Getting to know you... I mean me!

Makes me think of that show tune from The King and I! Anyhoo, the lovely Allison tagged me with the latest meme making the rounds so here goes:

1) What was I doing 10 years ago? My kids were 11, 7 and 3 and I was heavily involved in PTA, Coaching and Girl Scouts when I wasn't working. I had been with my current company for just two years at that time and was getting ready to go to Saipan for the first time. The thought of being away from my kids for more than a week, halfway around the world was heart wrenching to me! I will be headed back to Saipan for my fourth visit in a few weeks.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

• Go to my son's last choir concert
• Pay bills
• Schedule staff time for work
• Book trip to Fort Myers
• Confirm that I am chaperoning Eighth Grade Dance tomorrow night I just got the call.
  

3) Snacks I enjoy:

• homemade cookies (or really any home baked goods)
  
• pretzels
• Cheese-Its
• popcorn
• chips and salsa
  
• watermelon, raspberries, strawberries
  

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

• Take Allison and me on a knitting retreat
  
• Hire a driver to take me wherever I want to go (I hate driving!)
  
• Hire someone to finish all the partially completed home improvement projects my ex-husband left me with
  
• Buy my daughter a car
• Buy a home in in the mountains and one on the SC shore
• Take a six month leave of absence from my job to catch up on life in general
• Charitable efforts would focus on inner city kids in my community
  

5) Places I have lived:

• Delaware
• Ohio
• England
• Montreal, Quebec

6) Jobs I have had:

• babysitter
• newspaper carrier
• day care center helper
• insurance admin assistant (intern)
• waitress
• accountant
• financial analyst
• aviation consultant
• Mama
  

7) 6 peeps I wanna know more about:

First is Ande who is funny as h*ll. (Didn't realize there were people as sarcastic as Allison and me out there!) Knit in the City
Then Lindsay with whom I share a cheerleading bond (our daughters, not us! But I'm sure Lindsay and I would be awesome, too.) Lindsay T Sews (Again)
Mimi who might just be the most prolific sewer I've ever encountered! MYRAIDA

And then the following bloggers whose blogs I've come across recently:

Sew Spicee
Sewing is like Chocolate ... highly addictive
Sew Uptight

Hello. My Name is Bonnie. And I haven't bought a pattern in two days.

Yes, we all talk about buying too much yarn... buying too much fabric... buying too many patterns. I am definitely guilty of all of the above. I fell off the pattern wagon this past weekend and I wasn't going to admit it until I kept reading about all the other pattern-obsessed bloggers who also succumbed to the Hancock and JoAnn Memorial Day sales. So here is my damage:

Butteick:	McCalls:	New Look:	Simplicity:	Vogue:
5206	5522	6806	2927	8480
2326	2213	6799	3523	8470
5187			3711	2907

So I have to ask... Who else fell off the wagon?

A great weekend and a Baby Boomlet

What a wonderful weekend it has been. The weather has been glorious (except for some clouds and sprinkles this afternoon) and the weekend has been a nice mix of downtime and get-togethers. My daughter's best friend graduates on Tuesday and her party was last night. We had a terrific time and she loved her bulletin board. My daughter also made an adorable picture collage that contained a picture of the two girls four years ago and a picture of the girls in a similar pose that was taken last month.



All of a sudden, I am surrounded by people having babies! Most of these babies are boys and it's hard to think of "cute" things for baby boys. But I happened across Simplicity 3711 which has an adorable reversible bathrobe pattern in it. When my oldest child was born (Good Lord, that was 21 freakin' years ago!!!!), my two favorite gifts were a infant size bathing suit and a little bathrobe. Voila! Gift idea solved. In addition to the pattern, I picked up some flannel and broadcloth to make robes for all these babies. I tackled the one for my co-worker's son first. Since we are in the aviation business, I found a cute flannel with airplanes on it. This is my last project for the weekend (dedicated to Miss Ande, hee, hee. You didn't believe I would crank out one more thing, did you?) The actual color of the solid fabric doesn't look like either of the two following photos - I used flash on one, and no flash on the other. The true blue is somewhere in between.

Simplicity 3624 - Take Two

I made the Simplicity 3624 top a few weeks ago and have worn it several times since. It is so comfortable and I've received some nice compliments on it. I realized when I made the top it would also make a nice dress so I whipped one up last night. In total, the project took 2 1/2 hours. (Maybe 3 hours but I was drinking a martini and although way more fun, I seem to sew more slowly. Ha ha.) Anyhoo, I think I purchased the fabric from Gorgeous Fabrics (not positive) last year. I wore it to church today and will wear it to a graduation open house this afternoon. So comfortable! This will definitely be a dress I wear a lot for just hanging out.

Full review here at PR if you're interested.

On another note, Costco had the most beautiful, delicious raspberries yesterday. I had to make a batch of granola to go with the yogurt and berries.

Getting my Crafty Groove on!

