Diary of a middle-aged gardener

How (Not) to Repaint A Small Bedroom In A Week

2012-01-11T23:02:00.000-08:00

Every January I get the urge to purge.

And the urge to redecorate.

Normally this entails angst and urgency as I struggle to finish my project in the week after Christmas, before it's time to head back to school.

As a newly retired woman, I figured this year would be a snap. I decided to repaint our bedroom and do a little redecorating.
It would be quick and it would be free.
I had Henry help me empty out the room. Where in the world did all that stuff come from?!
Back into the bedroom to dream a little.

I looked up. . .

For crying out loud!
I had forgotten about the ceiling!
My plan was to use leftover white paint to freshen up the room and as I gazed at the unpainted, 50 year old, grimy, stucco ceiling my heart sank. If I hadn't already emptied out the room, I would have given up on the project right then and there.
But I had.
So I couldn't.
Really, is there anything worse than painting an old stucco ceiling?

I decided to save a little time and effort. I would leave one wall green. You know. . . an accent wall.

It was time to crack open the paint can. . .
First things first. . .cut in around the edges.

I must say, if you want to feel old, try painting a ceiling. Between triggering my asthma with the paint fumes and my arthritis by tightly clenching the paint brush. . .

All I can say is. . . a deadline to push for would have been a very good idea.

I would paint a bit and stop.
Go back and start in another spot because the wet stucco starts sliding around if you paint over again. . .
Rest again. . .

Oooohhh. . .

The Walton's are on! Time to stop for the day!

It took me four days to finish the ceiling and another three to paint the walls.
All four walls. Because I forgot to make sure none of the ceiling paint strayed onto the accent wall.
I ran out of primer with about four square feet left to go.
So much for a free make over.
I also ran out of paint. Really, really not free any more. . .
During that week I procrastinated, sighed, moaned, fell on the ice while walking Jada, spilled paint on the floor, (thankfully it fell on the plastic bag I had just put down), did my very best to guilt the guys into helping me ( it didn't work) and in general felt very sorry for myself.
On the up side, I also visited with a dear friend of mine for the first time in months, got to hang out with my mom a bit and endured serious teasing every time I said "I'm going to paint right now. I'll been done in no time!"

Thankfully, nothing lasts forever and the room is now freshly painted.

Whew!

I don't think I've ever had so much trouble with what should have been a small project.

All that's left is the fun decorating stuff. . . So, I leave you with a picture of the somewhat before. . .

While making no promises as to when I will post the afters!

I have a stack of books beside my chair, so I instead to snuggle up with a fuzzy blanket, cup of tea, warm coffee cake and which ever book is on the top of the pile.
I may stay there until I get to the bottom of the pile. . .
After all. . . I am retired!

The Things You Do As The Nest Starts To Empty. . .

2012-01-09T20:03:00.000-08:00

Peanut butter cookies are pure gold around here.
Not for me mind you, I hate working with peanut butter and unless it's a peanut butter cup or a chocolate peanut butter square I am of the opinion that peanut butter should just stick to bread.
Since I love my sweet husband quite a lot, every so often I grit my teeth and whip up a batch of his mom's peanut butter cookies.
However, making cookies inevitably leads to beaters covered in cookie dough. . .
With peanut butter cookies this causes quite a dilemma. I won't lick them clean, just thinking about it makes me queasy. Henry's at work so he's no help, the girls don't live at home and the boys are both at work. . . .
It seems a terrible waste not to have someone lick these clean!
What to do. . . what to do. . .

I can't believe I just did that!
I don't know what came over me. I was thinking about how much Jesse loved to lick the beaters when he was little (okay he still loves to lick the beaters), which led me to think about how much Jada loves peanut butter, sugar and butter.
Before I knew it. . . the beater was on the floor!
She was thrilled.
I was horrified.
But only a little bit.
What do you think I'll be like once the nest is totally empty?
On second thought. . . please. . . don't answer that!

Don't Tell Me Dogs Don't Know When They Are Doing Something Wrong!

2011-12-28T23:22:00.000-08:00

Jada got a present from mom for Christmas.
She got the same present last year and thoroughly enjoyed it.
This is what she got:

It's a doggie advent calender, one milk bone for everyday before Christmas.
We didn't open it until a week before Christmas when I gave her two and then folded it and put it on the computer table and promptly forgot to give her anymore.
While I was tiding up all the Christmas paraphernalia today I came across it and figured I had better give her one since she had been so good and not dragged it off the table and gobbled them all up.
Only there was a problem. . .

"Henry? Did you give Jada all the treats?!"
"No."
"Morgan?"
"No."
"Jesse???"
He's at work.

"But there are no treats left!"
Henry felt quite certain that Jada had helped herself.
"But it was nicely folded on the table. How in the world could she get them out while it was still folded up? I mean there are three rows. How in the world could she do that?"

There are crumbs on the felt. . .

All the bows are still tied. . .

Yes. . . there are definite signs that Jada ate the milk bones. . .

Man! We have the smartest dog EVER!

*********
I just ran out to pick Jesse up from work.
The first thing I asked him was whether he had given Jada the treats.
"No."
"No way! You won't believe it! Jada managed to eat those treats all by herself!"
"Yeah I know."
"????"
" I found the thing on the ground and all the treats were gone so I picked it up and put it back on the table."

Huh. . .

Well that doesn't make a very good story!

Sigh. . . .

Christmas at mom and Crystal's house

2011-12-26T14:54:00.000-08:00

This year mom and Crystal hosted Christmas dinner at their apartment were a good time was had by all. . .

Oma's cooking up a storm

The boys can hardly wait!

It's very festive in here.

No party would be complete without Jada!

This was Crystal's inventive solution to an 'ugly sweater' needed for work.

Every once in a while I show up on a picture too. Thankfully it doesn't happen often!

Jada keeps a close watch over the activities in the kitchen. . .

And enjoys a reward for a job well done!

The best present of the evening??? A very large Mario belt buckle!

Christmas Traditions

2011-12-20T15:23:00.000-08:00

We have a lot of Christmas traditions in our family.

When I was young I loved all the great fun that went on during the Christmas season. My dad, who was a baker, would let us come to the bakery and put smartie 'buttons' on the gingerbread men, make long paper chains from the adding machine paper rolls and help out with the really fabulous gingerbread houses that would go in the display window. We watched him make countless cannoli rolls, shortbread with little plastic holly for decoration, yule logs, petit fours, boterkoek, black forest cakes. . . . oh my, the delicious things that he could make!

Christmas was a time for family get togethers, a chance to play with all the cousins, to go to school programs, and sneak around the house trying to discover where the presents were hidden (my sister Lisa is the All Time World Champion when it comes to sniffing out gifts. I always had to hold her back or she would have had those things unwrapped before I would have time to run and tattle!)

This to me was what made Christmas great. The present aspect never meant a whole lot to me, but. . . there were a few times when the adults around us really made magic come alive. ( I loved the mystery of magical things. . . fairies, elves, brownies. . . I read every Brother's Grimm book I could get my hands on.)

One night, when we lived in a tiny little village on a tiny little acreage in a tiny little house, my sisters and I heard a thump. We raced to the back door, nearly tripping over a big bag of presents and heard the sound of sleigh bells fading off into the distance. When we went out to the street there they were. . . tracks in the snow from a sleigh!

Magic!

Then there was the year I was able to spend Sinter Klaas at my Aunty Jenny and Uncle Henk's. We didn't celebrate this at home so I was pretty excited about the whole thing. Everyone crammed into their tiny living room that night, wiggling in anticipation, when suddenly. . .

The lights when out!

It was chaos! Kids were screaming and running around banging into everything We were being pelted with hard little . . .somethings. . .

What in the world was going on?

The lights came on and the screaming, banging and pelting became clear. All my cousins had fists full of little papernoten cookies!

But that wasn't all. When we looked out the window, there, under a big light, was a wheel barrow full of presents!

Magic.

I really wanted to pass those kinds of memories on to my kids and it turns out that they hold on to their traditions tighter than I do!

Each Christmas season we like to have a party with friends and decorate the tree. We make gingerbread houses and fill Christmas stockings with a Mandarin orange at the toe and chocolate letters and Archie comics to help fill out the rest of the stocking. If I can find Pez dispensers, all the better.

It's getting harder and harder to keep those traditions the same. The kids are getting older, the girls don't live at home anymore and for the first time Holly won't be here for Christmas. As you may remember we didn't have a tree decorating party this year. The boys and I decorated it ourselves. But they still like to remind me that that's not the way it's supposed to be done.

I mentioned to Crystal that we wouldn't be bringing all our gifts over to her and mom's apartment but would open our own at home.

That did not go over well at all!

As long as she was living in the city she wanted to be right there for all of it!

Sunday after the second service she came over to decorate gingerbread houses with the boys.

My sweet lovely grown up boys.

Who some how, through a mixture of pleading and good use of puppy dog eyes, managed to convince me that we should open presents then and there. After all. . . why wait? Everything was under the tree, Crystal didn't want to miss out on anything. . . and if we opened the gifts now then we could spend the rest of the week focusing on what Christmas is really about!

Hmmm. . .They really are good, aren't they?

Once Henry threw in his two cents ("Well, it's about halfway between Sinter Klaus and Christmas so why not?") they got their way.

So here's a bit of holiday fun. . . Presents and gingerbread houses. . .

The boys are pretty pleased with themselves!

I figured I might as well get a bit of work out of them first.

Boys never really grow up do they?

This is what I found when I opened my present from Henry. 4 of them. . .?????

Whoo Ho Hooo!! Lee Valley's garden wagon! How long until spring?!

The boys put theirs together. Teamwork! A few years ago that would have been unthinkable.

Crystal is much more meticulous than the boys. ( Okay. . . Morgan.)

The great thing about traditions is that, if you let them, they can change when circumstances change.

Holly and Glenn are carrying on the tradition even though they are far away. Glenn decided to go the whole nine yards and made everything from scratch. Can you tell he's taking engineering?

Holly's turned out beautifully as well. Jesse was very impressed with the professional quality of her work.

I'm going to miss them this year but it's wonderful to know that they will be sharing in Glenn's family traditions.

Here are the pictures they sent. The detail is just amazing!

Enjoy. . .

Glenn made this fabulous castle.

Holly went a little more traditional and used her favorite rolled cookies as pillars.

I'm thinking she probably enjoyed the leftovers. . .

I hope you all enjoy your own Christmas traditions!

The Big Announcement and. . . My Calendars Are Here!

2011-12-19T14:59:00.000-08:00

So for the past several months I have been working on an Idea.
I have always wanted to see if I could make some kind of income from gardening and although I tried something a few years ago while I was still bus driving, I found it too difficult to keep up with everything and just let it go.

I t wasn't wasted though. . . I learned what I like to do and what I don't like, what I am good at and the areas I still needed to learn more about.
I filed this away as food for thought and moved on.
The time has come to pull out the dream once more and see how it might work now that I have entered a new (retired from paid work ) phase in my life.

I have had large grand posts running through my mind in which I eloquently talked about my dream and where it was going to take me but somehow I just couldn't bring myself to post them.
I finally realized that it's because I am not really sure where this adventure will take me. That nothing about this is set in stone or even a 'sure thing.'

But I have come to realize that that's okay.
There are no rules for following your dream and although I have done plenty of work getting mine started, I am actually looking forward to the journey and all the twist and turns that journey will bring.

So. . .
Without further ado, I would like to introduce my new venture. . .

