Is your head cold?

Okay so soliciting myself might make a few people mad, but I know there has been interest in the past on this... if you are offended by this, look at it as me showing off my knitting!
 I knit pretty much for fun, but I always get compliments on my hats!  particularly my tams! I have a few other great projects i'm working on, but need to get supplies, time and motivation to execute.
The tams are stylish, soft, easy to wear and handknit with love!
I happen to have two, that I just made to be knitting but not with anyone in mind. One size fits all, and i'm asking for $20 for each. Please message/e-mail me to set something up! I've put pictures up below to see the colors and the style of the tam

While I'm at it, i still have a fish hat left over as well!  See below, $25 message me! Fun hat! I love those!

Well its finally friday again!  I have Rotary early in the morning.  A few meetings ago I volunteered to bet he program committee, knowing that being new to the area it would be a challenge to meet interesting people to come talk to us every week... but I spose i felt up to the challenge.  No speakers this week, but the rest of January is covered, with help from my one committee member!
Then I'm off to Ann Arbor for the weekend.  I have some fabulous friends that I've been missing, particularly some girls I went to NOLA with a long time ago, so I'm happy Sharon has motivated me to come for the weekend!
Gotta go do my nails!  Stay warm my friends and followers!
<3
Suz

Christmas Postpartum

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and is ready to begin 2012 with positive energy and good grace.  As you can tell by my lack of entries, the season has kept me very busy!  I am not back at work for a couple days between Christmas and New Year, which most people have off or they just don't want to do work, and therefore have some free time this week!
I thought I'd do a silly photo blog of some of my Christmas blessings! This includes activities and gifts!
Here we gooo!

My letter to Santa, written with my left hand for authenticity!  Also a plate of the homemade sour cream cut out cookies we made on Christmas Eve starting at 10:30 pm!  Delicious! We had lots of willing decorators to help our with the frosting and sprinkles!!!

Captain loved to pass out in front of the fire and dream, so we painted his nails!! poor poochie!

Me in my wonderful new ski coat!!! I couldn't be happier with it!

I bought the wonderful poopers real cow bones from Local's sustainable meats in New Buffalo, MI.  I also bought flank steak for our Christmas dinner and myself discovered that no, grass fed beef is not tougher than corn-fed, in fact everyone told me it was the best flank steak they have had and that it was super tender!

I made Caprese but also my sister for a fish eye lense for Christmas!!! This photo shows how great it is, along with the next photo of our whole living and dining room at the cottage packed with people!!!

 My parents found me this awesome retro popcorn kettle!  I can't wait to use it!!

 This summer granny and I went to the Saginaw Art museum and met this artist and loved his work and its ties with Saginaw even though he is from Japan!

 I love to knit so this yarn has me all excited to start several new projects!

 These light up needles might attract a new kind of knitter with that catch phrase!

All in all we had a lovely Christmas at the lake!  As you can see above, the weather was gorgeous, not the ideal snow storm, but at least there was some sunny beauty and not just the drabby overcast.
Hope you liked your peek into the Morley Christmas!!!!
Happy New Year!  I'll probably catch you then!
<3 Suz

Home Sweet Home!

Holy cow!  literally... I know it has been soo long since I have blogged, but you might have known that I was moving!  And all of you know how time consuming moving is... especially when it is to your first unfurnished apartment!  and yes, it was a community effort to make my apartment comfortable for me!  for this I would like to personally and publicly thank Chris Thompson, Peg Kohring, George Lucas, Grandma Sue, and of course, my fabulous parents!  all of these people helped me to make this apartment a home, and I'm such a home body that it was crucial to me to make myself a home.  Pictures are not yet up... except of my Michigan bathroom, but once I am finished decorating and cleaning, I will show everyone my quaint yet guest ready apartment!
 Saturday was our benefit for work at Middlebrook farm, a local farm that raises grass fed beef!  This event also contributed to my delinquent blogging.... but boy was it great!  and this event is what I was holy cow-ing!  The cows were soo cute, see the picture below!

Today I got a new computer at work!  I'm really excited because it is a large screen so that I can make better maps and see them a lot better!  My GIS seminar with DEQ was great and now I'm more of a map nerd!  

