Six Weeks and Counting

Yesterday, Friday, was on of those days.

We have rescheduled FTD's IEP (Individualized Educational Plan) meeting 3 times--there were big, bad snowstorms canceling the first two dates we picked. That's always a fun time. NOT. He's at the cool new regional vocational HS this year, and we had high hopes. Don't any more.
FTD is definitely not working to capacity. We get that. But who works full tilt cleaning restrooms anyway? Especially since we were told when he was being tested/admitted that he'd likely get to work in the computer/drafting areas for at least part of his day. Unfortunately, his teacher is so fixated on his scruffy beard that she didn't/wouldn't/couldn't get him into any other programs. I'm pretty sure she didn't try. How many times did we need to ask????? Oh, wait. . . . after having FTD in public school for 16 years. . . I know the answer to that. Once again we are frustrated to the point of pulling out our hair. We might just pull him from school altogether and let the chips fall where they may. He will soon be eligible for waiver options, assuming our moron of a governor doesn't cut the funding for that program also. We're currently looking for Certified Waiver Providers, so if you know any, let us know. I have the list of everyone in Lucas County Ohio who is certified, but they are all strangers to us.



Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . .
And in the exciting yet alarming news, I got a note from my boss.

Good news: I can start working on May 8. Good news for my pocketbook, a wee bit tough on the family.

More good news is that we'll have 8 rangers again this year--with NO barricade duty! That means rove time and maybe a second ranger at the WYVIC during the day when we are 15 families deep at the desk. The bad news: Three of our four rockin'est rangers won't be back. Dr. D. is going to do wildlife jams all summer (which surprises me immensely), Carol has decided to retire, and so did Bob. Holy cow, talk about loss of institutional memory! These three folks are truly awesome rangers/naturalists/historians/humans. I shall miss each of them soooooo much! And the Divine Miss M is going to work the gate in the summer, then interp in the winter. (NPS has this wacky rule about a person can't work 2 seasons in a year in the same division/area. When that happens, folks become full-time employees. God forbid. So if you want to work year-round for NPS and you don't have perm-full-time status, you have to work in two different parks or two different divisions. In the case of YNP, you can work in different regions of the park, us being so dang big and all. The up shot is that you can work nearly full-time, but you don't get the bennies. Yeah, it sucks.) So all of our staff changes mean . . . . wait for it . . . . . I'll be the one with the most NPS years at Madison, as well as the most overall environmental education experience or any any other work experience. Hell, I've got more experience in total than the other guys put together. Scary, eh? This will be my 6th NPS season. (Which I think fails to register with a lot of folks.) Any who, Dr. Pi will be back, along with DM.

On the more good news front, B&L, the mostest awesomeest NPS volunteers will be back at Mad. They had talked about working at West, but I'm soooo glad they'll be at Mad. (They woulda been bored silly at West, honestly.) And we'll get last years WYVIC volunteer at Mad. Boy, is he in for a surprise! While we have a short afternoon lull at WYVIC, there are no lulls at Mad. (Bring it on!)

So this presents the annual question: Where will the Duv's live? Last year, 4 of our rangers had their own housing, leaving 4 of us in apartments. This year, all 8 of us need apartments. Our apartment has had two unrelated rangers living there some years. Oh crap. My boss asked if we could scrunch into the one BR place, and the answer is no, there's no way we can. Oh crap. Now what?

Hobo Blocks, Coming Up

Yesterday's Friday Night Sew In produced 4 more finished blocks, two of each of these:

Along with the ones I did the other day. Hmmm, did I already post these? Well, here they are cropped and purty.... And Happy National Quilting Day!

Friday Night Sew In & National Quilt Day

Hey hey hey! It's Friday! And tonight is Sew In Night again. Hmm, should I work on more blocks for DD or wind yarn for BadAmy? Or put the backing on the Wedding Quilt, or or or......

I am going go into town to pick up another batch of GS cookies. And well, whaddoyaknow, the ice cream shop is open now, too........

So I just read on the Empress's blog that Lizabeth is having a give away. It's a stash buster of civil war prints from one of her friends. You know, the 150th commemoration of said war has officially begun, right? So I could use some more fab fabric. Sorry, Empress, move over honey, I'd really like this one! The give-away will happen on National Quilt Day. Who knew?

