NYC, baby!

So, I made the decision years ago that my 40th birthDAY would, in fact, be celebrated for a YEAR.  Why?  Because I am actually really excited to be 40.  I mean, why not?  I have my family and friends, a great home, a career and hobbies I love, so much to be happy about at this point in life.  My 30s were so much about building my family and career, that I feel like my 40s will be the time to reap the rewards of that hard work.  I became a mom about a week before my 30th birthday, which was celebrated by a quick dinner at a restaurant, where I basically couldn't sit comfortably and I milked through my shirt and dashed home in embarrassment, so...yah, I thought I was owed some fun for the Big 4-0 ;)

I am also extremely lucky to still be close with many of the girlfriends of my youth.  Five of us, who have been friends since Kindergarten, decided to take a trip to NYC to celebrate our birthdays in style, and to toast our lifelong friendships.

I had TECHNICALLY been to NYC before.  What does that mean, you ask?  Well, 8 years ago, I went with another friend to celebrate her 40th. She had recently moved to North Carolina, so I flew there to see her and her family, and she arranged a bus tour to NYC for us.  Did you know that North Carolina is really FAR from NYC?  Well, as Canadians, we really are not all that sharp about US geography so, um, we did not.  So our trip started with a REALLY LONG bus ride, made even longer when the bus broke down on the side of the road for 6 hours.  This was especially painful as I happened to be 8 weeks pregnant with LBNL, so was nauseous and had a bladder the size of a pea.  In addition, the bus tour was through a church group of extremely exuberant African American Southern senior citizens, who were the sweetest people ever, but who piped their homemade cheesy soap operas through the tvs and tended to shout "Hallelulia" and "Amen" approximately 47 times per hour.  It was quite the experience!

And the fun didn't end there- we arrived in NYC to catch the tail end of Hurricane Ernesto, which caused rain to pummel us sideways, preventing any kind of walking outdoors (which is how you DO NYC!), nor could we see through the windows of our city tour bus so....yah.  Not fun.

I digress.  But you can see how my life is a bit of a sitcom?

Anyways, this time?  I WENT to NYC!  And we sure did it right.

We shared some laughs with Rob Schneider at his standup show:

We saw amazing musicals:

 We had many cocktails:

We shopped:

We danced until the wee hours of the night, and then we did karaoke (check out my pit stains, dudes):

We even went here.....

...and did this:

So many awesome things happened.  And one of my favourites?  Visiting Purl Soho!!

So many pretty things....

And I brought some home with me :)

The stuff in my Purl Soho bag was WAY more expensive than what I had in that little blue box above, lol!  But I just LOVED being in there, surrounded by succulent yarns, soft and gorgeous Liberty of London fabric, the friendly staff, and all the inspiration! Heaven :)

So all in all, I would say this trip was FABULOUS and we are already busy planning our Big 5-0 return!!

What I did on my Summer Vacation! by Kristie :)

Well, hello!  It has been a long time.  I certainly didn't mean to take such a long break, but have been busy enjoying an excellent summer and just never really made my way here.  Am looking forward to catching up with you and visiting some of your blogs that I haven't been caught up on in months!  Hope you all are well.  I HAVE been checking in regularly at Instagram, however!  So if you are there come say hello, my user name is Kristieocd :)

Getting right to it- I haven't really done any kind of crafting.  A bit of knitting here and there, but nothing finished to completion.  I didn't even touch my sewing machine for a record breaking 3 months!  But now that we are back to school and back to routine, my sewing mojo has come back with a vengeance.  Hope you have lots to show you soon!

So what DID I do?  Let me bombard you with pictures ;)

The Hubs and I enjoyed a KID FREE (!!) long weekend in Boston, for my cousin's wedding.  It was our first time to the city and I must say I fell in love with the area.

It was a whirlwind visit- a city tour:

A day in nearby Marblehead.  We spent a great day hanging out with my parents, can't remember the last time we got to do that!

Also spent a couple days visiting the beaches and shops in Cape Cod (and eating lobster, naturally), after all the wedding festivities!

Our other big summer event- we bought a cottage!!

If you have been around awhile, you may remember that our previous cottage was destroyed in a flood.  So, after a couple years of waffling on whether or not to rebuild, we opted instead to buy something else in another area altogether, close to where the Hubs grew up.  It is a great place, a 4 season home, really (it's been nicknamed it "The Lakehouse"- very tongue-in-cheek!),  It is on a beautiful lake in the rocky Canadian Shield, and has the most spectacular sunsets :)

We spent a wonderful few weeks, and some weekends, too, at the new place so far and we just love it.  What's not to love?  A gorgeous lake view, sunsets, swimming, boating, water sports, and a new place to make quilts for?  Talk about heaven!  We are very lucky.

So I guess you could say my creative energy this summer has been put to use nesting in our new place. Little touches, here and there, to make it feel like home.  A little painting here, some decorative touches there.  My cottage Pinterest board has gotten a little out of control.

A basket next to the slipcover couch for storing quilts.  Gotta have quilts to snuggle with on those chilly days!

I found a home for my Emerson quote mini quilt near the front door, along with a new twist on a guest book. We collected stones and have visitors sign them with notes about their favourite memories from their stay. We collect them in a large vase for display. It is a great way to make fun "decorative memories!"

I am also collecting wine corks and caps, having friends sign them to remember the glasses shared over sunsets and laughter!

After all, sometimes the memories get a wee bit foggy after a few bottles.....

An eclectic photo wall of happy memories.

But the best part of the cottage is what is outside, not inside!  The kids absolutely love catching all sorts of critters- frogs, bugs, garter snakes and crayfish are hunted down daily, and returned to nature every night :)

          

Swimming of course!

