The Flag, the Funeral and the Conference

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Last week was hectic. Really hectic.

Monday: Packed for a week’s trip. Finished running errands and getting ready by 1am.

Tuesday: Up at 6am. Out the door by 7:30am. Funeral at 11:45am at Ft. Logan in Denver. After the funeral, the Thomas family, Dan and I went out for breakfast/lunch at the Littleton Cafe, which use to be an IHOP. In fact, it was the IHOP that John and I use to go to for breakfast before speech meetings. It was great. Granted, the cafe was probably glad when the 22-23 of us finally left.  After that, we headed over to Judy’s house and visited for a while. When Dan and I got ready to leave, Erin asked me to wait. He had something for me. It was the flag that he’d been presented with as eldest son. He said that as I had been the military wife for 17 years, that I should have it.

John Thomas' flag

Later that night, we went to the wake held by the SCA. It was lovely. Lots of good food, friends and drink.

Wednesday: After sleeping in, and a brief trip to IKEA, we headed to Colorado Springs for the CASB conference. We checked into the hotel and collapsed.

Thursday-Sunday: The Colorado Association of School Boards 75th Annual Winter Conference. It was a good one. I didn’t get elected to the CASB board, but I will run again next year. Learned a lot. Saw a lot of people and made some new connections. I will have a bunch of stuff to tell my board.

Today. Catch up day. Job day. Deal with insurance day. My head is spinning and it isn’t even noon yet. Oh, and the week isn’t slowing down yet. Tomorrow is the school board meeting. Wednesday, we go shopping in Pueblo. Saturday is John’s memorial down here at the library. sigh….

Taking a deep breath

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We headed to Denver in snowy weather the last week of February, on our way to a CASB conference. (Colorado Association of School Boards) Two days of Legislative Updates on what our local state politicians are up to. It was a pretty good conference, and we had a lovely hotel. Of course, there was about 10 inches of snow that fell while we were there. Thursday night we went to a COCatalyst.org meeting which was different.

Friday, Dan went off to get the car so we could head home. What should have taken 15 minutes took forever. The doorman at the Brown Palace heard that there had been a couple of accidents because of the snow, and of course I panicked a bit. My phone was in the car, so I finally borrowed a phone to call Dan. He was alright, just. He had literally bounced from one accident to another. We finally headed out of Denver about 90 minutes later.

On the way home, the “fun” started. Dan was feeling worse and worse. By the time we got home, he was ill. We thought he’d eaten something bad. Nope. A very Nasty Virus. And of course, two days later, I got it. Ugh! I haven’t been ill like that in 15 years. All we did for the next week was sleep. I did everything possible via phone or email.

My first outing was a Celtic Music Festival meeting. Dan drove. I spent most of Sunday and Monday trying to recover and get back on my feet. I survived the school board meeting on Tuesday, shopping with my mom, and the Tech committee meeting on Wednesday.

In the middle of that meeting, I got a call from my mom. My Aunt Debbie had a stroke. Thursday was crazy. A new washer for my parents, my dad having a bad Alzheimer’s day and waiting to hear about my aunt. They did a lot of tests, and the decision was made to take her off of all the machinery today. If she lasts the night, they will move her to hospice. I know it may sound rather cold hearted, but I truly hope that she passes quickly. My mom went up with my sister Jill this afternoon to be with my cousin and sister. Dan and I are staying here to take care of Dad. Plus, Morgan is due home from college for Spring Break today. Oh, and one of my favourite authors passed away. RIP Terry Pratchett.

What a exhausting couple of weeks.

Oh the Chaos…

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Since last I had a chance to write, life has been just a little chaotic. First we had the Mountain Miners Day on September 20th. While I didn’t watch the parade or go to some of the events downtown, I was involved with a play written by Barbara Yule. It’s called “For Tomorrow We May Die”, the story of Mary Thomas. It was about a woman who survived the Ludlow Massacre. Originally it was a 3-4 person play, but turned into a one woman dramatic reading by Tanya Perkins. I made an apron and scarf for part of her costume and was the school connection as we were holding it at Washington School. It was lightly attended, but Oh My! It was beautiful.

