Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Yesterday Pat and I went out in the morning and cleaned up one corner of the yard. This is a nice sitting area in the morning but particularly in the evening when the sun is beating down on the front of the house. Our bulbs are all up and we have flowers in every container. The lilac and maples are just coming into leaf, the Solomon Seal is gaining inches every day and the Strawberry Tree survived its first winter.

We are getting organic pick-up every week but we realized yesterday that the bin doesn’t hold a whole lot when you are doing yard clean-up. I added some compost to the bin this afternoon and noticed that the leaves had compacted a bit so we’ll be able to get a bit more into it before pick up day. I pulled a few weeds from the patio yesterday and had this realization – no matter how much it hurts to get down on your hands and knees, it hurts even more to bend down from the waist to pull them out. Lesson learned.

I was so tired yesterday after that bit of yard work that by the time I was ready for bed I had already decided I wasn’t going to go to sewing today. I’ve been trying to get my March UFO Challenge finished for the past week. Had I not watched so much hockey, curling and baseball it could have been done before the end of the month. I took an extra couple of days in April but I can say it is done. My April UFO shouldn’t be too difficult to accomplish within the month so I don’t think I lost anything by sticking with it.

Sunday, March 31, 2024

This is going to be the last post I send out through e-mail. It may be the last Journal post that I make but I’m keeping my options open and may write something from time to time. My life is pretty simple these days – sewing, reading, and some other crafts thrown into the mix. I don’t have regular opinions or thoughts that seem worthy of sharing but if I do you can find them on my website.

My craft and book finishes will continue to be updated.

I have had quite a few iterations of my website over the years. I’m not entirely sure what year it all started but I found a posting that listed movies for 2007. This particular version began in December, 2011.

Thanks for following me for the past (I can’t believe it) 16 years.

Friday, March 15, 2024

I was up early this morning so I could listen to Dave’s announcement that he was signing off with CJWW after 22 years. You might think he was retiring but he’s not – he’s headed off on a new adventure in Regina and taking his family with him. It will make Saskatchewan trips a bit more difficult to see everyone but I’m so happy for him.

As you know we were very disappointed in the Film Festival offerings, but we have seen a couple of great movies this week. The Taste of Things is the movie that we missed due to the snow that we got during festival week. It was rescheduled to this past Tuesday and pass holders got in for free. This was the kind of film we had come to expect from the festival – beautifully shot and enough story to keep it interesting.

Last night we saw a documentary 500 Days in the Wild – again, an excellent presentation. The director and cinematographer is the first person to complete the Trans Canada Trail from coast to coast to coast. It was an epic six year journey, which doesn’t explain the title. It was almost all done solo and there were very few shots of any settlements along the way.

I have spent the better part of the last two days sewing with Stacia and Deloise. My project took almost a day-and-a-half but it is ready now to have the binding stitched down. My plan was to move on to my mystery quilt (another clue was released yesterday) and then start cutting for my next chicken block.

We are heading across to the studio this afternoon. Originally we were going to go tomorrow so Pat could go to the movie tonight (Dune Part 2). We have to be home next Thursday for my lab appointment and Pat noticed that the movie would still be showing when we got home so we moved up our plan.

That meant that by the time I finished my project and did my packing for the trip I had very little time for the mystery or the chickens. I cleaned up my cutting table, trimmed down a few scraps, and managed one set of 12 HSTs for my mystery. I think the floor is tidy enough that I can do some vacuuming before we start packing the truck.

I’ve packed very light this trip. I have my project to bind, a small embroidery project to finish and a new one to start (and leave on Texada for the future). I’m mainly going to be working on the grad gift that has lagged far behind where I wanted it to be.

I also have two library books to read – one I’m looking forward to and the other not so much. Oryx and Crake is the last one that was on Dylan’s reading list; I started it on an audio book and didn’t enjoy it. But if I start the actual book you know I have to finish it. The other book is the first in a series of twelve; the TV show Poldark (which we really enjoyed) is based on the books. I’m not committing to all twelve until I see how I like the first one.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

We were looking forward to a week of movies at the Film Festival – our first movies in about three years. We’ve always enjoyed the Film Festival, even in the early days when we had movies in two different locations sometimes three times a day.

This year’s selection was a disappointment for us. So much so that we opted not to even go to some of them. There were a lot of documentaries shown in prime time; in the past the documentaries were usually shown at the matinees. Some of them could only be called art films where the emphasis was on either the way the film was shot or the landscape in which they were shot. Some of them were focused on specific subjects that weren’t too relevant to us – agricultural diversity and undersea mining.

One of the movies that we really wanted to see showed the afternoon of the big snowfall so, for safety reasons, we chose to stay at home. Fortunately it has been rescheduled for this week so we’ll have a chance to see it.

Pat went to one movie that I decided to skip and I went to a movie that Pat skipped. It would seem like a waste of our full pass but even if we didn’t see all the movies our payment supported the film society.

On a brighter note we had a lovely brunch at our favourite restaurant – The Forest Bistro. Today was the first day of their new feature – Sunday brunch. There was a good turnout when we were there; I hope they had enough business to keep it running.