Where did the weekend go?

Well, I was to be at Camp Wildwood all this weekend but one of the two things fell through. That left me on Saturday to whip the house into shape a bit and after a few hours of everyone pitching in, it looks much better. We took a break for lunch and then a Grandpa A visit. I asked if anyone wanted to head out to the trails for a walk - Aidan said yes, so we asked Dad and Emily. It was a family walk! We took a trail that led over and around and who know's where, and after a long time we met up with the paved trail they added last year. It was about a mile back to the car... much shorter that way! I figure in all we did about 5 miles as I was at around 6000 steps when we left and was at around 16,000 when we got home. It was a good time in the woods with the temps finally where they should be in the mid 70's. A few of the photo's I took along the walk.

Aidan and 'his' tree. 

I love how this tree looks with all the branches.

Emily, Aidan and Hubby

Palm bushes

Mom and Aidan... with real trees in the background! Aidan said it looked like a photo shopped background!

The kids think this looked like a frog last year... so needed a photo with it this year too!

I did it again in a different wood today. I was at Camp Wildwood in Wildwood, FL  for a 6 hour training session at the nature center. Takes about 20-25 minutes to walk there from the parking lot, and we did Project Wild and Aquatica Wild training which had us getting up and playing various games and exploring the outdoors around us, including the lake they are reclaiming and the marsh land for animals and habitat.  It is teaching a program for K-12  lots of different things in all areas of habitat, conservation and forestry. Great for home schooling, regular schooling and scouting. For $10, I decided to take it with 3 of my co-leaders in the 2 troops we have (my daisy, brownie, junior) and my co-leader's daisy troop for a few of the younger sisters in our troop and a couple of extras. I hit my 10,000 steps a little bit before I made it to my car after the training. It was a good weekend for hitting my daily step goal of 10,000.

I got home in time to drop Emily to a friends birthday party. Then was eating dinner when the boy got returned by Grandma. Aidan wanted to play a game - so we did the updated Monopoly version where it uses a scanner to keep track of things.... I believe money bags Dad won the game. We had to put it on hold to go gather Emily (about 18 streets up the road) and then it was time to settle in for a last week of school before the week of Thanksgiving break for them. Last night I read to Emily while she was in the bath and tonight it was Aidan's turn. Reading Homeland to Emily and a Geronimo Stilton book to Aidan. We finally finished our last Upside Down Magic book last week and Friday were reading a new book we got from the Scholastic book fair Thursday night before we hit the STEM night put on by the Orlando Science Museum. It is a scary (but funny) take on the fairy tales... the belly laughs from the boy were hilarious. Unfortunately I had the Peace Porridge song in my head... all day long....from a retelling of the Princess and the Pea... or in this book pee.

As for hand work..I have been too tuckered out to do much of anything at night....
I did try a new crochet stitch called Trinity stitch for a dish cloth. Aidan requested one in blue and green.. you know, so he can do dishes! I'll believe it when I see it but I am trying to make one. I need to remember to keep it loose or I have trouble with it being too tight. A pretty stitch though and I think I am getting the hang of it. Maybe I'll add a row or two tonight before I turn in. I need to do 16 rows of blue then 8 of green. Good thing it is just a dish cloth so it doesn't have to be perfect.

Another weekend in the books and a start of a new work week tomorrow. I have blood work for my annual physical tomorrow morning after I drop the kids to school. Let's hope I remember no coffee in the morning! For now, I'm enjoying the smell of the night blooming Jasmine outside the bedroom window as I wind down for the night.

Voting Day in the USA!

Today is voting day - Please exercise your right and duty as a citizen and go out and vote today! I voted on Friday - as we had early voting at my library and we had lots of things on our ballot. Do your research - the ad's are all conflicting so do the research and find out the facts.  Vote for what you feel is the best option. Let your voice be heard.


And hopefully we can go back to the nice normal advertisements for food in the evenings! =)



Also -be careful driving out there. I witnessed another accident in front of my kids elementary school this morning. I stayed (well, came back after dropping kids off) and shared what I saw with the officer. The young lady - 7 months pregnant who was run into on her drivers side door kept thanking me for staying to share what I saw and checking to make sure she was ok. The other person who hit her didn't get out of her vehicle until a friend of hers stopped to see what happened. Very scary - the kids were in the back seat as I was waiting to turn into the school to drop them off. A few weeks ago a car was pushed onto it's side and the parent had to be excavated from the vehicle. All in a 20 MPH zone.....