The next week was a surgery for my dad, a school board meeting, a field trip with the school STEM class, a CASB (Colorado Association of School Boards) conference and the Celtic Music Festival. Yes, just a little jam packed. Dan drove my parents up to Colorado Springs for Dad’s surgery. I stayed home and attended the school board meeting.

On Wednesday, I went with Mark Thompson and his students to the Wings over the Rockies flight museum in Denver. That was a lot of fun.

Thursday was crazy. Once again, lots of stuff to get done. Dan was gone doing Celtic music festival stuff while I got things done around the house and prepared for the concert in Gardner. A Taste of Things to Come is always fun. The Gardner community center was packed.

Friday, 5:30am. Up, dressed and out the door to the CASB conference in Pueblo. Dan was out the door an hour later to work the festival. Lots of good info at the CASB event, and then home just in time to help at the first concert at the Fox. Full Set played. It was heavenly. Got home and got a phone call… My Dad was in hospital with an infection.

Saturday, 5:30am. Up, dressed off to Pueblo. Legislative delegate day at the CASB conference. I finished up by 2pm. Took Mom out to the hospital to see Dad. Then off to the evening concert and the 10th Anniversary concert afterwards. We got home around 1am.

Sunday. We got to sleep in until 7am! Wow! Off to La Veta for the final day of the Celtic music festival and the final performance of “For Tomorrow We May Die.” Oh was it grand. Packed house. Not a dry eye either. Oh… Oh my.

Afterwards, we went to see my Dad again. He was not doing well. Confused, etc. Monday thru Thursday was a mix of hospital trips, running errands, meetings, and playing catch up with work. Oh, and lots of planning. Friday, we got to bring Dad home. It was also the day that the doctors told him no more driving. So, Dan and I are now “Driving Mr. Sudar.” Luckily, Dad took it well after an initial bit of shock.

Over the weekend, we’ve tried to get ready for winter. We chopped firewood, cleaned up the yard a bit, brought plants in and have driven Mom and Dad wherever they needed to go. Somewhere in here we got our bathtub for the Wendy House. We hope to plumb it soon.New tub2 On Sunday we took a drive up Cordova Pass to see the aspen. Ahhhh… it was beautiful.

This week has been yet another rush of work, driving and meetings, and it is only Tuesday. Ah Chaos, thy name is normality around here…

Ah the difference of a fortnight!

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Two weeks ago we had snow. Today it is 83, and even the breeze is a tad warm. My backyard looks like a jungle, and I will have to pull tons of weeds just to find the patio. 🙂 I plan to do lots of yard work tomorrow. (insert giggle)

Friday, I went to see the school lawyer. We had a good chat and worked out various contracts and other bits and pieces. Afterwards, I indulged in a bit of retail therapy. Yes, I went shopping at Joann’s. I bought a bunch of fat quarters for a prayer flag swap I’m hosting with my online quilting group, QuiltersCoven. (350 online crazy pagan quilters.) I think we have 10 or 12 people participating. There was linen on sale, but I didn’t have the cash for it. sigh…

Saturday, we were sort of stuck, as it was rainy and damp. 🙂 Dan suggested that we head up to Pueblo and get that linen I hadn’t got the day before. I’m terrible about buying stuff for me. In the end, we got $180 worth of linen and thread to match for about $88. Rust, teal, navy blue and cream colored linen.

Sunday was suppose to be a sleep in and catch up day. Projects for the Wendy House and other things. Instead, we drove out and ‘rescued’ my parents. The oil and check engine light had come on and Dad pulled over. When Dan checked, there was less than 1/4th of a quart of oil. Three quarts later, we got them home.

