Carey Family

Sue

Keeping my balance in July

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I discussed in a previous post my leap into a new phase of life  and how I was going to try to balance my adventures.  I gave a long list of things I want to do and here’s a progress report on how I’ve been teetering during my first month.

Alot:
service to family
service to friends
reading
gardening
crocheting

Some:
blogging
exercising

A little:
quilting
scrapbooking
practicing piano
organizing and cleaning out my home
child advocating

None:
family history
learning Photoshop Elements

So……..not too balanced overall, but I’ve had some interesting times and done other stuff that wasn’t on my list.  I was starting to be a little hard on myself when I remembered a blogger I’d like to “Pay It Forward” to this week.  Tara at Undeserving Grace has a great outlook on life and a strong faith.  Her posts are interesting and fun and she has some memes that repeat.  Say It Again Sunday often has some great sayings and I liked this post that helped me lighten up with the Bob Marley saying I’ve included here.

I also enjoy her Thankful Thursday posts that help me remember to be grateful for what I have and her Blessings in Bloom posts of her garden always cheer me up.  Pop over and visit Tara.  You’ll be glad you did!

Tuacahn 2011

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We made a quick trip down to Broadway in the Desert this year with Mark.  We left at noon on Friday, saw the show Friday night, and drove home Saturday after a little shopping in the St. George outlet stores.  We went to see the regional premiere of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” and it was GREAT!  The theater installed a water curtain for the show and all the underwater scenes utilized the curtain, they flooded the stage, there was lots of aerial work done in the underwater scenes to give the illusion of swimming, and it was all really cool.  The costumes were really awesome and the wheelie shoes for the sea people made them glide along the stage.  The talent was excellent, as always, and we saw some familiar faces; overall, it was a great production.  We took Mark on the backstage tour before the show because the last time we went with Brian, Mark was on his mission.  It’s fun to see the costumes and sets behind the theater.  We also learned that the tunnel underneath the stage was expanded this year to go forward to the front edge of the stage and two trap doors were installed so that Ariel and others could come up right in the front and people could disappear down.  Those were cool effects.

(click on a photo to see the large in a gallery)

I haven’t been very good at tagging in the past, but I went through old posts and tagged each year’s Tuacahn post so now we can see all our adventures in one search!  Whoopee!

Bees are buzzin’

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It’s late July and this cool, rainy summer has made everything late in my gardens.  And even though I don’t have enough energy these days to make it look perfect, there’s a lot of lovely stuff going on out there.  So enjoy what we have, right? One of the things I love in my garden is my lavender.  I have 17 lavender bushes around the side of my house among the roses and in the summer they are a sensory delight.  I can stand by them and smell their fragrance, see hundreds of honeybees flying all through them, and hear the bees buzzing.  Because I basically live  in the country it’s pretty quiet and that many bees are loud!  I just stood out there for several minutes yesterday while I was taking pictures and enjoyed that sensory overload.  Yum!

I’m sharing the other photos I took  and you can click on one to open them all in a gallery with descriptions and plant names.

Because I love gardening, I’m Paying It Forward to a garden blog I found recently called Home Garden Diggers.  Yael has tons of interesting tips and information about all sorts of gardening topics.  I’m actually quite amazed at how much great info she has archived here.  If you like digging in the dirt, visit her blog, and click on the button below to visit Holly and all the other blogs that are being recognized this week.

My pal, Hashimoto’s

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We’ve been living together for almost 3 years now and we’re getting to know each other quite well.  I’m now able to discriminate between hyper- and hypo-thyroid symptoms which helps me to deal with them better and not think I’m crazy.  This is good news.  I struggle every day with the effects of thyroid disease and how to deal with it and I keep talking to more of my friends who are being diagnosed with various thyroid diseases.  It’s amazing how many women in my personal orbit are dealing with similar issues: 6.  One of the daily battles we’ve all mentioned is trying to keep our spirits up when it’s discouraging or when new symptoms emerge.  Currently, my migraines are under control but I am having numbness and tingling in my arms and hands which has been diagnosed as cubital tunnel syndrome.  It always something……

I figured that if my IRL friends are struggling and need support, there must be some cyber friends that could help us, so I went a-searching.  And found some blogs I’d like to highlight in this week’s installment of “Pay It Forward”.  I’m enjoying Hypogirl, who has some stories to tell about Hashimoto’s and life.  There are more.  One is called Dear Thyroid and encourages people to submit their writing about thyroid disease in an effort to help with healing.  (If you visit, click on Who We Are on the right sidebar and find out about the pin-ups!)  I Am the Face of Thyroid Disease.org has resources and patient-submitted videos, some of which made me cry.

Every day seems like a small mountain to climb, and it’s nice to know there’s a support community out there with people who are experiencing the same kinds of things.  It gives me hope.

 

Adventures in quilting

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For Christmas, Scott gave me a stack of fat quarters in fall fabrics for a Thanksgiving quilt I want to make.  I have a landing that’s prominent in my living room and I like to hang a quilt on it to soften it and dress it up a bit.  So far I have a patriotic one and last year I made a Halloween one, which was my third finished quilt.  (Did I mention that I’m a novice quilter?  Hence the need for more time to quilt.  I’ve made 3 finished and hand quilted, one that’s partly hand quilted, 2 pieced tops for charity that someone else finished, and a UFO pieced top made from scraps leftover from the quilt that I’m quilting now.  That’s my entire inventory.  I’m not counting all the tied quilts I’ve made over the years because what I really wanted to learn was how to piece and hand quilt.)

OK, back to the fall fabric.  I’ve been looking through my books and magazines for a pattern that I want to use to make this quilt and so far I’ve been underwhelmed.  On July 2 we went to lunch at Archibald’s Restaurant and did some shopping at Historic Gardner Village because it was my birthday weekend and I wanted to.  🙂

Scott sat on a bench outside while I browsed around Pine Needles, looking for bargains and inspiration.  I found both!  Cute Moda charmpacks 1/2 off and a quilt sample done up on the wall that I just fell in love with.  The quilt had a sign on it saying the pattern was “Off the Grid” from Moda Bake Shop so I called over a saleslady and asked her about getting the pattern.  Discovery:  Moda has oodles of free patterns online using their products.  Who knew?  Well, all the savvy quilters knew, I’m sure, but I discovered a gold mine when I got home.

So I looked up the pattern, printed the instructions, and found the designer, John, has a blog of his own called Quilt Dad.  Which brings me to the Pay It Forward section of my post.  (You were wondering when I was going to get to that, weren’t you?)  His blog is packed full of cool ideas and I’m linking to one of the best parts: his charity quilting.  He participates in quilting bees where members contribute blocks to make charity quilts.  Check out his blog!

Back to me.  Last week I cut out the pieces to my Thanksgiving quilt and here they are.  I can’t wait to get started sewing.