Ahhh, the weekend.

Hello all. Things are moving quickly here! Much to update, so let's get started.

(1) First (as evidenced by the 1) is that my job continues to go quite well. I'm enjoying it and got to go out into the actual mill (got to wear my hard hat and everything!). Very exciting stuff. I'm getting used to the pace and the people, the atmosphere (and the smell - it is a pulp mill, after all).

(2) Joe and I are flying to Salt Lake City in 2 weeks. I'm speaking at a national conference there. Here's the link to see who is speaking (and I'm on it!):

http://www.aaohn.org/education/symposium-expo/Advance_Program/Tuesday.cfm

Now, for those of you who know me, you probably also know about my fear of flying. This will be the first flight I've taken in probably 2 years, and I'm a little apprehensive. But. I've been working hard on desensitizing myself to flying, learning as much as I can about planes, even going to the airport just to watch them take off and land. So! We'll let you know how it goes.

(3) Joe did a fantastic job on the spinning wheel we adopted, and here are the results:

Our first yarn! The lighter colored wood is the stuff Joe made. Impressive, isn't it?

Here is the master spinner at work:

Now all we need is a sheep! :)

Next on our cavalcade of updates:

(4) Wedding plans! We've set the date, we've made reservations, we are well on our way to getting stuff done. We even got our rings already! Here is mine (It's titanium! Very space-agey!):

Isn't it nice? It has a leaf & vine motif, which I think is nice - represents growth and such. Here it is on my hand.

Now, I have had several requests to put pictures of my dress on here. Well, I can't. Why? Because it's not made yet. I'm working on it, but don't want to show anything til it's in better shape (or ANY shape other than "folded piece of fabric"). So here's the next best thing. Photos from the dirndl pattern magazine that I'm using for the dress. The first one is a traditional dirndl. I like it a lot, but feared it was a little too traditional for me. Anyway, I'm going to make the sleeves like this one.

But the dress more like this one:

Mine is a robin's egg blue with black sleeves and black trim. Should be nice!

There's a lot of other stuff I guess I could update you on, but....I'm tired. Currently I have a sinus infection and also it's Sunday night and...well...this will have to do. Hope everyone is doing well!