Saturday, September 24, 2016

I’m tired – my back and feet hurt from standing most of the day while I baked and cleaned. I am surprisingly calm though for the amount of jobs left to do and the relatively short time I have to do them in. Maybe after five years I’ve got it cased, or maybe it is a delayed panic and I’ll be a mess tomorrow.

But first – I know where the bears sleep! All last week I saw folks standing in the driveway to the library. They were looking out in the direction of the water, snapping photos and peering through binoculars. I thought at first they were whales but nothing appeared and, several times over several days, the same series of events would occur.

When I was at Carola’s for coffee she mentioned the crazy people watching the bear in the tree by the library. On my way home I (one of the crazy people) wandered over to have a look. Nothing! But today I saw more people so I got out the binoculars and from my kitchen window I could see a huge shifting mass in the crook of one of the trees. We watched off and on all morning and saw Momma bear and one or two cubs.

I had just started making brownies for the concession tonight when Christy called to say Dylan’s football game was live-streamed by the opposing team. We joined just after the start of the second quarter and I was able to follow the right team and the right uniform (the bright coloured socks helped me Christy). While the brownies baked I sat and watched, with one eye on the bears in the tree.

Dylan’s team won and would it be bragging too much to mention Dylan was on the field for both the Play of the Game and the Hit of the Game? Next time I watch I’ll go upstairs to my own computer; Pat laughs at me when I cheer! By the time the game was over the bears had moved on – next time perhaps I’ll be less distracted and see them all come out of the tree.

Pat picked up a picture from the framer this morning – our souvenir from our trip to France. Finding a spot to hang it meant a long game of musical pictures. In the shuffling we were able to find room for two pictures that had been stuck in the closet since we moved. I’m not sure how that led to rearranging my quilt wall (as you go upstairs to my sewing room) but that now has a new look as well.

Once my baking was done (angel food cake, two batches of brownies, and rice krispie squares) I went out and picked up the groceries we need for tomorrow’s affair – supper, concert and breakfast on Monday – plus a trip to the liquor store; we like to offer our performers some of our local beer.

Pat is out at the hall for sound check now. When he gets home we’ll have a quick supper; we’re due at the hall in just over an hour.

Friday, September 23, 2016

I didn’t expect to have time in my craft room today but my cleaning went a bit faster than I expected. I guess doing a bit of cleaning on all my free days really does help. There is still some work to do but if I finish the cleaning too early we’ll just have it messed up again by Sunday.

I finished my birthday banner this afternoon; it is ready for quilting. I hope to have that done in time to use the project for our next Mini Meez meeting. As soon as that is over I’ll pass it along to be donated. I’m hoping the “happy birthday” lettering will show up better when I use dark green thread for the appliqué. I’ll put the sleeve for the photo in the lighter green part at the bottom.

I’ve started putting together my nine-patch pieces for the community quilt I’m making this year. Every time I start putting blocks together I seem to have to revamp my pattern. I did that again today and I think I have it the way I want it. I’m hoping I don’t need too many more nine-patches.

I still have a knitting project that hasn’t been packed so I’ll be working on that tonight.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Where did the day go?

Paperwork all morning and a good part of the afternoon; coffee at Carola’s in the late afternoon and now the day is over.

Hallowe’en came up on my card list so I packaged another little cross stitch project to take with me on our trip. With my knitting added my crafting bag is full.

I’ll be busy baking and cleaning the next few days so I’m probably done in my craft room until we get home.

September 21, 2016

Thank you for all your good wishes for my birthday yesterday. A week ago Pat asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday; Tuesdays are generally my day for sewing but I said if it was nice I’d like to go for a drive. That could be taken as not much of a day out as we only have about 30 km of road either north or south of town. The sun was shining and we headed out in the late morning. We drove out as far as Saltery Bay (the ferry terminal to Vancouver) and then wound our way back through some side and back roads. We found a couple of beaches we weren’t familiar with as well as a new section of the Sunshine Coast Trail. The only thing that was missing was wildlife – I would have loved to have seen a bear somewhere in our travels.

It was back to reality today as I started some laundry and cleaning in preparation for our House Concert this weekend. Between loads I’ve worked on my birthday banner for the care home. Parts of it are working out as planned, but I’m having to re-design as I go along. I wondered how I would attach a sleeve for the photo but got that figured out. All was well until I got too close to the vinyl with my iron; that was my first bit of re-designing.

The top of the banner is finished and I have figured out a method of attaching the see-through sleeve (at the end of the project). The borders on the bottom were going to be much wider than I wanted so I’ve decided to do some pinwheels on either side of the photo. I may get to some of them yet today.

One of my cross stitch groups started a Stitch Along today and I have my project prepared. I’ll take it to Portland with me; I probably need to extend my stay by a few weeks if I hope to get all the stitching done that I’m taking!

Movie night again tonight!