whats new in Maine?

Nothing... no just kidding :) I have not been very good about updating this blog :( I will not pretend that I will do better though I will try. Lets see, since the last time I wrote what has happened...

Jason graduated with his Doctorate in Physical Therapy and is now working at a hospital doing outpatient rehab specializing in Neurologic rehab.

We moved to a town called Pittsfield. We did this because Jason's job was about an hour south of where we were living so we picked a place pretty much in the middle our two jobs and are renting half of a cute duplex here. We have three bedrooms, a full basement and hardwood floors throughout.

I am still working in family practice and still enjoy it.

We are looking forward to the holiday season- well whats left of it. We spent Thanksgiving with Jason's Dad's family. We had a lot of good food and company.

We are super excited to be going to my sister's house in Montana for Christmas. She just had a new baby (well two months ago now) and this baby is the first girl for my sister. She joins her three older brothers and I can't wait to go see them all!

Before we leave for Montana we will be going to the wedding of one of my best friends:) I can't wait to see her walk down the aisle and marry a wonderful man!

I will try to include pictures in the future though I can honestly say my camera has been tucked away for months! In fact I need to go make sure it still works before our trip to Montana!

Getting Close!

So Quilting class has been going very well- of all the things I have learned... the most important thing so far is that quilting takes up a LOT of room!!! I pretty much take over the living room every time I start! I need a place with a room I can dedicate ALL to crafts! Maybe someday... Anyway here are some more blocks!

















Finally all the blocks are done and its time to figure out the layout!!!





And finally.... the top is DONE!!!!


Still have to put the sides on and the backing...

New projects

So I have been MIA from the blog world for a couple of months as I have had NOTHING to write about! I LOVE LOVE LOVE not being a student anymore but it turns out- life with no homework in northern Maine is kind of boring! So I needed a new hobby- I wanted to learn how to quilt- I went to the craft store to "look into it" and realized that not only do I not have a sewing machine but I don't know how to read a pattern. I didn't want to spend all the money on a machine just to not know what to do with it. A friend of mine informed me of a quilting shop in my area that offers beginners classes! I was soooo excited- I signed up! Bought my book, supplies, and borrowed a sewing machine from wonderful friend AMY! It is a six week class in which we learn all kinds of helpful hints and how to's. Last week was the first class and we learned all about fabrics the art of quilting. At the end we had to pick out our fabric for which we would make our first ever quilt! Talk about stressful- It took me an hour and a half but finally I picked out my fabric.



As a new quilter, the teacher told me to go home and get some scraps to work on my "1/4 in seam" Turns out the quarter inch seam is VERY important in quilting. I did indeed practice all week (a little boring I might add) but I was excited when I got to class to "show off my seam". That didn't really pan out- for some reason the math didn't add up. When I tried to sew three strip together with good seam the finished project was too small. After some adjustments though- we figured in out and now I am rocking away! In the second class we learned how to cut and press and we were on our way to making our first "block".







I have homework this week to cut and sew the second block and then cut for the next three blocks after that! It should be a lot of fun. I will post pictures as I go!

Holidays...

This is Jason and I at Thanksgiving in Portland, we spent it there at his sister's apartment with his mom and Step dad. His sister and brother in law made delicious food and we went for a nice walk on the Eastern Promenade after gorging on Turkey.

Jason and I had pretty low key holidays this year. I was fortunate to get some time off before Christmas this year- I only had to work Monday that week- so I took advantage of the time off to bake a bunch of Christmas cookies. I gave them to his family as gifts. When I say a bunch of cookies- I mean a BUNCH! I made six different kinds including peanut butter cup cookies, easy lemon cake cookies, mint brownies, cherry coconut bars, Gooey bars, and chewy molasses cookies. It was too hard to pick a favorite but I think the lemon cookies came in first! For Christmas eve we spent the evening with Jason's moms side of the family. It was nice to get a chance to visit with them as I have only met them a few times. Jason and I got to have our own Christmas morning- I made Quiche (my favorite holiday breakfast), we opened presents together and then went over to his Aunts house to see his Dad's side of the family! Again we had a great visit. There was a lot of snow, which is different for me as we don't really get the whole "white Christmas" package in Seattle.