Springtime Rumors

This morning's pics:

Rumor has it that we will have spring this year. Yeah. Right.

Just One Star Done

I got 6 of these stars done today. They took longer than I expected--and of the time it took, I'm guessing I spent 45% of my time cutting, 45% pressing, and 10% sewing. But tomorrow I'll get them in the mail.

Just One Star

On Tuesday, March 15, the flags of the United States of America will fly at half-staff in memory of Mr. Frank Buckles, the last of the US Soldiers who fought in the War to End All Wars. How grand that folks of that time thought it would be the last war, not the first World War. As we send more men and women into harms way under new and devastating circumstances, there is something we can do on the home front to attempt to alleviate some of the suffering.


Make just one quilt block.


Moda Fabrics is coordinating an effort to create quilts for soldiers who are wounded in action. Read about it HERE.

Tomorrow, I will make a star. In memory of Mr. Buckles.

I will make one star in memory of Cpl. Frank Britt, WWII US Army. My Daddy.

I will make one star in memory of Lt. Jessie Alice West Britt, WWII US Army. My Mom.

I will make one star in honor of Sgt. Brian Rozick, USAF/180th Fighter Wing. My Friend.

I will make one star in honor of Gen. Mark Bartman, USAF/Ohio Air National Guard. My Friend.

For whom will you make
just one star?

Another Birdy, Quilty, Winding Weekend

We've reached the gray days of March, so we're all running a little on empty here. And I managed to catch FTD's cold, just as he was getting rid of it. How lucky for me. He missed another 4 days of school last week. Drat.

I've been winding, er unwinding yarn for BadAmy. I'm using the warping board, which means it takes me 28 to 32 minutes to get a skein of yarn from the 'normal' length (a loop about 4 feet around) to dying distance loops, nearly 30 feet around. She has several contraptions in her basement for the winding/unwinding/rewinding stuff. I don't have the time (or inclination) to drive to West Toledo every day to help over at BadAmy HQ, so we're trying it here. I can realistically only do 4 skeins a day, max, which only helps a little. We might set up a big, honkin' contraption here like she has there. I'd post pics, but I've been sworn to secrecy so as not to give away any company secrets. Hmmm..... are all indie dyers like this??

I needed some fabric therapy after all the winding, so I hauled out the stuff to make more blocks for DD's Hobo Quilt. I got 10 more blocks done last night--5 new block patterns. I'm finding that I really love thinking up new ways to use machine applique instead of the piecing patterns that came with the book. Seriously, I'll do anything to avoid all those itty bitty triangles.

And I actually got out of the house for a while~~just me and DH, for a nice change. We've had a couple of reports of a Bald Eagle in the neighborhood and we went to check it out. There's a golf course 3 miles north of us, across the street from the northern boundary of the Park, and the pro there said he has seen eagles carrying sticks to trees in the middle of the course. There's a nice oak woods there. We spent a good amount of time looking for eagle evidence, but alas, none. There have also been reports of an eagle in the cemetery next to the golf course. We looked and looked over there, but no luck. Then we parked on an old Park road and walked back along Swan Creek, hoping that maybe the birds were nesting back there. Alas, no luck on that run either. But it is good for DH's soul to get back off the main drag in the Park. Me, too.

I'm off today for my annual "What's wrong with MBD's old, fat body this year" testing. The good news is that my blood work rocks~~again~~and we're not looking for anything weird. Whew.

Happy Birthday, Girl Scouts and Girl Guides! Part 2

99 years ago today, the first meeting of the Girl Guides, soon after to be re-named the Girl Scouts, met in Juliette Gordon Low's home in Savannah, Georgia. Mrs. Low was a friend of Lord and Lady Baden-Powell, founders of the Boy Scouts. It occurred to Daisy (her camp name, a tradition that continues to this day) that girls also could use emergency preparedness studies, outdoor skills, and the opportunity to give service back to their communities. Two days prior to this meeting, she called her cousin with this wild idea. A group of 18 girls met that day, forming two patrols~~the Carnation and the White Rose patrols. The idea spread quickly, and ever since that day, girls have been having marvelous experiences as Scouts.

