This & That

Projects This Week

Coming clean....most of these things didn't happen this week. They happened last weekend after the last Projects post while I was still on my own. Because this week has been nuts and there hasn't been a ton of time to do anything other than pack one kid and unpack another.

I have a stack of Scrapbook Generations kits sitting on my table. I grabbed one last weekend when another unfinished project just wasn't coming together and opened it up. These kits are really handy for getting those 2-page life event type occasions scrapbooked. As you can see here, this one was about the most recent baby announcement. I know this is small, but if I import photos in a larger format, Typepad automatically cuts off part of the right edge. You can click on them to make them bigger.

There was enough paper to make some cards so I did that, too.

And more paper and another sketch from the same kit about things around my house last fall. It's a little tricky for me to work with their sketches, which are 12x12, so I always have to modify how mine look...they are never just like the sketch.

The same kit looking at fallish things around the cabin.

And cards with the paper shreds.

Last sketch from that kit, and it actually was done this week in the middle of the chaos. Redacted title...sorry. :)

Today's the Day!

First off, to answer the questions about the bed in The Girl's dorm, she has the option to elevate it so she can have extra storage underneath, which she chose to do. Her comment that evening was, "I'm going to die when I roll out of it!"

Now, as hard as it was to leave my girl at college the other day, the pendulum has swung in entirely the other direction today. PB will step off an airplane at our small local airport at 9:00 tonight. After 2 years of a church mission, I just really need to get my hands on the kid. His one request is that we get to the cabin as quickly as we can after he gets off the plane. We're planning on accommodating him in that regard, which means that pictures of him may not appear here until next week.

I have my own privacy line about specific information I give out about my family. In my own mind there's a delicate balance between sharing generalities about what my kids are up to, and throwing open the door and putting an itemized list on the internet. I try to be careful, but not obsessive. That said, from the photo above, you may realize that SD Boy is going to grad school in a health sciences field. He feels a little more comfortable with people knowing he's going to med school. I got this picture from him and his wife last weekend. It was his white coat ceremony.  It's times like this that I'm so grateful for technology and the ease with which I can stay in touch with my kids. 

Then about an hour later he sent me this picture with the caption, "Neener, neener, neener...." Yeah, there are sometimes I could reach through the technology and smack my kids. But in all honesty, I'm really glad they were able to get together for lunch once more before PB gets home today since it will be a long stretch before we get to see them again.

It's a happy day!

Alaska Highlights from the Phone

First off, yesterday was hard. Really hard. For both of us.

But she is settled into her little room and I have no doubt that she will rise to the occasion, put on her big girl pants and forge ahead. 

DH and The Girl took a few pictures of their trip with their phones and sent them to me. Technology is a wonderful thing. My assignment was to forward them to all my boys.

I found that most of the photos involved dead fish which is OK, I guess, since that was their purpose in going. The salmon supply has been restocked. DH said it rained almost the entire time there were there. 

Well, maybe not all the time.

I think this is my favorite picture from the trip. Yep, that's my girl.

A Little Randomness

A bit of rambling going on here.

I'm taking The Girl down to college today. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by it all. It's a very weird phenomenon when you think about it. You spend 18 years teaching and training a kid to be independent, and when they do this big independent thing, you have mixed feelings about it. Intellectually, you know that you wouldn't want it any other way, but emotionally it's very wrenching. And it's not like she's traveling across the country to go to school. She's only a few hours drive away, but still....mama is just a little fragile.

It's like I said last week...it's a good thing PB's getting home day after tomorrow.

Just a couple of random cabin pictures for you. There's been a trailer home parked in this spot all summer long. I've walked past it on my morning walks. The trailer wasn't there last time, but this was. At first glance, I thought that dog was real. And why a dog statue needs an umbrella is a little beyond my comprehension. Just kind of an interesting little vingette. 

Then there's this. I think this is going to be known as The Alter. This big rock sits down by the horse corral on the cabin property. DH put a salt lick on it for the deer, and when we were here last time and had some corn on the cob, he left the shucks and one undeveloped ear here. It just looked like some kind of offering for the wildlife.

I Don't Get It

Apparently I have been a slacker mom all these years. Apparently, while I was putting peanut butter sandwiches and leftovers in my kid's school lunches, I should have been doing stuff like this:

With apologies to the obviously awesome mothers who put these together, I don't get it. I mean, really?? I have seen this stuff all over the web as school prep is going on.

I am obviously a slacker mom.

The Boy Quilts

Last week I showed you the girl quilts I've done for the new grandbabies. It's the boy's turn this week. The reason I have two of each type is in case both babies turn out to be the same flavor. Having my old high school sewing machine up at the cabin has really made it much easier to get these done. As an aside, my friend and I took a jaunt last week to an awesome quilt store about 45 minutes away and I picked up fabric for 3 more baby quilts. I'm going to be AHEAD!!

This was the first one I did. A lot of the fabrics are from the Moda Backyard Baby line and the pattern is from their Moda Bake Shop blog and is called Whirly Wheels. I really love how it turned out...love the colors...love pinwheel quilts in general. We were watching "You've Got Mail" up at the cabin the other weekend and there was a really cute one on Meg Ryan's bed in the movie. Uh-huh....that's what I noticed when I was watching the scene. "Hey, look at that cute pinwheel quilt!" The teenage girls all looked at me like I was nuts. 

This is the back and a closer look at a block. It's quilted with a bug pattern to go with some of the fabrics. When I was done with this one, I still had a bunch of scraps left and wondered if I had enough to do another top, so I started to look around for patterns that used scraps.

