my trick worked again

Back in early May I took an all day quilt class and then got up early again to race and did very well. Yesterday morning I got up early, drove 25 minutes down the road, and had to turn around because I forgot the little table that slides onto my sewing machine. But then I drove like the devil to Augusta and made it to my Intro to Modern Quilting class only 5 minutes late. After spending the day sewing this wall hanging, 

wandering around looking at quilts (including my entry), and driving home, I got up early this morning for my previous least favorite race in the Sub5 series. 

I have never done well in the Bucksport Bay Festival 5K, but today, perhaps due to my semi-relaxing day yesterday, I finished in 2nd place overall, with a time of 20:53, a 6:44/mile pace. I was all set to give it up to my friend Lisa, but then I decided that all those Wednesday evening track workouts would have then gone to waste, so I poured it on and flew that last quarter mile. The next race on my schedule is the County Half Marathon, waaaay up in northern Maine. I'm certainly going to run much slower August 10th, even if the weather cooperates and the scenery lives up to my high expectations.   

a week off from regular life

This past week my dad and his wife came and visited us. I've never really been close to my father since we haven't lived in the same house since I was 5, but I have to say that this was our best visit yet. Tim took a few days off and we went swimming off the boat at Swan Lake as well as Craig Pond. 

Philomena kept me company several times during my 3X day trip down to the fruit trees to knock off Japanese beetles into a bucket before they ate every leaf to nothing. They took each of the big girls out for some shopping and lunch and we spent every evening sitting on the porch admiring the view, chatting, and indulging in adult beverages. One night we went to the lobster pound for an evening of good food, gorgeous views, 

and conversation that mostly consisted of, "Children put that crustacean down!"

It was a good week, but I fell off the wagon in terms of running, partly because of not wanting to disappear for several hours, but also because it has been so blasted hot. Maine is not supposed to be 90F, especially for more than 3 days. The combination of heat and high humidity means that garden has been growing madly and my diligence with the bucket means that the Japanese beetles are almost gone much to the chickens' culinary chagrin. But since I have a 5K on Saturday and a 1/2 marathon in 2 weeks, I better have my feet hit the pavement more often and lay off the booze if I want a decent performance.     

Carnival of Homeschooling

One of the beauties of homeschooling is the opportunity to educate a child as well as help form their character. Those of us who have taught our own children from their earliest years through 8th grade, or even all the way to 12th grade graduation, know that this is a long, and sometimes arduous process. One of my hobbies is quilting, a useful art that transforms fabric into a beautiful object that can warm the body and soul for a lifetime. It takes a great deal of time and perseverance to make a quilt, just as it does to teach a child to read, write, count, and slowly learn to think and reason.

First you select yardage of fabric in your favorite colors, wash it, press it, and cut it according to the pattern selected. There are many homeschooling curriculum choices available from traditional, to classical, to unschooling.    

Jamie at Time 4 Learning boosts our enthusiasm with 5 Steps to Planning An Awesome Homeschool Year.

Jennifer at Time 4 Learning shares a video that poses the possibility of an addition to the English language in The 27th Letter of the Alphabet?

Julie at Brave Writer gives us good advice with 10 tips for homeschool newbies. 

Hire A Nanny shares many links in 25 Blogs to Think About Before Committing to Homeschooling. (I didn't look at each link, so I can't guarantee what you will find)

Tiffany at As For My House writes about homeschooling ethics in Seeing the Right and Wrong in Used Curriculum.
 
Then you piece together the blocks, using a 1/4" seam, pressing after each step. My educational philosophy of little steps repeated frequently has worked in teaching 5 children to love to read, play the piano, and memorize the times tables, just as using an iron correctly leads to properly squared and sized blocks.

 Mrs. White at The Legacy of Home shares with us a beautiful summer day in Homeschooling With Grandbaby. 

Shalynne at Wonderfully Chaotic gives us pictures and the recipe for Easy and Cheap Summer Bubble Blowers. 

Christina shares with us her philosophical musings in Weeding at Home Spun Juggling. 

