Almost Ready

I'm almost ready, the tree is up, all the presents are wrapped and ready to go.
We will be going to #1 son's on Christmas Eve, the first time we have gone out on Christmas Eve in over 30 years!!! Usually the kids come to us but we are having Christmas Day at our house so #1 sons wife said they would do Christmas Eve. It will be a very nice change.

We went to #4 son's house on Friday with all the gifts for the kids and son and DIL. We had a great time. We first had a very nice supper, linguinni and clam sauce with salad and then peach cobbler and ice cream for dessert - delicious. They are going out of town to DIL's family for Christmas and we wanted them to have their gifts before they left because we had bought them a DVD player with two screen for the van. They were very happy to get that because it will help occupy the little munchkins on the 9 hour journey.

They gave us two NHL hockey tickets for the middle of January and two tickets to see Riverdance that is coming to town in February. DIL also made me a beautiful necklace and matching earrings. She has been making jewellery for a couple of years now and makes some lovely pieces.

I received a package today from Black Eyed Susan's Kitchen. She sent me a beautiful icicle tree ornament. This is a picture of it on my tree. http://sueskitchen.typepad.com/black_eyed_susans_kitchen/ I wish I new how to add a link so you could go and check out Susan's blog. When you click on the link icon when creating a post it just asks you for the http address but I don't think that is what I want. I want to be able to put the blog name in my post and you can click on it and go there. If anyone out there in blogland can help me with this I would be very grateful. Thanks.

Anyhow, I'm going to leave you with a few pictures of some of my Christmas collections and my tree.

This is the first dated tree ornament that I bought. I have bought at least one dated ornament every year since then.

I love this ornament that my sister gave me one year. It's a diva poodle!!
This one is kind of hard to see but it's a nativity scene in a glass domed ball.
This guy is a favourite from the early 80's.

I have many Santas, these are just a few of them.

Here are a few of my snowmen and nutcrackers


This is Mr. Moose that comes to visit every year.Mr. Moose and all the little Christmas Stuffies stay by the tree and are there for any little kidlets that come to play.

I love this card wreath. It holds a lot of cards that usually take up a lot of room all over the place.

These are my bells that I hang on the inside of my front door. I have a great big red bow on the other side.
I love my fake poinsettias that I put out every year and my little reindeers. The red box and the green box came with hand painted (on the inside)round tree ornaments inside. But the boxes are so nice, velvet, that I leave them out on display too.

Man, this is a pretty long post.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and hopefully I will blog again between Christmas and New Years.
Bye for now.

No Crafting!

Before you now it almost 4 weeks have gone by and no blogging has been happening. I've been reading all my favourite blogs everyday, getting lots of inspiration. I've had good intensions but no follow through! But here I am. So, what's new? Nothing too exciting. I'm now on my third cold since September-not impressed. The only good thing about that is that hopefully it will all be over and done with by Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas I'm sad to say I haven't made one handmade thing for Christmas - oh except for a pile of dishclothes. No sweaters knit for the g'children, no sewing or anything. Pretty bad I'd say!!!

I did do a little baking. I made some tourtierres that should be good for a few meals. But no treats baking done yet.

I'd love to say that the Christmas tree in the picture is mine and is in this house, but it's at son #4's house. We were there on Sunday for GD's 7th Birthday. For her birthday treat she had gone to 'Build a Bear' with her BFF and they made matching white poodles in matching red and white dresses. So cute! Other toys of 'the moment' are Tinkerbell anything and Little Pet Shop stuff. Her brother who is only 3 was not impressed that his sister got all this stuff and he only got one token present.

This is what he thought of the whole thing! It's sure hard to be 3!!!

I hope to get a start on the tree and other decorations in the next day are two and then I'll have more pictures.

Bye for now!

