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.

Tuesday, May 24, 2022

When I looked at my reminders for today I saw that I still needed to clear out a drawer for my neutral fabrics. So I started off with that task. When I tired of doing that (before it was done) I walked up to the letter box and then went out to work in the yard.

I weeded the daisy bed today. There is a big hole where we took out the dogwood but I have no doubt that the daisies will fill in the space. I noticed that there are a lot of blue flowers that have blown in from somewhere. They are quite nice and don’t seem to be spreading too quickly so I left most of them. We have two dahlia’s coming up in that bed although they are a bit further behind than the ones in the pot. This was the last section of the yard that needed to be done so that when I sit on the patio (either upstairs or down) I can relax and not see the work that still needs to be done.

Pat checked on me after he came home from a meeting and we transplanted a hydrangea. The lavender was more or less taking it over so we thought it wouldn’t hurt it to move as it wasn’t doing well anyway. When I asked for a lesson on the weed whacker I found out what I was doing wrong but before I got too far along the brick wall Pat took over. He also pruned a few of the maples while he was out.

There is, of course, more work to be done. I have two spots left in beds that are more or less hidden behind taller plants and I want to get them cleared out. Also I have quite a job ahead of me to clear up the north side of the house.

I finished cleaning out a drawer in the dresser and have my neutral yardage nicely folded inside. That left me with an empty large bin so I moved my 3-yard quilt fabric from a smaller bin into the larger bin and then my flannel scraps into that smaller bin. I should have been inspired to keep shifting and adjusting but I just don’t feel like it. I’ve been spending the time this afternoon dealing with more of my scraps – a never-ending pursuit.

Monday, May 23, 2022

I really wanted to work in the yard today and persuaded Pat we should transplant our hanging baskets into pots. By the time I got my gardening shoes on and headed out the door it was spitting rain so Pat went out and got coffee and some breakfast and I started sewing on buttons.

It didn’t take long for the rain to pass and it has been a beautiful day – one of the best we’ve had this year I think. We got the two strawberry baskets potted on the deck as well as two more pansy baskets. One of our coleus wasn’t doing very well so we transplanted that and hope it takes this time. We have another pansy pot planted at the back door. Hopefully they will all do well.

While we were out we transplanted a dogwood bush. We have three of them in various spots in the yard but this particular one was fighting for nutrients from one of the maple trees. We’ve put it into one of our biggest pots; the maple tree we had in it for several years got some sort of a bug a couple of years ago and we weren’t able to save it. We lost another one as well but so far we haven’t planted anything else in that pot.

There was, of course, weeding that could have been done but I decided to cut the grass instead. Although, as I’ve said before, there are likely more weeds than grass in the yard once it is all cut to the same length it looks pretty good. I was going to give the weed whacker a try but I couldn’t even get it to start. I think it is out of string but I would have thought it would still start. I guess I need another lesson.

This afternoon I’ve been back at the buttons. I’ve got them all attached now – all 40 of them! I wasn’t sure I was going to be happy with the project but so far I’m pleased. I won’t be sewing with the Guild tomorrow but I hope to get it finished at home.