Pamela at Zesty Mom reminds us to take time for fun in Summertime: 3 Ways to Keep the Living Easy.  

Chris at Home School vs Public School shares some more ideas for keeping the kids busy and learning in Summer Learning.

Once the blocks are completed, they are sewn together, using sashing to separate them and a border if it is desired. As a child masters the basics, they can progress on to more complicated and difficult subjects that help round out their intellect.

Annette at A Net in Time Schooling gives us a step-by-step how to in Building an Indoor Ant Colony.
Annie Kate of Tea Time with Annie Kate give us the blow-by-blow of letting her daughter bake her own dessert in Miss 9's Lemon Meringue Pie.

Ann at Harvest Moon by Hand shares with us a detailed art study with her two daughters in Artist/Picture Study-Georgia O'Keefe.

Jodi at Magical Mouse Schoolhouse gives us tips on visiting Disney when it rains in Magical Blogorail Yellow: It's Raining, It's Pouring!

Amy at Hope Is The Word shares some fabulous art work of her kids with Kaleidoscope Painting. 

The quilt is basted with batting and a backing and then quilted for beauty and to provide stability. A binding is sewn around the outside to keep it from unraveling, and finally a label is tacked onto the backside to show who made it and when it was completed.

Erik reminds us of our goal at A Guide to Great Kids with his post: What Do We Want to Accomplish as Parents?

Elena at My Domestic Church gives us the blow-by-blow of dealing with the bureaucrats in How to take the GED in Akron, Ohio if you are under 19 and a homeschooler.

Henry at Why Homeschool shares his daughter's summary of her summer in A report from my youngest daughter.

Of course we hope that a person who graduates from high school or college never really "finishes" their education, but continues learning their whole life. Just as a quilt is completed and the quilter goes on to another project, a homeschooling parent or child can go on to another phase of life and learning after they receive their diploma. My 10 year old daughter Maggie is currently making her own quilt after finding a simple pattern.

I'm cutting the pieces since I would rather she not cut off her finger, but she is doing everything else. Perhaps one day she will also teach her own children, not only how to quilt, but how to read and think, and be contributors to the world around them. 

Thank you for reading the Carnival, if I have missed your submission please accept my apologies. We are off this morning to enjoy another lovely Maine summer day at the pond with our company from North Carolina. 

4th of July disaster

When I attempted to swing by the library prior to Thursday's race from Brewer to Bangor to drop off a tote bag full of books, we were thwarted by road barricades. "I guess they have decided to close off the roads really early for the parade,"I thought. But as the 10:45 race start loomed closer, I found out that there was a different reason for the road closure. A man in Bangor decided to shoot off 70 rounds in his apartment and after a 4 hour standoff with police, only emerged after they used tear gas to smoke him out. 

Due to this "incident," the race and parade route were changed and shortened, which we found out 2 minutes before the race began. I didn't know exactly where the race was to go or how long it would be, but ran a 5:45 first mile and only started to be passed on the bridge. I guess I could have run a bit faster, but a 9:10 time was good enough to give me 5th place overall and 1st in my age bracket. Mary, Maggie, Charlie, and I walked back along the parade route, watching the floats and slapping hands with Governor LePage. 

It wasn't until the next morning, when I went on the Bangor Daily News website to find the details about the shooter that I read with horror about the accident that occurred after we left the ending point of the race. An antique fire engine lost brake power on the sharp turn and decline where the parade was rerouted and ran into the 1940's John Deere tractor, driven by Wallace Fenlason . He was thrown off the tractor and crushed under the fire engine. I found out yesterday that our babysitter and her whole family saw the accident. 5 days later, I still get teary-eyed when I think about how this poor man, who just wanted to share his love of America, Maine, and antique tractors with the crowd, lost his life. Our prayers go out to his family and friends as well as the fireman driving the truck.

chickens and veggies getting bigger every day

This year's garden was planned much better than previously, I staked each row of crops and tied a string across to designate exactly where the seeds were planted, I put bird netting over the corn right after I planted it to keep the crows off, and put up sturdy fencing to contain the pea plants. The first two improvements worked like they were supposed to, but the pea plants grew much more than I expected and ended up pulling the poultry netting down to the ground by their weight. Likely too late, I tied them all up with taller stakes and string,but I doubt the pea crop is going to produce enough peas to keep my children happy all winter. Two of the beds are dedicated to raspberries, hopefully one day producing enough to make at least a raspberry pie or two after I eat my fill of fresh berries.

