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Take a look!

Turns out, I couldn’t cast on Ali’s panel last night because I have A LOT of formatting to do to make the data into a readable & useful chart. And I may as we’ll do the same with Maddy’s data right away, so I don’t run into the same problem in a couple of months.

Kate’s panel: April 1985-1986 in the Pacific Northwest

It’s getting leafy! I swept the sidewalk a little before taking photos so I didn’t end up dragging a bunch of leaves into the house.

Rusty’s panel (left): December 1947-1948 in Southern California
My panel (right): November 1958-1959 in Northeast Wisconsin

You may already have seen these images on IG or FB, but I just have to document here! I’m so freakin’ happy with all of this.

Have a great weekend!!

Family Temperature Blanket

Milestone

I finished Kate’s panel for the Family Temperature Blanket (Rav) last night!! It was too dark to take a photo, so I’ll do that later today.

That means I’ll be casting on Ali’s panel tonight — the fourth of five! Woohoo! There’s a football game tonight, so I should make some progress.

Since I don’t have a blanket photo, some old zinnias on an old table will have to do. (Hm, maybe working on the new table will find its way into my weekend plans!)

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TGIF

Kate departed on a 5-week road/camping trip on Wednesday morning. I helped her pack up on Tuesday… with the wagon, don’t ya know. (Not only is that thing lightweight, roomy, and collapsible, but it also came with a couple of perfectly sized bungie cords, which we’ve used on multiple occasions!) There was more than even the wagon could handle on Tuesday night, though, so instead of making multiple trips, I loaded up the stroller, too!

There’s a padded platform in case there’s inclement weather, a unit with drawers, a couple of bins & some bags. The “kitchen” stuff is all tucked in behind the passenger seat. It was fun helping to get that all organized.

This is where she intends to sleep most of the time.

She was going to be traveling through Southern Minnesota and knew that there was some family history there.

I’ve shared a few passages in the past from the memoir that my grandma wrote, including most of this info, though without the picture. “Mom and Dad Sutton” are my great grandparents, Clifford and Mary Naomi (aka Mayme) — my grandmother’s parents. Great Grandma died only about a year before I was born, but Great Grandpa was alive until I was twelve, and he lived with my grandparents.

Yesterday, Kate found the gravestone of Mayme’s grandfather — James Madison Drake! He was born 1817 in Bridgewater, MA, and died 1886 in Fraser, MN, buried in the cemetery at Welcome, MN. She found the stones of other relations, too, but this one is plum!

Someday I need to spend some time exploring the family tree in Minnesota & Iowa, myself!

I have people arriving at both Airbnbs this evening for the Packers’ home opener weekend. I’m looking at a quick turn-around because the next home game comes right up on Thursday night… but, for the weekend, I’m chillaxin’!

Happily, as of this evening, we’ll be able to make our way down the street and can park in front of our house (at least for the weekend)! I think they’ll be starting on the driveway aprons next week (fingers crossed), and maybe sidewalks, too. Anxiously awaiting the weekly update email. haha, such an exciting life.

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Door County Weekending

It was a process! After work on Friday, Kate & I loaded up the wagon with our gear, a cooler, some food, and bedding, and hauled it three blocks or so to the car, went back to get the bikes and load them up, and then down to hitch up Ducky.

We drove up to Bay Shore Campground, just north of Green Bay, to get just a little bit closer to Sister Bay for Saturday morning’s bike ride. It was fun to spend a couple of nights camping again.

We rode the 25-mile route which had one official rest stop — facilities, sub sandwiches, fruit, granola, beverages & cookies! (Mmm, I can never resist a snickerdoodle.)

We made a few unscheduled stops, too, to investigate plants growing in ditches (wild sweet peas) or try to spot a bird in a tree. I walked my bike a little ways up a couple of hills — once, when I was startled & hopped off, and again just because. I always have a little pang of “not doing it right” when I do that but I wasn’t the only one… nor did I have an electric-assist bike! I spotted quite a few of those, and not only when they were passing me by on the road.

Happily, neither my back nor my hip really complained much during the ride! It is getting more difficult to swing my right leg over in the manner that I normally mount but I can still do it (carefully).

One Barrel Brewing Company was one of the event sponsors, and we certainly enjoyed that post-ride beverage, along with the taco bar by Thyme. Oh, and it just wouldn’t be a Door County event without some sort of cherry dessert. It was delicious!

We drove up to Gill’s Rock on Saturday afternoon, stopping at a few places on the way up/down (antique shop, ice cream store, a scenic overlook), at One Barrel’s tasting room on the way to dinner and, finally, back to the campground.

We went down to the water’s edge to watch the sunset — it was gorgeous! Can you see the line of geese? Man, we were pooped… stayed awake long enough to play a couple of games of Sequence, and then it was lights-out — at 8pm! I slept for 9:44 on Saturday night!

After a quick breakfast on Sunday morning, we loaded up & pulled out, and made a stop at Ali’s on the way home to wish Davy a happy birthday!

The aftermath of gift opening! One of the items was a small set of Rocket Balloons and they all LOVED it, so yay! They were all busy either blowing up or chasing balloons when this photo was taken.

Later, Ali sent this photo:

…which cracks me up… all those little balloon babies!

Signs of fall are getting a bit more vivid & plentiful. We sure saw a lot of Halloween displays in people’s yards, too!

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Over it

Hiya! If you’re reading this, you might be scratching your head & wondering how you got here. Well, enough is enough! After almost 20 years, I’ve finally broken up with Typepad. It was great for a long time but (no secret) it’s been not-so-great for the past few years, and especially this week, for some reason, I feel on even shakier ground over there. My blog is still up, I’ve copied a few recent posts here, and may add more… some, all… remains to be seen. There’s going to be a lot of remodeling over the next little while. Thanks for being here! Tell your friends — because one of the issues is that Feedly has not been picking up posts.

Meanwhile, so you know you’re in the right place, this little guy turns THREE on Monday!