Running in Circles

We've already established that the weekend flew by for me. This week seems to be a little slower (probably because I am waiting in impatient excitement for news about an impending visit from someone I really want to see). It probably doesn't help that I am spending the week cleaning and reorganizing my house. We all know that that isn't on the top of my favorite things to do list.

Friday night Bug & I attended Friday Night Supper Club where we discussed my 101 List point by point. They helped me to come up with a few more items to add to my list. When we got done eating and discussing we ventured over to Perfect Games so that Bug could wear off a little energy and the guys could challenge each other to air hockey.

Saturday morning I woke up to beautiful sunshine. It wasn't overly hot and seemed a perfect day to tackle a few of my house projects.

I had lost a few boards off the front steps over the winter, so this seemed the ideal day to play with my new circular saw again.

I trimmed down my closet door as well, but don't have a picture of that yet as I still need to purchase and install a latch to keep it closed.

Saturday night Sis felt the urge for some family time. This mama can never pass up the oportunity to spend a little fun time with my kids, especially when the teenager is trying to spread her wings and doesn't always want me so close.

We loaded up in the truck and drove to Madrid for some Cosmic (Laser) bowling. Obviously this is where we took last week's challenge photos at.

Sis got a little pouty when she threw a string of gutter balls.

Concentrating on my form, I guess?

Sis had had enough.

I don't have any pictures from Sunday because I forgot my camera at home. Bug and I went with the Cub Scouts on a clean-up hike. The goal was to pick up trash littered along the bike trails at Seven Oaks. That one and a half hour hike reminded me how sorely I've gotten out of shape during the winter. Looks like I will need to step it up before we go hiking in Yellowstone!

The hike was considered a success but not in the way we planned it to be. The trails were actually fairly clean, good job mountain bikers at keeping nature as pristine as possible! With not much work to do we did manage to lose three scouts.

No, literally.

We lost them. Or I should say they lost us. After repeated warnings to stay within sight of the rest of the group three of the boys decided to explore on their own. They took off in a dead sprint ahead of us, laughing when we told them to stop. Then they jumped a few paths that wind close to each other. The next thing you know they are no where to be seen and couldn't hear our calls.

I took my group of three well behaved Scouts and six stow away ticks and made our way out of the woods. Forty minutes later the missing boys emerged from the woods with the search party leaders. Whew!

Boys were fine, leaders and parents lectured and used them as an example to the rest of the group. I chalk it up to a learning experience for our next outing.

I spent the rest of the evening keeping a vigilant eye open for more ticks and enjoying the first of my "alphabet" movies from my 101 list. Eating ice cream and watching Avatar with the kiddos was a perfect ending to my busy weekend.

Plants

I had two submissions for this week's photo challenge. I ended up scrapping the first one.

I loved this picture after I got done editing it. I had the flowers so much more defined. Unfortunately I do not find the software very user friendly and couldn't get it to save the way that it looked on my screen.

This is my second submission. Same model, different pose.

Funny thing about "Bella" kitten, that you see posing as my sleepy model. It seems that "Bella" is actually a Belmond.

We have spent the last couple weeks trying to come up with a similar sounding name for the poor boy. The kids scrapped my first two suggestions of Belmond and Heeshee (he/she). He really doesn't have an "official" name yet, but the kids have taken to calling him either Bellers or Belzer. If you have any name suggestions go ahead and pass them along!

You can find this week's challenge poem here and be sure to check out the rest of this week's photo submissions here.

Soothing

So, my friend Chris over at Photography139 and a friend of his came up with a fun idea and I am going to take part as time allows. Every week they post a new photo assignment. You can read about how to take part here.

This week's subject was "Soothing". I will admit that it took me a little while to figure out how to photograph something that I find soothing. I find that summertime is a lot more soothing to me than winter is. I really miss thunderstorms, warm gentle winds, sitting by the lake, and walks through nature. Those are the things that speak soothing to me. I was able to come up with a decent representation of what is soothing to me in the winter though.

My "Soothing" submission

Next week's subject is "People". That should be fairly easy for me since I'm always photographing the kids. Hopefully I will find time to produce something a little more artistic than usual! You can see the rest of today's submissions over at Chris's blog.

I am thinking that this might be a great project to try from a poetic standpoint. Maybe if I ever find the time to write regularly again, I'll give it a try!

