Spring Vacation

My hubby's work keeps him very busy, so when vacation times come around, it is always a treat for both of us.  Happily, we are both of a quiet nature.  If I had married a high adventure type of guy, I would be in real trouble. :-)  We also share the challenge of tummy issues, so travel is something we don't do very often.  So what do two quiet people do on vacation?

Hubs took opportunity before the summer heat sets in to do some things in the yard and garage that he can't get to on a regular weekend.  He also took some time to work on paperwork in preparation for meeting with a financial planner in the next few months.  Retirement is approaching and we want to be as prepared as possible.  I am so thankful that he is mindful of things both short term and long.  He also took care of a few small honey-do's.  Thank you, dear husband. :-)

I kept the housework to a minimum and didn't do any work on current quilting projects.  Instead I took some time to play around with a quilt design program I got a few weeks ago called EQ7 (Electric Quilt).  This program has been around a while, but they just recently released a version for Mac. Since it is built on a PC platform, I find it to be not as intuitive and a little more clunky than most Mac programs, but it will make drafting quilts so much easier and faster than pencil and graph paper.  

We also took time, as we do most vacations, to watch a movie together.  Our selection this time was Still Mine.  Growing older gives one an appreciation for the love stories of older characters.  This one was well done, and we both enjoyed it. 

On Thursday we hung out a bit at our local library. 

Friday night was guy's night as husband and sons took in a minor league baseball game.  I kicked back and watched a movie at home.  

On Saturday we headed out to the country for a family wedding.  With the recent rains, the countryside was nice and green, making for a lovely drive. The wedding was simple and the reception laid back, and we had opportunity to catch up with some of the family we hadn't seen in years.  There were even a couple of uninvited guests that stopped by.  

As we drove, we came through an area where there were some of the big wind turbines.  That is the first time I have actually seen them in person.  Though I am not a fan of wind energy, I did find the turbines rather fascinating in an alien sort of way.  Can't say they add much to the landscape, though.  

Sunday it was home again and back to the regular routine.  It was a great week, and we both look forward to his next vacation.

A Favorite Outing

This past week, my dear hubby was on vacation, so we took the opportunity to make another trip to the Texas Quilt Museum in La Grange, TX.  It really is a wonderful place to visit.  The weather was beautiful.  The drive down was lovely.  And the bluebonnets and Indian paint brushes were starting to make an appearance.  

The quilt museum changes their exhibits each quarter.  This time it was some of the winners from Quilt Festival in Houston--a great way to seem some truly amazing quilts without the crowds.  There was also a display of art quilts based on the seasons--another favorite theme of mine--and a few traditional quilts with a bit of a modern twist. Unfortunately they don't allow photos or I would have a whole slew of pictures to capture the details of the quilting.  I was able to take a couple of outside photos, though.

Quilt, quilts everywhere. :-)

 And a lovely garden to boot.

And on the other side of the museum is a shop called The Quilted Skein--yarn and quilting, what could be more perfect!  http://www.thequiltedskein.com

Nebraska!-History

Last, but not least, we had opportunity to enjoy some of Nebraska's local history.  The Omaha Union Station museum was a beautiful building, as well as having an array of interesting displays.

Looking up

They just don't build buildings like this anymore.

Same motif used in the commemorative quilt at the quilt museum

Omaha also had several historical neighborhoods.  There were the grand homes:

This next one had such great brick detailing.

Then there was this row of small houses that looked like they might be Sears catalog homes.

This one was my favorite, though we weren't able to get a very good picture of it. The style is a Craftsman bungalow, all brick with nice detailing and a great front porch.  I wish I could have seen the inside, too.

That concludes our trip.  Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Nebraska!-Benched

The city of Omaha created a lovely park in the downtown area, and the perfect weather gave us the opportunity to enjoy it.  My favorite feature of the park were the "art" benches.  I thought they were creative and fun.

Woodsy

Deep conversations

Ribbit!

Wired

The suburbs

Just pretty

On a sliding scale

Nebraska!-The Bridge

The evening of our first day out we went to see the Bob Kerry Bridge, the longest pedestrian bridge that connects two states.  The bridge crosses the Missouri River from Nebraska to Iowa.  It was a beautiful evening--cool with wispy clouds in the sky--and the bridge itself is a beautiful structure.  Such a lovely and pleasant way to end the day!

The curving path gave opportunity to have views from various perspectives

The path was wide enough for walkers and bikers to cross comfortably

The design was clean, simple, and yet striking

From below

The recent flood waters left interesting patterns in the shallows

Looking back towards the Nebraska side

A water feature/mini-amphitheater

A garden depicting the different local ecosystems

Catching a few rays of the evening sun

Nebraska!-The Museum

One of the things the holiday time afforded was time for my hubby to get his pictures from our Nebraska trip downloaded.  So I don't overwhelm everyone with pictures (I have visions of readers scrolling down the post with a glazed look in their eyes), I will spread them out over the next few posts.

