Photo of the Week--8/30/10

Having grown up in Michigan, neither TSU or I are scared away by the chance of cold weather on vacation. So a few years back we spent Boy's winter break on a trip out west to Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. We lucked out by having only one day of bad weather (and that was rain, not snow), and really enjoyed seeing the region's natural beauties. This picture was taken at Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, famed for the glorious orange hoodoos that dominate the landscape. You can see the tops of some of them behind us, along with a little bit of snow that remained in the crevices. It makes for a beautiful contrast, the white snow and the orange hoodoos, but here it's a backdrop for a rare picture of the two of us.

Photo of the Week--5/31/10

When you visit Vienna, Austria right before the New Year, you don't find that many pigeons hanging about in the cold. We tried to spend as much of the trip indoors as we could, too, but while walking about one cloudy day TSU decided that Boy could chase him instead of pigeons. You can see he has that nonchalant, lazy stride that the pigeons all use until the moment they finally take flight. That wasn't going to happen this time, though: not enough lift.

You CAN get fresh honey-do in winter...

The time between Christmas and New Year's is a weird one for me. Not only is Boy home all day (tragically without his Xbox, which pooped out on him just before vacation started), but so is TSU, whose office closes down for the week. I'm trying to keep a semblance of my routine—I have an assignment due in two weeks, and my critique group needs feeding—but it's difficult when other people are wanting to share vacation with you. (I know, how tragic, having real people giving me excuses to procrastinate.)

Anyway, TSU uses the free time to play with his woodworking toys, and finally finished the sewing table I asked him to make for me. When he was ready to bring it upstairs, I cleared everything off the old folding table I used ... and then I stopped. He said he would replace the old wall sockets (they're loose and plugs always fall out—a real pain when you're ironing) when he repainted the room. So why not repaint the room now? I picked out some colors, and he did the rest:


Ain't it purty? (The white is a picture railing, which came with the house.) And isn't my new table glorious? Plenty of room to cut out fabric or quilt a queen size, and shelves for all my project boxes! Nice to know I'm not the only creative person in the family:

Sorry, ladies, I'm not sharing.