Calvin's Quilt

Calvin is Phil and my grandson by Vicki, his daughter. I have promised them a quilt, so have been working on it lately in between studying. Vicki has been very patient (Thank you Vicki) not razing me for not having the finished as I was able to get one done much sooner for Henry. As time has moved on, my ideas for making this quilt has changed as Calvin is getting older and I need to finish it! It's to be an alphabet and numbers quilt with an object to illustrate each letter in the alphabet and then the same number of object for each number. ie : Anchor for "A", Boat for "B" ... I was having problems with some letters, so used the trusty internet and did searches for some of the difficult letters googling "letter that start with ___". "N, Q, X, Y, Z" were particularly difficult, so trying to keep as close as I can to a Ocean and Beach theme - I came up with Zooplankin. I actually found a line drawing of some and then thought that I can trace that onto the fabric with a fabric marker. Came out pretty good, if I say so myself, so then thought - hey! great idea - will do this with the other letters too. I also have some fabric pastels that will work to color in the designs - cover the design with a paper and iron to set them so they don't fade. Works great on a boat - doesn't take up much room. Will still use fabric to applique the letters - using both capital and lower case letter. To add some interest - will separate each square with sashing. So at least I'm making progress and hope that I can finish this before his 2nd birthday.

Update on House

Last weekend we signed a concurrency contract for an offer on the house. That means the couple who wants to buy our house has to sell their house in Euclid by June 29. It also means that we keep the house active on the listing service open for offers and be able to be released from this contract if we get and want to accept another offer from someone else. We would do this if they were ready buyers (no house to sell) and they offered an acceptable price. So I feel that we're lucky to have this offer - pray for them to be able to get the offer on their house they can accept soon so that we can move onto the boat and then be able to save the mortgage money for the cruising kitty.

In the meantime, we are waiting for the contractor to come fix the gutters on the house from the damaged that happened from the ice this winter. I'm still at school with the Nursing Assessment for Experience Nurses online with 4 weeks left in this session. Phil is busy either working on his new dinghy or getting Changes ready for putting in the lake. Need some warmer weather for the work on Changes to continue.

My hired date for my new position has been pushed back to April 19 to allow more time for the transition. I'm looking forward to starting this new position!

Good News - Iceboating and Spring

I wanted to let everyone know that I was offered the job to be the first RN on the GWEN team (Go Where Ever Needed) at work (still at Hospice of the Western Reserve) and accepted. We announced it yesterday to the team and most are happy for me and also sad to see me go, which is very affirming for me. I have been waiting a long time for this position to open and am thrilled to be getting back into patient care again. I start my new job Monday, April 12. Even though this is a 40hr/week job, this is a position that has flexible hours for scheduling when I work so after I get updated on the latest how-to on the computer charting, I'll be starting working noon to 830pm. That's good so while I'm in school, I can do school work in the morning when I'm fresh. This is a job in that I'll be working to cover nurses that are sick, on vacation or leave, or on a team that has an increased census and they need an extra nurse for a time. It's a job that we will be figuring out what the needs as as we go along. Now I have 4 weeks to wrap things up, which doesn't seem like a long time. My boss, Noel, has been great - very supportive, even though she doesn't want me to go so we have started working on a transition plan. So far don't have a replacement for me in the hospital/physician area- even though she has been interviewing- but I hope that I'll be able to pave the way for a new person that will cover the nursing facilities that I'm the coordinator for.

To wrap up ice boating for the season, Kelly Jacobs created a great video-slide show that can be viewed on You Tube of the ice boaters that have been on Elk Lake, Michigan. Phil and yours truly have a cameo. Many of the people in the video were with us when we visited last weekend so it's great to be able to get some of their last names. Tim and Molly live in Cleveland, so look forward to connecting with her soon. Just click on "great video" above and you'll go directly there. It's been so warm, that ice boating is over for the season. Toledo Ice Boating club said that the ice had gone out to the lake.

Spring has definitely show her face this past week. We had our first 70F day Thursday. The 18" of snow we had last weekend has melted and now just the big piles of snow are left. We are no longer in "Alaska" in Chardon. They have flood warnings out for the rivers, though we haven't had much rain the weather men predicted this past week. We are having some this morning which is coming from the east instead of our typical west.

Our friend, George Schlauch and his brothers were boiling sap to make maple syrup Saturday through Tuesday this past week, and now we are hoping for some cold weather before the Maple Trees bud out to continue the Maple Syrup season. I haven't been up to Chardon Square so don't know what's going on there, but I think it was Monday that the sap buckets went on the trees.


Phil needed a project what with me being busy working and going to school so he has started making another dinghy. It's 12 feet long, 1 1/2 foot more than our current dinghy and is based on the Chesapeake Bay Sharpy design. This is going to have a flat bottom, which really makes a difference in size. I took the picture on top first, but he was so far away, that I have the one with him closer. Are we going to be able to use this when we're cruising? Who knows, but Phil's happiest making his boats.

Ice Boating on Elk Lake - Friday & Saturday

Here is me working on my school work in the workshop. Jack and Kelly Jacobs, our hosts, have wireless internet, and as the wind was not blowing, I decided to get my case study and exam completed so hopefully I could play on Saturday.
Friday was spent putting together the iceboats and waiting for the wind to get strong enough to sail. It never did, so we decided to have lunch at Pearl's Restaurant in Elk Rapids. It is a New Orleans style restaurant which accounts for the alligator with mardi gras beads hanging from the ceiling. Also they had quite the collection of glass ware displayed on the walls.Saturday was another day, so we enjoyed making new friends. There were a few other women there besides Kelly and I - one Molly D. who is a PNP (pediatric nurse Practitioner) in the Cleveland area, so we have exchanged contact info as we found we have a lot in common. Above is just a few of the ice boats put together waiting in vain for the wind to rise.
The food was great and above is a few of the people eating on Al's boat trailer. This year with the temps in the upper-40's the food was set up on the ice instead of inside the work shop.

This is me bundled up next to the DN iceboat that Phil made years ago and passed on to me.
It turned out that I had one run and Phil had a couple. Sunday the wind was forcasted to be the same, so we came home a day early so that I could be at work on Monday for a day of education that I would have missed.

Thank you Jack and Kelly for hosting a great weekend party, even though we couldn't ice boat. The weather was nice and the sun was shinning and a great time was had by all.

Ice Boating Party - Elk Rapids, MI

We made it to Elk Rapids, MI by 415pm after leaving at 730am. Only 30 minutes later than planned. There are lots of people here - Neal and Dix, Doug, Rob and Beth, and Mike from Long Island. Above is the start of Jack taking our red box (or transportation module as Phil says) down to Elk Lake.

Here Phil is trying to get the box on the hitch.We are moving along the drive with the shop on the left towards the lake.Down onto the Lake.


Moving onto the Lake

Got to go eat, so will post more pictures when I have them.