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I am halfway through a photography class that I am taking at the Missouri Botanical Garden. It is on Tuesday mornings for 3 hours, and lasts for 6 weeks. The instructor is a professional photography with many published photos to his credit. This is a beginning photography course, and I have taken a couple of those in the past. For some reason I just don't get the aperture, focal length, f-stop, ISO terminology stuff. Whenever it is discussed, my eyes glaze over. Math - bleh! So I was hoping this class would help me understand my D-SLR better. And I want to take the next class on photographing nature, and it is for intermediate students. I didn't want to be "that person" in the next class...the one who asks all the inane questions.

My camera is a Nikon D-40, and it takes amazing pictures. I love it, and the lens I purchased for it. So why am I taking the class, you might ask? Because I shoot everything on automatic exposure. And most of the time, that is perfectly acceptable. But you do get the rare time when the lens can't focus on what you are really wanting to take a picture of due to junk in the foreground. I experienced that just the other day when I was trying to photograph a bird's nest through a tree. When I took my camera setting off of automatic {gasp!}, I could manually focus on the bird in its nest. So I can understand the beauty of knowing how to shoot on manual, but by the time I think about changing the exposure and working with the lens, sometimes the photographic moment is lost. The instructor assures us that it will become second nature to us. We shall see...

At the very least I am learning a lot about photo composition, so that will be invaluable whether I shoot on automatic or manual. And every Tuesday I get to go to the Garden and take photographs. It's a win-win!

My sister and I are in Cincinnati this weekend. We drove over on Thursday afternoon and will head home tomorrow. Usually we stay with our cousin Gene and his wife Rita. This weekend they had lots of family plans with a birthday party, flag football game, children coming in from out of town with grandchildren, etc. We looked at coming a different weekend, but it seemed like nothing was going to work out with everyone's schedules. We had selected this weekend because the International Quilt Show is meeting in Cincinnati for the very first time, and Kathy and I are both quilters.

We decided to come this weekend anyway and stay in a hotel. There are no hotels near our aunts or cousins, so we are staying in Florence, KY. It is about a 15 minute drive to downtown Cincinnati from here, but the hotel room was a lot cheaper than staying downtown. The Clarion Inn & Suites is quite nice, and our rooms are large and comfortable. My only complaint is that there is a group of kids here (college? high school?), and they are noisy in the hallway and with slamming doors. But that is not the hotel's fault. Where are the stupid chaperons?

Anyway, our first stop after we checked in Thursday night was Skyline Chili for the famous chili three way - spaghetti, Skyline chili and grated cheese. What a way to begin our mini-vacation! Then Friday morning we headed for downtown Cincinnati along with 5,000 other quilters. The quilt show was amazing! They have hundreds of fantastic quilts on display, and booths of vendors selling every kind of quilting supply imaginable. After five hours I walked away with only the batting I need for the graduation quilt I am making. Boy could I have gotten a good deal on a new quilting machine. It was only $15,000!

Because we were at the show until 4:30 and were meeting 6 of our relatives for supper at 6:00, we decided to drive directly to the Newport Levee where the restaurant is located instead of all the way to our hotel and back again. We enjoyed sitting outside and looking across the river at the Cincinnati skyline. This area (Ohio and Kentucky sides of the river) has really been revitalized and offer lots to do. They have been successful in drawing both tourists and locals back to their river fronts. Supper was awesome, and the restaurant allowed us to hang out and talk until after 9:00.

This morning Kathy and I went back to downtown Cincinnati to an area called Findlay Market. It is the oldest continuously running outdoor market in Ohio, and has been around for over 150 years. Knowing that my ancestors worked and shopped in the area was very exciting for me. I don't know how I missed coming to this before now. It reminds me a bit of Soulard Market back home. After that we picked up Aunt Margie and Aunt Betty (my mom's two remaining sisters) and went to the Golden Corral to meet up with a couple of cousins. We were there for 6 hours! They are so nice to us that we always go there when we come into town. They don't mind that we sit and visit that long. We dropped the aunts off around 7:00 and then came back to our neck of the woods in Kentucky. We will head for home in the morning as Jim and I have tickets to the Repertory Theater at 7:00 tomorrow night.

