Home, briefly

I hope K is happy...all of his impatience is quickly being negated by the crazy busy-ness we are in the midst of. He was gone last week for an interview, got home late Thursday night, then we left Friday for OK, got home today and then we both leave early Tuesday for a job interview/area visit. Things are moving along well on the job front though, so not going to complain about that. Just looking forward to being on the other side...moved and settled in!

Another sunrise picture...took lots this week, but several were taken while I was driving, so they didn't come out very clear.
The butterflies have been flocking to my parent sedums this past week.
We had a really nice trip to Wichita/OK. Friday we attended a family friends' memorial service...it was a really wonderful tribute to a wonderful man. Then we headed to another family friends' newly built home for an amazing evening of friendship and food. Yesterday was K's step-dads' 70th birthday party. Had a great time making him worry about how we were going to roast him...but we were pretty darn nice! Was a lot of fun to see friends that we rarely see. So I'll share pictures of a couple of those friends. First up is Todd, showing off spurs that he hand crafted for his wife...what talent! I put in a request for a pair of my own! Too bad my first name isn't Jennifer, or she might have not made it home with this pair!
And we'll end this short post with Glenn. He is a very talented singer...in fact we asked him to sing our first dance song (I Cross My Heart) at our wedding. He was wonderful to listen to as usual...in fact I asked if he'd call me every night and sing me a lullaby as he left last night.

Go Cats!

I'm keeping it fairly short this week...our craziness that I mentioned last week has begun, and I'm hoping that I can keep up with it all and continue to post here...at least a little glimpse into what's going on...over the next few weeks.

First up, changing it up a bit, this week we have a couple of late afternoon/sunset pics. The first is smoke from a fire on fort that drifted all the way to out by our house.


Not much new on the creative front...a lot of things in various stages of completion, but only 1 LO finished, and no picture of it yet.

Our big event for the week was attending the KSU vs. Kent State football game Saturday. I was so excited as we walked into Cat Town to have dinner before the game and there was Willie...so I had to get my picture with him!The new dark purple end zones are awesome looking:
And here are K and I at the stadium:
And the best part of all (well, besides winning!)? We got some much needed rain...that started just as the game was finishing! We went prepared with our rain ponchos, but since they were predicting thunderstorms, we weren't too excited about the idea of a rain delay, but with 45 seconds left in the game, the rain began to fall, and the lightening filled the sky soon afterwards. Woke up this morning to 1.25 inches of rain! Not enough by a long shot, but much appreciated!

Let the craziness begin!

Another late summer week, another batch of sunrise pictures. Sorry if it gets boring...but it is what I'm seeing a lot of these days...that and ragweed, and I promise the sunrises are much prettier than the ragweed and my allergic eyes & nose!

Here are 3 of my favorites from this past week.

And here is something a bit different...tonight's moonrise. So pretty with the clouds and the barn and the field...
Let's see...on the crafty side of life, I completed a bunch of scrapbook kits this week. I admit that they don't stretch my creativity like designing my own layouts, but they are super easy to get done, and it's an easy way to get things scrapped. I tend to use my own designs more when I'm wanting to tell more of a story, or a more important story...I never feel that kits 1. give you enough room for long journaling, and 2. feel personal enough for the important things. But, they are a fast and easy way to scrap every day pictures that might otherwise just sit in the photo albums but never be seen by anyone. I also finished up a couple more Prima Live projects, but I don't have pictures of them...have to remember to do it when I have good outside light to use or they come out pretty yellowed in the light indoors.

Mom and Dad came out this weekend, and while Dad and K rode the horses and I worked on kits, Mom worked on a couple small and relatively simple quilts she has been wanting to try. They aren't finished, but they are super adorable so far, so can't wait to see how they turn out. Much like when I was working on my rag quilt last weekend, she got tons of help from the pups...Lucky being the most helpful:
And he wouldn't move. She ended up leaving him there for ~30 minutes and doing something else until he decided to relocate. Not that he's spoiled or anything! Actually he just celebrated his 14th birthday last Friday (9/9, the same day as grandpa Ron's), so he can get away with most anything these days. I am about a 5th of the way through getting my rag quilt edges snipped...and we even got to try it out unfinished after having a kitty accident in bed at ~11pm Saturday night. Slow and steady is my mantra for getting it finished, but I am getting rather excited to have a blanket on the bed that still covers me even with dogs in the middle weighing it down (seriously, if you have never slept with 50-70lb dog blanket-weights on blankets that barely go down the sides of the bed to begin with, especially on cold winter nights, you don't know what kind of frozen body parts you are missing!)

