Welcome 2014! (24 hours later...here comes the sun)

The beauty of a fresh fallen snow always catches me by surprise.  Senses are heightened with a change of the status quo.  The sound of the creaky crunch of the snow under foot is unique, not duplicated at any other time of year.  The fluffy white decor weighs down the evergreen branch until softly sliding to the ground allowing the branch to pop up causing a new shower of snow.  The muted sound of traffic combines with the sound of snow blowers and truck blades making the world sound like a completely different band.

The normally overlooked red berries of the Hawthorne trees gleam brightly against the white snow.  

Our four legged friends become animated as the snow falls all around them.  Both Hawk and Duncan bounced playfully around the arena catching snow flakes on their tongues while Leo tried it too.

12.5" on the ground - still snowing

A plain tree in the backyard seems to be all dressed up, and is appreciated as beautiful for the first time. These were just a few shots taken today...before the arctic air blasts in and we hunker down for the next few day. Hope you enjoy your transformed surroundings and stay warm!

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24 hours later the sun shines and the world sparkles, even though the wind chill is minus forty degrees!

Drifts!

Brock Barn circa 1850

"Twas the Night Before Christmas

Cookies baked, presents wrapped, stockings hung, house full of loved ones, laughter all around...Merry Christmas!

Hope your holidays are filled with laughter and love, and your 2014 brings you blessings.

We blinked, and  twenty years had passed.  As goofy as their mom was for dressing them up in the first place, and then for thinking it should be recreated, it brought smiles to lots of faces...so thank you "children" for playing along.

Merry Christmas to All! 

(and to all a Good Night!)

Row Row Row Your Boat...

     A few years ago a friend of mine introduced me to the world of rowing where terms like "sweep" (not cleaning) , "feathering" (not an '80's hairstyle), "weigh enough" (hmm...what's enough weight anyway?), and "port" (not a red wine) took on a whole new dimension.  What I discovered was not only a way to get a great work-out, but also a way to enjoy nature, the water, and being part of a team (unless you're sculling in a single of course.)  I was delighted a few years later when my son discovered the same world, at Florida Institute of Technology, his freshman year.

This past weekend we headed south to the Tennessee River and the delightful city of Chattanooga for The Head of the Hooch Regatta, where we were thrilled to see our son compete at the collegiate level.

With the sun shining brightly, the many colors of oar blades, tents, and shells made a great back drop for the event.

FIT Men's Rowing Team came out strong winning the Men's Championship Eight.  They were exciting to watch both days.  These proud parents were pleased to see their son working hard and enjoying the results with his team mates.  We are looking forward to attending future regattas.  Here are a few more shots from the weekend.

Extreme effort and concentration in the bow seat

Gold Medal Men's Champ 8 Boat

Clearly the coaches (seen smiling here) like what they do.  Through the years our children have been fortunate to have the guidance and training of great coaches from T-ball to football, track, and wrestling, who know how to get maximum effort from each individual player.  These coaches and team for Eric follow in that tradition.  We saw numerous examples of this during their efficient operation at this regatta.

Men's Open 8 blasting past the entire field for another FIT Gold Medal

Coordination and support by the entire team was evident all weekend which proved to the fans watching that the men of Florida Institute of Technology's Rowing team are truly a class act.

Job well done!

Solid endurance in the B Boat placing third on Sunday

Fall Favorites

Indiana may be land locked (excluding the southern tip of Lake Michigan and the Ohio River to the south), void of varying elevations (750 ft is the avg. and 1257 ft at the highest point), filled with fields of corn and soy beans which could be construed as dull, but this time of year, I can't help but feel invigorated.

The combines resemble some sort of lighted monster as they munch their way through the fields,  and continue rumbling late into the night.  Harvest time is always exciting.

The changing leaf colors make for very beautiful scenery across the entire state.  Here are a few of my fall favorites.

I hope you allow yourself to slow down for a moment at this time of year to allow your senses to absorb the beauty all around!

T-Shirts Galore

    With the hubby away on business, and the younger family members at their respective campuses, I found plenty of time over the last month to get caught up on a backlog of promised t-shirt quilt tops.  In last month's post, I introduced Rosencrantz and Guildenstern into the mix of our existing pets...Snickers, the aging cat, Leo the shepherd, Derby the crazy mutt, Duncan the big horse, and Hawk the adorable pony.


Needless to say, those two kittens
have delighted in assisting with the design, preparation, measuring, cutting, pinning, sewing, pressing, and trimming; all the necessary steps in creating a T-shirt quilt, but they sure slowed the process for me.  For every three pins I placed, they removed one.  I had to be very careful not to sew their paw right into the quilt!



It's always rewarding to see a pile of shirts   morph into a fun personalized quilt!  
It was only four short years ago, for my daughter's high school graduation, that I gave my first project a whirl:

Every year since then I have had requests to put someone's old pile of t-shirts into a quilt.  I have finished eighteen to date.  The Official T-shirt Motto, "It's only a t-shirt quilt," comes into play often, while trying to make shirts of all different colors, shapes, and sizes, fit nicely into a quilt.  I have chosen to make "Scrappy" quilts, some having uniformity while others are random, but each one is unique.  Here are just a few of the end products.

So with the "alone" time I had recently, this is what was created, with the exception of Sarah's Tuft's quilt that I did not photograph when it was completed since she saw it in person:

Now they are off to be quilted with a long arm quilt machine, and upon their return to me, I will put the binding on.  Tada!  Ready to be used comfortably for years!
Until next time, I hope you enjoy each day to its fullest!