Tour de Cure

Today I accomplished a 50k ride for Tour de Cure to raise money for diabetes. That was 30 miles, which is a lot for me. It doesn't sound like much when you consider that there were options for riding 100 miles and 60 miles. My husband completed the 60 mile ride. When I was on the last half of the 30 miles all I could think about was how glad I was that I wasn't doing the 60 mile ride. Maybe after some more time on the bike....and a much softer seat I could do 60. But I sure couldn't have done it today. Who knew that a bike seat could turn into a thing of torture???

My accomplishment pales in light of the "Red Riders"...the people with diabetes who were pedaling. We were suppose to say "Go Red Rider" whenever we passed them, but most of the time they were passing me. If that wasn't enough to make you sit up and take notice there were also riders from a team from the Paralympics. One of the gals was riding the bike with only one leg and kicking butt doing it!

There just isn't any excuse for not getting up off of the couch and moving. If someone dealing with a medical condition or a disability can do it...then what excuse does anyone else have? Mom

Where in the world

does your produce come from? This week I needed a red pepper and they didn't have any at the Farmer's Market so I stopped at the local grocery store. It was interesting reading where the produce comes from, found the red peppers with a sticker that said they came from Canada, a yellow pepper from Colorado and then there was an orange pepper with a strange looking sticker that said "produce of Holland", I tried to find a produce person but the only one there was a gentleman stocking the bins. I asked him if this pepper came from Holland in Europe but he didn't know, the produce manager was not in but left my phone number and hoped he could answer my question. That was two days ago and still no answer. Now that our meat and produce have to be labeled where they are grown it has been interesting reading the labels. Not to pleased with the meat labeling as it just says produced in the USA, Canada or Mexico. Not too informative for me. Enjoy shopping and reading the labels. Grandmother

From Stick Figures to Masterpieces

My mother-in-law, who is an artist, is heading to China in September to do a painting workshop with Kevin Macpherson. And she invited me to join her. Of course I said yes. I mean how many opportunities do you get to visit China?

But there's one teensy little problem. I don't paint. And if we're being totally honest, I am probably one of the least artistic people I know. I mean I can barely draw a decent stick figure.

But I put my best foot forward and decided to give painting a try, even though it goes against every bone in my body. I decided to learn the basics of painting from my mother-in-law. The first day of this experiment went okay. We decided to use a photo printed on canvas. So basically all I did was paint over the photo. Nothing too scary about that. I wasn't super pleased with the final product, as I was basically tracing, but I was satisfied.

Here's a close up of the flowers with a little bit of impasto.

Now for day two. That was the real challenge. Sheryle (my mother-in-law) had me scope out a scene, sketch it, and then paint it. This was really hard for me. I kind of went into a dark, sullen place because I felt like I couldn't do anything right. My brush strokes were just a little too amateurish, which makes the end result look like that of a fifth grader. But all in all, despite my frustrations, I was pretty pleased with the end result, considering I can't even draw a stick figure :).

Here is the photo of the original scene.

Here's the sketch.

And finally the masterpiece. Well at least a masterpiece in my own mind!

My plan is to start on another painting as soon as I get all my supplies. I'm hoping the next painting will have more layers and show a little more depth, contrast and texture. But I'm trying not to be too hard on myself, as it will only be my second painting ever! Daughter.

What a surprise!

Picked up the paper and read that Grand Junction is going to be honored with President Obama and his family on Saturday. It has been two decades since a President has visited here. He will host a Town Hall meeting at a local high school. The audience will be made up with residents that will be picked at random after registering. The topic will be the proposed health care bill. Grand Junction's health care model has been the subject of several magazines and newspapers. Our hospitals have been picked because of their lowest Medicare reimbursement rates in the nation. The doctors, hospitals along with HMO, Rocky Mountain Plans have strived to provide quality care and low costs. Way to go Grand Junction!!! Grandmother

What fun!!!