Tubing, waterskiing and knee boarding.

Boats of all varieties.

Fishing (it's all about using the right bait).

Spending time with friends and family makes it all that much more fun!

           


I have a perfect place to do some fabric cutting or sewing:

Last But Not Least lost her first tooth at the cottage!

We re-hung our "measuring oar."  We had a tradition at the old cottage to measure the heights of the kids on it every July, so we reinstated that here. Amazing how they have grown!

Speaking of that, this fall LBNL started grade 1!!  Hard to believe.  Which means (drum roll....) this is the first year that all THREE of my kids are at the SAME school, on the SAME schedule!  No more lunch hour pick ups, shuttling to daycares, etc.  Nope, all in school, all day long (and 2 out of 3 are excited about it ;)

What does this mean? Well, now when I have a day off work, I MAY just get some time for some sewing!  In fact, took advantage of that yesterday, and worked on this Heather Ross Briar Rose quilt top:

Well, that concludes my report on my summer vacation :)  Hope your was just as spectacular!  Looking forward to catching up with my crafty friends!  Thanks for stopping by!  And if I go AWOL again, you can likely find me here:

up, up and away

(image via Pinterest)

I am off to the Chicago area for the weekend for the SCAD research fundraiser walk with/for my friend Michele. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has made a donation, I am soooo close to my $1000 fundraising goal and feeling so very warm and tingly inside to have such wonderfully supportive friends and family. You guys rock! I am looking forward to a great weekend! AND- I did some "pre-shopping" online, which I have shipped to my American hotel room- yippee for free shipping and no border fees! I bet you can guess what I may have bought ;)

I am even looking forward to JUST SITTING on the plane. Bringing my knitting and some books to dig into. I caved and bought 50 Shades of Grey after hearing all the hype. Have you read it? What did you think??


Also have picked up another couple fun books lately. "All Wound Up", by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (the yarn harlot) is a collection of essays/short stories, most involving yarn and knitting. I loved the first one about time for knitting/craft. She talks about how people will comment to her, you know, in that tone, " I wish I had time to knit." Like they are not given the same 24 hours in a day like the rest of us. It is a pet peeve of mine when people say that, implying that I must lead a life of leisure to be able to fit in crafting, when really I spend all day running my butt off (correction- sadly, cannot outrun the butt) but still PLAN the time to craft, because it is important to me. Not every day, but when I can. And I manage because I am organized, hardly watch any t.v. and I sleep less then I should, not by some magic. So there. Rant done. ;)


I also picked up "Let's Pretend This Never Happened" by Jenny Lawson, the Blogess. I still chuckle when I think about the chicken story, so I am sure the book will be a riot.


Why stop there? Since I had free shipping I went ahead and also bought the Crafty Chloe book, wonderfully illustrated by Heather Ross. Chloe is pretty much exactly The Middle Child. A very cute read.


And I have to say that I can't WAIT for Heather's newest book to come out in October, Heather Ross Prints. How cool does that look?? It is basically a book with a DVD that has a bunch of her famous prints, and you can print it yourself onto paper, fabric, etc!!! Crazy awesome.


Anyways, off to go pack! See you all next week. And I am excited to say that I FINALLY will have a finished quilt to share with you :)

Winner, and gallery of embarassing photos revealed

So, for a giveaway entry I had asked you to guess which of the Epcot countries I had visited in real life for a chance to win an Oliver and S layer cake. The options were:

Canada

United Kingdom

France

Morocco

Japan

USA

Italy

Germany

China

Norway

Mexico

And a bonus entry for those who could guess where we spent our honeymoon!

Well, there is no fooling you people. I HAVE been to Italy, for our ten year anniversary (2010):


We had actually also visited Venice on a backpacking trip in 1999, and I had gone with my sister to Venice, Rome, Florence, Pisa on a tour in 1995! One of my favorite countries :)

Also:

United Kingdom- England, Scotland and Wales, anyhow (1995). I didn't have a single good photo of myself there (well, there was one of me in front of a rock wearing a tank top and jean overall shorts. Seriously? Even I didn't have the guts to share that!), so here is one of my little sister in Edinburgh :)

France (1995, 1999). Paris (shown here) and Nice, mostly. Did some para-sailing in Nice and survived a bomb threat in the Paris train station!


Japan (1992, on a Rotary exchange trip- check out those bangs, baby! I was 3 inches taller back then!):
I stayed in a small town in northern Japan, and they treated me like royalty. I met the mayor, was in the local newspaper more than once, and they even put me in their parade! I was the only blond and a good foot taller than everyone else :)

Germany (1995, 1999). Here I am in Berlin in front of Brandenburg Gate. Also spent some time slugging beer in Munich and toured a couple of the German concentration camps.

Mexico (1997, 1999 and 2000 with the U of M Dentistry Class of 2000!). Nothing says Mexico like an iguana wearing a sombrero!

But NOT in Mexico for our honeymoon! Oh no. For that, we went to....Morocco! And southern Spain , too :)
Among many other adventures there, yes, we DID ride a camel! Took an excursion out on the Sahara on camel-back and then spent a night camping out on the dunes under the stars. Magical!


So lots of right answers, and only a few who got the bonus honeymoon question right- good for you! I feel really lucky to have had the chance to visit so many amazing places, and it was fun reminiscing as I sorted through some photos to share with you here! Can't wait to someday add to "my list"!

That puts it at 52 correct answers entered!
So, without further ado (or embarrassment), the winner is.....

SassyCathy! I have emailed you to let you know. Thanks for playing, everyone!