The main reason we went to Nebraska was to see the International Quilt Museum.  It was of an architectural interest to my husband since the building had won awards, and of course the quilts for me.  So here we go...

The building itself was very nice done.  The brick work hinted at quilts without being too literal. There was a lot of natural light in the common spaces and touches of quilt motifs without being overwhelming.

 

One of my favorite features was they way they used quilt motifs in neutral, subtle tones for their donor walls.

The main exhibit featured quilts using the hexagon, not my favorite but I can't help but be amazed at the number of tiny pieces that went into these quilts.

This was my favorite quilt from the second part of the exhibit which featured Nebraska quilters.  This was a more recent quilt, and unfortunately the lighting made capturing the outstanding use of color in this quilt impossible.  The actual colors were black, purple, charcoal for the dark fabric; and khaki to greenish khaki for the light fabrics.  It was stunning.

 Upstairs in the conference/classroom areas were some quilts from the local quilters.

Nice use of color

My kind of quilt--simple design, space for fun quilting

A postscript:  Since our Nebraska trip, my husband and I made another trip to see the new Texas Quilt Museum in La Grange, Texas.  Again, it was the building (two historic building joined and renovated) and the exhibit that interested us.  Featuring 62 mostly award-winning quilts made in the past 25 years by Texas quilters, the exhibit was wonderful.  The space was open, airy, and well lit.  Unfortunately they didn't allow pictures, so all I have is a token photo.  Still, I would highly recommend going to anyone interested in quilts.

Next post:  The Bridge

First Venture

We took a trip--my first extended trip since starting my diet journey.  And this is what made it all work:

It took some drawn-out planning to figure out how to manage my meals while away.  First, we planned to stay in a suite hotel that had a full refrigerator and a two burner cook top.  Next I checked to see if there was a Whole Foods at our destination and thankfully there was, only about 2 or 3 miles from where we were staying.  Thirdly, I read somewhere on-line about checking a cooler of frozen food when flying and called Southwest Airlines to make sure that was possible.  Getting the okay there brought everything into the realm of possible.  

The planning and preparation were still stressful, and by the evening before our departure I was not a happy camper.  Being out of my routine for two or three days, plus the stress of getting everything together was not a good combination.  Nevertheless, we made it onto our flight, and I breathed a sigh of relief.  After that things worked out very smoothly. 

The Whole Foods was very nice, confirming to myself yet again that while I am still not a great fan of the store in general, my local store in particular is just not a happy shopping place for me.  Even so, it is better than none at all.

We had a lovely time.  The weather was beautiful.  The sites were enjoyable.  And there was plenty of opportunity to take in some HGTV.  (Pictures to come.)

So, the strategy for future trips:  pick a state, find the Whole Foods (there is actually one in Honolulu :-)  ), get a suite hotel, pack up the cooler, and we are off. 

 

Catching Up

April and May always seems to be a busy time of year for some odd reason.  It is not like we have a lot of usual activities during this time, but a lot seems to happen, never the less.  Plus, while I have been busy with wooly-cotton projects, they are all still in progress, so I haven't any pictures to show as yet.  


So here is catching up from the last few weeks:
In early April, my husband and I made our annual trip to visit his twin sister and her family to celebrate his and her birthday.
  
We attended my daughter-in-law's niece's quinceanera celebration mid-April.  That was a first for me and was a lot of fun.  It was great to spend time with her family. 

After that we were busy preparing for our trip to Germany to visit our daughter.  Long plane flights are no fun, but it was worth it to be able to experience a little of our daughter's world.  What a beautiful country! 

Once we got home, we were back into the usual routine.  The garden is in full swing, so I am working to keep it weeded and harvested.

 
When walking in my neighborhood this past week, I crossed paths with a big tarantula making his way across the sidewalk.  I did not invite him to walk me home!  


One of the biggest events in my life lately is my beginning a gluten free diet.  I have not felt well the past few months, and on rather an impulse I decided to see what would happen if I went wheat-free.  While this has been a difficult change both logistically and emotionally, I am finding that I feel better and better.  I am probably about 80% on the road to gluten free, but hope to get to at least 95% in the next few months.  And as many other have done in making this journey, I decided to start another blog:  http://thegluten-freebaker.blogspot.com/  Since I love to bake bread, I have been challenged with working with alternative flours and hope to come up with some decent simple recipes along the way.


That about covers the latest and greatest.  Hopefully I will soon have more tales of the wooly-cotton variety soon.  There is certain plenty in the works.