I will be offering small classes at my home that will include a lovely garden tea as well as time to work on everyone's particular garden issues.
I have been having a great time making concrete leaf sculptures and various kits which have been available for sale at some local craft shows.
I've done a few garden club hands on classes and have been asked to help design a small garden for a local school.
At this point the sky is the limit and we will see were this all leads. . .
Truthfully it couldn't go anywhere if my lovely husband Henry wasn't so very sweet and supportive.
He thinks anything I do is a great idea (as long as is doesn't interfere with hunting and fishing!) and doesn't seem to mind living on less while we see were this will go. . .
If you would like to know a little more you can check out my website at {growing} wisdom

In the mean time here is something else I have been working on. . .

Garden calenders for 2012!

The pages are made of heavy card stock and all the pictures were taken either in my garden or at Wellington's garden center .
I have 6 that I am offering for sale. They are $8 each.
If you live in the Edmonton area you could still pick this up as a Christmas gift.
If you are out of town it would take a little longer and the cost of postage would have to be added.
You can either phone me at 780-471-5301 or e-mail me at rosa_veldakmp@hotmail.com .
Just so you know what you will be getting, here are all the pictures used in the calender. . .

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Decorating For Christmas And Joining The Great Poinsettia Challenge

2011-12-16T00:02:00.000-08:00

Well it is close to midnight and I don't have long to get this entry into Tamara's Great Poinsettia Challenge so I am going to work as fast as I can to get this post done.

It will be heavy on the pictures and light on words.

The artificial poinsettia's I used came from a thrift store for next to nothing.

The real ones came from a big box store, although not our favorite big box store. . . (sorry Tam!) My house is quite small (less than 1000 square feet) and I wanted the very small poinsettias so I could spread them around a bit. I spent just under $18.

Every thing else I used was stuff I already had.

Except the Yoda lights on the tree.

As most of you know that was contributed by the boys. . .

Enjoy the show. . .

This is our side entry. As I don't have a fancy banister to decorate, I decided to do this instead.

The tree had lights, ribbon and a bunch of Yoda's. Clearly it needed poinsettias as well.

Next came the ornaments. Henry commented that the tree looked rather sparse this year as I did not let the kids put on every ornament we own. He seemed to think that was a bad thing. . .

Yoda seems quite happy with how things are looking.

All birds need scarves to keep them warm here on the Canadian prairie.

See?

This came from bits of leftover greens we used for our garden club meeting, the apples I saved from a centerpiece mom bought me a few years ago and the glittered pine cones Tamara brought to our house for our 25Th anniversary 2 years ago.

I tend to move stuff around at Christmas. It is the only way to make the tree fit in the living room. Some things leave and others come back. The black side table spent most of last year outside as it lost a few screws and is quite wobbly. All it needed was a bit of wire and Voila! Only a little bit wobbly!

Decorating came be simple. A little evergreen stuffed in a vase with a candle says Christmas without a lot of fuss.

A gift from mom last year. Doesn't it make you think of Narnia?
I love it!

Note the artificial poinsettia flowers nestled in the greens.

Another item brought inside. The glass tends to rattle when Henry walks by, so he will only put up with it for so long. . . It will probably make it through Christmas though.

Don't you love the colour on this one?

I won this beautiful metal planter at Henry's Christmas party last week. I couldn't wait until spring to use it! (More artificial pointsettia flowers. . .)

Don't these look great it this planter I got from Tamara many years ago? The sparkly curls came from her as well.

I like to decorate every room if I can.

Time to decorate the kitchen

I think this is one of my favorite vignettes. I bought the Limoges plate at a flea market.

This is another favorite

The only thing left to do is to put the lamb Morgan made in kindergarten at the top of the tree. . .
I do love to decorate for Christmas!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas. . . .

2011-12-05T21:07:00.001-08:00

Things are starting to happen around here. . .

This Christmas things are going to look a little different under the tree.
Retirement and the lack of a second income has resulted in the need to go for homemade as much as possible this year.
But what kinds of things can you make for mostly grown children?
Morgan begged me not to make pajama pants again as he said his cr**ch still hadn't recovered from last year. (The things boys say!. . . They were a little. . . ummmmm. . . short waist-ed.)
I was stumped and called up Ev to see if she had any ideas.
Always one to enjoy a good crafting session, she rushed right over and we spent the afternoon crafting like crazy and I ended up with 5 gifts by the time she had to call it quits.

I sure hope we get a chance to do that a few more times before Christmas.
Jesse got rather enthusiastic about setting up the tree later that afternoon so even though it was a bit early for my taste I let him do it. He also put on the lights. . . and the ribbon garland!. Which, although he's got a pretty good eye when it comes to design type things, I still had to play around with because to me it looked like he just unrolled it and wrapped it around the outside of the tree.
There was no ribbon weaving up and down on the various branches, or bits here and there tucked further into the tree. . .
Just ribbon wrapped in a spiral around the tree.
I couldn't help myself, I just had to fix it!
He was not happy about it!
After dinner that evening he and Morgan went out to do a bit of Christmas shopping. When they got home they informed me that I had to go to my room.
I assured them that I wouldn't see anything from the living room but they insisted, so off I went, wondering just what was going on.
I heard packaging and rummaging and a whole lot of laughing.
What in the world???
"Okay, you can come out now!"
A beautifully lit tree greeting me in the darkened living room.
But what was this? . . .
What was that on the tree???
I came closer.
I shook my head, closed my eyes and looked again. . .
Yoda?

What in the world was Yoda doing on my tree??
And not just one Yoda but an entire string of glowing Yodas adorned my tree.
Sigh.
Morgan loves nothing more than loading my tree with quirky ornaments.
And Jesse knows just what to say to his brother to egg him on.
Payback for messing with his ribbon.

Because I Told Lisa I Was Blogging Today

2011-11-28T14:19:00.001-08:00

When Henry and I first decided that it was time for me to retire from bus driving, I imagined long leisurely days, baking, reading, trying out new recipes and quiet rambles with Jada.
What I actually ended up with was life in the fast lane.
I have a ton of blog posts backed up in my brain and hardly a minute to put pen to paper ( figuratively speaking of course!)
My sister Lisa phoned to chat for a bit this morning and asked what I was going to do today.
Blog of course.
However, after we said goodbye I checked my e-mail and discovered that my favorite online print company has an amazing one day offer which meant I will be spending several hours designing an assortment of items they are offering for free. On top of that, if I spend $40 shipping is free as well. So I have spent a good while designing a gardening calender using my own photos. They usually cost $20 each but they are offering them for only $4.

These are the pictures I plan to use on my calenders

That will make either great Christmas gifts or useful giveaways when I. . . .

Oh wait! I haven't posted about what I've been up to yet! That will just have to wait!

In the meantime I thought I would let you see what Morgan thought would be appropriate to write on my inspiration board after he complained that my Teddy Roosevelt quote was way too long. . .

The odd thing is that most of this is true. . .
Aside from the crack about me eating turtles of course. . .I don't know where he got that from!
Oma had a good laugh about this one!

Christmas Center Piece Kits

2011-11-12T04:44:00.001-08:00

I sold these kits at a local craft fair and thought you might like to see how they are made.

If you don't have a kit you could always make up your own!

I cut these greens and rose hips from my garden.

You want to make sure that you cut your Oasis floral foam (a floral foam that you can wet) so that there is about 1-11/2 inches above the rim

Float the foam in water until soaked through. I had to flip it ove to make that work.

Put the foam into the pot. I didn't have a plastic liner so I just folded a large Ziploc bag over to fit. (Don't forget this step! I did and ended up with water all over my table when I watered it a few days later.) Yikes!

Cut the pieces left in half and soak

Put in pot trying to keep the tops of all three pieces level

Put the candle holders in the center of the pot

Cut the greens into smaller sprigs that are still long enough to hang over the end of the pot

I like to work all four sides first so the arrangement stays fairly even. I then fill in the corners with contrasting evergreens. In this case I used cedar on the four sides and golden juniper in the corners. You can change that up a bit as you work your way up the foam. There is no real right or wrong way to do this. If it looks good to you you've done it right!

When you clip the stem try to cut them on a bit of an angle

You also want to remove any bottom bits so the stem is long enough to poke into the foam. * Don't pull the stems back out a bit if you think you pushed them in to far. That creates an air pocket and will prevent the stems from taking up water. You don't want to place the stems more than once either as it creates hole you can't use again for that same reason

Fill in the greens, covering the foam

Now it's time to embellish! I added some rose hips from my garden

Time to place the candles in the holders. If you find your candles don't quite fit you can always shave the bottom down a bit with a knife.

You can trim any of your additions to a length that works for you.

I love the somewhat rustic feel you get with sticks of cinnamon

I also wanted to place single pointsettia flowers so I cut them off the spray rather than poking the whole thing in.

I made 2 loops with the ribbon and left the ends dangling on either side

I then tied the ribbon around the middle of the loops

I fluffed the loops and put the pick into the foam

Cut the ends of the ribbon and. . . Ta Da! A lovely center piece for the holidays.

Water so it doesn't dry out and you can enjoy it for some time to come!

Holidays Spent with family

2011-10-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

I realized while looking at these pictures that I spent last Thanksgiving at my sister Lisa's house too.

My poor family!

Ah well, I know they had a great time and fabulous food at my in-laws so they didn't suffer too much.

I do love to spend time with family and get to know my nieces and nephews a little better.

Thanks for sharing Thanksgiving with me again! Not to mention how blessed I was by all the grandchild lending that went on during this trip. Seriously, I got to babysit toddlers and babies and dogs and snuggle every baby that got near me!

It should keep me going for a while. . .

Mom enjoyed the chance to snuggle babies too. . .
Although in HER case she was snuggling GREAT grandchildren.

This is the best trifle I have had in ages! The cake was leftover from a wedding cake Lisa had made and I couldn't stop eating the little bits. Add in the homemade raspberry sauce also leftover from the wedding cake and some very high fat old fashioned whipping cream and . . . .Oh My!!!!
I still need to get that recipe!

The Last Of The Harvest

2011-10-28T09:30:00.000-07:00

It's going to be a busy few days around here.
Colder weather is really starting to settle in and it's time to take in the last of the harvest.
Mom dropped off her dehydrator yesterday so I will be bringing in kale and parsley to dry. Hopefully it's still good to dry. I was just looking out the window and realized that the kale is looking rather floppy. I know kale needs a frost for the best taste but now I'm thinking several frosts are maybe not so good!
The carrot , leeks and beets are still in the ground, so the time has come to dig them up and get them either pickled, (beets) or chopped up for the freezer.
The thing is, there are so many things going on at once it gets hard to prioritize sometimes. It seems the apples I had stored in the cold room to make pie filling from have softened too much for that to work, so at this point they are only good for applesauce. Now applesauce is good, but I still have quite a bit left, while the pie filling was gone a long time ago.
Preserving food really is an art and I am coming to see that it is not easily learned. Yes, making jam isn't that hard, but if it's not something you've grown up with and observed how that would fit into the rhythm of day to day life it's easy to think that it can always wait for a few day while you do other more 'important' things.
Obviously not the case.
So I am going to get off the computer and get down to some physical work.
The harvest just won't wait any longer.

