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What's a boy to do...

On a Saturday, when most of the snow is melted and he can't go sledding. When it's 30 freaking degrees and windy as heck.

He opens his sandbox, what else!

Then he climbs a few trees...



















Then plays on his playground!



















It's just what a boy does in February in Iowa!

home sweet home

Let it snow.

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Half way home...

At the dreaded Chicago. So far skies clear, flight on time. Snow expected in a few short hours.

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Thursday in MI

Today we drove south. The weather did not improve and the temperatures did not go up. Quite the opposite actually. We had to drive about an hour south to the "wrist" part of MI. On our way we experienced rain, snow (at times blowing to white out conditions, sometimes just big fat lazy flakes), sunshine and wind. That's a lot of weather for a 60 mile stretch! But we made it safely so that was a bonus!
Here's our meeting room set up and ready to go:














And here it is filled to capacity. My travelling partner Doug is in the front doing his portion of the presentation.















Tomorrow's meeting is just a half hour drive away, whoo-hooo.
Then my flight is headed out in the evening, returning to Des Moines at 9ish.
Hopefully the weather is good!

Wednesday (i think) in MI

Today we traveled to Bad Axe, the "hub of the Thumb". Sounds rough and tumble doesn't it!? I have the feeling it could be, but today it was...pleasant, for winter in MI. I'd say it was a pretty normal day. We left Lansing in drizzling rain at about 35 degrees and headed north. Bad Axe is located in the "thumb" part of MI, near the top part.











So the farther north we got, the cooler it got and the bigger the snowflakes became! Roads were a little slushy, but just normal winter weather driving, reminds me of IA! Today we got Missouri's yesterday gray day.














Doesn't this photo look like i applied some dreamy fancy filter? Nope, just a wet car window!














This was later in the day, after we were finished and heading back south. It was actually looking kind of green out, I think this may be wheat starting to show some color!














Maybe tomorrow I can actually get a photo during our meeting. Really exciting stuff I tell ya!
Wonder what I'm teaching? See here and here, if you care! Lots of talk about dairy cows and computers and PCDART.
YeeHaw, we're heading south tomorrow!

Tuesday in Michigan

Today we traveled to Tustin, MI and had our meeting at the Kettunen Center. Tustin is in the north central-ish part of the main part of MI.
It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive northwesterly from Lansing, where I am staying each night.
Kettunen Center is a full service conference center owned and operated by the Michigan 4-H Foundation. It is a wonderful facility and we had a very nice time at this location.
Here's a few photos of today's trip.

This is leaving, pulling out of the driveway of the center, this is across the highway. Such a nice contrast against the white snow and dark trees.

Another interesting barn a few miles up the road. I'm obsessed with barns, can you tell? This location appeared to be a working dairy.

Ahhhhh, look at that wonderfully large King sized bed! I slept like a log last night and expect to again tonight. Better take advantage of hogging the bed while I can!

And have you ever seen this on your pillow cases before? Me either!

Wednesday's forecast, snow. Thursday's forecast, snow. Friday's forecast, anybodies guess.
We're off to Bad Axe on Wednesday.
Nighty night!

In michigan this week

In Michigan this week for work. No warmer or less snowy here than it is in Iowa!!! Skies were basically clear today, so flights were calm. Finally out of the office to enjoy some real sunshine!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Said by the little person at 8:00 this morning, about 5 minutes after he woke up:
"Chocolate is good for breakfast."
 

"Chocolate is my FAVORITE breakfast."

Such hard decisions for so early in the morning.

So we had some chocolate for breakfast. Then we made pancakes!
Happy Valentine's Day!

Surprise!

Imagine my surprise to find this smiling face as I was cleaning and reorganizing a few weeks ago. No telling how long he had been sitting in there, gas all ran to his trunk, waiting for someone to discover him! He was so patient! And his little person was so excited to see him again!

Piano hinge binding

This past weekend at the Memory Bound crop I ran into my friend Robin and she had seen this amazing creation and wondered if I had ever done a piano hinge book. I have and this is the book I have that taught me how, by Design Originals.

Here is a small piano hinge book I did, it's been probably at least a year or so ago that I did it. It's not very big, 4.25 5.5.

I think I intended it as a garden journal type book, but I never got that far with it!
I used bamboo skewers. It's actually relaxed over time, I think I bound the string at the top and bottom a little tight and it used to stay sproinged open, but today it is sitting very nicely, non-sproinged!

When one thing leads to another...

It all started with a 40% off coupon for Hobby Lobby. Which led to this:

Which led to this. We decided to make a valentine's day card and the word he insisted we use was CAKE...

Which then led to, you guessed it, cooking...

His job, among others, was to fill the cupcake pots with the papers. This kept him busy for at least the 2 minutes it took to run the mighty mixer!

Which then led to this. This was a carrot cake mix. But his comment after tasting it was "This is very good chocolate". I busted out laughing.

And I didn't correct him. Chocolate, carrot, hey they both start with a C and he was at least eating little bits of vegetable, assuming they were real, they were orange at least!

And the water kept him busy while I cleaned up the kitchen a bit.

Some of the finished product:

Yummy!!!

Baby Album

One of the ladies in my office at work recently had a baby, her third, and it was a girl. Her first two were boys. So we at the office were just as excited to get to make/buy girly things for her for a shower as she was to receive them.
Here's what I made for her.

I used 6x9 page protectors from Making Memories. The cover is a sandwich of chipboard, felt and fabric, sewn around the outer edge. I sewed a paper pocket into the front and back covers before assembling the layers. Then bound it with standard office binding rings and decorated them with ribbons.

I used Basic Grey paper Blush Collection and chipboard stickers from the Bittersweet collection. The chipboard stickers had adhesive on the back already, but it just wasn't sticky enough so I had to glue many of them anyway. I also used other miscellaneous bits and pieces from my stash.

I just used a simple design of solid on left page and pattern on right page with a little embellishment on both pages. I think 4x6 photos, horiz or vertical should fit nicely on these pages.
Here's a few pages

You can see the whole album here if you're interested.

Project 365, 2009

This project initially started here. Since I really have no trouble taking a picture a day, I thought what the heck, might as well do this again. I sort of did it last year, but never formally organized it into anything tangent.
This year, Creating Keepsakes offered a Kit of the Month designed by Becky Higgins. Of course it was an instant success and sold out very quickly. I was lucky enough to get this kit and here's how it's going so far...

On Friday, Memory Bound had an all day crop, so this was my project for the day. I got all my photos printed for the month of January and gathered my notes and went to work.

As I was working thru the pages, I decided if I would journal on my blocks daily as I record my notes, It might go together faster.

And if I would slip in all the "week of" cards, that would help too.

I like how it's turning out and this project could easily be done without the special page protectors the kit provided. You could use the 12x12 3 up, 6 slot page protectors that are offered by a couple different manufacturers. Becky also has a digital download of the journaling cards at her blog here, go to the January 2009 archives and scroll down to about January 10. She also has a post of alternative ways to do the 365 project if you didn't get a kit.

And here's a snapshot of many of our January 2009 photos.

Now on to February! Can you believe it!?!