Swollen Ankle

We've been back almost a week, but I am still gimping around on my sore ankle.  It's funny how when it happened, well, first of all I was embarrassed about tripping, but just bounced back up and continued on.  When it means being left in the total dark, a banged up ankle means nothing.  So the poor ankle, instead of getting babied, was made to hike another 1.25 miles over rough terrain and then go back up a million stairs.  The next day, I drove halfway from Bend to home before giving the accelerator over to my daughter.  Since then, I've been on it quite a bit, a lot more than I should, or else just sitting at work, which is almost as bad.  I found a box to prop it up on as I worked this morning to elevate it a little.  It is still sore and swollen.  I discovered a bruise on my other knee, so must have banged it also.  Vacation....I'm beginning to think it's overrated!  :) 

It was cold in the beginning - 42 degrees.

By the end, I'd warmed up! I fought the cave and the cave almost won!

~Jane

Bend, Oregon Vacation



The Guys

We spent the past week on vacation with friends in Bend, Oregon.  The group consisted of three couples and my daughter and grandson.  It was a lot of fun, but we did a ton of driving.  It got to the point where the Little Guy kept asking, "Home?" every time we stopped.  He did really well, but the adults are all exhausted.  
 We've done these vacations before.  The guys all ride their motorcycles and the wives follow in support vehicles.  Usually we carry extra gear for the guys and the coolers and food.  We find a hotel and use it as a central base and go on a lot of scenic drives radiating out from the hotel. 

Bend has a lot of nice scenic drives surrounding it.  This time we saw the lava beds, Crater Lake, Sisters, and the Cascade Lakes.  We also went to the High Desert Museum, which is excellent by the way, and hiked into a mile-long lava tube.

Lava Beds Observatory

The first day was spent in getting to Bend.  It was a long day.  The second day we didn't plan as much riding but drove through the lava beds and found a really neat observatory made from the lava rock.  You could look through little portholes built into the thick walls to observe the different mountain peaks.  We stopped at Sisters on the way back and had lunch and did some shopping.  It's a neat little town.  I even found a yarn/quilting store.

The third day we drove to Crater Lake.  The lake was so blue and the sun was out.  There were still roads closed due to snow there.  It was beautiful.

The fourth day we went to the High Desert Museum in the morning.  The Little Guy loved seeing all the animals, especially the otter, and the adults like the exhibits inside and out.  We lost the guys at the sawmill exhibit for a while.  They were totally immersed. 

Crater Lake

In the afternoon, we went to hike a Lava Cave.  Mind you, there were no disclaimers before you entered except that it was cold and to bring a jacket.  You had to have lights, so we rented lanterns.  For our party of 7, we rented two lanterns.  We should have had one more.  No one mentioned all the stairs you had to go down.  They weren't too bad and I figured it would be level walking when we finally got down there.  No way!  The bottom was uneven, rocky, and filled with potholes you had to be careful of.  Since we were walking by lantern light, they were hard to see.  I shouldn't have attempted it with my gimpy knees.  Finally, I decided to stop and wait for everyone without thinking about how dark it was going to be when they all left me.  Just a few minutes later the dark started to get to me and I had to yell and have them come back and rescue me.  Better to be in the dark all together than to be in the dark alone.  

Crater Lake

We walked quite a ways in and then the ceiling really dipped down.  I just couldn't imagine walking that way very long, so I again said I'd wait.  There were quite a few people at this place and it wasn't so dark.  Well, they hadn't gone very far when I realized the ceiling rose up again a few feet in, so I attached myself to another group and started on again.  Unfortunately, since I was on the outside of their circle, I tripped in a hole and banged my ankle pretty hard, but at the time I hardly noticed it.  I just wanted to catch up to my group.  I hiked about another quarter of a mile in with everyone until it hit a point at which you'd have to crawl.  At that point we turned around and started out.  It's amazing how much faster we hiked going out than we did going in!  

The stairs up were really tough with my now very sore knees and really sore ankle.  But I made it up and out.  I had really wanted to hike one of the lava tubes, but I have to say it was not what I expected.  We have done some caving in the past, but this was just a really long, rocky and sandy tube that went on forever.  When we got out, we figured out it was a 2.2 mile hike in the total dark over really rough terrain.  It was interesting, but I'm paying the price for it now.

Grandma and the Little Guy - It was windy.

We weren't sure how the Little Guy would do on such a long trip.  Since he and his parents were supposed to go camping this weekend, Elsie and I decided we'd leave a couple days early to get her back in time to get ready for their camping trip.  It was a good thing.  The Little Guy had had enough of riding in the car. 

I'll have some more pictures later.  We were only using one camera at a time, so some of the pictures are on others cameras.

~Jane



Vacation

I am your ultimate homebody.  I love being at home.  I also like visiting other places, but I have a tough time leaving when it's for more than a day trip.  I don't know exactly why that is.  My family is very used to this.  I will drag my feet about getting ready, leave my packing until the last minute, and then stay up late the night before and get everything done.  Before I can leave the house the next day, I have to check every heater, window, door, unplug everything, and then finally leave after making my husband double check everything.  Once I actually get in the car and we drive off, I am fine.  Once on the road, I am up for anything, but oh the struggle to get me out of the house.

