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Spring! At least in New Jersey

So, I’m really allergic to the fragrance that comes from Bradford Pear trees (ornamental tree pictured below). However, they are such a sign of early spring that the sniffles are worth it.

We took a beautiful, short walk with our friends Dave and Jane (and Milo) in one of their suburban parks in the middle of New Jersey. This tree was irresistible on a beautiful, sunny Spring morning. It’s hard to argue with this kind of day.

Spring blooms in New Jersey

Milo was riding shotgun and anxiously looking through the windshield as the park appeared on the horizon. Time for a walk! Time for a walk! Time for a walk!

Looking forward always — to where we are going — is it the park???

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Cabin Fever Retreat

So, I spent a long weekend with several quilters at Michelle Hiatt’s Cabin Fever Retreat 2019. Retreat included lodging, all meals served in hotel dining rooms, and 3 days of uninterrupted quilting with instruction on one of Michelle’s patterns. What a wonderful experience. Deposit put down for same place, same time, next year!

Ice is on the trees
I’ve worn slippers for three days
Cabin Fever quilts

Bloom in progress

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Dear Blog — It’s 2019? How have you been?

The last I said “hello” was March of 2018 and I think I vowed to start blogging again. What happened? Well, not much blogging, that’s for sure.

So, I’m going to try again. I loved (at one time) looking back at old posts and photos and also loved the challenge of writing something intelligent, witty, insightful, or just at least grammatically correct. Finding that Facebook is causing my writing and sentence structure to deteriorate, I’m going to see if I can improve on things. Of course, this is going to require me to hook my phone up to ye’olde laptop to transfer photos more often.

Just home from a 3 day quilting retreat, I’m thinking about all the fun times we had, all the sewing I got done, and how interesting it was to spend time with 20 women that I had never (or barely) met before. Should be able to write some interesting thoughts here soon.

In the mean time – to insert a photo has become cumbersome on wordpress, but I’m going to try. — and once again, promise to start writing again.

An old photo of some blocks from Cape Cod Log Cabin, which has actually been finished and sits on my coffee table/trunk in the sitting room during spring months. More to come 🙂

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Dear blog, how have you been?

It’s been a long time since I’ve been writing here, and in terms of life events, an even longer time. Way past time to be acting on new year’s resolutions, I am going to add a few reflections on the past months here, once I do a little catching up.

So, today being snow day sew day, I’m just putting up a post of the blocks I’m creating in my quilting studio. Hoping to have more blocks done soon and a quilt top soon after. I took a class, held by Christie’s Quilting Boutique in Norwalk Connecticut, where I met Rob Appell of Man Sewing fame from California. His enthusiasm was so contagious. So, here are a few of my blocks ……

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Kayaking – calm cove – small ripples

Well, to keep my “new year’s” resolution going – I’m posting for the 2nd day in a week. What slowed me down yesterday was that I tried to switch themes on my blog and totally blew it out of the water, so to speak. Thank goodness I live with a geek who actually knows what he is doing and can fix things like this. So, today’s post is in his honor — and here’s his photo from this afternoon’s expedition.

Hubby sets out into the cove in his kayak

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Cape Cod 2017

Just reviewing my blog, and finding my last post (June 2016) was a resolution to get back to blogging. Woah — took me almost a year to start back into it. I might do a review of the past year + 2 months a bit in the next few, but here goes into the next year.

I find the Cape Cod vacation each year to be a time of renewal. And the return from that vacation almost like the start of a “new year” with resolutions and new beginnings right along with it.

So — just a few photos from the whale watch yesterday —-

And a few photos of the crafting from the past year —-

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Down in the “pits”

Well, not actually. Not plural, it’s only one “pit”. And down being a physical location rather than metaphorical. We were on the patio tonight by the fire pit with a couple glasses of wine and the song “Smoke Gets In Your Hair” running through my mind.

It’s a beautiful place to be here on this evening, the last one of Spring 2016 as tomorrow is the first day of summer. And full moon is at 7:04 am. Wonder what that congruence will bring for the day. Not sure, but I’m up for it whatever it is.

And up for a return to regular blogging, for now at least. I found myself posting on someone else’s blog tonight that I liked reading hers even though I failed to comment and interact much. I also wrote that I found my blog (only read by Hubby and a bunch of spammers) a form of a scrapbook and one that I really enjoyed reviewing. Then, I proceeded to “review” my online scrapbook and found that I hadn’t been doing much blogging and had no good photos to review. So — promising to rectify the situation, here I am. And here is tonight’s Facebook photo and a couple from my “Scenes from a walk” Facebook post this week.

And I do think I have discovered the problem. Facebook posting has taken the place of my blog, but it’s not presented nearly as well and is not so easy to review. So — lookout blog world, here I come.

Down in the pits
Down in the pits

walking feet
walking feet

Scenes from a walk 6-16-16
Scenes from a walk 6-16-16

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Here comes the sun

At least we hope so. After 7 days of clouds and rain (when your sky is dark and pours the rain — from “Come to Jesus), we saw sun this afternoon. And it’s supposed to be here for about 4 days. Hooray! and Hallelujah!

Did you know that old poem is almost in the form of a haiku?
Rain, rain, go away
Come again another day
I just want to play

…. or something like that. I do want to play — golf, walking, walking, gardening, sitting outside on the deck or by the pond. All the above, very difficult to do or enjoy, at least, in the rain.

Here’s hoping for a good week.

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Inspiration

Fabric, in thousands of colors.
Quilts, made of thousands of pieces.
Inspiration, found in thousands of ideas.

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What does home mean?

It’s been a long week here — actually a long month — well, really a long year so far.

2016 has been full of stresses and April chock-full of busyness. My quilt guild had a very successful show over the weekend. My part in the show prep started way back in July of 2015 and finally ended at about 6pm on Sunday.

The week was full of appointments and various duties and responsibilities, culminating today in a wonderful, restful time at our Spirit Stitchers group at my church. I spent the day talking, eating, knitting, talking, looking at others’ projects, knitting, talking ……I ended the day taking a dog for a walk, and I don’t have a dog, but a good friend does and we walked the town. So, I generally had a wonderful day.

But it felt so good to come home, take off the blue jeans and crawl into favorite knit yoga pants and a decades-old, favorite Mickey Mouse t-shirt. Note that you do not have to actually do yoga to be very fond of yoga pants. My husband is out of town so I had the quiet house to myself to do whatever I liked, which was mostly nothing.

Usually home means coming HOME to our wonderful property and house and my wonderful Hubby. But tonight it meant knit pants, feet up on the futon, quilting magazines, glasses of iced tea, and not much else. Home . . . . . welcome . . . .