I started in Girl Scouts when I was in second grade in 1962, at Clay Elementary School, in Oregon, Ohio. From the time I put on my first Brownie Beanie, I was hooked. I still cherish my first Brownie pin. From there, our family moved to West Toledo, where I became a Junior Girl Scout, at DeVeaux Elementary School. My Mom was an assistant leader, and very quickly became a leader and neighborhood chairman. It suited her perfectly. We found ways for everything we did as a family or in school to become Scout stuff--way more fun than calling it homework. After 2 years in Toledo, we moved to Perrysburg, where I joined a new and great Junior Troop, and then moved up to Cadettes. How I loved the grown-up look of the Cadette uniform--sleek A-line skirt, crisp white blouse with 'stewardess' cross-tie and a new cockade for my hat. My troop, which was down to about 4 of us, fell apart when we started High School, as do most GS troops. Which brings me to this:

The Girl Scouts have changed. Some for the better, put most of the changes have been to save/make money. Plain and simple. The Scout organization I knew was about service and skill development. The organization today is just for career exploration. A few skills are picked up along the way, but only as they relate to a future paid-job-related employment. Service is a part of Scouts still, but not nearly to the extent it was. And this from a woman who has always known she'd have a career outside of the home. And who loves her chosen career. Passionately.

I hate to be the person who says, "Back when I was a kid, we didn't need video games, we had marbles to play with." True that. I try to keep up with the latest techie stuff, not because I need it, but simply because it's coming~~it's here. I don't want to be left behind just because I didn't have/need something when I was a kid. I get it: Things change.

But there are some basic tenets to which we need to hold. Service above self (thank you, Rotarians for saying it so simply) is one of them. The other is being able to care for yourself and others. Yes, having a career is indeed critical. But there are kinder, gentler ways of getting there than the new GS Program. It lacks continuity, creativity, and fun. It looks good on paper, because the "Journeys" say go be creative and have fun, but it just isn't for most troops and girls. And (and here's the biggie) it's not fun for leaders.

Without fail, if you ask a GS leader now what she thinks about the Journeys program, she'll say, well, it was nice, but the girls got bored with it. They want more variety, short term projects, better 'rewards.' In short, they want to earn badges, which cover particular skills, not a long, drawn out things about what they can/should be as adults.

And now I'm going to say something out loud which I thought I'd never hear me say:

Girl Scouts need to adopt a new membership model much more like the Boy Scouts or 4-H.

You have no idea how hard that was for me. Whew, I'm exhausted just putting that on paper, er plasma, er whatever. So exhausted that I'll have to lay out my idea in a later post. Not to mention that the laundry still isn't doing itself, so I have to.

It's a skill, you know.

Contest time! Vote for me!

I've been spending too much of my off-duty time reading all the quilty blogs and found the Quilting Gallery. She has a weekly contest, and I keep entering quilts for fun. So this week the theme is Nursery Rhyme quilts, so I entered the Three Bears Quilt. I'll keep entering it in all sorts of categories, just for the silliness of it. Anywho, here's where you can go to vote. (I think I'm going to vote for the Three Pigs--a quilt of pig butts is hard to beat!)

http://quiltinggallery.com/2011/03/11/vote-now-nursery-rhymes-quilts/

Here's the back-link to my post about this quilt.

Done and Done-er

My friend Hattie Kate came over two days ago to personally show me how to do a binding. I've been watching the videos, etc., but a real live human is so much better! I did a mug rug for practice, and tadaaa! It looks just great.

After she left, I cut a binding for my Alpine Wonder quilt. But I didn't have enough courage to try it~~until yesterday. I just sat down and sewed it right on. Hattie Kate loves hand-work, and I don't so I carefully pressed the binding down and stitched in the ditch. The back looks a little wonky, but who's gunna see that? Nosy quilters? I'm soooo happy!! This really does open a whole new thing for me. Not intimidated by binding any more. Yea! This pattern is by Mary Lou Hallenbeck and is available at many quilt shops. The reason this 'works' is the special material and then a very interesting fussy cut. If you can't find it, try Corner Quilts in Wauseon, OH. That's where I had this one quilted, too.

