Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

My finished crazy-quilt sweater thingy that I'm entering in the Lake Farm Park Quilt Show!

-5 degrees this morning, which is warmer than Friday which was -10! We only have about a foot of snow.

One week accomplished and only 11 more to go for Spring '09 semester. All this week's classes went well. The students enjoyed the "crime scene" lab and their chance to figure out "who done it"! (Most of them shouldn't sign up to be detectives!). The lab was called 'The Case of the Missing Plant Press a.k.a. microscopy and plant cell structure'. The goal was to learn how to properly use the microscope, dissecting scope and learn basic plant cell structure and organelles. An additional goal was to practice deductive thinking and learning to support their statements with data (a real challenge for some!). The case they had to solve involved 7 plant suspects (Tommy Tomato, Mr. Potato Head, Flora Plantae, Gym Pine Tree, Ella Elodea, Gary Grass and Ollie Onion) who were 'rounded up' in the vicinity of the destruction of a plant press. A note was left at the crime scene signed by the 'PLG'
(Plant Liberation Gang) claiming responsibility with the letters cut from a newspaper. The suspects were carrying various newspapers, scissors, razor blades and serrated knives and left debris, fibers, tissue and pollen at the crime scene. Students were given various tools such as labeled sample fibers, test cardboard to try out the various cutting implements to compare to the destroyed plant press pieces to figure out which implement was used in its destruction, and demonstration scopes with ID tissue (with various plant organelles) and pollen samples to compare to the tissues and pollen found at the crime scene.

Socks!

Finished my first pair of colorful socks! (Can't say they are the first socks I've ever made since I made 3 socks when I was a junior in high school - I still have one - the other 2 I gave to my boyfriend at the time, Jerry Benson! I ran out of steam I guess and never finished the 4th sock.) These took some figuring out, but I finally got the hang of it and finished this pair today and started on my next! I love the self-striping wool!

I also finished a project that I've been working on for 15+ years! ! ! And the hilarious thing is - I really don't like it now that I'm done! It looks great on the hanger - but not on me. However, since part of it is a crazy quilt (the rest is knit) I've entered it in a quilt show at Lake Farm Park which begins in February. I'll post a picture of it once I get the buttons on and press it for display. Maybe I should just frame it afterward!!!

We have 9-12 inches of snow and its still snowing. We hibernated yesterday, but had a nice day with just the 2 of us. Watched the movie "Juno" last night. I'd recommend it. We had bluebirds at our suet feeder yesterday.

Walked the dogs and cleaned house today since George had to be gone all afternoon for a Phoenix Univ. meeting. I go back to teaching next week.

More pictures...

Vanessa modeling her new jacket and belly dancing scarf!

More Christmas Stuff!

These are pictures of Vanessa's cropped swing jacket and an example of the benches we made for mom and dad and Bruce and Susan for Christmas. Right now Baby Cat is "helping" me type by lying on my arm.

Saturday Adam and Vanessa stopped by on their whirl-wind Christmas tour of relatives! We were happy to see them, even if it had to be briefly. I'll have to add the picture of Vanessa in her cropped jacket and belly-dancing scarf (over jeans)! It was quite a combination! She was cute in both!

Had a fun final Christmas fling on Sunday with Bruce, Sue, Gavin, Ian, Keely, Evan, Josh, Anya, Steven, Mom and Dad. Had tons of food, presents and fun games. We have quite the competitive family!

Anya and I did yoga this morning and journeyed to JoAnn Fabrics to check out the sales. That was fun! Finished off a letter of recommendation for Ian (since one of the profs he had requested one from didn't follow through in time).

Christmas 2008

We had a lovely Christmas with Josh and Anya on Tuesday (Christmas Eve eve). Both kids gave us lovely, thoughtful gifts and I think they enjoyed what they received as well. We had salad and pizza and fun chatting.

