Just a quick note

Life and work have been super busy, so I don't have time to linger, but I just wanted to share my joy...

1) Hubby's team won again last night. Next up, they play the #1 Division 3 team in the country tomorrow night. Here's hoping they keep their heads and beat them - what an accomplishment that would be!

2) My new Bonnie Hunter book, Adventures with Leaders and Enders, arrived yesterday. I stayed up late last night reading (or at least looking at) every single page. Love it, love it, love it! If any of you have it, I see a "Mad City Mama" variation in my future!

Attitude adjustment

I've been moaning and groaning about this awful winter weather long enough. So, instead of hustling the kids off to bed last night and sitting down with some quilting, I bundled up them up for some nighttime fun in the snow - after all, there is no school today (AGAIN!!) so no need to go to bed on time. We sledded, we built a snowman, we had a major snowball fight. We were out there until nearly 10 PM. And you know what? It was FUN! All I needed was an attitude adjustment. Hopefully, that attitude adjustment will last at least another week, because we are supposed to get a whopper of a snowstorm this weekend.

While shoveling before work this morning, I decided to snap some photos. After all, I've lived here 7 years, and this is the first time we've had any snow to speak of.

The view down the hill from my driveway


My road - great for a scenic walk any time of year.


One of my two favorite trees on our property - this one is beautiful in any season, and I can see it from my bedroom window first thing when I open my eyes in the morning.


Home! I usually don't look back on my way to work in the morning, because I am always so tempted to turn right back around and stay there!


The creek is no longer raging, but I'm sure it will be again once all this winter's snows melt.


So, no more complaining about the weather. Bring it on!

Despondency

Jason is despondent. School was closed yesterday because the roads out here in the county are still covered with snow. He's starting to think that the school week is only 4 days long because the bad weather we have had nearly every weekend has affected school nearly every Monday.


Donald was despondent. The thought of going to Pre-School while his brother was at home doing whatever he wanted made those big green eyes turn to liquid. Along with his eyes, my resolve, so he stayed home, too.


I was despondent. Things were finally a bit quieter at work, so I took Monday morning off - a little "me" time. Unfortunately, my kids don't understand the concept of "pretend Mommy is not here", so that didn't quite work out as planned. I eventually rode in to work with Adam so I could hang out with the Monday morning quilting group at the library where I got a tiny bit of hand quilting done, not nearly the progress I was hoping to get done yesterday during my time off.


And when I got home from work, the kids were ready to do something other than dress up and play superheros or watch TV (I'm pretty sure that is all they do when I am not here). So once dinner was in the oven, I took them downstairs to let Jason work on his flannel rag quilt. His quilt got kicked off the design wall when I started working on my Nickelmania quilt. (I think this is the pattern I'm going to go with, although I believe I'll put one more row around each side so that the white outline is complete)

We had quite a time trying to remember how it went back together until I remembered that we took a photo of it - thank goodness for digital cameras! He sewed until all of the pieces were at least sewn to one other piece, and then we called it quits - I could smell the lasagna and garlic bread in the oven and could no longer focus. Before putting it away, however, he made row labels so it wouldn't take us so long to lay it out next time.


In addition to restless children, there was a package waiting for me at home. I thought it would be my new Bonnie Hunter book, but instead, it was more flannel from Cheryl - thanks, Cheryl! My flannel buzzsaw quilt will get completed after all!


So, all was well in the Hutchinson household until I got the call this morning - school is closed again...

Ribbons and string

I've been thinking about cancer a lot lately, about family and friends that I've lost, family and friends who are fighting as I type. It rears its ugly head in books and movies and news broadcasts without warning and without apology. You've probably noticed my CLICK DAILY link to the Breast Cancer Site on my sidebar. I am vigilant about clicking, vigilant about wearing my Pink Ribbon Pin, vigilant about checking myself in hopes that I will be around to watch my children become senior citizens.

Therefore, I wasn't surprised while rearranging blocks for my Nicklemania quilt yesterday to see that it was taking shape as a ribbon. I like it. I just don't know which arrangement I like better. I don't have all my blocks cut yet, but I think you can see where I was going with these two arrangements. Which do you like better?

