It's Been Awhile

Hard to believe that January 2012 is coming to a close.  I am still trying to find October, November and December of 2011.  Where has the time gone??!!!   Might explain why I haven't posted in some time.


The photos are of fabric I dye painted when I took a class this past fall on QU with Marjie McWilliams.  Enjoyed that class immensely, learned how to dye paint using a different technique so that was good.  


Currently I am getting ready to travel to Oregon next week.  I will be taking the 3rd class in Hollis' 10 year program there.  Then after my return from OR, I will leave for Texas and will be taking class number 7 in the same program.  So I have two piles of items on the bed in the spare room waiting to be packed in the appropriate suitcase.  Sure hope I remember which is which.


Taking an online class through QU with Elizabeth Barton.  It is a very good class and I am learning a few new things and it is a good review of things I have already learned.  Never hurts to review as things just don't stay put in there very long anymore.  Maybe they just have a hard time finding their way into my mind anymore!!!    


I need to paint, I need to sew, I need to draw, I need to dye fabric and of course I need to clean.  So life is pretty much the same around here.  

What a difference a day makes

  I signed up for another sketchbook watercolor class taught by Jane LaFazio on Joggles.  I am enjoying it, the Allium was last weeks assignment, sort of.  We were to introduce some other elements in our sketches, but after I completed the sketch and painted it, I wasn't going to ruin it.  Some areas need a little work, it has been months since I last painted.  Have no idea why I don't get the watercolors out more than I do.  I guess it is like everything else, I have to have a reason.  One reason I took the class.  This week we are making backgrounds to paint on, which aren't completed yet.



Amur Maple is almost bare, only a few leaves remain.  It is the one tree in the yard that actually has more color, more often than any of the others.



The trees in the yard have been exceptionally colorful this fall.  I have included a few photos of them that I took yesterday.  The sky was a beautiful blue and the reds, oranges and yellows looked especially nice against it.

All that changed this morning when it started

The aspen tree has finally turned a golden yellow. 
The first time this has ever happened!!! 

snowing!  I didn't think we were going to get very much, but it was a nice amount of moisture.  The snow was wet and it will help the wheat, as it was a little dry.  It looked terrible after the winds we have had this fall. 



Half of the cottonwood tree in the backyard.



The deck late afternoon.

Much of the snow melted as it fell this morning, but by evening there was a bit of snow covering everything in the backyard.  This is the deck, looking out the patio door.  I do believe summer is over and the plants have seen better days. 

What a difference a day makes, from blue, cloudless skies to a snowy backyard.   



October

It is October, hard to believe.  Corn harvest is here, they are trying to get the wheat planting finished up and the wind is here.  October also brings with it Breast Cancer Awareness month and that means "Race for the Cure" is here as well. 
This is the second year we have been in the 'Race for the Cure'.  My part is more of a short walk.  I think we probably get a 2K in by the time we walk from the Light Rail to where the walk starts and maybe a 3K by the time we get back to the light rail.
I thought about trying the 5K this year, last year, but that didn't happen.  Fortunately I had forgotten that I said that.  One of the good things about getting older, I guess.  The knees are another year older as well and the problem.

  Jennifer organized our team again in memory of my sister Julie.  We didn't come up with any new buttons this year, sort of hectic for all of us.  I think I am going to dye t-shirts next year, pink ones!!!  One very nice thing occurred, my sister's sons were able to join us on the walk this year.  Most of our team did the 5K, the new mommies, little boys, grandpa and I did the Family Walk.   
  I think the photo says it all.  The 5K walk in Denver is the second largest in the country.  It is impressive to come around the corner when walking in the 1K and see all the walkers coming over the viaduct, upper middle of photo, and back into the Race grounds.  Lots of people.
  Our team was on Channel 9, live.  Jennifer was the spokesperson.  The rest of us just stood in the shoot, thank heavens!

Hmm, I see it's been awhile

I missed July all together, posting that is, and I feel as if I missed it physically as well.  Where has the summer gone???!!!  I think my 2 1/2 weeks away from home the first half of June threw the entire summer out of whack. 

 We are half way through August and I feel like I am still waiting for summer to start.  The garden sort of looks that way as well.  Haven't picked any green beans yet and we are getting a few cucumbers.  The tomatoes have a blight, caused by yours truly, so they aren't going to do their best.  Actually they are looking worse each day.  The plants were gorgeous earlier this season.

We have made two short trips to the mountains since my last post.  Nice to get away to the coolness of the mountains in the summer.  Our youngest grandson was on the last trip with his mommy.  Jennifer went along as well and our oldest grandson wasn't going to be left out.  Had a nice time.  Traffic was horrendous, lesson learned here, stay over and come back Monday.  Insanity prevails on I-70, west of Denver, on the weekends.  Make sure you go to the bathroom before starting your trip or pull one along behind you. 

I have been taking online classes.  Have nothing to show for my efforts, however.  I had hoped to have something made from the "Goodbye to the Grid" class I took with Dena Crain on Quilt University, but I am having to clean the sewing room before selecting the fabric.  It should have been done last week, but one thing led to another and it still isn't done.  Yes, I am procrastinating about choosing fabric, this is the part I sturggle with the most!!!!  There are two days left before the class officially closes, but I have to clean the house too.   It is a great class.

The other one I have been taking is from Elizabeth Barton on QU.  It was a class on designing a series of quilts.  Time got away, I was concentrating more on Dena's class and well, there is nothing to show or discuss.  I decided I would take 'Inspired to Desgin', on QU from Elizabeth since it is the first of the two classes.   Just started it, so we will see.  My goal, and challenge to myself, is to make something that isn't 'literal', from a photo I have taken.  