I'm also winding yarn for BadAmy. I'm using the warping board to go from 'factory' skein, to 30 foot loops for dying. I put the yarn on my brand new umbrella swift, then wind to the warping board. Takes me about 32 minutes from very start to very finish. The swift needs a tiny bit of paraffin or something, or just plain use, to make it a bit smoother, but other than that the system works. It's not as fast as we hoped, but I can sit in the crafty corner with the boob tube on and wind away. Speaking of which, she needs to get this batch done, so she can dye it for her next sock club shipment. She hasn't dreamed up a colorway yet, but when she does, it's like magic watching her make it happen!

Happy Birthday, Girl Scouts and Girl Guides!

March 9, 1912: Juliette Gordon Low makes a historic phone call to her cousin, Nina Pape: "Come right over! I've got something for the girls of Savannah, and all America, and all the world, and we're going to start it tonight."

Frank Woodruff Buckles, Last WWII Veteran

I've read about Mr. Buckles before, but now the depth of his sacrifice, honor, courage, and more are just hitting me.

http://www.frankbuckles.org/


Yes, the national WWI Memorial is in need of repair and respect. Let's all change that.

http://www.wwimemorial.org/

March~~Lion or Lamb or Polar Bear Non-Contest!

We've had odd winter weather. Yeah, I'm starting to sound like a broken record. My bad.

Anywho, March arrived not like the lion of past years, but as a polar bear. We didn't get any new snow, but on Feb. 28, we got 1.5 inches of rain on top of the snow-soaked-and-covered ground. Several area communities are under water, yet again. The temps were in the upper 40s when we got the torrential rains. Now it's back in the 20s at night, creeping to the mid 30s as of this post.

My friends in communities to the east of us, closer to Lake Erie, are all a-buzz about FOSs, First of Springs. They're seeing buzzards, wood cocks, robins are nesting, long-eared owls are going nuts, all sorts of fun stuff. This is what we're seeing:

So here's my plan--specially for the mommy quilty bloggers who love those contests! Leave a guess when you think the pile of snow in the bottom picture finally disappears and I'll send you an note back. Naw, I don't have any connections with fabric companies, magazine subscribers, mystery quilts, thread makers, BOMs, none of that. Just me and my lousy blog!

Then in May, when I get back out west, we'll have the same contest, with the same lousy prize, to see when those snow piles melt. And out west, we're talking REAL snow piles!

Train Club Quilt~~Done!

I did it! I put a binding on a quilt, and it doesn't make me want to poke my eyes out with the seam ripper! Woo hoo! I did Aubrey's quilt a couple of weeks ago, and that turned out okay, but this one actually looks pretty darn good!

Why, you ask? I frantically spent the entire morning looking for tutorials on-line for ways to machine bind a quilt. It just wasn't working for me. Then I found Crazy Short Cut Quilts! Hooray! With a couple of great hints, it was like sewing magic. So here's the practice version, complete with spiral machine quilting and will you look at that point on the star! Freakin' awesome! I also made 6 smaller versions of that block for another quilt and one of the 6 is perfect. Sweet. (Yeah, I found some tuts on half square triangles, too.)

Crafty, Snowy, Birdy Days

First, I need a yard or so of Royal Stewart Tartan in shirt weight. For the life of me, I can't find any in the US this week! I googled it every which way I could and nada, zip, nuthin'. So if you've got some in your stash, I need some a.s.a.p. to finish a quilt for a really-coming-up-quickly wedding. ::begging begging begging:: Fun facts to know and tell: a real tartan has the same stripe pattern in each direction. When tartans are registered, the designer only submits the pattern in one direction. When they don't match, it's a plaid. See what you learn going to a liberal arts college where the mascot is the Scot?

Next, it's snowing again. Between doctors appointments, snow, ice, and Presidents Day, my boys have only been in school for 6 hours this week. Crap. That really puts a dent in my crafty time.

Also spent the afternoon yesterday with the boys' current caseworker and their next caseworker (they change when the kids leave school~~since we're considering pulling them from the glorified babysitting thing they call school now...... ) well, let's just say we're looking at options. More on that later. And if any of you are involved with using Ohio Waivers for your adult kids with disabilities, lemme know how that's working for you.