Another thing about going on vacation is that I can't leave without some little sewing project, a knitting project, and a book.  Many times I never get a chance to even look at any of them, but they are my security blanket and I can't leave home without them.  This drives my husband nuts as they take up valuable cargo space!  I guess I want to be prepared if we have car problems and have to sit somewhere for a while.  This actually did happen to us once, so maybe that's where my adversion to not having a project to work on comes from. 

We were on vacation a number of years ago, when our car broke down in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a bunch of mountains.  We managed to get to a little restaurant, but had to wait several hours, as they shared a phone line with another business and you could only use the phone when it was their allotted hours.  Then the tow truck had to drive 40 miles up the mountain to get us and drive us 40 miles back to town.  The little auto shop had to order a part so we had to wait until the next day to get our car fixed and back on our trip.  It was a very boring wait! 

We're going to be heading out for a five-day adventure soon.  I'll have all my favorite people with me:  husband, daughter, and grandson.  It can't help but be fun.  :)

~Jane

Happy Birthday to Me!

It was my birthday yesterday.  One of my co-workers baked me a delicious white cake with homemade lemon curd filling.  It was wonderful, but what was even more special was the fact that she remembered a comment I made when my mother passed away last year, that my mother had always baked me a lemon-filled cake for my birthday.  Today my fellow legislative assistants are taking me out for lunch to the Olive Garden.  Sunday my family is coming over to eat pizza and help me celebrate.  This is my idea of the perfect birthday, good food, good friends and a wonderful family!

~Jane

Selling Things

My daughter has had an Etsy web store for a couple years now.  She started out selling baby things she'd made:  cloth blocks, appliqued onsies, knit baby hats and washcloths.  Then my mom passed away and we started selling aprons on the website.  She's been busy listing and selling them.  Then she got the idea to use some of my mother's large collection of buttons to make bookmarks and hair clips.  Now I've got her selling off some of my mother's fabric stash.  I think I've taken over her shop.

This whole website store thing is interesting.  It draws me to it like nothing else.  Several times a day I have to go and check to see whether anything has sold.  Most of the time it is "Rats, same 71 sales."  Then suddenly the sales number will go up and I have to quickly check to see what sold.  At that point, I usually call my daughter "Hey, you had a sale!"  Then the waiting game starts again.  I think I'm addicted!  :)

Check out Elsie's Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/littlesproutbasics.

~Jane

Preparing for Sale

It is just amazing to me how much time you can spend getting something ready to sell.  I am trying to liquidate some of my mother's fabric and linen stashes.  Mostly that equals fabric and aprons.  By the time I wash, mend, and iron...then get them photographed and sent to my daughter, so she can write a description and enter everything into Etsy, it has taken a fair amount of time.  Then when it sells she has to package and take it to the post office.  We are grateful to see things sell, but it does seem to take a lot of effort.  But, it is going to people who will enjoy it, it is not going to the landfill, it's helping my daughter catch up bills from her husband being out of work, and we are getting something for it instead of just donating it to a thrift store.  All good things.

I had posted on several doll sewing lists that I am on that we had fabric for sale.  Today someone posted that the fabric she had ordered a week ago still hadn't come!  Oh, my.  Now that is frustrating because someone else on that list may hesitate to buy something.  The woman didn't have the correct story either.  She says she ordered on the 2nd, but Paypal says she ordered on the 4th, which happened to be a holiday!  She got her order on the 9th, which I think is pretty quick.  The woman did post later in the day that the fabric did come, but still.  She could have emailed us directly rather than post it on the list.  The trials of selling on-line.  We had a pretty good response with the first batch of fabric.  I am trying to get another batch ready.  It's proving a little difficult since my camera is acting up and refusing to take pictures.  My birthday is coming up.  Maybe a new camera is in my future.

~Jane - who will tell you about the Mad Hatter Tea Party preparations on another day. 
 

Photographing Fabric

When I decided to sell some of my mother's stash online, I hadn't a clue as to how difficult and time-consuming it was going to be.  The worst of it?  Taking pictures of the fabric.  Oh my goodness, it is almost impossible!  :)

This is a nice, I believe silk or silk/rayon velvet.  I've purchased similar fabric in the past.  How do you get it to show up as velvet?   The next one is a pretty good picture of the rose taffeta.  The Black and White Plaid showed up okay.

Black Velvet

Rose Taffeta

Black and White Plaid or check depending on your viewpoint.

I took all the pictures and I can't even tell you which one this is supposed to be?  I'm not selling anything this color!  I think it may be the Pale Green Faille.  :)

Pink and White Stripe - Perfect for an Annabelle dress.  But is it silk or cotton?  I can't decide.  It's beautiful regardless.

Light Teal Silk...certainly not this bright!

Well, I went out and bought a new memory card so I can try again and take more pictures.  If you're interested in sewing for antique dolls, or vintage fabrics for crafts, check out my daughter's Etsy shop:  http://www.etsy.com/shop/littlesproutbasics .  There is only a limited amount of these, sometimes only one piece, so if you want something get it quick.  I'll be adding lots more fabrics over the next couple weeks. 

~Jane