FINISHED SKIRT

caitlin in berkley, ca. wearing her newly finished skirt. 

doesn't she look great!

i can't tell you how fun it has been sewing with caitlin and her friends.

seeing these girls finish projects is amazing and so satisfying since it seems i can not finish a thing.

oh how i want my mojo back, but a season for everything and now my season is helping the girls learn to sew!

oh yeah, caitlin is teaching english to 15 chinese students at berkley......she suffers so:)

and looks so unhappy.

not, she loves to teach english and loves to be around chinese students to sharpen her mandarin language skills.

see you in mid august sweetie!

Friday Picture

Panda Reserve China

SHE IS HOME

She arrived early and we were not standing at the railing screaming when she came up the stairs.

Instead the 3 of us ( Dad, Erin and myself) were sitting in chairs just talking away, myself knitting because I could hardly contain my excitement, when I looked up and screamed "there she is"! Scaring the men sitting next to us , then to all our amazement I leaped over these men to get to Caitlin. Oh it was grand, wonderful,wanted to replay it over and over again!!!!!

So we loaded her up and took her home at last!

HOME

In less than 24 hours this girl should, if everything runs on schedule, be in DENVER with her mother's arms around her.

Wish I had as many arms as an octopus to wrap around this child , I am so proud of her.

CAMPING AGAIN

Eric and I decided to head up to the mountains for the July 4th week-end or at least for several days of the long week-end. I must say it was beautiful!!! I live in one of the most beautiful parts of the country.

Eric fly fishing . He is a really long way out there, good thing I had my telephoto lens with me.

West branch off the Laramie River

State flower: Columbine .

Getting ready to grill brats that turned out to be Italian sausage. It was not very good and we ended up eating a huge dish of strawberry short cake with lots of whip cream! Jealous Caitlin?

Soon you will be back and eating whip cream with us too! And real cake, good cake, pretty cakes! 17 days till landing in the USA.

CATCH UP

Finished baby blanket for friend.

I am up and walking 2 miles a day! My foot on the bottom remains "asleep", hopefully this will go away as the swelling at the surgical site subsides. But overall am feeling really good. My time off has been spent knitting and sewing. Mainly finishing up UFO's and I did start one Bonnie Blue quilt that I believe will be done over Sister's Weekend in March. I have also been doing allot of cooking!! Caitlin you would be so proud of me!

Caitlin has been traveling in western China and the phone /text call came that she said may happen. She texted her sister to say from some remote high altitude place that her bank card was not working and that she needed money, to please contact Dad to fix the problem so she could get on a bus/train to get back to Chinese civilization. When Erin called me to tell me of the text I asked her if she heard a yak in the back ground mooing.

Erin: "What?"

I replied that before Caitlin left on her trip she sent an email informing us if we received a phone call and their was a yak mooing in the background that, that would be her and most likely out of money. I laughed at the time but did say to Eric to expect the phone call. I knew I should of placed a bet on the odds that we would be hearing a mooing yak! Opportunity lost!

All in all Caitlin has returned to ChungDu in good health and excited to start sharing pictures of her amazing adventure, which I will share here in the near future.

I am also taking a quilting class with Kelly Gallagher-Abbott called Funky Checkers. I have not taken a quilt piecing class in ages. This one is all about "freedom piecing". Something faster, freer and still using my favorite scrap quilting style......I am all in! Added bonus Tara is cooking!

We will be quilting and eating at City Park Inn .

Eric's new toy truck. It has individual heated seats which I love!!

A New Beginning and Granny Panties

Today I start what I am calling my new beginning, that is life with out having to be at the hospital 4 days a week. I am now half time, working for health insurance and tuition for my very intelligent children.

As I contemplate what to do with my time and looked around my house it hits me like a bomb! Get most of this “crap” out of here so I can think and not suffocate. I feel as if I am drowning in “stuff”. So up the stairs to the bedroom and the monster called the dresser, my dresser that is,( I will not be helping my mate breathe easier at this time), will be my first target.

As I unceremoniously empty the drawers on the floor I have to laugh at myself. The underwear apparel drawer being the most interesting with memories, some long ago and some very recently. I will tell about the most recent since it is still clear in my mind as to the logic of these purchases.

The fam damily went to China this past summer to visit my daughter. Having been armed with the information that the Chinese do not use western toilets but squatters and that toilet paper was something to be packed, I felt I needed to really prepare myself. So the planning began… 20 boxes of small packages of wet wipes , 20 bottles of germ killing gel and 28 pairs of cheap granny panties. I had also practiced squatting for months prior to our departure. 30 years as an OR nurse was taking it’s toll on my knees. Bags packed, half with the above mentioned, 3 outfits and the other half of the suitcase with drugs. A hazard working in a hospital with Doctors and PA’s with prescription writing privileges. They feared the worse for me and were sure I would return with some rare and not so rare diseases. As this did happen the last time I left the country I filled every scrip with the capabilities to treat every person I met from here to China and back.

