Laowai

Last weekend I picked Bea up from her week of camp at Michigan Tech. I had a pleasant drive broken up by some antiquing along the way.

Bea had an amazing time at MTU. In fact, she liked it so much she thinks she wants to go to college there. All the way home she talked about how excited she was about the labs and the teachers and the buildings. Here's part of a project she worked on. She learned all about robotics and sensors and college life and she even got to do some soldering.

Here's her collection of stones from when we went to a beach before I dropped her off.

Along our drive home we stopped at a fireworks store – very amusing. We just bought some sparklers (see below).

I'm so happy she got to see Michigan Tech and to learn about new things that excite her. I think she would be happy to spend several weeks up there next summer.

Sadly this is the best photo I could get of the robin family that has been entertaining me. The babies are always hanging around in the back yard looking cute and waiting for their mother to swoop down and give them a worm.

Window work continues.

 

We bought Bea a new car… just kidding. We are looking at electric cars – but gosh it's crazy – you have to wait 8 months to get a VW electric car. Realizing as I can't have something I want right now (!) how spoiled I am.

Claire and I decorated our bikes for the ride down to the fireworks. If there was a contest we would win.

Here we are on the crowded beach – waiting for the fireworks to start.

We had a quick visit with Jennifer and Jenna. Jenna was invited to sail in the Lightening Youth Worlds competition up in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. They stopped on their way and since it was the Fourth of July we got out the sparklers and had a really fun evening.

There's Jenna and her sailing teammates. Just like her mom and her grandmom – she's a sailor. I love it.

Last and least – I've been doing a very small amount of knitting. I'm trying a lace project. I'm not even sure I like lace but I'm influenced by all the pretty lace things the ladies in my class make. Slow progress this time of year when there are too many distractions outside.

 

I'm finding more and more that morning is the best of summer. I get up and go right outside when the day is fresh. I drink my coffee and think and putter in my garden. Later the day is like the whole of summer – too much to handle – too much heat. I've been reading Willa Cather's O Pioneers! again. I wanted to read her beautiful descriptions of the land once more. And then I came across some old photography by a woman named Lora Webb Nichols. She lived in Wyoming and she took photos in the 1920s and 30s and I am captivated by them. I've been going back to the web sites to examine the women and their clothes and their expressions. I read Lonesome Dove earlier this summer and I loved it. There seems to be a Western theme happening here. 

“Carl sat musing until the sun leaped above the prairie, and in the grass about him all the small creatures of day began to tune their tiny instruments. Birds and insects without number began to chirp, to twitter, to snap and whistle, to make all manner of fresh shrill noises. The pasture was flooded with light; every clump of ironweed and snow-on-the-mountain threw a long shadow, and the golden light seemed to be rippling through the curly grass like the tide racing in.”
― Willa Cather, O Pioneers!

What will I read next? I think I must go walk through a prairie and find out.

I took Bea up to Michigan Tech this weekend so she could go to to a week long robotics camp. I'm home now and I'm just realizing what an emotion filled weekend it was. We drove up on Saturday morning. Bea drove part of the way – first time driving on the highway even! After we arrived we checked into the Super 8 hotel – the same hotel that I stayed in when Brian graduated from Tech. Then we walked around and I showed her Brian's old dorm and the rest of the campus.

Thimbleberries and Lupines:

Here's Bea looking at a big chunk of copper:

I think I forgot, or I didn't realize how pretty Houghton and the Keweenaw Peninsula are. I was flooded with memories of being at Tech with Brian and his parents. And I told Bea all about it. We had such a good day – lots of laughs. And then we watched a David Attenborough nature show and fell asleep. I woke up early the next morning and did some knitting outside along the Portage canal while Bea slept. I saw three sea planes take off right in front of me. Then we had breakfast at the Finish Cafe where Brian used to eat.