My parents were suppose to head up to Littleton on Monday. However, the Subaru needed to be checked by a mechanic, just to make sure there were no hidden issues. That meant I drove my mom up to Littleton. We left around 9am. Listened to Old Blind Dogs on the stereo, talked and had a good time. I visited with my sister and her family, and picked up about 1/3 of a cord of wood. They had just chopped down a tree, and I said I’d take it. I’ll pick the rest up on a future trip.

While I was gone, Dan did some work on the Wendy House. He built the sink base for the bathroom and opened up a vent between the bedroom and living room. He also cleaned up the back porch that we use for a shop. Now to re-clean the herb room where he piled all the stuff that doesn’t belong in the shop!

Today, I’m catching up on a three day absence from the computer. 🙂 It was kind of nice. While I was reading email, I had a bird fly in the door, around my desk three times and then out the window. Tonight I have a school board meeting and tomorrow I’m gardening!

Boxes and screws and paint, Oh My!

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I am exhausted. After our adventures with the Front Range Open Source Hardware Symposium, we went shopping on Friday. Trader Joe’s and IKEA. Yes, the crazy Swedish store, that I love!

Originally, we just went in to grab a few bits and pieces. Napkins for my mom, a couple of light bulbs, that kind of thing. Well… we walked through furniture, trying to figure out how we were going to deal with a few issues on the Wendy House. That’s when we found this wardrobe. Normally it was $250, but discounted down to $179, as it was discontinued. We bought two. Plus we got a file cabinet and a kitchen table piece that we are going to convert to our bathroom sink stand. Yes, we spent a lot of money, but oh was it worth it.

Saturday, we cleared the area and began to build the wardrobes and the ‘closet area’ that we were going to put them in. Also known as “Yet Another Change of Plan.” It worked out much cheaper and over all better than what we’d planned. We worked until 10pm, collapsed in bed and slept.

Sunday, we woke up to SNOW. Not a lot, but enough that we would not be mowing my parent’s lawn. Instead, we came home and worked on the Wendy House. We got the wardrobes all finished, and moved into place. We were so tired, that we crawled into bed and just shuddered until our bodies decided that they’d punished us enough for all the hard work.

This morning, I shuffled clothes out of various spots. The wardrobes work a treat. Next on at least my agenda is to move the vanity and the big blue dresser out of our bedroom. They are both empty. Then I can re-arrange the bedroom/office side of things. Wheee! It grappled for a few minutes just before Dan took me out to lunch. This week the low temps are all suppose to be in the low 30’s. I had to bring all my plants inside!

Now if only I can move out of this chair… (creeeek!)

Closet project 2 Closet project.1

Switching Centuries

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Last week was a small bit of hell. There is an event in late winter which we had planned to attend. This is Corazon de Leon III. It’s held in La Veta and put on by our own shire. Shire Villaleon. I wanted to make some new clothes for the event, as it is a Winter event. A nice balance to Battlemoor, held at the end of August.

I bought the fabric in November, and figured that I’d have PLENTY of time to make two hats, a tunic and a new overdress. Silly me. Life in it’s own way got busy. So, on February 1st, I put my foot down. I was going to SEW! Keep in mind that my sewing studio is unheated. If you go back through my posts, you’ll notice something… Every one of them from November on has the word SNOW in the title. Can you see my problem? It was too cold most days to sit on the front porch and sew.

I also forgot to mention something. On February 19th, when we were up in Denver for the CASB Legislative conference, I slipped and broke my nose. Yes, big goose egg on my head, slight concussion and of course, the obligatory Black Eyes from hell. I managed one day at the conference before the bruises bloomed, but that was it.

It also put my behind schedule, because I just didn’t feel good enough to use a little tiny needle…

March 1st. Of course, there was snow. I managed though to plan out Dan’s hat.

March 2nd. Sewed, ripped, sewed, ripped the hat. Finally realized I needed fur. Rabbit fur. We had to order it. Fast.

March 6th. Cut out my dress and Dan’s tunic. Did a little sewing.

