A head full of dreams...

We have been in Massachusetts for about three weeks now.  It is a bit longer than we anticipated due to some hiccups, such is life!  We have been busying ourselves here by exploring, hiking, running, reading, working on projects, and the truck, getting health insurance (Thank you affordable care act aka Obamacare!), did a 1,000 piece puzzle, got injured while running, eating amazing home cooked meals(Thank you Judy Brewer!!) and showering regularly lol.  My projects have included curtains for being stealthy in the truck, a quiver for my arrows and an archer arm guard.  I've taken some photos along the way to share.  First up is a shot of my left leg, upper and lower that got scraped up pretty good from a fall.  I was trail running, got distracted looking at a bird I was trying to identify and tripped on both a root and a large rock.  Essentially I tripped twice and fell funny on my left leg scrapping my upper thigh and side of my shin.

Used this lovely salve thanks to Judy Brewer on my injuries and they healed a lot faster.

The next set of photos are from an outing to chesterfield gorge.  I didn't really get a great shot but it was a fun place to explore.  We found a blood root plant (trying to learn plants).  It was cool to see but I found it a little creepy too. 

Blood root plant

root of the plant, where it gets its name

The next set are from the curtains I made.  We needed curtains for the cap so we can have the lights on but it's not visible from outside the truck.  For this we went to Goodwill and found some opaque green and brown material.  After much deliberation we went with magnets to use for attaching the curtains.  It was a time consuming project mainly at the start to figure out how to do it.  We discovered that magnetic strips don't actually hold magnets, we had to get a steel sheet.  I had to cut the sheet into strips the those strips into 3 inch pieces.  I then filed the edges so we couldn't cut ourselves on them.  Once that was done I glued them to the frame of the windows.  I then had to sew little magnets onto the would-be curtains, attached the top first then made an outline of the edges, cut the material to size, sewed a hem, then added more magnets.  I did 4 curtains and it took me almost a week to complete.

The next project was a quiver for my arrows.  I bought some arrows and have been practicing.  It's a lot of fun and great for stress reduction!  Oh yea, that's something else we've been doing.  So I found a DIY quiver tutorial online here.. http://woodandfaulk.com/blogs/journal/15785153-archers-quiver-diy  We had some canvas and leather so I got to work.  It was fairly easy to make and for my first time making one I'm pretty happy with the final result.  The design is simple and functional with a pocket for my archery glove and bow stringer.

 I also made an arm guard.  My left arm is sore right now from drawing wrong and hitting my forearm.  I can also see a little bruising.  I thought at first it was motivation to shoot better... but it hurts and I don't want the dark bruises.  Again I searched online and found a simple design I liked.  It required buttons, which I did not have.  Matthew showed me how to make wood toggles, so much cooler than silly buttons!

We also went to an art festival over memorial day weekend that was really neat.  Sorry, no photos of that.  It was really cool to see what people can do, the most interesting to me was the wood work and the clothes (I still love clothes even though I don't own much anymore).  Everything was way too expensive for my budget or to fit in the truck anyway lol but it was fun to walk around and think of the possibilities.  I'm sure I've missed some things but those are the big ones.

I've been researching rock climbing in the area and in the White Mountains.  We are planning to do some climbing in 2 days about an hour from here.  We haven't climbed since Seneca so I'm really excited about it. After that once we head out we will be exploring the White Mountains for a couple weeks.  We are signed up for a WFR (Wilderness First Responder) course in 3 weeks. It's a week long course that I am really looking forward to.  I will feel a lot more comfortable wandering in the wilderness when I know what to do if something goes wrong.

Shout out goes to my big brother graduating this weekend, he has been working hard and I'm very proud of him, Love you Robert!