Am I Blue?

My blue picture for the day is the ceiling of my downstair washroom. I am trying to make it sort of tree and sky like so this blue is the sky. The walls will be green but not the green that you see in the picture. So far I like it. The pictures that line the walls in this little 5.5 footX6.5 foot room are of birds. Pictures we've bought. Pictures we've taken. Pictures that were painted. Eventually we are getting a new toilet. The one we currently have is the hold down to flush then jiggle the handle variety. It doesn't seem to matter how many times we fix the ball and chain eventually it reverts to hold down and jiggle. We actually looked at one at Home Depot! I am so excited! The floor will be wood laminate and I am tossing around the idea of laminating the cupboards in woodgrain. You know forest floor, tree trunks, the leaves and birds and the sky. Can you picture it?? I hope that I am picturing it the way it will turn out! I give myself permission to stop at any point where I think that anything else will be too much!

Look Ma I've been painting! This my left hand after it was washed! I like to experience the painting process fully!


Blue by Joni Mitchell

Blue, songs are like tattoos
You know Ive been to sea betore
Crown and anchor me
Or let me sail away
Hey blue, here is a song for you
Ink on a pin
Underneath the skin
An empty space to fill in
Well therere so many sinking now
Youve got to keep thinking
You can make it thru these waves
Acid, booze, and ass
Needles, guns, and grass
Lots of laughs, lots of laughs
Everybodys saying that hells the hippest way to go
Well I dont think so
But Im gonna take a look around it though
Blue, I love you

Blue, here is a shell for you
Inside youll hear a sigh
A foggy lullaby
There is your song from me

This one of my favorite Joni Mitchell songs! She is a Canadian you know...although she lives in the USA now I think she has a place on an island off the west coast of Canada.

I did do some knitting today too between washing, sanding and painting. I AM reknitting a sock for my MIL because the yarn I was using is discontinued. So I am knitting the second sock right off of the toes of the first sock then I am going to find a complimentary colour to finish them both. Her ankles and feet are so swollen that it took nearly 100grs to knit one sock. She should have them by fall then she'll have dancing socks!!

I finished the Canada Goose vest just in time for my Fathers birthday in 11 days! I need to block it now and then I will post a picture!

Jerie, welcome home! My niece Jerie has been in England for the past month. She just got home tonight and is jet lagged but she seems to have had a great time. She was staying in Oxford and then traveled around from there.

Well, I've got to go see if I need to do any touch ups and then I am done painting for today. Green painting tomorrow!

Happy Birthday Jim!

It is my DH's birthday today. He is a whopping 56 years old! Ok, can someone tell me when we gat to be our parents age? Happy birthday to him! One of his gifts were these cool (crap I am having trouble spel;ling tody...See what I mean!) movie popcorn containers. Some of us remember when the popcorn would come in cardboard "cups" like these. Possibly some theatres still do it. Any how I saw these in ceramic and couldn't resist. He has a bowl fetish (edited to change...Fetish to obsession...sorry Jim...It was the Pina Coladas) and loves his popcorn! The perfect gift, right? Can't wait to have popcorn out of them! Speaking of popcorn does anybody pop theirs the "old fashioned" way..in a pot on the stove? We still do. I am not a fan of the microwave type at all. I can smell the chemicals as the popcorn is popping! The sounds of stove top popping reminds me of my youth. The taste of real butter and salt on it so satisfying...OK we use Becel now but occasionally we splurge. If I wasn't so full of supper I'd have some now.
Now, being the remiss wife that I am Jim cooked supper tonight even though it was his birthday. He made a scrumptious bean salad out of these wonderful beans pictured below. The green beans started out purply red but cooked up green. Cool! I had to take a picture in the serving bowl

and then close up. All those greens and yellows....so cool.
My mother brought Filet Mignon to Barbeque (which Jim did), there was baked potato and the bean and dill salad. For desert (I actually took care of dessert!!Surprise) We had Angel food cake with ice cream and a 3 berry sauce made of blueberries, strawberries and raspberries. (Patrick smothered it all in chocolate sauce (the cheap kind), yuck..) Full I still am!