March 8th. It snowed, but I actually got some stuff done. Worked on the viking coat a little and did the last minute drafts for the tunic pattern. Keep in mind, that unlike most modern sewing patterns, medieval patterns are sketched and measured onto the fabric.

March 10th. Meetings. Awgh! Sewing like a crazy person. I used the machine on the major straight seams. All the flat feld seams and hems done by hand. 

March 13th. Dan’s hat is done, as is his tunic and the main portion of my apron dress.

March 14th. While with my parents in Colorado Springs, I’m sewing like crazy. Dad is suppose to be in hospital for bladder surgery, but instead we ended up in ER. They thought he had a stroke. Craziness ensues. Dad ends up spending the night in hospital, and we go home. Only good thing… I finished my hat.

March 15th. Corazon. Well, we managed to be there for about 3 hours. sigh… At least we got to see some friends and wear our new clothes for a few hours. Later that day we went up and got my Dad. No stroke, but not sure what happened. A very rough weekend.

Here are the pictures of the clothes and some of Corazon. This coming week, I’ll be doing some adjustments to the apron dress.

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Wind Whistling

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… through my ears, the walls and every crack it can find. We’ve had a lot of wind this year. The last really nasty gusts, 83mph, ripped our weather station off the roof. It still isn’t fixed, so now I check our local weather station. (63F and 20mph gusts right now) Our dog, Brandy, hates the wind. You’d think a coyote/Shepard mix wouldn’t mind. Wrong! So, we woke this morning to her whining and wanting IN!

WendyHouseWork10

Life is still hectic. While the last two weeks was busy with meetings and oddball schedules, the next two are travel heavy.

First off, I’m going to Denver tomorrow with my friend Jolene. We are going to IKEA to get stuff for her Pre-School class. Wednesday, after lunch with friends, Dan and I are off to Denver for a CASB Legislative Conference. It’s at the Brown Palace Hotel. Very swanky. 🙂 A pull out the high heels and leave the cowboy boots at home kind of thing. The last day of the conference is spent at the Capitol, meeting legislators.

When we get home, if the weather will allow, we will be doing more work on the Wendy House. Closets and maybe book shelves. That will open up the area and get our clothes out of the ‘dust zone’. 🙂

We’ve also been slowly whittling down our electric bill by using LED lights. Our next step may be solar and DC powered lights. We figured out how to replace the AC bulbs with DC LED lights, and not have to totally rewire. (thank you Scott!)

I’ve also got just under three weeks to get ready for Corazon. I bought a new book last night, Great Book of Celtic Patterns, by Lora S, Irish. Lots of very nice patterns to use with my Viking persona, Unna Farulfsdottir.

Dratted Cold Continues

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We did have a few warm weeks. However, Ground Hog’s day saw us plunge back into arctic weather. Snow and COLD. It was -22 Wednesday night. it would have been alright except for the wind rattling the trees and plunging us into wind chill cold. Speaking of wind, we had one tremendous wind storm just over a week ago. Just before it ripped the weather station off of the house, it registered 83mph.

It’s been busy since I posted last. Lots of school board meetings, stacking firewood, trips to Pueblo for all sorts of things, stacking more firewood, trips to Denver, moving more firewood, working on organizing the crafts area, taking care of my parents and their house, working on knitting and nalbinding needles, and trying to stay warm!

I have to admit that I am so glad that we have our little woodstove. It is our sanity saver even if it seems like all I do some times is move, stack, restack and move more firewood. 🙂

We are getting ready to build the closet in the Wendy House. Two weeks ago while it was still warm, we built a small cover for the plumbing and I bricked in part of the patio area next to the Wendy House. The cover worked pretty well, until two nights ago. It was too cold for any plumbing. At least we use Pex, and that is pretty sturdy.

I’m hoping to get the craft area fixed up this week if it is warm enough. I want to finish up a few projects and get going on some that have been burning my brain. 🙂 We have Corazon in about a month, and I want some things done so that we have warm gear! 🙂 I did get my socks done. I only did the first one in August, and didn’t do anything else for nearly 6 months.