My Love, Hate Relationship

2011-10-26T22:28:00.000-07:00

I had a couple of posts running through my mind today.
My first thought was to post about the fact that I managed to make a coffee cake, one which I have probably made well over 100 times, without sugar! And it took me a while to figure out just what went wrong with it.
Then I thought perhaps now was the time to blog about garden building in unlikely places, but. . .
I got sidetracked.
By technology . . .
Again!
My kids (and poor Ev) can tell you that I have a long way to go when it comes to finding my way around new computer programs and other computer type things.
I have recently gotten my old desktop refurbished, bought a new screen (okay largish TV) and a new keyboard and mouse. I'm still kicking myself for not buying wireless, but it was $40 more and I figured I had to draw the line somewhere! ( Ev is probably killing herself laughing at that statement right now. . . )
A few weeks back Jesse taught me how to make a power point presentation and I presented it to a class at the Ladies Night out using a projector borrowed from the school. Thankfully we set it up in the afternoon because it took quite some time for him to figure out why it wouldn't work. Had my brother-in-law R not been at school to offer his expert advice there would have been no presentation. (which, all things considered, would have been unfortunate.)
I have a somewhat love, hate relationship with technology. I love all the cool things you can do with it but I hate how complicated it can be. Having trouble with the projector made me pretty uptight. I have seen my sister Tamara struggle with projectors and computers when putting on various presentations over the years and the thought that that was going to be happening to me over and over kind of freaked me out. ( Tam has it all figured out now though. Presentations run smooth as clock work for her these days.)
I am teaching a class at our garden club next week that has a hands on bulb forcing portion and a power point that needs a projector. Ev suggested I could borrow one somewhere. Nerves instantly kicked in. This would be a different machine and I wouldn't have Jesse to help me. What if I couldn't figure it out?
Disaster!
Only there wasn't a machine to be had. Disaster of a different kind!
What to do, what to do?
I did the only thing I could do. . .
I bought my own.
Which meant I spent the afternoon researching projectors and then ran all over the west end trying to find one that I had actually researched!
In the end, I took Morgan with me, spent more than I had hoped for and came home with a very nice, easy to use projector.
Whoo! Hoo!
Morgan spent the next few hours showing me how it and other computer mysteries worked.
He threatened to charge me a consulting fee. . .
Which is why Ev got a call earlier this evening, when I couldn't figure out how to load pictures on my new computer. ( had to download Picassa even though I have Photoshop. Who knew?)
Ev is my other go to person when it comes to techie (and marketing) stuff. I'm pretty sure there are days she wishes she was charging me a consulting fee!
I should probably just give her her eggs for free. And anything else I can think of. . . .
It took me all afternoon and evening, but I am finally settled in with my new computer, blogging and ready to put a killer power point together.

I love technology. . .don't you?

A Lovely Time Was Had By All

2011-10-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted yet about the fabulous wedding I attended while in B.C.

My lovely niece married this nice young man whom I have known for years as he was a regular on my school bus.

It was extra special knowing both of them. Mind you I have seen the groom a whole lot more than the bride so that's kind of funny isn't it?

I had a hand in some of the wedding decor and there will be a post about that soon as well. (I promise Tam!)

But for now. . .

A beautiful day in pictures. . .

Why oh why do I always look so goofy when someone takes my picture????

Mom wearing her party favor

Mom, Aunty Nancy and Aunty Grace all wear their party favors!

By the end of the evening the rules started relaxing a bit. . .

Her mom choose not to be quite so bold however. . .

Happy Birthday Crystal!

2011-10-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

Crystal turned 26 this past week and today we are celebrating with a birthday dinner, a tradition we've had for several years now.
The birthday person gets to pick whatever they would like for their special meal.
Crystal choose halibut (which Henry caught on his trip to the ocean) cauliflower with white sauce and mashed potatoes.
It occurs to me that it's all going to look rather white on the plate. . .
Thankfully dessert is no bake cherry cheese cake, a family favorite, so there will be red cherries to brighten things up.

I decided to do something a little different to decorate.
Crystal loves hand made things, so I thought I would see if I could make a birthday banner.
I've seen them on lots of the crafty blogs although they generally seem to be made from cloth. My sewing skills are limited, so my banner would be made using some of the pretty scrap booking paper I had collected but never used.
I had a great time making it and her birthday card. (she loves homemade cards!)

Check it out. . .

I wasn't thrilled with the fact that the letters didn't show up as well as I had hoped

Henry had the solution as usual and suggested outlining the letters in black

That man is a genius!

We pray that the Lord will bless and keep you in the year to come.
Happy Birthday Crystal!

We Now Return You To Our Regularly Scheduled Program

2011-10-22T16:36:00.000-07:00

It took a while, but the house is finally back together.
Clean towels fill the linen closet, the basement hallways are once again clear and the produce drawers now contain fresh produce. (we won't talk about what they used to contain. . .shudder!)
I tend to plunge into projects and what have you, with gusto, working on things flat out until I am done.
Once a big project is done and I come up for air, I look around, realize the house has fallen apart and I am exhausted.
It used to take weeks to get things back to normal.
I would find dirty dishes hiding in the oven, or in baskets in the closest, stashed there when unexpected company dropped by. The fridge would be filled with little bits of leftovers with no room for fresh food. Laundry would. . . well lets not talk about what happened in the laundry room!
Over the last several years I have slowly purged much of our stuff and worked hard to find a place for everything that's left with the hope that it would make putting the house back together easier. (And it really has!)
Because, while most people likely find my way of doing things a little. . .(ahem) quirky, I have come to accept that's it's just the way I was made.
That doesn't mean, however, that I am willing to accept living in chaos for weeks on end.
I'm quirky, not crazy. . .
It has taken me longer than usual to get it back together this time.
Some parts of the last few weeks were lots of fun, but others were quite difficult. I hadn't been back to B.C. since my dad's funeral in early May. Walking into his house for the first time brought back such sorrow, it really took me off guard.
Dad wasn't perfect ( who of us is?) but I loved him dearly. The thing is, he loved me just the way I was. He was proud of me.
I didn't see him often. As his illness worsened over the years, it took more and more of his energy to just keep moving forward, to 'fight the good fight' without complaint, and he didn't always have much left over for the people around him, but he did the best he could.

Dad had a sense of adventure, (I was thrilled when he took my sister Lisa and I up in a little plane when we were young. She was not, poor little soul. . .) and although he wasn't really a 'people' person, he enjoyed being on the road, traveling to new places.
He loved to learn, to try new things and create beauty. Over the years he brought into being wonderful cakes, gardens and photographs. He played with food and tinkered with recipes for delicious baked goods. He filled his sun room with exotic birds and fish of all kinds (Not to mention plants. If I had half the indoor green thumb he had, I would be thrilled! But I don't. Indoor plants shake in their pots when I bring them home.)
I miss my Dad.
But I take such comfort in knowing that he is finally home, at peace, and free to be all the Lord created him to be.
It's time for me to move forward, to fight my 'good fight' and be all that God has created me to be.
It's a new day and I want to live it with joy.
Thankfully, I don't have to rely on my own strength to do it. . . . .

Philippians 4:4-9

New InternationalVersion (NIV)

Final Exhortations

⁴ Rejoicein the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! ⁵ Letyour gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶ Donot be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition,with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ Andthe peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your heartsand your minds in Christ Jesus.

⁸ Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true,whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about suchthings. ⁹ Whatever you have learned or received or heard fromme, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

It's The Unexpected Things That Throw You. . .

2011-10-17T23:06:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning with a plan. . .
Breakfast, walk Jada, start some bread, blog and then out to the garden.
It was a good plan.
A fun plan.
But then came the phone call. . .
"Are you home today? I can come over and put that light in your living room."
"Sure."
A bit of mental readjustment and the plan still works.
My handy brother-in-law was up in the attic figuring out the wiring when I discovered that the light fixture that had been kicking around the house for over a year had disappeared!
For crying out loud!
I frantically searched everywhere with no luck. Henry dropped by for lunch and made his own, futile search.
There was no help for it. I had to go shopping for a new one.
Ugh! I really hate shopping!
I ran over to the lighting store and took some time trying to find the perfect fixture.
You know. . .
Beautiful and cheap.
Thankfully Crystal works there, so she helped me find a lovely fixture. Not necessarily all that cheap mind you. . .but beautiful.
Back home to give Walt a hand.
Mom dropped by for a visit.
Hmmm. . .
A little more mental readjustment. Nope, pretty sure the plan isn't quite working anymore. But maybe I can salvage some of it.
Dinner time, and Morgan reminds me that we are going to get a monitor for my just refurbished desktop computer. I'm hoping it won't heat up the way my laptop does when I work on it all day.
Shoot! More mental readjustment.
The plan is not looking good. . .
Supper, a new monitor, and back home.
"Did you pick up milk? We're out." Henry reminds me.
"Uh, mom, the old keyboard doesn't work. . ." Morgan informed me.
Another quick trip.
It's getting late!

Things are looking good though. I have a 24" tv monitor for the computer and working with pictures and making garden power points is going to be awesome!

I think I have just enough time to . . .

It's Morgan with the neighbor's clippers in his hand.
"You said were going to do my hair tonight . . ."
The last time I did Jesse's hair with the clippers, I continually yanked his hair and then accidentally buzzed a divot out of the back of his head. . .
" Are you sure you want me to do your hair????"

Not too bad from the front. . .

No divots in the back

Mind you I am not 100% sure about the hairline. Thankfully it's not crooked but. . . Should I have rounded the edges?
Any hairdressers out there willing to give me a few pointers?

It's midnight and I'm pretty sure my plan is toast for today!

Ah well. . .
Maybe tomorrow. . .

Safe Food

2011-10-17T07:56:00.000-07:00

I will be posting a little later today about what I have been up to lately, but while finishing my tea this morning I came upon an interesting blog post from George Africa who owns a perennial plant nursery in Vermont.
It seems today is Blog Action Day a day when bloggers around the world add their thoughts about a single topic.
This year's topic is Food which is near and dear to my heart. I am very excited about learning how best to eat locally and a big part of that here, with our short growing season, is preserving local food to eat throughout the winter.
There is lots of that going on around me. Mom has been dehydrating like crazy and managed to burn out two second hand dehydrators! She decided to spring for a brand new one and left our house yesterday with a huge kale plant to dry for me. Ev always inspires me with her preserving efforts. She has been jamming, canning, juicing and dehydrating anything she can get her hands on. I have a long way to go in that regard as I am easily distracted by gardening, fall decorating and just about anything else at this time of year. Truthfully I am not all that fond of canning things. What I am fond of however, is tasty home canned food, so I work hard at pushing myself to do it anyway. I still have apples waiting to be processed, berries to be jammed, carrots and leeks to be dug, chopped and frozen,beets to pickle and venison to be made into sausage.
And I'll be getting to it. . . as soon as I put the garden to bed, decorate the front garden for fall and Halloween ( I'm thinking giant spider with webs on the gazebo) and I make a few more concrete leaf sculptures.
Hmmmm. . . .
I think I had better wake up Jesse and put him to work or I'll never get it all done! (Some days it's handy to have a strong boy who knows how to garden and cook.)
I'll leave you with the link to George's post and ask what you have to say about this year's topic. . .
What thoughts do you have about food?

Ta Da!!!

2011-10-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

I'm so sorry I have been taking so long to post today, (Aunty Nancy ;) ) but I am a little overwhelmed at the chaos that being away and then so busy over the last two weeks has caused in the house.

While the boys did keep things fairly clean, I came home to mountains of laundry (none of us has been able to find a clean towel to use after our shower), dirty floors, and a big undertaking that kept me running until this morning.

Now it's time to catch up with the housekeeping.

So here, in pictures, is what I have been busy with since I came home. . .

The full story next week. . .

Last night's Ladies Night Out. I was busy teaching two garden classes so Jesse came along to man the table. luckily for me, most of his friends are girls so he didn't mind being the only man in the place!

What Would We Do Without Family And Friends?

