Although getting there was not half the fun, I did get to spend a night at the Fairmont Airport hotel in Vancouver. It was a pretty swanky room for a short stay but it was certainly convenient after having my flights to Calgary messed up with fog. Although the time in Calgary was short, it was nice to see Elizabeth and crew. We had a lovely walk and made it home just before a storm blew in – and it blew and blew and blew but didn’t bring any rain or snow.

It was all about the hockey at the Thomases. I was able to watch a practice with Alex and part of a practice with Will; Alex’s team still use only half the ice but Will’s team uses the full ice and they can really slap the puck against the boards which makes for a noisy time. On the one day they had off from hockey the boys couldn’t be talked out of attending the Blades game; Dave was working the game but there was a public skate with the Blades team after so the boys got a chance to play on the big ice.

Kathryn and I had a chance to shop at Michael’s; we both picked up some yarns for some scrubbies and I also picked up a “cake” for a shawl. I didn’t need to bring any yarn home with me and I definitely didn’t need (or have room for) the five photo boxes or the plastic bin that I also picked up. Alex works as a Crossing Guard at the school this year so I went out to see him at work one day. It was cold with the wind but nothing like it will be just a bit later in the year. Will perfected a magic trick in his spare time and they painted the tree stumps in the front yard with glow-in-the-dark paint. I’m not sure what the City will think of that but it might be fun for Hallowe’en.

Deloise, Laurie and I watched Ken play a hockey game; he’s been playing for years but this was the first time I’d seen him play. Those old guys sure do skate well; Ken said the referee for the game was 82 and he refs twice a week and plays twice a week. We had lunch and a great visit after the game. After lunch Deloise and I hit a couple of quilt shops, as well as a grocery store for supplies for our week at Turtle Lake (more on that in the next post).

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

It is well known that I am a last-minute packer but this time I’m leaving it longer than I should. I’ve had a stack of projects sitting out for quite awhile, just waiting to go into the suitcase. In fact, some of them made it into the suitcase yesterday. But what was I doing this morning? I cut out an “extra” project to take along with me, I picked out a pattern and some fabric for a second “extra” project, and then I went through some patterns to see if I should take any to share with Stacia and Deloise.

I had some errands to run this morning and I needed to vote in the advanced poll today. I stopped at the bank, I stopped at the drug store to pick up a prescription, I stopped at the post office to mail a package, I stopped at the Rec Centre to vote and I dropped in at Cranberry Hall to check the mail and pick up a deposit. Everything was going so well. But on the way home the traffic lights were out at one of the major intersections and when I pulled into the Credit Union everything was shut down because of the outage. I knew there would be no sense in stopping at Safeway so I came home.

We have a House Concert the day after I get home so in order to have the beds ready before I leave there was laundry to be done. While I was stripping one of the beds I thought I should wash the quilt that I was using on it. It is an old one – remember the quilts we tied after Mum died? I had noticed that some fabric had worn away around the binding so I thought I should repair it before it went into the laundry. Once I got started I noticed a few other spots in the same condition so I stitched around all of the binding. There were a few other minor repairs that were needed before I finally got it into the wash.

I made another trip out this afternoon and got the rest of my errands taken care of. I’ll attempt to do a quick clean-up of my desk and sewing areas and then I’ll get busy with that packing.

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

I still haven’t resolved my computer issue – my backups to my external drive aren’t working but one of the partitions on it contains some photos from several years ago. There was no way I could get them from the external drive back onto my computer but they were old and I thought I could probably live without them.

But just before I went to bed last night I found a couple of files from an older photo program. I did some research and found a way to load them into my current photo application. I went to bed while that process was still running.

When I checked on it this morning the photos appeared in my photo library, but none of my current photos showed up. I headed off the quilting thinking that I had destroyed all my newer photos (from about 2009 onward), including all of the Guild bee photos. But through the day I talked myself into being okay with losing them. I have a physical project book that I keep my quilting photos in, I often post other photos to my website and I don’t really have a need to do anything with all of the Guild photos I’ve collected. By the time I came home I was quite pleased with the notion that there wouldn’t be any work to do sorting through all my digital photos – the bins of “real” photos are more than I can handle!

But after I got home I had another idea – and it worked. When the old photos were imported they created their own library and the newer photos that I thought I lost were still their in the original library. I am so lucky – or am I? Now I’ll have to deal with all of the recovered photos as well as trying to keep up to date with the current ones.

But I did go sewing today and I got a couple of blocks done. The monthly Guild block will be due shortly after I get back from my trip so I was glad to get it done today. And I got the extra orange block (based on the Hands Across the Water block) done as well; I guess I’ll call it my Hands project from now on.

Monday, October 8, 2018

On Saturday morning I loaded up my carry-on bag with some hand stitching and some dinner trimmings – yams, sweet potatoes, squash, cranberry sauce, etc. – and headed to Texada on the morning ferry. Once I was unpacked I settled in for some stitching. It was a lovely day so after lunch we took the drive that I had hoped for on my birthday. We followed a few different roads and, although we followed one of them more than 15 km, we never really got anywhere. But getting somewhere really wan’t the point. We saw some nicely colour trees and quite a few deer. I’m still not used to the fact that I won”t be seeing any bears out in the back country.

It was a good thing we took our drive Saturday as the rain moved in on Sunday (and hasn’t really stopped since). It was the last Farmer’s Market for the season so we went and picked up a dessert for our turkey dinner, as well as a few things for Pat to use during the week. We also had to stop at the Thrift Shop to alert one of our House Concert guests that we had changed the time for the next show. By the time we got home the turkey was almost ready and, since Pat had put the vegetables in the oven before we left, we were ready to eat by about two. Later in the afternoon we headed to the Legion for the Trivia Meat Draw. We didn’t win any meat, but Pat won $15 in the 50-50. I managed to get three questions right. It is a fun group and I’ll continue to go if I’m around on Sundays.

I caught the morning ferry back home today – my bag was considerably lighter. I had great plans for the day but I’ve spent most of it trying to solve some computer problems. I knew I had a problem before I went to Texada so I just shut the machine down but knew I’d have to deal with them today. It has taken much longer than I thought and I’m still not there. I had some Hall work I would have liked to have done today but it will have to wait.

While I waited for processes to run on my machine I finished the Splendid Sampler embroidery block I stitched on Texada; I also managed to cut the current Splendid Sampler block and sew it together so I’m caught up. I have two blocks cut for tomorrow and I’ll likely take along my Farmer’s Daughter blocks just in case I have time.

Supper tonight will be left-over turkey and couscous but before I get to that I want to start on my packing. I have a lot of projects to take with me – there may not be room for clothes!