What has Shanel been up to as she has maintained blog silence?

Hmmm…
Well, as you know I quit WOW (or should I say I took a break?). Which has freed up an immense amount of time to pursuit other things…like:

{For some reason I can’t figure out how to put bullets in this post. So deal with plus signs.}

+ I have been going to bed earlier.
+ My house seems cleaner and the laundry is caught up most weeks.
+ I have been watching episode after episode of LOST (which I must confess I am slightly addicted to and had no idea it would be such an intense and at times frightening TV show).
+ I have been knitting, of course. Lots of cute things for little ones I know (and the projects are top secret here on the blog because they are for some of your little ones). And I have been actually brainstorming and searching for a knitting project for me, yes, me. I can’t remember the last time I knit myself something. It may have been Shonna and Jeremy’s wedding. Yikes.
+ My dear friend Jamie came up and inspired me to sew a cute wrap around dress with matching bloomers for Audrey Anne and I am discovering how much I like sewing. Particularly how quickly you can bust out a project. If I knew what I was doing, I could make a little dress in one evening. But I am working on the part about figuring out what I am doing. I have ripped out whole seams of stitches too many times.
+ I have kind of kept up with my garden. Weeds are reigning! With all the rain, the weeds are in heaven. I did some mulching in the front yard which is helping.
+ Tomatoes are a plenty right now and I made my first batch of tomato sauce with all sorts of fresh herbs from the garden. I canned it and am going to horde it for winter. Another post about that to come.
+ We moved our bedroom to our “summer quarters” (not sure if I mentioned this already) and there is a wonderful little room (really a closet, but if you have ever been to my house you know how big these closets really are) off of the summer quarters. I turned it into a prayer closet. And an “escape from Audrey” closet.
+ Reading good books–Elizabeth Berg is my new favorite author. She wrote The Art of Mending and We Are All Welcome Here.
+ Playing with Audrey Anne. We went to the local thrift stores recently and I just bought anything she was drawn to and played with. For all our toys had become severely outdated and developmentally not appropriate. So now she owns her very own wheelbarrow, a cart to push things on, a telephone and a grocery store check out center complete with a microphone you can call out price checks on.
+ Settling into my new job as a field case manager with Medicare Health Support which is a pilot research study looking at ways to work more closely with elderly patients who have multiple medical problems. I spend time educating, motivating, collaborating and encouraging patients to move towards health and thus stay out of the hospital, thus reducing health care costs. I am really enjoying this new job and find it is a good fit for me. I have a high learning curve as I work more closely with diabetics, but I am interested in learning.
+ Trying out some new recipes. Some flopped horribly, some were amazing. More to come on the amazing recipe piece.
+ Going out on dates with my husband to places like Ravinia. We heard Beethoven’s 6th and 7th symphony which was stunning. I heard only parts of it because I was engrossed in Harry Potter sitting on my lap with a little book light. We sat drinking wine and eating chocolate and enjoyed the summer evening.
+ I am trying to redeem a quilt I pieced together for a friend that ended up looking truly horrible. I picked out entirely different materials and was going to start all over using a more complex piecing design. What was I thinking?

I will try to be more faithful in writing.
We are off to the Martens’ (really Berkness–LoAnn’s side of the family) reunion starting tomorrow. I am looking forward to it. I really need a vacation.

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