2011-10-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

So I had a very good sleep last night, short though it was. . .
I woke up rested and ready to go, had breakfast, walked the dog and sat down to work on the next project for tonight.
And then technology reared it's ugly head.
You all know what I mean. . .
We love the fabulous things technology can do for us, until it stops working.
What do you do when it stops working???
My mom will ask how it's possible for you to text someone when their phone is off and have that text show up as soon as they turn their phone on?
Where was it while the phone was off? How is that even possible?
I just say I don't have to know how it works, I just have to know how to use it.
And that's true.
Until it stops working.
Because if you don't know how it works, you don't know how to fix it!
Arghhhh!
I am so thankful for family who keep you from tearing your hair out and friends who come up with solutions to the problem. (We hope!)
Now I am off to see if Ev can pull off the impossible.
Keep your fingers crossed!

Learning Something New and Another Hint

2011-10-13T23:54:00.000-07:00

It's quarter to one in the morning and I have finally finished my first ever power point presentation.
Of course if Jesse hadn't kindly tutored my in this fine art, I would likely still not be finished!
He did however, which meant I had time to do various other things to get ready for tomorrow night.
Whoo Hoo!
Want another hint?

Now it's time to turn off the computer before it over heats and the screen blacks out again.
It's never had a work out like this before!
See you in the morning. . .

A New Beginning

2011-10-13T15:58:00.000-07:00

Some of you might remember that a while back I was trying to decide just what to do now that I have retired from bus driving.
It"s not that I had no ideas, but just that I wasn't sure if I should take a risk and follow my dream. . .
Well, after some soul searching, long talks with myself, and every friend I have, (I am so sorry that I have been driving you all crazy!) I have come to a decision. . .

I'm jumping in with both feet!

After all, if you are going to pursue your passion, what other way could there be?

What am I going to do?

Here's a sneek peek:

And what has Jada been doing while I have been running around like a crazy woman???

Hanging out on my bed of course!

Want more than this little hint?
Keep watching for the next 24 hours as I update you as I go.
Want to check things out in person?
Drop in at Immanuel Church tomorrow evening at 7 pm for Ladies Night Out, support a PICS school fundraiser and see just what I'm up to. . .
See you there!

Gardening In Unusual Spaces

2011-10-06T10:13:00.000-07:00

So you live in a tiny space and are dreaming of one day being able to do some significant food gardening.
But right now it is nothing more than a dream. The only thing outside your front door is concrete.
Not much opportunity there.
After all, growing food requires soil. . . . right?
Wrong.
Soil is great and my first choice for growing food, but it is certainly not the only option.
Pots are an excellent choice as well.
If you want to go organic when growing your food in a pot and avoid chemical fertilizers, you can add a good helping of compost and composted manure to your potting mix and still have great results.
Perhaps you are thinking that a few tomatoes or an herb pot can barely be called significant food gardening.
Which is true, although nothing to sneeze at when it comes to to opportunity to eat a little delicious home grown food.
But who said you can only grow a small pot or two???
If all you have is a driveway and you use the largest pots you can find, you really can grow a significant amount of food!
Here's what I grew in my drive way garden this year. . .

I would call that a significant amount of food!
This is our fall harvest. On top of this we have also been eating tomatoes and peppers of the vine for a least a month now.
The real trick to growing food in pots is to get the largest pots you have room for. This gives the plants lots of room for root growth and allows you to go much longer between watering for most of the growing season.
If I had been more consistent in my watering late in the season when the plants had gotten very large and required more water I would have had an even better harvest!
Live and learn. . . (I have learned that next year I will be putting in drip irrigation rather than counting on myself to water when I need to. Sometimes I get distracted. . .)
Gardening in pots is fun and best of all, they never need weeding!
So next season, why not give it a try?

Dear Aunty Nancy. . . Or. . . Another Broken Promise!

2011-10-05T10:13:00.000-07:00

Have any of you noticed that the older you get, the faster time seems to fly?
At this point I figure I must be well into my nineties because an entire month just whizzed by unnoticed!
I missed doing something special for my secret sister and had to do a belated gift which was only possible because my friend Ev and her girls are so creative.
I would fill you in on what I did, but Crystal was told by my secret sister that she thinks she knows who her sister is. (Which would be me!)
Have you guys been talking???
Some fabulous and exciting things have been going on at my house and everyday I mean to do long, involved posts about it.
Unfortunately those fabulous and exciting things have kept me hopping and before I know it I am lying in bed sometime after midnight thinking " Now did I post today or not?"
I could post pictures to show you some of what's been going on but. . .
I am travelling again!
Yes indeed, for the fourth time this year I am blogging from the damp, drizzly B.C. coast.
Tamara's daughter is marrying a young man who had been a student on my bus for several years and I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to share in this lovely occasion.
Mind you, if I wasn't retired I wouldn't have been able to come at all, as the groom's father is my substitute driver. I am pretty sure that being the father of the groom would win out over being the aunt of the bride!
I have managed to sneak in a bit of quiet time to blog this morning but I am fairly sure that a search party will be sent out for me at any moment.
After all, a wedding with a " A Night In Venice' as a theme doesn't happen by itself.
Many, many hands are needed to make the transformation from large greenhouse space to enchanted Venetian garden.
So, if you all will excuse me, I have some fanciful masks to help finish!
And the enchanted garden to arrange!
Isn't life wonderful?

It's A Dog's Life

2011-09-22T20:11:00.000-07:00

I seem to be mellowing in my old age.
I never used to let Jada sleep on the bed.
Lately I have relaxed the rules a bit. . .

And she is bound and determined to take full advantage of it!
Nowadays, if I can't find Jada anywhere, I check out our bed and . . .
Ta da!!!
Once again hanging out in the comfyist spot in the house!
Oh to be a dog. . .

Secret Sisters

2011-09-20T19:17:00.000-07:00

I mentioned my secret sister in a previous post and my cousin Chandra wondered what exactly that was. (She wasn't the only one!)

It was organized by one of the ladies in our church. She put a questionnaire in every one's mailbox which we had to fill out and return if we were interested in participating.
The questionnaire asked things like who we were, if we were married and to whom , our age, hobbies, favorite things (like bible verses, holidays or seasons, desserts etc.), things we like to collect, if we had allergies or real dislikes, and whether we had any special prayer requests.

She took them all and then everyone was given someone else's questionnaire and that person was then your secret sister.

The idea is to do something thoughtful for her at least once a month until our reveal party in mid December.

Not only do I have a secret sister to do fun things for, someone also has me as a secret sister. Last month I was given the most unusual gladiola flower. I had never seen those colours on a gladiola before and I just loved it.

This month I received a beautiful stained glass piece and was told (in a card) that her artist friend had made it and it made her think of me! Isn't that nice?

I love handcrafted things and it looks lovely in my side window!

I had always wanted to put some type of stained glass in this window.

It gives me a warm, cozy feeling to know someone is thinking about me.

Getting Used To 'Retirement'

2011-09-19T21:36:00.000-07:00

Since I no longer drive the school bus or work outside the home I am now 'retired.'
I have been trying to figure out just what that means in practical terms.
Do I spend my days reading and eating chocolate?
Wash load after load of laundry everyday? Iron sheets and jeans?
Keep tabs on who's doing what on the soaps?

Retirement means a drop in income and a change in buying habits.
It means finding things to do that are inexpensive or. . . better yet, free.

It's odd how easy it was to get used to running out to pick something up to eat because I was just to busy to cook dinner, but not at all easy to get used to planning for dinner everyday so I won't run out to pick something up. Yet if I do go the easy route now, I find myself disappointed in the food and annoyed that I spent money I didn't have to!

I have spent 18 years earning money and now that I'm not, I have the uncomfortable feeling that I am not contributing properly anymore.

Mind you, Henry and the boys are thrilled that I am home full time.
Jesse informed me that I seem to be developing a sense of humour.
Morgan appreciates the fact that if he comes home for lunch, I will make it for him.
Henry's enjoying my more relaxed, happy attitude so much that he doesn't even want me starting up a little home business. (more on that another day!)

The thing is, is that the rules have changed. . . ( I stole that profound thought from someone dear to me. . . thanks hey!)

So I have a question for all of you. . .

If you were given the opportunity to do something you loved, but on the teeynist, tinyest budget, while still taking good care of your home and family. . . (also on the teenyist, tinyest budget!)

What would you do and how would you go about doing it?

Feel free to go into great detail!

I have been thinking a lot lately about Jamie Oliver , Adele , and others who are so obviously using their God given talents to the utmost. ( Regardless of whether or not they acknowledge that it came from Him.)

We are all charged to use the talents God has given us, and what I wonder as a wife and mother, (and a somewhat perfectionist, overachiever) is how that fits with family life.

How do we go about figuring out how to best use our talents to God's glory here in the 'real' world with so many things competing for our time and attention?

Let's start a conversation and let me know what you think or how you've made things work in your lives.

In the mean time here are some of the things I've been up to in the last few weeks. . .

Fall in the front garden

Dressing up the front entry for a new season

Canning peaches by myself for the first time

They are delicious!

Of course I always love to play with bread!

Adding cheese makes anything better. . .

At least in Jada's opinion!

One batch of dough made cinnamon buns, butter pan buns, hamburger buns and . . .

Ham and cheese buns. Yum!!

Blog Worthy Activity

2011-08-30T21:41:00.000-07:00

So I spent a good part of last week reading.
Wednesday I read two of Francine Rivers' newest books. 'Her Mother's Hope' and 'Her Daughter's Dream.' I started in the morning , read all day, stopping only when Henry dropped by for lunch and made like I had been busy all day, threw something together for supper and finished the second book at 3:30 in the morning.
You would think I had learned from that, but no, I read nearly as much the next day!
By Friday night I realized that I had better not even open a book until after dinner or there would be no blog worthy activity happening around here at all!
Saturday was fun with lots of baking and a family get together at a park with a lake and a dog park.
Of course that meant we took Jada along and Henry wanted to let her run free while I wanted her leashed until she listened to me. I took her to the dog park area, took off her leash and watched her bolt over to the truck looking for Henry. Then she spotted one the of many hot dogs scattered around the park (bait for the crayfish in the pond) and any kind of control was a lost cause. Which brought on an argument in front of Henry's dad when he (Henry, not his dad) insisted she should be off leash anyway. I strongly suggested that was a terrible idea..
The end result was him taking her for a walk instead of me and letting her off leash as soon as they were out of sight! (As I told his dad he would!)
Ah well, once she got to stay next to Henry she quieted down a whole lot.
I did have some fun with a bouquet from the garden for my sister-in-law Dorothy's birthday

Dorothy's gift and handmade card

Very pretty ribbon and a handmade label

as well as something neat for my secret sister.

Cherry cheesecake

Shhhhh! Don"t tell her it was me!

(don't worry she doesn't read this blog so I won't be giving anything away! Just make sure you don't give it away!)
This week has me canning peaches, making strawberry jam and going for a drive in my bus with the lady who is replacing me.
Friday I get to do something fun as well, but that is going to have to stay secret for a while.
Should the unthinkable happen and the blog goes silent, you will know that the responsible woman in me lost out ot the avid reader. . .
If that happens I give you all permission to hassle me without mercy . . .

Not All Flower Gardens Require Weeding

2011-08-23T13:07:00.000-07:00

Jada and I are still searching out new places to take our daily walk.
This morning I had to go the the grocery store and decided to hit my favorite IGA on 142 st. They have an excellent bakery and the butcher shop is wonderful as well. There is almost always a butcher available to talk to and they are happy to cut something custom for you which makes going a little out of my way to get there totally worth while.
So to be efficient (something new I'm trying. . .) I took Jada with me and we kept a close eye out for a likely walking spot.
We found a great one in the Mckinnon Ravine. You get at in in an odd way but it was a lovely walk that led us right to the river's edge which thrilled Jada no end and she jumped in before I had time to stop her! (of course Henry and I had just given her a bath!)
The neatest part of the walk though, was all the wild flowers we saw.
You just have to love a flower garden that doesn't need weeding!

