Drive to a Fly-In, Plant Parenting, Etched in Glass

*Disclaimer, This ought to be three separate posts, but with the weekend rapidly coming to an end, and allergies getting the best of me, it is one post with three titles.

Saturday I had a fun field trip to a Fly In with my friend Mary! 

Ironically, we drove. We had an all girl caravan of drivers with unique cars. (I drove my Daisy bug, while she's not old, she is manual and does turn some heads.)

 I love this picture of Mary because it's so her! Her tires needed air so she just grabbed that air compressor hose and hauled it out there. (The part that makes her a kindred spirit is that it didn't quite reach so she had to move her car closer anyway. I totally do stuff like that all the time!)

 I loved that this airplane matched Mary's car buttercup!

The plane below was built by it's owner! His wife even helped with the riveting!

 These top wings reminded me of the kind of planes my Grandpa Jim and Grandma Dixie flew! (And the one Uncle Doug and Aunt Grace took us to Pismo in!)

 On my way home, I called my dad and said, "Have you ever been to a fly in?! It was soooo cool!" He said they went all the time when he was a kid....I guess things don't seem like such a big deal when your parents make you go. Here's Mary taking lots of pictures for the newsletter "Fly Paper."

 We've been meaning to get a picture of Daisy and Buttercup together, so after knitting Saturday afternoon I pulled my car behind hers and took a picture. Daisy looks so much bigger than Buttercup!

 I tried to get a picture of us with the cars, but it was having trouble focusing. Wouldn't you know it the picture takes as soon as I start laughing because its not working and Mary rolls her eyes?!

It was quite the fun Saturday and another new Kansas experience!

I spent part of today, Mother's Day, with "the children."

I had planted some Snow Peas at the community garden a while back, but had long since given up on them due to the snows we had this spring. Turns out, all they needed was for their mother to leave them alone.

 I took 12 plants to live with their siblings in the community garden. One of each variety of pepper/tomato I started from seed. All the shoveling, hoeing, planting and watering gave me quite a bit of time to reflect on my mom, how much I miss her, how much I learned from her and wish I could still learn, as well as how blessed I am with SO MANY, AMAZING role model women in my life to get advice from, be creative with, and enjoy their company. All of these interactions connect me with her in many ways as well.

 My friend Pat gave me some day lilies to plant on the West end of our house. I'm looking forward to them adding some dimension along that wall...and maybe helping that big sprinkler hub blend in. The oregano she divided and shared with me is doing splendidly as well! I never knew so much sharing could happen in gardening! I'm so lucky to be learning from her and hope that I might get the chance to pay some plants forward as well!

 Also... our grass is GROWING!

and the leaves are finally making an appearance! 

(Not for lack of trying but the weather just hasn't been cooperating.)

 Also making an appearance are my allergies. After all that time outside, I've been congested the rest of the day. Time for an inside project. I've been wanting try etching our name into our Pyrex pans for a while now. I got the cream on an adventure into a town with a craft store and used the vinyl decal paper that came with the Cricut we got for a wedding present. Thanks M&C!

 Lo and behold the recommended settings worked perfectly, and I had the letters and place the letters came out of to stick on to the pans and apply the etching cream. I used painters tape to make my straight line borders and protect areas I didn't want etched because it's waaaaay cheaper than Cricut decal paper.

 The directions say leave it on for 60 seconds. I found that this did not do the trick.

 So I reapplied the tape and left it on for 30 minutes. Ahhhh much better. I did a couple rounds for good measure and even crisp etching.

 Here you can see the outer rectangle more clearly.

 This is the second one I did, with the part of the page the letters were cut out of. 

I'm pretty happy with the final product. The other pinners and bloggers were right. 

Now I want to etch everything!!!

Luke Update III

Luke was an exemplary patient yesterday. He took the fluids like a champ and drank drank drank lots of water. He and I figured a way to move his table in front of him to help elevate his arms and keep the swelling down.


Around 9 pm he was finally discharged and We went home.


He's doing well. He's getting pretty tired of having to go to the bathroom so much. In general his body isn't feeling as spry as it normally does.
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Luke Update II

Luke is going a bit stir crazy. This is how I found him after school.


Beds are overrated. He said that position helped him keep his arms up to let the swelling go down.
He was on IV drip all day. His tests from this morning his docor said that the "bad numbers," he used the official word, were down by half but were still 6 times what they should be.


They've been pushing the fluids full force to see if maybe he can go home tonight and actually get some sleep. Fluids full force means hourly+ bathroom trips.


In spite of that, he's still drinking as much as he can.
Word on the street was that there was a storm coming in. I had walked to the hospital in a t-shirt and sweats. Additionally, they weren't going to let Luke come home in the storm without a car. After seeing this storm on the map at 6:20 I headed home arriving on our front porch as giant drops were beginning to fall.


This is what it looked like rolling in at 6:20 PM.


And looking at Luke's room:


At 7 it was pitch black. The wind almost blew me forward and down and the hail may have left me with a bruise.


