Painted Ladies

My youngest daughter, Sarah, has been raising Painted Lady Butterflies these past 2 weeks as part of her science unit this month. All 5 caterpillars survived and turned into butterflies! The emerged from their chrysalis' over the weekend but it was too cool outside to release them. So we fed them sugar water sprinkled on sedum flowers. Yesterday it finally warmed up enough to release them and I took photos of 2 of them as they sunned themselves on the edge of the butterfly home before taking flight.

This was such a fun project that we have decided to try it again in the spring.

On a quilty note - last night I finally attended our local quilt guild meeting. I have had such a hard time finding out where this guild meets (they recently changed their meeting location) as well as getting the evening free on meeting night, but it finally all came together last night. This is a friendly group of quilters and I'm happy I finally got my act together enough to join.

Today I'm waiting around for the insurance adjuster to take a look at our leaky roof :( This past weekend after all the rain from Ike we noticed 3 spots in our ceiling where water has soaked the drywall. I'm not looking forward to the repair that will entail.

Another large project we're planning is to remodel our kitchen and dining room. They are separate rooms right now, but the kitchen has 4 doorways leading into it and there isn't much counterspace or cabinet storage. For someone who cooks from scratch this isn't a very easy kitchen to work in. We are planning to tear down the wall between the 2 rooms and add a wall of cabinets along with an island. That should give me enough room to cook, mix, and bake to my hearts content!

We're also replacing the white carpet in the dining room and living room with hardwood to match the kitchen. White carpet does not work with my family-ugh! We are at the point now that we just need to take a deep breath and plunge into the work, as well as brace ourselves to live in a house with a kitchen under construction for an extended period of time. We plan to do the labor ourselves so that will save money, but it will also slow down the progress.

Susan