july 15

It's Friday night. Sarah and Bob are at rehearsal. Tomorrow is day two of the workshop, so I am having a quiet evening in, with the grandkitties. Today went very well. This group is great fun. Wonderful humor, good color sense, adventurous and responsive. And gift of all gifts: everyone knows their machines, every machine in class is well cared for and therefore, I get to do what I am there to do. Believe me, this makes a difference! Going into tomorrow (when we will be doing free motion work) I can be pretty confident that any technical problems can be easily addressed. I do have my new camera with me. If i remember I'll ask permission to photograph the work and post it here. [i do not usually think of documenting a class while in the middle of it, and will not post pix of students work without permission. so, two things to think about and remember]
Sarah , Bob and I are having a quiet and relaxed family visit in spare moments here and there. I'm here for almost a week and we all three have work to do, so there's not so much pressure to fit things into a tiny amount of time. After tomorrow's class session I'll be free to go to the rehearsals, will help with costume construction and alterations, some set building and general backstage support stuff. Tech theatre is not my forte' but I take instruction well and can follow directions, grin. Unfortunately I will not be here for the performances, but will see the show develop.
and now, a book, and an early bed time.
I've cruised through the ring and enjoyed catching up a little with people's blogs, have cruised through QA and avoided commenting on the current threads of "why blog" and "the list has changed".

july 12

...and flying South tomorrow. It will be in the triple digits here, not quite so hot where i am headed. The difference? Here, almost no humidity. South: "pea soup in a zip loc bag", as my daughter says. grin.
i am looking forward to seeing her and her sweetie. We'll have almost a week. I will do a two day workshop while there, help Sarah take down a show at the art center, watch multiple rehearsals for "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" and just relax. Tuesday is Sarah's birthday, Bob's is a week later.
yes, I am packed and almost ready. Leaving home is always difficult though. I really do not like to fly any more. The Bose noise cancellation headphones help a lot! but still.....

What is new here? not much. Have been working on UFOs, finding some satisfaction in picking up unfinished, unresolved work and doing something with it.

The gardens are maintaining; it's that hot in-between phase of the Summer;.
The paperwork has won and i am not quite, but almost ready to declare it the victor.

When i get back i begin another round of Hyalgan/Synvisc for the knee and really need to look at when i can fit in the next surgery. I don't want to!!! Down time is NOT on my list of things to do any time soon. This one will be lengthy.

onward. y'all be good. i'll check in from points South.

format issues

Blogger has added a photo option. This saves a step but i do not have the formatting figured out yet. So, the text looks squeezed.
maybe i'll get better at this if i practice?

July 9

The last few days Michael has been out of town and Sam has stayed home with me, poor guy. (I'm boring. he has much more interesting adventures with Michael, the center of the Universe. I do take the dog to the river as early as possible. This morning we were out at 6. A light breeze kept the mosqitoes at bay. We saw deer on the far shore, pelikans upriver, herons and eagles scouting their breakfast.
The milkweed is blooming now, a feast for butterflies.

Since I'm not walking much these days we stayed at water's edge and worked on retrieves.

Someone has been rearranging the rocks.
I like the curve.

catching up

two weeks ago I drove down to Cody, WY for a benefit party. A woman in our extended circle had a serious head injury (she fell from a horse); the benefit was to raise money for her aftercare. She has no health insurance and needs constant care as she goes through a long rehabilitation. My friend, Mz. Vic, lives out on the South Fork about 22 miles from town and we stayed with her that night. Here are some views from Vic's house.



Mz. Vic has a passive solar house and a wonderful little garden. Since they put up a 6 foot fence to block the wind and keep the deer out, things are growing well. Here's a shot of Vic and Sam.
Later that evening we drove into town for the dance party. About 700 tickets were sold for the party; there were perhaps 300 people there when I left (9 ish, I turn into a pumpkin if I stay out too late ) It was a lot of fun and a major success. Great music, dancing, a benefit auction. Over $50,000 was raised for the cause. All the food, beverages and music were donated and folks were very generous with their donations and their purchases. The ability of community to come together to help is amazing.