See ya.......

We are off to South Dakota

Will have lots of stories and pictures to share on my return

Later Sharon 

Dresses for Josie

                                    Josie in one of the dressed I made for her

More dresses and matching hat and scarfs I sewed for Josie. The buttons were not sewed on the middle dress when I took the picture.

                                            A couple of shirts that I sewed for myself.

Last summer I sewed Josie a couple of dress and they are way to small for her now. A couple of weeks ago she asked me if I could fix them so she could wear them again. Of course I cannot refuse to do anything Josie asked because she is so cute.....So on Tuesday I went to Mankato to Joann Fabrics and go a bunch of fabric to make her some new dresses. Of course while I was there I decided that I should get some fabric for me too and make myself some shirts.
Wednesday and Thursday I spend the day sewing. I made Josie 4 dresses, three with matching scarfs and one with a matching hat. I made myself two shirts. Josie came over on Thursday and was very excited to have some new dresses. Last year I made her a size 3 and Amy said they were way to small so this year I figured I better make her a size 5. As you can see it is a little big on her but I figure she will grow into them and then hopefully they will fit her next summer too. I guess if they don't I will be making her some new ones.

I am glad that I am not in 4-H anymore having my sewing skills judged. I had to put 7 buttons holes in one of the dresses I made for Josie. By the time I got to the 7th one it was perfect. The first one was far from perfect. Every time I have to put in button holes I think to myself that I should do a practice one first, then I think to myself that it would be a lot of extra work so why bother.....that is why they are never perfect on the first try :) 

Now I have the sewing bug and want to sew some more. I don't know why I don't sew more since I always have such a hard time finding clothes that fit. Maybe  if I gave up all my other hobbies I would have more time to sew......

Later Sharon 

The characters we hate to love.......

So I admit it I am totally hooked on the TV show Sons of Anarchy. Amy and Christa have been after me to watch if for awhile so I finally decided to give it a try and ordered it up on Netflx. In the last month Rick and I have watched three seasons of it and have just started season four. We should be finished with it just in time for season five to start up in September.
If you are not familiar with it the show is about a biker club in California that makes there money running guns. Now I started watching the show thinking I would hate most of the characters because they are all a bunch of criminals and go around killing people. But pretty soon I found myself rooting for them. They are still killing people every other day and still running guns but you end up hoping they get away with it. The more you watch the more you get involved in there characters and the more you want them to come out on top.
I guess the writer of the show know what they are doing because they totally make you love most of the characters when you know you should be hating them.....

 So in these hot hot days and you are stuck in the house because it is just to hot to do anything sit down and watch a couple episodes of it. I can almost guaranty that you will be hooked.


On to another subject.... The stupid chipmunks are digging out all of my flowers!!!!! Yesterday I came home from work and went to water my plants and found that all most all of the flowers I had planted in these pots were dug up and dead!

 I was so mad! This picture was taken right after I planted them so they had grown a lot and were all hanging over the pots and were looking really nice. The stupid chipmunks also dug out one of my pepper plants and where up on my deck and dug out a plant up there too! It is time for war on the chipmunks!!!!!!!

Later Sharon

4-H

Fair time always brings back the memories of all the years I spend in 4-H. 4-H was a huge part of my life when I was young. I can't remember for sure but I think I joined when I was in 4th grade. I was in it until I graduated from it just like high school when I was 18. I belonged to the Twin Lakes 4-H Club and was even president of the club my last year. It was always such a big deal to bring all our stuff to the fair every July. Getting those blue ribbons was a huge deal and getting the red or the dreaded white ribbon was always big a disappointment.
 I won a trip to the State Fair once for doing a demonstration with my cousin Jean Glynn(Orhn) One year almost everyone from the club won a trip to the State Fair with a skit we did for the annual Share The Fun talent show. Gosh we had so much fun. They took us all up to the fair and we got to spend a couple of night there. We all got to stay in the dorms on the top of the 4-H building. We spend all day running around the State Fair totally unsupervised. What kid would not enjoy that!
The other big thing every year was sewing the outfit that we would model at the Dress Review. Every year we would take what ever we sewed to be judged on the sewing and then we would put it on and be judged on the fit and style of the outfit. Then a couple of days later we would all model the clothes we made for the Dress Review where we would find out if you were judged good enough to be in the Court Of Honor. One lucky person would be crowned the winner for the year. I was lucky enough to get it the Court Of Honor twice. Once for a housecoat and pajama set I sewed and the other time it was for a pants suit I sewed.
I cannot say that I have one bad memory of 4-H. They were a great organization back then.

