What a month- Ran a Half Marathon, Bought a House- and a whole lot of moving, cleaning, unpacking!!!

Well I haven't posted in a while- but I am going to forgive myself since I have so much going on! The first day of May I ran my first half marathon in Wichita KS. After training hard for the past 3 months I was ready for this race, but I was still very nervous. My sister came with me to cheer me on and I finished in 2 hrs, 2 minutesand 30 seconds. It was quite a bit below my goal time so I was happy!

Me before my race- I was really really nervous.

After the race with my medal- stretching out good!!

Then on May 3rd we bought our first house! It has been very exciting moving, unpacking, getting things set up but it is also a lot of work. I haven't got all of my craft stuff unpacked (well actually not much of it is unpacked). But I have been working on a few projects- and have been doing a lot of planning for projects for the new house. I am planning on doing some roman blinds following the tutorial on Jen's What's New blog here. Tonight we went to pick out fabrics at Hobby Lobby- found a few we liked but none we had to have so we are going to keep looking for now. Can't wait to have time/money to complete ALL the projects I want to do in the new house and I look forward to having lots to blog about!

Have a happy day!!

I'm back to the crafting

Well, I haven't had a post in a while. But, that just means that I was doing good with my training. I finished my triathlon on June 27th. I met my goals for my time and I had a lot of fun with it! Two of my sisters also did the triathlon and my mom came to cheer us on. I did get to quilt a lot on the way there and made a lot of progress.


And now that I am done with training I am going to focus more on my crafting!! I have already done good and finished the middle section of my quilt. Tonight my plan is to get the outside border of the quilting stenciled in and get ready to finish up the quilting.
These are my goals for the rest of the July:
1. Finish quilting the border of the quilt.
2.Work on a round robin cross stitch project- Forever Friends Bear.
3.Start on Lizzie Kate- Dogs leave paw prints on your heart.

Time to take the Christmas Tree Down.

Christmas was great this year.. I got to give some hand made gifts and I hope that they are enjoyed. I made Molly Monkey for my niece Marley and she loved it. I also made initial plaques for my sister, my parents and my in-laws.
Marley, her doll and my sister on Christmas morning.

Scout got to go quail hunting this Christmas and she did very good at helping to find the birds!


December Goals-
1. Christmas presents (several home made things and buying some)-Yup!
2. Birth Announcement (finish and frame)-Almost finished- Kinsley was born on 12-28 and I finished the details of her birthdate and weight yesterday. I need to get some other things to frame it, so this may not happen until the weekend.
3. Also worked on Vegetable Wreath- made some progress but not enough to post a new pic.

Well, I have been really pleased with how much having this blog has helped me keep working on crafts and stitching projects that I really wanted to get done. I have also enjoyed reading others blogs and have found lots of motivation from them. My blogiversary is coming up in February- maybe I will have to do something special for that.

Goals for 2010-
1.Finish the quilt by July- I have 320 squares on the quilt, about 15 are quilted (5% done). My goal is to finish at least 50 squares each month. This will take some effort, but I really want to finish this project.
2. Do a triathlon in June- Already training, just have to keep going :)
3. Start Marley's Rag Quilt
4. Continue to work on current WIP's- no specific goals for finishing them.

September is almost over!!

Well, I haven't posted much this month, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy and getting some crafts done.
I had said I was going to post on my progress on my training for the race, but I didn't really, but we finished the race on September 12. It was a 6.5 mile trail run. Me and two of my sisters did it. It was fun, but it rained the night before and that morning, so it was REALLY muddy. I did walk some of it, but I felt good about my finish.
This month Scout also turned one! I made a cake for her and she loved it, but ate a little too much!

This Saturday we had CRAFT DAY!! It was great. Me , my Mom, 3 of my sisters, and my cousin got together to work on crafts.

My Mom worked on organizing photos and scrapbooking.

Amy worked on unraveling her daughters yarn :) And organizing magazines


Ellen worked on sewing pillows and knitting


Camille made cards.
Dunia worked on her curtains and I worked on my quilt.


Today I worked on making Elderberry jelly and pickled anehiem peppers. I made japeleno jelly last week. I am happy with how much canning we got done this summer!

And the big news for today- I finished piecing my quilt together. This is what it looks like on the bed, too bad it won't be there for a while, I am going to hand quilt it so it will take some time. But I am excited about it.

I forgot that I need to finish my October cross stitch by Thursday. I know what I will be doing the next few days!
Happy stitching and crafting!!

Quick Update

Well, I haven't posted in a little while, but that's just because I have been so darn busy!

Progress this month: I have over half of the quilt pieced together. But then we decided to make it a queen sized quilt, so I have some border pieces to cut. Once I get those cut I will probably take a short break on this project.

I have also got one of the pepper towels finished and started on the second.

We have mostly been spending extra time canning. We have made a batch of pickles, a batch of salsa, and a batch of diced tomatoes. We plan on doing a batch of salsa today.

This weekend is the county fair. I entered my "Touching the Autumn Sky" and "2006 Cherub". I am a little nervous about how they will do, but it was fun to put them on display at least.

Running has been going well. Yesterday was the first workout that I didn't get done. Last week was 20 min on Mon,Wed, Fri and 30 minutes on Saturday. This week was 20 minutes on Mon and Wed, Skipped Fri workout. 40 minutes today, and 20 minutes(Friday make-up) tomorrow. I feel like I am in a lot better shape already.

a boogity boo

I had a great weekend with lots of things happening. I went to a wedding on Saturday and got to see my niece and nephews. Then Bret and I made pickles!!! They are so good and I am super excited about them. This was my first expirience with canning by myself, so I am happy they turned out well. I am looking forward to making salsa and tomato sauce this year too!

I also got all of the squares cut out for the quilt. It didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would and I hope to start sewing it together this week. I hope that I don't get really frustrated with it, as that is what has happened before with some sewing projects. But I laid part of the design out and I really like the way that it looks, so I can just imagine how great it will look when it is sewn together.

One last thing, today I started my training for a 6.5 trail race in September so I will be updating on that on here too. I ran about 2 miles this AM and plan to run again Wed. and Fri. mornings.