Friday, October 24, 2008

Reading at night: Lightwedge

Over the years I've tried different ways to shed light on what I'm reading while DH is asleep. The clamp-on book lights were not satisfactory: the batteries didn't last, the bulbs burned out, the clamp was clumsy. A flashlight is awkward to hold.

Enter Lightwedge! http://www.lightwedge.com/ I won this nifty product from a vendor at the Illinois Library Assn. conference last month, just in time to take on vacation. It's page-sized. It uses four AAA batteries. The LED light is bright, bright. It's great!
I made a carrying bag for it. There's a small pocket inside for extra batteries, though it shouldn't need new ones for quite a while. The brightness would show better if I took the picture in a darkened room.





Sunday, October 19, 2008

Virginia Sampler: Elderhostel, October 12-17




49 years later!


Our fall trip was to western Virginia. We left Friday (10/10) and arrived back home yesterday (10/18).


En route we visited with long-time friends in Lexington, VA. (DH and our host spent the summer in Germany in 1959!) We stopped at Natural Bridge (http://www.naturalbridgeva.com/).


Natural Bridge
Appalachian Trail expert Leonard Adkins
The Elderhostel, "Virginia Sampler," was at the 4-H Center at Smith Mountain Lake. (www.ext.vt.edu/resources/4h/smithmt) The week's topics were Booker T. Washington (www.nps.gov/archive/bowa/home/htm) ; the Appalachian Trail; Thomas Jefferson and his country retreat Poplar Forest (http://www.poplarforest.org/); and the National D-Day Memorial (http://www.dday.org/). The presenters were excellent. Lectures were followed by field trips.

It was a small (15) but congenial group from CA, IA, KY, VA, PA, TN, NY, and IL/WI (us!). One of the participants had been in our EH group at Apache Lake, AZ, in 2006. (How often does that happen?!)
This was DH's 22nd and my 21st EH. We're trying to decide where our next adventure will take us!
Beautiful autumn scenery!

Monday, October 6, 2008

"Campaign Trail" finished!


I named my version of Old Tobacco Road <http://quiltville.com/oldtobaccoroad1.shtml> "Campaign Trail" because that's the season we're in....and a long and scrappy trail it's been. I must admit that I wasn't wild about this pattern while I was slogging along with all those little HSTs for the pinwheels. I had to chart out all rows in the center to keep the assembly straight. By the time I got the center together I wasn't going to do those big Flying Geese for the border. But I did . . . and it all came together! Now I'm smiling....and I will be happy to move onto another project.