And did I mention crazy? This weekend we'll be headed to a KSU football game with G&J (GO CATS!), then K has his next interview next Wed/Thurs., followed by a trip to Wichita/OK for a friends' memorial service and K's step-fathers' 70th birthday party at the end of the week. Then the next week we are working to schedule trips for both of us to visit the two places he interviewed with a couple of weeks ago to determine if we think we can live there (completely different climate and lifestyle than what we are used to). He keeps complaining about how impatient he is to move on to an exciting new job, and I keep saying that when things start rolling, we are going to be going crazy with everything that we have to get done. I think he's starting to see my point with the schedule that is lining up to take us through the rest of September.

I am excited about what the future holds for us, but I know once I'm away I'll miss KS again...the changing farmland with the seasons, seeing for miles and miles (including all of those wonderful sunrises), the ragweed, er, no no no, not the ragweed, and, especially at this time of year...the sunflowers...

Whooooosh

Yep, that was the sound of a long weekend flying past! I live for these 3-day weekends, but never seem to get done all that is on my to-do list. I say we should have 3-day weekends every week...either that or I shouldn't have to work at all!

So, more sunrises this week.
And just one of the many deer we see on our way to work. It drives the pups nuts when they go jumping out of the fields and across the road in front of us. There are a couple spots where they tend to cross, so we have at least learned to be on the look-out for them to avoid having a collision. In one spot there are a couple of does with fawns (one has twins) who still have their adorable spots who we see quite often, and in the other there are several bucks and does that cross. This is one of the does, but her fawn took off and I didn't get a picture of him.
K was at interviews this week. They went really well, and we expect follow-up to be coming soon. While he was away, I was home sweating in the heat and humidity doing chores alone. My parents were awesome and kept Bode & Lucky, so that Ardee & I hung out on the farm together. He is so good and easy to deal with (i.e. he eats well and doesn't run off), and I feel a bit more secure having him here...heck, he barked at the horses one night when I was trying to defend Chelse (the old horse) so she could eat all of her feed. He seemed to enjoy the special attention of getting to run the place on his own...he didn't even seem to care when K got home, while the other 2 smothered him. Poor middle child needed the extra attention! Here we are on our way into town one morning.
K has been letting the horses graze the lower field below the barn on weekends. They like the plentiful green grass, and it has slowed their hay eating a bit. Plus Chelse usually doesn't join them, and that means she gets to graze and drink and do whatever she pleases without them bothering her. When they get bored, then they start acting like goof balls...which ranges from running all over bucking and snorting, to exploring, and this is the indication that they need to be rounded up and returned to the fenced in pasture. Thus K usually sits out to watch over them, but this can be quite boring if they are behaving, because they may graze happily for hours. Saturday he decided to mow while he waited, since he'd still be able to monitor them. I was working on projects when he taps on the door and tells me I need to come outside. I walk out the walk-out basement, and look up the hill to find this:Yep, they had decided to explore the back yard. Now mind you that if you were riding or trying to lead them through the gates into said yard, they would have a fit! They left precious little 'piles' and then headed back on out and continued to explore until K finished the mowing.

So back to what whoooshing sound...there was a whole slew of projects I wanted to at least work on this weekend, but it just didn't happen. Luckily I scrapped Friday night, and I hope to work on a few more things tonight. But the project that I told myself I would spend exactly 1 day on? Well, it ended up consuming my entire weekend. Not that that is a bad thing...its almost done, but that means a whole lot of other things didn't get done. And this big project? My massive 120" x 120" rag quilt. I was thinking it would be a bit of motivation...I would spend 1 day working on it, hoping that I would get to strips of 4 squares at most, but then I would spend the other 2 days doing scrappy stuff. So I started Saturday morning, and by that night I had progressed until I had strips of 8 squares! Then yesterday I got up and decided that with 1 more day of work, I could probably have it all sewn together. And I would have too if the electric wouldn't have gone off at 10pm last night! But with a couple hours work this morning, it is all assembled. From the best I can tell, it's really pretty too! Now comes the oh so fun task of snipping all of the edges so that they will fray when it is washed. Guessing that one might take a few weeks...a person's hand gets rather tired snipping all of that fabric.

I set out with 14 different fabrics, and was hoping that I could, by random arrangement (I didn't want to have to plan it), end up with no 2 alike squares touching. After a whole lot of arranging and rearranging yesterday afternoon, I think I achieved that goal...at least close enough. I know I have some diagonal matching squares, but I'm pretty sure that would have required mapping them out from the beginning to avoid. Anywho, no finished pictures (since its not finished!), but here is one of the sets of 2 squares laid out so I could decide what combinations to put together for my strips of 4.And here is my helper this morning as I finished sewing the last of the rows on...I guess it has Serine's seal of approval!