Rabbit Holes

I've fallen down several rabbit holes lately. As I've said before I'm not good about keeping this blog up to date! So I've decided to blog in chunks.

Today is about current inspirations.

As I said, I'm falling down a particular rabbit hole of traveler's notebooks. I don't currently have one, I don't bullet journal, I just don't journal at all! (lack of blog posts are a sure sign!) But I carried around a planner in the late 80's/90's (I'm old) and they went everywhere with me. I became a techie and I jumped on the Palm Pilot band wagon and transferred my planner stuff to the digital realm.

Eventually Palm was bought up and phased out. I jumped onto the Blackberry, things transferred easily and all was good in the tech world until I worked on my master's. APPLE!!! Oh how I love Thee! It took a few years and I was able to splurge on a laptop and down that rabbit hole I went!

Don't get me wrong, I'm typing on a macbook right now. But I have probably a dozen notebooks in my living room/bookcases. Unused! Used! and I'm just a cheap paper junky. I still love notebooks and planners. But the majority are unused.

I tried to go digital with my lesson planner but just couldn't make it work. I found a great planner by Miss Math Dork and fell in love with paper planners again.   Two years ago I found Blue Sky Planners and that is what I use today. Really use. Nice, simple, very straightforward and I love them.

So how does that get me to traveler's notebooks. 

1) Well, I've also fallen down the fountain pen rabbit hole and use them with my scripture writing. But I wanted to use pens more and I find myself out and about with no paper. I'm trying to become slightly more organized, but not to the point of creating a bullet journal.

2) I need to meal plan. I realized I buy the same basic groceries every week, I don't use part of them and that is wasteful. I've also found myself not cooking at all. I think doing some basic meal planning will help me with diet and the economics of grocery shopping. Keeping those plans in a notebook will help me shop. Yes I can add them to my phone memo list but I think writing things out will help me stay focused.

3) I knit and love making lists of knitting info. I also have knitting friends who use TN's and every time they whip one out to jot stuff down, I get envious. :)

I love notebooks!

I love Goulet Pens and follow them on instagram and YouTube. I use them for my fountain pens obsession. They have fantastic customer education videos. Goulet carries pens and paper. I've watched several of their videos on TN's and thanks to YouTube data miners up popped lots of other TN videos. I've spent the morning watching those and surfing Etsy for the right notebook cover. 

From there Pinterest called my name and away it went. Thankfully, I put on the brakes and decided to add this quick post before I reached the bottom of this rabbit hole. I've figured out the size needed, found a supplier that offered a totally me color and now just waiting a few days to make sure I really need to do this!

ps it will may if I jot down some blog post ideas!

Catching Up

Once again, I have let time slip away. I've been working, knitting and sewing. No quilting has been done. It's been a fast moving spring and summer is almost here. School is over in a month!

We are in the middle of state testing and my students are so ready for it to all be over. We are all suffering from spring fever.

I've been knitting away and have finished several pairs of socks and another Weigh It Shawl. I haven't blocked the shawl, so no photos. I have started a special pair I work on when I watch GHS Softball! It is a great yarn I picked up at Stitches South from Twisted Owl Fiber Studio. It has splashes of royal blue along with my favorite beach colors.

 

I made this lovely bag from scraps I had left over from the house quilt and I have several more half squares I plan on making into bags or more needle cozies.

 I've also dabbled in making stitch markers and I'm very happy with the way these turned out. I need more beads. The ones I purchased do not have consistent hole sizes and I had done my research on what types/sizes to purchase for markers.  These are some of the lovely socks I've been knitting. I've purchased my first yarn from Desert Vista Dyeworks and I love her yarn! 

 This is a lovely skein of Star Wars complimentary yarn from Must Stash Yarns. Droid Wars socks will be cast on May 4th. As you can see, it is kitty approved. The last photo is some of the yarny goodness I purchased at Stitches South. 

New Year

2015 has rolled in and I remembered to write about it! Last year's blogging effort was a fail. I didn't do well journaling my days. I realize once again that I'm not a good journal keeper.

Four months have flown by since my last post. This school year has sped by and in a lot of ways I'm glad. I really enjoy my eighth grade classes. The others, not so much! But I'm determined it will be a good year.

Knitting is going well. I've spent Christmas break finishing WIPs before I allow myself to start on new projects with my Christmas gifts. Quilting has stopped while my machine is in the shop. It is ready to be picked up and I plan on making a few project bags as soon as my machine returns.