Possibly one of the reasons that my fingers are having a hard time finding the right keys here (you can't tell but I am having to type every other word 2 or 3 times before I hit the proper keys) is that I drank almost a whole mix of Pina Colada myself. Everybody else had wine but wine gives me migraines occasionally and the weather today was thundery and rainy so I was on the verge of one all day. Anyhow Rum does not give me migraines and I have had this Pina Colada in the freezer for eons so I made it. (Are my sentences a tad run onish?)(Now you know how my brain functuions). SO.. I had two tumblers full and then I poured myself the rest but knocked it over and got it on the carpet and in a bag with my Opal Superwash. Thank god it is superwash. The sock I am half way through (picture tomorrow) is going to smell divine for a while. Did you know that it is really difficult to knit with wet yarn on sticky needles?

Our sweet little dog Kessie likes Pina Colada. I found out a few weeks ago (when I again spilled a full tumbler of Strawberry Daquari) that she likes that too! Should I be worried? Should I stop drinking these sweet alcoholic drinks? Should I stop before I bore everyone? Is anybody still reading?

Ok...I'll stop now. Goodnight.

Sugar Bowl Show and Tell

This first sugar bowl is my everyday bowl. It is all purpose Tupperware! The only time it gets used is when we have guests because Jim and I never have sugar in our coffee or tea.

This second sugar bowl I bought at a yard sale years ago. It came without it's lid. I use it when we are having dinner in the dining room and using our good dishes so rarely gets used!

Wednesday Word

Acrimony

n.

Sharpness, bitterness or harshness of temper, manner or speech. asperity

Many would say that I speak with acrimony. Not that I am full of acrimony. I just have a sharp manner of speech. I am not acrimonious, I just sound that way. I upset many people because of this. I am constantly apoligizing.

Cable-interuputus

Knitting Nirvana lasted one day and then this...can you see it? I held to the front instead of to the back!! I discovered it 4 rows after the fact. Life was starting to get interesting again!

I chose to ladder down the cable and re do only it. The mere thought of tinking was overwhelming.

Ahthere.... back on track again! (sorry about blurrries) And now, at 9:38 PM I am starting to cast off the shoulder!!!
Tomorrow....Will the sknitty lady be able to maintain concentration for the finishing touches????

Cables

As I was working on the Canada Goose vest I reached a point in the cable design where I no longer had to look at the pattern. I thought, "Ah, this is the part that I love the best." The part when everything finally comes together and it is all smooth sailing. But, then I realized that at some point this "smooth sailing" would become boring and I would be longing once again to move onto something different. At some point, if I stuck with the vest, I would f***up. The sailing would be too smooth and I would create a problem to solve.

So... what is the part that I like the best? Is it the challenge of solving the pattern, is it finally getting "it" or is it forcing myself to stay focussed long enough to finish the project? It is a bit like life don't you think? As a humans we struggle to make sense of things, to find the perfect balance in our life. Then we get it... Then it is the same old, same old and it is not the perfect balance anymore. Yes, life is like a cable pattern. Lots of twists and turns. Lots of ups and downs, overs and unders, knits and purls. It is interesting, it is challenging. But if the pattern is not complex enough or varied enough it gets dull. We change or plod on depending on our moods or disposition.

I love doing cables. It is my favorite knitting technique. I love how the fabric I am creating feels. I love the fact that it is very like Celtic Knots. I feel connected with history when I cable. So this vest that I keep coming back to is a joy to knit. Obviously I have had to put it down from time to time and knit something different (or it would have been finished by now) but the feeling of perfect knowledge of the pattern didn't arrive until this morning. It makes me appreciate life and its complexities. Tomorrow is another day and I probably will be wanting something new again. But then again I get bored extremely easily. I am thankful for today.



