Some Assembly Required

So we have moved. But we are far from being settled. While the house is functional, it is far from being a place where we would feel comfortable inviting the new neighbours. The new place is large. Very Large.

Here are a couple of pictures before we moved things in.

Dining room

Mira's room

office

Kitchen

Living room

The house is bungalow with 6 bedrooms, 3 baths, 2 kitchen, work room, studio space, countless closets, laundry room, linen closet, and A DISHWASHER!

These are the "before" pictures. I am not going to show you the after pictures just yet. And the reason for that is...well....let's just look at a few more "before" pictures. These are of the old place the weekend before the movers came.

OMG! Look at all this Stuff! How did this happen?

I think you get the picture. There are more rooms like this.

Our former living space Filled with Boxes of Stuff. Good Stuff. Bad Stuff. Random Papers. Cables and Cords. Computer Parts, etc. (yes I am speaking to you Dear) Kid Stuff. My Stuff. Stuff we Need and Stuff that We should have gotten Rid Of Ages Ago. (hint hint-no time like the present!)

Seriously! We had been at the old place for 15 years. When we moved in, it was Me, Bill, Mira, and Bug the Cat. The cat eventually went to the Great Catnip Field in the Sky and in the mean time was replaced by Three Kids. So that made 6 people in a space that fit 3 comfortably. And they all had their own stuff. Sort of reminds me of A guy named George.

In any case, it all went into a truck.

And there was more stuff so they came back for a second trip. Although I will say that the second trip wasn't quite so full. The main reason for the second trip was to pick up the freezer, which had to be emptied, and seeing as they were picking things up on Monday and delivering them on Tuesday and seeing as I didn't want my frozen foods sitting out over night I thought that it would be better if we just got the freezer and the food and what ever else didn't fit into the truck although it was a whole lot more than I thought would be left over so I was glad that we had their services for another day even though it ended up costing Way More than I had estimated it would.

A few words about moving guys.

These fellows really know how to pack. At first I was a little concerned because they seemed to be taking a Very Long Time getting things on the truck. There were three guys and two of them seemed to be taking an awful lot of smoke breaks. I was frantically packing the last of the things in the kitchen and it wasn't until we were at the new house that I realized Why they were taking so long. The truck was packed like it was a Tetris Game! No wasted space. Everything was snugged up quite tightly and a lot of the furniture was wrapped in blankets. Reality dawned. I am glad that I am not a mover. 

In any case...The kids are going to school, we are working, doing homework, laundry, meal preparations, dishes, unpacking, Garden Stuff STILL ( more on that later) And I am thinking about starting to try and prepare for one of my three Christmas Sales that is NEXT WEEKEND? WHAT!? 

Deep, calming breaths.

The long and the short of it is that we haven't been solely focused on unpacking. And so the house looks like a combination of the pictures from the old place and the new one.  All that space with all those boxes. I really hope to be settled by Christmas with Most of the boxes unpacked and stuff put away, or disposed of, or given away. The kitchen is mostly unpacked and functional (although I am still playing the "Where did I put That!" game.) The kids bedrooms are mostly  unpacked. My studio space had carpet which had to come up, which also meant carpet tack to remove, which then meant that concrete patch had to be bought (done) and applied (not done) before the floor could be painted and all of my stuff moved in.

I am at the point of saying "it will happen when it happens"

And you will be able to look forward to a new view when I post pictures of the snow storms that will hit this coming winter. Not looking forward to That! Although shoveling the drive way will be much easier because it is much shorter and there are no houses right against it! Whhhheeee!

I haven't been avoiding you.

We are moving and that has taken all of my energy.
Well, that and starting actually teaching including developing some curriculum and delivering said curriculum instead of hovering in the background and quietly helping students.
And dealing with all of the produce from the garden.
And then there are 4 kids and all of the things that they need. Like regular meals and clean laundry and someone to throw a cleaning cloth at the bathroom occasionally.

I have been very very busy.

But once we are settled in about two or three weeks, I will return and give you a tour of our new digs!

Which one is Easter?

Yesterday for breakfast we went to the Stanley Sugarbush for their Buffet Breakfast. Pancakes, sausages, ham, egg frittata, french toast, beans, and the cutest darn waffles that you have ever seen! Coffee, tea, cranberry and apple juice. We went with Christine's friend Kathryne and it was a good time. I went back a couple of times to get "just a little more" and as a consiquence wasn't really all that hungry for the rest of the day. Two of my cousins from Montreal came up to visit along with Ed's wife Donna, and Paul's son Michael. Listening to Ed and Paul go on was like taking a step back in time. We spent an afternoon laughing and playing "do you remember...?", and then all went out to dinner before they headed back to Montreal.