Another adventure on an unknown path!

I love rose hips and often use them when decorating for fall or Christmas.

For some reason my camera kept registering these flowers as a mountain scene, so they are a little out of focus.

One of my favorites, these little flowers are pale purple. I think they are a type of wild aster.

These flowers are so pretty but I have no idea what they might be.

From the look (and smell) of the leaves theses flowers are likely in the crysanthumum family. Oddly, what looks like the center of a flower, is the actual flower. Kind of cool. . .

These flowers were white and likely asters as well.

All in all, a lovely start to my day!

Sleepovers

2011-08-19T10:09:00.000-07:00

These are the kinds of things that go on in this house When Jada has a sleepover with her friend Diesel. . .

What???

Sorry mom, there's no room left!

Inspiration

2011-08-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

Jada and I have been going for long walks in a historic neighbourhood that runs along the river. It only takes five minutes to drive there and is full of 'scope for the imagination' as Anne (of Green Gables) would say.
It's peaceful, and beautiful homes, gardens and large trees abound.
While walking Ravine Drive, we stopped to sit on a bench (well I did!) and enjoy the view.
When I got up again, I saw this plaque:

I loved this!
I went home and did my part to make life beautiful. . .

Set a pretty table

Local, pasture raised, roasted chicken with a garlic, rosemary, lemon zest, and crushed red pepper flake rub under then skin.

Add homegrown beans

Flowers from the garden, homemade applesauce and a good bottle of wine (or red brisk if, like Morgan, wine isn't your thing.)

Butter, locally made bacon for bacon bits and homemade bread on a serving plate I painted myself many (many!) years ago.

Life really is beautiful isn't it?
Of course, I could have set a pretty table and served spagetti and meatballs and it would have been just as lovely.
In the end it's about my attitude more than about what I have.
God has already given me the most precious gift there is.
The rest is just gravey. . .

A Change Of Heart

2011-08-17T06:05:00.000-07:00

I have decided not to go around the bend. ( literally or figuratively!)
Thinking about getting behind the wheel of a bus again , battling traffic, construction and the elements had a knot of anxiety growing larger and larger everyday.
And I hadn't even started driving yet!
Yet it was my duty to drive wasn't it???
Ev pointed out that just because we can say yes to something, doesn't mean that God expects us to say yes to it.
Sometimes the lesson to be learned is that we have to say no.
I just wish my no wasn't going to make so many other people's lives difficult.

Sigh.

A Bend In The Road

2011-08-15T12:01:00.000-07:00

If there has to be a bend, I would choose this one!

Just when you think you know where you are headed, God changes directions on you. . .

I thought I had retired from bus driving when the school year was over!
Jesse graduated and that meant no more tuition.
I was looking ahead to quiet, relaxed mornings and long days full of baking, cooking, visiting, helping, gardening, preserving, crafting, reading, walking and just loving my family.

But, it seems God has something else in mind. . .
I learned on Saturday that my job has yet to be filled. . .

Would I consider. . .????

So, for the the time being, I will once again be driving kids to school everyday.
While this is not the direction I thought my days were heading, it's comforting to know that it's all in God's hands and He works everything for my good.

Who knows what might be around that bend in the road. . .

Now I'm off to find some cool window stickers for the bus.
I do love to decorate my bus for the kids!

The Reveal

2011-08-12T10:02:00.000-07:00

As promised, I am going to reveal how the front entrance makeover turned out. . .
We went from this. . .

Before the door had an old metal screen door and an odd extra decorative metal piece to the left of the door that went up to the eave.

The screen was replaced with a new white one. I do regret not paying the extra $100 to have gotten a black one but it just wasn't in the budget!

Time to replace the old hardware. It was tarnished and rather beaten up

To this. . .

We ( well by 'we' I mean my lovely brother-in law W ) removed the metal rails so I could spray paint them and then left off the extra odd piece for a more updated look.

There is no reason to have an ugly Beware of Dog sign!

New brushed nickle hardware. I painted out the unused peephole as I felt that hanging the new doorknocker to cover the peephole made the knocker too low. I couldn't figure out how to fill the large hole I would be left with if I took the peephole ou,t so I went the (ahem) 'creative' route and painted it out instead

Taking the odd metal bit off, left the brick looking unbalanced, so my fabulous brother-in-law also hung this metal basket I painted black to even things out a bit. This will be a great place to add seasonal elements!

The old address sign had seen better days, so I put this new one up instead. Unfortunately, I put the vinyl numbers on upside down, making it impossible to hang the way it was meant to. Thankfully W is also 'creative' and just used great gobs of construction adhesive to put it up! I also put up a new mailbox as the old one had been painted several times and the paint was bubbling. The whole thing had also rusted quite badly. Finding a mailbox I liked that didn't cost over $100 proved quite a challenge and in the end I chose this plastic one for $16 . It fit the budget and was in the simple style I was looking for.

I love how it turned out. It's not perfect but then, what is???

The Dark Side Of Organic Broccoli

2011-08-10T10:08:00.000-07:00

Our family loves broccoli.
Steamed, with cheese sauce, roasted with garlic and olive oil, it's all good to us.
That makes having access to organically grown broccoli in your own back yard a huge bonus.
We can eat all I can grow. And I only grow organically.
But. . .
There is a dark side to organically grown broccoli.
It rears it's ugly head when you are eating your delicious, garlicky, roasted broccoli, savouring every bite, when your horrified gaze beholds one of these. . . . .!!!

Only instead of being green, plump and squirmy, he's crispy, curled, and roasted!
And he's on your fork!!!
Thankfully, Henry and Jesse just shrugged and said " Oh well, it's just extra protein."
It could have been so much worse. . .
Had Crystal been over for dinner last night, her shrieks would have been heard around the globe!
Mom's would likely have joined her.
Please don't tell either one of them about this or they may never come for dinner again!

And now I'm off with a big plastic container and garden gloves for a lengthy caterpillar picking session.
Shudder!!!

Technical Difficulties

2011-08-09T15:13:00.000-07:00

We've been experiencing technical difficulties for the last few months.
Internet connection has been very spotty and when I could get on line, it often took a very long time to load various pages, making blogging next to impossible!
After spending two hours on hold I finally managed to get our cable company to come out. Tomorrow they will be replacing our overhead cable line which should solve the problem for good.

You might be thinking I've just been hanging out, enjoying lovely, lazy, summer days with no blogging to do. . .
Jesse tells me I don't know how to have a lovely, lazy day and it's possible that he's right. At least while I am at home.
Somehow, something always needs doing.
Ev would probably disagree with me, as she is always doing something fun with her girls (sometimes she even lets her husband come along. . !)
It's odd, but somehow now that my kids are ( mostly) grown up, I don't make time for festivals and what have you the way I used to. It's not quite the same when you don't have small kids of your own to go with.
What I do find time for, are things like freezing thirty pounds of strawberries with vanilla been to use in strawberry short cake all winter long, painting and refreshing my outside front entry and, of course, gardening! ( Most of which Ev is doing on top of having fun with her family!)
So, to fill you in on what's been happening, I figured I would tell it in pictures rather than words. . . (Okay, okay, there are some words. I have to have some words!)

Driving Jesse and friends to summer camp were they were counsellors for devolpmentally challenged adults

A baby gift for my sister-in-law. I am trying hard to add special touches to gifts.

A handmade card

Jada and I are trying to be more adventurous in where we walk

On this day we walked in an old beautiful neighbourhood. I love walls covered in vines!

Looking for ideas I can use on my small home

Jada loves it when I share my snack with her!

Annabell hydrangea in the front garden

An ant on 'John Cabot'

Winnipeg Parks in the front garden

My friend Joyce and I take time out to visit Fort Edmonton

I check out gardens were ever I go!!

Jada LOVES icecream and Jesse HATES the cone. A good deal for for both of them!

Sliced strawberries with vanilla bean (seeds) Yum! Not local though. . . too much rain made for a poor crop this year.

A gift from the garden

The 'special' touch

I love daisy's!

A new project begins. . .

Front door before. . .

Minus knob and lock.
Stay tuned for the reveal in a future post!

Walking in the river valley

Nominated!

2011-07-17T19:16:00.000-07:00

I was looking out the front window the other evening and I noticed the head of our community garden club putting something in my mailbox which I didn't think much of, but when I looked out again a few minutes later, she was still out front sitting in her truck writing and I realized what had likely just happened.
My heart leapt!
And then it sank.
Because if I had just been nominated for the city's Front Yards in Bloom contest I had also just been judged!
And after all the rain we had had there were giant weeds. . .

Yellow weeds. . .

Ant hills. . .

And fun flamingos hiding in the bushes from all the nasty wind we had been having. . .

Sigh. . .
Oh well, it is great to be nominated.
The thing is though, you never really know if by some miracle you may have made it to the next round!
So tomorrow will find me frantically pruning, weeding, staking and maybe even sewing (new cushions for the bench)
Because, what if??!
Stay tuned for a tour of the front garden once I've gotten it prettied up a bit. . .
(And then I'm going to persaude Ev to let us tour her front garden. . .Because she was nominted as well! Whoo Hoo!)

The Sun Came Out

2011-07-15T09:01:00.000-07:00

The sun came out yesterday for the first time in over a week.
I decided to celebrate by making a quick movie of the back garden.
I have gotten used to my new camera yet but I'll keep working on it!

Rain, Rain, Go Away. . .

2011-07-12T09:48:00.000-07:00

It's been raining B.C. style here for days now with lots of high winds thrown in, just for fun.
One of my beautiful tomato plants snapped in half, my sunflowers blew over, half the garlic patch is flattened and I'm fairly certain that the cauliflower won't recover.
That said, there is always an upside to gardening.
My hosta's have gotten fabulously huge, the cedars and boxwood that I planted in the front garden think they are sill back home on the coast and for some reason the broccoli still looks awesome!
The other upside to the rain on the last week I'll have Jesse home during the day, is that he's helping me out with my 'spring' cleaning and reorganizing.
We worked until nearly midnight last night turning Holly's old room into a storage room/ spare room.
It's looking great!
Next up. . .
The greenhouse area. Shudder!!!

One Last Grad Post

2011-07-07T19:03:00.000-07:00

Since neither Holly or my sisters were able to be there I just had to post a few more pictures and one last movie just for them
We will return to our regular scheduled programming any day now!

A series of pictures entitled . . . Jesse is a nut. . .

And now for the movie clip. . .
This is for Tamara because she loves music, Holly because she couldn't be there, Aunty Nancy because these boys actually love to sing (the class decided they wanted to sing at grad on their own) and Lisa, because if she wasn't included in the list, I would hear her voice in my head . "What am I! Chopped liver?!!"

Sorry about the film quality. It took me awhile to figure out my new camera.

One More Time!

2011-07-06T17:01:00.000-07:00

I finally managed to upload a shortened version of the grads singing!
For your viewing pleasure. . .

Holly, make sure you watch this in full screen.
You'll see why. . .

Dear Aunty Nancy. . .

2011-07-06T08:02:00.000-07:00

Well I think you had better uncross your fingers.
My Internet has gone down several times each day since my last post and when it has worked I have tried a number of times to load the video with no success.
I did manage to upload a short clip of the class historians talking about Jesse . . .