Another thing to be thankful for....Jim finished the new deck stairs! They are sturdier than the old ones. The railing isn't threatening to fall down any more. It was a challenge and he stuck with it. Tomorrow is another day for him too!

My First Pig Roast

I attended my first pig roast today and I must say it was delicious! It was held at "Grumpy's" house in Myrtle Station. He put the wee beast on at 9 AM and we were ready to eat at 6:30 PM. Jim, Patrick and I attended however Rhea chose to go to a friend's for a sleep over. Apparently she thought if she saw a full pig roasting over an open flame she would just up and become a vegetarian. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I wasn't sure myself how I would feel seeing it. Luckily we didn't arrive until about 4:30 PM so I was able to separate the living beast from the meat cooking. We are just such carnivores. Actually we are omnivores but who is being picky? Me I guess. Inside the pig was a roast beef which I thought was interesting. Patrick and Jim had a piece and said it was good.

Roast Pig being carved.
The Roast Pig.
And this here is "Grumpy" Finally getting some food into himself while still organizing the whole group of us.

I got reunited with an old knitting buddy of mine which was a bonus! "Grumpy's" daughter. I met her at knitting class and felt like I had known her all along. We lost touch for about 10 years while I raised children and she became a lawyer. I thought about her often through the years and I was surprised to find out that she had thought of me too. Now that she has finished her schooling and I have almost finished raising my kiddos we plan on staying in touch!! Right, K.?
A final shot for me... the most handsome boy at the pig roast.

I was reading the Toronto Star today and saw an article about a Canadian Artist named Nancy Nisbet who is travelling around the USA with a 12 metre container containing her worldly possessions. She calls the trip her Exchange Project and is doing it as a "performance of resistance" about the Free Trade Agreement. She has a web site..... http://exchangeproject.ca/index.php that keeps you up to date on her tour. An interesting concept.

Coffee Maker Show and Tell

I wish I had some cool perculator to show for my show and tell! But I don't. My coffee making is utilitarian and easy. On the weekends when Jim and I are both home we usually make a pot on this lovely Phillips Cafe Master. We used to have a bodum and I would go back to that but we so often break the carafes. The coffee we use is The Great Canadian Coffee becauser it tastes like the Tim Hortons coffee but is half the price. On weekdays we use this Melitta single cup drip method. Well, Jim uses it and when I am at work I wait until I am there to grab my cuppa Joe. It is not as good but I have trouble being organized enough to make coffee before I leave the house since I like to sleep as long as possible. If there was a Tim Horton's on my way to work I would be doing drive thru.

I remember that my parents had this really cool perculator that was two big shiny stainless steel balls. My sister and I loved looking at our reflections in it because our faces got so distorted. It was like having breakfast in the fun house! I wonder if either of them still have it? Jae, do you remember?

And now I must go get my second cup of coffee for the day! Have a good one!

Power Outage!

Power Outage!! We just had one and I lost all my post! That should teach me to save and log out before having supper. Well, it probably won't but I'll pretend it will. The pictures I had downloaded are gone (for now) and the photos don't want to be downloaded again right now. As I like to say....frickerbricker....

Lets try again....ag....we have contact!!! It happened! It happened!

And know to try and recapture the original essence of this post....
Ahhem...

While the family was in Windsor (Ontario) we attended a retierement party for Jim and his cousin John at his brother John's place. Of course, I brought some knitting. Could any of you go a whole afternoon of sitting around and talking without at least wishing you had some knitting needles in your hands? Tell me the truth! I don't want to be the only one!!

