August!

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It’s been a busy month since I got home from my micro-vacation. Way too much going on and barely time to breathe, let alone write on the blog. Right now I am working on preparations for BATTLEMOOR!

I’ve been repairing clothes and starting some new Viking pants for Dan. These are brown linen and should be much cooler than his flannels. I’m hoping to make some Beledi Dance clothes for me. I’ve got fabric for two pairs of sarouelles. (baggy pants) I’m using Folkwear Pattern #119.   I’m also making a couple of tunics for one of the Battlemoor crew.

I’ve had lots of meetings, work in the garden, and trips to Pueblo. My mom has had cataract surgery, my nephew moved out, and it’s rained!!!! We also discovered part of the reason that our garden hasn’t done as well this year. Deer. They eat down all the new shoots. sigh…

The school district is trying to get a Mill Levy Overide to provide more money for the schools as well. Tonight there is a drum clinic at Washington school. Dan is doing the sound work. I’m just going to go deaf. 🙂

Back to sewing!

Twas a Dark and Dreary Day

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Yesterday was cold! Wet! Rainy! Even Penny, my nephew’s dog didn’t want to go out.

Penny

We put our work on emptying the storage locker on hold. Instead, we got soaked while we picked the last of the tomatoes. Had to toss almost as many immature tomatoes as we picked that were viable. Probably close to 12 pounds worth of regular and cherry tomatoes combined. Now my kitchen is festooned in green globes. 🙂 We picked bell peppers and pulled onions as well. Kale is all that is left in the side garden and onions and leeks in the back.

This last week has been busy. I took Mom to Littleton to visit my sister on Wednesday. Friday I went to Golden for a two day CASB conference. It was really good. Saturday afternoon, I drove home and we attended the Spanish Peaks Legends Gala that night. Fancy clothes, good food and awards to people in the community who have made Huerfano County Great. Sunday we had the big post festival meeting. That actually went pretty well.

And the school district has been trying to get back on it’s feet. We have a dispute to deal with, and our executive secretary is just back to work. It’s been really rough on her.

Today we are hauling more stuff in from the storage unit. Wheee! My desk!!! I’ll be squeezing it into our bedroom. We will be moving other furniture and boxes as well.

Mom comes home on Saturday. 🙂 I hope to have all the reorganizing done by then. (mad cackling….)

 

Finding time!

Posted on by jsudar

It’s been crazy. We got back from Battlemoor and went into full on “Celtic Music Fest” mode. We had a great time, in spite of some last minute panic attacks, late teeshirts and a few other bits. Check out the website to see pics of the festival.

We’ve been working on emptying our storage locker and moving it all to my mom’s garage. This is in between shopping trips, packing away most of the summer clothes, rain storms, meetings, my nephew visiting, dog sitting, trying to find work, working, checking out our 1/4th of an acre of land, and school district issues.

Our executive secretary lost her grandma and husband in the span of two weeks. She’s devastated, and the office is just a tad scattered. Plus, we’ve been losing teachers. They simply can’t cope with rural Colorado and the needs of our students. The ‘funny side’ to this is that Dan is getting his substitute teacher’s license and will be replacing the STEM teacher.

Tomorrow we are off to work in Castle Rock. Aieee-ya!

Weather…

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We have had crazy weather. Sun, sleet, rain, hail, and now snow. We woke up to 2 inches of it. Luckily it wasn’t cold enough to damage the herbs and other plants.

It was a weird start to a very busy week. Lots of meetings. We also have to pick up Morgan on Friday. I think we will collapse on Saturday.

LiveWell Community Awards Dinner

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Last night after braving a downpour, Dan and I went to the LiveWell Awards and Community Celebration Dinner. We attended as we’ve worked with the various groups to open up the Washington School for use by the public. They’ve been holding cooking classes, and using rooms for meetings, weight lifting, and Boy Scout meetings. The theater has been opened for the local folkloric dance group, El Fandango. Later on, we will be holding the Spanish Peaks International Celtic Music Festival concerts there. As it is the basement that is being used the most, we’ve started calling it the Washington Underground.