Any progress on Sunday?

Well, Emily decided to stay home with me instead of going to Grandma's with Aidan cause it was my birthday. I did not get my full day in the sewing room but did get a little progress on Aidan's Hopscotch quilt. The star points are all made, pressed and trimmed. I have lots of teal and grey triangles..... and no I did not think to sew them before trimming them.
I also cut the strips to make the 128 - 4 patches of grey and orange. Now to sub cut and sew them all... then add the 2 grey blocks to them and those 64 parts will be all done - hopefully this week.
Assembly time comes after that. I am hoping his will be a top by Thanksgiving week and then if I have patience - I'm going to let each of them pin and machine quilt their quilts on my little domestic sewing machine. Send me patience please! They are off school the week but I still have to work from home... which is always fun.

RSC Saturday

I got a little sewing time last weekend. I did manage to get the 3 green challenge blocks done. I do see that I need to find that seam ripper and make a fix to one of these guys. Can you find the mistake?
Linking up with the RSC Challenge.

I have to say.... I am so happy this week is done. I really dislike halloween. It was a crazy week...

Monday - IEP with Emily for speech at school. Keeping her at 2 - 30 minute group speech sessions a week during the school year. No walk in the morning so I could make up the time needed to go to school. That night was  scouts with a potluck party and trick or treating in the room.

Tuesday the kids had their honor awards at school. Both kids sent home an invite for me to go to their awards. Emily got AB and Aidan got all A honor roll. After school was guitar and then the rescheduled safe halloween at school Emily wanted to help work at.

Wednesday was trick or treating about 13 streets down - they walked around the block and got their pumpkins 3/4 full!

Thursday.... was bowling for me while the kids were at school then that night I should have gone to a school choice seminar.... but I didn't. Sometimes you just need a night at home. Looks like the info is all online - we just need to schedule a walk through at a program at a middle school Aidan got invited to apply to. We did go to Taco bell after school and got our free Taco - thanks Mookie for stealing a base in the World Series!

Then I took the kids to Aldi because I needed peppers for chicken tortilla soup that night. Yup - $88 dollars later they are not allowed to go with me anymore! I did get a large trunk organizer and jumper cables.

Friday I voted early at the library after picking up the kids and then we had a family monopoly game in the evening.
On top of that.... deadlines at work got all moved up to testing for the business users on Wednesday ... 50 programs changed for a federal requirement done by 2 programmers,

over the last 2 months. Yikes! The other one got moved to production Monday by a coworker who kindly took it over for me so I could concentrate on the other one. Yup - I work 20 hours a week while the kids are in school..... or try anyway!

Today... temps in the mid 50's right now will rise to just the 70's today, so after I finish supervising the guinea pigs while Aidan cleans the cage (the cats have stuck a paw or two into the play yard with the new bottom protection for my floors) I will get dressed and head out to try and find soil in the overgrown garden area! It is too hot to plant in the summer in Florida and it is finally cooler so I will try a winter garden again which I have had luck with in the past. Getting it to that point..... Sigh. It will be a lot of work today to try and get a start on it.

Hand piecing quilt along in 2019

I saw this yesterday and signed up! Kristin at kristinesser.com from Simple. Handmade. Everyday and Patty Dude from Elm Street Quilts are hosting a hand piecing sew along starting in January.

Just passing it along in case anyone else wants to join in.

For information click here.

Sunday.....

A day of rest.... that is what Sunday's should be. Unfortunately it is usually a prep day for the week ahead.

After a camping trip (cabin camping) with the girl scout troop and a full 12 hours of sleep last night - The kids tucked me into bed around 8 last night - I feel refreshed!

The kids are just off to Grandma's for the Cooter festival today. Me... I should pick up the house and get a little grocery shopping in. It is finally cool enough to weed gardens..... but the reality...... I think I will sew!