Later Sharon 

It's a law!!!

Minnesota Statute 169.18 

(3) the operator of a motor vehicle overtaking a bicycle or individual proceeding in the
same direction on the roadway shall leave a safe distance, but in no case less than three feet
clearance, when passing the bicycle or individual and shall maintain clearance until safely past
the overtaken bicycle or individual.

Just a warning I am going to get on my soapbox now.....

 In Waseca there in not a whole lot of bike trails so if we want to put any miles on we have to bike on the roads. That is why we bought road bikes. The road are there for motor vehicle AND bikes and people need to learn this. There are some drivers that act like we have no right to be on the road and will purposely try to run you off the road. Just the other day we were within the city limits biking in the bike lane when a car passed us and was within inches of our bikes. There was not any other cars on the road so this driver could have moved over as the law above states!

 I get tired of people saying that bikers should not be on the road. And I really get tired of people telling me stories of a bad biker that they have encountered and then grouping all bikers together. Just because you have seen a bad biker does not mean we are all that way. If you see someone driving a vehicle that runs a red light does that give you the right to run them off the road? The same goes for bikers, just because you see one biker break the law it does not give you the right to run the next biker you see off the road or become aggressive with them. 

 A study by Monash University in Australia that looked at diver-cyclist collisions found that nearly 90% of cyclist had been traveling in a safe and legal manner just before crashes, while vehicle drivers were at fault for more than 80% of the collisions. 

This blog is something that everyone should take a look at. The man who writes the blog bikes over 100 miles a week and keeps cameras mounted on his helmet and handlebars of his bike so he has visual evidence of his encounters with aggressive drivers. He then uploads the videos to his blogs. It is pretty interesting to see the risks drivers take while passing bikes with a second thought of the biker.

As a biker I try to follow the laws of the road  just like EVERYONE driving a vehicle should too. 

Okay I am done....
Later Sharon

Learning the joys of ice cream......

                  Aunty Cassie teaching Oliver what ice cream is

                                                    I think he likes it!

 This is what happens when you give ice cream to a almost one year old....I huge sugar rush!

On Sunday Cassie called and said that her and Nick were coming down to Waseca to pick up my old blackberry phone for Nick. Since they were coming down I called up Christa and asked if they wanted to come down too for lunch. I made shish kabobs and Rick grilled them. They were delsih. We were all stuffed but not stuffed enough that we could not have some ice cream. Cassie decided that Oliver should have some and he loved it. He ate a bunch of it and then he was on a huge sugar high. It was pretty funny, he was doing a lot of giggling. It was a fun afternoon visiting with them all.

After they left Rick and I went to Owatonna to pick up a couple things at Lowes and Fleet Farm. By the time we got back to town it was after 6:00 so we decided that popcorn would make a good supper. We started watching the Sons Of Anarchy and are totally hooked on it. We have been staying up way to late at night watching it. Good thing we have to wait until Thursday to get the next DVD from Netflix.

Monday I thought it would be a good idea to go for a run. Maybe not my smartest thought since the heat index at the time was 93 or so. I did manage to run just over 3 miles but it was tuff. And yes I did bring gatorade with me to drink. I wanted to run because on the 4th we are running the 5 mile race around Clear Lake. I do it every year if I am not working. Since I missed it last year I would really like to do it this year. Since it is suppose to get up to 100 tomorrow I figure it is going to be  a run/walk for me.

Wish me luck on the race, I am going to need it.......

Later Sharon