Pro-craftinating!

Another weekend pouring with rain. Perfect time to cuddle under the covers and pick up some knitting. Or maybe I'll do some needle felting. As soon as I get off this dang computer, ya know? Some weekends, it seems to eat up all my crafting time!!

This morning I woke up at 6:45 by a headache.I got up, took some Extra Strength Advil, had a cup of tea and muddled around on the computer. Took the dog for a walk  - did I mention it is pouring rain? - and here I am.

Okay, time to get crafting! Just as soon as I check a few more things... LOL, that's always the way isn't it

Rainy Sunday

Today is one of those days. Stormy/Windy/Rainy. The kind of day you want to stay inside and watch a movie - which I did.

I got up this morning and the rain was coming down pretty hard so I didn't want to take Eco out just yet because is seems that if very rarely rains steadily all day here. So we watched The Thomas Crown Affair with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway  and sure enough, by the time it was over, the rain had stopped so out we went. But I knew it wouldn't stop for long so I still put on my rain pants and jacket and hat. But it was 18 degrees and soon I was overheated. Eco was pretty hot in her polar fleece rain coat and so I decided it would be better to dry her off at home than to have her overheat in her coat. Plus Labradors don't give two barks about the weather!

And like the old Aesop's fable where the sun and the wind messed with the guy and his cloak, off and on went my rain jacket and I even contemplated taking off my rain pants. But I didn't. Let me just says I was more than happy to come home and strip off all that hot rain gear!!

And now I go from hiking boots and rain gear (not very feminine) to doing my nails in a gold glitter nail polish and putting on a sparkly bra and belt and full length flouncy skirt for dance rehearsal. Yup, not all girly-girl princess but not a tomboy either.

Hope your sunday is a good one too, 

D

Back on track, I think

Oh my! I didn't realize it had been so long. I guess I took the summer off. We had almost four months of sunny hot dry weather and I didn't spend too much time indoors. I don't actually know what I did all summer, but now it's the first of September and it's raining.

The rain  made many firefighters happy and much of the forests in British Columbia were burning and smoke travelled all the way into the eastern parts of Alberta. Smoke and fires also crossed the border between Washington state and BC

But now it's rain. And I'm indoors and I'm knitting and crocheting again and thinking about winter and Halloween and Christmas. And it all goes so fast. I really swear time speeds up the older we get!

I also see that I have lost almost all my readers and so I will have to begin like a  new blogger to build everything back. If you're reading this, could you comment so I know if anyone is still here?

Needles aren't just for Sewing

Yesterday was a beautiful and warm (22 degrees Celsius!) autumn day. And I spent most of it outside prepping the garden for winter. Putting ornaments away, covering furniture, repotting plants to take inside and reroofing the shed (I thought). Bad news was, when I pulled the roll of roofing from the shed and tried to put it on the shed it tore apart. Crap. Well I ended up nailing it up there and then covering it with a tarp - with the help of Jp and the kid.

Good thing too because today it is pouring rain. Pouring I say!!! LOL. Overly dramatic, that's me.

Welcome to winter now.

I'm itching to hang up my Halloween decorations but I have a note from last year telling myself not to do it too early as there are always some windy days that end up blowing everything all around or cause the ornaments to bang against the house. Maybe by the end of the week? One week should be fine I suppose. And yes, I could do some inside, except they are all in the same container so if I'm going to pull them out of storage, I'll do it all at once.

I've also been dealing with neck and back pain for the past little while. The good news is, it seems to be muscles and not bones. I'm just really tight. A little voice in my head keeps telling me to get back to yoga and as of this morning, I could no longer ignore her. So after I got up and fed Eco, this morning I did a bunch of poses. Then this afternoon I went for some acupuncture. I feel better at the moment and tonight is dance class so that should loosen me up a bit as well. We'll see how that goes.

Do you have any experience with acupuncture?

Fall Weather

There's lots of local talk about our record breaking September weather - for having the most amount of rain on the most amount of days. It definitely was a wet one. It felt like we caught up for all the rain we missed throughout the summer. And some days it was more like a monsoon that our usual fare.

But today it's sunny. At least so I am told. The morning radio hosts were talking about the glorious orange sun this morning, so I excitedly looked out the window, only to see..... FOG. We finally get sun but how would I know!? I kinda looks like this:

Welcome to Autumn in a Rain Forest! Sometime this afternoon I should get to see what all the fuss is about - hopefully the sun'll stay long enough for me to see it. How's your fall weather?

