I'm still here...

I've just been really busy! We had our training for camp a week ago, and I've been following up on all the paperwork. Each staff member has an application, a contract, tax forms (A4, W4, I9), shirt order form, code of conduct agreement, and a parental release if under 18. So all the staff whose employment forms are complete are now copied and faxed to council, and I've entered all the T-shirt orders I have on a master form, and I'll be sending that in tomorrow, I think!

Add to that my youngest is graduating from college in a few weeks, and the announcements arrived last Tuesday. Of course, the way things go, the last line of the announcement was wrong (Physics Secondary Education majors do NOT go to the Nursing Convocation!!) When I called the company, they could see he did NOT request the Nursing line, so they sent another set of announcements. (of course, this batch was not correct, and the line "College of Science Convocation" was missing, but what the heck! I had to get the announcements out!) So those went into the mail today! YEA!!!

I got my camera to check if I had any new pictures to show you, but the battery is dead. So no new pictures today. I did get the second quilt bound and labeled, so it is now done. I just have to get after the third quilt. I have a couple of quilting friends coming this weekend for a private quilt-a-thon - so maybe I'll get that one done then. It will be great fun to quilt with friends for the weekend.

I've also started building a raised flower bed. I'm taking some of the stone we bought to make a flagstone walk to the front of the house, and setting it vertically about 1/4 to 1/3 in the ground, and slanting in toward the flower bed. I need to get it done so I can sprinkle seed before it gets too warm, and I don't get any flowers. This bed will be more of wildflowers, and plants that I buy that will not need a lot of water (at least after they are established!) I think it will be pretty, and can't wait to have it done. It is hard work moving all that stone, and getting it set in place though!

Well I started this post on the 27th, but now it is the 28th. Tomorrow evening we have our Pack Meeting, and I need to run to Flagstaff to pick up some items for that. Should be a fun time tho, and I have all the advancement and recognition stuff done for the meeting, so that is good.

Thanks for stopping by!

Updates on Quilting Progress

With everything I've been doing, I've made a little bit of progress on my quilting, and I want to show you. But first, I want to share some more pictures of snow!! Yes it is snowing at my house. It's been snowing for the last hour and a half, and it must have snowed last night.

I liked this picture because if you look close you can see birds in my neighbor's tree. And you can see some of the flakes in front of the wall of the house. We had planned to go to Phoenix for Easter, our boys who live in Tucson were going to come up to visit us. But because the weather predicted 3-6 inches of snow, and we needed to be home tonight, we have canceled Easter until next week. Isn't the weather funny?? Yesterday there was no snow on the ground, and the temps have been in the upper 50's and 60's. Now we have snow. Can't really complain, the forest needs the water. But it would have been nice if this storm had been 2 or 3 days later!!! Oh, I need to explain... This really is not a lot of snow, but the reason we cancelled our travels is the freeway - I-40 to be exact... Last year in March there was a horrible accident that involved over 100 cars, and had 2 fatalities. Just a few weeks ago during the last storm there was a 3 car accident between here and Flagstaff. When you live up here, you learn to avoid the highway when it is snowing. Too much traffic, too fast, too many semi's, too much risk.

But to update you on my quilting progress...

This quilt it done-done.

And this quilt needs the binding flipped to the front and sewn down, and it's label put on:

This quilt looks a little washed out to me in the photo, but the colors are really soft. It is a 30's print, with a scrappy back. I've made the labels for these 2 and a third quilt on my embroidery machine, and made the patch oval in shape. So I need to finish this quilt, and I have a third "quilt" which is a flimsy right now, so it needs to be layered, etc, etc.

Next post I'll show my last block-of-the-month block that I finished, and what ever I manage to do today.

Hugs to all, and have a Happy Easter!

OK, I just have to share my Crocus pictures with you.

