Earth Day Texas

The City of McKinney had a booth at this year's Earth Day Texas event at Fair Park on April 24th, 25th, and 26th.    We had several thousand people visit us.  Here I am with some of the volunteers on Saturday morning.  We had our spinner wheel game giving away a variety of eco-friendly products for saving water and energy.  

Earth Day Texas (formerly, Earth Day Dallas) is an annual, outdoor festival seeking to elevate environmental awareness and influence the way Texans think, live and work. The family-friendly and free-admission event allows leaders in the corporate, academic and non-profit worlds to unite and show Texans how green lifestyle choices can lower their cost of living, improve their health, and help save the environment.

Menopause The Musical

Last week I went to see Menopause The Musical at the Eisemann Center in Richardson.  It was so much fun!

It was hilarious and I highly recommend it.  This is a picture of ladies getting ready to do a "kick line". 

 If it comes to your city, you should go with friends.  Thanks for stopping by!

Keep America Beautiful National Conference

The last week was extremely busy.

I traveled to Charlotte NC for the Keep America Beautiful National Convention.  I have always wanted to attend this conference and this year was able to make it happen.

The main reason I got to go is because one of our nominees won an award.  I am so proud of McKinney's partner Lee Howe from the Collin County Sheriff's Department receiving the National Award for Litter Law Enforcement.  He is instrumental in helping me with our litter pick up event and our national drug take back

Here is part of the Texas delegation at the Keep America Beautiful National Conference in Charlotte NC.  As you can see, there was a bunch of us...   Proud to be with these people!!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Save Energy Themed Zipper Pouch

Days like today make me wish I still lived in the Rio Grande Valley! 

In the spirit of saving energy due to rolling blackouts in North Texas today and tomorrow, here are two “Save Energy” themed Zipper Bags I just made last week. 

I especially love the light bulb charm on the zipper pull.  I searched high and low for these and finally found a vendor in England!

I am making seven of these for some very ‘energy minded’ people this week.  Love how these turned out.

 

ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) urges everyone to conserve energy to avoid rolling power outages today/tomorrow.   That's my PSA for the day!  Hope you are staying warm! 

Gift of Christmas & Christmas Candy Cane Zipper Pouch.

Over the weekend we got together with dear friends for Mommy & Daughter outing.  We went to see the Gift of Christmas at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano.  All I can say about the show is that it was absolutely incredible. I left my phone in the car so did not get any pictures but no picture would have done the production justice.  It was fantastic!

Here is a picture of the four of us before we left for the show.  Kristi and I have been friends for more than 25 years (since college) and it's hard to believe our babies are growing up into little young ladies. 

Here's a little Christmas zipper pouch I made for my friend's daughter, Katie.  I love this little whimsical candy cane fabric in cute pastels, Micaela helped pick it out.

I used pink & white dot lining for the inside.  Micaela made a bracelet on the Rainbow Loom to put inside, I wish I had taken a picture. 

Hope your weekend was great!

Thanksgiving Day & Dallas Cowboys

My parents came in for the Thanksgiving holiday but we didn't do the usual.  Instead we had TG dinner on Wednesday and attended the Dallas Cowboy game on Thanksgiving Day.

This is something my Dad had wanted to do for a long time, so the five of us went.  My Dad got tickets on the 40 yard line, 2nd row so we had spectacular seats. 

The half time show was Selena Gomez, which our daughter thoroughly enjoyed. 


The Dallas Cowboys won which was the best way to end the evening!  (Wish they could do that more often).  Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

Looks like Autumn

Our region of Texas is in a severe drought.  All the recent rain has our grass green again. We haven't watered since mid August.   Looking forward to more color in the coming weeks.

Busy Weekend

I've been sewing but my time to post has been non existent.  This week I was responsible for our city's Drug Take Back Event.  It was a HUGE success but requires so much preparation. 

Here is a collage with a few pictures. 





























We had 38 bags/boxes of solid drugs. Incredible! We are recycled TEN 95 gallon bins of plastic/paper packaging and a small truckload of boxes. Plus... we managed to have only one half empty container of trash. Eight people really "Making a Difference" in McKinney today--- I couldn't do this without the help of volunteers,  the support of the Public Works Department and the Collin County Sheriff's Office.

Day 1 Appliqué Getaway

Day 1 of Applique Getaway was great.  The event was held at the Westin Hotel in Frisco just down the road from our house.  The organizers said there was more than 700 ladies registered. 