Now I'm off to battle the mosquitoes and weed the garden.
Wish me luck. . . I'm going to need it!

Jesse And His Fellow Grads Sing

2011-07-03T17:27:00.000-07:00

I've been having no luck uploading my grad 'movies' to YouTube so I'm going to try it straight to blogger.
I think if it works I have to do each movie as a separate blog.
Fingers crossed!!!

A Quick Peek

2011-07-01T11:54:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy week that started with Jesse's grad, included a day where Ev, her friend and I made sausage, Morgan turned 21 and is ending with Henry and I making 30 pounds of deer sausage together.
Here's a quick peek of Jesse's grad with more to follow. . .
Soon I hope!
( If you click on the pictures you can see them larger than they are in this post.)

1st Garden Bouquet Of The Season

2011-06-24T20:59:00.000-07:00

I had promised to post pictures of the back garden but I've been so busy finishing up the school year and getting my bus cleaned there just hasn't been time.
Instead I offer you this. . .
My sister-in-law Leona celebrated her birthday this week and was able to drop by for coffee.
As birthdays and presents just seem to go together, I gifted her with the first bouquet to come out of the garden this season. . .

Happy Birthday Leona! May the Lord bless you with many more!

And I Call Myself A Master Gardener. . .

2011-06-21T21:58:00.000-07:00

A while back, when Ev and I visited Hole's new Enjoy center for their opening, I bought an Elephant Ear bulb because I thought it would look cool by the pond. (Once Henry finishes building it. We are going into year three now. . .)
I was even lucky enough to talk to Jim Hole, one of the owners and he told me to plant it quick because I was already a bit late with it.
The bulb can be saved from year to year so it didn't bother me that it might be a bit small this year.
I planted the bulb and put it in the greenhouse with everything else and waited for something to happen.

I watered.
I waited.
I watered some more.
I waited some more.
And waited. . .
And waited. . .
Everything in the greenhouse had been planted and this is all I saw. . .

The time had come to empty the pot.
And this is what I saw. . .

I planted the bulb upside down!!!

Considering the price of the bulb I did what I could to remedy the situation.

I don't know if it's going to grow, but I'll keep you posted.

Just so you all don't think I'm a total dufus I'm going to post later tomorrow with pictures of the back garden now that it's stopped raining.

I really am a master gardener. . . !

Hidden Meanings?

2011-06-20T18:19:00.000-07:00

So if your friends come over to visit and they say "Oh Rosa it looks great in here! It's so clean!" . . .

What do you think they mean???

The Rubarb Project

2011-06-14T12:14:00.000-07:00

Many years ago I watched a Martha Stewart episode which featured two men (Little and Lewis) in the Pacific Northwest who made concrete sculptures using giant gunnera leaves. It was quite mind blowing to see what they could do. They gave directions for a home project although, as gunnera can't be grown in many areas, they suggested rhubarb as an alternative.
I kept the directions in my project folder for years waiting for a chance to try it for myself.
Several years ago I tried it out with rhubarb and hosta leaves and while it worked reasonably well all the leaves broke fairly quickly.
Recently I was given rhubarb for my mom and was stunned by the size of some of the leaves.
Hmmmm. . . .
This time I called in the professionals.
Our friend Russ is in the stucco business and he was quite excited about trying something new and offered to come over with our other friend Bernie to help out.
It's raining today which meant they couldn't work so he phoned me up and said they were mixing up the concrete and heading over.
Here's what we did. . .

Russ added some black tinting to darken up the concrete. I did most of the sand shaping under the leaf and the guys did everything else. We used two 70 pound pails of concrete which means this leaf will weigh 140 pounds!
No need to worry about anyone walking off with this sculpture!
Now we cross our fingers for the next few weeks as the leaf cures.
I can hardly wait!

* Update. I just googled martha and concrete leaves and found the directions back for this project. First off they suggested hosta leaves not rhubarb, that was all my idea. Second the consistancy of the concrete they suggested is not what we used, although my sculpture will be much larger than they were thinking and third, I forgot to put plastic wrap between the edge of the leaf and the sand to keep the concrete edge clean. Sigh. . . Still keeping my fingers crossed. Pretty sure it won't look like the ones they feature on their site though. . .

The Front Garden In Early June

2011-06-12T20:02:00.000-07:00

Disaster Strikes Again!

2011-06-09T16:00:00.000-07:00

My poor basil bed has just lost another plant!
First I lose half of them to frost and then I lose another one to this guy. . .

Cut Worm

I will be out at dawn with a trowel, flashlight and heavy boots for squishing.
Gardening is not for the faint of heart!

Disturbing Discovery

2011-06-08T17:32:00.000-07:00

I spotted an old friend while driving home in the bus this afternoon.
I could see him looking at me thinking " Is that. . .Rosa? I think. . . maybe. . ."
I waved vigorously and smiled broadly when he realized that yes, it was Rosa!

I made quite a disturbing discovery during this incident however.
While my hand was waving vigorously, my underarm was jiggling just as vigorously!!!
Sigh. . .
Middle age.
The age of disturbing discoveries.

Sarah's Grad. And I Could Use Photography Lessons

2011-06-07T22:28:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned yesterday Morgan's girlfriend Sarah had her grad on Friday.

I thought you might like to see how lovely she and Morgan looked.

Unfortunately while Sarah looks lovely, poor Morgan, due to the fact that I could use photography lessons, had the top of his head cut off and shiny white lights where his eyes should be!

And that was the good picture!!

Sigh. . .

Without further ado. . .

The lovely couple.

Still Not Done!

2011-06-06T18:59:00.000-07:00

Last week I told Holly I was almost done planting and would begin to blog regularly again by Friday.
That obviously didn't happen!
The weather wasn't really cooperating and I was blessed with the opportunity to cook dinner for my sister Lisa, her husband, two daughters, one 'special friend' and a couple of grand kids. Sarah also had her grad that day so I tried to make a beautiful table setting for her, Morgan and their friend A who came up for the grad. Oh and of course mom and Crystal came as well.
I'd show you pictures but I was so busy getting the meal out that I totally forgot!
Saturday the weather wasn't great so I had no choice but to hang out inside reading, crocheting and snoozing.
It was a pretty tough day. . .
I really am nearly finished planting.
Unfortunately last week we had 2 nights close to freezing and one that dropped below zero taking me by surprise. I lost half my basil and 4 tomato plants.
So I moved the pots I had planted back into the greenhouse and held off on planting the last three.
Really if I put in a few hours I could have everything done. Which was the plan for tonight.
But then the thunder and rain started. . .
Which means no garden pictures either!
I have high hopes for tomorrow. . .
I'm sure I will finally get everything planted.
Of course if I keep bringing home new plants like I did today, (How can I pass up those beautiful Darvonda plants?) I will never get done!
Sigh.
Some days I think I may be just a little. . . well. . . crazy.
But in a good way. . .
Don't you think???

Time Management

2011-05-19T22:16:00.000-07:00

No time to blog.
No time to clean.
No time to do dishes.
No time to eat. (Unless it's an ice cream sandwhich. I've been eating lots of those!)
No time to read.
No time to sleep.
Just dig,dig,dig!
Prune,prune,prune.
Plant, plant, plant!
Whoo hoo!!!

Garden Madness

2011-05-18T21:02:00.000-07:00

The Before Shot. Stay tuned. . . .

I spent the day (and the night) in the garden, digging, wheelbarrowing, weeding, planting, watering and fence building. Three beds down, two to go.
In the back garden.
There is stll the alley, where the strip against the fence needs to be dug up, compost added and the raspberries my mom got from a friend planted.
Then there's the front garden. . .
Yes indeed, garden madness has begun!

Picture Walls

2011-05-16T19:19:00.000-07:00

I have no family pictures displayed anywhere in my house.
Do you find that shocking?
The thing is, once I paint a wall I hate to put holes in it unless I am absolutely sure that what I hang there will be perfect.
The odd family picture that kind friends have shot for us over the years have been far from perfect and I couldn't bring myself to spend good money on a frame for a not so great picture.
"But" I can hear you thinking "just because you haven't hung pictures on the wall surely doesn't mean there are no family pictures anywhere in your home!"
"After all everybody has pictures on the fridge!"
I must hang my head in shame. . .
I truly have never had any pictures out anywhere at all.
Having recently been made aware that the 'Mother of the Year" awards are nearly always awarded to the mom who's home is wallpapered with every picture they have ever taken of their offspring I resolved to have a picture wall of my own.
After all how hard could it be???
Sighhhhh. . .
You all know about my inability to have anything resembling a normal expression on my face when someone is taking my picture?
Well every last one of my kids is certain that they suffer from the same disability. ( Okay. . . really only Holly and Morgan ) so getting a picture is like pulling teeth!
Imagine my surprise and delight when Holly e-mailed me a picture of her and her honey along with written permission to put it on my wall.
Yeah!!!
I figured this momentous occasion should be shared. . .

Aren't they beautiful?!

Tea In The Greenhouse

2011-05-15T20:37:00.000-07:00

After spending a couple of hours watering and picking aphids with my bare fingers it's time for a cup of tea in the greenhouse.

Come on in and see what I've been up to!

Pink And White Bacopa

Bacopa In The Morning Sun

Basil

White Bleeding Heart

Cauliflower

Geraniums

How Can You Tell Rosa's Spending To Much Time In The Garden?

2011-05-14T18:47:00.000-07:00

The spiders got tired of her getting into every nook and cranny in the garden making it impossible to keep their webs intact, and decided to move their work inside.
I'd say they they are doing a fine job, wouldn't you???
I'm not so sure about me though. . . .

Saying Goodbye

2011-04-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago Holly left for Winnipeg.
This isn't the first time she's left home but every other time felt temporary.
Not this time.
She has a job and a great place to live in walking distance of her job.
We shipped all her stuff to Winnipeg.
Then of course there is the biggest reason is doesn't feel temporary this time. . .
His name is Glenn and he is a very sweet guy.

We are going to miss you Holly!

A slow start to spring!

2011-04-19T19:29:00.000-07:00

Farmers In The 21st Century

2011-03-31T10:08:00.000-07:00

Most of you know that I long to farm.
All things considered, that is never going to happen.
But a girl can dream.
And if I'm dreaming I want to be a farmer like this. . .

A Garden Post

2011-03-30T17:42:00.000-07:00

I'm posting over at The Potting Shed today. Drop by and see what I've put under lights this past weekend.

Learning Something New

2011-03-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

I learned how to crochet scarves last winter using one crochet stitch (single crochet).
I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
When I was about nine or ten my Grandma (dad's side) tried to teach me how to crochet. She was the sweetest woman and incredibly patient.
After several hours (at least that's how it felt. . .) she turned to me, shook her head sadly and said " I don't think you are meant to crochet."
So until last year I didn't even bother trying.
Then I came across a challenge on a blog. The blogger said that at the very least every one should know how to knit or crochet a few basics. You know, things that we all use often, like socks, hats, mitts or scarves.
I was positive that I would never master the first three but thought I might just manage the scarf.
To date I have made five scarves!
While in Michael's a while back I came across a crochet book meant for teens and there was the cutest shawl in there, so I bought the book hoping I would be able to figure it out.
I just couldn't do it!
Somehow looking at illustrations of the stitches just wasn't working for me.
However. . .
Back when the girls were still in elementary Henry's mom used to teach a knitting class to the grade five and six girls so I thought she might be able to help me out.
I'll let you judge for yourself how well she did. This is my test piece. I did over half of it myself. . .

