So this weekend we went to visit my folks in Florida and got to go sailing for two days. As they said, we're easy to entertain.
Sailing Pictures
'Twas great to see family and friends, especially the Captain.

Then after a bumpy flight home, we picked up our wounded pup from boarding. Apparently she got a bit too excited playing with some other pups and got a tear in her right side. Cindy was wonderful and took her to get cleaned and patched up, and Ladybug was handed over with 8 staples, antibiotics, pain meds, and a t-shirt to cover her wounded side. I took a day off yesterday to hang with the Bug and nurse her a bit. She did manage to wiggle out of her first t-shirt, but the one I dug out for our Lil' Devil seems to be staying put. She's doing much better today, with a bit more spring in her step, if still tentative and slow.

Otherwise I've been tending my sunburned shoulders, and leaving the Bug at home and going back to work today was tough.

Leave it to Kymber to be ahead of schedule...

Welcome little Olivia Hunter!
7/7/09, 1:47pm, 7+ pounds, shorter than her daddy's shoe.

Welcome to the world Vivian Grace!
Latest member of the Great Short Horde.
7/6/09, 5:57pm, 8 lbs, 21 inches...

Doe, a deer, that must be chased
Ra, no sign of sun is seen
Mi, I'm Jen, with Ladybug
Fa, a long long way we ran
So, let's chase another deer
La, and bark at all the deer
Ti, no thanks, we're busy chasing deer
or maybe a chipmunk

Took our walk after the rain moved through this evening around 8:45pm. No bunnies flashed their cottontails, but one deer proved irresistible to the 'Bug

This weekend I:

Enjoyed sitting under the awning experiencing the edge of a passing thunderstorm on Friday night. Then I watched the end of Hancock and Kung Fu Panda while I played on the computer.

( Saturday... )

( Sunday... ) ouch.

Mel had her baby and it's a girl!!!

Welcome to the world Stella Louise!
(8lb 7oz, 22in, 11:50am 6/29)

This spruce tree is free to a good home for anyone willing to come and get it.



I think it is listing in an effort to get more sun, or the chipmunks have weakened the ground. I hope that it would do better on a more level location. Approximately 8ft tall. No guarantees on health or longevity, but effort to extract it offered.

Anyone?

I want to put a magnolia in the new bed, and don't want either tree to be crowded. And honestly, between a spruce and a magnolia, I'm taking magnolia everytime.

After our evening walk and dinner, I spent a little bit of time sitting out on the back patio watching the fireflies flicker about and listening to the waterfall on the koi pond. It was a little slice of heaven.

I grew up in Greensboro, NC. Our ranch home was conveniently placed across the street from a private community pool that we were members of for over twenty years. We grew up around that pool; taking swim lessons there, joining the swim team, playing on the playground, more time spent on the swim team, working at the snack bar, working as lifeguards- you get the idea. When the power was out, we had a key so we could use the showers over there and hang out in the game room until the other half of the street got power back. The few times we got blessed with snow, we'd go sledding on the hills surrounding the pool area. I learned to ride a bike in the parking lot and we'd catch snakes and fireflies in the field. We lived for Summer, that much was sure; splashing water, twinkling stars, fireflies and all.

After my sisters and I graduated from college and started our own adults lives, my parents sold the house and moved to Florida to care for our grandparents. I haven't been home for many years, and not since my folks moved away. I don't really think of Greensboro as home anymore.

They say that home is where the heart is. I now think of our current abode as home, Maryland as home, my comfy chair and the cozy bed as home. But really life and family has taught me that home is where we make it. We always talk about our mustering point when on family vacations. (Of course being the dorks we are, we call it the mustard point.) We had a favorite lounge on the cruise to Bermuda where we'd meet. At Gulf Wars, home base is the Royal Cabin, at Pennsic it is the Vair and Ermine camp.

Over a decade ago, when I was still coming up from Blacksburg to visit with Alan, I made the trek one Friday afternoon. I don't remember all of the particulars, but I seem to have had a rough week, and a rough drive by myself up there, and was just really looking forward to arriving to a place I'd come to call home eventually. As I pulled into the driveway on Eldrid Dr. that time, I heaved a sigh of relief, and a host of fireflies landed on my windshield all lit up as if in greeting. It was a wonderful welcome, one I remember vividly. Since then, despite my sharing an apartment with Mel, and our living in that house and now this, and through all of our travels, home is where Alan is. The fireflies showed me.

I just got a communication back from the MFA regarding the un-numbered polychrome embroidered coif we saw back in January 2008. It is MFA accession #34.226. They have a great pic online of the lace and a teardrop spangle, and you can see the gorgeous striped leaves and neat gathering of the coif at the crown. So cool! Now I need to go back and change all the image names that I have from this coif to reflect the correct accession number. Whee!

Finished Patio! Hooray!


To complement the picture of Alan operating the BRUTE jackhammer, here he is on the Wacker.
snert tee hee giggle- yes, sometimes I feel like a 10yo boy


Kirsten on the saw making pink dust


Kirsten and Susan made amazing progress on the patio this week. They spread the underlay of granite dust and pulled up and cleaned most of the bricks from the old patio to use on the new patio. The ultimate in green renovation, we cleaned off and re-used all of the pavers we could, and only had to purchase ~30 more pavers to finish off the back corner.