All the big digitizers I buy designs from were there.  My favorites are Embroidery Boutique, Digistitches and Lynnie Pinnie.    Here is the sponsor area with many samples from all the digitizers. 

 
There was several fabric vendors there, two had pretty big assortments and selections.  The Fabric Cobbler and All Stitched Up by Angela, both had great displays and lots to buy.  I really had to use a lot of self control!  Here is one shelf display of the many there--- 

At the beginning of the day, the lines were long to buy fabric but after the classes started, the lines were reasonable. 

There was quite a few classes.  One of my favorites was from Sew Michelle on making bags out of mesh.  I can't wait to try this.  Aren't these bags adorable!

All in all it was a great day.  I am looking forward to going back for part of the Sunday sessions.  Thanks for stopping by!

Tis the Season for the Earth & blog catch up....

You've probably noticed I haven't posted many sewing projects the last few weeks, only the Pom Pom Blog Hop stuff from April 24.  The reason is, it's Earth season.  For me it's not day or month it's a season, my busiest time of the year as the Environmental Education Coordinator in our city.  Our city is 141,000+ in population... Not everyone is green yet but I am working on it!  Lol.

In the last several weeks, I have been hosting event after event, presenting to schools, scouts and church groups and just plain going bananas!   The BIG events include the following.

After returning from the Texas Water Conference in Galveston back on the 11th, on April 13th -- I hosted our Texas Trash Off event.  We had about 600 volunteers pick up litter all over the city.  our city does not have a litter problem BUT if you look hard....you will find some!  This was more than double the volunteers as any previous year so on one hand very overwhelmed (big gulp) and on the other hand doing back flips because it was so many residents were interested.

April 18th I hosted a gardening seminar for 50 residents, teaching residents about drought tolerant and native landscaping. This was really successful.

On April 20th, I helped host the Beautification Day at my daughter's school with the PTA and people from our local Kohl's department store.  About 25 volunteers helped spread 10 cubic yards of mulch and compost to 62 trees and plant 240 drought tolerant flowers in the landscape to beautify the school campus.  Here is Micaela in a wheelbarrow. 

April 21st was Micaela's 8th birthday.  We had a small celebration with family and will celebrate in May when we have a free weekend with her little friends.  Here's a quick family snapshot right before she blew out the candles.   We can't believe she is 8 already!

April 22nd was the 43rd anniversary of Earth Day.  This marked my 15th year working in Environmental Stewardship, 10 years at BAG Corp in Dallas and 5 years at the City of McKinney. I feel very fortunate to be doing the type of work that makes a difference.

April 25th, I hosted a big Rain Barrel Building Workshop. I love rain barrels, this class is always popular.

Yesterday, April 27th, I hosted our Drug Take Back Event in partnership with our County Sheriff's Department and Police Department.  OMG, this was my first time to host this event and it was a HUGE success.  We collected more than 600 lbs of medicine and more than 25 large garbage bags of medicine packaging for recycling.  We had more than 150 cars in a four our time span, that's a car every 90 seconds.  Here I am with the officers that helped me.  You can see all of the bags!  I am so thankful this stuff is not in the landfill or the watershed. 

At this point, I am over the hump.  I have a few more big city wide events to go, a few more presentations at schools and that will be IT because the calls from schools and groups will slow down and my focus will change to promoting water conservation during the summer months as our area of North Texas is in a drought.

So there you have it, that's why I haven't sewn much lately.  I hope this post didn't bore you to much. Hopefully something I posted in my list above will inspire you to do something to save the earth where you live if you are not doing it already.  Thanks again for reading this far. 

Dallas Blooms

Good Morning,

The Texas Daffodil Show happened over the weekend at the Dallas Arboretum & Botanical Garden.  While there I snapped a few pictures of the gorgeous gardens.

Dallas Blooms runs March 2 to April 7.  More info here. 

Weekend Fun: Suessical The Musical

One of my friend's daughters is in the production of  Suessical The Musical at the Art Center Theater in Plano and she invited us to see a show over the weekend. 

The Art Center Theater in Plano is a small community theater.  We had never been there before but I was extremely impressed with the production.  All of the kids were great.  

 

We had fabulous second row seats and I was able to film the last 50+ seconds of the musical with my iPhone.

Here is Micaela with JoJo and Cat in the Hat.

The whole cast!

Here is a list of upcoming shows.

Visit Local Quilt Shop Day

Today is "Visit your local Quilt Shop Day".  This should be a national holiday as far as I am concerned.  We must support local businesses, they are the bread & butter of our communities!  Had I known in advance I would have scheduled the day off.  