I put my creative talents (whatever they are) to the limit in this wall hanging. My husband got me a new Bernina 440 quilters edition sewing machine for my anniversary and I have been having a great time trying to use all the functions. It has an automatic quilting attachment which regulates the stitches for quilting. A memory function for decorative stitching. There are over 200 different decorative stitches to use as embellishments. I used only a few of them plus tried bobbin embroidery, worked yarn, and odds and ends of thread into the design. The top picture shows more detail. Sure did get my brain working. Grandmother

Weekend Adventure

My husband and I headed out for a weekend of camping and fishing in WY. On the way we spotted this moose.
And beside her was her baby. Continuing on our trip we had three badgers cross the road in front of us. Unfortunately I didn't get my camera out in time for a photo. We found our campground near Encampment, WY and about the time we arrived it started to rain. We had a bite of lunch to wait out the rain before setting up our tents. It was a brief mountain shower and we were able to get our tents set up. We were trying out our new backpacking tent, but brought along our bigger one just in case we needed a place to get out of the rain. Our camp table and chairs fit into the bigger one along with our cooking supplies. It was a good thing we did have the bigger one because after we finished putting up our tents, it started raining AGAIN. We had a game of cribbage waiting for the rain to stop. Once it did we headed out to hit the Encampment River for some fishing before it got dark. On the way we saw 4 bucks and the lead one had a huge rack. Later a doe and two fawns were spotted along the road. My husband joked that after all the game we had seen we only had mountain sheep, elk, bear and mountain lion to spot to round out our viewing collection.

We got back to camp, ate dinner and got ready for bed. I took out my contacts and without putting on my glasses headed down to the outhouse. Across the road from our campsite was a couple from Georgia. When I was walking back to the tent I heard "Mr. Georgia" bellowing in a loud, deep voice, "Git, git outta here! Git, go on!" He kept hollering and I was thinking, boy the chipmunks must be getting into his stuff and really annoying him. I couldn't see anything since I didn't have my glasses on and it was dark. As I got closer to our site, "Mrs. Georgia" popped out and shouted, "There's a bear and he's a big un!"

WHOA! I moved at a quick trot and grabbed my husband. We stood watching...although I still couldn't see a thing. My husband exclaimed, "Wow, he's a big bear!"

"Where?"

"Right there!" But I couldn't make him out. Probably for the best not to see how big he really was."

Well Mr. Georgia managed to get the bear shooed off and he came over to our site. He had two hunting knives on cords around his neck and a pistol in a shoulder harness along with a flashlight that looked like a weapon. "I don't want to alarm you, but that bear was big...bout 300 lbs. and he isn't scared of people. He reared up when I was trying to get him out of our camp. "

His parting words were, "If he comes around and you need help, give a shout!"

How comforting!
I took a look at our tent and then looked at my husband and then looked at the truck. I said, "We're sleeping in the truck tonight!"

It was a long night, very little sleep and most uncomfortable. The next day I decided we were sleeping in the tent, bear or no bear.

The forest service ranger popped into the campground before we were leaving to go fishing Saturday morning and said that he had set a trap, because the bear was roaming around a ranch house and now the campground and wasn't showing any fear. When we got back to camp that night the ranger came around again and said that he hadn't caught the bear and told us again to make sure and put all food away and put the clothes we cooked in away. We put everything in the truck and after two wine coolers I decided that I wouldn't worry about the bear. We went to bed in the tent armed with the bear spray, an axe and a camping knife.

The next morning my husband told me that the other couple tent camping in the campground had heard the bear sniffing around their tent Friday night, but he decided not to tell me. He thought I would have another night of no sleep knowing that. He was right and I was glad he didn't tell me!The bear didn't come to any of the three us Saturday night. It probably was because he didn't get any food on Friday night, so we did just what we were suppose to. We all kept clean camps and didn't tempt the bear with leaving any food laying around.

Oh and just to round out our sighting of animals...we saw 5 mountain sheep on the way home. I'm really ok with not seeing a mountain lion!! Mom