The chickens are growing like weeds, gobbling down their crumbles as well as all the cottage cheese I put out on a paper plate in their yard. They also like watermelon rinds, eating all the red fruit in just a few hours. Tim built them a proper gate and has now decided, after seeing a predator slinking around, to rebuild the fence with cedar posts instead of metal ones. 

My morning routine begins with "the girls" when I go out to let them outside, give them fresh water, and top off their food. I'm trying not to think about how, 6 months from now, I will be pulling on wool socks, boots, and a thick coat to do these same chores, but enjoying the idyllic experience of walking across the yard in my nightgown and Crocs each warm summer morning.     

vacation bible school exhaustion

Last week was filled with getting everyone up and out the door to sing, dance, do crafts, and learn about Saints with a "kingdom rock" theme. Timmy, Charlie, and Maggie had a great time going from station to station in the heat and then the cold, and then the rain, but Julia Ellen was plumb overwhelmed. The first day she ran out to the van, with her teenage crew leaders following, locked herself in, and wouldn't come out until I arrived and ordered her out. Even after a few days of not clinging to my leg every time she spotted me in the hall, on Friday she locked herself in the bathroom stall. Luckily her sister Mary was a crew leader for another group of preschoolers and was able to help the sweet girls in charge of my youngest. But the daily schedule of games and snack with 170 other children wore my crew out so much that a few took naps in the afternoon and had to be woken up for supper.

Luckily the long days didn't affect my running and I took 3rd place in the 10 mile Tour de Lac in Bucksport on Saturday. Since it had been so hot, I bought myself a fancy shirt I saw advertised in a running magazine that reacts with your sweat to cool your skin. Perhaps it worked, but since it was misting the entire race the heat wasn't much of a factor overall. I ran a little faster than my 7:30/mile pace during the first 8 miles, but started to fade by the end. Maybe it was the training, maybe my new shirt, but somehow I beat my PR by 30 seconds. The next race in the series is Thursday, a downhill 3K that precedes the 4th of July parade from Brewer to Bangor.

why do I do this to myself?

Summer is supposed to be down-time, a season of being able to relax with a cool drink on the front porch while watching the children play tag and basketball knock-out. Instead, I have signed up the children for activities that require me to be a logistical master and be in the car for at least an hour each day. No, it isn't that bad, but Tuesdays are going to be a little tricky. Charlie finished school for the year yesterday, but Mary has about 30 minutes worth of work in English and Math, while Timmy is still progressing through first grade (1 hour's worth). Then I have to get the four oldest to practice the piano each day. They all have lessons on Tuesday afternoons, but I can't leave all 4 at once because they would not just sit quietly and read during the other's lessons, so I have to take 2 down to the library to wait their turn. Maggie and Julia Ellen have swimming lessons in the next town starting later in the afternoon, so my schedule looks like this: 

get up, dressed, start laundry, tidy house, take care of chickens... starting at 6
get children up, dressed, teeth brushed starting at 8
school with Mary and Timmy at 9
stand over children with a stick to practice starting at 10
get some sewing done, work in garden 
go run when babysitter arrives at 12 
herd everyone to the car at 2:15
drop off 2 children at piano, 2 children at library, go back home for 1 hour
pick up Maggie and drive to swimming lessons at 3:45
finish swimming lessons at 5:30
race home and fix dinner
tidy house, bathe children, and put everyone in bed by 8:30

Tim picked everyone else up at the library after work and was shooting model rockets with Charlie in the front field when I can home with a van full of groceries. (note to self: getting to the commissary 7 minutes before they close does not make for a pleasant shopping experience) The boys have swimming lessons on Thursday afternoons, and I still have to call Lisa about scheduling riding lessons for the big girls and Charlie. Luckily Will leaves for camp on Saturday, leaving me with only 5 children at home for the next month. The rest of the week seems to be filling fast with doctor's appointments, birthday parties, and such, leaving me with little time to sit on the porch with my glass of iced tea. But this is only the first week of summer and I'm sure I can somehow squeeze in trips to the pond and other fun hot weather activities that make Maine such a wonderful place to live.     