I loved all of my gifts- to mention a few, Jason got me a beautiful necklace and a portable hard drive! My sister gave us some really nice bookends (an -S and a -J) and the first season of Chuck (the greatest show ever)! My mom sent some really nice wine glasses and my Starbucks card (thanks- your the greatest!!!)

New Years eve was pretty low key as there was the threat of a major winter storm. We had invited friends over with the intentions of going downtown before midnight. We had good food a drinks, played games and decided to stay in and continue to play games while watching the ball drop! It was a very fun night and even better- no one had to wait an hour for a cab! The storm had just begun at mid night and it snowed for about three days straight! We got like 2 feet!!! No I am back to work (boo) and Jason is enjoying his last bit of freedom! He is reffing Basketball a lot right now which he really enjoys and I have gone to watch a few games also. It is fun to watch though I still don't understand all the rules- not being a Basketball player myself. He heads off to his last clinical soon and then before we know it- graduation will be here!

His graduation is just one of many great things we hope to come in 2010... I hope everyone else had wonderful holidays and good luck to everyone in the new decade!

Winter in Maine

People keep warning me about the winters in Maine when they learn that I am not from here and I reply "well this is actually my third winter in Maine". Today I was walking in the freshly fallen 5 inches we had last night thinking about... I actually don't think I have really spent a full typical winter in Maine. My first year here, I never had to go anywhere if I didn't have to because I lived on campus so if it snowed real bad, I would just stay on campus till the roads were "safe". Then Last year I was in Seattle for November and December! This will be my first true Maine winter. I will be here the whole time, traveling to work everyday etc. I am a little nervous about it. I mean, I had never shoveled snow until today!

I also realized that this will be my first Christmas in Maine! My first year here I went to Europe for Christmas and last year I was in Seattle! This year will be spent here in Maine with Jason's family. We got a tree up already and I am looking forward to making Christmas cookies for everyone! Yay for the Holidays!

Clarification on Visitors

It should be pointed out that our actually first visitor was my good friend Holly!!! She- like a troop had to sleep on the floor as we did not have the spare room up and ready... so the other visitors were the first to use the guest room! You Rock Friend!!!

Visitors

We had our first house guests this weekend. My good friend for Grad School and her friend came to visit. They drove all the way from West Pennsylvania to get to us. It took them 12.5 hours!!! They had a lot of people to visit on their trip to New England and we were fortunate to be stop number one!!! The girls and I went out to Bar Harbor on Saturday while Jason was at a conference. We lucked out and the weather was really pretty nice. That night we made pizza and Margaritas and watched movies- Jason is such a troop to hang with us three pretty ladies! We got up Sunday morning and all went to breakfest. Sadly the girls had to be on their way to the next stop- I tried to keep them hostage but alas they left :( I spent the rest of Sunday just getting things done. I got new tires on my car so I should be already for the snow... I made a really cute fleece tie blanket that is doing a great job of keeping me warm while I write this! Jason is researching Christmas trees next to me. We are probably going to get a fake tree to use for the next couple of years- real trees are very messy and with the base board heating them make me nervous!!!

Work is going really well. I have been very busy with the flu season causing all kinds of panic! So far I have manage to aviod getting it myself but I fear it is only a matter of time! I have pretty much washed all my skin off my hands as I am washing them 2 and 3 times per patient these days in an effort to avoid getting sick. I start taking "call" on Tuesday- which should not be too bad I hope. I will let you know!

We got two baby girl hamsters! Their names are Coco and Peanut, they love to run on theirs wheels and climb the cage. I had to get a second wheel so they each could have their own as they had been trying to run in opposite directions and this was leading to some disagreements in the form of squeeking at each other.

I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and hope that everyone gets to eat so really delicious turkey! We will be spending the holiday at Jason's sister's house. It should be great!