The pets are good although Asher gave me a scare during mid terms. He ate 20 inches of elastic ribbon and the result was extreme vomiting, dehydration and kidney failure. Thankfully, we have a fabulous vet who got him rehydrated which stopped the kidney failure. He passed the ribbon the evening he came home. It took almost a week before he got his bounce back. Still shaking my head over the entire situation.

I leave this post with a few pictures of projects and pets.
Stitch Markers
Fingerless Mittens
Baby Hat for Jaxon
Project Bags
Socks with a slightly bent needle, don't know how that happened.
Multnomah Shawl
One IV owie
Sister's Christmas Tree shirt
PomPom Hat minus the pompom to match my mittens
Lovely scarf that almost doubled when I blocked it!

Journal - January 12 & 13

Sunday - church, lunch and quiet day

Monday - Quiet day at work as well, students were ready to get to work for the most part. We were notified of a coworkers death. Karen had been out almost all of the fall semester and passed away Saturday. We didn't know she was back in the hospital. Sad day. Funeral is Tuesday and visitation is just before the service.

Journal - January 7

Today was another very cold day. We had professional development at school. Made it in with no problems, very thankful the roads were ice free.

Home and reading Believing God by Beth Moore. I'm also doing the devotional that goes with it as my devo for the year. I have it on all technology so that I can access it anytime and have zero excuse for reading daily.



Sweet kitties fill my evening.

Journal Jan 3

In order to catch up and I'm doing three days in one.

January 1 - spent the day going shopping. I really don't like shopping for clothes. I'm a fat girl and shopping just really emphasizes that in my mind. Yes, I need to do something about it. More about that in later posts.

My sweet sister gave me a gift certificate that I spent and now I have a few new additions to my wardrobe.  I also had to purchase more yarn for a hat I was making. I finished the hat late this evening.

January 2 - continued to enjoy my winter break. It was supposed to snow and all day the winds howled, but very snow fell. I read a little and continued my marathon of West Wing watching.

Rearranged the living room, not really liking it, but don't have the desire to put it back. I'm adjusting and maybe that's why I don't like it. The kitties love being able to lay on the back of the couch and the fact that I have freshly washed quilts and throws for them to curl up on.

January 3 - continued to clean in the quilting room. Finished cutting the last blocks for the baby quilt. Now I just have to add borders - again. Hopefully, I'll like them this time. I also ironed the top of the second baby quilt that needs another border. I have a third baby quilt that needs to have the quilting finished. Three babies in my world and if I don't get busy they will be in elementary school before they get their quilts!!!!

Tonight I'm working the basketball gate. Need to be at school by 4:45. Will dress warm, it's very cold out and that means the wind coming through the open doors will be fierce!

Weekend Pleasures

I really enjoy the weekend. School has started for the teachers in my county and students will return Monday. So I'm cherishing this weekend.

Today, I'm doing laundry and planning a day of stitching. I have a goal of taking the border off two quilts (wee size) and working on redoing them on Monday (a half day for students and teachers). Quilting on Monday will check those items off my summer to do list and be an official ending to that list. Not everything was finished. I will put those items on my list of things to do over several weekends.

Most weekends include a busy Sunday. I often run the media for my church and I'm at church by 7am and out at 12:45pm at our main campus. When I'm at the satellite I get to arrive a little later. If I have grocery shopping to do and want some variety of items, I will shop after church. My little grocery store just doesn't have a great variety of vegetables and fruit as well as other goods. Sam's Club is near church and I like to run in and stock up on bulk items every few months.

I also like to pick up simple things at Sam's like frozen broccoli and whipping cream. I love the broccoli and eat a lot in my lunch. For a quick lunch, I'll fill a container with broccoli and a frozen mesquite grilled chicken breast. They microwave in about the same time and are delicious.
Today in addition to stitching, I'm watching the humming birds at my feeders. A few weeks ago I put out a glass feeder. The birds really didn't like it and had a hard time drinking from it. It was pretty but not functional. So I moved another one to my porch and the birds loved it. Last week, I bought what I called the big gulp, a 32 oz feeder. I've had four birds flying around this morning as well as two wasp. It is time to put out fresh food. I'm really glad I put them on the porch, I can watch the birds until sunset or later every day.

Have an awesome weekend! Enjoy!