Now, last year, I had several plants begin to grow, and saw about three buds, and then they all died. Never saw a flower open, and the plants didn't last for even two weeks. So I thought they were dead. (They're dead, Jim. (only if you are a Star Trek fan!)) Anyway, imagine my surprise when the plants sprouted this spring. And I got a flower, and then another, and.... well you get it. All the bulbs were supposed to have purple flowers, but somehow three of the plants had white flowers. And a few of the plants had two flowers each! And when I planted the bulbs, I put them in a nice square grid. And this year, they came up in between the original plantings. I'm jazzed enough that I will plant more bulbs this fall. And if they don't do a lot the first spring, I'll wait and see what happens the next spring. (Boy am I glad I never got around to replacing these bulbs with something else last summer!!)

So here is picture number 1. Showing three of the flower up close. I'm not sure now if the forth flower is a bud, or past it's prime. Does anyone know if I should have picked the flowers off after they were past their prime????

And here is a picture of the bed of Crocus plants- most of the bed anyway. You can see they are kind of sparse, and I really should have done something more with the ground before I put the bulbs in. (Yes, this is our rocky ground that I'm trying to work with. At least what you see is after I removed the biggest rocks!!!)

Well, I took these pictures a few weeks ago, and now all the flowers are over. The leaves are still living tho, so maybe that means the bulbs will be full of flowers next spring??? Won't that be nice!

Oh, here is another flower picture to share with you...

Yes, this is an Amaryllis. What makes this special to me is that it is a bulb that I had last year, and I managed to get it to flower again this year. Actually I had two bulbs I bought this last Christmas, and two from the Christmas before. I didn't dry out the year old bulbs soon enough, so they weren't ready to start for Christmas. The second year old bulb I kept in the garage a few weeks longer than this one, and it is getting ready to bloom any day now. And this last bulb sent up TWO flower stems. I can't wait to see how many flowers are on each of the stems. (Yes this bulb only had two flowers this year, but I'm just pleased that I could get it to flower a second year!!!! This year when the frost danger if over, I'm going to try planting two plants outside for the summer. Then I'll see if they do better next year than the ones I keep in the house.

So now we are caught up on my flowers - (almost, I do have new pansy plants in my front garden!) Next post I'll show the quilts I've been working on.

Hugs to all

Update on the voting for Fawn

Thank you all who took time to vote for my cousin's daughter Fawn in the Buffalo Brides Contest. Fawn gathered 11,000 votes! That was an amazing amount. The winning bride had 55,000 votes, so Fawn did not win the contest. She did however win tickets to a dinner and a movie. And I understand that the contest will run again next year, before her big day, so she might have another chance.
Thanks again, everyone who took time to vote. - Hugs to you all!!

Catching up, or at least starting to!!

I'm so far behind in my postings. I just went and read the blogs that I try to follow, but only had time to leave a few comments. Please know that I DID go and read your blogs. It is nice to catch up on what everyone else is doing.

Now to catch up on some thank you's!

First here are some post cards from my Posty Pals group! The Posty Pals card is from Rhonda. She does such great work with her embroidery machine! The next is from Valerie in Australia. She felt that she did not have time to continue with Posty Pals, but sent me this "real" post card as a final card. Aren't the scenes from South Australia just beautiful?! The third post card is from Carol in Sweden. The stripes on the cards are various ribbons (don't you just love the birthday cake ribbon!!). What a great effect - I wish I had thought of this!

This next picture shows the wonderful "cat" card I received from Holly. She appliqued those cats on to the card. And Holly is my partner for a fat quarter swap. This beautiful fabric is navy blue with the white print. It is calling out to me, but I can't figure out what to use it for yet. But I really like it... Maybe a topper for my kitchen table? Hmmm, I haven't looked at my assignment letter lately, and I bet with all the "goings on" in my life, I might have missed the deadline to send my fat quarter to Holly. Yikes! Holly - it will be in the mail to you shortly!

So that is a start at catching up. I'll try to get my flower and quilt pictures up soon.

Hugs.