Yay for 2024!

Resolutions for 2024

Read 45 books

52(ish) Saturdays project

 

What I'd Like To Try

My book binding kit

More cross country skiing

Curling

Crafting meetup at Buffalo Ridge Brewing or Brookings Fiber Arts group

Printing

Learn to make gifs

Identify the trees in my yard and the neighborhood

My 2023 Resolutions

Read 40 books Read 44!

Firsts from 2023

Seeing the Northern Lights!!

Going to Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks with Heather and Christina

River tubing with Mariah

Visited the Minneapolis Sculpture Park

Experienced the Sandhill Crane Migration with Mom

Hosting a holiday music jam at my house

Making book skirts

Being on a SuFu Circuit Relay team (with book skirts)

Wreath decorating class with Erin

Got a Halloween costume (skeleton hoodie) for Olive

Submitted paintings for shows at the Madison Area Arts Council

Visited the Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth, Minnesota

Joined the Great Outdoor Store Pathfinders group

Hiking with Bren in Colorado

Favorites from 2023

Getting my bedroom repaired (I love the new paint!)

Girls' Adventure Trip with Heather and Christina

My hammock, particularly reading over my lunch hour with a La Croix 

More camping with Olive 

Riding to pie with Mariah

Going on a bird-watching hike with Mom 

Book swap at Running Book Club (complete with haiku tag) 

Garden's in!

I cleaned it all up and purchased topsoil/compost/plants on Sunday, tilled and planted on Monday, and planted the last of the seeds today (sunflowers, green and purple beans, basil, thyme, and parsley).

I moved the tomatoes to the north side of the garden (fingers crossed this will help them *not* get their regular tomato plague). I also planted around the wildflowers that had already popped up - excited to have a garden that's a little more free-form this year (without me actively having to plan it that way ;) ).

New for this year are eggplants and sweet orange snacking peppers (and skipping some of the things that haven't grown well for me - kale, swiss chard, etc.).

Week Six

A few of her favorite things 

Garden's in!

It's such a relief to have the garden in!

This year, with some help from my dad, I tilled a compost/manure combo (8 bags of it) into the garden before planting. I also added Osmacote to help feed my veggies and flowers. I'm hoping both of those will help with the poor growing results I've gotten in the last few years.

My sister shared a bunch of seeds (and started tomatoes) that she'd gotten from the Rare Seeds catalog, so I'm excited to see how things turn out. I hear some of the tomatoes are yellow with blue stripes (!!).

I also got two different kinds of sunflowers this year - one that's bigger than the Mammoth ones I usually get (already forgotten the name) alternating with Lemon Queen sunflowers (shorter but should be a really pretty yellow).

As of yesterday, I also have straw and newspaper down around all the tomatoes, peppers, and between the radishes and herbs. I'm going to give the rows time to come up (and give myself time to get more straw) before I do the rest. If it works as well as it did last year (completely lifechanging), I'm looking forward to doing almost no weeding this summer. 

Week Ten

Warm weather? Time to get our butts outside

Housesitting

Spent the last week house-sitting for my parents and taking care of their three dogs, my youngest sister's dog, and my dog.  Here are some random pictures from the week.

My scarf matches the wallpaper

Pad Thai = happiness

Wreath on the carriage house

This started as an omelet but clearly had a higher calling

Dogs napping while I knit/watch Arrested Development

Callie gets more comfortable

Spring

Celebrated Easter with brunch at my parents' house and brought these (and roasted broccoli) with.

Resolutions are just going "eh" - have made two new recipes in three months (cranberry pineapple upside-down cake and Smitten Kitchen's chocolate chip cookies), haven't finished a book (sigh), and workout the same as I did before.  I took Callie for a jog on Friday and learned that what's totally doable on a treadmill feels like death when you try it outside.  Looks like we have some more outside jogs ahead of us.

Been busy with classes - registered for my Summer and Fall classes and, if everything goes as scheduled, I'll be graduating in December.  Graduation seems close and impossibly far away at the same time.

Calliedog

Callie and my yellow sweater, from November

Pics from July

Catching up

Here's everything I missed updating in 2011 ;)

After three job changes (one for me, two for John), I work for Rserving now as marketing coordinator, and John is a sous chef at the Brownstone in Brookings.

I got through another semester of the Information Systems Master's program at DSU even though the dogs liked to make things difficult...



We had a great trip to Ohio for Thanksgiving, visiting family, visiting friends, taking the dogs with us, and buying a snowblower (which meant the 18 hr drive home involved a dog riding on our laps - no space anywhere else!)


(Amanda, me and Krista at Tony's)

With the snowblower, we're ready for the winter weather...but this is all the snow we've gotten (and it was melted by the end of that day)



Even without the usual snow, we enjoyed decorating and getting ready for Christmas



Cooper liked to fluff the Christmas tree skirt and only chewed on the corner of one present



The Christmas tree



John made hand-lettered tags with one of his fountain pens.