And birders~~you should see the feeders of NW Ohio this week. We picked up a new feeder bird for us~~Purple Finches. Because our deck is also the bird feeder, it takes some of the birds a while to find our feeders. Lots and lots of folks get Purple Finches (and their infamous twins, House Finches) at their feeders, but this is a first for us at this house. My sis lives 4 miles east of us on the other side of the park. She has a large grassy lot and water-feature mini-pond next to her house, along with 3 more acres of pines, and you should see the cardinals! She can easily have 15 or 20 at a pop. She also had a beautiful little Carolina Wren visiting a suet feeder right up at her window. I suppose if I were to stop reading all of the birder blogs I'd have more birding time.

Today, I'm hoping to get some sewing time in. I suppose if I were to stop reading all of the sewing blogs I'd have more sewing time. Sheesh.

I Had a Feeling About This One

We've had interesting weather this winter. We've had real snow. Here in NW Ohio, snow is often a hit or miss deal. Or we get hit, it looks pretty for a day or two, then it turns yucky looking, then it melts, and we start over again. But this year, it snowed in mid-December, and we've had snow cover since then. Somewhat colder than usual, too.


A local forecaster, who really should get a hobby, spent a good part of the winter forecasting gloom and doom. It's pretty much reached the point where you automatically subtract 6 inches of snow off his prediction. (He works at a tv station with the coolest new predicting toys and programs, so you'd think he'd be better at it.....) He also completely, totally missed the biggest snowfall of the season, but the other forecasters weren't that close either.

Late last week, they started saying~~finally~~well, we don't know what's going to happen with the next system. What happened was we got hammered with a crappy, rotten ice storm. Here at our house we had a nice snow, followed by hard pouring rain and some sleet, then more snow, then really quickly freezing temps. At our daughter's home in West Toledo, a scant 20 miles from here, they got a little snow, then freezing rain and sleet, followed by more freezing rain and sleet, and then some snow and freezing temps. It was down to 9 this morning. She's been without power now for 48 hours. We put them up in a hotel for the first night and they stayed last night also. There were so many trees and branches down over on that side of town that walking around was flat out dangerous--you never knew when a branch or power line would be coming your way. The elementary school in her neighborhood is still closed, as are all the schools in SE Michigan.

Our Red Cross Chapter set up a warming station at a local YMCA and there have been some folks staying there. The motels are all full, and many of our other friends and family are shacking up with other folks. The up side is that BadAmy and hubby will be able to clean the 'fridge and freezer..... and completely restock it. Everything had to go. Bummer.

I took the crappy weather as an opportunity to sew. Our power was out for about 3 hours in the morning, but that's no big deal. The temp in the house only dropped about 2 degrees. Let's hear it for super-insulation! I was sewing downstairs while my niece and her year-old son were here--their house was powerless for about 18 hours, but she didn't want to chase the baby around, flashlight in hand, so they came and stayed with us. So anywho, as I was madly working on blocks, the lights kept flickering, but they stayed on--yea!

I also went beserk and decided to make a wall hanging for some friends who are getting married. I found out yesterday that they set the date: March 4. This year. Holy crap! They are very interesting folks with wildly divergent backgrounds so the quilt with be pretty much off the wall (har har--get it? Wall hanging? Off the wall? Yea, it's late. Er, early. Either way, it's the middle of the night.) I'll get pics later today and post them. So far all the material came from my stash, but I'll need 2 more materials to finish it the way I want. Okay, maybe 4 more..... Then I promised DD I'd get back to his quilt. But I also need to get a flannel scrappy quilt done for the kid that will be bornt sometime this July--gotta do that now, since I get very, very little time to sew in the summer. And I'll definitely need to go to the store for that one.

The boys have an appointment with the shrink today, I'll have to decide if they go to school for the rest of the day or not. I'm inclined to just bring them home. So very much simpler and easier for everyone. DH will have a cow, but oh well. We'll see....

How I Spent Friday and Saturday....

... decorating and then de-decorating for DH's Rotary Dinner. Gotta show off here. Hubris is my middle name.

