out like a lambson

My spring break is over and so is March.  The past week and past month have been pretty great. 
 

My prime project for spring break was to work on the 2013 family photo book.  I had hoped to finish it but, unfortunately, I did not.  Spending about four hours each day, and with the help of the Hans Zimmer Pandora station,  I am about 95% done, though.  All the pictures are in and organized.  I just need to add captions.   If I had spent ALL my time on the book, I might have finished but I also would have been crazy.  It was still important to take naps, walk with the dogs, practice my bass (for an upcoming concert), keep the house clean, and teach a couple of lessons, watch Once Upon A Time and do other regular things.   

 

 Trissy on one of our walks.

We had some severe weather come through on Thursday.  Some people got hail and a tornado (sirens went off in Columbia) but all we got was a rainbow!

Steve and I spent all day Tuesday in St. Louis at the temple and at the Southerlands.  We had hoped to catch the 9:00 endowment session at the temple but Sadie thwarted that attempt.  Steve and I are now totally converted to NOT giving her any people food of any kind.  She was hit with a double whammy of pork leftovers on Saturday and turkey leftovers on Sunday and by Monday night, she had terrible diarrhea!  Up every two hours to go potty throughout the night.  Ugh.  It has taken her all week and special food and pills and couches covered with sheets and several bottom baths but I think she is back to normal now. 

Anyway, back to St. Louis.  Vicki was finishing up a two-week visit with Emily and Joe and family and it was great to see her and spend the afternoon with her.   

 

 

She left for Utah Tuesday and returns to Korea tomorrow, I think.  BUT, the great news is that Joe has a new job in the Washington D.C. area and they will be moving in May.  

 

 nap-time for Lucy

Quiet-time for Noah. (note his lambie "Mai" bouquet he created)

 Quinn up from his nap.  

Steve and I also went to the Kansas City temple yesterday.  On our way home, we stopped off at Culvers (buy one sundae, get one free), Russell Stovers (duh!), and a cute little antique/vintage shop in Boonville owned by Glenna and Jim Johnson (band director of Steven & Beckie).  We also went through Rocheport and stopped by the mandolin shop operated by a fellow who plays violin the in the RTO.  The sun was shining and temperatures were nice and we had a great day.  It was topped off by the Women’s Conference broadcast, Steve’s haircut, and me staying up too late  to watch age 21 in the UP series.  This is my current set of Netflix DVD’s.  Back in 1964, a fellow in England started a long-term documentary project by focusing on 14 seven-year-olds from different backgrounds in various parts of England.  He has revisited them every seven years and up to the present day.  It has been extremely fascinating to watch these boys and girls, rich and poor, gregarious and shy as they have grown up. 

The week before spring break:  let’s see…….Rock Bridge had their Pre-Districts concert Thursday night.  Steve and I drove to Jefferson City to attend a J. Reuben Clark Law Society social Friday night.  I attended a neighborhood tea on Saturday to get acquainted with new neighbors and to plan a neighborhood picnic later this spring.  It was great to connect with old friends and meet new ones.  We have planted broccoli and raspberries in the garden.  I have three blueberry plants on my kitchen counter waiting for the threat of frost to pass before they go in the ground.  Oh my, it has been a chilly spring so far.  Spring break week started out with snow flurries (nothing stuck to the ground, though)!  The only daffodils I have blooming are my teeny ones.  Here they are with my lamb salt/pepper shakers on a pretty ceramic trivet I received from my friend Terri Anderson this week when we had lunch at Wendy’s.

 

 

Happy spring, everyone!

Marching along...

Looking back, I guess it was a pretty full week....

 

Starting the week before and continuing into this last week, I was substitute seminary teacher for the 9^th grade class.  It meant re-configuring our morning routine a bit but it worked out and I really enjoyed myself.  Thankfully, the lesson preparation time was not too long thanks to a really effective teacher’s manual. 

