Day 2 Vacation

As do most teachers I wait all year for summer vacation, sometimes patiently --sometimes eagerly but it is that carrot at the end of early up every day and drive in to work etc. So here I am at the second day of my summer break and I have made progress, yesterday I was up at six today at seven! I might have slept later but my darling daughter asked me if I had really intended to leave the sprinkler on ALL night? Now, the question I would like to ask her is why this did not rate a middle of the night wake up or are those strictly reserved for Can you iron this for me, or I need a ride or I'm short of cash! Well, our flowerbeds had their own private storm yesterday and I guess that it what they have gotten used to here in NJ.

Yesterday was a delightful day. I met with my group of Monday friends and we went out to lunch. I had a California burger with all the stuff that makes it delicious and so bad for you BUT I really enjoyed it. Just cottage cheese and fruit for dinner!

I have a goal this summer of cleaning out my "spare bedroom" on my main floor. I can't call it a guestroom because the guest would only have a choice of sleep under tons of stuff ( aka junk) or draping themselves over it. There is a speculation that the rug in there is green but I have not seen it in years! As I have cleaned out and sorted over the past three years this room has become the resting place of choice for those things I just can't throw away. It also has all the stuff aka junk that supported my craft fair shows. All I've done to it in a few years is throw more stuff in and keep the door firmly closed! this summer I am going to get this room pared down to a reasonable amount of stuff aka junk. I'm going to use a modified flylady approach. Every day I will go in and clear away a garbage bag of stuff. It has to be thrown away of PERMANENTLY put away. NO MORE piles anywhere. Yesterday I filled the garbage pail and now I am sorting through a pile of patterns etc. (sad to see the names of so many places not around any longer) I want to be able to have a picture of this room on this blog by the end of the summer! I will not even CONSIDER a before picture. You have to come to my house and knock me down to see in there!

Just Relaxing in Yarn Heaven

Yesterday, after I spread out my new yarn purchases to take a picture I just sat on the couch in the middle of all this yarny goodness and logged in my purchases in the stash section of Rav, then I started working on a new sweater for myself from the silk garden! I LOVE noro silk anything and it just jumped the line of all the other yarn waiting more patiently to get knit up. Both Katie (my associate daughter) and Courtney (my niece who is semi staying with us) ran in and said the same thing---"You look like you are in yarn heaven." Well they got it right but today instead of going to the beach I moved yarn heaven headquarters out to my backyard. I always seem to only go out at home to work in the garden or clean up etc. so today I went outside with coffee, a bagel, my Sunday NY Times, my laptop, the knitting and the dog. I'm going to stay out here all day and just veg out. Caroline and Courtney went to the beach, Katie went off to do errands so it is just me and Gizmo. I may even head over to the hammock soon!

retail therapy takes care of the blues

I woke up feeling a bit weepy and blue. School ended yesterday and while I know teachers are required to love the summer vacation (AND I DO), I am not doing any school work this summer, not going on a real vacation or doing anything big in the house AND I went to say good bye to my son who is going away until August. So I woke up feeling kind of blue and unfocused. I have about 4 or 5 years until I should retire and I was feeling a bit useless. THEN I went to meet a few yarn buddies. We met at B&N so after a quick latte to go, we headed out for a bag sale at a local yarn shop. OMG, I am so out of my feeling at loose ends. Now I know what I can do for the rest of my life, I can knit the yarn I got today! The deal was that you can stuff as much yarn as you can in a bag they give you for $25. I got 5 bags of STUFFED yarn. I am on Noro overload. 26 skeins of silk garden chunky, 10 skeins of matsuri cotton wool blend, 4 silk mountain, 11 skeins of colinette cadenza in 2 color ways, 44 skeins of RY Classic Yarns Natural Silk Aran!!!!!!!! If I had paid full price I would have spent $957!!!!!! (which I never would have spent in a million years. And 4 skeins of a new to me yarn from The Fiber Company, Terra in Acorn.

We had a nice brunch at a new restaurant then I found out about a local store with Birks on sale so I was required to head over and they had a sale BOGO 1/2 . So I got 2 pairs of Birk sandals for $105!!!

So here I am listening to Bruce Springsteen on my Ipod and looking forward to going to the beach Sunday. It will be a good summer!