Dinner was good. Lasagna and salad with carrot cake brownies. I had salad and a brownie as I can’t eat cheese. It was still good, and (drum roll….) Organic. 🙂

Then it was time for the awards. I never get awards, so I didn’t expect one last night. They handed out the four awards mentioned in the program. Cindy Campbell started mentioning two people who deserved a Community Builders Award, and that they added two more awards for the night. To my surprise, she called my name and Mike Moore’s. He’s our superintendent for Huerfano RE-1. We both got the same award. 🙂 It was wonderful. We got a hat, a shopping bag and a gift card. It was so nice to be recognized for the work we’ve done to open up Washington Underground.

Gardening!

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We have slowly been making over bits of the yard into garden. Some of the work has been transplanting stuff from the other house. Other bits are new. I used the rocks we had gathered a few months ago to make boundaries for various beds. We have seen growth in the rhubarb, roses and irises. Most of the herbs and potted plants survived as well. I have had to replant parsley, lavender and basil. We bought tomatoes and a beautiful yellow daisy for mom. As we’ve cleaned up the yard, we found tulips hiding in the deep grass and under grapevines. We still have more lawn to mow and then plant the squash and green beans in the areas Brandy can’t reach.

Rain, rain, rain, oh, and More Rain.

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It started yesterday. Just a wee mist of rain. My mom and I were running errands, and I swear that every time we got out of the car, it rained harder. By the time I got home around 4pm, it was cold, wet and miserable. The alley was dumping mud out onto the street like it did this summer. Our front porch leaked more and my sewing area was getting soaked. The wind did more damage to the roof than we’d realized. All the rain also meant that Dan and our friend Mark were not going to cut firewood.

So, today between taking my parents to the library and for a drive, I started moving my sewing room into the living room. I had to change how the room worked. I knew where I wanted my sewing stuff. That was the easy part. The difficulty started when I wanted to move my white cutting table in and place the tubbies of fabric. Keep in mind that all of the stuff which I’d been storing in Morgan’s room is now in the living room. Once I got to a certain point, I asked Dan for help.

Do you know what happens when you get one person with great spatial relations and an engineer in the same room trying to rearrange it? Chaos. 🙂 At one point, he tried to put a coffee table, a cedar chest, a lamp table and the rocking chair in the same 6 x 8ft space. It took a few hours, me landing on my arse at one point and a lot of furniture shuffling, but we figured it out.

As I was trying to figure out what to do with all the little knick knacks, I realized that Halloween/Samhain and my birthday were less than a month away. So, I had Dan get out the box of decorations and I decorated. 🙂 This is my favourite time of year.

Now we only have a small pile of stuff in front of the fireplace to find a new home before it gets too cold. (oh wait… it nearly is!) That and figure out what to do with the dining room table which is still living on the front porch.

Oh, there was one family member who wasn’t happy with the new arrangement. RedTom. He keeps waiting for the stuffed cat to jump him, and he just can’t get comfy.

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Where did the time go?

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I swear that every time I think I have a moment to write, “POOF!” it’s gone. And of course, now that means I get to play catch up. Where to begin? Umm… Oh yeah… House guests. They were with us for a month. It meant that life was a little crowded. I guess I’ll list some highlights.

July:

Painted the north wall of the Wendy House. Plus, we did a few additions to the plumbing, cut down trees and added a bunch of stuff to the compost bins. We did a lot of yard work in the back as well. Trees trimmed, firewood stacked, stairs fixed, etc. I hope to have more pictures soon.

Wendy House work1I got a new desk. I’ve been wanting something with drawers, and we found a gem. A roll top desk.New Desk4

I did a lot of sewing as well. First off, I made Dan a Utility Kilt. 🙂 Then I made a bespoke tunic for a tournament prize for Battlemoor. I did a lot of embroidery work on the Viking style tunic. I finished an under tunic as well, all hand sewn. I’m still working on two apron dresses.

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We had a LOT of rain as well. Some of it was so hard that it flooded the streets, and washed out alleys. On July 15th, we got over 2 inches of rain in less than an hour. Along with all the rain, we’ve had fog, mosquitos and lots of weeds! I think that we’ve hacked, chopped, mowed and composted enough for three bins.