I spent Saturday sitting in the sand pulling up the remaining bricks and cleaning the concrete off those that needed it. (It looks like one previous owner tried to use dry concrete mix instead of sand so there were at least two buckets full of chipped off concrete chunks.) My right hand and shoulder were very sore at the end of the day, but it seemed to be a task I was reasonably good at, and kept me out of the way of Kirsten and Alan tamping, screeding, and laying the rest of the patio. Today I spent many many hours behind a broom slowly sweeping sand into the cracks and crevices prior to final tamping, etc. Kirsten spent her time making cuts for the final bricks, while Alan was marking and setting them. I'm a little sore, especially my right arm, as to be expected of a desk jockey pulling the weekend warrior tasks.

The rest of the time this weekend was spent playing with setting up my palm contacts etc. into a syncronizible format for use with my new iPhone. I did finally get it working late Saturday night, but we ran into problems trying to activate it as my phone, so that is a task for tomorrow. I'm already enjoying the portability, facebookiness, camera, and such. Suggestions for useful non-game related apps are cheerfully accepted.

Now, I must go to bed.

I meant to post last night, but a certain pup kept nudging my elbow when I quit paying attention to her, so it was impossible.

I've had thoughts about the conflict in Iran, appreciation to those who are posting info, aghast at the blatant election fraud, inspiration at the silent protests, hesitant to wear green myself because I don't see how I can have a voice in Iran for who should lead, but fully support that each Iranian vote should be counted. If they vote in a crazy conservative Holocaust-denier then so be it, but let it be real. Go Iranian people, you are awesome!

I've been meaning to post on the Golden Rose Tourney, appreciation for all those who took pictures, aghast at my fatness in them, the wonderful spirit of the day, the beauty of the procession and the field, and the fun had by most in attendance, despite the heat.

I've been meaning to post more on UofA, how awesome Crois Brigte folks were, the loveliness of the site, my appreciation for Eldred's job well-done holding the custody of the University, my appreciation for those who took my class, fun company of Thjora, and dinner with folks before departing. Oh, and the deer, but that's been told, more or less. BTW, we got the car back from repairs on Monday, she's just as beautiful as new, and I'm grateful that they handled the claim and repairs in a week. F'ing Ay GEICO!

And I'm not sure if I've really said all I wanted to about our last Plimoth trip. Still need to make a "Real Men don't Sparkle, they Spangle" icon of Ansel working on a frame.

But I am still alive, I have an adorable pup, a loving husband, and a nice house I get to actually share with them this weekend. yay!

Ladybug had her first grand escape this evening. It wasn't very spectacular since we forgot to latch the gate. Opps. The other dogs were fine and staying close to the people admiring the patio progress. We just realized that she wasn't around and started calling out for her. I heard her tags rattling the next yard over, which is inaccessible from our yard. There was a bit of running around, calling her name, directions from friendly neighbors of where she was last seen, a call to stay and Kirsten got her back safe home. I had gone down into the park area calling for her and ended up taking a brisk walk in non-walking shoes around the block to find out from another friendly neighbor who was walking her pup that she had been found.

She was all excited from her running romp, and I was just glad to have her back. Unfortunately apparently the excitement upset her tummy since she lost her dinner, so we had to calm her down, and after we ate our delivery sushi, I fed her dinner again in small handfuls over 15 minutes. Currently all the pups are crashed out on the den floor as the other humans are soaking in the Morgenstern's hot tub.

mostly...

Been fighting TMJ related headaches all week. The icepack is my friend.

Can't muster thoughts for post. UofA was fun, despite the wildlife collision. Class seemed to go well, and I need to post the class notes.

Came home today to the dog missing part of the foam pad in her crate. Having ate the corner, she promptly went outside to eject part of it, eat some grass, and eject the rest. So after making sure she was done, I gave her a cookie and kept an eye on her, delayed her dinner and fed it to her in phases. I do not want to worry about the pup being sick when we have to go out of town this weekend.

Will be at Golden Rose on Saturday, plan to have fun.

bleargh, bed now pleez.

Happy Anniversary Sweetheart! I love you!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unfortunately I only got Alan a dinged fender:

Courtesy of the Death-wish Doe that Kirsten and I "met" on Saturday night.

Car continues to run fine, and was dropped off at an express claim and repair service this morning for evaluation and repairs. Kirsten and I are fine, and though we've been wondering if someone is trying to tell us a Crown Vic isn't the right car for us, one of Alan's co-workers pointed out that we may have damaged cars, but no personal injury claims were necessary. I confess I was quite proud of being able to plow through a deer at 60 MPH and still run just fine and get us safely home does make me very grateful to Serenity.

Session 6 (for me) Pic-Spam!
We're in half of the pictures posted to the blog at the end of the session from this weekend past. Whoohoo!


Just to show you that no one can escape the lure of the Jacket Project, anselmatthews  spent far more time with his cathgrace  during the visit than I think he had imagined. Dubbed Captain Oe by the ladies, he joined the small group of only 10 other gentlemen (or XY chromosomes) who have worked on the Jacket.


Even Carli's parents spent some of the time celebrating their 36th Wedding Anniversary adding oes to a sleeve panel.


attack_laurel  and I pose with our frames at the end of the second day of embroidery.


An extremely fuzzy picture of me and my Mother-in-Law posing with the panel I made for her.


Team Oe with the completed sleeve, just prior to heading back to the airport to return home.

Yes, I stomped my feet and said I wasn't listening as my teammates attempted to force me to stop attaching oes to the jacket and head back home. They really didn't want to miss the plane home.