. I also usually dive into projects and either catch up with friends or hide out as a hermit. This week I'm in hermit mode as I will finally be taking the test that I have hated studying for. LEED I loathe you.

Not a good weekend

Just a normal Easter week end with the family. The fire department, a trip to the emergency room , and a visit from the plummer.

Virtual Quilting BEE

So we are working on this quilt...

Here is the block using the small floral with two borders (gold and floral). And the sashing in-between is creamy. Its ok - I think the floral detracts from the center on the individual blocks.

If we used the dark orange on half of the blocks in place of the bright blue (seeing it in pictures makes me want it to be brighter, so maybe CA and I need to look for something else)...it would give a different "POP" to balance. We would have warm and cool blocks mixed together. I think this solves the issue of getting two dark, which was happening a lot. (as in below)


ps...after looking again, I almost don't want to use that pink in the second picture, and just use really light fabrics besides the orange/blue and center.

GO Beavers!!!!!!!!!!!!!

April 'Fools!

We barely had snow a few days ago and it's spring!

glasses

I got new glasses a while back. They finally may be adjusted to stop hurting my face.

Paper and more paper

Do computers save paper? Years ago when we got the first "compact" computers at the court house there was a fear that computers would replace jobs and we thought they would save paper.

Both of these theories are false. It takes people to run computers and we kill a zillion trees to feed the paper hungry programs. Because it's possible to have more, faster and ridiculous amounts of information available we do.

Much of the paper produced has private information so it has to be shredded. Last week there was a truck from a shredding company up here so we had a big push to purge. I had such a pile in my office one day that I just had to take a picture. Even more came from the basement storage room.


So just how many trees have we killed with pin feed computer paper? Even more concerning is that I listened to all that paper print - those printers were loud.

5-Gallon Distraction

So today I was in my office alone all day. My co-worker is out on Fridays, my boss is on the east cost and I am in the office. I try to be a person who can work all by themselves all day, but its never that easy for me - I look for distractions and social opportunities.

One came about 1:30.

I refilled my water glass at the water cooler. (By the way, did you know that women on average use the facilities three times during an eight hour work day? I do, because its on the exam I'm taking next week. Glad I know that, because I drink so much water during the day, my average is more like six and if I had guessed - I'd be wrong. Sounds to me like there are some people not getting enough liquids)

Anyway - I filled my glass and noticed the water bottle was empty. I grabbed a full container, pulled the sticker off the top and lifted with my knees; cringing for the moment where the seal breaks and the whole bottle settles in. Not a second later, water was running down the cooler and I heard a faint air leak sound coming from the bottom (now top) of the bottle. So I grabbed the bottle out of the cooler, practically threw a whole roll of paper towels around the base and set the bottle down. It was still leaking. From the area of the sound. There is a crack in the bottom (now bottom) of the jug.

I managed to run to the management office to alert them of the leak and ask for access to the mop sink - all the time thinking about how water just runs through the boards in the floor and I'm sure the downstairs neighbors will complain. I also managed to wrestle the 5 (less a bit) gallon bottle to said mop sink without getting too wet. Cunning use of a flower pot base. And the whole time I was dumping the 5 gallons down the drain, I was thinking how non-LEED compliant I was being.

Kites - Really Big Kites

Last Friday and Saturday there were huge kites at the harbor. The story was that it was a couple of tourists who fly kites as a hobby. The harbor happened to be frozen so they were able to be out on the ice. Very impressive - today there is open water in the harbor.

Happy St. Pattie's Day!

The river doesn't run as green in Minneapolis as it does in St. Paul. I didn't get to the parade or out to enjoy a pint, but I did wear green and think about corn beef all day!

A great vacation

We had a wonderful trip to Florida - very fun, & relaxing - great food, margarita's, ball game, bike week, quilt shopping, space launch, Navy Museum, golf, Sea World and most important the very best host's around.

A little loofa scrub on the beach

Spring training baseball - just great to sit in the sun and see green grass

At the National Museum of Navy SEALS and Their Predecessors

Bill with the type of boat he drove in the Vietnam - We all enjoyed the guided tour and first hand stories he shared.

Sea World

These birds were flying in formation overhead just before this picture taken - guess who was ducking.

sisters on the beach

My sister came to visit me in Florida. We walked the ocean beach and saw these two scary shadows in the water.
There is really no one I would rather walk the beach with, or shop for quilt fabric, or wonder around in the dark looking at armadillos with.
I am so glad they were here!

quarter inch

Sometimes I live my life in quarter inch increments. Yesterday I was sewing with a quarter inch seam allowances and today, I was cutting quarter inch strips from quarter inch foam core.

I'm not sure what this has to do with anything, I just wanted to post something. We're hosting friends for dinner tomorrow. I made gingerbread with lemon sauce, which is my favorite dessert. Grocery stores down here don't regularly carry gingerbread mix or lemon sauce (the shock!), so I've started making both from scratch every once in awhile. It takes longer, but its soooo worth it! I may have cut a quarter inch strip from the side for quality control.

Welcome home Kelly!

We got this card in the mail from friends - She was Kelly's (and Marie's) personal nurse in times of injury during childhood.

It will be fun to have you home Kelly - it's great you have a job again. You will get wonderful experience and big steps towards your goals in life.

Dont forget to pack beach wear!

I do miss all of you , but this is why I spend 3 months in Florida.

One of our favorite beach hikes. No people, sunshine, blue sky.

This and that

It was a lovely day on the snowmobile trail today. Here it is much wider and flatter than most of the trip. We went west - did a loop from Cascade to Clearview store. The area around the Caribou Trail was most impressive with the hardwood forest and lots of hills. I'm not so crazy about going down hills so this is as close to the mountains as I would want to be. There were lots of sleds on the trails today.

My quilt group is making a sampler wall hanging for a camp that lost cabins in the Ham Lake fire. These are my contributions. Our group has given away over 30 quilts.

This sad little pie was just perfect - a pie just right for two. The solution to having blueberries in the freezer and kids that don't like blueberry pie. Who ever heard of that!