I forgot to take pictures of the cousins but I did take a few pictures of the critters at the farm because I knew that Mira would be interested.
First there were a couple of goats. One was in a pen and the other was laying in the alley apparently very unconcerned by the massive amounts of people hanging around.

 There were a number of draft horses. I don't know what kind but they were exactly what you would expect from draft horses. They were harry and large and really sent my allergy meter through the roof. No pictures of them either.

In the next barn there were birds. Like these lovely peacocks. I think that they had moulted their fancy feathers for the winter because they had very short tails.  There were four fancy boys and a very dull lady with them.

There were no chickens but there were a few turkeys. These fellows were the least offensive of the group.

Next came the Bronze turkeys. Their feathers were beautiful.

They would holler their turkey gobble and the guys in the yard would answer.

These fellows were strutting around the yard. Again there were 4 guys and one lady if the brilliant plumage was to be believed.

And I think I found out which ones were called Easter. They were the brothers with the attitude.

More Learning about Travel

Today I learned about getting bumped off a flight.
I was suppose to get on a 6:30 am flight to Ottawa to go visit my sister, her husband, and most importantly, my new nephew!
Early morning travel means getting up early. Did that. I was at the airport in plenty of time. Did the whole check the baggage thing and was directed to go here and there for various security checks. Had my bag swabbed. I think it may have been the combination of a bunch of batteries, loose change, puffers, and the metal coils on my yaktracks that had my bag looking suspicious. He almost seemed surprised when the swab came out clean. I asked him what he was looking for and he said "explosives". He then let me through and I proceeded to wait for my boarding call. The flight ahead of us was delayed a bit and so were we. Fine, no worries.
After the Toronto flight left, the fellow came on the intercom and said that our flight was over weight and he needed 5 people to take a later flight. None of the luggage was going on and it was still too heavy. Apparently the problem was in Ottawa. It was the "weather" and the pilot wanted to ensure that he had enough fuel to circle the airport for hours or land somewhere else. I talked to my sister after I got home and she said that the weather was a few tiny flakes of snow now and again. "I wouldn't even call the flurries!"
In any case, no one volunteered to go later (big surprise) and they started boarding people. When I got there, he looked at my ticket and said, "stand over there please" And so I waited as he let more people on board and told a couple of other people to wait also. Wondering why, I asked a few questions. One woman suggested that it was because we didn't "reserve" our seats. Maybe it was because I didn't "check in" on-line the day before. Any one have any other explanation why me? Or ideas to ensure that it doesn't happen again?
In any case the next available flight would have been this evening and about 8:30ish. And it was going through Toronto. Not being a seasoned traveler, I didn't want to have to deal with transferring in Toronto. I have heard that it is a nightmare and didn't really want to experience it first hand. The next direct flight (there being only one a day from Fredericton to Ottawa) was next week. So I am delayed a week. Having told my story to several people, they all agree that Toronto is a great place to avoid as far as transfers go, but Montreal is fine. I did get a $200 travel voucher to use against the cost of the next flight that I want to take. Next time I will endeavour to be more adventuress and go via Montreal. But I hope to never be bumped again.

I feel like I should be posting

And really I probably should. I have been doing things. All sorts of things. I just haven't felt much like writing about them. A lot of them should have been photographed, but that really didn't happen either.
In sort of the right order.......
I have been to Liam's year end review. He was in Cadets this year and he really enjoyed it.

We planted the garden. Mostly the same stuff as always with the addition of brussel sprouts. Or brussel stench as Mira calls them. There is a lot of weeding to be done, but that is also nothing new.

I attended the Craft College graduation cerimonies. Where Rachel, Celine, Katie, and Jessica all marched up in their caps and gowns and were presented with  their Diplomas. Congradulations all! I am so proud of you!

I did a stint as an artist in residence. It was in a different location than last year and I didn't like it nearly as much. Thankfully the renovations that caused the move are going to be complete and we will be back in the regular spot next year.

I heard Nicole's choir sing at the retirement party for her school principal. They all performed really well and we were able to duck out before the speeches began. Sorry for the blurry photo but with other peoples kids I think blurry is better.

I taught a silk scarf dyeing workshop for my weaving group. We all had a great time but I didn't take any pictures. (slaps own hand)

UPDATE: I had forgotten that I had dyed a scarf myself at the workshop! I found it in it's hiding place and rinsed it out and here it is! Still wet. It was a quick pattern (simple knots) with different greens on each segment. I am rather pleased at how it turned out.

