It has been a long time since I have written and a lot has happened since then. Wayne and I drove to Athens, Ohio and met Wayne's folks to go to the opening night of Bead International at the Dairy Barn. It was a lot of fun and I got to wear my Pond necklace for the first time. I got lots of complements for both my piece in the show and my pond necklace. We all had a really good time and seeing all of the wonderful pieces of bead work and basketry was very inspiring. I really enjoyed seeing some of the pieces that were not jewelry since I am planning to explore more bead work that is not jewelry. Saturday morning we went back to the gallery to take some photos and chat with people more.At this point we split up and Wayne and his Dad headed to Dayton to view the Air Museum and then on to the track event at Mid-Ohio. Marti and I headed to Louisville for some creative play time. The guys had a lot of fun and us girls got a lot of creative work done. I spent most of my time either helping to figure out where Marti should go on her art quilts and how to improve them and getting her help working on the ideas for my next years Bead Journal project. We even dyed some silk fabric that she had to be the overall background for my piece, she also gave me some other treasures to use on my piece and to play with for other projects.
During the time we were in Louisville I went twice to her Wednesday Stitchery group which is always a good time and they got to see my purses and my Bead Journal pages for 2007-8. I also got to see and help with creative input on a couple of her Art Quilt friends, it was so great to be involved with all of the creative process both with my pieces and others.
The bad news during this time was that my Uncle Earnst Throne died. He has been fighting cancer for a while. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all of his family and friends.
All four of us headed up to Palatine (Chicago area) to visit with Wayne's brother Doug's family for our niece's graduation. We got their on time on Friday so that we could see Susie all dressed up for her Prom. If you would like to see more pics of Susie all dressed up for prom and those from her graduation go to my Web Gallery. The weekend was full of good food and time with family which was a lot of fun.
From there we headed back to Louisville for a couple more days and then it was time to head home. I brought quite a few small projects along to work on and got 5 necklaces made another one started and some small pieces that will go into some future piece worked on. Combining that with the work I got done on the idea stage of my BJP project and it was a pretty productive trip.
We got back on Thursday and Wayne went to work on Friday and then on Saturday he was off for a short trip to Iraq. We also found out that he will be going back to Iraq this summer for 2-3 months. Looks like I get to spend most of this summer alone as well. At least I have a long list of projects to work on and won't get bored. I think being creative has been my saving grace during all of my time as a Navy wife. I have no trouble keeping myself busy and I usually get tons done while he is gone.
Since being home I have shipped Wayne off, unpacked and gotten things picked up and put away, did some cleaning up, worked on class instructions for 2 classes, and worked on a couple of smaller beading projects. I have also spent some time reading just for me. I have gone walking a couple of times and hope to get back into the habit and back on track with watching what I eat.
