A Day Trip to Indianapolis

Well, our 30 year anniversary trip to Italy has been canceled. Life gets in the way of our fun but, there are always priorities. We can always go to Italy next year.

My husband had a meeting in Indianapolis yesterday, actually it was Carmel a northern suburb of Indianapolis. I came along for the day. We left at about 6:45 for the 2 hour drive through the beautiful flat farmland of Indiana. The sunrise and the mist and the barns and white steepled churches made it all so pleasant.

I had 4 hours to kill so I spent my time trying out new bicycles. I've decided I need a road bike which is a lot faster than a regular bike, but, comes with a hefty price tag. More on that later, I'm still trying to decide which bike to get. The best bicycle shop in Carmel is Bike Line. They were the most helpful, if you go there ask for Marlin. He took all the time to fit me and get to know what I needed.

Quilt shops, well of course. One of my all time favorite shops, I discovered at the Bloomington Heritage Quilt Show, is Quilts Plus. They had a booth their and I had to check out their shop. Quilt Quarters was in the area also, it's massive. I was on a mission to find a raffle quilt to make for my geologist daughter...fund raiser is my middle name.

Then we ate at Shapiro's. Bagels, Rubens and chocolate cheese cake, yum!

I began the day with barns and I ended the day with barns. This is a quilt barn on my favorite walking trail in Anchorage, courtesy of Papa Johns. I don't care for his pizza, but he made one fine trail for bikers and walkers to enjoy.

Kitchen remodel and Valentines day

I returned from the retreat to find the kitchen cook top and sink and almost everything back into its place. Now all that's left to do is the back splash.

It was also Valentines day, so balloons and flowers were there too. We are going to go to a wine tasting class soon in preparation for our trip to Italy in the fall.

This is how I began my horse quilt. I'm only showing pieces of it as I'm finishing it for my DD. These blogs are made for extended families and keeping up with their lives, but, surprises are still a thing to do...later.

The snow continues to pile up it's about 8 inches so far.

Poetic Things

Some things are just naturally poetic. A bridge in the distance seeming to disappear in the fog; a log cabin in a green field in the morning; a horse nuzzling it's colt these are pretty usually Kentucky poetic things.

A wilting rose must be considered a universal poetic thing. New fresh roses have a different bent some sort of promise maybe possibly poetic but without question wilting should win the argument for being the most poetic. The petals seem like naturally aged human skin, what can be considered more beautiful than skin that has earned its look.

These are roses from the two dozen my DH got me for my birthday. Sometimes he hits it out of the park and sometimes...at least he's trying...smile. These roses were given to me fresh and new on my b-day.

Nope the book case did not fall on my head!

Whew! It's been a busy time around here. I've been to a concert with my DD #2 and saw Andrew Bird at the Brown. We sat in the front row and I got great pictures of his striped socks-so cool. A man really has to be secure to kick off his shoes and wear striped socks! Of course it really helps to be cool if you are playing a violin and guitar, practically at the same time.

Next we went to an auctiongot this beautiful quilt for $110.00. It was a lovely day started about 10:00 and we got to the quilts after many, many tools and other old estate items from a probably 100 year old farm. I really wanted this but, you know when you go toe to toe on the bids with one other person, and you've already gone over your limit, you live in the satisfaction that you made them pay for it. I was quite happy with my wonderful Cinderella find. There was no label and no one attending knew the story of the quilt. Once again-put your labels on!!!

After the auction we signed up for scuba diving lessons. We are on board to learn how to dive here and then we plan to go to a reef somewhere in January or February. I can't wait. I've always liked the water. We used to have a boat, but, I was the only one that wanted to go out on it, so we sold it. Now, my DH wants to do this and so far so good. We are having a crash course hopefully before the weather gets too cold. We have to have 4 open water dives in a quarry before we are certified-there's wet suits for cold water but, warm water, I think is probably always better...smile. Then we played poker with guys and spouses at one of the fellows from Bob's work. We didn't win, but, you know I hear their names and it was nice to get to associate a name with a face for a few hours at least...kinda fun. And last but not least, my super sensitive, of late, DH surprised me with Salsa dance lessons just in time for us to dance on the rooftop of a club downtown for the Latino festival. It was nice viewing the Ohio river from a different perspective, feeling the breeze and watching the talented dancers. Then it was our turn, we got up and remembered our steps, quick, quick, slow, quick, quick, slow and did that for a while. We tried our turn and walk through, but, it was so crowded, I just knew I was going to elbow some one so we left kind of early. Quite enjoyable that my husband would put so much thought into surprising me...touching...smile.

Date night with my husband

After 26 years, the wooing is over the passion is still there-once or twice a week...hehehe...but we still need to be doing something to pull us away from the computer and Law and Order. So, in an attempt to bring us together, I rented 2 movies, to be watched in our romantic basement, with our big screen TV...smile.


First movie we watched was Fearless, a beautiful, sweeping, foreign language film with lots of action and a great glimpse at the Chinese culture-I think-in the early 1900's. This movie is as close to a man's chick flick as he'll probably ever want to watch with you. Wushu is the mystical, magical push that's great in us all and Jet Li's journey from greatness (having Wushu) to defeat (losing Wushu) and back to greatness (Wushuing again) is the sum of the movie-the plot in a nutshell. He accomplishes this while traveling through beautiful land and fighting all comers to bring honor to the Chinese people. It appears to be a true story.


The plot is the same for Talladega Nights, the Legend of Rickie Bobbie. If your husband is not all that secure, he might be offended. The story opens just like Fearless, boy worships a doomed father and lives to become more of a man than his father. Where the Chinese film uses ancient Chinese Confucius type wisdom, Talladega Nights uses bumper sticker wisdom-"if you're not first you're last". I found myself chuckling off and on during this film, but, over all, they missed an opportunity to make another Blazing Saddles. I hope this film is not a true story...smile.