Christmas Market

We (my husband, 2 friends and myself) went to the Christmas Market at Spruce Meadows yesterday. Anybody that is into show jumping is probably familiar with Spruce Meadows. It is a world class show jumping facility. Anyway, they now put on a Christmas Market every year. It is probably the best one in the area. There are over 200 vendors and several international ones.

They have everything from bread, cheese, fudge, chocolates to wood carvers, quilters, cutlery, tons of jewellery, pottery, and booths from several countries. There was Russia, Africa, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, Holland. Lots of entertainment, ice carving outside lots to eat and fire pits to sit around. The weather was so nice, you could have been there in shirt sleeves.


I bought a couple of pieces of pottery. Just 2 small bowls that are very similar to the pottery I already have. I bought some focaccia bread and my husband bought some really nice deerskin gloves. I didn't know that deer skin is washable.

I made seafood lasagna for supper tonight. We had the focaccia bread and ceasar salad and then pecan,cranberry pie with whipped cream. Delicious. Son number one, DIL and GD came over. The GD brought the boyfriend for the first time (for grandpa's approval). He seems like a very nice boy. The good thing is that he doesn't drive so GD has to pick him up at the train station and drop him off there at the end of the evening. Grandpa likes that!! GD got her drivers license 2 weeks ago (first try) and is very proud of herself. She is driving her dad's big Avalanche truck. Queen of the road!! Actually she is a very good driver. As grandpa said, he's not worried about her driving, it's the other idiots out there on the street he is worried about.

I have a mountain of dish clothes knitted now. I thought I would offer them for sale here if there is any interest. They are 100% cotton and I have used them for years, (not these same ones, but ones just like them). I think I would sell them 2 for $8.00 and include a pot scrubber as well. The pot scrubbers are made from 100% nylon tulle. We could figure out the postage, it shouldn't be too much as they are pretty light.




Not a very good picture of the pot scrubbers, but that's the best I could do today!
I think that's about it for today. Bye for now.

Dish/Face Cloths

When I can't be bothered getting organized to start a new project or doing the million and one other things I should be working on I knit dishcloths. That's what I've been doing all week. I've got another cold and cough and no motivation to do much of anything so I knit dishcloths. I think I've knitted about a dozen this week. Been watching all the mindless TV-Survivor, Dancing with the Stars, Biggest Loser, ER, Grey's Anatomy, Heroes etc.

Hopefully I'll feel better soon and get busy doing something. Meanwhile I'm making a big pot of Turkey Soup, reading blogs and knitting dishcloths.

See you soon. Bye for now.

Time Flies!!!

Where does the time go? I read other people's blogs every day but it takes me 2 weeks to put a post on my own blog. I don't get it. I keep thinking I have nothing interesting to say so I'll wait until tomorrow...and of course it's the same thing everyday. Everyone else always seems to have interesting stuff to talk about.

Okay, lets give this some thought,hmm.... What have I done in the last 2 weeks? I finished the sweater I started for my BFF to give to her coworker. I knitted the sweater and there was still some yarn left so I managed to get a hat, mittens and then a scarf until the yarn was all gone. I even took a picture!

I hope it's okay and what they wanted.
In the last 2 weeks we've had snow 3 times (one being last night). I guess winter is here. Halloween night was really nice though. Probably the warmest we've had in years. Even so, we only had 19 kids and there were no little ones. I think the youngest was about 9 or 10 and the rest were teenagers. I think most people take their kids to the mall or to the community centres for parties. I think that's a much better idea, and so much safer.
I've been finishing off some more vests for kids. I'm not having any luck with etsy so I might take them to a store in town that carries stuff made by many artisans in this area. I might have better luck there. They do carry kids sweaters but I haven;'t seen anything like the stuff I make. That's a good thing.
Work has been crazy, as usual. Half of the kids have colds, and consequently just about all the staff have colds, myself included. This is the second cold I've had since school started in September! It's a winning combination when you work with kids that have colds and don't know how to blow there noses, cough, they are getting new teeth, consequently lots of drool, not toilet trained so poopy pants. Oh boy. October 2010 (my retirement date) is looking pretty good!!
Glad to see that 'Miles Away from Home' blog is up and running again. In fact she has tagged me. I have to come up with 7 random things about myself. I think I'm going to leave that 'til next time so I can think about it and hopefully come up with 7 things worth reading.
See you next time. Bye for now.