The End of the Weekend

For whatever reason this week end seems to have gone on forever! Friday I had to go from Brooklyn to PA for the funeral of the father of a friend/coworker. He was a good man who died too early.

Friday evening I went to see The Taking of Pelham123. Good movie --a bit too violent for my taste.

Sat.morning I was up early, took the dog to the groomer, ( he looks so much better now--smells better too )and then went out to breakfast at a local Friendly's. This was a restaurant Bob and I went to very often when the kids were young. What a disappointment. It was run down, empty and looked like it was about ready to close.

While Gizmo was gone I popped into Home Depot and picked up my Father's Day gift to myself. I got a copper "thing" that waters the lawn. It is about 3 feet high and has two spinning wheels that are spin around powered by the water. It really looks nice. I also got myself 4 hanging baskets for my black iron hangers. I'd like the rain to stop long enough that I could spend some time outside!I spent a few hours weeding and cutting back some "stuff" which is trying to take over the driveway fence.AND the rain started again!

THEN,I was off to getting a manicure and pedicure. Nicely relaxing. I picked up a pizza and a quick grocery shopping and spent the rest of the evening reading a good book.

Today was cleaning and laundry and sorting and tossing. How did all this junk that I'm tossing ever get into this house? I spent the rest of the day reading a book by a young man with Aspergers. JUST 5 MORE DAYS OT GET UP EARLY FOR WORK!!!!!!!!!

NJ Guild's Quilt Show

Yesterday I had a busy day. Up early, did some quick housework then off to meet my friend to go to the quilt show. I did observe Worldwide Knit in Public Day by knitting in front of Zebu while I was waiting for my friend. We grabbed coffee and a quick snack to go and we were at the quilt show before it opened. I love this show, I've been attending for years. The only two years I missed were when Bob was in the hospital and the year after that. There were beautiful quilts both new and old. I am so amazed at beautiful work done by women who live in NJ! I make quick fun to make quilt but some of these are really works of art and just wonderful.

Well, there are vendors of course and I brought home another dozen fat quarters, a great apron themed applique quilt pattern,a ruler and rotary cutter to make circles, a small red work flower kit, and a roller kit to pick up hairs and lint etc. This I already used!

I spent the rest of the day reorganizing, doing laundry and really giving my downstairs a good spring cleaning. Got that in just at the end of spring! This morning I washed all the floors and now my back aches and all I want to do is go back to sleep! Another rainy day here in NJ.

Where is Spring?

12 days until Sumer vacation and it is cool, rainy and foggy in the morning.I could use some nice sunny weather! I did some knitting last night at our knitting group. I'm working on a short row scarf, relaxing and lots of fun.
I've made plans to go to the NJ Guilds Quilt show Sat. morning. I only hope I can look and not buy! Well, we will see!

June 9th

Not much new going on around here in knitting or quilting. I was too tired when I got home last night to do anything with the fat quarter land downstairs. I've been drooling over two quilting books in my spare moments at work.

I want to make a quilt from 60' degree triangles and just have fun with it. I also want to make a quilt for my friend's daughter's bridal shower and so my friend and I have been looking at books and planning.

Just 13 more days of school before I have LOTS of knitting and quilting free time.

Fat Quarteritis

I went to pick up some thread that I ordered at my not so local but regular quilt shop on Sat. They were having a fat quarter sale. So, naturally I had to get a few or 63 to be exact. Sunday morning, I decided to put them away and somehow, I realized that I have a few more fat quarters then I thought, so I decide to fold and iron them and in general organize them. Easier said then done, at last count I reached about 400 of these little suckers. AND that's just the intact ones, not the ones that are cut into and have turned into Fat Eighths or just a great scrap or my bolts of backing or the 100s of jolly packs (4 or 5 inch squares), or the jelly rolls or layer cakes or even the few honey buns or the few charming jelly cakes or just plain yardage etc.
My clean from Sat. family room now looks like a fabric explosion. I want to really find a way to organize and store them because I have so many duplicates and some gaps!

Well, only 14 more days of school after today!

Back Again!

No excuses, I just blog when I think of it. I've been a quilting fool. Not as much knitting as unual but a few nice quilts, both baby gufts.
My son is on tour in Finland with Bruce Springstein and his band. He is working with the generators to power the tour. I hope he enjoys it.

We have about 18 days of school left then TWO MONTHS OF PEACE at home.