Five Shadows

Swedish Bee Hives

sharon — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 10:46:49 +0000

I’m looking through pictures my son took while in Sweden this summer. And they have me thinking of the next swap, Shades of Sunshine, I must get busy on as it is due later this month.

Buzzing Bees

sharon — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:57:52 +0000

Our garden is teeming with insect activity. Today I sat for a bit and just watched the comings and goings. The Rose of Sharon has such a variety of bee life visiting and gathering pollen. One huge bumble bee type had his legs so loaded with pollen, I wondered when he would head home! Then there was the honey bee type who went to the buds too, working his way under the unfurled petals. And a tiny little bee that attached the blossom just as the bumble bee did - but he is so tiny. There was the ‘normal’ honey bee visitor and then a bee that looked like him but with a shorter body. Oh! and the wasp looking visitor. I’m not going to try to identify these visitors, I’m just amazed at the number of different varieties of ‘bees’ visiting the garden. Can you see the little bee inside the flower on the left?

Row House Swap

sharon — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:52:13 +0000

These pretties are heading to Lenna for her Row House Swap. When I first read about the house swap, for some reason beeskeeps/beehives popped into my head. After all, a hive is a house for bees, right? I shot off a note to Lenna to ask what she thought and she replied in a general email to all participants saying, “Sharon asked, “Do the houses have to be the shape of a conventional house? For example, I’m thinking a beeskeep is a “house.” Any size or shape as long in the range of 1- 3 ½” wide and 2-5” high, including the roof are the rules, so I think that could work, Sharon!”

I know that these houses may not be what the other ladies are expecting. but I do hope they will like them as much as I enjoyed creating them! The base for the house is a chipboard Christmas tag which I painted with gesso and craft paints. Then I added torn paper to give the woven basket shape to the hive and embellished with bees and stamping.

And here is a picture of the back of two houses. I made six, so Lenna can have one. Thank you Lenna for another wonderful swap!

And all is as it should be

sharon — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 01:36:19 +0000

I’m so pleased to say yesterday ended with a broad smile on my face. As a family, we packed up three cars to help transport our two sons and all their stuff back to university. After setting up young-son-two in his dorm we headed to the local ice cream eatery. Being a very popular ice cream parlor and being that upperclassman would be moving back on to campus with families like us heading to Ivanhoe’s, we anticipated joining the long line of customers. Once receiving our treats - that first yummy taste - there was no doubt that the time waiting had been well spent!

With young-son-two squared away, we head further south to meet up with young-son-one. Just recently back from a trip to Sweden, he is moving back into his apartment and will continue to work on a master’s degree in physics. We unpack his stuff and the girls get a tour of the small apartment, giving their approval. After a quick trip to the grocery store, young-son-one is pretty much settled in and with the hours of the day ticking away, we head for home. Daughter-number-one is dropped back off at her school of higher education with much kisses and fanfare. She loves road trips and having started school several weeks before her brothers opted to take the road trip with us today.

As I settled into bed last night, I got the strong sense that all is as it should be. The three eldest are pursuing their interests and preparing for their futures. DH returns to his job investing in the future of young adults at the college where he teaches. And I will continue at home with our two youngest children - teenagers both, really not young at all - making this my 22 year as a homeschool teacher. Yes, all is as it should be.

Friendship Quilters

sharon — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:06:36 +0000

The last week of July, I went to That Pretty Place B & B with several friends. This is our annual self proclaimed quilting get-a-way. I only took one quilt along to stitch down the binding but I never even got it out of the bag. We ended up doing lots of shopping, eating out, and playing cards instead of quilting. Essenhaus is one of our favorite stops for eating. Yoder’s and Lolly’s have fantastic fabric finds. One afternoon several of us took a card making class at The Calico Frog. It’s a wonderful little scrapbooking shop in the little town of Middlebury. Scrapbooking and card making is not “my thing” but I thought I’d give the card making a go with my friends. We had a great time! Here are the 4 greeting cards I made.

We just bought a new scanner/printer/copier and the above pictures is my attempt at learning to use the scanner. Hope the quality of the scan is OK.