Around working on my dad's book and all the extra work on the pictures I had to do for it, I have been trying to keep up with this graduation quilt I am making. Now that it is April, I am beginning to feel the squeeze. The mom has not told me exactly what date she needs the quilt done, but I know graduation is May 20th. When I made Lauren's quilt (sister to this graduate), it just needed to be completed by Lauren's graduation party. This bought me a little extra time, which was great. Tommy knows he is getting this quilt, so it is not a surprise like Lauren's was so the deadline may not be that big of a deal. I guess I better ask the question, huh?

Originally I was going to make 70 squares, which is the number I used in Lauren's quilt. But since I cut each of the center fabric pieces larger for this quilt so you could really see some of the larger focal pieces, I realized that 70 would make this quilt huge. (Unfortunately this was after I had already cut all 70.) So I have scaled back the number to 48. I have all the squares pieced and am now just "squaring" them up. After that I'll be ready to start sewing the squares together. When that is complete, I'll decide if I'm going to put on one border or two, depending on the size I am aiming for in the end.

Last night I called my friend who actually did the finished quilting on Lauren's quilt to see if she is willing to do the same for this new one. She has one of the really expensive long arm quilting machines that can handle larger quilts. It just makes a much nicer finish than I can do on my machine. Thankfully, she has the time to take on this project after May 3rd. It will only take her a few days at most, and then the quilt comes back to me to apply the binding. Whew! Could be crunch time in early May, especially since we have to go to Chicago and move Katie home the middle of the month. Always something... No wonder I have been a quilting "b" lately.

Man, I am worn out. As previously mentioned, Katie and her roommate are here for spring break. I picked them up at the MegaBus stop Friday afternoon. I then fixed lasagna, cheese garlic bread and a salad for supper, followed by ice cream sandwich cake. Yum! This is not the way to take off the extra pounds I added on the cruise ship. Saturday the girls took off for the zoo and art museum, and I worked on my presentation about traditional publishing versus self-publishing. I was on the program at Borders that night with other SLPA members. Jim went off on a motorcycle ride for the afternoon.

Yesterday we went to Crown Candy for lunch, and that took a big chunk of time since we had to wait nearly an hour to get a table. Then we went downtown to the arch, and unfortunately all the tram rides for the rest of the day were sold out. They are only operating one tram currently. It was packed since this is a big spring break week. We did get some nice photographs of the arch outside anyway. Then Katie and Fay took off for the Loop, while Jim and I stopped at SWT so he could check on some work. We walked home from there since the girls had dropped us off. It is about 2 miles from home, so at least we were able to get some additional exercise. Last night we hung around the sitting out on the deck since it was so nice outside.

Fay leaves on the 4:35 bus this afternoon, so I'll see what they want to do until she has to go. I could take them back downtown to the arch, or we could go to the botanical garden. It is a nice day for doing either one of those things.

Tomorrow Katie and her roommate Fay, who is from China, are coming here for spring break. We are excited as we barely had time to meet Fay when we moved Katie into the apartment in September. I am picking the girls up at the MegaBus stop at Union Station at 2:30, and then it sounds as if they will hit the ground running. It tires me out just listening to the itinerary. So many things to see and do before Fay heads back to Chicago Monday afternoon.

I have been on a cleaning rampage for the past two days. I guess since it was 82 outside today it can count as my spring cleaning. I think I'll be ready in time. I need to do the guest bathroom yet, but since that is the one that Jim uses I'll have to wait until he goes to work tomorrow morning. I also need to go to the store. I am going to make my lasagna with a salad and garlic bread for supper tomorrow night. Katie and I thought it would be nice for Fay to have a home cooked meal for a change. After tomorrow night they will be on the go so much I don't know if I'll even be cooking supper for them again.

To add to the confusion around here, we are doing some remodeling on the garage. I had suggested to Jim that we put a larger garage door on (it only had a single door with a man door next to it) so that he wouldn't have to move his car out of the way to get a motorcycle out. Of course they would pick this week to begin construction. Everything had to be moved out of the garage, so it is a little messy out back. I hate for Fay to see it that way, but I can't do anything about it. I think we'll be able to move some stuff and a car back in by this this weekend, so we can get it cleaned up a little anyway.

....down memory lane. I have enjoyed catching up with old classmates on facebook. The other day, one of them mentioned that he keeps in contact with Mr. Wadden, one of our teachers from high school. Mr. Wadden taught Advanced Placement English, and he was "that" teacher for me. The one you remember even though thirty-plus years have passed. The first day of class, he released a litany of expectations for the class that led to at least five students dropping out. I admit, I considered it. It was my senior year - did I really want to work that hard? But I really loved reading, writing and English, so I stuck it out. Mr. Wadden was an amazing instructor. I really think he gave his little speech at the beginning to "separate the men from the boys", so to speak. The class was challenging, for sure, but it was also thought-provoking and lots of fun.