I plan to get a good start on making some blocks for Aidans quilt in his colors. Emily's is to a top stage... and will require a shopping trip for backing sometime in the next week or two. I will also need a backing for the finished tumbler hand pieced top as well.

Eventually, some slow stitching will happen later this evening... It will be a toss up of either adding some leaves and the middle parts to the Save the Bee's block 1

or

hand quilting on the baby quilt which has had no progress on it since I last posted! Someone has been using it for a bed.

Linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching and RSC Challenge.

Now for a little recap on my week if you are interested.

The hands are healing from the attempt to bring the cats to the vet this week. The new ones were to both go on Monday. Just Peanut went... and I got lots of scratches all over my right arm and hand from Ollie. Wednesday, Sophie was to go in the afternoon and if I could get Ollie he would go too. The kids were home on a half day of school to help. Sophie went.... Ollie got my right hand ring finger - huge scratch along the inside a bit below the knuckle to the first part of the finger. Yup - at the itchy scab healing part now and it still hurts 5 days later! So fun when you walk into the vet and they exclaim on all the bloody band aids you have on you!  Thursday - I managed to bowl with a band aid on that finger... did pretty good with my first 202 of the season! Friday around 10:15.... got a call from school with notice the kids had been evacuated to the school next door for a suspicious package.  We had the option of getting the kids... which at 3 miles away and working from home, I went and got them.  I figured it was around 10:30 and adding 860 elementary school kids to the 1100+ middle school, at lunchtime it was best to clear them out not knowing time frame of them getting back to their campus. The kids were scared when I got them - very worried about each other. Turned out it was just replacement refrigerator parts in the teacher fridge not labeled. The bomb squad got to remove and X-ray it. Quite an interruption for the day but with all the news of bombs in the mail the last week they went with extra caution. I took the kids back around 1:20 when the campus was cleared to get their bags - Emily's 2 teachers had a total of 7 kids in class and Aidan's 2 teachers had 4 kids. Normally would be around 40 in each. Our safe Halloween was to be that night but it was rescheduled for Tuesday. That worked out OK... as we had our girl scout camping trip that night and a bunch of the girls would have missed it. A few would have been at a neighboring school's event... and we were fortunate they did not go as there was a fatal shooting just off that campus but during the safe Halloween event. They went on lock down. All at the event were safe, however it sounded like a very scary situation near Saddlewood Elementary in Ocala Fl.  Mom - for reference - Emily used to go there for speech before she started school. The one behind Sam's club and right by where Terri and the kids stayed at the hotel in February.


This week - looks crazy as well. Monday is girl scouts - Halloween party and birthday party for the founder Juliette Gordon Lowe. The girls decided pot luck and will bring a game and prize (candy or other) to trick or treat around the room with costumes as optional.  Tuesday is guitar for Aidan and maybe the safe Halloween at school. Wednesday the kids want to go trick or treating. Thursday - my day off work and bowling time for me. Friday... Oh my goodness.... I don't think I have anything planned that evening! Woo Hoo!

Hope you all have a safe and happy week. Don't forget to get out and vote early if you can or do your research (tons of things on our Florida ballot this voting period) and prep for voting Nov 6! I'm planning to vote sometime this week at our library. Every vote counts!

Saturday...

It has been a long 24 hours! We took our girl scout troop(s) (daisy - kindergarten and 1st grade - juniors in 4th grade) camping overnight. We were in a cabin on girls scout grounds locally. We had the girls plan the food, activities and what to bring. The girls had a great time and everyone is exhausted. We had 11 overnight and 4 joined us for the day. We took a hike to see the horses this morning... and mentioned if they wanted to come back and ride them they needed to sell about 100 boxes of cookies each to pay their way!  We will see how they do.

They had their first official group bonfire with smores and songs. A dance party running around the house, pillow fight, story time (I hear they were scary), then hiking, lots of outdoor time, making painted rocks and rain sticks and lunch - walking taco's. Great bonding time and memory making. We all got our official 'camp names' too.

Me... I plan to sit with my feet up and rest this evening with an early bedtime. I don't like to show faces....so this is a shot of the group hiking to see the horses. Maybe after a good nights sleep in my own bed I'll be refreshed in the morning.