I don’t know about the rest of you, but my summer is zipping by incredibly fast. Summertime as a “season” is pretty darn short up here on the mountain anyway, but the main measure I use is the summer break my children have from school.

I had visions of more time to keep up with the blog this summer. Then the last week of April my crochet career got a serious kick in the pants.  Leisure Arts contacted me about a proposal of mine and suddenly I was working on my first project for them.

Of course I was also finishing up other projects that I had commitments for, adopting and integrating a new dog into my family, going on a 2 week family vacation road-trip, preparing for the Manchester Knit and Crochet Show (which included lots of work for the CGOA Design Competition that I was Co-chairing), and having my brother come out for a week-long visit with his kiddos and my Dad. Whew!

Somehow I did manage to finish the pattern writing and crocheting the samples for the Leisure Arts project. Now all that is left for that project is some waiting. The latest news is that it should be available to purchase in January 2013. Don’t worry, you’ll hear more from me about it when it is.

Now I’m playing catch-up with getting proposals put together for more crochet designs, as well as writing patterns and crocheting samples for designs I’ve sold from earlier proposals.

It is one of the truths about being a freelance designer. You have to keep “feeding” the pipeline if you want to be working regularly. I’ve actually not sent in submissions for some of the deadlines of late since I really need to get caught up with stuff for my house and family. Of course, some submission deadlines I had to let pass because I was just too busy with everything else.

My boys will be starting back to school in just 10 days. First day of school this year is August 15th. Kinda looking forward to them being back in school and not.

The good news is, they will both be in school all day this year, so I won’t be making 3 trips to the school for drop-off and pick-up.  And I will have an entire 6 hours everyday with-out small voices saying “Mom” every 20 minutes. My beloved has been warned that interruptions during that 6 hours should be well-considered or there might be violence.

The bad news is, there will be no more sleeping in for mom. My boys are independent enough these days that I can occasionally indulge in a late morning. But once school starts, we will all be getting up bright and early to be sure a healthy hearty breakfast is consumed and that everyone is dressed and ready to go on-time. I will only be allowed late mornings on the week-ends, and even those seem to get rather busy during the school year.

Okay, I shouldn’t be surprised, but it was snowing yesterday evening.  Thursday was lovely spring weather of over 60 degrees. 

Made for some pretty pictures though.

And Ms. Kenna loves playing in the snow.

Good thing about Spring snow storms, they usually melt away quickly.

Hello again. I’m back at my desk after a Spring Break to be remembered.  Amazingly, though I packed yarn and hooks, I did very little crocheting on this trip.

So I am now playing “catch-up” with some projects that have deadlines breathing down my neck.  In the meantime I thought I would share some of the photos from our trip. We spent most of our time in Long Beach, CA.  Though the weather was cooler than we had expected and somewhat overcast in the mornings we still had a wonderful time.

I always enjoy seeing all the wonderful plants in Southern California.

My boys got to see the ocean for the first time in their little lives. They decided that it was pretty great, and enjoyed hanging on the beach looking in tide pools and finding rocks and shells (that were unoccupied).

I reveled in the sound of the surf, while I hunted for shells and super smooth stones.  I don’t know what it is about rounded stones, but I have always loved them. I only found one little piece of beach glass though.

I might have to get myself a rock tumbler to make my own smooth rounded rocks and beach glass.

I’ll leave you with this beautiful shot of the sunset on the beach in Oceanside.  Hopefully it will be as inspiring and restful to you as it is to me.

This past weekend was the start of my boys’ Spring Break from school, and we are having loads of family fun time. Which means the blog may be a bit quiet for the duration.

I had hoped to have some blog entries finished up and scheduled to post during our busy time. Instead I’ve been feverishly working away on a number of design projects that needed to be mailed off.  I will be back to actively posting around April 4th, though I might sneak a few posts in earlier if I can. 

I hope everyone (in the Northern hemisphere) is having a lovely Spring time. And for my readers south of the Equator…Happy Autumn.