Happy July, and Happy Canada Day to those to our north.
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
July!
Happy July, and Happy Canada Day to those to our north.
Sunday, June 29, 2025
Slow Sunday in Vermont
I am enjoying a cloudy comfortable day in Vermont. A few crochet stitches have been added to the granny squares while watching the F1 race this morning. I'll switch to some hand work on either the hand applique string of beads or some hand piecing of the flowering snowball or shoo fly blocks later today. Maybe I'll do both!
Friday, my nephew came out with Kayaks and my sister come out in the afternoon. It was quite windy, so we just chatted outside for a while then got a maple creemee across the lake. Saturday, I slept in until almost 10AM with the rain pattering on the new roof that does not leak! That has been a 2 year battle to get it fixed from the shoddy job the first guy did. My brother and SIL came out to play games in the afternoon, and I left them to it and headed to Morrisville to see my friend Kelly at the Lacing up for Cancer event. I stayed a couple of hours catching up, then headed home and made dinner (Keto chicken, roasted potato and peas). I had a nice walk last evening after dinner and snapped some flower photos to share.
Today will be some kayaking I think around the lake. The wind has calmed down a bit so it should be easier to paddle. My sister will be back out for a visit with my niece up from Boston.
Linking up with Kathy and the slow Sunday Stitchers.
Friday, June 27, 2025
Races at Thunder Road in Barre, Vermont
The photo's loaded last to first... and I'm too lazy to swap them around! Last night was CCV (Community College of Vermont) night and since I have a sister who works at CCV, we got free tickets!
This was a photo of the view from the cement stands we were sitting in for the night. The track is a 1/4 mile oval with quite the steep curves at the ends. There were crashes, saw the governor (Phil Scott has been a race driver his whole life, first as a lawyer, then senator, then governor car #14) spin out in the heats so he started last in both races. It was a double header night! He moved up to the midfield in the first race but got put into a wall in the second race.
Thursday, June 26, 2025
More travel photo's
It was hot, and only the museum area was in the AC. We headed to a local restaurant for lunch at the Reindeer Cafe. It was yummy. From there we drove a few hours up to Niagra falls and got there a bit after 7PM. Finding parking was fun but we got tickets to the Maid of the Mist and took our 20 minute boat ride to the falls. It was amazing the wind force, water and the view. We got soaked... I think my sneakers have finally dried out! Good think I brought an extra pair.
Monday, June 23, 2025
Travel
Monday, June 16, 2025
Prepping for travel

I prepped a bunch more of the flowering snowball and the shoo fly blocks for hand stitching while travelling. The pattern calls for 13 of one and 12 of the other. I have 12 of one and 11 of the other. It should be plenty to keep me busy while away.
I also weaved in the tails for the 13 dark blue granny square blocks. I'll start adding some grey surrounds tonight during the hockey game. I have the Brimfield EPP project packed and ready to go as well.
Right now Greg and I are at home without a vehicle. Emily took one to school for a summer marching band practice for a couple of hours. They perform at a Villages parade on the 4th of July. Emily won't be here for that, but I think she misses her buddies. Aidan took my car (she coordinated with him, since she did not want to drive my car!) and headed to his guitar lesson. He should be back in time for the hockey game tonight.
Time to put dinner away (Chicken Tikka Masala over basmati rice) and get out the custard for the ice cream and get that working in the cold mixer.
Sunday, June 15, 2025
Happy Fathers Day
A special Happy Fathers Day to my Dad. A man who back in the 1960's and 70's got up in the middle of the night for diaper changes and feedings to me and my siblings. Mom was a stay and home Mom. Great memories of Saturday rides to the dump, and stops at the little store (both at home and at camp) for penny Swedish fish for me while he chatted with the owners. Lots of games of Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders, then Racco and Sorry as we got older and lots of card games. This was last summer at Bingo at the lake.
We are heading over shortly to see my FIL Tom in Rehab and will bring him his favorite Moca shake from Arbys.
Today is my parents 62nd Anniversary and it is also my cousin Ben's 34th birthday! We like to pile on everything on one date it appears!
Saturday, June 14, 2025
Saturday

Linking up with the RSC. I hope to do a little orange sewing later.
I got up early, and headed to horses with Emily today. She rode yesterday, but the girls asked if they could ride again today. Seems the new horse tried to jump over the poles with Kyra and then went into a Canter she was not expecting. She stayed on the horse, but riding today was a good confidence builder. Emily won't be riding for about a month now, as we start our rambling drive to Vermont late next week. We will do a college visit on Friday, then wander up leisurely to Vermont. Vanderbilt is in Tennessee, so it will be a new route for us to travel. We have tickets to 3 things already and will hit quite a few things along the way. Mammoth Caves and the Prison where they filmed The Shawshank Redemption movies are booked. The Hermitage is also booked just outside of Nashville. We will also got to the Air Force museum (Aidan) in Dayton, OH and then mozy through the town where their grandparents raised their Dad in Ohio. I think we are also visiting where Abraham Lincoln was born as well as Niagra Falls and the Erie Canals museum. We will see what else they find to visit. I know we have college visits to Dartmouth and University of Vermont while we are up that way. Aidan mentioned a couple places to visit on the way home as well, but I can't remember what they are. The kids just find and plan out the route and I pay! I'm off work for about a month while we travel and enjoy time in Vermont with my family. Greg stays home and takes care of the animals and will be busy moving his Dad into Assisted Living and getting him settled.
I've been watching the peaceful protests for No Kinds day here in the USA - against the current president and his policies and executive orders. If I was not tapped to go with Emily, I would have attended our local one here. It is great to see so many peacefully protesting and exercising their constitutional rights.
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
25 hours without internet
We also live in a dead area for our cell phones..... we tend to use the in house wifi for our phones.
Everyone is alive.... although someone didn't make a peach cobbler as he was unable to google recipes. I did point him toward the bookcase of cookbooks. He did find one for a cobbler ... and said 'Did you know you have a Chinese cookbook? Yup, I do!. Does Emily know? Not sure'. He took it to her, since that is her wheelhouse for making things.
We had no phone (through the wifi for the land line one) and no tv as we do streaming. I occasionally had one bar on my cell phone. It was probably a good thing we could not watch the hockey game Monday night.... as we are both rooting for the Oilers and they lost big time to the Florida Panthers (we are lightning fans!).
I work from home, and log in through my work's VPN. No internet means not able to work. Arrrgghh.
I did drop a load off to Goodwill and got it out of my house around noon yesterday. I might have finished my audiobook and needed to get to an area I could download the next one .... hehehe. I also did a check on our outage. Yup, was still out with expected 6:30PM resolved time. It came back a little earlier - with no notification from them. Greg just happened to check and it reset and came back around 4:40PM. We lost it around 3:30 PM the previous day. So much for signing up for a text notification of it coming up.
I really did not get much done as I had no motivation. I did give the dog a good walk before it got hot (before 8AM) and chatted with a couple of neighbors. One also worked from home but had Verizon cell service. We have TMobile. The other has a different provider than Centurylink for internet so she was fine. They are putting in fiber across the road so I'm sure they cut a line somewhere.
I did mark stitching lines on the back of one of the shoo fly blocks and one of the flowering snowball blocks. I started on the flowering snowball.And got these 3 parts together. I need another one like this and then the two lighter parts with a yellow square in the middle.
