Math Deployment - Days 1-3

These next few weeks have been lovingly dubbed by Art and I as Math Deployment. Being married to a military man, you'd think HE'D be the one traveling for weeks on end for work. For IPs, especially FAIPs, that does happen very often, and when it does, it's just over a weekend. I can kiss that goodbye once Art gets assigned an MWS and gets deployed, so I am grateful for these days.

Acronym Key...
IP = Instructor pilot, what Art does.
FAIP = First assignment instructor pilot. First assignment out of pilot training is to be an instructor. That's what Art does.
MWS = Major weapons system. Real airplane. :)

Anyway, I will be gone until the 21st, traveling around what seems like the entire state of Texas. Here's a rundown:

• July 5-8: San Angelo for the Texas Regional Math Collaborative Summer Institute I. This is a grant I got from the state of Texas and ESC Region XV to be a Math Mentor at my school (I'm one of one from my school who applied, yeah!). So far, we have spent two entire days on one fraction problem. It's pretty intense, but I'm glad to be brushing up on my math for next year!
• July 8-10: Austin to hang out with our friends Tony and Betsy! We have all lived in the same state for over a year and haven't all met up. I'm SO excited for sushi!!!
• July 10-15: Back to San Angelo for Summer Institute II of the TMC
• July 15-21: Up to Grapevine for the CAMT - Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teaching. Two other teachers from my school are going, but since I'll already be in San Angelo, I'm just driving up myself. But at least my district is paying for food for this one!

I made a little map to chart my travels:

In total, I will spend 21.5 hours driving and put 1,209 miles on Job the Jeep. Speaking of Job, the air conditioner officially hit the dust once the average temp hit 95 degrees, which was in like, March. To be honest, I could do without air conditioning forever, even in the 100+ temps, so I hardly notice that the A/C in my car doesn't work. In Del Rio, I'm only in the car for 15 minutes at the most, and I love driving with the windows down. I really don't ever see getting it fixed, although Art might insist for the one or two days a year he has to drive it to work. Other than that, Job is working like a charm. As long as I remember the sunscreen for the 2 hour drives with the top down!

Once we were back from Mackinac Island (after a one hour drive to the Columbus airport, a two hour flight to Detroit, a three hour flight to San Antonio, and a three hour drive home), I had about an hour to unpack and repack for my two and a half hour drive to San Angelo.

Back story: Last summer, before I was gainfully employed but newlywed, I would wake up with Art sometimes and Peanut and I would see him off to work. Totally 1950s, but Art and I are pretty sure that's the decade we were meant for anyway, what with his good ol' boy mentality and my affinity for just wanting to stay home all day and needlepoint myself to death. Sometimes, when I leave first for work, he does the same thing. Let me tell you, I did NOT want to leave when I saw this:

But I did. I may rag on Texas sometimes, but driving in West Texas is actually quite lovely, especially at sunset. Here's my favorite spot, Lake Amistad, as I crossed over the bridge:

This picture doesn't really do the sunset justice, but I was loving my little road trip!

Since I'm going to be in San Angelo for so long, I got a hotel room with a kitchenette so that I wouldn't have to go out for every meal. Funding, plus the fact that I'm doing the low-carb thing for a while, means that I need to cook my own meals while I'm away. It's little, but it'll do!

Of course, I had to bring a few essentials to my temporary home:

My tea kettle, of course. I drink at least two cups of tea a day, so this was a must.

 

I mustn't forget that I still have a Masters to earn.

An audio book for the long drive! I'm only a few chapters in. It's kind of hard to hear with all the wind (and Job's volume dial is broken too), but so far it's pretty good.

There's about a square foot of floor space in my hotel room to do this, but I have made a visit to Tony Horton this trip. Art says I should bring my laptop down to the fitness room here, but yeah right. As if working out by myself isn't already humbling enough!

The training is going well, although I'll be anxious to see how tomorrow goes! I miss Art and Peanut though. I'm glad Math Deployment is only three weeks long! :)

Mackinac Island!

