June 17, 2008 - This week

This week I am helping out 4 mornings at Camp Zoom, a day camp at our church for 4 to 7 year olds. It runs from 9 till noon, and when I get home, I am ready for a nap!

I also have the third and final session of my free motion quilt class. We are supposed to have assembled and quilted 4 place mats. I'll be lucky to get one completed. I just don't have much energy after the morning at camp!

June 15, 2008 - The new flower bed

Yesterday we made another flower bed. Soon we will have more garden than grass : )

I planted:

Nepeta
Monarda
Malva alcea
Coreopsis
Siberian iris
Happy Returns day lilies
some old iris rhizomes, I'm not sure if they will grow or not.

I have 2 different colors of hosta I will plant in bunches of 3 around the perimeter. Now we need mulch. That will be a process, not an event!

In other flower beds I planted more nepeta, malva alcea, dianthus and salvia.

After the hard week of flooding rains in much of the state, it is good to have some beautiful sunny and dry weather today.

Karen

June 4, 2008 - snotty squirrel

It's a little hard to see because I took the photo through the patio door. This squirrel, perched on the rim of one of my flower pots, was coated in dirt from head to the tip of his tail. We had total eye contact I thought I heard someone saying, "Na na, na na boo boo."

Ewwwww! - June 3, 2008

I had some quilting scraps in plastic shoe boxes in the basement. I want to organize my gardening shelf, you know, a place for everything and everything in its place.

As I removed the fabric scraps I could see there were dead little bodies of former insects. Ick!

Gives a whole new meaning to pre-washing your fabrics before piecing!

The photo is 9 new perennials I bought today.

Karen

May 23, 2008 - A full day of work

I didn't think you would really want to see a picture of my bucket full of weeds that were pulled today. I got a good start, but there are always more. We need to get a load of mulch in here and get it spread out to discourage those nasty weeds. I also sprayed the back yard gardens with lots of Miracle Gro to make them happy : )

Still plugging away at the laundry the kids brought home--clothes, towels, lots of bedding.

I am 4 days for 4 of getting on the tread mill. Due to my age and health reasons I decided I have to make aerobic exercise a priority. Walking the dog doesn't count, he is too slow! Still working on the eating part...

I am also making 2 adult size Very Hungry Caterpillar bags for friends who are teachers.

My son has been home and working for a whole week and my daughter arrives home tomorrow from a week long leadership camp in eastern Upper Michigan. It will be good to be together again. Even the dog is anxious for us to be together.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend.

Karen

May 17, 2008 - It's planting time

I bought 15 annuals and perennials to plant. I got started yesterday and hope to get the rest planted today.

I also have tons of weeds to pull and a new bed to dig up. I am going to plant sunflower seeds and columbine seeds there.

I also bought 2 six gallon pots for the patio. One will have wildflowers and the other tomatoes and maybe some lettuce.

So, no sewing today. I do have my Moda U class and plan to get some triangle paper for making the quarter square triangles (98 of them) for my husband's quilt.

May 14, 2008 - No quilting happening here

photo by Mario Maier

I went to visit my sister and her family 3 weeks ago. It was fun to hang with them and see my nieces. We played a lot of dolls and school! They liked the caterpillar bags I made. They had 8 Painted Lady chrysalids; 6 of them hatched while I was there. It was very cool. But we never got to see any of them actually emerging.

Since I got back I have been trying desperately to get some of my papers and "stuff" organized. Also, Spring has sprung and that means time in the garden.

My kids are nearly finished with their semester at school so I moved all our things our of their rooms.

We rented a U Haul yesterday and went to pick them up and move them out. One has all her things in her room, but one has all his stuff in the living, waiting to sort. We also emptied our storage unit of things left from my dad's condo.

There is going to be a LOT of sorting going on around here!