No.1 American Craft

I thought as i'm living in a country where quilting must be the No. 1 craft, i had to learn how to do it! I took a Tuesday night class over three weeks (back in March!)and the result was a very spring-like table runner. Quilting is easy in principle but not in practice, sewing in straight, 1/4" lines is so hard! I'm going to have to do a lot of practice to get my lines straight but I'm proud of my first attempt. Hopefully I will be able to move onto a full size quilt (an easy pattern!) and see how it goes.
Here are some pictures of the finished article!

And they say women are bad at cash machine maneuvers...

This has to be one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time! We pulled up to the cash machine behind this car only to wait until the guy in front (sitting in the back seat of the car) to get his money. The car wasn't close enough to the machine but he was also too lazy to get out of the car so, as you can see, he has the door open - with his arm still through the window! He was even half out of the car at one point! Ha ha! Sonny and I were crying with laughter so I thought i would share this with you although it was much funnier in real life!

Snow, Snow and... more SNOW!!!

As you can see the chicken coop was under a lot of snow, but the chickens are warm and toasty in there don't worry! We have so much snow, although not as much as Washington D.C! Every weekend seems to bring another few inches, more problems on the roads and more moans from everyone but hopefully this weekend will be a nice one with no storms. Even though it's really cold there is still blue sky and sunshine and it is amazing how much better it makes you feel.


The thought of jumping on a plane and heading somewhere hot has crossed my mind... once or twice! ha ha! It would be fantastic just about now!

Bath Time

Tweety has come to live with us for a while and is finally settling in after a couple of months. Today she decided to have a bath in her water!
It kept us amused for a while!!

2010 - Can't believe it!

Well, twenty ten started with a bang this year! Temperatures of -30C and 2 feet of snow - fantastic! Here is a before and an after picture of the creek just down from Sonny's mum's house!



Above is the before picture of the creek in summer, you can just see the birds basket in the middle of the picture. Below is the bird basket and the frozen creek!

It's so cool being able to walk on the ice into the middle of the creek, the ice is at least a foot thick if not more! It was cold though, we only lasted there for about half an hour and then we had to head back and thaw out. Cups of tea all round! :D

We had a good Christmas even though we had to cancel Christmas day and have it the Sunday after. We couldn't get to Sonny's mum's house as the snow had blown across the road and the drifts were at least three feet high. We went to a great new year's party but they are just not the same as Scottish ones, no one new what i was talking about when i asked them 'what are you doing for Hogmanay?'!! ha ha! I had to remind myself that it was 'new year's' not hogmanay!

Now it's back to work and no rest for the wicked! :D

Hello again!

I can't believe it's the 7th of October already, September disappeared somewhere! I've been quite busy since August and just haven't had the time to sit down for longer than checking emails to write on here.
In Sept we went on a little holiday to the west of the State, to the Black Hills. It was FANTASTIC!!! We saw so much wildlife and beautiful scenery, I took lots of pics! I still haven't sorted them out so they will be up here sometime soon, just have to go through and pick out the best.
Then is was back to reality and back to apartment and job hunting. We had some good luck on the apartment front and are moving in tonight as it's to be -7 tomorrow night! Winter is definitely here! :o(
Also some luck on the job front, i have a two week trial screen-printing t-shirts. Hopefully it will be fun! I'll let you know how it goes.

I hope it won't be nearly two months before i write again...!

Very Italian!

I saw this cool building in Main Street in Aberdeen the other day. I think it's one of the nicest in the city and i'd love to live here!

Sunday Gardening

Our garden in full. It's mosquito heaven in here!

This is one of our corn patches. It's huge, taller than me!

Our first cob of corn, not sure if it's quite ready yet but we pulled it off to check.

We picked two bags of beans today, we'll be eating them for days!!!

Yummy food from our garden! We are slowly getting food from our garden there are loads of tomatoes but they need to ripen, we have had broccoli for a few weeks and the potatoes are ready too. The veg tastes so much better than shop bought!

Dakota Stampede Rodeo!

This cowboy was sitting in front of us and i loved his stetson! Note the toothpicks tucked in the back for those impromptu emergencies! ha ha! :D

Saddle Bronc Riding

Action shot of tie down roping

Tie down roping

Cowboy with lasso

Wow, I went to my first ever proper Rodeo on Tuesday night... it was FANTASTIC! I loved every minute of it!
There was Barrel Racing, Steer Wrestling (wrestling steers with horns to the ground), Bull Riding (bucking bulls just like you see in the films!), Bareback Bronc Riding (bucking horses), Saddle Bronc Riding (same again but with a saddle!) Tie Down Roping (involves lassoing the calf to the ground and tying all four feet together) , Team Roping (where there are two cowboys either side of a calf and one has to rope the horns and the oter had to rope the back legs - looks very difficult!) and not forgetting Mutton Busters! This involves small kids hanging onto the neck of a sheep, the main goal: just hang on!! They were by far my favourite, absolutely hilarious!!!

Mmmmmm... yum!

I thought I'd share with you the joy of my Blueberry Crumb Cake and cup of tea for my break during a busy morning of making things! The cake was delicious! :D