Last weekend we were in Mackinac Island, Michigan for my college friend Lauren's wedding. As anyone who lives far from their hometown knows, going anywhere for just a weekend is exhausting and not much of a vacation at all. In order to help that issue, and spend some time with our family, we flew into Ohio on Tuesday, up to Mackinac for the weekend, and back to Columbus/Dayton until yesterday.
Of course, there are no motorized vehicles allowed on Mackinac Island, so our options were either to fly into mainland Michigan and take a ferry (yuck!), or fly on a tiny plane from mainland Michigan. Art, hearing the word "fly," instantly began researching airplanes for rent and how he could fly us from Columbus to Mackinac himself. Several months later, we talked Jeff and Mary (Art's parents) into flying with us and off we went.

Let me just say that I can't believe I actually did this. I'm not the best flier.

 

 

There's Art and the headphones we wore so we could all talk in the plane. My brain was NOT making the connection that Art does this every day of his life and is very good at it, and therefore I have nothing to worry about.

This is the hangar where our plane lived. At this point, I was about to throw up just at the fact that the car we were in was the same size as the plane!

I asked Jeff and Mary how they felt about Art being solely responsible for their lives for the next 2.5 hours... Mary's not so sure! 

All kidding aside... I was so glad to be back in Ohio.

 

 

 

There's our little plane!!

The hubs and I in front of the plane, just to give you a frame of reference. Tiny!

 

 

 

This was my view from my seat. Hello.

And this was the best I could do for barf bags. Just in case! (I didn't need them)

I'm ready to go! Kind of.

Art talking on the radio... I guess he actually does know what he's doing. It was actually surreal seeing him talk on the radio and flip all the switches and whatever else he did to make the plane fly. I never saw him practice or anything, so it was kind of like all of a sudden we got in a plane and he was good at it. Art will tell you that four consecutive years of 12+ hour days probably counts as practice.

This is the view from the air! After I got over my nerves to see it, of course.

There's Mackinac Island! It's the one closest to the top of the photo.

Here are some pictures of the beautiful island:

 

Mackinac Island is famous for its fudge... I loved this! It was 4th of July weekend, after all! And PS, the fudge was awesome. And those are peanut butter covered Milk Bones for... guess who! I was missing my Peanuts the whole time, so I had to bring him back a prize! :)

 

 This is where the wedding took place. The weather could not have been more beautiful!

Uhhhh speaking of beautiful... CHECK OUT LAUREN!! She was seriously the most beautiful bride. I could not take my eyes off of her dress all night!!

A few snapshots of the wedding. I love the one where Lauren is looking down. Such a gorgeous ceremony!

Here's where the reception took place. Beautiful!

And here's my hubs and me in front of the water. He's always the best date to weddings. :)

We had such an amazing time. I was so blessed in college to have some amazing girlfriends to party with, and now I have amazing girlfriends to celebrate life with. The eight of us live in five different cities in four different states but have managed to keep in great touch since college. They are such a great group of non-gossipy, kind-hearted, fun girls, and I feel like I can always be myself with them. And look how hot they are!!

Erin (the blonde next to me) is getting married in Kentucky in September, so we get to do this all over again in just a few months! I can't wait. There's no wedding like a 108 wedding!! ;)

Adventures in Serging!

For the first anniversary, the theme is supposed to be paper. I adhered to this theme by getting Art paper tickets - to the season opener of Ohio State Football this year! Of course, when I bought the tickets, OSU still had its star player and coach, so the dynamics of the game have certainly changed, but we're still excited!!
Anyway, I married a man who had never heard of "themes" for wedding gifts, and he bought me the opposite of paper - a SERGER!!!! The man is gifted, truly.

This machine has sat on my sewing table for approximately two months without any use. It's complicated. It's scary. And I barely even know what it does.

Correction: I barely knew. I totally know now.

The user DVD is older than me and doesn't even work on a Mac, so with some help from my friend Andrea I found some user guides on YouTube and elsewhere. In about 10 minutes, I had the thing up and running. It's fairly simple, really. It's like a sewing machine in that it loops threads around until a really fancy knot is tied, but a serger prevents fraying on the edges and cuts off the excess fabric while doing it. If you're wearing a knit garment right now, chances are the inside seams are serged.

And yesterday I finished serged ruffles... for baby butts.

 

Look at those baby butt ruffles!!

Here's a closeup of the serged ends of the ruffles:

 

And here's another closeup:

 

The front of the diaper cover:

 

And what it looks like with the matching dress:

   

Sorry, you'll have to turn your head. I forgot to edit the photo before I posted!!