Lesson #1 in iPhoto

sharon — Sat, 10 May 2008 21:31:40 +0000

I just had my first lesson on importing photos to iPhoto. DH showed me how to enhance and then save them in their proper folder. So here is a test run - with the photos out of order. I’ll have to work on that… The first photo is of two of the guys digging post holes. The second shows the pickets being screwed in place. Third, the first picket going up. And the last photo is of a vertical post taken out while the post hole is dug deeper. The young man is acting as the “post.” We are such a funny group! The privacy fence is being built around an equipment yard at a camp for inner city children. My daughter wrote and won a grant through Youth as Resources. She used the grant money to purchase the materials for the fence. Each step through the grant process has been a wonderful learning experience for her. She is the young lady in the blue hoodie.

Phone Line Troubles

sharon — Sat, 10 May 2008 20:18:26 +0000

I keep hoping that I’ll have time to learn how to better manage this blog - and my DH has promised to show me a few things. So here is hoping that with the end of the semester his promise will come true! For the past several weeks we have been having phone problems. Lots of static on the line. The phone company sent out the service guy and he worked in the outside box and on the telephone pole. The noise on the line stopped …. for a few days and then was back in full static noisiness. Two more frustrating weeks and phone calls to the company later, we as of this morning have a new line buried out side and a phone that is once more working! All this time the internet connection was creeping along at slow speed and often we could not connect. That seems to be solved too!

The Prom was a huge success! I have pictures to share but as I said… I need to learn how to better manage this site and formatting the photos is one of the things I need to learn.

And I’m learning to use my DH digital camera! You may all be laughing at that, but I’m just not a camera person. That being the case, I took 75 photos yesterday at a service day for my children’s 4-H club. And I’m proud to say I think they turned out pretty darn well! Again - I promise to share them, here, soon. And I’ll tell you about that the project ‘cas it was made possible by a Grant my daughter won through Youth as Resources.

It is so pretty out today. After a week of rain it is warm and sunny. (Rain in the forecast again for tomorrow, Mother’s Day - bummer. We might have to miss our usual trek to a local State park where we search for the Lady Slippers blooming.) But, the Jack-in-the-Pulpit are blooming in our back yard! They are my favorite spring wild flower!

Black Ties and City Lights

sharon — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 03:40:48 +0000

Prom, Prom, Prom. That is what is happening in my life right now. I’m pleased to say it is all coming together nicely. Food, chocolate fountain, servers, flowers, decorations, rented items, DJ, playlist, portrait photographer, chaperones, set up, tear down, security - check them off the list, all taken care of! This is not a huge Prom by any means, but no matter the number of teens attending, the details are all still necessary! We guessed we would have 100 teens attend, and at the last count I heard we had 108 teens registered. Tickets sold to 100 teens pay the bills, so insert me doing a happy dance here! Today I worked on sewing up 15 black ties to go around the vases of flowers for our table center pieces. I’ll have to take pictures of the decorations Friday night to post here after the Prom. I have two daughters attending this year. Part of Friday involved shopping for the right accessories - shoes and jewelry. I still need to fix straps on their dresses.

Quilting - has not been happening here lately. But here are pictures of three of the five 6″ quilties I made for Lenna’s swap.

Hubby and Me

sharon — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:53:03 +0000

Here is a picture of my husband and me, taken by my daughter, on our search for Spring on Easter Sunday. We did find a little greenery of Snow Trilliums pushing up through the brown leaves, but no blossoms. Spring was slow in arriving this year. I actually wrote those sentences a few weeks ago, but never posted them. Wow! Time is just flying. I can’t believe it has almost been a month since I last wrote on my blog.

Spring did come! These Pretty flowers are blooming in our yard. DH took the pictures of the Crocus and Hepatica.

Blood Root, Spring Beauties, and Daffodils are blooming now too.

In Search of Spring

sharon — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:53:57 +0000

Even tho the calendar says Spring has arrived my little spring garden flowers are apparently saying, “No, not yet!” So after a wonderful Easter Service and meal with family, we headed out in search of the Snow Trilliums that bloom a few weeks before our garden flowers. We drove to Hanging Rock and alas! the Snow Trilliums are also still in hiding! It is now official, Spring has not yet reached Northern Indiana. We did do some geocaching on our outing - found two caches, and we stopped at a lacy little water fall on an Acres Land Trust which was beautiful and will have to make up for the lack of flowers. The search for Spring will just have to continue.

Here is a picture of the last bed size quilt top I have sewn. It is one of two for my parents who have moved into a retirement community. In moving they have switched from a queen bed to twin beds. The pattern is River City 9-Patch from the 9-Patch Reunion Book by Atkinson Designs. The border and solid 9-patch squares are really a blue, but the photo turned out as gray.