Well, that's been a vacation. . .

I guess I need to back up a couple of months.  I retired on May 13.  I had a really nice going away party from the Law School.  About 80 co-workers, and professors came by to wish me well.
I and my mother had planned the next week to leave for a trip to South Carolina to see mom's sister, Patricia.  But during that week we had 2 uncles pass away.  Leo Waterman (pink shirt) and Mitchell (Butch) Bennett (2nd from right).  Unfortunately that means all my mom's surviving sisters are now widows.

Mom's bd Nov. 2015

 

 So our trip was delayed by a week. Pat came up from SC for the funerals and we left just ahead of her to go to SC.

 

I took a different route this time to stop at Mary Jo Fabrics in Gastonia NC.  A much talked about store for quilters. Only I had forgotten our altered schedule so we were there on a Sunday.  There webpage didn't have Sunday hours listed so we didn't bother with the detour.  We did hit it on the way back north and I got lots of fabrics for my veteran's quilt project.

 

It is amazing to me as I travel around how much this land changes in such a short time.  Michigan is nice rolling with lots of forests. Northern Ohio was flat.   Then you slowly starting hitting the hills.  Bit of a change for me.

 

 

 

 

We had a wonderful time visiting with Aunt Pat and members of her family.  A couple of days after we got to Edgefield, we left for Hilton Head.  It was nice but a tropical depression blew in while we were there, but wasn't much worse than some of our thunder storms.  We got to the beach a couple of times.  Here is what a couple of 80+s look like. 78 degrees in the condo and they're cold with the air on. They couldn't understands why I didn't want to cover up too.

 

 

All in all it was a wonderful visit.  And we really appreciate my aunt's hospitality.

 

Safe trip there and back, but were glad to get home.

 









Contemplation

Well, it has finally arrived.  RETIREMENT! 

I consider myself luck in that I have always had a job.  When I was 8 or 9 I started babysitting. Took over my uncle's law mowing before I was 16.  Once I was old enough, I worked as a waitress and then as a grocery store cashier, back when you had to punch in all the prices and give out S&H green stamps.

When I was in high school I wanted to be a veterinarian in the worst way, but my father said that was no kind of job for a woman.  I also realize now no one had every explained to me the correlation between good grades and college. 

So what were my choices: homemaker, teacher, nurse or secretary.  Secretary it was.  After I graduated from high school I started at Lansing Business University to be a legal secretary.  In just 6 short months I fell into my first full time job.   I started working on a federal grant to look into the needs of the elderly in the tri-county area (Ingham, Eaton and Clinton).  We were able to start the first meal on wheels program and transportation services as well.  That was my first 6 years with Dave, Roxanne,  Dorothy and Marion..

But after awhile you get tired of wondering every year whether your grant will be renewed.  So I started looking.  Since we started out as a federal grant administered by the City of Lansing I was able to sign job postings from the City.

And I landed with the Lansing Police Department with many different jobs over the 12 years: Clerk on another grant program, matron in the jail, stenographer and finally as a secretary for the Uniform Division.  I worked with a lot of good men and women over those year.  But I hit a point where I was working daily with one really unhappy guy who made my life miserable enough that I moved on.

I spent the next nine years were as Secretary/Administrative Assistant to the City Treasurer.  I think there were at least 3 of them during that time. I was finally able to retire from the City of Lansing.  But since I had started working so young I still needed to work.  My final move, Michigan State University College of Law.  Since I had enjoyed working for the police and having dealings with the City Attorney's office and the Prosecutor's office I thought why not give it a try.  I will be just 2 months shy of 14 years at a faculty secretary when I retire at the end of this week.

This was a whole different world for me from government work.  People said thank you for your work and appreciated you efforts.  It was interesting to hear some of the conversations in the halls between professors and students.  All in all it has been a great place to work.

Now there will be time to travel, time to quilt, more time to spend with mom. Yippee!

Chicago International Quilt Show 2016

This year I was able to get on the bus that Pam Henrys organized to go to the Chicago Quilt show. This is a HUGE show.  This year it seemed like there were more vendors than quilts, I guess unless you count all the quilts on display in the vendor's booths.  We left Mason about 6:30 am and returned about 12 midnight. 

It was nice for a change to not be in charge of the bus.  I could just go and have fun.  Bought relatively little fabric and made by 10,000 step count for the day.  Here are some of my favorites.

detail of quilting

 

This would have been a appropriate one for Wren!

 

 

 

detail of above quilt

Happy Quilting!!

 

 

 

Retreat fun for 2016

We, the Variable Stars, were back at Turk Lake again the weekend of March 10. Just 6 of us this time and one day timer.  Lots of projects to be worked on.

Personally I took: 1. Scrappy mountain majesty to true up blocks and finish the top; 2. Clark's Stars to get the backing done to take to the quilter on Monday; and 2  quilts I started in Bonnie Hunter's last workshop at guild.  Would like to have tops pieced before her next workshop on March 17. Hopefully that will keep me busy for the 3 days.

I got the backing for Clark's quilt done and delivered it to be quilted the following Monday.

I got this much done on my Bonnie workshop quilt but found I had neglected to bring enough neutrals with me. This will probably be one of my veteran's quilts although my nephew has said this graduation quilt is getting pretty worn out.

 

Becky finish 2 tops.

 

And Jo got busy and finished 2 tops as well.

 

Barb played with triangles that I think she had left over from a project.

And Carol finished her log cabin made strictly out of men's recycled shirts.

And Pam came just for 1 day and brought some handwork with her.

So all in all a very productive weekend.  Can't wait until the next one.



Family fun

This past Christmas 3 of the four grands were able to make it to Grandma's house for Christmas eve.
And all 3 great grands were there to add to the fun.

Jack and Molly just keep growing.  And you would never know little Wren was born just a little less than a year ago with D-Transposition of the Great Arteries.  Her progress after open heart surgery has been amazing.  And then we found out she is going to have a new litter sister in July 2016.

 

Denise and Jason weeding through Dennis's stash looking for items for their etsy sites.

 

Quilt Retreat

Our small group, the Variable Stars, had a retreat in August and then again in October.  We have begun extending the retreat from Friday, Saturday and Sunday to adding Thursday.  That gives us two complete days to sew, and we seem to get a lot more accomplished with the extra day to sew.
Following are a couple of pictures from our August Retreat.  We're so busy sewing in October that we didn't take any pictures.

The view from the lake side porch.

Two table pieced quilted and ready to be bound for the VFW Christmas craft show.

Vacation with Mom

Back in June I was off work.  I have seen a bucket list for things to see and do in Michigan.  I kept seeing photos of picture rocks and wanted to go up.  So mom and I took a little excursion.  We headed straight up to Manistique.  I had heard of the Big spring aka Kitch-iti-kipi and thought it was a good start.  Our hotel the first night have us a view of Lake Michigan.  But of course the fog rolled in about 4 pm and obstructed the view.  Next morning we headed off in search of the big spring.  It was pretty easy to find and ended up being pretty interesting.


From there we headed up to Munising for the picture rocks boat tour.  The afternoon we went out was pretty overcast and it rained a little while we were out.  It was really a pretty impressive sight of mother natures work.

The ceiling of this cave collapsed over the winter.  No more kayaking through here.

I was surprised by the beautiful green color of the water.
I had thought about going to Tahquamenon falls but the mosquitoes had been soooo bad at the big spring that I decided to pass on that.  And I had been there as a kid so it was already checked off the list.  So we decided to head home via Petosky, Charlevoix and Traverse City.  It ended up being just a 4 day trip but I think we both enjoyed getting away.