Important Birthdays Today

August 31 is the birthday of my friend Aggie, who turns...some wonderful age. I know, but I'm not telling in case she doesn't want it broadcast. She's the mom of four, including twins, and I hope she gets treated royally today. And everyday. I've known her for about 11 or 12 years, and she is part of the Thursday Night Girls. She was one of 16 kids in her family, which is pretty darn amazing. Ask her about the famous Green Dresses! Happy Birthday Aggie!

It's also Van Morrison's birthday. He's turning 63 (he's way older than Aggie). People generally know of him from "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Moondance", and those are good, but the music I love is not often played on the radio. But that's OK because I have a fairly extensive Van collection, including some wonderful live stuff. I finally saw him live this past December on my birthday. It was the best birthday present ever! Happy Birthday Van!

Time Flies

When you're busy! The past few weeks have been wildly busy at work, with the approach of the new academic year. Working out the details of two short term hires, including office space (or the lack thereof) and what they will actually get paid! Reminding the TAs to get their insurance paperwork turned in! Meeting with students who for some reason waited til today to register for classes! But it seems to have settled down for now and I'm so grateful. Still, as busy as it has been, it's a good and satisfying kind of activity.

I've also found time to get back into the ink. I had to make a purple and lime green card for a challenge that I signed up for, and so here is the result. It's called a bandanna technique, because it resembles...a bandanna! I have purple fingers from that little endeavor. The blue card (I'm in my blue period) is a technique called Shimmering Resist, which was kind of fun. I think you can actually see the shimmer, which seldom works in photos. You can click on any picture to see a larger version of it. Sorry about the crooked pics!

Erin comes for a visit tomorrow, and we are looking forward to spending some time with her. And it's a nice, long weekend, to boot. Enjoy a last picnic of summer!

Quick Weekend Update

From two weekends ago! That's how far behind I am. Last week got away from me, what with so many deadlines at work. But my student is back, things are getting caught up and we are making progress! There is now organization where there wasn't before!

But anyway... a week ago Friday we jumped in the car and headed to the Amana colonies in Iowa. It was as gorgeous of a day as you could hope for, and we had a pretty uneventful drive. Until we saw this sign, and we knew we were not on the right highway. No problem! We figured out how to get back onto 151 and head towards Cedar Rapids. By this time Scott and Becky were nearly there and we felt like we needed to hurry, but there's really no way to hurry on a two lane road that winds through dozens of small towns. (Difference between Iowa and Wisconsin: Wisconsin small towns consist of 9 houses and 2 bars. Iowa small towns are composed of 9 houses and a grain elevator.)

Anyway, we arrived in Amana and checked in to the lovely hotel. This "special" doormat greeted us. We spent the weekend eating fairly heavy German food which was served family style, visiting museums and shopping. We attended church services which are conducted largely the same way they were in the mid-1880s, when the communities were settled. Men entered through one door and sat on one side, women entered through another door and sat on a different side - music was acappella, in German - no pastor, an elder speaks. Very interesting, really.

We discovered Lily Lake, a 200 acre lake covered in pale yellow lotus blossoms. Had a wonderful time and made the trip home without any detours.
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Now I'm off to buy paint - at last! - for the extra room that I'm now calling a studio. That's probably glorifying it a bit but it's shorter than the other names I came up with. The color will be blue, but it's only got a number, not a name. I'll post a picture when it's done.

Breaking News!

After the long, hard winter killed off the pond, we had to start from scratch. And when I say "we" I pretty much mean Kevin. He does all the pond maintenance, and I encourage him and enjoy it. Anyway, this spring the pond reeked, and no fish or frogs and only a few plants survived. Kev's slowly been rebuilding it. We bought a new lily, and some cheap goldfish, and have been waiting to see what happened. At least four of the fish have lived and grown quite a bit. Yesterday we noticed some nice fat buds on the lily. And today...well, see for yourself. It's officially a healthy pond - we have a frog! And the lily has bloomed!

I have tons of pictures from our weekend at Amana, and will post a few of them tomorrow. For now, I'll just say that we had a great time and are glad to be eating vegetables again. :)

And on another note - get well soon Joe! We hope you're back in biking form in short order!

Happy Birthday Andrew!

Andrew turns 26 today! He gets the coolest birthday this year - 08-08-08. All those kids who turn 8 today will really feel special. Andrew turned 8 a looooong time ago :) His 8th birthday was a memorable one because first of all, early in the AM, a bat (the bug eating kind) came in through his bedroom window. We spent over an hour dealing with that issue, waking up kids, rounding up the dog and trapping the bat. The other memorable aspect was his party at the Muskies' game that night. He got his name in lights on the scoreboard, and a ball signed by all the team members.

And tonight he's celebrating by going to a Brewers game with Jen. During the second inning, you can text a message which they will put on the scoreboard, so once again he'll have his name on up in lights. Jen - can you get him a ball signed by the team? :) Boys may grow up but they're still boys at heart.

Drew has changed jobs and is working hard at his new position. I admire his courage in making the move and taking on what can kindly be called a challenge. His predecessor did a shoddy job and Drew has to deal with some unhappy customers, and he is tackling it head on. I'm proud of him for working so hard and stepping out of his comfort zone! And it sounds like he has good ideas and instincts.

On a different note, we are heading out to the Amana colonies around noon today to meet Scott and Becky. The lack of pictures today will be remedied next time I post!

28 Years Ago Today...

And at about this time, Kevin and I were very newly married and getting lost in Madison on our way to our honeymoon destination, a cabin on Lake Wisconsin. We'd left Freeport about 6 or so, stopped in Monroe at McDonald's for dinner (first meal of married life - how memorable!) and then continued on to Madison. It was getting dark, we were getting lost, and wanted to just get a hotel room. But there was some convention or other going on and all the hotel rooms were booked. So we stopped at the IHOP on University Avenue for coffee and pie, ran into someone we knew from Freeport and chatted. Then we forged on into the night and eventually got to the cabin at 1:00 AM. I'd never been there before, Kevin hadn't been there in years, so it's a wonder we even found it in the dark.

For fun, we took a very meandery road trip today and hit most of the places we visited that week. Devil's Lake, Lodi and yes, we even found the cabin. So for fun, here are pictures of a few places we visited, taken 28 years apart. The cabin (note our '63 Chevy Impala, above on the left), the great sign in Lodi honoring their famous duck, and a fun one of a gas station that doesn't exist anymore. I thought the name was amusing. The memory we have of that gas station is that is where the guy who was pumping gas in our car (back when no one pumped their own gas) congratulated us on getting married. We were puzzled until he showed us the note that Kev's brother Scott had stuck into the gas cap, and which we still have, that reads "these people are newlyweds - congratulate them!"




Josie is with us for the weekend! I was going to call this our "Golden Retriever Anniversary" but Erin already thinks we're weird enough.