Photo credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dense_Tule_fog_in_Bakersfield,_California.jpg

Catch - Up

I really hate being away from my blog for so long, and at first it was just going to be a couple of days while I was visiting my mom, but then I was home for 1 day and had to go away for two more and then, well, next thing you know more time has passed that I intended. Do you like that answer better than saying "I've been busy?"

My visit with my mom didn't end so well for her. Sadly she started experiencing extreme leg pain and so I took her to the emergency last Saturday night. I stayed with her until around 5:30am when they said they would soon admit her to the hospital. I have to say her experience in emergency wasn't a pleasant one. Besides overly defensive nurses and doctors, excessive delays (they didn't check in on her or talk to her between 1am and 5am) and the horrid sounds of other patients puking and groaning etc. But there wasn't much we could do, she was in extreme pain and couldn't walk and I was afraid things had the potential to get much worse for her so we had to stay.

Once she was admitted things and moved to another ward, things were much better. The nursing staff was much nicer and she was getting checked on regularly by one doctor/specialist or another. Unfortunately for her it was her birthday - not fun to spend your birthday in the hospital - but she seemed in pretty good spirits anyway. Multiple tests have been done for multiple issues and she's still in the hospital one week later. I hope she'll be able to go home soon and resume her independent living. It's unfortunate that she lives so far away (it's an hour flight plus a three hour drive -so at least 4-5 hours of travel after all is done).

Summer's finally over for us, we're back to the rain, and today I think we made up for all the rain we didn't have this summer in one afternoon - can you say "monsoon"? I knew you could (Mr. Rogers reference).

Once again I will have to catch up on many of your blogs as well. I'm feeling a bit of a panic as Halloween is only 33 days away and Christmas is now less than 90. I need to hustle to make things and buy gifts and I'm feeling a wee bit nervous. Hope you're well, more to follow shortly.

"June is bustin' out all over...

 ...June better get a new dress."

 - that's a little joke my dad used to have. He'd sing the beginning line of the song and then end with the second line. For years I didn't even know it was a real song:

June 1st today. Wowza! How did that happen? It seemed like it was the beginning of spring just a short time ago. I feel like I've been in a fog the last week or so. In fact the other day I went from 7am to 9:30 and I don't know how.

Since I work from home, usually around 7:30 I make Jp a cup of coffee and bring it to him before he starts his work day. But the other day I suddenly realized he was in the kitchen at 9:30 making his own coffee. I didn't hear him get up, or shower or anything. I mean I kinda did, but I kinda didn't. That's a wee bit scary don't you think?

Anyway, work 'year end' is over. It's Saturday and it's the first of June. I'm ready to get started on getting things done. First up was some marketing and business for my little shop which I've basically neglected the past 2 months - and it shows. Sheesh. It's true you need 50% in making things and 50% marketing.

And I'm kinda glad that it's a cloudy day with some 'spitting' rain  so I can get some desk work/office work done. Does anyone else use that term  - spitting rain - besides us Vancouverites? Just like they say the Inuit have 50 words for snow, I'd say we could probably come up with just as  many to describe our rain - like "Scottish Mist" or "movie rain", that kind of thing.

Day 4

It's a good thing I don't make New Year's resolutions because I would have already broken them - we're only on day 4 and already I feel like time's whizzing by again. Same old, same old:

January 1 - hey, it's New Year's day, relax, don't do anything... so I didn't
January 2 - work day, walk dog, then family dinner *
January 3 - work day, walk dog, knit, dinner, knit, time for bed
January 4 - work day - probably repeat some of yesterday.

We had had a couple of dry days, including a couple of glorious sunny days with the most beautiful West Coast sunrises and sunsets for which I am very grateful for -  I think god/the universe/etc knows that we'd all go stark raving mad if we had rain and cloud for too long so at least every 5 weeks we get a reprieve long enough to restore our sanity and then back to rain again.

I was hoping to take advantage of the drier weather to get out there and take down the outside Christmas decorations but as I was knitting before dinner last night my attention was drawn to different sounds outside and I realized that it had started raining again. Drat! And now it's supposed to rain for a while which means I'll have to take down all those decorations but put them in my carport for a couple of days so they can dry before I put them away for 11 months. I was really hoping to get to my inflatable snowman before he got all wet. Now you know what I'll be doing tomorrow -up and down the ladder in the rain... I normally don't complain about our weather too much, but sometimes it has really bad timing!