  .

First Trip

  This past weekend we took the RV on the first, official road trip.  We had a great time and our grandson was able to go with us, along with our oldest daughter, Jennifer, and one of our son in laws came up on Saturday. 

We went to the mountains and it was a little chilly at night, glad we were inside and had a furnace.  I will be the first to admit I am not a die hard camper in the great outdoors like our daughters and their husbands.  Well some of them like it.  A couple of them would be more than happy to be inside the RV instead of a tent.

  We
dis-
covered
chip-
munks,
bugs, threw a number of rocks into the fire pit that was there, caught some fish in the small lake near by and had a hummingbird buzz us on a couple of occasions.

  The water was very high and fast due to the amount of snow this past winter and the late runoff so the fly fishing wasn't very good when Joedy and Dave fished Saturday afternoon. 

Jennifer had given M. a little Davy Crockett hat and he thought it looked very stylish under his camo hat that he wears all the time when outside.  Hard to keep a straight face and hold the camera steady to get that photo.

And of course he had to watch grandpa hook up the grill, making sure he was doing it right.  He pronounced the pancakes made for breakfast as being 'yummy'.  I don't know why I have fixed them all these years.

 He watched grandpa do a lot of things and wanted to make sure he wasn't far from the action.    

It was a good weekend, things went well, and I have decided to make a master list so I am not trying to remember all the stuff that needs to go along with us.  We didn't do too badly though for the first time.

Reflecting

I have been cleaning one of the flower beds this afternoon and this morning I transplanted a few little flowers in the greenhouse that had taken their sweet time in coming up.  These activities always give me time to think, sometimes that is a good thing, sometimes not.
 
As I was digging around in the dry soil of the flower bed and moving the soil back to where it belongs after the obnoxious pocket gophers went through it, I was thinking about the devastating floods in the lower Ohio River Valley that I had been keeping track of for over a week.  I was glad my garden was still in tact and thought about all those who had lost theirs.
 
  First, let me say that there is a reason God planted me here, I have no desire to live by that much water, but I love visiting that area and that is why I am interested in keeping track of what is going on there.  We have been through the area that is flooded and I find it sad to see the acres of farm land we have seen, underwater.  Even though we comment that we know we might see it that way some day.  The day has arrived.

I have also been checking in on the Paducah flood wall several times a day.  The Convention Center is its own island now, it sits on the Ohio River side of the flood wall, not within it and I have never figured that out. 
   I always look forward to going to Paducah.  Perhaps it is that we leave the leafless trees, the brown and nearly lifeless flower beds, last year's fields of decaying corn stalks and wheat stubble in CO and as go east and we enter Missouri, spring is unfolding.  There will be a few red buds left and as we travel further east, the dogwoods are usually blooming.  Their lovely, white flowers remind me of dancing fairy lights, tucked in among the other trees.   

Last year's trip to Paducah ranks as # 1.  We were able to view Hollis' outstanding exhibit, "Imagine Hope" at the AQS Museum, I ran into two ladies from a class I had taken at the museum several years ago, met up with  friends who I have gotten to know through the Internet and we all had a picnic lunch on the AQS grounds and had supper with them that Friday night before attending the Ricky Tims performance at the Carson Center, plus I was traveling with good friends.   

  I did receive word from Joedy that a friend died That Friday night, after we returned to the place we were staying, I received word from Joedy that a friend had died that day.  I knew that Darryl had been diagnosed with cancer 3 weeks prior to that and was not doing well when I left, but it was hard to believe as I had just seen him the previous August when we had our 40th class reunion and he looked fine. 

  The other thing that occurred that Friday night was a visit with a woman who I had never met before.  She and other members of her family were getting together that weekend to visit with her sister who was dying of cancer.   Little did I know that night, that I would come face to face with that very thing 11 days later on May 4th.  Tomorrow will be the day my sister called me and told me she had cancer.  Julie died 5 weeks later. 

  So with all that reflecting today on people and places and how quickly things can change, I am reminded that I should take each day as it comes and enjoy it.  Thank God for the blessings He has bestowed upon me. Do my best to ignore those people in my life who are demanding and selfish and not allow them to drag me into their unhappiness and dissatisfaction with their life.  And remember that it could always be a lot worse and pray that it never is. 


This bleeding heart always greets me when I return from Padcah and it is especially pretty this spring.  The butterfly was given to me by sister a few years ago. 



Sneaking in another one

Thought I should get at least two posts in during April!  The wind is blowing again.  Can't say I have missed it this past week.  Another system is moving north of us, carrying moisture into WY, NE, and parts east.  Typical weather pattern since last fall.

The flower garden needs to be rebuilt.  We cut the apple tree down and now there is plenty of sun.  The tulips are hanging in there despite the mess they have to live in this year.  For some reason, spring has come and I am not ready this year.

The plants in the greenhouse are growing.  The tomatoes have been transplanted twice and will need to be transplanted again next week.  The petunias are looking very nice and will go into the containers and hanging baskets in a couple of weeks, along with verbena, nemesia, alyssum, love in a mist, poppies, and a few other flowering plants.  Doesn't seem like it should be time to do all of this again, but it is. 

The cucumber will stay in the greenhouse throughout the summer or until bugs move in and take it over.  We are hoping the bugs stay out for at least another month, two would be even better.  The cukes are the English variety.  They seem to like the greenhouse better than the conditions outside in the garden.  Can't imagine why those huge leaves don't like the wind in this part of the country??!!!!