Before I finished work for the summer, I took advantage of the nice warping mill at the school and made up about 6 warps. With some of the dye left over from the workshop, I dyed some of them and some will wait until later. The dyes that we used are fibre reactive dyes that only last a very short time once they are mixed up.

And I also dyed some some soya silk sliver. It looks and feels like silk so we will see how it spins up.

 One of the reasons that I have been neglegent about posting is that I have been suffering from sinus problems for more than a year. I have some good days and some bad days. On the bad days, I feel like my brain is full of fluff and I have sinus pressure. On the good days, I feel almost normal. I have tried two different courses of antibiotics, and various types of nose sprays as well as allergy medications and x-rays to see if there were any strange growths in there. Nope. I am now waiting to see an EMT.  Here's hoping that I get the call soon.


I am weaving a series of 4 silk noil scarves right now. I am finding it hard to find the time to do much weaving because there is always so many other things that are clammoring to be done first. I am not selling anything anywhere this summer so my first big show is Labour Day weekend, and then nothing until November and December, so I guess that the weaving isn't really yelling all that loudly at this point.

Who knew?

So, there I was. In  the local liquor store. It was my birthday the next day and I though that I would pick up a bit of libation. A gal is only the answer to the question of life the universe and everything once, RIGHT?

We picked up a nice bottle of white wine. There was also a bottle of bubbly that looked good. And a couple of beers for good measure. And off we head to the cash. Where I spy this......

Melon Head.
Did you SEE the picture? I couldn't resist!

Yes. That is a cat. In a melon hat. A rather pissed off cat in a watermelon hat.
Yes. There was a surprising hint of melon in the beer. Melon beer! Who knew? Every sip I took was a new discovery. Every time I was surprised by the melon.
I couldn't drink a lot of these in one sitting (too weird) but it was rather enjoyable.

Fibre Arts Retreat!

It seems that I have been rather neglegent in posting for the past month. I have been busy though.

One of the highlights of the month was the trip that my buddy S and I took to the Maritime Fibre Retreat in Nova Scotia. It was at Oak Island Resort and we had a blast!

On the trip down we made a couple of stops. The first was at London Wul (sic) outside of Moncton. Ohhhlala! Heidi's place is crammed with all sorts of goodies of the fibre variety. I picked up and carried around a bunch of yarns and fleece before coming back to reality and putting half of them back.

I love this wall of colour

 Our next stop was Amherst to see Deanne Fitzpatrick's Rug Hooking Studio. I am afraid that I dropped the ball and didn't get any photos, but it was worth seeing. Colour Colour Everywhere!


When we made it to the hotel were the retreat was taking place, we quickly signed in, dropped off our bags in the room, and got straight to spinning. I hardly stopped all weekend. While I have been busy doing things, one of the things that I have not been doing (along with blogging) has been spinning. It was great to sit and spin and sip tea and chat.

S and I set up across from each other and got right to work. You can see the top part of Victoria in the photo above.
The first thing that I had to do was to ply my yarn that had been on the bobbins for a while. This is a blend of 80% merino, 10% nylon, and 10% cashmere that I bought at the spinning retreat in the fall and dyed myself. One skein is 275 yards, the other is 146 yards.

And then I started to spin my hand dyed merino. And I spun and I spun and I spun. 241 yards and 175 yards. I even managed to ply them before the end of the weekend!

And that was a feat because there was so much going on! Spinning, of course, but also weaving on a rigid heddle loom, quilting, knitting, needle felting, tatting, and lots of hooking! There was even a woman who was doing rope work on a bottle! Did I get a picture? No. I was busy spinning.

I met Janet of High Fibre Diet. It was actually a bit of a funny moment. She was chatting away with one of her neighbours and said something about her and her mother teaching weaving, and I said "Wait a minute! Are you High Fibre Diet?" She looked at me and said "yes" and I replied "one thread two thread!" Did I get a picture? No. I was busy spinning.

At one point, there was a gathering of people looking at someone's feet. Susan's maybe? In any case, she does all of her heels like this. Pretty fancy! She described how she did it and it made sense, but did I mark it down? No. I was busy spinning.

But I didn't spend the entire time spinning. The kids wanted me to "pick up" something so I went for a wee walk on the beach. I found shells and beach glass and seaweed. Guess what souveners I picked up for the kids?