The thought beyond the granny panties, the squatting exercises were going so- so, and I had a very logical, rational fear of falling in the squatter. So one pair of panties per day and a couple of extra just in case the thinkable happened. My strategy was that at the end of the day I would throw out the panties and shake out a new pair for the following day’s adventure. Well, for all you unbelievers there is a God in heaven, I am here to testify that I came home with 27 pairs of granny panties and not one mishap in the squatter!

Now back to cleaning out the dresser. I had planned to throw away these granny panties in China but they became sort of a badge of courage for me, I went, I saw, I squatted and had a wonderful time with my family in China. As I smile and fold my granny panties neatly to be placed back in the draw I think, these are to be kept and remembered fondly of my trip to China!

The lost pair, I am sure are being used as a curtain somewhere in The Republic of China.

More China pictures, we took so many in the 2 weeks that we were with China.

My visit to China is a trip that I seem to appreciate in time lapse moments. Something will be said and I say "oh yeah we did such and such " in China or saw this cool site or had the best laugh here with the kids. Remember trying to convince Erin to think about something else than her need to vomit every 5 minutes on the train. Caitlin told her to think that her ankle was really hurting and Erin's reply was " but I don't want my ankle to hurt" ! Erin did not see the humor in this but Caitlin and I had a good laugh. And yes Erin did recover several hours after we reached our destination and got off the 16 hour train ride.

The Xi'an train station

WE ARE HOME

China East was the airlines we flew to and from China. Tight seating and we were sore for 3 days post our return trip

China, it was wonderful,exhausting, too much to see and a whole lot of people! The food I did not think was very good, alright but not great. Nothing like Chinese food here, all dishes in China taste the same, same spices, same oil.

We saw the Tericotta Soldiers. These carving were all done by hand to protect the emperor in his after life.

Rode the train for a total of 26 hours. Caitlin booked us hard sleepers for the trip to and from Chengdu. It was not to bad and I became a good squatter.

And this is the reason we were on the train. The Panda Bears!! They are so cute and the park is beautiful.

Am glad to be home, just wish my sleep patterns would return to their normal pattern.

Oh I bought allot of yarn 6 big yanks in China for the grand total of $15.50. China is a very inexpensive country to visit. The people are friendly,always smiling and helpful. But China is hard, did I mention that their are a whole lot of people in that country.

THE PARTY

Caitlin came home for 10 days and we gathered up some friends for good food and beverages.

Love the name of this wine! Taste good to I hear.

Some of Caitlin's good friends, Tina, Caitlin, Mel, and Erika.

My girls

Caitlin the LADY

The day was beautiful! We all gathered on the back porch with enough sun balanced by some shade. It has been wonderful having Caitlin home. I think I can let her go back for another year.

The second year will go by much faster than the first and we will be with her in a couple of weeks. What a summer!

Home Again

Caitlin is home and she looks great! A little thiner but that smile still covers her entire face and lights up the room. We are going to have Caitlin time, Dad, Mom and Caitlin on Friday then a BBQ on Sunday with family and friends, hoping to keep everything low key and relaxed.

Summer and hot weather have officially arrived in Colorado. We even turned on the air conditioner yesterday. Maybe now one of my tomato plants will grow and start to put on fruit. 

I would be very sad if I had no garden tomatoes at the end of August, nothing is as good as a home grown tomato straight from the backyard, sliced with a little salt and pepper.

Happy 4th of July

Hoping today is a relaxing 4th of July for all, as for Mr.p. and myself we will be having a quite 4th together watching the History station. Today of course they are showing the Revolutionary War. I do not know that much about this war that gave us Independence soo... I will be watching the show in it's entirety. Of course their will be some serious knitting happening as well.

We have decided we will not be planting a garden this year. The rains just keep coming and they are downpours. The garden beds just have too much water in them and the seeds are drowning, more like rotting in the ground. With the rains and us leaving for China in a couple of weeks we will be only harvesting tomatoes in the late summer.

Caitlin will be home from China next week for 10 days to see her family and honey. We will be having a BBQ next Sunday to get people together to hear some of Caitlin's stories. She has to be back in China by the 18th and then we will meet her in Xi'an. I know it will be a very busy July and August for us. But as they say "that's life, get in it and live it". 

Oh How I Miss the Mountains

It is summer time and this is where I want to be... 10-thousand feet up in the mountains with family, moose ,river, and fish.   We just wait for this trip every year. It is beautiful , calming and QUITE.   I love the quite the most and of course the smell of the outdoors.

Here is Bullwinkle, remember that cartoon on Saturday morning way back in the day?

And this is my fisherman. This man can catch fish anywhere and lots of them. Of course he is a "catch and release" type of a guy.

Sad but true ,we will probably not make it to our mountains this summer.We have a reservation for China. Yes if we are not detained due to the swine flu, we hope to be traveling in China with our daughter who is in the Peace Corps stationed in China. China presently is over reacting quarantining Americans coming into the country. Why they are not checking to be sure sick people do not get on the plane, they are waiting till you land and then checking for sick people. Makes no sense to me.