I feel like my family is busy with activities and it's exactly what I was wishing for last year during the Covid restrictions.  Brian spent last week working in Switzerland. Finally, he was able to do the parts of his job that he loves. He had lots of meetings and presentations and he got to…

This is a case of it has to get worse before it gets better. I've started repairing another one of our windows. These photos show how they desperately need attention and how bad they look while I'm working on them. This is one of the upstairs windows on the back of the house. I took…

Nothing much that is exciting is happening around here. Fall is just humming along. The girls have had about three weeks of school and we've had hardly a rain drop in all that time. Brian is in Switzerland for the week – his first big work trip in a year and a half. And as…

I've been spending a lot of time in my sewing room lately. I made two more dresses. The pattern, from Liesl and Co., is called the Bistro Dress. It has lots of darts, an invisible side zipper and a fabric belt. It's a nice semi-fitted sheath style dress. The first one I made out of…

Getting ready to see Neil Diamond in Zurich.

For the first time in a long time Brian has gotten us season tickets to the Lyric Opera. So I decided I needed a new outfit – I made a skirt. It's the Extra-Sharp Pencil Skirt pattern from Oliver + S. I made this pattern once before and I love it. The pattern directions are…

Thanks to Rash Hashanah's timing this year my girls had a four day weekend instead of a three day weekend for Labor Day. We decided to take a spur of the moment vacation close to home.  Hey Aunt Donna – can you guess where we went? The badger above might give a clue. Isn't he…

I made raspberry pie with streusel topping.

I think I'm going to call this my ugly quilt. I would call it my crazy quilt but that title brings to mind a much more artistic quilt with embroidery and velvet. This quilt is a slapdash attempt to entertain myself and to use up a mountain of scraps. I'm simply trying to turn this:…