So I got Mr. Wadden's email address from Bruce, and I contacted him not really expecting too much in the way of a reply. Boy, was I surprised! Mr. Wadden remembered me quite well, down to the fact that I transferred classes second semester so I could be with my good friend, Kim. "Didn't you guys call yourselves the Kimmys or something?", he asked. Close - we called ourselves the Kimlers, because I was Kim Kubler and she was Kim Taylor. He also remember that I was headed to Iowa State to major in Mass Communications. I told him about my two degrees and the fact that I have published a book. I added that he is the reason I was able to accomplish that feat, as he provided me with the skills to succeed in college and to be a good writer.

He said that he wasn't surprised that I had written a book because my highest grades were always with my writing in his class. He went on to say a lot if really nice things, which I won't repeat here. But I know that on a down day when I question what I am doing and if it makes difference, I will pull out his email for a boost.

Did a teacher make a difference in your life? Write and tell them so.

We just returned from a week long cruise in the Eastern Caribbean aboard the Celebrity Eclipse. What a fantastic ship! Our friends Kathy & Paul Corbin joined us again, as they did 2 years ago when we celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary in the Western Caribbean on the Ruby Princess. Kathy and I not only graduated from high school together, but we also attended Iowa State where we met our respective spouses. Coincidentally, Jim and Paul were fraternity brothers. Kathy and Paul sang at our wedding. They are the type of people that you can pick right back up with no matter how much time has passed since you have seen them.

We flew to Miami for this cruise, and our room was right next to the Corbins. We were able to open up the glass divider between the balconies so that we could sit outside together. I was a little concerned because the rooms were at the very front of the ship, which can be bumpy. But none of us had any problems with the waves. The staterooms were by far the best we have had (in our limited experience). They were spacious and very well appointed. The whole ship was beautiful and the staff was excellent.

We spent late Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday at sea before arriving in San Juan on Monday. We met up with a friend of Paul's, who took us on a walking tour of old San Juan. It reminded me of New Orleans, but with narrower, hilly roads. Then Tuesday we arrived at St. Maarten, and Jim and I went on a snorkeling expedition. It was a lot of fun, but the snorkeling was not too great. Kathy and Paul scuba dive, so they booked a scuba trip.

Wednesday was Jim's 55th birthday, and we spent it on St. Kitts. We had rented scooters to tour the island. It is not very large, so you can make it around the island in 2-3 hours. The first thing is that they drive on the opposite side of the road. I am sort of comfortable doing that, but I was not sure if I wanted to try it on a scooter. Especially since I have never been on a scooter before, much less operated one. Then I saw the size of the scooter as they were going over all the features of them. They were bigger than the Vespa size I thought we were getting. I reluctantly decided I would ride behind Jim. Now, I should mention that I have never gotten on his motorcycle with him. I have control issues and I don't like sitting behind him whether on a motorcycle, jet ski, bike or whatever. But it seemed the lesser of two evils. Unfortunately they did not have a larger scooter, and this thing was really not a bicycle built for two, let me tell you. The seat was small, and the foot pegs for the second passenger were minuscule. At one point going up a hill I had to get off and walk because it didn't have enough power to take both of us. I know we had been eating a lot at the buffets, but come on!

Anyway, we took off. The roads sucked, but at least the traffic wasn't too bad once we got out of town. Then it started to rain, and I'm not talking liquid sunshine here. It poured! I had just gotten comfortable (sort of) with Jim's driving, and now I was fearing slippery roads and a wipe out. Plus the buses would fly by, cut back over in front of us and create a tsunami of water flying at us. There was no place to take shelter and we had no rain gear. So we kept going, despite chattering teeth and the fact that we were freezing. The sun would pop out, we would begin to dry, and then the rains would come again. This happened multiple times during the day. I was never so thankful as I was when I saw the scooter rental shop. Ughhhh!!! NEVER want to do that again!

Thursday and Friday were days at sea, so we played trivia games, hung out at the pool, saw shows and just relaxed. It was hard to come back to 39 degree weather and gray skies. But it is good to be home.