I love fall in Michigan!  It is definitely one of my favorite times of year!  caramel apples, regular apples, pumpkin, pumpkin flavored everything, sweaters, pumpkin seeds, cider, falling colored leaves!  Where else can you get all of these products locally?  Here!  There is no better place for fall than here!  

So this weekend I'm taking myself on a date to the pumpkin patch!  Then I will carve pumpkins with myself as another date later in the month!  Its nice dating yourself!  hardly any bad dates!

I also need to mention that during this 20 minute blogging process I have had to restart my computer twice, it is freezing up and i think it is the graphics processor or something malfunctioning... I will probably be buying a new laptop soon...along with a car... Feel free to support my not for profit lifestyle by checking out my Etsy! 

http://www.etsy.com/shop/MaizeInnovations

Also anything in my facebook knitting album can be recreated!  It is fall... Time to keep warm with cute hats and scarves!

Also saw the Foo Fighters live and they rock hard!  They played for 3 hours!  Then I met them, Taylor Hawkins, the amazing drummer called me sweety and I almost passed out!  Also shook Dave Grohl's hand!  What an honor!  (for those of you who are unfamiliar with them, Dave Grohl drummed for Nirvana, a 90's grunge band)  I highly recommend everyone to see this band if you enjoy their music because they sure know how to perform and entertain the crowd!  

Apartment pics soon!  Promise to blog more!

<3 Suz

Teamwork

In life we are on many different teams, not necessarily sports teams, or other competitive teams, but groups of people who work together with goals and achievements in mind.  I have been very fortunate to be on many great teams, and will soon be joining another awesome team.
    Today I was offered a formal job offer from Chikaming Open Lands.  While I pretty much verbally accepted this position on Monday, today I was given a formal proposal/job description on my new position as Assistant Land Protection Specialist!  I could not be more happy to have a salaried job in my field of study with benefits only 4 months after graduating.  I am also thrilled to become part of an amazing team, one that I will work with every day and push forward a mission we all are passionate about.   My co-workers, board members, and committee members have all proven to be a varied yet knowledgeable and kind team. They see the major benefits from investing in a young college graduate like me to make me a valuable asset to this team.  I truly believe that I can help this organization forward the mission and get through the transition period while achieving our over arching environmental goal of preserving and protecting open spaces.
      However, I could never have made it to this team without the help, love and support of the teams I have been apart of in the past, friends, class mates, colleagues, club members, other co-workers and especially my family.  These other numerous teams have helped push me to join this team, so I am appreciative of the other teams whom I may not be as close to but who definitely influenced me and worked with each other to achieve our goals.  I hope other members of current and past teams feel like our teamwork has accomplished as much as I do right now!
   Even the bad teams, what hasn't worked, or when you had a sour team mate or ten, teaches you something. and even though bad teams may be miserable, there is still the will to push past them and keep the end goals in mind.  
  So this day, I celebrate successful teams, because without all the people we have worked with in our lives, no one would be where they are now.
  I know i still have many teams to join, but this is a landmark in any person's life: their first salaried with benefits job!
and now that I'm all optimistic and happy.... its time to start looking for a place to live in a VERY rural area....
BLAH

A much needed long weekend at HIGGINS LAKE this weekend, I'm sooo excited to be with family and friends to celebrate this.


Here is the sock I just finished! now I need to make one to match it!

Week two

I had a great weekend in Kalamazoo, got to spend some time with some good friends of mine and relax the work week off.  Now I'm thrown back into Monday, the real world and the other problems that come with it.  This week at work will be slow because Peg, my mentor, is giving lectures in Kansas City.  Today Johanna showed me what she could access on my facebook even though we are not friends.  This was good for me to see because my controls work, she couldn't see all my photos or my comments, only my profile pictures, my education and friends.
Anyway, the rainy forecast looks like it will delay my strawberry picking :(  But I have visitors this weekend so there is something to look forward to.
I'm soo close to finishing my knit wrap! I'm going to go do that now!  Hopefully someone's reading this, even one person! Sorry if it was more of a rant than a life update.  My goal is to be the tiniest bit insightful but its hard after working all day... as you probably know.
Also you should go listen to the Foo Fighters. Right now!