While I was sewing, the kids were being "hooligans" here in the house - Jason's word, not mine. They only lasted a few minutes out in the snow - none of us really like the cold - so they created with Legos, put tattoos on their chests, pretended they were spies and even made tin can telephones. They had to talk where they could see each other because otherwise they couldn't coordinate who was supposed to be talking and who was supposed to be listening. No surprise there - these are the two most talk-ingest kids I have ever met!

I just can't help myself!

Most of you know that my husband is the men's basketball coach at the university where we both work. What you may not know is that we play in an extremely competitive conference, with 4 teams ranked in the top 20 IN THE NATION this year. (We are Division 3, not Division 1, so you'll never see them on TV)

Tonight, my husband's team traveled to Ashland, VA to take on the Yellow Jackets of Randolph Macon College as we do every year. Last week, they were ranked #2 nationwide. This week, they were ranked #9 nationwide. I'm pretty sure that next week, they won't be ranked because...

WE BEAT THEM!!!

For the first time since February 1959 - 51 YEARS - our team beat them on their home court. Can you see how wide and bright my smile is right now? I am so proud of and happy for my husband and his team. Go Generals!!!

Two winners!

When I access the internet, my home page is a page that I set up for myself with links that I use regularly. It also has one of my favorite photos of myself wearing a cowboy hat my mother bought me for Christmas one year - I've always not-so-secretly yearned to be a cowgirl. As you probably noticed, today I changed my Profile photo to this cowgirl photo. It is an older photo, and I am no longer nearly that cute, but I can pretend, right?

My homepage also features a Quote of the Day at the top which changes daily, just something to keep me inspired. You know what today's quote was?

"When I give, I give myself." - Walt Whitman

How appropriate on the day that I am drawing winners for my giveaway! So, as promised, at noon I wrote down on a sheet of paper the names of those who left comments on my 100th post, cut them all apart, and put them in a candy dish that I keep on my desk (the candy dish was empty since I conveniently finished all the candy yesterday afternoon). Then, I went downstairs looking for someone who wouldn't mind having his/her photo taken to pull the winner's name out of the bowl. Here's Kiki - a first-year student at my University who is also our work-study student in the Admissions Office, a wonderfully loud basketball fan, and one of the most helpful and cheerful people you could ever hope to meet - pulling out a name.


Congratulations, Cozy Quilter! Send me your mailing address and I'll pop that fabric in the mail to you.

But wait, do I really want to have to put all that fabric back into the closet? I told Kiki to pull another name, and if this person requested different fabric, then I would send that along, too.
Congratulations, Nancy! And since you can't decide on your favorite, I'm certainly not going to try to decide for you - I'll send you both. I don't need your address - I KNOW where you live! For now anyway...

And today is also a giving day in that I am sending one of my quilts to Kristie, AKA Cowgirl Quilter, to quilt for me as I am hoping to give it as a gift to a special someone later this winter. I've only ever sent one quilt away for quilting, so this is exciting for me. But if I wait until I can hand quilt it to give it away, who knows when that will be. I call this quilt "Calling All Scraps" since I foundation pieced it on pages torn from an old phone book. You can see the shreds of paper at the top of the photo.

I'm pretty sure that this special someone doesn't read my blog, but just in case, I'm not saying anything else for now.

Thanks for reading my blog, everyone. I love the feeling of connection I get when I hear from people all over the globe. Oh, and if you want to see what my homepage/dashboard looks like, you can find it here.

An extra day at home

I woke up to the phone ringing - school closed yet again, this time due to flooding. I thought I would still try to go to work since it is a pretty critical time there for me, but I was thwarted. My first clue was the creek at the bottom of the hill. Here's how it usually looks:



Here's how it looks today.


All the little roadside creeks are raging.


And the road disappeared under the river.


So, I'll be working from home today if my children let me. They are getting a bit of cabin fever; they've been out of school since the middle of the day on Thursday and I have limited their TV time so their brains don't turn to mush. Thank goodness we finished the basement. Right now, they are down there playing sock hockey with swimming noodles as hockey sticks. Socks sure do slide well on Pergo floors!