The trip was a really good time and even better, really reasonably priced. I almost feel guilty saying that the whole thing (not including gas and all the stops along the way) was only $169. And that included the room for two nights, the fee associated with the retreat, two buffet breakfasts and one really kick-ass supper. The resort had a pool, sauna, and hot tub, all of which I made good use. The view was spectacular and the staff was great. The only one downside was that Saturday night there was an awards dinner in a conference room really close to our room. There were drunken hockey players and karaoke. Need I say more. Thankfully they finished at 1 and were all gone by about 1:20. But still.

All in all, it was a great time and I am looking forward to doing it again next year!

I love weaving

I noticed this the other day when I was winding a skein to dye some weft. I thought that it expressed the way that I feel about yarns and fibres in general. Although it seems lately that I have been having a hard time getting things done. And an even harder time getting things documented. Couple that with kids that have pretty much taken over my computer and you have a serious lack of posting.
Spring is here though. About a month earlier than it normally is so I hope that means that I will soon be taking more pictures and feeling more like blogging.

Right now, my WIP are numreous. I have hand dyed merino/cashmere/nylon on the wheel. I am almost done spinning and can soon start plying. I just have to finish that last little bit of spinning. Hmmmm.

Also there are two pairs of socks on needles. One pair was the left over yarn form the pair that I knit for Liam and I thought that there might be enough to get most of a second pair, but alas, no. SO I just have to dig in my stash to find something  that will go with the mostly dark blue yarn that I dyed a couple of years ago. They will not be prefect, but they will be warm.

Not much yarn left on the left eh? Thank fully they are at the same place right now so I can make them look like an eccentric pair. That's my plan and I'm sticking to it.

The other pair of socks is with Lornas Laces yarn that I won in a draw a few years ago. I had started a couple of pairs of lace socks but lace needs too much attention for me to knit successfully. These are plain jane socks that will be pretty and that is good enough for me for now.

I also have a warp on the loom. More about that later but here is a sneak peek.

And lastly I have felt vessles in various stages of compleation or experimentation.

Add to that a couple of application forms that I need to fill out and TAXES (ick) and general family life and I'm finding that I have little time or energy left for blogging.
Here's hoping that the spring will change all of that.

Happy New Year!

Doesn't that look lovely? And nasty? I'm sure that it is not the hardest puzzle going but thanks to mom and dad and Christine for doing most of it. Somehow, I wasn't particularly in a puzzle making mood this year.

One thing that we were in the mood for was food! We had a few people over for New Years Eve and Bill went all out with the food preparation! Starting in the upper left near the green CD case, mushrooms in puff pastry, chicken samosas both hot and not, coriander hot sauce, potatoes in garlic mayonnaise, sour dough olive bread, spinach and feta filo triangles, chicken tikka, black bean dip both hot and not, and corn chips for dipping. What is not seen is the flan that was going to be for desert. Seriously way too much food, but I didn't have to cook a single thing yesterday.
Sarah brought over a game that her brother bought her for Christmas called "Dirty Minds" if memory serves me correctly. It features rather risque clues to mundane things that you have to guess, IF you can get your mind out of the gutter. Some were easy, some rather hard. No pun intended. We laughed and laughed and Bill has said many times that he really like the game.

I have found that lately it has been getting increasingly hard to write blog posts. The lead up to the Christmas season was particularly brutal this year and I took a while to recover. I didn't feel like doing much of anything beyond the usual things that need to be done at home as well as what needed to be done at work. That left me with little to post about and no energy to try and be entertaining. Typical post from December would have probably gone something like.....

Work today, cleaned dye kitchen, again, fixed the Clement, vacuumed under looms, put new warp on for media class. Couldn't think about supper so left it up to Bill, again. Did laundry. Homework with kids. Fun fun. Read for a while, went to bed.

Not riveting reading.

But I have had a break from many of the usual routines and I am feeling a little refreshed. I hope that this will lead into a new surge of creativity. I started a new felt vessel last night so I think that the year has started off on the right foot. I also plied the yarn that I spun at the spinning retreat two months ago. I have had both Bill and Mira asking to be taught how to spin and so my excuse is that I needed to clear my bobbins. The real reason is that I needed to feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with finishing some of the UFO's that are sitting around. But more on that later.
Happy New Year everyone!

The kids took may pictures of the tree, but I think that this one is my favorite. It is like one of the old style trees with the candles instead of lights. Either that, or an Ent who has had enough and is getting ready to leave.

The kids decorated the tree again this year and I have never heard such squabbles. Nobody was putting anything on in the right place, everybody was in the way, no one was choosing the right ornaments, or conversely, everyone wanted the same ornament to put on. I have put on the 2010 calender at the beginning of December, " Decorate the tree ALONE" And I just may stick to it.

