What Have I Been Up To?

A lot! I have been up to quite a bit in the past six weeks. The long awaited date of October 1st finally arrived and my 20 year dream of seeing U2 live was realized! It was an amazing, awesome, unforgettable event. DH and I drove up to Charlottesville with our camper in tow and stayed the night at a KOA campground near the stadium. Traffic after the show was a nightmare but you wouldn't have heard me complain. The show was well worth any inconveniences we encountered!

This is me before the show wearing my souvenir jacket. Our seats were very close to the stage. The 360 stage was massive! Yes, the pic is blurry. We need a new camera....I look distorted, lol.

The anticipation was overwhelming as the show began. The stadium lit up and smoke billowed out of the stage, while the speakers blasted David Bowie's Space Oddity. The stage looked like some kind of alien spacecraft. It reminded me of the movie "War of the Worlds"

It's Bono! It's really Bono!! Be still my beating heart!
On the way home from Charlottesville I asked DH to stop at the big Joann's in Midlothian so I could look at Halloween fabric and other fun stuff. Guess what I discovered? They had a Husqavarna Viking dealership located inside the store. I told DH he just had to see these machines. I used one in my quilting class and had raved about it ever since. DH liked what he saw, asked the dealer a lot of questions, then took me to lunch and told me he wanted me to have the sewing machine as my Christmas present. What a great guy! I've already been back for my first class to learn how to use all of the cool features it is equipped with. I have two more classes to attend. Unfortunately, the store is almost 1 1/2 hours drive. I found two HV dealers closer to me but one is such a small shop I would hesitate to purchase there and the other is 1 to 1/2 hours depending on the timing of the ferry to cross the river. I'm happy with our decision to purchase it where we did. What a super cool DH I have!



Here is my first quilting endeavor. It's called Wash Tub Scrappy and it's actually a bit tedious for a first quilt but DD figures if we start hard, everything else will seem easy. DD and I have been to two shop classes so far and once we get these squares done, we will go back for our next lesson.

I have also been busy with my scrapbooking. I have been scrapbooking since 2000 but I still have tons of pictures from prior to 2000 that need to be organized. I have been working on that task on and off for years and just about have it done. I also have been organizing photos for specific album projects. The weekend after the U2 concert we took a quick camping trip to the mountains up near Staunton. We like to camp in the fall and see the beautiful colors of the changing leaves. The weekend after the camping trip I went on a scrapbooking weekend retreat but unfortunately, I went with a bad head cold and didn't get much accomplished.

I was off today for the Veteran's Day holiday and I worked on several projects....my quilting, organizing my scrapbook area, and organizing negatives. Negatives? Yes, remember those brown strips that used to come back from the developer with your photos. I need to get reprints for some of my album projects.




One of which is my family Christmas album project. I bought this album several years back and have finally began working on it. I am doing a two page layout for each Christmas we have celebrated since '83 when DH and I were dating.
This past weekend I attended another scrapbooking weekend retreat. This one was in Virginia Beach on the ocean front. I got a great discount on this one for having attended two previous retreats this year. I needed to go and make up for the one I attended in Oct. when I was sick. I spent both days working on the Christmas album. This is a pic of Christmas 1992 layout.
Stitching.....I have been working on a Christmas ornament. A Prairie Schooler Santa. It's small and most stitchers could probably whip it up in a day or two, but I'm not most stitchers. I'm slow!!
We're getting battered here with wind a rain from a Nor'easter. Tomorrow the remnants of TS Ida will be here and mix with what is already here and we're going to have high wind and heavy rain. We're expected to have two more days of this! I wish I was going to be home again tomorrow. Hope you are warm and dry where you are! Happy Stitching!