Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Library Challenge

This year, our local library has issued a challenge.  The new director had some calendars make for 2017 with a list of challenges on books to read for the year.

I have decided to take up the challenge.  I'm a bit slow right now, but am getting there.  My first book for the challenge to to read a book by an author you love.  I am reading a book by one of my favorite authors.  I guess for loving this author I do, because I can read her books several times and never get tired of it.

My first book is written by Diana Gabaldon titled "Written in My Heart's Blood".  This is the latest book in the series.

Here is a photo of the calendar with the challenge suggestions.  My question is can one book count for two things.   The book I'm reading now has over 1,000 pages, so can this book count as a book with more than 500 pages or not.

This is going to be a fun challenge and will see how many books I can read in the year.  It's going to be interesting to read books that I normally would not read.

Sunday, January 1, 2017

Happy 2017

Happy New Year!!!

One of my resolutions is to keep my little blog more up to date.  I only had two posts last year and both of those in January.

So much happened in 2016 and I didn't keep up.  I will try to do better this year.

We were on New York time for the New Year, yep, went to bed early.  Today we had our annual HOG Chapter brunch at the Powder Horn Saloon.

This was set up originally for a New Year Day Ride, but the weather in the last 5 years has not been cooperative for a ride, so the group meets up for breakfast.  It's a great time.

That's it for today.  Wishing that 2017 will bring everyone lots of happiness and love.

Monday, January 18, 2016

Quilting Class

I signed up for a beginner quilting class last week.  This is a 9 week class to learn the basics.  Classes are every Monday from 6-9 pm at the High School Home Ec Room.  For the past few years I have been wanting to learn how to quilt.  I have great admiration for the women who have the talent and patience for quilting.  I want to dip my toes into this new venture.

There are only 4 of us beginners, there were also a couple more experienced quilters working on their big projects.  Our instructor is Marge Bower who has been quilting for over 20 years, and she has taught classes for many year.

Our first class was spent on quilting and what we wanted to get out of the class.  My first project is making a table topper, just something small.  I don't want to start on a large quilt for my first time out.  I have decided to make a Disappearing Nine Patch table topper.  Marge recommended I by a Charm Pack and that I need at least 36 colors.  The Charm Pack is already pre-cut 5 inch squares.

I went to one of the quilting shops in Billings that Marge recommended.  I can see the hardest part is deciding what colors I want.  It got to the point where I was just overwhelmed and picked some fabric.  I chose this pack because I liked the owls.

Tonight I pieced out how I want my blocks to look.  I was so excited when I made my very first quilt block.  I'm finding out that most of the tiny blocks and squares are not actually sewn that small, just cut from a larger block.

For my table topper I need four blocks, that once I'm done will be 15 inch blocks.  From there I will cut them into quarters, but that will be for next week.

This is what my project looks like for now.



Monday, January 4, 2016

New Year

2016 sure got here fast.  For New Year I went to Meeteetse for a Grandma visit.  Had great weather so a road trip was warranted.  Had a good visit with family.

I left Hardin on Saturday morning and arrived in Meeteetse just after lunch.  Weather was cooperating for a short visit, Ed had the weekend off so it was perfect.

Mom took us out for supper at the Elk Horn with her gift certificate she received, my original plan of thought was to take them out for dinner for the holidays.  It was nice and we ate a great meal.

Later on we went to the Cowboy for a drink.  That is what we do when we go to Meeteetse.  Since Ed's birthday was the following weekend, I bought him a birthday drink.  I wasn't going to make it down to celebrate Edfest with him.

Sunday we just spent the day visiting.  It was a very nice weekend.  Grandma wanted her picture taken with her oldest and youngest grandchild.  I then headed back for Hardin in the afternoon.

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Milwaukee Trip

I am so far behind on our summer activities.

After many months of planning the day finally arrived for our Milwaukee Trip with the HOG Chapter.  The owner of Beartooth Harley made arrangements with the powers to be in Milwaukee that we were able to get VIP access.