For the most part, our weather has been wonderful.  On Monday, I planted a third apple tree.  I got it from a fellow who lives on Skyview (down off Greenridge and across the street from a school friend of Sarah’s).  He has two entire yards full of dwarf apple trees that I have admired and been curious about for several years so this year, I wrote a letter with questions and he called me to reply.  I learned that apple growing has been a hobby of his for over 40 years, his goal is to have apples to eat from July to frost,  he experiments with different varieties by growing and grafting and he sells his surplus apples at the Farmer’s Market.  And, he had a one-year old Lodi dwarf apple that I could have for free.  So, I drove over, learned more about apple growing (Did you know that Missouri was a huge apple producing state until 1941 when the weather never turned cold and the trees still had sap in them until a bitter frost on November 11th killed them all?  Since it the war was going on, they were not replaced and Washington state became the new apple producer) and, I brought home my little tree and planted it right away.  Steve got out the Mantis tiller yesterday and tackled the gardens.  I cleaned off the deck and prepared all my planters and pots for herbs and flowers (still to early to plant anything, though)  Aaaaaand, today it is really cold.  But, since it is March, it won’t be for long.

Wednesday I took both my Rock Bridge orchestras to  a music festival at the new Battle High School.  It seemed like a good “dry run” for the district music festival in Mexico, MO coming up in early April.  It was a long, exhausting afternoon but the Chamber Orchestra got three ones  for which I was very pleased and the Concert Orchestra got a one-minus, a two, and a three which I was not surprised. 

Ivan, Alain, Jack, Boon, and Robert in their concert finery

 Battle High School music boosters were smart to bring Dippin' Dots to the festival!

 

 While one orchestra was performing, the other orchestra played "ninja" in the gym

Roman entertained us with Viva La Vida (which he still remembered from our flash mob playing of it last fall)

The next evening, my Lange orchestra was invited to play for the PTA spaghetti supper.  We played three pieces – took fifteen minutes – and I was really pleased with how they sounded.  They have come a long way since the first of the year. 

Friday night, Steve and I went to the Alger’s home to hear Ugo Perrigo, son-in-law of Lois and Dave McAllister, speak about his genetic research.  He and Jenna live in Italy and he was brought to MU this past week for a workshop.  It was great to see Lois (Dave couldn’t be there) and Ugo had some very interesting things to say about genetics and family history.  It didn’t start until 8:00, however, and he talked for over two hours so we were pretty worn out by the time we left and we still had to make a quick Wal-mart run.  Ugh.  Not in bed until midnight.

Yesterday, Steve and I brought our friend from church, Lizzy and we drove to Sturgeon where we met  up with a former teaching colleague from CIS and she took us to some new stores in Amish country.  Up until now, all we knew of was the bulk-goods store, a bakery/furniture store, and a salvage grocery store.  Yesterday, we discovered a quaint little general store called Lefties, another general/bulk food store that had shelves and shelves of different colored glassware.  So pretty.  We also visited a quilt shop and a basket shop.  The weather was perfect and we had a great time.  

 

 Steve in front of Lefties

Lizzy with her purchase from the basket shop

 the front of the basket shop

 

 chickens behind the basket shop

one of the dozens of quilts from the quilt shop

 

our haul from the Amish

 

Last night, Steve and I watched “Ender’s Game”.  We both really enjoyed it.  I, of course, have read the book several times and I thought the adaptation was well done.  Steve has never read the book but now would like to.   I was at the sewing machine and he was in the recliner but I think he actually stayed away for the whole film.  That says a lot about how he enjoyed it!  I finished Mockingjay and I really enjoyed it.  I looked forward to going to bed every night so I could read some more. 

Tonight is a CCO concert – it is the Missouri composers orchestra project concert.  All new compositions.  All but one are really quite enjoyable to play and listen to.  There is only one that is just noise.  This will be my last concert with CCO for the season as their next one is the same day as Kirsti graduates from BYU so you know where I will be. 

I will end by wishing you all an early Happy St. Patrick’s day!

First week of March

I love the month of March.  We still get some wintery weather (see last blog post!) but it never lasts very long.  Like last week – on Monday we had temperatures at zero and on Friday, we had 60 degree weather!  Steve listened to the “Garden Spot” on KFRU yesterday and learned that the time to prune trees was “now or soon” so,  after we helped my friend Lizzy haul 10 railroad ties from Menards to her driveway (which took two trips – they are unbelievably heavy), he and I started hacking away.  Steve cut down a very large and very high branch from our large shade tree in the back yard to allow more sun on our second garden spot.  Then he pulled out the chain saw and cut it up to haul away.  After watching some YouTube videos on fruit tree pruning to refresh my memory, I tackled all of our fruit bearing trees.  It was tiring work, for sure.  And, it was also one of the cold days of March with a chilling, biting wind and no sun.  I bought some pansies at Menards and here is how they look today when the sun and warmer temperatures returned…..

