Saturday, May 28, 2022

I won the battle but not the war! I was working in the rose garden at the back today and I have the scars to show that it was quite a battle. Things are looking good right now but I know I haven’t won the war – all the blackberries and bindweed will be back in no time at all. I give it six weeks or less before I’ll have to get at it again. I don’t know which is worse – the blackberries or the bindweed. It doesn’t matter what I’m clipping or pulling, between the thorns on the roses and the thorns on the blackberries scratches and cuts are inevitable.

I am probably too old to be climbing the wall and working on the ledge so, if I can find someone, next time it needs to be done I will pay somebody to do it. It can be kind of meditative when I’m weeding in the flower beds but not so with this section of the yard.

I have a lot of reports due next week so I made a start on some of them. I will be sending out information to the Guild about the mystery quilt designer. Next week is the Guild’s year-end and I’m going to have to write a year-end report for Facebook and the blog. The Hall has a newsletter coming out next week with some time-sensitive information so I can’t be late getting that done.

I’m sore and tired so I’m going to go downstairs and work on my Botanical Garden – although I often have issues at least there won’t be any thorns.

Friday, May 27, 2022

I’ve spent all day in the sewing room today and, for a change, I feel like I’ve accomplished something. I have all of my card tops for June finished – a full day of quilting should have them done and ready for the mail at some point during my travels.

I’m going to spend the rest of the afternoon (and there isn’t much left) working on the latest release for my Peppermint Purple project.

Thursday, May 26, 2022

I was getting Ray’s birthday card ready for the mail and noticed I was down to only a few cheques left. There was a “Reminder to Order” form that gave me information on how to order online. Perfect!

I went to the site and filled in all the information. When I wanted to place the order it said “Quantity: 15”. I wasn’t sure if that meant 15 books (too many) or 15 cheques (too few). So I called the “Contact Us” button on the website.

After a long wait I finally got through and was told that in order to increase the number of cheques I had to do it through my bank and he would transfer me. That transfer got me through to the virtual assistant. He wanted to know how he could help me so I said I wanted cheques. His response was “Did you know you can do that from our website?”. So I tried minimum order but his response was equally useless. After several attempts to make “him” understand I thought I’d tried pressing O and hope for a real person. No such luck as it just disconnected me.

I looked up the phone number for our local branch but when I got through I ended up with the same virtual assistant. Again I tried a few options and finally told him I wanted a loan. That put me through rather quickly to an agent, no doubt wanting to sign me up. When I told her how frustrated I was she said she would put me through to someone who could help me. I told her I didn’t want to hear the virtual assistant again and she assured me I’d only be speaking to a real person.

After answering a million questions (but I understand it was necessary) I finally have an order in place. I was tempted to order 200 cheques just so I wouldn’t have to go through this again but I settled on 100 – they are not cheap!

I worked in the yard for awhile this morning until it started to rain. We planted the geranium baskets and repotted our hanging baskets. I purchased some coconut liners thinking they would hold the moisture better than the soil in the original pots. With a gentle rain coming down I also moved them to the table on the deck where they will get some natural and slow watering for the next couple of days.

We made a trip to the dump with a huge load of green waste. Some of it was in bags and some in boxes but going forward we are going to use bins so it keeps dry. There isn’t enough under-cover space in the yard so it is quite messy when we do a dump, particularly for the back of Pat’s truck. It’s a horrid job and not nearly as much fun as trips to the dump when I lived in Fort Smith.

I’m going to work on another set of cards for the rest of the afternoon.

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

It took all afternoon but I got a whole list of errands and shopping done. But first thing this morning I quilted and got facing on my button project. I like the way it turned out and I made it a bit bigger than the pattern called for. I had a couple of calls regarding Guild business and then did my own brainstorming about demos and classes for the next year. Nothing solved yet but I’m feeling a bit better about the list of things we might choose from and I even came up with a couple of names that I might be able to convince to go on the committee with me.

I had totally forgotten that I was supposed to be attending a Guild workshop on the weekend, although I had been worrying about how I was going to tell the instructor that I was backing out. Turns out there were very few who were going to attend so the class was cancelled. Good – maybe we can run it next year!

My box of sewing projects for our session in June is almost full. I added two more projects into it this morning; I don’t expect to get them done but both require some tracing work so I might have a morning or evening when I could get it started. I won’t send the box off until I find out what my challenge projects will be for June; there may be room for one more piecing or scrappy project.

My first stop this afternoon was to take care of some engraving and then to deliver a couple of posters for an upcoming show. I had already hit a couple of places but wanted to get a few more out as ticket sales are slow. I picked up a couple of geranium baskets that I will put into the two remaining pots I have at the front door. Then I was off to the Hall for a showing and then back to the bank to make a deposit. From there I went to Canadian Tire for a water hose, watering bucket and a corn broom for sweeping the sidewalk. The good broom went to Texada and the one that I have in the shed is useless and it has been since we moved in (and the previous owners left it for us). Finally a stop at the grocery store and then home to put it all away.

I’ll go downstairs now and start the hand stitching on my button project and then I’ll move on to my Peppermint Purple stitching. Pat is online for most of the afternoon and evening.