All Aboard the Blog Wagon

It is quite possible that I am the worst blogger in the world. The weather here in Denver today is more like Summer than October so maybe I can use that as an excuse for not posting in so long, if it still feels like Summer than the fact that my last posting was in the Summer doesn't make me look so bad! A few things have happened since my last post.

For one, the Bruins won Lord Stanley's cup....YEAH!!!!!! I'm sure they enjoyed their off season, as brief as it was and now they're ready for a new season to start. Hopefully Tim Thomas and the rest of the team are just as impressive this season as they were last.

I went to my 15 (yikes!) year high school reunion. Where we had a Bruins themed float in the big parade.


Silas and Amanda got married and we had a great weekend in Keystone celebrating.


I was able to get in a few days in Wellfleet. I do miss being able to spend the weekends at the beach. We had a bit more rain than I like on my vacation week but I did manage to get in some quality beach time and to make a miserable attempt at water skiing.




I departed Cape Cod and headed south for a taste of Georgia in August. There are very few people I would be willing to go to the South in August for but Sara is one of them and I wouldn't have dreamed of missing her wedding...even when my flight from Charlotte to Savannah got cancelled! We had a great and busy weekend and I'm so happy for her and Billy!



All in all, it was a great summer. Very busy but lots of fun. Now that it's fall I'm turning my attention to colder weather activities. Football, apple pie, chili. I'm not as focused on missing water and I'm looking forward to lots of it falling from the sky in the form of snow so I can test out my new skis. Still no condo for the winter so that may impact the number of days I get on the slopes but I'll figure it out! I'll try to update a bit more frequently!

Things I'm Loving

Here are just a few of the things I'm loving right now.
1. The Bruins....because they're in the Stanley Cup finals, they're my home team (since the Whalers left Hartford long ago), Tim Thomas is an amazing goalie and went to UVM, and I can almost feel the emotion in the Garden through the tv!

(I snagged this photo from the Bruin's website, hope they don't mind...but just in case, I'm giving props to Getty Images)

2. Foam Rollers - In general these are great, they are the best thing (aside from a good massage) for loosening muscles. I have a small one from Target at home but this one from Stott Pilates is the best cause it has little nubs on it. (The one from Stott really is wonderful, I use it at the gym, but it cost about 3 times as much as the one I have at home).

3. SUMMER! Just because now it's warm and I can wear flip-flops and that always makes me happy.

4. My New Market Tote- Made yesterday in a sewing class at Fancy Tiger.



I think I'm going to make a million of these bags! All that is stopping me at this point is that I need to go buy fabric and pre-wash it but I've already done that for a different fabric for the next project so market totes will have to wait. For my next project these two fabrics

Will magically become this bag

(The purple will be the outside, the green is for the lining)

Botanic Garden Pics

Photos from the afternoon at the Denver Botanic Gardens with Terri.









Someone was getting married with this view that afternoon, not a bad choice.

Memorial Day

Three cheers for three day weekends! One of my friends came to town to visit and we had a blast doing...not much HA! It was very low key: brunch, dinners out, a movie, the botanical gardens and cocktails on my balcony while eating pizza. It's great to spend a weekend with a friend and just relax.

The Denver Botanic Gardens are beautiful (I promise to post pictures later). With all the rain we have had lately and then a few quick days of sun, everything was in bloom, including a giant section of Lilacs. Lilacs are some of the best smelling flowers ever and I could have sat there smelling them pretty much all day. The only down side to the gardens was that it was a little overcast when we left the house so I didn't have on sunscreen...it's not a bad burn but I defiantly "got sun".

The weather man is calling for 90s by Thursday so it appears that Memorial Day is going to live up to its reputation as the unofficial start to summer. Bring it on!
Hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day!

Bobby Visits

My uncle Bobby was in Colorado for a couple weeks and spent a few nights with me. On his last night in Denver (before his late flight) we took in a Rockies-Mets game. It was a warm night, our seats were great (thanks to our law firm!!!!) and the Rockies won!

Odds and Ends

A few odds and ends...

I finished my elephants, here are the finished products, they now reside with two (in my opinion very lucky) little girls.



Amanda's Bachelorette Party - Vail
A few quick pics from the weekend. Amanda and her bridesmaids - Megan, Sally and Tammara

Let the party begin!

Vail, April 30, yup, last day of April and it was snowing...

Home For Easter

I went home for Easter, it was great to see my family and some of my friends. It was too short of a trip to see everyone (sorry Boston peeps!) but at least I got in some Vermont love.
I got to visit Grandmommy.

I enjoyed some delicious Switchback at PK's


A few "shots" from Easters




And some Easter Art

Where do people find the time?

I have been so bad about blogging because, well, I've been very very busy. I can't believe it's already May, I fell like it should still be March. Luckily today is a rainy day, a true rainy day so my motivation to get to the gym was non-existant so I'm trying to catch up on the blog. Denver's version of a rainy day is really more clouds with a few showers here and there. Last night a storm came in complete with thunder, lightning and pouring rain; if I didn't know better I might think I was in Vermont! It's also been raining ALL day which is good because while the mountains are at 160% of normal snow pack, Denver is beyond dry.