Now it seems to have let up a bit and we can see some sky again.


Luke is IV free and waiting for blood test results which will be the determining factor in whether he can go home or not.


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Luke, Status Update

Well, many of you have heard, Luke in in the hospital for an over night stay. He has a case of Compartment Syndrome in his arms. He is not in pain. His doctor didn't like how the numbers on his blood work and urine samples came back and decided it would be best to flush them all out of his system with extra IV fluids. His fluid IV is the only thing he's hooked up to. (Well other than his iPad.)


He made work calls from his bed before I got there after work and in the last two days of ordered rest he's finished two books. Right now he's going between the Indiana/New York basketball game and the third book of the "I Am Number 4" series.


One thing that is kind of nice for us, we can see our front door from his room window.
We're kind of in limbo. It seems kind of silly to get super worked up when he seems so "OK." At the same time we're wanting to be as cautious as possible and take this seriously so that it doesn't worsen.
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Blessed

Okay. Seriously. The good teaching days soooo out weigh the rough ones. I'm finally getting to see students consistently. I'm getting to know them and their interests and we're establishing what we expect from each other. These kids are cool! They know how to work on cars, they have opinions about music, they do their own hair(some if them do very intricately) they are learning to become individuals! I love it!
We've just finished a Frog unit in 7th grade and are getting ready for some basic anatomy. I made bone models the other night. They're going to take pictures of the pieces apart and label them using an iPad app that will record their voices and explanations while they write their labels.


Then they'll assemble the "bones" and create another labeled photograph.
I'm also thrilled with all of the progress of my fiber students/group! These are Jan's first felted Duffers and Tami is a brand new crocheter and made that fabulous afghan!


We have gotten two great groups going, one on Thursday's and one on Saturdays. I love to see what everyone is working on and encourage them in their projects. It's such a great time for fellowship. It's a time where we share skills, stories, experience, advice, sorrows, joy, and support for each other! I am so blessed!


The children are still doing well. We keep getting snow and frost so I bring them into their bench in the garage. I keep telling them they're getting too big to be carried. Just this weekend I had to make new little newspaper pots for the tomatoes and peppers who out grew their dirt pods.


I've actually gone out to the driving range a couple of times this summer! Toms are my most recently chosen golf shoes. I like to hit balls on the range barefoot and this feels pretty close as they're nicely broken in. Check out the pretty blue grips Luke put on his/my clubs.


We had a bit of an adventure on Saturday night. Luke had been feeling the effects of a particularly intense workout all week and when he came home with very swollen arms Saturday we marched down the street to the hospital. (Ok it there was a bit more before that but I digress.)
Luke was less than thrilled about being there. However, after several hours of listening to his drunken Somalian roommates we were sent home with a guesstimates of Compartment Syndrome and directions to take it very easy, ice, drink TONS, and elevate. A trip to the doctor today confirmed the diagnosis, that Luke is on the path to getting better, and that its a good thing we went in when we did. Luke is no longer giving me glares.
This forced time off to heal and rest has been rather nice. In fact, this evening was soooo enjoyable. It was quiet, and relaxing.


I tend to talk to Luke when he reads so I picked up my "no talking" (intricate lacework) knitting and we were just together. We took a break for a dinner of goat cheese, apricot and almond stuffed chicken with green beans. This is the second time making it in two weeks but its tasty.


Here is my work in progress. It's a bit of a frustrating knit but I'm really enjoying the Spud and Chloe yarn. The kicker is that one row is over 300 stitches now. They're taking quite some time. Though for this evening, it was the perfect project.
Ahhhh. You're all caught up and I'm relaxed so I'm calling it an early night. I send out prayers that you're enjoying some blessings of your own!
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Lintilla

This is the third pattern I've knit by Martina Behm and is ALSO based on "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Though, disclaimer, the character the scarf is named for is only on the radio show, not in the book. These patterns are seriously so fun!! I also love how much I learn about knitting when I'm working on them!

 Saturday was really windy (who am I kidding, every day is really windy!) and I was really enjoying how the ruffles move in the wind! Pictures really don't do it justice.

I finished it just before coffee shop knitting which meant that I didn't have a project for knitting and talking on the needles! I took some of my leftover yarn and made a Hexi Puff!

Mary is making a Hitchiker scarf out of the same yarn and I can't wait to see it!
All the stats are posted on Ravelry, you can find my account through the button link on the sidebar.

Steve. The Camel.

Mary and I went on an adventure about 45 minutes out of town. We went to meet Steve the Camel. He lives with 5 horses next door to lots of black beef cattle! 

 Steve played hard to get. The horses came to say hi, but were not at all interested in the snacks Mary brought. 

 Steve made us bring the food to him. The cows behind us were all ready to join the party....but really...their hair isn't really much for spinning into yarn. 

 He let us take some of the fur he was shedding. Hair? Do camels have fur or hair?

Go figure! We got to harvest camel fur...in Garden City!

I'm learning sooooo much and having so many crazy cool experiences!