 

 

And, lookie what is popping out of the ground!   

 

 We’ll have daffodils within two weeks and they are a reason why I love March so much.

We celebrated Tamara’s birthday this evening with corned beef and cabbage, red potatoes, strawberry/pineapple salad, and Steve’s famous lemon raspberry bars.  Happy Birthday, Tamara!

 

I am in book 3 of the Hunger Games and I watched the first movie last week.  I hope to watch the second one this week. 

With all the snow days these past two months, I have been able to work on and even finish some of the sewing projects piled up on my sewing machine. 

Here is the newest version of the kids art stitchery.  I have it hanging in our family history room. Thanks, Emily, for the inspiration.
(in case you don't know what they represent, I took early drawings from each child and traced and then stitched them onto fabric.  from top to bottom; left to right: Julina, Emily, Elise, Beckie. Steven, Sarah, Kirsti)

This is a Christmas banner, again Emily's idea, that incorporates thirteen small counted cross stitch ornaments that I didn't want to hang on the tree any longer (because we already have too many ornaments and even "retired" some this past year).  Instead, I tacked them onto these fabric flags, stitched a red trim border around them, and made a very long banner (didn't mean to make it so long.  I should have eliminated the triangle flags in between, I guess)


Finally, here are some cushions I sewed for our rocking chair.  Emily, once again, provided the fabric.  It is hard to tell, the it has a farm animal print theme.  It goes very nicely in the family history room.  And, I have enough squares leftover to make a small quilt.  Next project....

True/False

True – we had another snow day:  yesterday from church which makes three months of no fast Sundays in a row and today from school which puts our last day of school back into the first full week of June.  And, it was really seemed like a bogus call on both counts.  We were slated to get 6-8 inches on Sunday over a glazing of ice and sleet and we got nothing but a smidge of ice/sleet.  We broke a 100+ year record low this morning when we hit zero degrees with a minus-20 degree wind chill so I guess that warranted a school closing for a day but it also kind of didn’t since we had other school days with temperatures at those levels.

False – we had a mini family gathering.  No, we did not because of the aforementioned “winter storm”.  Julina was going to drive to St. Louis Friday night and in to Columbia Saturday.  Emily, Joe, and kids were coming Saturday evening.  We were going to have a pizza feast Saturday night and a brunch Sunday and then send everyone on their way Sunday afternoon.  Then, the “winter storm” was forecasted and everyone stayed home.  All except…

True – Kirsti, who flew in from Utah Wednesday night to attend the True/False film festival over the weekend.  Being the graduated film major, this was a big treat for her and she saw a total of  five documentaries.  I joined her on Friday and saw my very first T/F film which was “Rich Hill” (about three teenage boys in a small Missouri town with varying levels of dysfunctional families).  Steve and I went with her on Saturday to see “Tim’s Vermeer” (about a fellow whose background was in engineering and inventing – not art – but he figured out how Vermeer created his amazing paintings and successfully set about to recreate one of them).

 

 Here we are on MU campus going back to where the car was parked.  We had just joined Steven and Tamara for lunch at El Rancho after seeing Tim's Vermeer.

False – temperatures were perfect for the festival.  No way.  While Kirsti left 60 degrees in Utah, she came to 20 and 30 degree weather here in Columbia.  Since Julina and Emily did not come, Steve and I drove her back to St. Louis Sunday afternoon and the roads were relatively clear most of the way.  St. Louis got a bit more snow than we did but we were in the truck and just put it in four-wheel drive and we were just fine.   Kirsti stayed overnight with Emily and family and flew out this afternoon for balmy Utah.

True – Steve and I watched “Oz, The Great and Powerful” and “REDs 2” Friday and Saturday nights.  Oz was interesting while REDs was waaay too violent.  I finished Catching Fire today and started Mockingjay.  The two Hunger Games movies are next on my Netflix queue.  Oh, and I watched the season finale of “Downton Abby” earlier in the week.   I will miss that show but “Once Upon A Time” starts back up this Sunday – yay.

False – I have much more to write about last week.  Nope.