UFO challenge

For our first summer meeting all the members of my local quilt guild brought in 3 unfinished projects (UFOs) that have been collecting dust in our sewing rooms. Some were finished tops, some were assorted blocks in a basket, and some were kits with fabric washed and pressed, still in the bag. Our goal is to have them finished by our Christmas party with the incentive of $5 gift cards from Mardens, a local salvage shop with a huge fabric department, and a chance to win a $25 gift card as well. My first of the 3 projects is a red, white, and blue throw size top I worked on while 7 months pregnant with Julia Ellen, trying to make the time go by faster. My goal is to donate it to a veteran at Togus VA hospital in Augusta. My second project is a huge quilt top with blue stars on white background that I would like to make as a gift. The Bonnie Hunter quilt that I was planning on making for my dear SIL has 1000 blocks and since I have finished 50 so far, I think that might not happen this year. My third project is a tote bag we started at a guild meeting a few months ago, and since I didn't have a clue as to how to make a box bottom or make handles, I was stuck. After a lot of help last night after the massive show and tell of everyone's projects, I finished my tote this morning. The only problem was that I somehow turned the lining upside down and my inside pocket was facing the bottom of the bag. I guess I didn't want a pocket in there after all since I would have had to undo almost everything to get it put right. 
 


I do like how the bag turned out, I might try to make another, this time with black and white fabrics and a red cuff, but making sure that the darned pocket is facing up.     

cleaned up big time

On Saturday morning it was cool and raining like the dickens, but I had signed everyone up for the Garelick Milk Run in Bangor. Tim and Julia Ellen stayed at home, but the rest of the crew were still game to run a mile downhill as fast as they could. Charlie came in 3rd overall in the family run (7:05) with Will close behind, followed by Timmy, Maggie, and then Mary. I followed in the competitive run with a time of 6:04. Timmy won $25 from Hannaford, Maggie won a water bottle, and I won a cooler of dairy products, and that was just from the door prize drawing. The local outdoors store, Epic Sports, always gives gift certificates, so Charlie got $15, I got $25, and we won the family category, netting us another $45. With our winnings I bought the girls new Speedo bathing suits (the most modest suits I can find locally), and Charlie's birthday cake. 

There are a lot of local races in the next two weeks, everyone keeps asking me to join them, but I'm taking a little rest and doing my prep work for the Tour de Lac 10 miler at the end of June. The prizes there aren't monetary, but Margaret's homemade raspberry jam prizes are worth the effort. 

wrapping up the school year, sort of

Will officially graduated from 8th grade last night and the girls only have to attend class until Friday, but school is still going on at home. 

Charlie only has about 1 week's worth of English left as well as CAT testing, but we just started a new biography of Robert Goddard from the Childhood of Famous Americans series and began reading Treasure Island aloud. 

Since Timmy didn't officially start 1st grade until January, he obviously isn't going to be finishing his work anytime soon, but I'm not worried about intruding on his summer vacation, his work only takes 1 hour per day max. Mary and I decided that she could use a little 8th grade prep work this summer in grammar and math so we will be doing that for about 30 minutes a day. 

Add to that workload swimming, piano, and riding lessons and it will already be a jam-packed summer, but I'll still cram in races, gardening, taking care of my chickens, and finishing up some quilting projects.

little chickens

Our chicks are not yellow fuzzy, down-covered balls anymore, but are skittish, gawky birds with cinnamon colored feathers coming in and huge feet. After buying a full sized galvanized waterer and feeder, I took them out of the box brooder and let them out in the coop, blocking off the doorway with a board so they won't fall out when someone opens the door. Will and I made a small outside enclosure for them and let them explore the great wide world for a few hours each day. However, they are skinnier than I anticipated and can escape through the crack between the stake and the coop wall, as well as over the top of the 3 foot high fence, so my design needs to be improved significantly. 