After an exhausting couple of weeks with no sewing, knitting or crafting of any sort, I have most of the weekend free. After two trips to JoAnn's and one trip to Hancock's, I have enough "supplies" to keep me busy for awhile. The first project was bulletin boards with pockets for two high school graduates. My two daughters each picked the fabric for one of the boards. As you can tell, they have very similar tastes. In spite of me saying, "How 'bout this? How 'bout this? How 'bout this?" as I held up many different fabric combos, they stuck with their very first choices. Are these girls related to me? The queen of considering each and every single fabric combination before deciding? Oh well, they DID turn out cute.

Next up... A dress for me to wear to a graduation party... TOMORROW!

Auf Wiedersehen! And Welcome Home!

I'm back [waving to all]. We spent 3 days in Copenhagen, 1 day in Brussels and 2 days in Frankfurt before returning home last night. Although I was utterly exhausted by the time I returned (I don't think we had more than 5 hours sleep any night), what an fun and exciting week it was! The purpose of the trip was to tour some facilities in Europe who already engage in some of the initiatives my client is considering undertaking. As a consultant, I am usually on the "selling" side so it was great fun to be on the receiving end and have people take such good care of us. We were definitely wined and dined and got to see some very fun things. We stayed in three different luxurious hotels.

We started off with a canal cruise in Copenhagen - beautiful city!! - and spent an hour or two walking around the lovely downtown area.

Then took the train over to Malmo, Sweden for dinner. The restaurant was in a beautiful old building in the cellar.

Next, we flew to Brussels. We only had one day there (bad planning!) but we made the most of it. After a full day of meetings and tours, we spent a lovely evening in the downtown area. We started off with drinks at one of the little touristy cafes right on Grand Place and then headed to dinner at a fabulous French restaurant. As we walked to the restaurant, we passed by many other restaurants where the employees stood outside attempting to entice customers to dine at their establishments. It was quite amusing and one of the waiters stopped me and asked if he might "please have a hug from the beautiful American woman." LOL. My fellow travelers thought this was quite amusing. [note: I declined his request.]

My favorite was the three-hour boat cruise on the Rhine River followed by dinner at Johannisburg Castle. Gorgeous is all I can say!! Unfortunately, my camera battery died shortly after arriving in Frankfurt so I have no photos of the spectacular countryside. Dinner at the castle was very fun - typical German food and we spent a wonderful few hours laughing with each other. I felt like I was leaving friends when we departed.

Although this one was taken at an elegant lunch in Frankfurt, it represents how I felt when I walked in my door last night.

TTFN!

I'll be leaving tomorrow morning for my trip to Europe. Hope everyone has a great week. I leave you with a visit from the pups. My daughter had just given Martini (the black one) a bath and apparently didn't do a very good job drying her off. Herschel decided he did not want to miss out on the fun.

New Buttericks and some Research

The summer Butterick patterns are up (Thanks, Mimi). I was sort of "ehhh" about the whole collection. I like 5206, 5209, 5214, 5218, 5223 but the rest are rather boring or repeats of patterns already out there. I had to laugh at the See & Sew Pattern # 5202. Look at the line drawing:



Look familiar? How about Vogue's 8351. Here is that line drawing:
BTW, if you make View A of this dress, it is an adorable dress and I get many compliments on mine. But be forewarned, the neckline is VERY low. I raised it by an inch and I'm still a little uncomfortable with it for business (bra straps tend to pop out.)


In response to my previous post, Cidell had an excellent point. I need to do some research.

Translation for the word "fabric":
Danish - vævning
French - tissu
Dutch - stof
German - stoff

And because Allison will want me know this...

Translation for the word "yarn":
Danish - garn
French - fil
Dutch - garen
German - garn

"Didn't she used to sew / knit?"

No sewing going on for me nor will there be anytime soon. Last weekend was World Cheerleading Competitions, held in Orlando, FL. It's the top competition for competitive cheerleading and my daughter's team received a bid to attend for the second year in a row. They had 57 teams in their division and did well enough to make it to finals on Day 2. They placed either 13th or 15th depending on which coach you ask. (They only announced top ten at the competition but they do give all scores to the coaches.) We were very proud of the girls' performance - probably their best performance all season. It was an amazing competition with some incredible talent out there. I didn't get any good competition pictures but here is a picture of my daughter (on the right), her best friend and one of their coaches (known as Big Dog, no kidding.)

From Orlando, I headed directly to Denver for a conference. My first time in that area of the country and I am IN LOVE - especially with Boulder. OMG, you people who live in that part of the country are incredibly blessed for the natural resources. I spent some time hiking in Chautauqua Park and it was beautiful (in spite of realizing how out of shape I really am!) I forgot to take pictures.

Then, I received a call from a client two days ago - "Bonnie, we think it would be a good idea for you to accompany us on our trip to Copenhagen, Brussels and Frankfurt.... We leave next Sunday. Can you fit it in your schedule?" My head is still spinning as I make all the arrangements but I am very excited - I've never been to Copenhagen or Frankfurt.

Finally, meet my rocker son. LOL. I am quite proud of him as he saved up money to buy this drum set all on his own. We picked it up Thursday night. But peeps, ummm, drums are loud, even sequestered in the basement. Who knew?