reflecting july to december

i can't believe we are finishing up the year. i just can't believe it. looking back has felt really good. i see a fullness that i could feel, even if sometimes it was in the back of my mind, it was still there. i hope you all have had time to think about some good.

july

i had completely forgotten about this night. i was trying to capture some fire flies with my camera for my friend charlotte who has never seen any. char, i promise to give it another go this summer.


phoenix came to town and had a totally spontaneous and FREE secret concert at the record bar. it was worth every second of the two plus hours we stood in line waiting to get in. plus i made friends with the club photographer. he was wearing a kilt. sweet.


a room full of ladies, drinks and make-up. if you would have told me ten years ago that that was how i would spend my birthday i would have laughed in your face. i have since learned the value of all things feminine. and i love it. and i love gina.


you know those "pick up where you left off" kind of friends? i really like them. even better, i like spending the day at the spray park with them and rounding things off with a porch sit and popsicles. next time bozemans, it will be in nyc. right?

august

i have learned that any old anniversary (number eleven) can be extra special if you have a dinner date AND a breakfast date the next morning. twice as nice for sure.


big day. huuuge day. collette starts kindergarten. watch out people, there is no stopping this girl.


ok, so if i can't have make-up for my birthday then i want a birthday dinner like rachel's. she took her dinning room table and plopped it in the middle of the back yard. we watched the sun go down, listened to the kids running around and talked by candle light. so great.


two of my favorite people getting married. outside. it was beautiful and made my heart hurt. keep rockin' it toby and maureen.

september

this was a fantastic day. the day i saw my name and photograph printed on a collection of polaroid notes that anyone can buy at the store. at the store people. yeah, it still feels good.


september, when you give me lazy late summer days, i love you almost as much as june. and that's sayin' something.


what is there to say? my three kiddos at my favorite park. done and done.

october

the leaves finally start to fall, and arlo starts collecting. she's still not into the jumping like the other two.


but that eliot. he's pretty much all about the jumping. leaves just make things a bit softer.


eliot insisted that we check out the civil war battleground announced on the sign that we saw along the highway. we need to do that sort of thing more often.


pretty much the perfect fall day, and grandma just happened to have some kites on hand.

november

the last few months of the year found me traveling quite a bit for work. it was hard on our schedules, but i was able to make up for some of the stress by having a dinner date and night walk with my friend shari. it was lovely to meet her in person, as i knew it would be.


being land locked in kansas, i'll take any opportunity to see the ocean. even if it means a 45 minute drive to maine, to spend 15 minutes on the beach, and then drive back 45 minutes to the airport. next time maine, i'll get in at least a whole day.

december

the first day of december was insane this year. sunny and in the 50's, maybe even in the 60's. i'm not sure what that means, but we decided to capitalize on it anyway and hit the playground.


i don't do much christmas decorating. i think about it, but you know how it goes. i do have a few special things that come out once a year, this pine cone being at the top of the list.


fortune smiled on me and i was able to be in town for eliot's first christmas program at school. i laughed and laughed. maybe i wasn't supposed to, but with all those fidgety kids how could i not?


and here we are. nearly the end of the year. we came home the day after christmas to 13 inches of snow and fat flakes coming down. i'll take just a few minutes to think about how pretty it was, and that's about it.

have a fun (and safe!) new year's eve wherever you are. i'll be dancing my booty off at the party of the century, third year in a row. still on a last minute hunt for the perfect pair of pumps. keep your fingers crossed.

reflecting january to june

inspired by shari yet again, i'm reflecting on this past year through images. my memory isn't what it used to be, but thank goodness flickr is all nice and organized by date. so here we go.
january

david tells me he found the cutest little cafe that specializes in soup. we load up the whole family and go investigate.

february

my friend courtney invites me to have a show at her tiny adorable cafe. it was cozy and full of soft pretty colors.


my friend molly's first book is published. it's so good for so many reasons, but mostly because of molly.

march

warmer weather and flowers start to sneek into the picture. always a plus in my book.


we finally finally get collette's skin problems under control, making everyone much happier at home.

april

a dinner date with my favorite person.


a weekend away with some amazing women, time to talk, make a meal together and reflect on the good things in our lives.

may

goofing around with the camera, a small trampoline and my brothers & sister makes for lots of laughs.


taking a day off work so we could celebrate the first day of summer vacation at the zoo. naturally there was ice cream involved.

june

june never fails me. every day is pretty much perfect for me. time on the porch, popsicles, bubbles, bare feet, you name it, i love it all.


getting to visit my boyfriend in portland. his mom isn't too shabby either.


cooking out on lazy day when flickr friends become real, live people and you realize you knew you liked them for a reason, not just because they were handy with a camera.