I am finding the birds to be soothing, they make good company when I need to escape from the barnyard atmosphere of my house with 6 children bickering and cackling constantly. The chickens are also amusing to watch, I gave them a scoop of cottage cheese (part of our winnings at the Garelick Milk Run) and after a short period of hesitation, they began to peck and run off with curds to the corners of the coop to gulp down. They stepped in the white mound, pooped in it, and when I came back in 30 minutes, the paper plate was completely bare. The chicks startle easily, instinct against predators means that any noise, be it the door opening, a scrape of the stool against the floor, or a loud burp, sends the creatures into a deep freeze, not moving or making a sound for 10 seconds or so when one bird gets tired of standing at attention and goes back to the regular business of eating, drinking, pooping, and scratching in the litter.

Originally I wanted to name all the birds after flowers, but since they all look exactly alike, I think I'll just call them all Buttercup and be done with it. 

hot race results

Last weekend I had my first night away from the children, other than hospital visits to produce for them another sibling, in 9 years. Friday night I ate dinner at a fancy-shmancy restaurant in Ellsworth all by myself. I ordered shrimp jambalaya and had the prettiest plate of chocolate mousse I have ever seen with 3 scoops lined up with whipped cream and a different berry on top of each, raspberry sauce swirling about the edges. I wish I had taken a picture, but I left my camera at home. I further regretted leaving it behind when I drove past town and saw the raw beauty of Hancock and Washington Counties on my way to the motel in Machias.

Route 1 swooped through tiny picturesque towns and continuously skirted postcard-worthy views of water, islands, and conifers. The next morning I woke to a super hot day, for Maine that is, of 85F and I drove on another 45 minutes east to Pembroke, where the Cobscook 10K would take place. Since I was so early, I drove the course and took in the view at the end of a side road, which literally ended on the gravel beach. If I hadn't been driving the Jeep, I would likely still be there trying to extricate my vehicle, but it was the loveliest place I had been in a long time, fog hovering over the water with islands of stiff hemlocks and fir trees rising out of the mist.

Until the director called us to the starting line all the runners were standing on the west side of nearby buildings, knowing that we would be overheated well before we hit the only bit of shade on the course. Of course that was when the hills began and the road changed to gravel, adding to our misery. This was an endurance race rather than one to be enjoyed, my time (49:55) was 5 minutes slower than my last 10K, run only a month before. Afterwards, I staggered to the shade of the tent, where someone kept passing me slices of watermelon and bottles of water until I was able to sit upright. After the big picnic, complete with salmon, hamburgers, and dozens of desserts/salads, I drove on to Eastport, the easternmost city in the US, and to Quoddy Head Lighthouse, the easternmost point in the US, before returning to my motel and hitting the shower and bed by 7pm. 

This weekend's race is not only shorter, a 1 mile downhill sprint, but cooler by 10+ degrees. As Saturday is predicted to rain heavily, I am being flexible as to who I end up taking with me. Also, my goal of breaking 6 minutes might have to be postponed for a year, I would rather not take any chances on slipping and falling just for vanity's sake.
 

I guess this is living in Maine

It is the day after Memorial Day and not only did we have to wear coats to Mass on Sunday, sweatshirts outside on Monday (luckily it finally stopped raining), we woke up to see frost coating the grass this morning. The corn and tomatoes still have to be planted so I didn't lose anything, but it is disconcerting, knowing how short the summer season is here. 