Two groups left to get to Milwaukee, the 3 day group took I-90 and left on Friday morning, the 2 day group took I-94 and left Saturday morning.  We went with the 3 day group, didn't want to ride 600 mile days.

Friday morning arrived and we met the Billings group in Hardin.  There were 12 of us all together on 10 bikes.  Friday was also our only real excitement day, we stayed in Wall SD and there was a tornado later that night at 9:30 pm.  We were in our motel room when we got the alert on the tv.  I have to laugh because as tourists we don't know what county we are in in South Dakota.  It wasn't until they gave the mile markers on I-90 that I told Gary that we are in this alert.  He went outside and yelled at me to get dressed and get down, that tornado is just out here.  The first thing I grabbed while heading out the door was my camera.

We didn't know where to go and the motel was not informative, some people we saying that we had to go to the church (what church and where).  There was a group of church kids staying at the motel and they left in their bus.  We  hunkered down in the ice machine room.  The actual tornado touched down just north of Wall, but we did get some wind, rain and hail.  There were other motel visitors with us.  Scary night.  We did lose power and it didn't come back on until 4:30 am.

Needless to say we didn't get much sleep, our room was hot and stuffy (we were on the second floor in a corner, didn't get any air flow). We didn't shut off the switches on the lamps, so when the power came back on, that hurt.  We saw the aftermath of the storm on our way to Albert Lea.  Pretty scary when we saw the highway speed and construction signs twisted and bent like pretzels, semis tipped over on the road, road construction equipment mangled and laying in farmer's fields.  We even saw a farmers barn and silo on the other side of the highway.

In Albert Lea, as we checked in some of the guys asked where do we go in the case of a tornado and what county are we in.  Bonnie came to visit me in Albert Lea, a very nice surprise.  She got to meet all of my biker gang.  We had a good time and a nice visit.

Arrived in Milwaukee on Sunday afternoon.  We did pretty good staying together in the heavy city traffic.  Found our motel very easy.  Some of us stayed at the Ramada Inn and some stayed at the Hampton Inn.  We were in the Ramada Inn.  Stayed three days in Milwaukee.

The highlights of Milwaukee were the tours of the Harley factory, Harley Museum and Harley Corporate Office.  We also went to a Milwaukee Brewers baseball game.  The owner of Beartooth Harley paid for our way into these places.  At the museum and corporate offices we were able to go into places where the general public is not allowed.  Our seats at the baseball game were fantastic, we were right at the home dugout between home and 1st base and 15 rows up from the field.  I was able to get some great photos, just had to shoot between heads.  We had a great time.

On Monday night we all ate dinner together at a place called Mader's (German Restaurant).  To me it was pretty pricey, Gary and I shared a meal which was plenty for both of us.  While on our walk back to the motel, some of the guys were wondering how we are getting to the baseball game the next night.  Didn't want to ride bikes.  I found a sign at one of the bars that said free shuttle to the Brewers games.  Gary and another guy went to get the details.  All we had to do was be there about 90 minutes before the game.  Sweet!!!

We had a free Tuesday afternoon, didn't do anything fun, just rested.  We did make our way to the little bar got a bite to eat and just enjoyed the afternoon.  They had tables set up outside on the sidewalk.  At the same time, the Rolling Stones had a concert in the park, so free shuttles to concert and ball game.  Pretty soon our waitress came out and informed us that our ticket has been taken care of.  She said that the couple with us at the next table paid our ticket.  The people were not with us and we don't even know who they were.  Didn't talk to them.

Now it's time to make our way home, by this time our large group had dwindled down.  People were going in different directions.  Our friends who we mainly ride with had left Milwaukee Tuesday afternoon, we didn't see them again until Wednesday in Anamosa Iowa.

Wednesday morning we rode with three other people and made our way to Anamosa Iowa.  We met another guy in La Crosse Wisconsin, then rode along the Mississippi River to Anamosa.  We had to alter our route just a little bit because of a storm.  We rode through Dickey Wisconsin, which I'm going to have to go back.  We went by a church and next to it was a grotto.  Looked like a bunch of shrines made out of rocks.  Bikers don't really stop and sight see besides we were trying to beat the storm.