Here is Jim's sister Judy holding up the sock I was knitting for my Mother in Law. The poor lady (not Judy) has such swollen ankles and legs that I decided she needed some custom made beautiful socks. I hope they are not too wild for her. Maybe I should have done them before she got her cataracts removed! The would have looked lovely and pastel then. Judy is being a real trouper here. I was absolutely astonished that she actually agreed to hold up the sock! She, as most of my in-laws, really doesn't like having her picture taken. She is probably absolutely aghast that I have chosen to share this picture with all of you! Yep, she's a real trouper! (Get up off the floor Judy)

I felted all 3 of the purses today and only liked the outcome of two. The first is my attempt at an oriental pagoda type shape. Didn't really work but I like the result anyways.
This second purse is not in colours that I really like but I found this pinkish lopi in a stash of hand-me-down yarns and decided to use it this way. With the stripes it reminds me of a flipped muted Hudson's Bay blanket. I knit it near Georgian Bay so I call it The Georgian Bay purse.
I've reached the end! No power outage! I'm publishing now!

What I was Knitting

Kelly wants to know what I am knitting in the picture below!

It is a purse that is hopefully going to look alot better once it is felted! I have a lot of lopi in my stash so I decided that there was no better way to use it up than to knit purses for felting. It is actually a perfect camping project because it doesn't matter if the yarn drops on the ground (to finish the project it must be washed), being outside means that the lopi fluff is not annoying (it just becomes part of nature) and if you get cold you can use it for a hat! (Or if someone is taking your picture you can hide behind it!!LOL) Below is a picture of the three bags that I knitted for felting. This is the group pre-felting shot. I will felt them today and hopefully take the beauty shots tomorrow. Has anybody ever felted using Koolaid dyes? I just might try it to see how it goes...
I also finished these socks. I made up my own surface design. I did K5,P1 for 5 rows, next row:k1, (k3,P3), k2 and repeated to the end. I am still not happy with my toes but I think I finally got the flap heel figured out. They are made in Regia Cotton Funny Steps Color #5429. Since I made short socks it took only one 50 gram ball.

Lake Grundy (part 2)

So what did we do on our trip?

Well, we read.....

and read.

We were big silly goofballs often flying high from eating too many s'mores in the evening but also often because we just wanted to bug each other.

We sat quietly and contemplated life.

And ...well...need you be told?

I knit.

I knitted by the beach, at the campsite, on the rocks, by the fire....Knitting in the wild....there is nothing quite like it!

Lake Grundy

We arrived at Grundy Lake on a Wednesday and set up camp. The weather was actually on the cool side and I was anticipating the possiblilty of being cold all week. It was not to be, fortunately. The weather was warm and wonderful during the days and dipped down to a very comfortable cool for sleeping. We were in bathing suits all day and in sweats in front of the fire at night. The picture below is the first day when we were setting up our kitchen tent. We had three tents. It seemed the norm for all campsites to have 3 tents. One kitchen tent and two tents for sleeping. So we were part of the norm.

The lakes themselves were not terribly big. There are no motor boats allowed on any of the lakes in the park so the only ways of crossing the lakes were swimming, paddle boating or canoeing. We spent most of our time on Grundy Lake itself but Jim got a shot of a Loon on Gut Lake while he and Pat were fishing early one morning. The Loon call is my all time favorite bird call. It is so lonely and haunting and wistful. I could listen to it all night. The Loons flew over our campsite everyday, lake hopping.

The terrain in this area of Ontario is very rocky so alot of the shore line is rockes sloping out of the water as in the picture below (and above) that was taken at the south east end of Grundy Lake. They did have a sand beach but I am sure they must have brought in the sand.

Rhea actually found a favorite rock at the park on Grundy lake and we watched the sun set together one evening. Unfortunately for her it also turned out to be a preferred jumping rock for the children from the other family that joined us at the park mid week. Her solitude was shattered. Hopefully next year she'll have more alone time there.
We do hope to go there again next year now that we know some of the corners of the park.

Next time...the jumping rock and other activities! Tune in tomorrow!

Back Home Briefly

Hello everyone. We are home for 2 days then we are off to Windsor to have a retirement celebration for Jim! We had a great week at Grundy Lake. It only rained twice. The first time was shortly after we set up the tents and were ready for bed anyways. The second time was on Monday and thankfully it was about 8:30 at night. We heard the thunder rolling in for about an hour before hand and when the rain came down it was torrential. We had about 2 inches of water on our campsite! Thankfully our tents stayed relatively dry! We retreated to our tents for the night and Rhea and I had a rousing game of Scrabble.

