Crazy Days

Things have been quite busy around here since getting back from North Carolina - we had a wonderful time, by the way. Hoping to post more about our trip; that will probably happen this weekend. So far my days have been filled with catching up on laundry, going through the 700(!) photos we took on the trip, restocking the fridge, finalizing daycare plans for Ada (totally relieved to have that taken care of), learning all about pumping and starting Ada on some bottles, and getting ready to go back to work. Definitely NOT enjoying that last one.

I plan to write a more in-depth post about this week in the next day or so; for now I'll sign off with a couple of my favorite pics so far from NC:

Studio Blog Tour

My friend Kristina is hosting a Studio Blog Tour on her blog. The idea is to share pics of your creative space - and be entered in a drawing for fabulous prizes. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to get any pictures taken of my room before we left for vacation (we're in NC visiting Chris' family); so I'm only partially participating for now and will post some pictures of my space after we get home next week.

There are five questions Kristina asked about people's spaces. Here are my answers:

1. What do you use your space for?

Scrapbooking, quilting, and general sewing and paper crafts.


2. What is your favorite thing about your space?

My craft table. It's this one from Ikea, it's huge, and it has adjustable legs so I can stand at it - I love it because it's large enough to make a big mess on when I'm scrapping (which I always do), and because it's also big enough to fit my large cutting mat when I'm working on sewing / quilting projects.


3. What struggles do you have with your space?

I'm still working on removing wallpaper, I don't much care for the carpet, and my sewing desk needs to be replaced as the current one is rather difficult to work with. The good part is, I have new paint and fabric for new window treatments waiting at home and ready to go once the walls are prepped.


4. When do you use your space?

Not as often as I'd like, but I've been trying to get in some work time whenever Ada will let me. I'm hoping to get more regular work sessions in once she's on a more regular schedule.


5. Share an organizational technique that works for you.

Over Christmas / New Year's I reorganized my space as much as was possible while waiting to redo the walls. Some of the solutions I came up with and love:

Itso storage boxes from Target. I have a stack of these (in dark brown) in my closet; each one contains an in-process quilt project.

I also purchased a couple large 3-drawer carts on wheels that fit under my craft table. I used small plastic Itso storage boxes in the drawers to organize scrapbooking supplies.

Two of my favorite pieces are old metal letter trays I picked up at antique stores that I use for sticker storage. One for all my alpha-stickers, and another one for all the rest. I love being able to quickly flip through them when working on a layout.


That's all for now. Hoping to post some vacation pics while we're here, but if that doesn't happen I'll definitely post some after we get home.

Too Cute

You know how parents take those kinda silly photos of their baby - the ones where you take a picture each month of Baby sitting next to the same object (usually a huge stuffed animal) so you can see how much they've grown? Well, I forgot about it at first, but have been wanting to do the same thing. I remembered today, took some pictures of her with my favorite of her stuffed animals (a hippo I bought for her), and couldn't resist posting the super cute results.


*Sigh* She's so darn adorable I think I'm going to have to go give her a snuggle and a kiss right now.

5 Things

Been feeling pretty down today as I try to come to terms with the fact that Ada will really have to go to daycare and I'll have to go back to work. To cheer myself up I decided to find 5 things that are making me happy right now.

1. These flowers I got at the market this weekend with my mom.

2. Making progress on Ada's quilt.

3. Finding this bundle of fabric for a baby blanket that Katie had given to me - which I had forgot about, but happily re-discovered this weekend.

4. Gathering items together from my stash to use in Ada's baby album.

5. Hanging out with my sweet little Ada.

Take a minute for yourself and think of something that's making you happy today.

New Fabric

The quilt shop here in Buffalo, Patchwork Alley, is going out of business. They started their closing sale this week: 40% off all fabric, and 50% off all notions and home decor. Talk about a good deal! Here's a sample of what came home with me:

Botanica by Art Gallery Fabrics

and a random assortment of my other favorite finds - can you tell I have a thing for polka dots? :)

Summer Reading, Part II

As promised, I've put together a list of what's in my summer reading pile, again in no particular order, except that (with a couple of exceptions) the fiction ended up in the top half of the pile and the nonfiction in the bottom half. I'm fairly certain I won't make it through them all by the end of the summer, but each one looked so good I couldn't resist adding it to the pile. :)


Summer Reading List

To Be Read:
1. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
2. The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan
3. 1984 by George Orwell
4. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
5. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
6. The Doctor's Wife by Elizabeth Brundage
7. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
8. The Worst Day of My Life, So Far by M. A. Harper
9. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
10. The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds
11. Coming Home to Eat by Gary Paul Nabhan
12. The Eternal Frontier by Tim Flannery
13. A Primate's Memoir by Robert M. Sapolsky
14. Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume I 1884-1933 by Blanche Wiesen Cook
15. Journey Into Summer by Edwin Way Teale
16. An American Childhood by Annie Dillard
17. The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping by Rosalind Creasy
18. The Earth Care Manual by Patrick Whitefield
19. The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

Completed:
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett (re-read)

I also have a number of books I'm currently in the middle of, so decided to list those here as well.

Books In Progress
1. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth, M.D.
2. Watchmen by Alan Moore
3. 1491 by Charles C. Mann
4. The Gardener's Bed Book by Richardson Wright
5. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
6. Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish
7. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
8. Four-Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman
9. The Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule

Inspired by Ada's dedicated fans, I've also included her summer reading list, with picture. :)
1. Mommy Loves by Anne Gutman and Georg Hallensleben
2. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
3. Time for Bed by Mem Fox
4. The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss
5. Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney



If you're looking for still more summer reading inspiration, check out some of the following links:

NPR's Summer Books 2009 page, with several lists of recommendations. You can even print a combined list of all the recommended titles.

Barnes & Noble's Summer Reading page also has summer reading recommendations in several categories.

The New York Times has some great lists; one for Parents, and two on children's books - The Best Kids' Books Ever, and the follow-up In Which I Apologize to Roald Dahl....

There was a show on Midmorning recently about summer reading. You can see a list of recommended titles here.

I also found a great Summertime Favorites list put together by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH); the recommendations are supposedly for school-age kids, but the lists (especially Grades 7-8 and 9-12) are really full of classics that are on most adult reading lists.

My last list recommendation is a Newsweek list, Newsweek's Top 100 Books: The Meta-List, that I came across while checking out the list Lisa linked to in her comment on my last summer reading post. If this Top 100 list is anything to go by, I have a LOT of reading to do. I have to admit that in my life so far, I've only made it through 13(!) of these, although the fact that I own at least 75% of the titles on the list does make me feel a little bit better (I plan to read most of them some day).

I'd love to see comments. What's on your summer reading list? Any thoughts on my list - have you read and liked (or disliked) any of the books I chose? Any other recommendations or resources for summer reading?

Weekend Pics

Just wanted to share some pictures from last weekend.

Hanging out at Mitch and Katie's on Friday, eating s'mores, after dinner at Rancho Grande:

And at the cabin celebrating the 4th with my side of the family:


Maddie loved watching Chris set off smoke balls,
and going in the lake with me.

One of the strangest, and coolest, things that happened on the 4th was that several dragonflies decided to land on me at the same time and molt:
The picture above was taken shortly after this dragonfly had molted.

And here's a shot after its wings had expanded and were drying out:

Ada spent most of the day sleeping on whoever would hold her.
And here she is hanging out with Grandpa:

Look for my Summer Reading, Part II post later today.