Saturday, April 13, 2024

We went out to a concert south of town last night – Nathan Tinkham and Saskia Delaronde. Nathan is a good friend of Pat’s and he’s stayed with us a couple of times for various shows over the years. The hall is just a tad bit smaller than Cranberry Hall but, again, is one of the older ones in the area. It was a good mix of their individual talents and there were even a few people I knew in the crowd.

I’m getting used to my new walking aid – a cane. After I asked, the doctor (as did Audrey) recommended using a cane. Our friend Geoff brought his over for me to try out and I’ve been using it, when I remember, for a couple of days. It really helps going up and down stairs but at most other times it seems awkward to use it. You can’t really carry much in just one hand and I like to have a handful of things when I’m going anywhere. I’ll go out tomorrow to see if I can find a cane of my own.

I am able to do my stitching while we watch TV and I’m taking advantage of that today. I started with curling this morning. We switched back and forth to golf during commercial breaks and then we stuck more with golf as no Canadian teams were playing. We switched back to steady golf when curling was over until it was time to move to the ball game. When ball was over golf was still very much in progress. We’ll be waiting for the hockey game to start after supper. I normally wouldn’t watch golf but I’m enjoying it. I thought I might pick up a few pointers for my mini golf putting skills but so many times the professionals are overshooting the hole or just missing it – much as in my own game!

I’m making some progress on my stitching but there are still quite a few patterns that I want to take out and redo. The mistakes have been corrected but some of the colours don’t show up as well as they should so those are coming out now. I’m still hopeful I’ll have time to get the border done but I want the centre finished first so there will be something finished come graduation day.

Thursday, April 11, 2024

It’s been a busy week.

I had the worst shopping day ever on Monday. Pat picked some of our rhubarb and I wanted to make a crisp (I had to add rhubarb from the freezer). We didn’t have enough oatmeal for the topping so I picked up the list and made a shopping trip. I was almost home before I realized I had forgotten the oatmeal – it was what I went for so I hadn’t bothered to put it on the list. Back I went and was just getting into the car in the parking lot when I realized that hot rhubarb crisp requires ice cream so back I went again. I made sure to go to different cashiers each time so they wouldn’t think I was a complete idiot.

I went to sewing on Tuesday and managed to get one more of my hand-pieced blocks done. It’s a slow, but relaxing, process; I have six blocks of 24 finished. I also got out a survey to the Guild membership regarding the blog that I’ve been responsible for. I’m giving it up and efforts to find someone to take it over have not succeeded. The survey was a last ditch attempt to find someone and, if that fails, get an idea of what to do with the existing blog. I have some ideas that involve more work for me but I’m okay with that so long as I don’t have to do the weekly updates.

Yesterday I had my meet and greet with a new doctor. This is the first time I’ve gone through this and I wasn’t expecting much. My hope was that the doctor would accept me as a patient because I have heard that some doctors have been declining if your health issues don’t seem like they will garner them enough funds.

I was very pleasantly surprised with my doctor and there didn’t seem to be any question as to whether or not he would take me on. He was a lovely man and I didn’t feel rushed at all. He went through my recent medical history and answered all of my questions. He wants to see his patients every three months and that is such a change from my past experience where it often took three months to get an appointment.

I would usually go stitching this afternoon but Gail isn’t feeling well. It was going to be a shorter visit anyway as she had a doctor’s appointment booked for late this afternoon. I should have accomplished more than I did. One more block of sky and a start on a May card. I fully intended to cross stitch this afternoon but we watched curling while we had lunch and that took up most of the afternoon.

We have booked a flight to and from Calgary at the end of May. Ray will give us one of his vehicles so we will drive to and back from Saskatoon before we fly home. It’s been a long time since either of us travelled.

So the pressure is on to get that grad gift finished and framed. Curling starts again in half an hour and I’m going to attempt to cross stitch while we watch.

Sunday, April 7, 2024

I stuck quite well to my new plan on Friday and yesterday. I finished the latest clue for my mystery quilt and moved on to my April UFO. I have had problems with this pattern in the past but the first block went together just fine so I was hopeful the problems were behind me. I cut the next three blocks out; when I started putting together the second block I soon realized there was a problem. The cutting instructions were missing one piece – not really a problem as I had the size required from the layout instructions. Then another section was clearly not the right length in the cutting instructions; it took me until today to sort out which parts needed to be recut and stitched.

The afternoons went well and I managed to reverse stitch a section on my grad gift as well as fill in another section. I finished one knitting project and I liked the pattern so much that I immediately started another one using the same pattern. I’m not liking this one as much because the yarn is too dark to really show off the pattern but finishing it should use up most of the yarn.

Today has been a bit backwards. I would normally spend Sunday morning at my computer but curling had already started by the time I got up so I was downstairs with my coffee to watch what remained of the game. There was a brief break before baseball started; while I watched baseball I started to remove another section of my grad project. Before the game was over we had to shut it off and head out to the movies – One Life with Anthony Hopkins and Helena Bonham Carter. It was excellent.

I’ve caught up now on my computer work and I think it is too late in the day to start anything that needs too much thought. That means I’ll do a few levels of Candy Crush and/or a couple of other games.

Friday, April 5, 2024

Have you ever dropped a Facebook friend? I did it yesterday for the first time. I know it can be done anonymously but I really wanted the friend to know why I was doing it. I’m not sure she appreciated my reasons but I didn’t think just ignoring what I didn’t like about her post was very honest. I’m sure it won’t change a thing, but at least I won’t be upset when I look at Facebook.

I was also very truthful to my friend about skipping our sewing session yesterday. I could have opted out with the excuse of a Guild meeting in the evening but I told her the truth. Pat and I were very much engaged in the curling and I didn’t want to miss it. I’ve put too much emphasis on sewing in the past but I’m learning to let my own self-inflicted deadlines go.

I planned to walk to the Guild meeting last night but there was such a cold wind I drove. And lucky me, I won the 50/50 draw. I won once before and used those winnings to pay for 50/50 tickets from that point forward. Although I wasn’t entire out of funds in that envelope the extra $28 is going to keep me going for a long time.

I need to get back into a more regular schedule than I have been of late. I want to spend my mornings upstairs either sewing or doing computer work. I’ll spend the afternoons working in the yard, going for walks, and doing some hand stitching. Evenings have always been for knitting and crochet and that won’t change until I run out of yarn.

That being said, this morning I’ve sent off additional information to the accountant, finalized a Guild survey I’m sending out and worked on the latest mystery clue. I’m off now for lunch and some hand stitching.