hear me out

there is this new sweet little girl in my life, and her name is maybelle. i am of the opinion that all sweet little girls should have a pretty little quilt that they can love their whole life through. it just makes sense. as soon as i heard that maybelle was coming, i knew i had to make one. i even started during the summer time, thinking i could give it to her mom as a shower gift. sadly work went into a tailspin and there things sat for months and months. there was finally some light at the end of the tunnel and i was able to get it done and oh man am i so glad i did. because i need to tell you about the secret of this quilt.

first, take a good look at it. and pay no attention to that imp in the corner. do you see what i see? yeah. triangles. lots of them. did you get a little sick feeling in your stomach like i did thinking about getting all those points to line up? well, i am here to tell you to banish your triangle worry! of course i realize that there are many smarter, more experienced quilters out there that are probably laughing at my simple secret, because they knew it all along, and that's ok. because if you didn't know, you do now. originally i planned to make the flock of triangles quilt from denyse schmidt's quilt book. it's the orange & white number at the top left on the cover there. as i looked through the instructions in the book, and realized how many triangles i'd have to cut and piece my heart sunk a little. i knew that i wouldn't have the patience or the skill to make nice triangles line up with each other. i also knew that if i ignored what i knew about myself and triangles, i would get really frustrated and never ever finish the quilt. so, it was time to regroup, i went hunting on the internet and that's where i found the answer (of course) in a simple tutorial over at purl bee. it's so simple in fact, that i almost walked right past it. so here is the deal. no odd points to match, no triangles to cut. that's right. this whole quilt started as squares, and ended as squares. straight lines! i can do straight lines! kinda. but take me at my word, this quilt was easy and fast. i mean it. i did all the cutting of my white squares and my pattern squares in one evening, maybe a couple hours. i used the size in the tutorial and figured out how many 4 inch squares i wanted length and width to calculate how many i needed to cut. i did mess up and cut twice the number of white squares than necessary because i forgot that for every white & patterned square you cut, you get two smaller pieced squares. even with that mistake, i did all the cutting in one sitting. the next night, i converted my stack of white squares and pattern squares into one big stack of pieced white & patterned triangles, like magic. then i asked david to work on the layout becuase i'm not so good with that sort of thing, he came up with the lovely gradient, i pieced the squares into rows, the rows into the blanket and made the quilt sandwhich all in one evening. the hardest part of this whole project for me of was cutting & piecing my binding strips. i kept messing up that stupid bias angle. apparently i need to go on the hunt for another tutorial. once i finally made strips that lined up and would work, i did the binding by hand over a few nights of tv watching with david. done and done! both mom & maybelle are thrilled, and i feel great for getting a project done and being pleased with it. as a tiny postcript, you could use this triangle pieceing tutorial to make the flock of triangles quilt, it would just take a little figuring to find out how many blocks you would need.

ps. there should be some 1000 words action for december later today. keep your eyes peeled. i'll post here again after i update. huffmans are getting ALL kinds of things done these days. sweet.

pps. the new post is up over at 1k, it's a doosey.

reflections

inspired by my friends shari and charlotte, i've been doing some looking back on the year. spending time thinking about all the good things in life, instead of getting bogged down by current stress. shari pointed me to this challenge by gwen bell to do just this very thing. i'm a bit behind, and i might not answer all of them, but i sure do like the thought. so here it goes, after what has proved to be a long hard day, let's put some good thoughts to work.

#1 - what was your best trip in 2009?
getting the chance to visit dear friends in portland for a third time. i feel so lucky to have made incredible friendships on the internet, and even luckier to turn those into real life, flesh and blood relationships. the only thing that could have made that trip better was if i could have brought david and the kids and all my other online friends too, to have one big super bbq with kids, cameras, laughing and general awesomeness.

#2 - best restaurant experience in 2009
i've been doing a lot of travel for work again, which has it's ups and downs. sometimes, if i'm really lucky, i can work something fun for myself into a trip. while i was in new hampshire, i was able to spend an evening in vermont with shari. she treated me to a wonderful dinner, but honestly i could have been eating cardboard for all i care, it was a lovely dinner because of my company. the fact that the food was amazing was the cherry on top.

one of the added bonuses of reflecting on good things is that you start to remember exponentially. because now i'm thinking of our last trip to see david's grandparents in arkansas. nothing particularly amazing about the trip itself, but it was one of those occasions when everyone was in a good mood. the kids were wonderful and we all had fun, even out to dinner. see how that works? give it a shot people. it's worth it.

good habits

well, it's official. december. my brain is confused because it's sunny and 60 degrees outside. go figure. speaking of the month of december, molly & emily have come up with a brilliant idea. to celebrate a year at habit, they have invited all their guests back to post for the month. i'm so excited to see this year close out through the eyes of so many people. please come have a look.