This outfit is surely to make this little girl happy:

 

I sent away all my Lily clothes (minus the airplane booties, more about that later) yesterday!

I love my serger!

Sewing, sewing, sewing!!

Let me tell you something: I. Love. Summer. I always have, of course, like everybody else, but being a teacher has made me appreciate these three months even more. Technically, with vacations and summer training, I only have five weeks of just being at home (two and a half of which are already over!), but I have been busy. Much to my glee (and my husband's annoyance), instead of catching up on housework, laundry, and gourmet cooking, I have been sewing.
And watching Lost. A lot of Lost.

I definitely consider myself more of a quilter, since that's what I learned to do first, but that's a heap of delayed gratification. With the arrival of my new niece, Lily (who I have never met but adore), I have been welcomed into the world of baby clothes, which can be finished in a few hours and are adooooorable. I found most of my patterns on Etsy, and have gathered fabric from trips out of town or the occasional fat quarter at Walmart. I think we have the only Walmart in the country without a fabric section, so pickings are slim, but sometimes I can find a gem.

Here's what I've been working on. These are all gifts, so if you see one pop up in your mailbox one of these days, act surprised! :)

 

 

These are little clutches I made for the teachers in the ELA department at my school, all with Walmart fat quarters. I was so blessed to work with nine wonderful women during my first year teaching, and this was my thank you! Unfortunately, I didn't get the opportunity to give them all out, so this will be the gift that keeps on giving once next year starts. I am moving to the math department next year, and will miss working with them!

 This is an idea I saw online that I'm in love with - appliqued onesies! I bought a bunch at Walmart and then looked for patterns online. I didn't find any I really loved, so I freehanded this little bird. It was originally for Lily, but leave it to her to grow out of newborn onesies before I finished. So, I sent it away to my friend Nikki, who is due in a few months with baby Peanut! (not to be confused with my Peanut, of course) All I did was cut out the pieces and then zigzag stitch around the edges. Then I sewed a little black button for an eye.

 

I also made matching booties for Peanut! They are kimono booties with a pattern from Etsy. Can you just stand them?? They look like little yoga slippers. I made these slippers in about two hours. Super easy!

Here's another appliqued onesie... this one will actually fit Lily, and will go in the mail soon!

These I'm obsessed with. Emily's husband is an F-16 pilot, so I made booties shaped like... airplanes! In CAMO! I could die. Although, leave it to Art to point out that the wings aren't even, and if these were planes, they would crash like Oceanic 815. (Lost reference, natch.)

And of course... appliqued onesies to match. And I made another set for a friend's baby shower coming up because they were so irresistible.  Booties... shaped like airplanes!

 

 

This is a little baby dress for Lily. I finished the dress, and the hat to match, but I'm waiting on the matching diaper cover until I get thread for my new serger! Which I have no idea how to use. Not to worry, the dress is up to six months! :)

 

Look at this little hat!!! Took two hours and less than a quarter yard of fabric. Was supposed to be all one fabric on each side, but I decided to mix it up. I love the results! Both patterns were from Etsy, from different stores.

Taking a pause from all the baby love, I made a wine tote for a friend who recently got married. I am super late on the sending, but I'm waiting to get beads to make some matching wine charms. I love how easy and fast it came together with just two fat quarters from Walmart. The pattern was free from Bernina, the manufacturer of my machine. (And yes, that is Lost playing on my laptop in the background.

PS - How awesome is the camera on my silly iPhone?! Got a great close-up of the topstitching. 

This little guy hangs out with me every day while I sew, protecting my batting.

Oh, and here's what I'm not doing during my time off:

But I did make this for dinner yesterday: Thai Chicken Tacos

 

So that's how I've been spending my days. It's all about to end though, because starting next Tuesday, I'll be in Columbus-Dayton-Columbus-Macinac Island-Columbus-Dayton-San Angelo-Austin-San Angelo-Fort Worth-Grapevine... until July 21st, with no stops home! Then two weeks home, then Fort Myers for my mom's birthday, then, unbelievably, it's time to go back to school!

Did I mention I'm also taking two classes towards my Masters? Leave it to me...