It seemed to be the year of big presents. I was the giver of small presents but the aunts and uncles and grandparents were givers of big presents. Mamoo and grampy gave a big tent that the kids can use camping or at the lake in the summer, Uncle Sandy gave sleeping bags to all the kids, and Aunt Christine and Uncle Joe gave the kids a Telescope. A real on that Joe found second hand from a woman who's husband apparently said "you have too many telescopes so you have to get rid of a couple". Unfortunatly, the photographer was asleep behind the camera. either that or she gave up trying to get a good photo of the animals around the kill (aka: kids around the presents)


And here is the nasty puzzle that I dumped at the farm. Hmmm. Maybe I should have said "brought out" to the farm. I once had a fellow tell me, upon hearing that we liked to do puzzles at Christmas, that if I wanted, he could get me a 15,000 piece puzzle.
I told him thank you , but to take a long walk off a short pier. I did puzzles for pleasure , not for the challenge, and definitely not as a thing of torture. 15,000 pieces. Jeese!


Mom said that she didn't think that such a puzzle existed so I did what any one would do and googled something along the lines of "nasty large puzzles" and found a puzzle that was 24000 pieces. NO THANK YOU!

So mom, how has the puzzle progressed.

Vacation

It is 9:23 and the kids are all still sleeping. There is no need to harass any one to get up, get dressed, have breakfast, make lunches, wash faces, brush hair......you get the picture.
We had a great day yesterday. Opening presents here and then off to my parents house to eat freshly made waffles (thanks Joe) and more presents.
There was great conversations and too much food. Mom and Christine worked on one of the two puzzles that Christine gave me last year. I did one last year, the one that I thought was the easier of the two and it was devilishly hard. So I thought that we would all do it this year. Bwahahaha!

NOTE: The next day......

So life happened around me and here we are , the next day. December 27th. I did a little cleaning and rearranging yesterday while the kids spent the day watching movies. Bill made flan in preparation for New Years and we discussed what else needed to be prepped ahead of time.

I am starting to think about my next felting project.

There is no need to haul kids out of bed again this morning!

Vacation is grand!

pounds and pounds

Of meat?
A couple of weeks ago, Bill went to pick up our yearly allotment of beef. It is raised by a fellow that Bill's brother went to school with. It was a full side of beef that weighed in at about 400 pounds. It was all pre-cut and labeled into steaks, various types of roasts, stew beef, hamburger, and a couple of bags of brisket. I had never heard of brisket before and the first year that we purchased a side of beef (a quarter actually) I really had no idea what to do with it. Eventually, I decided to treat it like a roast and cook it slowly in the oven. WOW! It was the tastiest and most tender meat that we had eaten in a long time! Lots of fat and bone, it is true, but the flavour was amazing.
When you get a whole side of beef, it is really amazing how many T-bone steaks there are! I think that we are set for the next year. It is really wonderful to know that the meat that we are eating had a good life, lived out doors, and was slaughtered as humanely as possible near the place where it was raised.

Children BEWARE!!!!

From the comic Luann......


Has a certain kind of appeal, doesn't it?

Sorry for the long absence. I'll be back soon with some FO's! Including knitting. Life has just been crazy busy and couple that with a slow computer and you have some serious posting issues.

As they say in the TV business.....Please Stand By.....

How many men does it take....

...to raise a tent?
I never did get a final count, but I now know that it also takes one woman....

Over the summer, the barrack square between the school and the casemates was home to a tent that was used by the EdVentures program. It wasn't big enough to serve as a venue tent for the Harvest Jazz and Blues festival, but it worked fine as a beer tent, so the tent builders unlashed it and walked it over to its new location.
Then one fellow needed to remove the pegs that the tent had been lashed too. I was wondering how this was going to be done and then he started to work with this odd contraption.
Next the poles for the new tent were laid out and the workers set to building the roof.
once the roof was all framed in, they needed to put the tarp on. It was laid on in sections and pulled into place.
and then lashed together
Once the roof was all on and secured to the base of the roof frame, they had a tent raising party! All the workers gathered at one end and on the count of three, most lifted while one went to work inserting the legs.
This was repeated all around the tent. Here you can see the woman in blue placing a leg pole.
Then new pegs had to be put in so that the tent could be lashed to it. They used a jack hammer with a cup like attachment to pound the pegs into the ground. When they came to the asphalt, they used an attachment to drill the hole first.
It was one of life's small mysteries that I now have an answer too.