Well, off to finish dinner. Italian onion soup. 🙂

Oh what a crazy month!

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This month has been crazy. Chaotic. Dizzying. Now, I thought it was a little crazy, because I spent most of the first week at the CASB Winter Conference. This is the big school board association conference held every year at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. It was a very good, although COLD conference. Average temperature was about 13F outside for most of the week.

I went up on the 4th, as I was presenting at the New Boardmember’s Boot Camp Workshop. 🙂 Five minutes of fame. LOL! Well, it started snowing on Wednesday morning and I was taking a school district vehicle. The VAN. A huge 12 passenger van, which made me feel like a five year old. I nearly needed a step ladder to climb in. Granted, it was nice to have the weight, as I was driving in snow and on ice most of the time.

This was also the first time in almost a year that Dan couldn’t come with me. As it was so cold, he stayed home to keep Brandy from turning into a Pupcicle. We had no one to feed her or dog sit her, so there was no choice but for him to stay.

Thursday was great. I went to my first session about Rural districts and then presented that afternoon. Five minutes on ‘how data is important.’ The rest of the conference was good, and I was very glad to get home on Sunday. Once I got home, we went and picked Morgan up from La Junta. Monday, I spent time with Daniel and Angela. We went shopping in Pueblo and had a great time. I should have gone to a District Accountability meeting, but I didn’t make it.

Tuesday was our board meeting. A long one, but good. Thursday was busy. Two events. A school holiday party and a school district office party. Sort of stacked together, but we managed both. 🙂 Good thing they were next door to each other.

Friday, we drove to Denver. We did a bit of shopping and on Saturday we saw our computer client. Got home late Sunday. The week started out busy. A trip to Pueblo, work for Dan, the holiday program at Gardner on Wednesday, cleaning my parents house and then up to Denver again on Thursday because our computer client was having weird issues. Friday we did shopping and then drove home late.

Saturday was Solstice. Yule. We got up at dawn and enjoyed the sun rise. Then instead of a nice breakfast, we had to check on the school wrestling tournament. Should have been a 10 minute stop. Nope. It wasn’t. At noon, I left to go help my dad stack a cord of firewood. I was done in 90 minutes, and went back to the wrestling tournament. We were there till about 7pm. Afterwards, we grabbed dinner and then collapsed in bed.

We woke up to snow this morning. Today we did odd jobs around the house and tried to relax a bit. Oh, and Dan built a faux satellite transmitter to test his ground station. The rest of the week isn’t looking much calmer.

This is the song that I woke up with on Solstice.

CASB

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Thursday night we headed for Denver for the Fall Conference and Delegate assembly. There was a lot of good information, and the assembly was short and sweet. There were good conversations and I got to see people that I enjoy talking with about school board and education issues. As usual, I took Dan with me. 🙂 He enjoys the conferences as well and participates which is great. It’s like having an extra board member with me.

Friday night we had planned to drive down to LoDo to have dinner at the Rio Grande. We were both too tired, so we ate at the Modmarket. Yum! I had a lovely salad. Oh that there was one in Pueblo!

Saturday, we finished the conference and then headed to a computer client’s house. We got to have our appointment a week early. 🙂 This means we can go visit Morgan on the 18th. Then it was off to IKEA.

Yeah, we’ve been there a lot lately. This time we picked up the light fixtures for the Wendy House. We got these cool lamps. I also found some cheap rugs for entranceways, light bulbs, a couple of holiday candle lamps, and fabric out of the discount area. 🙂 Once the fabric is washed, I’ll be making adjustments and will have curtains in the kitchen!

Sunday, we should have been doing work on the house. Instead, we went to Pueblo and went to Target and Home Depot. We were too tired and brain dead to do any actual construction. That will happen this weekend. Just in time too, as it is getting cold There was snow on the Spanish Peaks this morning. We had a cold slushy rain in town last night.