Weekend Wrap-Up

I finished the weekend with a nice long walk around Wash Park, 70* and sunny, everyone was out. There are always lots of dogs at the park and today I saw a few worth noting. Like the one pulling its owner on a skateboard, if you have to run the dog and don't want to run yourself, that's an option. Or the dog with the kite string tied to its collar, because if you're a kid holding that string all afternoon can get tiresome and you have this dog so......I also saw the little dog being "walked" around the park in a bicycle basket a la Toto. Ahhhh, sights at the park.

This weekend I moved out of the ski condo, I've found a home for most of the things that I brought back.

This weekend has been very sewing focused. Last week I made this little guy.

I still have to attach his ears. Yesterday I made a friend for him in the opposite fabric so he's green with polka dot ears. I hope two little kids like these because they took me a lot of time!













Last week these yummy fabrics arrived in the mail.


I bought these to make pillows for Grandmommy. I didn't quite finish but I made three of the four I was planning to make. The first one is an envelope pillow with piping I made of the same fabric of the smaller pillows.




I was hoping to make a bolster pillow out of the blue fabric but I guess that will have to be a future project.
They do look nice on my bed but I'll be bringing them to Grandmommy for hers. She likes pillows more than anyone I know!

Ski Season

Well, my ski season is officially over. I cleaned out the condo today, did some cleaning and came back to Denver to figure out where to put all my ski stuff in my apartment. Grand totals for the season:
Days skiing: 20 (Keystone:11, Breckenridge:5, A-Basin:1, Beaver Creek:1, Vail:2)
Total Vertical Feet: 343,602
Just about time to make the down payment on next year's pass!

Weekend Wrap-Up

Another weekend done. This weekend was a great weekend both in Denver and in the mountains. After much debate between flip-flops and ski boots I headed to the mountains to ski on Saturday. I'm thinking that this may have been my last weekend to ski so I wanted to get in at least one more day. I've not put in a total of 20 days on the slopes and over 343,000 vertical feet (not counting one very brief and cold day at A-Basin). The beginning of the day was icy, despite the 50 inches of snow the mountains had gotten in the past week, but I was right at home with my east coast skiing skills. It was a beautiful warm day and the snow softened up quickly.

Yes, that sign is correct, high 55-60*...

I agree that 60* is warm, especially when you're skiing but I'm not sure it was warm enough for some of the outfits I saw, especially the girl who was snowboarding in her bra! Ahhhhh, Colorado.
The snow got pretty slushy so I called it a day around 2:30 and sat on the deck at the base and enjoyed an end-of-season Sam Adams. Nothing like a beer on a sunny deck after a day of Spring skiing.

I drove back to Denver that afternoon and by the time I got back around 6:30 it was still 80*! My apartment was actually hot! As nice as it was to have some really warm sunny weather, Denver is desperate for moisture so I wasn't sad that the forecast for today was radically different. We went from this yesterday:

To this today:

Yes, that's a rain/snow mix so clearly it was colder...much colder... We've already had a handful of wildfires around Denver and it's only April 3 so I'll be happy for the wet weather and hope that it continues, at least for a little while. I spent most of the day cleaning, doing laundry and running errands. I did figure out that if you go to the Target in Glendale at 9:00am on a Sunday you'll have it all to yourself! It was almost eerily quiet when I arrived but by the time I was leaving it was starting to fill up, kids having meltdowns and all.
Well, that's it, on to another week!

Look At What I Made!

So everyone has a vice and my current vice is sewing! Last night was my pillow class and I'm very happy with the (almost) finished product. I say almost because the pillow cover is a little big for my pillow form so I'm planning to make it a little smaller for a better fit. Luckily making something smaller is much easier than making something bigger! Here is the pillow looking lovely on my couch. Too bad it looks awful with my living room chair so it probably won't be on display in my living room....but it might look good in my guest room.

My pillow has a zipper, yes, I put it in myself, and it even works as evidenced by the open and closed photos.



Now that I know I can make a pillow I'm very inspired! Sewing is so much faster than knitting and it's great to have a completed item in less than a few weeks or months.

I stopped at Fancy Tiger today to pick up a fabric I saw the other day. I knew there wasn't much left and I wanted to get some before they were out. I searched and searched and thought it was gone until I told the clerk what I was looking for and he said "I think we just put that in the remnants bin"...and there it was...at 30% off. YEAH! I love a sale! Oooooohhhhh, aaaaaahhhhhh. Maybe I'm just mildly obsessed with the upcoming royal wedding but I think it's a fun print. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do with it. It's 1.84 yards so that's a good amount to work with. I think it would be super cute with a crown applique but I don't know how to do that yet...I'll have to figure out a good project for it.



I also found this gem in the remnants bin, just slightly more than a yard, but might be good for a pillow...
or if I figure out how to do a quilt it might be cute in that(for reference, the pillow I made last night took a half a yard). Looks like I have more learning and practicing to do!