School started today.
I can’t believe summer is over already.
I could swear that last week we were doing all of the last day of school
activities. How can summer be over if it is 113 degrees? I should knock on wood, quickly, since we haven't had a lot of 11* days so far but they are coming this week. Brady's school added a third class for his group so class size will go from 28 to 21. We're looking forward to that.
On the very first day of summer, we started an 11 day
vacation driving all over AZ, UT, and NV.
It was meant to be my birthday trip but it ended up as a family list of
destinations. That’s ok by me.
We returned from vacation to sports camps, two ongoing basketball leagues
and prep for fall baseball tryouts. A couple more weeks went by and we scrambled
to make another trip a success. There were
so many hurdles and changes of plans but we were able to take Brady to an 8 day
“camp” with his aunt, uncle and cousins.
He had the time of his life. Camp
was mostly Brady and his 8 year old cousin from CA, Keira. To watch these two play acting and making up
voices and stories was hilarious. We
even managed to talk them into a brief goodbye hug.
Mike and I got to enjoy those days, just the two of us. We managed to survive after Mike optimistically
took us to a rough area of town late one night, in search of Portland’s
signature donut shop. See Mike's voodoo doll donut with pretzel stick below. Luckily, my info
was correct, and not Mike’s (that the trains weren’t running again until 4
a.m.). I ended up shopping at three
quilt shops. Two were unexpected and the
planned shopping trip was a disaster.
New rule: don’t shop at unfamiliar
places when they’re having a sale (40% off most fabric and the place was bigger
than the Door Mouse). They had two
cutting lines and one must have been 40 people long. The traffic and terrain getting there were no
fun either. I left with nothing and was
happy just to get out of there without derailing our trip any further. We are usually lucky with minimal travel
delays but, on this trip, we got delayed in PHX with the first monsoon of the
season and delayed in Seattle with a plane issue. We didn’t get home until 4 a.m. and … I was
supposed to get up for work at 5:30.
That didn’t work. What’s one more
vacation day?
I was certainly awake a few hours later when I noticed a
live scorpion in our bedroom. Why am I
always the one to discover these things?
We had done a sweep of the yard and house when we got home from vacation
but saw nothing. We have decided
(rationalized?) that it came in with our luggage or with Sherman’s stuff from
the pet sitter. We continue to sweep for
them after dark but …. Grrrrr. Two live
scorpions in the house in two years is two too many.
With all of these activities, sewing has been sidelined
again. I’ve been busy trying to keep my
sewing room organized and the guild’s charity sewing fueled with the right
supplies when needed. We ended up being
out of town for the meeting when my Jinny Beyer was “due” so that made it easy
to miss that deadline. Sigh. It’s together but needs the pieced
border. I’ve been a bit stymied on the
best way to do it without distracting seams.
I need to find the energy for some retreat planning and
prepping. I’ve made a list so that’s a
reasonable start. It will probably
include putting together a couple of sets of blocks into tops, a couple of
pillowcases, a simple modern top to comprise the back of a quilt that already has
a front, and maybe even something NEW for a change. I tend to get a lot done in these pre-retreat
weeks but I will have to be creative with my time. Fingers crossed!