Wednesday morning George and I left for Philadelphia and the kids went to spend Christmas with Dave and Heather in Fredonia. Thankfully the roads were good and it was just rainy during part of the 8 hour drive. We arrived around 5:00 to see the absolutely cutest baby girl in existence!!! My goodness, what a doll! Elizabeth is full of smiles most of the time and excellent at entertaining herself at just 6 months!! She was adorable in the little coat I made for her and she loved her new book as you can see from the pictures! What fun!

Lily, the dog, has been amazingly good and has not chewed up one toy yet!! She was much calmer than when we saw her in August. What a good dog! She occasionally gets a few licks in, but otherwise seems to know that Elizabeth and her toys are off limits.

On Christmas day Amy's family came over and we had a wonderful dinner. It was great to get a chance to get to know Amy's parents and brother and sister better, as well as Amanda's boyfriend, Adam. Amy has a very nice family.

We spent a delightful morning with Amy, Mike and Elizabeth this morning and headed back to Ohio. I'm sure Elizabeth will be so different next time we get the opportunity to see her. It may not happen until May! It's too bad we live so far away.

You can see more pictures from Christmas (and of Elizabeth and family) if you scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the slide show. It will take you to our Flickr website full of pictures.

Anya's Home!

Anya arrived home despite the ice storm only an hour late. Which was vastly better than her boyfriend, Steven, who had his flight canceled yesterday out of Boston. Hopefully he will make it home today. Anya was dead tired and went to bed shortly after our dinner with Josh. She actually got up this morning and had breakfast with us at 7:30 am!!

Above are some of my Christmas creations! I just finished the fleece baby jacket today for Elizabeth that I created from an old baby dress pattern . I had to switch the opening to the front and redesign the collar and pockets and added a pleat to the back. It closes with snaps that I covered with ribbon rosebuds I had in my stash. I bought the pink flowered fleece as a remnant (along with lots of other beautiful colors of fleece in a moment of weakness!).

The flannel for the boxers as well as the boxer pattern I've had for a while. I changed the pattern slightly by substituting a jersey knit covered waist band which I think is more comfortable. They have flat-felled seams - which take a while to make, but are worth it in looks, durability and comfort.

I knit a lovely headband for fun and just to try out the pattern and am currently tackling knitting socks out of colorful wool yarn. I have one more Christmas sewing project I will hopefully start and finish tomorrow.....we'll see. I'm also making another red dishcloth to give to Amy's sister Amanda. I must have made 3 dozen of those dishclothes by now this year! I seem to have to have several projects to work on at once. At least I'm done with baking cookies for a while. The chocolate dipped cheesecake bites were a hit as were the almond toffee crescents half dipped in chocolate and the spiced chocolate crinkles. I sent a plate of the pumpkin spice cookies in to George's work which they all loved and wanted to the recipe. Our circle of ladies at work did a cookie exchange so I have several other kinds to add to all the cookie plates we'll need during the next week's events!

Made a great pumpkin soup the other day (from the pumpkin that graced our table as a fall decoration - the cookies used up the rest of the recycled pumpkin centerpiece!) and a yummy mushroom soup as well. I've been baking oatmeal bread frequently since its become our new favorite.

Snow covers the ground here but at least it isn't ice! We lost power for 2 1/2 hours yesterday and branches fell from the weight of the ice in the morning.

Make it a good day!

On to Christmas!

It's snowing again today! Wow! Non stop winter since the week before Thanksgiving! Had a nice Thanksgiving at Bruce and Susan's. It was Susan's birthday too so I made a carrot cake in addition to the pies Chris and I made. It was a very nice, relaxing Thanksgiving day. We had a house full with Adam, Vanessa, Chris and Anya staying for a few days. It was so nice to see them all and get a chance to visit a bit. I sure did a lot of cooking!

Visited George's other sisters in New York last Saturday.

Shampooed part of the livingroom rug this morning and washed and waxed several floors in preparation to tackling decorating for Christmas. I won a cute angel at the Finnish Ladies Luncheon that mom bought as table decorations. That has inspired me to get busy and decorate.

I'm about done with Christmas gifts although I have a few more things to make and a bunch more projects swirling around in my head to start just for the hell of it. I should be focusing on getting ready for next semester, but haven't gotten too excited about that yet.