August:

Dan and I have been working on a wiring job for the school district. Lots of ladder work for him, and running around for me.

Our company found a house and we cleaned house. 🙂 This was in preparation for Morgan finally arriving home. The Fuck up Fairy had done a number on that process, and were growing tired of delays. Daniel is also moving into an apartment in Pueblo, which means that the house will soon be back to it’s less crowded state.

On Sunday, we helped at a benefit concert for the Spanish Peaks Celtic Music Festival. Dan helped with sound and I helped where ever Barbara Yule needed me. The concert musician was Carlos Nunez. The music was wonderful. The venue was full, and everyone was happy. After the concert, we drove to Fowler to pick up Morgan. We saw 26 owls, a fox, a badger, frogs, and rabbits. Unfortunately, we hit two of the owls in spite of trying to avoid them. Morgan is very glad to be home, and we are happy too.

Last, but not least, we’ve been enjoying our new superintendent, Michael Moore. He is such a change from our last one. He likes getting things done and we are moving forward as a school district for the first time in ages! I attended the staff in-service day and it was wonderful. Laughter, good ideas, lots of sharing and in general, a feeling of hope and progress.

 

 

Cold and Quiet

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It’s so quiet at the moment, I can hear the sound of snowflakes shushing across the roof. Yes, SNOWFLAKES. Third Winters anyone?

The week was busy. With Morgan home, we did a lot of things together. Ate out, watched ALL the Harry Potter movies, played on our computers and watched Morgan sleep. Amazing how much a college student sleeps! 🙂

On Saturday, it was 75! We did lots of gardening. Mowed the lawn, pulled weeds, moved rocks, moved more rocks, picked up trash and repotted a bunch of plants. We crawled into bed smelling of aspercreme and groaning like we were 90.

Sunday, we knew it was suppose to be cold. It’s why we didn’t plant anything outside. We made bacon cinnamon rolls for breakfast. yum!

As the day wore on, it got colder and colder. Then the thunder and rain began. Soon after, the snow. Yes, snow. In May! Have I mentioned that Colorado is menopausal this year? By mid afternoon, it was really snowing.

May 10th3

Morgan packed for her trip to California. Around 5:30pm, we left for Pueblo. As we drove north, the snow slacked off, which was fine. However, the winds made up for it. We had dinner at Chili’s and then met Ashleigh and her parents at the bus stop. We chatted and made sure the girls got on the bus for California. Then the drive home. Ugh! You know how in sci-fi movies they have the star fields that move towards you? Well, that’s what it was like all the way home.

This morning, we woke up to 8 inches of snow in our yard. It’s still snowing. It’s suppose to snow tomorrow too. Can we have our warmer weather back? I know we need the moisture, but how about rain? I’d like to plant out my rhubarb and raspberry canes before July.

I have lots of pictures, but I’m going to divide them into separate posts.

Second Winters

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Yeah, sort of like second breakfasts in Lord of the Rings.

2ndwinter

Why? Well… um… You saw the pics in the Albuquerque trip post. That snow left us with 4 inches. It was all gone by Tuesday, and it even warmed up a bit. Wednesday wasn’t bad either. A little cool in the morning. Hot by noon. I even hung out some of my laundry.

By 3pm, the clouds had rolled in and the rain started. I dragged the clothes in and hauled in firewood. It kept raining. By 5pm, we had snain. Yes, snowy rain. By 7pm, it was snow. We woke up to 4 inches of new snow and about 21F temps. Brrr!

Of course, by Thursday afternoon, most of the snow had melted, and the mud was awesome!

Today of course we had a high of about 73! Next few days are suppose to be in the high 60’s with rain. 70’s again by Tuesday. This weather is just crazy!

Today I did some sewing, and learned how to pick and place parts on circuit boards. Apparently from what Dan says, I’m pretty fast. Did 9 boards in the time he could have done 3 or 4. 🙂 Tomorrow we are doing my parent’s yard work, shopping in Pueblo and then working on the Wendy House closet! Whee! Pics when we are done.