Non-Laboring Day

Dad and Joy spent the weekend in Savannah with me and we had a GREAT time! I finally got out to visit Fort Pulaski, a Civil War era brick-and-mortar National Park. It was a beautiful day (clear, bright, warm and with enough of a breeze to keep the bugs away) and the park is really well maintained. I have to admit that the Civil War is not my favorite history subject, but I think I could easily get into reading about it!

My friend Jessie works at the fort on restoration and the cannon squad. I helped hem up and take in her costume, as she is much smaller than most of the other re-enacters. I didn't get to see her in action, but watching this other petite ranger if full Confederate garb gave me an idea of how the whole costume comes together. We wrapped up the outing with a late lunch at Huck-a-Poo's out on Tybee.

One of the best parts of my Labor Day weekend was getting to finally meet the rest of the Stiles family! I'd heard so much about Jenny and Christian that it didn't feel like I'd never met them before. It's such a blessing to have great friends that you stay close to, even though there are years between visits.

Since they are expecting another baby boy in December, I whipped up a cute Teddy Bear themed quilt. But I couldn't let Christian go home empty-handed: he got an actual teddy bear! The bear was almost as tall as him, and he tucked the teddy in to sleep on the couch with his brother's blanket, which was pretty cute. But the saccharine levels overloaded when he crawled under the blanket himself and pretended to sleep in the teddy's arms!

Jacksonville Turtles

I totally forgot that I took these pictures! Joy and I were stopping by Chamblin's Book Store in downtown Jacksonville, FL when I stumbled across these guys. There was a similar display in the Mystic and New London, CT areas using whales, Pawcatuck had a rocking chair display around town, and up near Woodstock, CT they had cows. There were a few other turtles in the area, but these two were my favorites.

My friend Jessie is ready and excited to start on a new quilt, so we took a trip to Jo-Ann Fabrics on Sunday. It was the first time I've been to the local Jo-Ann, so of course I had to buy something! I picked out a few fun prints to try out a pattern that I want to use for a bigger quilt (but figured I'd rather make mistakes on a small quilt instead of a full sized one!). I know that it's almost ridiculous to buy fabric when I have SO MUCH at home already. But the fabric I got from Mom's stash is just that: stash fabric. There are very few "sets" of fabric to make coordinated quilts. The stash is great for making scrapy quilts, which I plan on making for general gifts. I know, really, this is just justification for buying more fabric! I also picked up a new self-healing rotary mat that is much larger than my old one (which is looking pretty rough for 10 years of wear and tear).

While we were flipping through books for Jessie to pick out a pattern, I stumbled across this adorable sheep quilt! The picture from my BlackBerry is a bit fuzzy, but it's clear enough to remind me when I finally get around to trying to make it.

Detroit and Sailing

Despite how the title of this post sounds, I did not go sailing in Detroit. Instead, I learned alot about coaching techniques and financial stuffs while at a training in Detroit.

Can't say I am a big fan of the Motor City. Well, to be fair, I'm not really a fan of cities in general (Savannah, of course, being more of a large small town). The flight was uneventful (aside from really interesting conversation with a guy who works in Iraq), the food ranged from excellent vegetarian meatloaf to utterly disgusting pad thai, and the hotel was adequate (except that the large screen TVs distorted regular television so everyone looked like really stocky linebackers). The coolest part of the hotel were the huge murals flanking the elevator bank.

As it should be, the highlights of the trip were the training sessions. I really like the concept of coaching (as opposed to counseling, which I am not qualified to perform) and the basic agreement of personal responsibility on the part of the client.

After Detroit, I got to spend a wonderfully long weekend hanging out with Dad and Joy. Besides seeing family, the highlight was our sailing trip from St. Mary's to Fernandina Beach. We had a great wind and it was really relaxing to be out on the water.

We even got to see a fast attack submarine leaving the St. Mary's River. I'm sure it would have been more exciting if I hadn't lived most of my life near a sub base and seen things like this on a near monthly basis.

Another sight I'm starting to get used to are BABs (short for Big Ass Boats). The come in and out of Savannah on a pretty regular basis, but are still really overwhelming to see up close. This BAB isn't anywhere near as big as some of the container ships that come into port.

Joy snapped a picture of me doing the only bit of crew-work the captain would allow: preparing the bow lines to docking. At least she didn't catch a pic of my snoozing on deck...

Many people have asked how I'm dealing with the heat. It has been in the upper 90s for the past few weeks, with the heat index going over 100. Really, it's not as bad as I feared, though certainly not pleasant. It's actually much hotter at Dad's than in Savannah and I can't help whining when I go to visit. It will be much more bearable after July 23 when I get air conditioning installed in my car! And I'm sure I won't be complaining in January when I'm just wearing a long sleeved Tshirt for my afternoon walks in the park...