Our chicks are doing well, their little wing feathers are growing and they all seem to be happy and content little birds. We have tried to give them a few little things to supplement their crumble feed and to entertain them, but so far the only thing they really enjoy are worms. Since it was raining for 3 days straight, it was easy to walk along the driveway with a bucket and scoop up worms who attempted to escape the soggy soil. They were dropped one at a time into the brooder, where one chick would pick it up and run around and around with the worm dangling from her beak. Other chicks would join in the chase, tugging and stretching the helpless worm in an attempt to snatch it for herself. Finally, the creature would be pulled into smaller chunks and swallowed. Out of all the children, Timmy thought this the most hysterical and could have sat there for an hour watching the chick's antics. I hope this experience does not transform my most gentle child into a bloodthirsty maniac, but I doubt it. It wasn't as if he fed them worm after worm after worm, I think 8 was the limit for the entire day after I warned him that too many would make the baby birds sick to their tummies.      

we're real farmers now

Yesterday, while a friend brought the big kids home from school and Charlie was at his piano lesson, the two little kids and I drove up to Holden. The feed store had called an hour before to say, "The chicks are here! Do you want 5 extras?" Our 17 new baby Golden Buffs were put in little boxes for their transport home, each child carrying one carefully by the handle and base as we walked across the wet field. We had the chicken coop placed on the far side of the garden because that was the most level spot and wouldn't be upwind from the house, but it is a long trek, as I'm finding out. We lined the box with paper towels and shavings, filled their waterer and feeder and gently placed each bird in their new brooder under the warm light. 

Today's weather is a repeat of Friday: cold, windy, and rainy- more reminiscent of late March than the cusp of June. However, the children didn't seem to mind as they pulled on rubber boots again and again to run out and see the chicks every hour. So far Julia Ellen has been good, but a little demanding that she get to hold the baby birds. I will hold the door key to their coop in reserve if she disobeys and goes out to "visit" without me. As I told the little ones, the chicks are only 1, and now 2 days old and are very delicate. 

I too, am very excited about our new acquisitions and was worried last night if they were too warm or too cold and what I would find this morning when I went to change the bedding and water. But my fears were relieved, when at 5:15am, they were all cheeping and busy eating and drinking. Who knows what we are going to do with the eggs from 17 laying hens, but since I won't have to deal with that for months and months, I won't fret about it now. 

school auction night

Last night I sprayed on more hairspray than a Georgia beauty pageant contestant to hold my curls in the humidity, donned my only fancy dress and pearls, and attended the older children’s Catholic school auction.

There are several fundraising events throughout the year, but the big one is the 3 part auction with raffle ticket items, silent big items, and the live auction big prizes. Every family donates something and all the classes make a project in addition to the dozens of baskets of merchandise donated by local businesses. A few months ago I made a queen size quilt and was surprised to find that it was part of the live auction.  Not very intelligently, I realized last night that I didn't take a picture of the completed quilt, just the top.

While our trusty babysitter played games and fed the children at home, Tim and I chatted with friends, put down bids, and dropped raffle tickets in various bags. The auction was still going at 9:30pm and I asked a friend to bid on the quilt and I would buy it from her if it didn’t go above my minimum, as I didn’t want it to sell for less than I paid for materials. But right before we were to leave the quilt came up for bids and I was pleasantly surprised to see a bidding war ensue, with a final price of $400. So, even though we didn’t go home with anything since Tim’s bid of $50 for a John Deere toy tractor was trumped at the last minute and our raffle numbers were never called, we did our part to ensure a quality Catholic education for the students for another year.      

lost and found

Now that we live in one house and are not bouncing from one state to another several times a year I don't misplace half the things I used to. "I guess we left the piano books behind in Maine, I'll have to get the neighbor to pick them up and mail them back to Virginia." I jettisoned many duplicate items that we didn't need, giving them to the thrift store. But we still live in a big house (my guess is about 3200 square feet) and there are 8 people living in it, most of whom tend to lose items on a daily basis. Apparently as Mommy, I am required to keep a mental inventory of every item within these 4 walls, no matter how small. I am asked, sometimes every hour, where a pair of earrings could be, where Geraldine the giraffe has been left behind, where a certain camping item would be found. The other trick I am supposed to have down pat is a running mental list of everyone's consumables, such as shampoo and soap and replenish them without any notification. I really hate being accused of running out of something the evening after I hit the commissary for my weekly shop. 