And then it was time to check her into her camp and find her dorm room. Why didn't I realize this would be like a trial run for all the emotions of leaving her at college? It hit me like a ton of bricks! After she got settled in her room and got all the essential info there were still several hours before the welcome orientation meeting. I felt funny leaving her for four hours and she felt kinda unsettled too. So we went for a drive to a beach on Lake Superior. It was extremely windy – so we crouched by some sun-warmed rocks and looked at little stones. It felt nice. A sweet moment.

So then it was time to leave her – after a quick hug I hit the road and I had six and a half hours to think about the weekend.

Now I'm home just hoping she gets enough to eat, sleeps well, enjoys her classes and hangs up her wet towel.

I made strawberry jam mostly so I could put it in my prized Waechtersbach jam pot.

Secondary to aesthetics – it also tastes good.

Please don't tell me that I could buy jam and put it into this container. 

Claire found out that a new, fun spot was opening in Chicago and she made sure I got tickets ASAP. I'm so glad she did.

It's called Color Factory – the first one opened as a temporary exhibit in San Francisco and now we have a permanent one in the Willis (nee Sears) Tower. 

"Color Factory is a pop-up interactive art exhibition with brightly colored room-sized installations, each themed around the concept of color."

We took Claire's friend, Lily, along and we went on a Tuesday afternoon so it wasn't very busy at all. It's essentially all about taking selfies in an interesting space. A lot like the Wow Museum we visited in Zurich. Claire is clearly of the age and generation that is comfortable with this stuff. They had so much fun!

Here I am trying to not look uncomfortable taking a selfie (forgot to smile).

All the employees were really fun and they wore different colored overalls.

The gift shop was full of the most fun colorful stuff – even brightly colored sodas.

Claire was ready to go back immediately.

Well, summer has truly arrived. I feel like we went from a chilly stretch of weather straight into a heat wave and the days are zooming by like a roller coaster – a fun roller coaster – not a scary one. 

This week we've had a heatwave and I finished another window restoration. This is a window from Claire's room and I started it in the middle of April. I'm feeling a bit more confident with the steps. I've been doing a bit less of that kind of procrastination that comes from fear of screwing it up. It's not flawless but I'm happy.

Here's are the before photos – a very sad little window:

Ready to get to work:

Glass removed:

Scraped and sanded:

Primer is on. I worked on glazing while our house painters were working too. I was nervous to work on my window in front of the pros but they were really nice and encouraging. I think they were surprised to see me doing that work – not the typical housewives of northshore Chicago hobby. Ha.

The house painting job was completed but my window glaze had to cure for a couple weeks. 

Time for a final coat of paint. I bought myself a new little brush for the most detailed and difficult part. It's the part where the paint has to overlap the glass by just a tiny bit. So hard to get it neat!

And here it is – it looks so much better and it opens and closes easily too. 

Cannot zoom out this photo because this is a teenager's* room and I don't want to frighten anyone.

And the next window is already in the works:

* a twelve-year-old teenager

Last weekend we went for a drive – we do that lately because Bea wants to get her required driving practice hours in. We drove to Glacial Park in Northern Illinois and then went for a little hike. What a pleasant surprise to see a hill! A hill with green prairie all around it. Isn't it remarkable how a little elevation can change your whole outlook?

Last week I went yarn shopping with a couple friends. We went to an amazingly large yarn store that is about an hour's drive away. I got carried away taking photos of the beautiful bright yarns. I had the same feeling I get when I see beautiful flowers and I just must take a picture… or twenty. Even though these bright colors were drawing me in, I'm not sure if I would knit something with them. When the color changing yarn is knit up it sometimes looks too jumbled to me. I had some surprising restraint and bought only a few skeins for a couple small projects. 

This yarn looks like zopf.

I'm spoiled by this yarn store. So much selection! We lose our minds a little when we go – we wander around stroking all the yarns and chatting non-stop about all the projects on display. So fun!

I came across this photo of my mom and Claire.

The photo was taken when my mom came to stay with our girls while Brian and I went off to Paris and Barcelona to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. That was not an easy task. She cared for two little scamps for several days in a foreign country! 

Thanks for coming to stay with the girls on our 20 year anniversary mom. I hope they were a bit easier this time (ha ha).