*************

*(a belated Christmas dinner - with all the trimmings - including an aunt who tried a new recipe for candied yams with pecans forgetting completely about my stepson's allergy to nuts - it was touch and go there for a bit but he recovered pretty quickly. Being a teenager he didn't make a big deal about it, but the aunt couldn't let it go and about every 15 minutes kept brining up about how she almost killed him. Good times. Good times. )

Okay so I hadn't finished shopping as I said in my last post - there were a couple of people I wanted to get things for -one was a little stocking stuffer for all the girls in my dance glass. That was kinda hard because I needed at least 8 items and I'm not exactly rich - it took days of hunting for something that wasn't too cheap but was still a cute little item and I needed to find multiples of them so just when I'd find something I'd realize they didn't have enough of them... I ended up finding a little box on a ribbon that looked like an ornament but had chocolate bells inside. I passed them out at the end of class and they seemed thrilled -Mission Accomplished.

I did get a couple more rows knit on my ripple/wave scarf - here's a quick snapshot of the progress.

It'll look better once it's finished and 

I've blocked it (that gets it wet and stretches it out) 

Continuing on our James Bond movie watching, we're now up to Licence to Kill (1989) with Timothy Dalton. While watching the Living Daylights (1987), the first movie with Timothy Dalton, I could see why many fans didn't like him that much but then I also didn't like that movie very much. Licence to Kill was actually pretty good. Being a bit of a Pierce Brosnan fan I'm kinda looking forward to Golden Eye(1995).

Winter in Vancouver isn't so fun. Oh sure it's mild and all that but we go for days with grey skies. I'd much rather have -19 degrees celsius and bright blue skies with the sun shining than have +8 degrees and the grey skies. And it's not the rain that gets me (lots of people complain about the rain) - for me, it's the darkness. All the lights have to be on in the house all day because it's dark. And some days it's been so dark my Christmas lights on dawn/dusk timers go off at 2:30 in the afternoon! See? It's not just me that thinks it's too dark, the electronic sensors do too!

So.. why am I telling you this, only because if you have the same type of weather, you'll appreciate this pick-me-up:

See that happy dish? That was our dinner last night  - Pina Colada Shrimp and Rice. YUM. It's shrimp and pineapple and coconut and yellow peppers and green onions. Not only is it yummy but it helps put a little summer into winter! Try it, you might like it!

Oh Happy Day

Today is a beautiful dry, warm spring (okay technically it's still winter for another six weeks but it sure feels like spring) day. It feels good. I'm so glad we had a break from the rain. And the cold. Cold I can handle. Rain I can handle. Cold and rainy makes me just want to crawl in bed or take a hot shower just to get warm and not do much else.

Today, it's a beautiful, dry, warm day. It feels good. I did a little clean up in the garden, and it makes me happy to see the yard looking a little better.

Yesterday was laundry day, and let me go on record saying 'it was a very good laundry day'. I actually looked forward to it. Now you're thinking I'm completely insane but you see, earlier in the week we bought a brand new HE washer and dryer set. This is my first NEW washer and dryer, and it was pleasure to have them work so well, getting things clean and dry in only a few hours. With the old set, it was not 'laundry day' but 'laundry weekend'. It took two days, I had to set timers and plan my loads doing a wash load later at night so I could do a dry load in the morning, waiting for the boys to get up so I didn't wake them up with the washing. With the new set, you can't even tell either of them are running-so quiet! And clothes are dry!

To many people they may be thinking "come on lady, what's the big deal?" but  I'm on the verge of going on stress leave at work so these simple 'victories' mean more to me than most people.  Today I feel happy and good and I am enjoying the day without thinking of  the work week ahead of me. (oops, just did)

How is your weekend?

Holy Cow it was Raining

This has been a very wet winter for us, and my backyard it showing the signs. It looks more like a horse pasture than a suburban lawn. Yesterday it rained so hard, that the ground couldn't take it and a 12' x 8' puddle formed that took about 3 hours to dissipate. In the 12 years I have lived here, I have never had a puddle like this.

Look at the 'lawn' - there is nothing left. I am already preparing myself for the fact that I'll most like have to buy some sod this spring!

A Happy Halloween

Well I must say, this was the smoothest, least stressful Halloween in about 10 years. The biggest difference of course was not dealing with a super freaked out noise phobic dog! You have no idea how difficult that is, especially since I'd be dealing with it at least 30 days before Halloween. But that's all in the past now - Eco reacts to the firecrackers but has no fear of them. In fact a couple of times last night we were out in the back yard playing ball as we always do and she continued to play as she always does. Firecrackers continuously went off in every direction last night, but none were too close so I didn't have to worry about my house going up in flames. Whew! Maybe I'm actually start to like Halloween again.

Today is All Saints Day and is to be a solemn day, which it feels like since it's raining hard on a cold, dark Monday  - blah, what a way to start the week. To me, November first means I'd better get cracking if I'm supposed to make Christmas presents!

How about you? How was your Halloween last night? Do you have lots of things you're planning to make for Christmas?