Most of the time I can easily find whatever a person is looking for as I keep the house pretty tidy, but this morning turned into complete chaos, not for the first time, when a child couldn't find a certain essential bit of their school uniform. Usually the children wear their fancier attire on Wednesday when they walk over to the church for Mass, but since today is a Holy Day of Obligation it was switched. At 6:30am Mary started screeching that her oxford cloth shirt was missing. We searched everywhere, including through the four closets, under the beds, and in pretty much every room of the house. No shirt and since we didn't have a duplicate, she wore Will's uniform dress shirt to school. (By the way, this level of freaking out NEVER happened during our years of homeschooling, in fact Mary often did her schoolwork in her pajamas) After the boys finished their studies this morning, I again started looking for the missing shirt, finally finding it stuffed in Charlie's dresser drawer. 

This must be the week for finding lost items, so far I have found a missing digital camera, a pair of $60 Felco pruners I thought had been lost in the woods for 2 years, and some pictures of the girls from last year's ballet recital. Now the only thing I have to worry about finding is my sanity if I am asked one more time today to hunt for something.        

relaxing prep means fast race?

On Friday I got the big kids up and to school while Tim took the day off to watch the little ones and work around the farm. After a visit to our parish's new adoration chapel ( I figured it would be better to spend that half hour praying than spending it at McDonalds), I headed over to participate in an all day quilt class with Bonnie Hunter, a scrap quilting teacher from North Carolina. We worked on piecing string blocks and half square triangles that in a very long time will be put together to form this quilt, Jamestown Landing.  

The reason it will take so long? 168 string pieced blocks, and 840 half square triangles, and that doesn't even include the string pieced border made of 16 sheets of copy paper string pieced, then cut down the center. In the 6 hours we were there, I made 25 cream blocks and about 50 triangles. But I also socialized with old friends and learned some new tricks for making triangles.  Here is Bonnie demonstrating how to cover the 4.5" newsprint with diagonal strips of neutral scraps for the background blocks. 

Tonight at quilt guild, I'll bring my tote bag full of scraps and keep plugging away. I've mentally designated this quilt as a Christmas gift for my sister-in-law so there is a self imposed deadline.

But all that time away from the children must have relaxed me enough run really fast on Saturday morning. Charlie, Timmy, and I headed out early to Orrington for a 1 mile fun run and 10K. Charlie ran 7:08, Timmy 8:27, and while they were gorging on post-race granola bars and fruit, I ran my best 10K ever with a 44:58 (7:15/mile pace). So three good races in a row have taught me to slow down that first mile and stay on a consistent pace rather than bolt out ahead and wear myself out far before the finish. My next quilting class is in July at the state quilt show in Augusta,the day before the Bucksport Bay festival 5K. I've never done very well in it for some reason, maybe another relaxing day quilting will change that statistic.  

a little bump in the road

Yesterday I woke at 5:30 to shower and take Will to Merit Badge College, but with a cold and intestinal issues, I let him go back to bed for a few hours. He spent the rest of the day helping Tim move and stack wood, getting some much appreciate tractor driving lessons. My muscles were a bit sore from farm chores such as painting the chicken coop floor and moving wheelbarrow loads of compost to the fruit trees, but I got up early again to head out for a 5 mile trail race in town. 

There were only about 30 of us, but we headed down the wooded paths at a pretty brisk clip. I was ahead of all the other women and feeling pretty confident when at mile three I fell and got scraped up quite a bit. My foot twisted and I got up running and limping along, knowing that my nearest competitor was only about 20 yards behind me. She didn't get any closer until the end, where there was a huge incline for the last 200 meters. Luckily I've been doing a bit of hill work and charged up like a crazed person to finish in 36:47. My hard work paid off, after a bit of cleaning up and an ace bandage wrapped around my knee, I took home a $100 gift certificate to Epic Sports. 2nd place got $50, so my mad rush was certainly well worth the little extra bit of pain. The next race is Saturday, a 10K, hopefully my now purple foot will be well enough to repeat a good performance.

spring break for the kids means...