This is the sunset on Saturday evening over Grundy Lake.

Patrick learned that he absolutely loves to fish. He caught many but they were all too small to keep.

I know I am borrowing this Idea from The Yarn Harlot but the sock saw the beach where the children went swimming.

Probably my proudest moment as a knitting Mom occured during this camping trip...Rhea asked me to show her how to knit and she enjoyed it!!!

A shot of our campsite.

I so love being in the middle of nature. It really centers me and makes me remember the important things in life.

I can't wait to get out there again and wake up to the sun and the birds voices.

Gone Camping

By tomorrow afternoon I and my family will be enjoying sights like the one above. We are off to Grundy Lake Provincial Park for a week.

I'll have knitting to show when we get back.

Have a good week everyone!

Homework...ya sure...

Yes, the following pictures are of my homework. I am taking an internet course on Wellness for Children. The assignment...a snack presentation. May I present Leaf the Lion! ROAR! Eat him before he eats you!
Made of lettuce, carrots, cucumber, red pepper and salad dressing (ranch).

Then there is Foody the Fly! Not really a snack but a dinner presentation.

Am I good or what? Don't answer. There is a reason why I never made fancy foods for my children when they were young. They are so lucky they were never picky eaters! Food presentation is so not my thing!

I was having fun with the memes today since I was into blogging but really had nothing to talk about...until the food accident happened. (view pictures above!)

Spent a good part of my day working on my blouse for the sew-a-long. All I have to do is put the sleeves in and hem, yay! Also went to Chapters today to find the Debbie Macomber book The Shop on Blossom Street... the shop is a knitting shop. A romance, ahh, perfect summer reading. I have the second book called A Good Yarn but I want to read the first one first. I was hoping to have it for the camping trip but I had to order it so probably won't. I did get the latest Yarn Harlot book though so I'll have some knitting reading to go with my knitting knitting while camping.

Tomorrow I see the vet to get Kessie's stitches out, my Family Doctor to update the prescriptions and the surgeon to find out what is going on with my left boobage. Remember the movie My Left Foot ...I feel as if I am talking about a movie called My Left Breast....I just decided to search sthe movie name and guess what someone has already made one albeit my version would have been a thoughtful comedy and this one is a true drama. Now that I know it exists I will have to find it and watch it.

I really must go and finish my homework...I need to write a one page description of my healthy snack!

Another Meme

This is another fun meme sent to me by KT via Pea Soup via...go have a look see!

YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME
(grandfather/grandmother on your father's side, your favorite sweet/lolly):

Hessie Werthers
(I cheated and used my maternal Grandmother's name cause I like it)

YOUR FLY GIRL/GUY NAME (first initial of first name followed by "izzle", first two or three letters of your last name followed by "dizzle"):

Mizzle Mundizzle. Yo, yo, yo.


YOUR DETECTIVE NAME (favourite color, favourite animal):
Chartreuse Hedgehog (female undercover)
Rust Dolphin (male undercover)
Apple Whale
(help!!! I don't have one favorite colour or animal!)
Multicolour Mammal ( that should cover it all!)

YOUR STAR WARS NAME (first 3 letters of your name- last 3 letters of mother's maiden name, first 3 letters of your pet's name repeated twice):

Mar-rry Keskes
The Kissing Wedding planner!

YOUR SUPERHERO NAME ("The", your favourite color, the automobile you drive):

The Peach Montana

Whips up Peaches Melba with out warning!

Book Meme

Book Meme:

a) pick up a book which is the closest to you at the moment
b) open page 123
c) find the third sentence
d) post it in your Live Journal (plus the instructions)
e) don't choose the book, just pick up the one closest to you

My book: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

"Sixteen Galleons."