Yesterday, Sadie and I made over 200+ faculty, staff and students very, very happy. We visited a high school in the far north Atlanta suburbs (Johns Creek) as part of the school’s Wellness Week activities. This marked the first time I’d stepped foot in a school since I retired at the end of May. I really wasn’t sure how I’d feel my first time in a school as a “civilian.” Honestly, It was great to be back with the kids, but even better to be able to walk out the door 3 hours later and simply go home. No lesson plans, no meetings, no bullshit. As for Sadie, she was out cold within five minutes of arriving home. A tired doodle is a good doodle.

We’ll definitely be doing more therapy dog events like this in the future. 🙂

Supposedly, my Microsoft Office account was good for one year after I left the school district. I now know this only applies to students – not staff.

My account was deactivated as of yesterday.

Whoops! Tried to use the limited O365 free version online. Not enough features to do what I needed to get done.

Fortunately, I was able to quickly obtain my own license so I could have access to documents I needed to edit.

The fun never ends..

Months ago, I made a list of things I wanted to learn how to do/explore when I retired. Some were tech-related like learn Adobe Illustrator and InDesign while others were decidedly non-tech like learn to speak Spanish and how to crochet.

Of course, the list had some quilty related skills:

(1) Learn how to really use my Cricut Maker for quilting, sewing and general crafting.

(2) Learn how to FMQ with rulers.

I’ve played with the Cricut Design Space enough to be able to import fonts to design large alphabet letters and create basic shapes to cut for fabric appliqués. I want to learn how to cut out a quilt using the device and how to convert an easier quilt pattern for cutting with the Cricut Maker. Looks like the process will be very similar to converting a quilt pattern for cutting using my manual die cutting system.

This afternoon was spent watching several videos on how to locate free SVG files, upload them and manipulate the files in the Cricut Design Space. Definitely going to try my hand at paper flowers after watching Jennifer Maker demonstrate the steps. Cricut Design space has some free quilt patterns. I’ll give one of those a go and then use my new meander ruler to FMQ the project for a donation quilt. There are some Riley Blake patterns listed, as well. I’ll try free before I go with a paid version. 🙂