We didn't quite beat it, got caught in the rain right at the city boundary in Dubuque Iowa.  We were in rain for just a few mintues, waiting it out at the Harley Dealership.  We finally made it to Anamosa, but it took us longer that planned.  The storm didn't help and neither did the 20 mile detour earlier.

In Anamosa we went through the National Motorcycle Museum in the morning before making our way to Cedar Rapids.  The other guys we were with took a side trip, but we just went on.  The rest of the trip was spent getting back home through the back roads of Iowa.  It was pretty and we went through some neat little towns.

Our final two stops from Cedar Rapids were Sioux Falls SD and Deadwood SD then home.

We had a fun time on our 10 day trip.  I will say that I will never complain again about Montana roads after riding through Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.  I think Minnesota had the worst roads ever.

Friday, June 5, 2015

Walking Contest

I'm on the Wellness Committee for the County and to do something to promote wellness we had a walking contest for employees.

It was decided by the group to have the contest for six weeks, winner would be determined by random draw instead of most steps.  There was a comment made that if it was determined by the most steps, then I would win all the time.

My suggestion was to come up with two winners, one for the most and one for average( my idea was nixed).  Grand prize was a Fitbit Zip ($60 value) and if you were already a Fitbit user, you would get a $60 gift card.

We had them do a $5 pay in, figured people would be more apt to turn in their log sheets.  Contest ran for 6 weeks, started on April 16 and ended May 30.

During the six weeks, I logged in 534452 steps.  That's about equal to 267 miles.  2000 steps equals 1 mile.

We had 19 people in the contest and in the end I won.  I was gone for my dental appointment when the drawing occurred.

It worked out because I was given $60 cash, (They had to wait to see who the winner was first).  I'm saving my hard won cash for our vacation to Milwaukee.

Monday, May 25, 2015

Memorial Day

Today we are busy with the American Legion Post that we belong to.  Since we no longer are running our school, we have time to help out the American Legion.  We went to a meeting in March and the next thing we knew we are involved.

I had the honor of throwing the wreath in the Big Horn River to honor the sailors lost at sea.

We had practice on Saturday morning so that we knew what everyone was doing and knew what the calling of orders were. These changed on Monday anyway. I was a flag holder on the flag line, while Gary was a shooter on the rifle line.  So much for taking pictures.

We held ceremonies in three places, Hardin Cemetary, Big Horn River Bridge and Little Big Horn Battlefield.  Glad the weather held out.

The Commander of our post wanted to make this an event instead of something that we do.  He organized to have bikers come and we did our own version of Rolling Thunder.  We had about 20 bikes (that was great).

Things went off just fine, naturally the order calling didn't go as practiced and we even lost a flag holder somewhere between the Big Horn River Bridge and the Battlefield (not sure where he went).

Since I am the only active woman in the Legion, they had me front and center.  My picture was taken alot, especially at the Battlefield.

It was a good day, the weather held out the only rain we got was on our way back to Hardin from the Battlefield and it was just splash and dash.

We had a chili feed at the fairgrounds for everyone, but somehow that message didn't get passed on to the spectators, so we have alot of chili left over.

We came home with some door prizes, one of the WWII vets won a collage of Harley Davidson gas tanks.  He had no clue what to do with it or even wanted it, so he gave it to me.  Not sure what I will do with it, but will find something for our HOG group.

Jim Eshelman from the Hardin paper was gracious enough to copy off all the photos he took for me at no cost and I even have his permission to get them printed.

Here are some of the photos of us.
At Hardin Cemetary, I'm holding the Montana flag

Gary on the firing line, he is at the very end

Hardin's version of "Rolling Thunder"

Throwing the wreath from Big Horn River Bridge


Flag line at the Battlefield, holding the state flag

Firing line at the top of the hill at the Battlefield