This week can be whatever I want it to be, full of activities and errands, or peaceful and relaxed. Likely it will be a combination of both, judging from the length of my "to do" list. But I've already enjoyed sleeping in until 6:30, finishing a novel in bed, making blueberry coffee cake, and finishing the above-mentioned list.  

Yet, Timmy and Charlie are going to do school this week, I will still have to prod 4 kids daily to practice the piano, and I need to get in some serious running time. So, while spending each day reading in bed for hours might seem nice, I still need to fit everything in like a giant jigsaw puzzle, but without the huge school and extracurricular activity pieces that usually take up a chunk of my week. I also need to keep plugging away at the quilt I will submit to my first quilt show this summer. After 3 weeks of piecing and pressing every single seam open, I finally finished the top on Saturday. 

My first treat of the week was waking up super early yesterday to meet a small group of fellow runners on Mount Desert Island and run up the 4+ miles to the top of Mt. Cadillac. It was very foggy and almost unworldly with ghostly tortured-looking conifers appearing out of the mist. Luckily we did catch one lovely glimpse of the view of the water and islands when we were coming back down, but the bone-chilling cold stayed with me for much of the day. 

So, now after a little blogging and browsing time while sipping an iced coffee, it is time to go blast the lazy slug-a-bed kids out of their warm beds and get the first day of vacation started.     

time keeps on ticking

One of the things that I recall every time I feel a little guilty about not blogging often is that since the big kids have started going away to school, 2 hours of every day is now spent in the car. That is 2 hours I previously spent quilting, reading, blogging, cleaning, and playing with the kids. Every day now is as regimented as a new Army recruit: wake up, get ready, get kids ready, drive to school, come home, homeschool the boys, run, shower, get big kids from school, ferry some kid to piano, make dinner, bathe little kids, read aloud, say prayers, and finally put the kids to bed. 

So, what has our family been doing for the past few weeks? Well, Timmy, Charlie, and I did the Flattop race. The boys did great in the mile (Charlie 7 min, Timmy 8 min) and I did terrible in the 5K. The weightlifting I had been doing to improve my strength left my muscles so worn out, despite a 4 day break, that I could only barely manage to stay on my feet. Yesterday I did run the Bridge the Gap 10 mile race and did quite well: 1hr 20 min. I ran the first 8 miles with my friend Lisa at a 8:30 pace and felt as fresh ending it as I did starting. I've been going out way too fast and crashing at mile 2, so this was a good learning experience. It was much more fun to pass people, especially on the hills, than to get passed while gasping for breath. 

I've been quilting up a storm since I finished all my obligation projects: a tshirt quilt for an online friend and a brown bag exchange in our guild. I applied to submit this quilt in the state quilt show for judging and have until the middle of June to get it finished. After several weeks, I've now finished all the colored strips and have to connect it all with white sashing next. I'm not really looking forward to working with 34 floppy strips, all 2" wide, but now I have to get it done, and do it well, since I don't want to look foolish next to all the really talented quilters in our state. 

Will was accepted to the fancy high school so I can release the breath I was holding for several weeks. Our other option was to bring Will home for 9th grade and send Charlie to Catholic school a year earlier than anticipated. Now it is unlikely that I will be spending the next year in prison for killing my child because Will and I are at odds so often these days and the little boys will have each other to be best friends with for another year. I didn't think I could go back to more than 3 kids at home during the day, Timmy has made such progress this year without the drama of trying to get the older ones to do their work. I've actually had, despite the loss of 2 hours a day, more time this year to work with him on his studies. 

Julia Ellen is now officially potty trained, or housebroken as my Grandmother calls it. I am happily doling out m&ms as reward for not having to daily wipe a yucky bottom for the first time in 15 years. 

What is next? More quilting, more races, the arrival of our first batch of Buff Orpington chicks in a few weeks, and planting my garden. Spring is late in arriving to northern Maine, the ground is still frozen 4 inches down and there are still patches of snow here and there, but today there is a warmth in the air that hasn't been there before and the snowdrops in front of the library were blooming this morning. Happy Spring!