In McKinney, we are extremely fortunate to have THREE (Yes 3) quilt shops. Not many cities can top that!  All three are locally owned and incredibily different from one another.  I plan to make it to all of them. Luckily two are very close to my office....  The Quilt Asylum off Central Expressway & Virginia and Happiness is Quilting in our Historical Downtown McKinney Square.  Lastly,  Stitched with Love which is brand new (just opened this month) is very close to our home off Custer Road & Virginia.  

If you don't have a local quilt store in your community visit mine online, (tell them I sent you) many are having specials!  Enjoy your day, I better get some sleep and rest up for tomorrow-- it's a big day! Thanks for stopping by!

Proud of MNHS band students

So it's the Saturday before Christmas and Micaela and I venture out to Stonebriar Mall in Frisco (about 10 minutes from our house).  Stonebriar is one of the largest malls in the Southwest.  I typically steer clear of the mall because the crowds are crazy and finding a parking space on a typical Saturday can be a challenge.  I had somethings I wanted to exchange (before the holiday)so we headed out and just hoped for the best

After searching for a parking space, we got one, parked and proceeded to hike to the entrance.  By chance the closest entrance was JCP.  This was not where we were headed but we were just glad to find a parking space and get in the building. 

We walk and walk, we can finally see the door and notice there are two young men playing christmas carols at the entrance.  It was nice listening to the music as we walked.  We start digging in my purse for money to put in the Salvation Army kettle.   As we got closer we noticed they were high school students.  When we got real close, I was elated to see they were from McKinney Boyd High School Band.  We made our little donation and took a picture.  So proud of these kids, I had never seen anyone do this... usually what you hear is the bell ringing.

Thanks for letting me brag about kids in my hometown, hope your holiday shopping is done!

Dallas Arboretum Chihuly Exhibit

My parents and aunt & unlce were in town this week.  I took them to the Dallas Arboretum Chihuly Exhibit.  It was incredible. 

 

It was a cold and overcast day but here are a few of my favorite pictures.  Average age of these folks is 75, I hope I am that active when I am thier age, here they are in front of this incredible sculpture. 

 

This is my favorite picture because it looks like it's one continuous body of water but it's not. 

 

Two of my favorite three ladies in the world, my Mom and my Tia Lala.

 

A little more about the artist: 

Artist Dale Chihuly creates free-standing sculptures, large-scale artwork installations and drawings, which have been exhibited at museums, gardens, architectural environments and galleries throughout the world. Ninety-seven exhibitions in seven countries have presented Chihuly artworks during the last decade, which have been enjoyed by more than 10 million visitors.

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July from my family to yours!

We started the day by attending the Hometown Parade in Beautiful Historical Downtown McKinney!  Be safe everyone!

Trying to be a hip Mom

This weekend we went to the Allen USA Celebration on Saturday.  This is a huge event in our neighbor city that draws 75,000+ people.  We went last year and loved it.  This year the big band before the fireworks show was The Bangles! I listened to The Bangles all through high school and loved them, I was so excited to share the music with Micaela-- our 7 year old.

I tried to prepare Micaela for the concert by downloading their most popular songs off iTunes so she could become familiar with them.  She loved Walk like an Egyptian, Manic Monday and Eternal Flame. 

When the concert started she begged me to take her closer to the stage. Trying desperately to be a hip Mom, I walked Micaela all the way to the stage to see The Bangles up close. We had to tip toe around thousands of people to work our way to the front.  In the end, we got about 15 feet from the stage.  Here's a picture snapped by someone in the crowd,  that's Vicki Peterson above our heads.   (you can see we are pretty close). 

Micaela was so excited to be so close but I burst her bubble when I had to say no when she asked me to put her on my shoulders. No way I could handle 50+ lbs!   I am hip but I am not that strong...lol.  Thanks for letting me share!

Tornados in the area

April 3rd-- yesterday was an eventful day, lots of tornados in the area. Long story short, the tornados did not hit our area but I did get the opportunity to spend more than an hour in the storm shelter (aka music room) at the school with 120+ of Micaela's classmates. The kids did great and I was impressed about how well the staff had complete control over the kids.

I had just purchased a new umbrella and rainboots over the weekend. The umbrella came in handy for Micaela and her friend Caroline as we exited the school. They thought the whole tornado episode was alot of fun. God willing we will not have to go through that anytime soon.

Here are the girls as we left the school, they look like they just came out of a party with big smiles on their faces...

If you live in this area...

Jammin' In July

If your local, this may be of interest.