Ticked!!!

I'm really ticked!. I just wrote this really long post and when I went to post it blogger was not available and I lost the whole thing!!! GRRRRRRRR!! This is the first time this has happened to me but I suppose that it won't be the last. I'll try to recreate it, although after you've written it once it doesn't seem the same the second time around! Oh well.

I've been really busy at work and consequently pretty tired by the end of the day. Come home, read some blogs, eat, watch t.v. knitting and then bed. Nothing too exciting.

We had a birthday supper for youngest son on Sunday. We did bbq chicken and oven roasted potatoes and mixed peppers-delicious. DIL brought a homemade birthday cake so we were all quite stuffed at the end of the evening. It was very yummy.

Youngest g'daughter had to have a little surgical procedure on Friday so grandpa looked after the youngest g'son for the day. They had a great time together. They went to Costco and g'son pointed out what he wanted for his b'day and christmas- everything they had in the toy isle for a boy!!! They also went to the park and played on all the equipment so they both had to come home for a nap after that.

One of the blogs I like to visit is 'Miles Away from Home'. It's written by an English women who moved to France with her family. Her site has been unavailable for over a week. Does anyone have any connections.

I thought I'd try a different 'look' for my blog. What do you think? I think I like the colours better. I'll keep it for a while anyway.

I've been knitting a little toddler outfit for BFF coworker. (No pictures yet). It started out as just a little sweater but there was more yarn so I knitted a hat and there was still more so I made a pair of mittens and there's still more left so I think I'll use the rest and make a scarf. I'll take pictures when they're all sewn up.

I got these fabulous fabric boxes from my BFF for my birthday. I love them, there from EQ3. It's a furniture and accessories store that are in Canada and the U.S. I don't know if they are in any other countries.


That's it for this time. Be back soon, hopefully. Bye for now.

Thanksgiving/Columbus Day

Happy Thanksgiving and Columbus Day to all Canadian and U.S. bloggers.

We had an amazing Thanksgiving dinner yesterday at #1 son's house. He and DIL did an amazing job preparing the meal. There was, of course, the turkey (delicious), dressing, carrots and turnips, corn, mashed potatoes, cabbage rolls, gravy and buns. As if that wasn't enough, the selection of pies was pumpkin, apple, cherry, banana cream and pecan cranberry - oh my!!! The apples and cherries were from the DIL's parents trees on their acreage in Saskatchewan. Needless to say we were all stuffed at the end of that. There were 10 people, but enough food for twice that many!!! I forgot to take the camera so no pictures.

I do have pictures of another fabulous meal we had about a week ago though. My BFF invited my husband and I over for a belated birthday fondue. Her mom has been visiting from Ontario so there was the four of us. Again there was enough food for about 10 people.



W
We had 3 fondue pots going, two with oil and the third with swiss cheese. There was beef, chicken, ham, cocktail weiners, shrimp, bread for the cheese, mushrooms, potatoes, snap peas, radishes cherry tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots and so many dips and dipping sauces I can't remember them all. To finish it all off there was a fabulous chocolate mousse cake with chocolate ice cream and lots of white wine throughout to help it all go down!
On Friday night #4 son, DIL and the grandchildren took us out for another belated birthday dinner. We went to a little Italian place called Nicko's Bistro. Very small, very trendy in the 'yuppy' area of town that they live in. I think the restaurant only seats about 40 people and you have to have a reservation or you won't get in. There were lots of people that were turned away as all tables were reserved. We started with calamari and ceasar salads. The calamari was cooked in a spicy sauce. None of us had had them cooked that way before and they were very good. We had two veal dishes, a salmon dish and manicotti which we all shared with the g'children. All dishes came with penne pasta in a red sauce. For dessert we had a creme caramel, chocolate mousse and apple strudel with ice cream. We were all very satisfied after the meal and the g'children were very good and they are only 3 and 6 years old. The 3 year old was adamant though that he wasn't going to sit in the high chair they had for him but he did settle for a booster seat!!!
Well, this posting is definitely of the 'one track' variety - food!!! It was all very good though and thoroughly enjoyed by all! 'Til next time - bye.