I finally settled on a string quilt pattern. I bought the dot fabric, and the green border. The rest of the top was leftovers from the first quilt.

Here's a closer look at a block...

...and an even closer look at the background fabric, which I think is adorable...bugs in jars, lol. I pieced the backing a little differently and joined it with a pieced panel. This one is quilted with an all-over stipple pattern. I'm really excited to see the little munchkins that are going to be using these quilts...whether they're girlies or boy.....ees. 

Garden Orzo Risotto

This is one of the new favorite recipes from some I've tried this summer. It uses orzo pasta, which is sort of rice-shaped, but it cooks up faster than rice. It also uses a lot of vegetables, which is an added bonus (at least to some...and you know who you aren't). The recipe comes from Taste of Home magazine and is a really nice carb alternative for summer.

Garden Orzo Risotto

• 1 small zucchini, chopped
• 1 shallot, chopped (I used just some regular onion)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 cup uncooked whole wheat orzo pasta (I used regular, not whole wheat)
• 2 cups vegetable broth (I used chicken broth)
• 1 cup 2% milk
• 1 package (6 ounces) fresh baby spinach
• 2 medium tomatoes, seeded and chopped
• 1/4 cup minced fresh basil
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

• In a large saucepan, saute zucchini and shallot in oil until almost tender. Add garlic; cook 1 minute longer. Add the orzo, broth and milk. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook and stir for 10-15 minutes or until liquid is almost absorbed.

• Stir in the spinach, tomatoes and basil; cook and stir until spinach is wilted. Remove from the heat; stir in the cheese, salt and pepper. Yield: 6 servings.

 

Projects This Week

With DH and The Girl in Alaska replenishing our salmon supply, I actually had some time to play with paper. That won't happen next week when The Girl leaves for college and PB comes home from his church mission, but this past week with no one here? I took that time.

Here is this month's ad for the POM website.

And the layout I did with it. That bottom picture makes me laugh every time I see it, because it's just so Caroline.

When I was done with that, I looked around and realized that I didn't have any company coming to stay, the house was already picked up...and staying that way, I didn't have to pick the beans again yet, I didn't have to cook dinner, and I didn't have to get a lesson ready for church this Sunday. How in the world was I going to fill the hours in the day?  Well, here's last week's Project Life installment, documenting The Girl packing up, SD Boy's first day of grad school (he got a 94% on his first test....but I'm not a proud mom or anything), last week's cards, pizza night, the wildfires in the area, Ollie, some cabin time and some apples from one of our trees.

THEN, I did December 2012'a installment of Photos I Love from the 12 class. Yes, I have many unfinished projects on my table right now. This is PB on the computer moniter when we got to talk to him last Christmas. And BTW, the countdown stands at 6 DAYS, people!

I pulled out some scraps on my table from a couple of Scrapbook Generations kits and made some cards.

I did next month's ad layout for the POM site and then made these cards from the scraps of that layout.

I like to use scraps on the inside of the cards when I can.

And then I did a little catch up on the Kerri Bradford personal history class I'm in. I am woefully behind on this class. I think these are weeks 18-21 or something like that. I know it's hard to see detail here, but I just wanted to give you an idea about the cut files that have been included each week. I walk most mornings with a gal who is my age and it actually has been fun to chat with her about these topics. Since we are the same age, we remember a lot of the same things.

So yes, when left to my own devices, I can get a lot done in a week, but on the other hand I've missed DH and The Girl while they've been gone. I also know that next week with her leaving for school and PB coming home will be absolute chaos. Here's what it's been like for them. I'm trying to ignore the slightly sketchy looking guy standing next to my daughter holding the fish.

Idaho on Fire

Maybe  you've seen on the news that there are several wildfires burning here in Idaho. We've had a very dry year to begin with, and what little rain we get up in the mountains during the summer is always accompanied by lightening. Most of the fires burning now were lightening caused.

Looking a little to our left and from a hill, this is what we drove through and beyond to get  up out of the smoke at the cabin. There are mountains behind that smoke. This smoke was from the Elk Creek fire. 

 

This smoke is from the Beaver Creek fire, which has been threatening the towns of Hailey and Sun Valley.

The cabin has never been in any danger, thank goodness, but depending on which way the wind blows on any given day, it looked like this up there.

Or this. We could sure use some rain....without any lightening...but we aren't likely to get that until later in the fall. 

Friends Photo Shoot, pt. 2

We tried a few more adventurous things, and since I'm not very adventurous or creative myself when it comes to taking pictures, they threw out some ideas to try.

I actually quite liked this one...if only the pasture wheel line wasn't in the background. They called it the "Awkward Idaho Girls" photo. Still, I really did like the idea. Note to self....have DH roll the pipes all the down to the end of the pasture.

The Squished Together Faces photo.

And you KNEW there would have to be the Chaco photo.

The fort made another appearance and I thought this one was really cute.

Then they wanted to pose for their own version of an "Awkward Family Photo."

After that, I did various combination of small groups at their requests. This is The Girl and the friend she's had the longest...literally since they were born.

These girls all took AP English together and sat in the back corner of the room. They became teacher's pets and she called them "The 4 Girls in the Corner." At the end of the year they gave her a T-shirt they had made that said, "How can I breathe without Eyre?" 

And how is it that the only photo bomb came from my kid?? 

Then there are these 3...the blond, the brunette and the redhead, that will head down to college as roommates.

It was fun to do, but if you don't think wrangling 12 high school, going to college girls is a little frantic, think again.