It's a Beautiful Morning!

In my 17 years working in education, I have experienced school being called off for a variety of things besides your garden variety snow... For example, I have witnessed ice storm days, flu days, tornado days, mercury spill days, and train wreck days.... I am not kidding. Today I am experiencing a flood day. And believe it or not, this is not the first one in my educational career. Which I find odd because we do not live in a flood plain. We had school on Monday, which I wondered if we would, so I was a little shocked when the phone rang around 9 pm last night announcing that there would be no school today. One section of our district that has a smallish river running through it, has been hit extremely hard with flooding. Roads are closed there and no vehicles can get in or out, which includes busses, so no school today. I think everyone there is okay, thankfully. They just have a big mess to clean up.

So this leaves me with the question of what to do with this time I have been given that was unexpected on this beautiful sun-shiny day....

Do I stitch?

Do I read?

Do I shop?

Do I clean? (nah, that's no fun!)

Not sure what I will do with this gift of a day. Maybe a little of all of the above.

I thought I would share a few stash acquisitions that I have acquired recently.

A little birthday stash: CHS Houses of HRH, CHS Village of HRH, Spot the Horse, BBD Anniversaries of the Heart #3 A Wish for You

A few something somethings from the Bay of Evil: SANQ Fall 2002 and JCS April 2002 which may or may not seem impressive from the covers, but look at the treats that await inside....

Heavenly Paradise from the SANQ issue.... love this little A&E design

And a Bent Creek design from the JCS issue

As well as a cute Brightneedle design that I have stitched here and there in Blogville and have always liked.

I have read a couple of books recently that I wanted to share.

Voyager by Diana Gabaldon.... an oldie but a goodie. I read this series more than a few years ago after she had written Fiery Cross. I fell in love with Jamie and Claire and their adventures in Scotland and America and through the portals of time. Now that she has come out with the seventh book in the series, I am trying to re-read them all from the start of the series before diving into the newest one. It is amazing to me how much I have forgotten of these stories. It is almost like reading them for the first time all over again. I am enjoying them very much. If you like historical fiction/drama/romance/time travel.... I highly recommend them, but as I say to all my friends especially if they are easily offended, these books read like an R rated movie. Nuff said.

I also finished listening to The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I love young adult literature. I taught 8th grade language arts prior to becoming a school counselor, and I LOVED teaching literature units. Everything from The Giver to Animal Farm with a few others thrown in for good measure. This is a book I would have loved to have had when I was teaching. It is futuristic with a lot of moral dilemmas that makes it a great book for discussion. My middle school librarian friend has not been able to read it yet because she can't keep it in the library. It is always checked out. Any book that makes a typical middle school kid want to read...well, I just have to read those myself! :) I have started listening to the second book in the series called Catching Fire this week. So far, I am enjoying it too. I think there is a third book coming out this fall.

I will leave you with a picture of Petey, my other boy "child"

Good grief, Mom... The Derby is over... Super Saver won.... Don't you think it is time to lose the dorky bandana?

Thanks for reading and for your comments. I have a few people yet to email some responses to some questions to, and I will get to that shortly. :)

Hope the sun is shining where ever you are today. I am out of here to make some fun!! :)