Sewing Show

I went to the Creative Stitches and Craft show yesterday. It is an annual event that has vendors mainly from western Canada. There is another one next month in Toronto for the east. I usually go with my mom or a friend but this time I went by myself. No one was available and my mom can't walk that far anymore. I had gone by myself once before and quite enjoyed it because I can take my time and spend as long as I like looking at one or another particular thing without thinking I'm holding anyone up. There are lots of quilting stores there and more and more yarn stores. Some scrap booking and a few selling the latest and greatest iron, sheets, dog grooming tool etc. But I'd say 95% is crafting of some kind. I didn't take as many pictures as I'd liked, mainly because I'd forget and then not bother going back to take pictures.

These are just a few of the beautiful quilts that were on display. The one of the wolf is amazing!

This is a scrap bag that I bout for $7.50. It probably has enough fabric to make a baby crib blanket or play mat.

I bought a couple of fat quarters, you can't see but they have raised paint on them. The bundle of fabric is a 5 meter package. There is a double panel and 4-1 meter pieces of co-ordinating fabric. It is the Tropical Safari collection by J. Smith and Lynda S. Milligan, Possibilities for Avlyn Inc. The booth was a quilt shop from out of town. As it was getting late in the day she had reduced everythingby 50%. I only paid $12.50 for the 5 meter bundle - very reasonable!!

T
The colours are quite a bit brighter than what the pictures show. I took the pictures on the bed in the master bedroom. I still have to figure out a good place that I can take pictures year round.

It took me about 3 hours to see all of the show and by then I was ready to call it quits. Cement floors are not kind to the feet or back when walking on them for any great length of time.

That's me for now. Back soon I hope!

Fall

Today is the first day of fall and it is raining and a little chilly. It's supposed to get nicer during the week. Hopefully we will have an Indian summer. Lots of the trees are changing colour and loosing their leaves.

It didn't take very long being back at work before we all had colds. One of the students came back to school with a runny nose and before you now it 5 out of our 6 staff, including me, had a cold. It's been about 7 days now so hopefully it will be gone in a few more days.

Haven't done very much knitting this week. Really haven't felt like it. Spent most evenings watching tv or reading.

Dropped into V.V. a week or two ago and picked up 2 wool blankets.

Tried to find out about them on the web but couldn't find much, other than there was a slingby mill in Yorkshire many moons ago. I thought the price was pretty good. I washed them in hot water and they have started to felt a little bit, but I think I'll have to wash them a few more times for them to completely felt.
Hope everyone is having a nice weekend.

Finally Ready

I think I'm finally ready with the etsy thing. I've figured out all the ins and out (I think, I hope) and I'll be ready to list a few items maybe today or tomorrow. Here is a little peek at some of my stuff.

Size 2

Size 4

Size 6

Fits size 2-8

I make hand knit vests, sweaters and hats (toques in Canada) for kids, sizes 2-6. Hopefully people will like them and buy, buy, buy (lol).

I've been pretty busy the last couple of weeks. What with school starting again, yard work, house work. airport runs and my birthday in there somewhere there hasn't been enough time for posting. I try and read my favourite blogs (there are so many of them, and the list is growing all the time) every day and then I don't have any time to write my own posts. Have to get more organized around here.

Must go and make supper so that I'll Hopefully have time to get back here later.

Bye for now!