It looks like Oma Terpstra was wrong!
Now I just have to decide what colour to make the full sized one. I brought back some beautiful wool from the States when I went with Lisa a few weeks ago.
Isn't it great that we can always learn something new?
Who knows. . . Maybe I'll be able to make a hat or mitts after all!
Socks though. . . not very likely!

Unexpected Gifts

2011-03-24T19:22:00.000-07:00

While dropping off one of the kids this afternoon, her mom presented my with a little bag holding three homemade chocolate chip cookies.
"Because you had to wait for me this morning" she explained.
Except I was early this morning because of improving road conditions.
Which I explained again.
"Well yes. . . but still. . ."
I assured her I was not going to turn down homemade cookies!
I would have taken a picture (cause that's what bloggers do. . .)
But once I dropped the last kid off they didn't last more than a few minutes.
I do love an unexpected gift!

African Violets. . . Solace On A Snowy Spring Morning

2011-03-23T08:51:00.000-07:00

Peering out of the dining room window early this morning, I sighed as I beheld yet another snowy start to my day.
It's spring. . .
In name only.
But wait!
What's this I see?

African violets

My African violets are finally blooming!

Solace for my flower starved soul.

A Refreshing Holiday

2011-03-21T22:49:00.000-07:00

Hold on to your hats folks! This is going to be a long one!!!

Last Monday Henry and I came home after a wonderful week in B.C. where we stayed in this bed and breakfast.

We made the trip to attend my niece Stephanie's wedding.

The last time Henry and I had a chance to get away together was about two years ago, for my sister Tamara's daughter's wedding, when we were the very first customers at this very bed and breakfast. (Yes, yes, I know we also came out in January for another wedding, but that was just a quick visit.)

We saved for most of last year so we could have five whole days with just the two of us in romantic Fort Langley.

Days before we were about to leave I began to get sick. I panicked. There was no way I would be sick on a holiday I had been waiting so long for!
I drove the bus, came home and went to bed until it was time to get up and drive the afternoon bus run. I did that for three days in a row.
Thankfully that seemed to do the trick and by the time we were ready to leave I felt just fine.

Henry, on the other hand, did not.

For crying out loud!

This meant of course that there was not a whole lot of romantic walks through Fort Langley, but, not to worry, there is always plan B!

Tamara had some free time on the Wednesday and dropped by the B and B with her sweet little granddaughter.
Henry needed a nap so we headed out to see the Fort without him.

Tamara and the Wee One

We did a bit of shopping with the Wee One

and after her mom picked her up, headed to a cute little shop that also had a small restaurant in it.

Tamara and I decided to indulge a little and ordered the champagne tea. I must say, I drink maybe once or twice a year, but the whole thing sounded so fabulous I decided to be a bit reckless and just go for it.

How awesome is that?! There was even fresh clotted cream!
After a little shopping, we headed back to the Band B and Tamara (who was not on holidays!) had to go home.

Henry was still sick the next day so I spent it with Lisa and the groom's sister on the other side of the border for a little shopping in the good old USA.

I'm afraid I forgot my camera as I was too intent on looking for good deals! I brought home a sweet little summer dress, a couple of chair cushions ( thankfully only $5 a piece as they are horribly uncomfortable!), lots of beautiful wool and some cute kid's flannel.
I should have come back with a big block of Monteray Jack cheese which only cost me $5 (I would have paid at least $20 for that same block at home) ,but I forgot in in Lisa's fridge the day we flew home!

Bummer!

By Friday, Henry was finally starting to feel better, so we drove out to Lisa's. She had lots of wedding things to do that day and Henry figured he would spend time with his cousin while I stayed to help out.

Can you believe I started to get sick?!
Good grief!
Henry saved the day and brought me back to the B and B for a nap.

I'd had my nap and was puttzing around for a bit, when I realized that I hadn't seen Henry for a while. . .
Where was he?

Henry was getting bored.
Our B and B owner's son was putting this walkway in the back yard so Henry decided to help him! (Now if only I could get him to do the same at home. . .)

Saturday was the wedding day for this lovely couple. . .

And if you want to see how the day went you can check it out here . Tamara had an excellent post about it.
Naturally we took another 'sister' picture. . .

Don't you love my new hat? I picked it up in a little hat shop in Fort Langley while on my shopping trip with Tam. I love hats but I have a freakishly small head and can seldom find a pretty one that fits.

We took one last sister picture the next day, while we were over at Lisa's for a big turkey dinner. (Yes indeed, my sister is the real, live, Wonder Woman! She got the wedding together, made the wedding cake

and then had turkey dinner at her house the next day for everybody!

This was a 'hat' sister picture.

Tamara, Lisa, Rosa

Tamara had bought Lisa this beautiful hat as a birthday present when they were in Spain last year and Lisa hadn't quite had the courage to wear it yet.
I suggested she wear it to church. I promised to wear mine, as did Tamara. My plan was for us to all sit together so she wouldn't feel so conspicuous.
The plan kind of backfired though.
Three women in hats, obviously sisters, sitting in a row, in a church where no one wears hats. . .
I heard snickering.
I couldn't help snickering!
So much for being inconspicuous.
Sorry Lisa!
All in all, this holiday was truly a blessing. One which won't soon be forgotten.

A Walk In The Country

2011-03-18T11:31:00.000-07:00

I had planned to bring my bus home today to get every extra minute possible so I could scrub the house from top to bottom, do some laundry (I had to use a dirty towel after my shower!) and maybe get a coffee cake in the oven.
However, my plans changed when Jesse met me at the bus this morning to let me know that two of the teeth he had worked on at the dentist's were really hurting him.
Whoops! I forgot to fill his penicillin prescription!
Went to the pharmacy, picked up Jada and headed back to school so he could take some medicine right away.
Sometimes it's not such a bad thing when plans are changed. . . .

After all, the house can be cleaned anytime. . . right???

Farmer's Markets

2011-03-17T20:22:00.000-07:00

Local Food

I promised Tamara that I would be posting today and I've been out so much that I hadn't had time to sit with the computer.
This evening though, Ev and I went to a little Farmer's Market on the north end of the city.
It was very tiny, but quite fun because most of the vendors were very happy to chat with you and let you know all about their products.
At the bakery booth, I had a chance to sample some really nice rye bread made with locally grown rye as well as bringing home a baby brioche. I've been wanting to try my hand with those but had never actually tasted it, so now I'll know how it's supposed to come out.
I bought some freshly milled wheat from a local farmer who is growing heritage grains (used by the bread baker) and if I like it I'm going to buy a big bag of wheat grains and mill it myself at Ev's house. I do love my bread!
Other local stuff I took home was whipped honey (Yum!) an elk garlic sausage (Henry's going to be sooo happy!) and some cranberry breakfast sausage. Since I'm going to be making deer sausage one day soon I'm looking for ideas.
You'd think I would have stopped there but I also brought home two dozen homemade pirogi, a chicken pot pie and a Cornish pastie (which I'm going to have to share with someone. It's HUGE!!)
All that should have been more than enough, but I couldn't resist one last thing. Cheddar shortbread with a touch of cayenne pepper. It was quite pricey but I have tried to make cheddar shortbread a few times and it's never quite turned out. I figured this was a good way to find out how it's supposed to taste. You know so mine will be better next time!
Just don't tell Henry, because I'm not going to share!
And now that I've made you all hungry and drooly I'm going to say goodnight.
5:30 comes early. . .

*Hmmmm. . . Looks like I may not have done anything wrong when I made the shortbread. I can't say I like this stuff either. Jesse tried it and didn't like the taste. Sigh. . . Oh well, you can't win them all. I guess I'll share with Henry now. . .

What The Beginning Of March Looks Like In Edmonton

2011-03-03T13:09:00.000-08:00

For me March is the hardest month of the year.
Not because it is physically difficult, January and February have that distinction.
No, March is mentally my most annoying month.
Every year I think that by the beginning of March I should be seeing real signs of spring. I mean, I know that we will likely get a bit more snow or a short cool spell but overall I'm always positive that spring is right around the corner.
Going back through my blog today to confirm that, yes indeed, spring is in the wings, I discovered that I am totally out to lunch! I have been blogging since January 2008 and spring was never just around the corner in any of those past Marches!
For crying out loud!
I've decided to chronicle what March looks like every year.
I'm hoping this will lessen my self delusion. (I hold out very little hope for that, but, hey, it's worth a try!)
This year I've made a short movie.

It's Cold!!

2011-03-01T06:57:00.000-08:00

I got a call just after 6 am this morning.
School's cancelled!
It was -37C (-34.6F) at the international airport. In March!
Whoo Hoo!!!
To bad Jesse has a dentist apointment this morning. . .

Hunkering Down

2011-02-25T20:19:00.000-08:00

It was -25C (-13F) this morning when I left for the bus. With the wind chill it got as cold as -43C. (-45F)
It's warmed up a bit today and tomorrow is supposed to get up to -4C. (24F)
But, come Sunday. . .
Well. . . we're plunging back down into the deep freeze!
It's expected to stay at about -20C or so through the first two weeks in March.
Spring seems very, very far away.
It's been hard to get to excited about any new projects at the moment, so I've decided to hunker down, bask in the bright sunshine that showed up with the cold and read, bake and dream until spring decides to make an appearance.

Family Day

2011-02-21T15:32:00.000-08:00

It's Family Day in Alberta which means we get a day off.
Jesse and I also had Friday off because the school had a PD day.
Henry, Jesse and Jada went to the cabin for the weekend and met Bernie, Russ and Jada's friend Murpy. They went to do a little ice fishing. (Jada and Murpy just like to run around, wrestle, and chase rabbits.)
I've been putzing around the house giving it a good clean, reading, baking, crafting and going out with Ev to the fabric store.
It's also been a weekend for movies. Ev came over Friday night and we giggled and snorted our way through Johnny English.
The kids and I (well, which ever kid happened to be around ) decided on a Lord Of The Rings marathon.
We've got one left to go but we're taking a bit of a break, so I'm going to plant my begonias and make a quick supper before we sit down again.
Happy Family Day!

This Is How We Shovel Snow On The Canadian Prairies

2011-02-18T17:59:00.000-08:00

No piddly little snow shovels for us!

When You See Yourself In Your Kids

2011-02-17T11:38:00.000-08:00

*Well, I'm still not able to load pictures so this will be another word only post.

Have you ever had a moment when you looked at your child, involved in some activity or another and realized "That kid is just like me!"
When you not only saw yourself, but saw yourself as others must see you?
I had a moment like that on Tuesday evening.
Our school doesn't do traditional valentine's day card boxes and what have you. Rather, the whole week is devoted to fun activities that help raise money for an orphanage in Kenya.
Wednesday was the day for the senior high students to have their Box Lunch Social.
This year the boys would be doing the cooking and the girls would be decorating the rooms to eat lunch in, as well as bidding on the 'boxed lunch'.
Jesse was pretty excited about this because he loves to cook. He got to planning his meal and scoffed at all those boys who complained that they couldn't do it.
He decided to serve a stir fry with chow mien noodles, Aunty Lisa's chocolate trifle for dessert and milkshakes to drink. "
"After all", he reminded me, " you've got lots of fruit left in the freezer and what could be better than a strawberry milkshake with local organic berries?"
You might think that was the moment.
Not quite.
He and a friend decided they would shop for groceries after catechism and Jesse would sleep over and help his friend with the meal.
"That's it!" you think.
Nope. Not yet. . .
He began to pack up what we had at home that he would need.
Broccoli, onions, peppers, strawberries, garlic, olive oil, herbs de Provence sea salt blend, garlic rosemary pepper blend, milk,a cutting board, my chef's knife, vegetable peeler, cast iron wok,wooden spoon, cooler, ice packs, plates, cutlery, glasses, a flower vase, and candles.
"Why in the world are you taking dishes along?? They have dishes at school."
He looks straight at me, shakes his head and says incredulously "But those are washed in school water!! (well water with a distinctly eggy smell) I'm not going to use those!"
That was the moment. He was dragging everything but the kitchen sink along and I saw myself doing countless catering jobs for school or throwing parties for family and friends.
It was the dishes however that made me see how others must see me.
A little over the top. . .
Jesse really takes after his dad in most things, especially in his mellow outlook on life.
But in some things he really does take after me.
And that makes me proud.