All most all of the stuff here came from my stash. Hurricane lamps came from another guy; glittery wreaths were from BadAmy's wedding; mirrors, ribbons, chargers, ornaments from the after-holiday sales with coupons (score!); and the candlesticks are mostly from the Goodwill. Trust me, this was cheap. I bought the material with my 50% off one item coupon at JoAnn's so I own that now, too. I told the girls that helped to decorate to just make the stuff cute. They were all different but all the same since we had to use the hurricane lamps. The other thing that worked really, really well was to use double stick tape on top of the candlesticks~~it's just enough hold the votives on top. And only one slipped--I was keeping an eye on them all night.

So here's a sampling, before dinner and in the evening.

Friday Night Sew In Sorta!

Last night was the Friday Night Sew In (FNSI). I had projects lined up. I was restraining from cookies--gotta fit back into that uniform in a few months. Boys were all fine, DH was gone, the stars were aligned.

Then I fell asleep.

Holy cow. Yep, I fell sound asleep on the couch.

The good news is that I was really rested up this morning! I started working on some more Kind Hearted Lady mug rugs. I'm trying to decide how I really like them, so I've been messing with different stuff like how much machine quilting to put on 'em, I accidentally zig zagged thru the batting on some (like the look as it turns out), and blah blah blah. For some reason it took me half as long to sew them today, so I'm trying to figure out what I did better this time. Hmph.

I left my camera at the club where DH's Rotary Club is having the Dinner Dance tonight, so I can't upload pics just yet. Conceited girl that I am, I took pics of all the centerpieces we made with my stash. I'll post those, along with the new stack of mug rugs.

I'd go sew now, too, but I have to do yet more computer work for the Rotarians. I'm thinking I should auction off computer/graphics lessons to some of the old farts.......

Friday Night Sew In!

Somebody out there in the blogosphere, I think its Crafty Vegas Mom, came up with the idea of staying in on some Friday nights and sewing. So later on, I'll fix a cuppa, wish I had some cookies stashed somewhere, and go down to the crafty corner in the basement to sew. I've got a couple of current WIPs to play with, mainly more Kind Hearted Lady kitties, and of course, DD's hobo quilt. That should keep me out of trouble for a while.

Spent today setting up for DH's Rotary Club's Community Dinner Dance and Auction. It looks nice. Between my Goodwill stash and another guy's hurricane lamps, it looks good. And we had just the right number of hands to get the work done without bumping into one another.

Birding the Blues .. and the Crafty Greens

You can probably tell that my interests are all over the map. Oh well. I have a blogging Ranger Peep who has about 400 blogs, so he can separate all his interests. Too much work. Anywho, here's today's mixed up offering:

Got Yarn? My darling daughter, BadAmy is at it again. This time is green and sparkly. She has this posted on her Etsy store (there's plenty of it, not to worry~~just an Etsy quirk there) and I think it will be available at the Black Swamp Fiber Arts Fair in Bowling Green, March 26. I love that she's found this great niche in life.

Next up: The Bluebird Winds have arrived!

One of the best ornithologists in the country, the late Mr. Lou Campbell, used to tell us to look for the first bluebirds of spring during the first southwestern winds after Valentine's Day. Well, looky here. Those warm, moist southwesterly winds have brought incredibly high temps to our area--a real teaser, since it's only mid-February and we know winter will hammer us again. And more bluebirds, too. But more interestingly, there are hundreds of bluebirds overwintering in our area these days. In past Audubon Society Christmas Bird Counts, we'd have a couple. This year we had literally hundreds, and often in flocks of 15 to 20.

I suck at bird photography (I blames it on lack of great equipment, as opposed to lack of great skill), but I do have one good bluebird pic. Ha! Tricked you! This is BirdGirl Sherrie's pic: Ha! Tricked you again. This is the now famous Western Bluebird that put in an appearance two years ago.

And this is Pat, a local birder who had the chutzpah to say out loud, "I think I saw a Western Bluebird at the Oaks." That whole episode was a blast.

Okay, where was I? Oh, yeah, the Bluebird winds of February. Next up on the bird watch list is Buzzards. I love buzzards. Did I ever mention that we call our place Buzzard Crest? Not to be confused with Falcon Crest? True, dat. And around the same time as the buzzards, the woodcocks will be back. More about them and my hero, Aldo Leopold, in a couple of weeks.

And I shouldn't have mentioned anything yesterday about us all being healthy. I'm not sick yet, but the 'tells' say I soon will be. Now where did I put that vitamin C?