A thought on Identity

photo courtesy of Andrew Hefter

~ The value of identity of course is that so often with it comes purpose. ~

Richard R Grant

A New Adventure

It's almost Independence Day! I am so looking forward to a fun weekend kicking it back at the lake with my Aunt, sans kids! We are toying with the possibility of catching a concert before the fireworks Saturday night. It would be the highlight of my get away if we did as I think the opening singer, Bonne Finken, is phenomenal. And, well, you can't really go wrong with the Nadas either, can you?

I am hoping that this little get away will help me clear my head. I've been mulling over some pretty heavy thoughts lately. specifically, what do I want to do with my life before I lose my youth? You see, I've always been one of those people that accepts what life hands me. Although I was quite a risk taker in school, I have kept my adventures pretty low key since having my children. Life hands you kids and you are bound to be responsible and set good examples. And I have enjoyed that responsibility very much.

Recently I started following the blog of Roz Savage. She is an amazing British woman that is rowing solo across the Pacific. A very inspiring woman, if you ask me. Don't worry, I realize I'm not in a position where I can give up everything to trek across the world. I'm not really sure I would have the guts or ambition to either. Since I started following Roz's blog I've also had many discussions with several friends that are going through life limiting issues. One friend has a herniated disc in his back, another had surgery that will probably result with her in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, and yet another friend has been dealing with MS for many years now (and she has an amazing attitude about it). Combine all those factors with the realization that my mother more than likely had cancer at my age (she passed shortly after turning 40).

All these factors together cause this little voice inside me to start screaming... I'm not done living yet!! Heck, I've hardly begun!!

As a result, I've started compiling a little list of the top ten adventures that I dream about. My bucket list, of sorts, if you will. I thought over the next few weeks I might share some, or even all, of my list with you. As long as you don't hold me to accomplishing all of them or you help inspire me to achieve some of them if you can.

And I'm curious... what are the adventures you dream about the most?

Unfinished Business

Photo Courtesy of Tom Freda



Are you like me? Do you look around your house, perhaps in closets, under beds, in drawers. I think we all probably have something stuffed somewhere, that unfinished project that we promise ourselves we will complete someday....

Someday...

I have a lot of those almost completed projects. I have a few more that have barely been started. Some are small, some are big, some could be finished in minutes, others will take days.

With spring approaching (approaching? Heck, it may still be cold, but it is certainly here when rain takes over snow and the flower bed is giving birth to my favorite purple irises), I look around in amazement at how much I still expect myself to accomplish before warmth and humidity draws me out the door.

My biggest goal of the winter was to finish the "two-year quilt". In truth, I started this quilt about four years ago. It was my very first (and so far only) quilting project. Inspired by the beautiful quilts I had seen at the county fair, I purchased a lovely little how-to book called 10-20-30 minutes to quilt . It broke projects down into manageable little segments for the already stressed out, over-booked mom that becomes disillusioned by watching to much Martha Stewart and HGTV. I opted for the sewing machine version, rather than hand-quilting, in hopes that I would actually stick with the project until the end.

I spent a week choosing cotton fabrics of yellow, pink, and orange that would accent the brown that I envisioned my walls. As a side note, I did paint my bedroom walls last year and the quilt will look absolutely lovely in there, if I ever finish it.

Within a week I had all of the squares, triangles, and strips cut out. My son also had a nasty cut from investigating the rotary cutter that was apparently not hidden well enough from my then 4 year old. Two weeks later I had the entire front pieced and sewn together. I could now envision the finished product. I purchased batting and backing. I laid spent hours pinning the quilt "sandwich" together and marking on the back where I would stitch my decorative diamond shape pattern.

Then something came up. I can't tell you what, that was too long ago to recall minor details. I folded the nearly finished project up and placed it on top of my sewing table. I promised myself i would return to it soon.

That was four years ago.

After two years the kids started referring to it as my two-year quilt. As in "Mom? Aren't you ever going to finish that two-year quilt so you can make one for us?" The questioning stopped about a year ago but I can still hear them every time I catch a glimpse of my now completely unorganized sewing area.

I have five days of vacation coming up over the next month. (a use it or lose it type of situation). I believe it is time fro me to put those days to good use and attend to a little "unfinished business" around here.