We celebrated Christmas at my parents' house with lots of presents, food, and dogs causing trouble (but not lots of pictures taken)

Pictures from this morning

Sunflowers from the Farmers' Market (there was NO way I was going to bring any more veggies into our house--not until we dig out from under the pile in the kitchen). I think this may be my best $2 purchase ever!



Cooper chilling on the couch

Not sure what my plans are today--feeling like knitting or reading. I need to mow the front yard (but maybe I'll just wait until it gets MUCH hotter to do that) and I already did some dishes, so I'm feeling pretty accomplished.

Sleepy dogs

Where they are right now--conked out on the couch. Acting crazy all morning and then getting a bath is so tiring.



From a few weeks ago--too cute not to share.

The newest addition

Cooper, asleep on the couch this morning

We got him last Sunday in Mitchell. He's eight weeks old and the same breed as Callie (American Brittany).



How cute are they?!?

It's a good thing she's cute

My dog likes to wake me up in the morning. It isn't a new thing. She usually whines in my face or scratches at the wall around 6:30 or 7 (when I normally get up for work).

This morning, I woke up to her barking at the back door at 5:40 am. Too early! I walked out and told her "No! Go back to bed," and she did. Whew.

At 6:30, I woke up to her standing next to the bed, whining at me. Since it was time to get up anyway, I got out of bed and went out to let her outside.

She didn't follow me out of the room.

About a second later, I heard her jump back up onto the bed. When I went back in the bedroom, she was curled up under the covers right where I'd just been sleeping.

Brat.

Valentine's Day

Cranberry scones for breakfast (made by me).



Working on some little socks for my new niece, Dixie (I'm an aunt!!)

We also had a lovely dinner at my parents' house. John made all the food, and my dad picked up the tab (yay for free, delicious meals!!) So it was homemade bread with boursin cheese, chicken coconut cream soup, salad, teriyaki salmon with pineapple salsa, chocolate covered strawberries, and red cake with cream cheese frosting...mmmmm.

Earlier this weekend...



Callie had a crazed look in her eyes , so on Saturday I put on my snowshoes and tromped around the backyard with her. She loooves the snow. If you throw snowballs at her, she'll catch them in her mouth and eat them. I even saw her carrying part of an icicle around like a stick.



All the snow in our backyard. She can walk over that really tall spot by the fence, but (thankfully) she's only ever done it when John was on the other side.

Sunday morning

It's been a lazy morning so far, drinking tea and window-shopping on Etsy (loving this and this) , taking pictures of the dog and the windows.

Yesterday, we (John, Mom, and me) painted trim for the doors and windows, and we hung some stuff up on the walls--so we're that much closer to a finished house!

I've also been taking pictures of the Game Jam at DSU (my favorite pic so far)--a 48 hour global game design contest. My dad (who's a professor there) has been there almost all weekend with his students, and I've been stopping by to take pictures and help them eat some of their junk food. John's going to help judge the games this afternoon.

And tonight, I'll be watching Emma on PBS with Mom and Erin. <3

Thanksgiving Pics

John carves the turkey...



...while Callie begs for scraps (she was very interested in the whole process).

We had Thanksgiving at my parents house, and John did the cooking. He went over early to get started, and then I walked over about an hour later. It was so surreal to be walking to my parents' house for Thanksgiving. Every now and then it hits me that we actually live here, and I live blocks from my parents and Erin--something I never thought would happen. Thanksgiving morning was one of those times.

(and it's REALLY been hitting me the last couple days as I try to shovel the snow from the driveway--BRRR!)



The table set and ready to go! We had turkey, cranberry jello salad, homemade rolls, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie and cranberry apple pie (I FINALLY got some of John's famous cranberry apple pie). I know my mom appreciated having John around to cook because she bragged about it to her sisters (and now he's been lined up to cook for Christmas, too--good thing he enjoys it!)



Mmm...mashed potatoes!



Rugby, one of my parents' dogs, making a very Rugby face. Rugby is my parents' youngest dog (just a little over a year old) and he and Callie play and play and play. I'm not sure what either of them will do when we move to our actual rental house and she comes back to live with us (puppy play dates!)

Lake Herman

It was actually sunny today (!!!) so we took Callie out to Lake Herman State Park. She loved it, just ran and ran and ran, sniffing everything she could find. Also, unfortunately, she found something dead to roll in (ugh!). Up until that point, John hadn't encouraged her to swim in the lake, but she smelled SO bad that into the lake she went. John threw a stick for her several times, and each time she'd run out of the water, up the hill, shake off, and roll in the leaves (I'm guessing it was a little chilly)



She spent some more time running and running around...and forgave John for throwing those sticks into the cold lake.



All that running, rolling, and swimming wore her out. She was conked out during our short trip home (we had to keep a a couple windows open--the lake only helped the smell a little). Once we got home, it was time for a BATH!