(In case you are wondering. . . Two girls went together to buy Jesse's lunch. They paid $130.00!
He also handed out a rose to each girl in his class. Yep, he also a romantic. That would be me again.
Henry just tells me to buy myself some flowers. . . .)

Google Is Playing Around With Cloud Picker Again!

2011-02-16T13:09:00.000-08:00

I had a fun post for this morning but when I went to load the pictures I got, Server rejected, o,r sign in to Cloud Picker, or, this service is unavailable.
This has happened to me before. Google Is trialing a new service and sometimes it interrupts my ability to load pictures.
As soon as I can I will be back with my original post.
From the freezing North. . . .

A New Direction

2011-02-14T22:30:00.000-08:00

The last few years have been difficult for me.
My hormones seemed to be doing the Hokey Poky non stop.
I longed to get out of the city and get a little farm somewhere. The longing was so great that there were days driving through huge concrete construction zones seemed more than I could bear. And I spend a lot of time everyday doing just that.
Raging hormones triggered anxiety which then kicked into overdrive while driving my school bus. After all, I am driving many precious children in a very expensive piece of machinery all of which are my responsibility. And I am not mechanically inclined!
Prayers have become a tumultuous river as I daily (or often enough, minute by minute) ask for all that I need to live each day joyfully.
But, joy has been elusive.
Guilt has not.
After all, God has been raining down blessings on us, so how can I possibly not be filled with joy every minute of the day?!
A lovely home, great family, good friends, a job, a place to garden, a greenhouse, the ability to go out for dinner once in a while, or to visit my sisters, honestly, the list just goes on and on and when I think of how many people in the world are suffering, I feel ashamed that I have been struggling the way I have.
None the less, I have been struggling and the time has come to make some real changes around here.

I'm starting with a mission statement for me.
There have been lots of posts around blog land on coming up with a mission statement for your family. I thought long and hard about this, but I just couldn't seem to come up with anything that worked.

The I reread this text: Philippians 4 verses 4-9

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

Now I have been trying to memorize verse 8 and 9 off and on for the past year and somehow it just wouldn't stick but when I reread it again it hit me that there couldn't be a better mission statement for me.

Then I happened across this blog post and it really made sense to me as a way to go forward this year.

Do fewer things. Do them better.

Some of you may know this will be easier said than done for me! I tend to think big. It isn't always a good thing. . .

So these are the few things. . .
Growing food and flowers.
Cooking and preserving as much local food as possible.
Read.
Have adventures.
Love my family and friends.

This year I am going to be where God places me and doing the things he sets before me, focusing on the things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy.

So here's the first step. . .
I'm retiring as a bus driver at the end of the year. As Jesse is graduating in June we will no longer have tuition payments and that gives me the ability to retire. I will likely find some type of paid part time work (so Henry and I can continue to enjoy our hobbies and have the odd adventure together) and at the moment I'm leaning towards waitressing a few nights a week. I've done it before and I rather enjoy it. If I can find work in a good restaurant I may also pick up some new recipes which would fit right into my goals for the year.

* When I was telling the boys about the plan, Morgan exclaimed that waitressing was a great idea! He felt I should try Denny's or Albert's. What?! Those are pancake restaurants! I was thinking more along the lines of Joey's or Moxies. He looked at me with pity, shook his head and said " Mom you're old! You have to be hot to work there! You could try though. . . ." Thankfully the girls had a different opinion!
We'll have to see who's right. . .

Now I'm off to bed.
Tomorrow my friend Nicole is coming over and we're going to celebrate her birthday.
My first adventure. . .

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T13:45:00.000-08:00

I got some white dough going before I left for the bus this morning and when I got home I was inspired to do something a little fancier than just three loaves of bread.

In the end I made one loaf of bread, a dozen cinnamon buns and a dozen garlic cheese buns.

Of course the cinnamon buns meant I had to make icing so I decided to make a double batch and gift Henry with a valentines present at the same time.

Henry loves icing on homemade bread and the last time I made it he found all the extra containers I had hidden in the freezer and ate them all!

But his very favorite thing is chocolate icing which I never make because no one else likes it.

So, here it is, Henry's valentine's day present. . .

Because after all what better present is there than one made especially for you?

Henry's Idea Of The Perfect Day Off

2011-02-12T09:22:00.000-08:00

A good fire, a pack of smokes and a deer head boiling on the barbecue.
What could be better??

What's For Dinner?

2011-02-11T19:07:00.000-08:00

Ham and Fries!
It probably would have looked a little more appetizing if I had taken the picture before Henry loaded it with ketchup. . .

You might wonder why I've added a picture of the fry basket handle. . .
Perhaps you've noticed it is covered with hockey tape.
You might find that quite odd.
Well it is odd.
Why is it covered with hockey tape????
Because once again I forgot to unfold the handle and put it outside the fryer before I heated up the oil.
I don't think too much of the melted plastic ended up on our fries. . . .

What's For Dinner?

2011-02-10T21:30:00.000-08:00

Stampot and sausage.
The dried kale was from the garden as were the green pickled tomatoes. (not pictured)
Quick and easy.

Confessions Of A Speed Demon

2011-02-10T12:34:00.000-08:00

So I got this phone call last night. . . .
"Do you know where you were on January 26 at 1:17pm?"
"Ummm. . . . No. Why?"
"Well one of us got a speeding ticket in a construction zone that day and you know how expensive those are! Since three of us were doing a field trip miles away from the incident, it looks like it's either you or the other driver."
"What would I be doing there at that time of the day?? Oh. . . wait. . . that was the day we has those terrible icy roads and I had to do that field trip downtown that caused me so much trouble. . ."
"But Rosa, you never speed. We all joke about how pokey you drive. It's can't have be you!"
Flash forward to this morning when our head bus driver came to me with the copy of the ticket. It had a picture of the back of the offending bus. . .
It was me all right. No one else has a bus like this.
Sigh.
"Hello, my name is Rosa and I drove waaaay to fast through a construction zone."
It looks like I won't be buying a new dress for Steph's wedding after all. . .

What's For Dinner?

2011-02-09T17:52:00.000-08:00

Jesse's stir fry!
And as you can see from the state of my stove, he prefers to 'flip' his food as opposed to stirring with a spoon. The spoon is there only because I helped stir while he chopped the ham.
No complaints though. I didn't have to cook!

Making Jam In The Middle Of Winter

2011-02-09T06:25:00.000-08:00

I made many, many jars of jam last summer.
Peach raspberry, blue ribbon strawberry, vanilla bean strawberry (too runny) and low sugar strawberry.
We are starting to run low however .
How is that possible you might ask?
Henry loves to snack on peanut butter and jam toast.
If you saw how much jam he puts on his toast you would understand why this has happened. Opa Vandermolen would be horrified! He would be scraping that jam off and telling him that he could make three pieces of toast with that jam!
So last Saturday I decided to address the problem by making a batch of raspberry jam using the berries I froze last summer.

This should last for a while don't you think?

Or maybe not. . . .

What's For Dinner?

2011-02-08T18:19:00.000-08:00

Homemade brown bread, eggs from an acquaintance's backyard flock (she always tries to put one green egg in with every dozen!) and some very processed ham.
What's for dinner?
Green eggs and ham!

Fresh Homegrown Leeks At The End Of January!

2011-02-08T09:43:00.000-08:00

I've been trying a few veggie storage experiments.
Check this out!

Cool Hey?

What's For Dinner?

2011-02-07T18:06:00.000-08:00

Chicken Potpie! Yum!

Happy Birthday!

2011-02-07T10:05:00.000-08:00

My sisters, Tamara and Lisa. (Dragonflight Photography)

Yesterday was my sister Lisa's birthday.
She, of course, turned 29. . .
I was wracking my brains trying to come up with a post worthy of this special sister of mine.
I popped over to my other sister Tamara's blog while my brain was wracking and read this.
Now how in the world can I do any better than this when it comes to how I feel about Lisa?!
So Lisa, I'm going to take a page from Henry's book and just use the famous words he uttered after Rick' s thank you speech at our wedding .(Lisa and I had a double wedding. Rick is her husband. Henry's mine.)
Ditto!
I love you Lisa and pray that God grants us all many more years together!

Major Inspiration!

2011-01-22T11:06:00.000-08:00

You just got to check this out!
I came across a link on Tamara's blog that eventually led me to this episode of a Greener World. (First time I had heard of it.)
I had heard of Will Allen before, but I had never actually seen Growing Power and how all the systems work.
The whole thing gives me goosebumps. I am in awe of the systems that God has put in place for us to feed ourselves even under less than ideal circumstances.
This is what I want to do when I grow up. . .
I'm going to start saving my pennies up. I would love to go to a workshop week end at Will Allen's Growing Power!
Anyone want to come with me?

Lisa's Grandkids

2011-01-21T11:55:00.000-08:00

Just because they're so darn cute!

A Good Night's Sleep

2011-01-19T21:58:00.000-08:00

Have you ever gone to bed dead tired and longing for a good night's sleep?
I went to bed last night positive that the minute my head hit the pillow I'd be out like a light.
I snuggled uner the blankets, sighed. . .
and started thinking!

Man I hate it when I start thinking!!

I tossed, I turned, I told myself to stop thinking, but my brain refused to listen to me.
I thought brilliant thoughts, (they are always brilliant in the middle of the night. . .) but all I really wanted to do was go to sleep.
Three hours and a bunch of leg excercises later (Don't ask me why, somehow in my sleep deprived mind I thought it might be a good idea. . .) I finally fell asleep.
Ask me how much I got done today. . .

Brains.
You can't live with them, you can't live without them.

I Didn't Want To Get On The Plane!

2011-01-18T11:45:00.000-08:00

(Sorry Tam. The first day and I've already messed up, so I'm doing Tuesday instead. . .)
Henry and I got home from B.C. yesterday afternoon.
It rained while we were in B.C. (it always does) but a good part of the time I didn't even need a coat!
In January!!
It was -22C when the plane landed in Edmonton.
This is what greeted us as we pulled into the driveway. . .

Except the driveway was full of snow, as was the sidewalk, so we all spent a good bit of time shovelling last night. I'm shorter than the guys so I had a really hard time throwing the snow up high enough and it kept sliding back down the hill.

My friend Marlene phoned me this morning to tell me the roof on her commercial hoop house collapsed this week end so she won't be selling plants this spring. (I'm so sorry Marlene!)
I immediately went out to check on my greenhouse.
Good grief , there was a ton of heavy snow on the roof!
I tried to convince Henry to take care of it when he came home for lunch, but he told me it would have to wait until later.
As I was worried that later would be too late, I jumped into my snow boots and headed out armed with a broom and a shovel.
Thankfully Jesse came out to help because some of it was just beyond me. . .

The snow behind the greenhouse has gotten so deep, the one wall is buried up to the start of the roof!
Jesse dug that away as best he could and I`ve got my fingers crossed that my greenhouse won`t be flooded too badly when things start to melt.
Sigh. . .
Winter in Alberta. . .
Some times it's hard.
Jada likes it though. . .