S-S-S-S-SMOKIN'!!!!!!!

Hot, that is. We're having a heat wave ("...a tropical heat wave...") here and we're so obviously not used to it. We don't have air conditioning because, in general, we only need it for 2-4 weeks each summer. (I love our mild climate!!!!) And what's the point spending a bunch of money for something we don't really NEED.

Anyways, we're going to look at window air conditioning units this morning...the house cooled down to a toasty 27 degrees Celsius last night (that's 81 F) and we did not sleep well.

Soggy day...

So, it's been raining most of the day. Nice of it to wait until after we went to the "veggie-store" this morning. It's such a change from the weather we have been having this summer. We've had weeks of hot and dry. The rain is good for the grass and trees and might even help out the water reservoirs a bit. They're still in the 'normal' range, but we're a little twitchy about the water levels after the summer of 2004 when the levels were very low (okay, really, I'm just a geek and want to know where the level is at). The rain is also good for dampening the forests a bit.

I have yummy chilli simmering on the stove and the monkey-children are playing nice (for now). Guess I'll set the table and then sit down and put my feet up until TKHubband gets home. :)

Closing in on 500 visits

I have a sitemeter on my site that tells me how many people have visited. We're closing in on 500, probably by the end of the week. That's pretty amazing for me because I haven't really been posting much for quite a while.

My intent with this blog was to keep family and friends updated with what's been going on here. However, more people that aren't related to me read this than people that are. Hmmm, maybe those who know me don't want to know more? ;) Just kidding. I'm also not very good at self-promotion. I don't want to nag people to visit my site, especially when I haven't updated it!

Anyways, I'm going to change my site meter settings to show the number of visits instead of being just the logo. At the beginning, I thought it looked funny when it said "27 visits". :)

Happy Canada Day!

July 1. The day we celebrate our country, and how truly blessed we are to live in it.

Just last night I was chatting with some friends of ours about how good we have it here and how there are many people who are completely oblivious to how spoiled we are.

I haven't travelled a lot, but I went to Croatia twice on short term missions trips not long after the Balkan war. My world view changed on those trips. People are the same everywhere. God chose to put me in Canada, but I could have grown up in Croatia instead. What different experiences I would have had by this point in my life.

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of tanks and guns and explosions, and grabbing a couple of things and running out your back door and running for your life. Praying that you and your family will survive.

Imagine not being able to take your children to the playground because they haven't swept it for land mines yet, and just last week, a child from down the street lost both their legs from stepping on a land mine in a field.

Imagine your spouse leaving and taking your child because suddenly, their cultural identity put them on the opposite side of the war from you.

-- I just can't imagine that happening here.

Am I just sheltered? Have I lived a fairytale life where those kinds of things just don't happen? I guess so. I grew up in Canada.

Just look around. Look at the shopping malls and the grocery stores and the many, many nice vehicles driving around. Look at all the things we take for granted: street lights that work; wide roads with smooth pavement; vast forests, huge mountains, many rivers with plenty of wildlife (have you looked at a map of Canada and noticed how much is wilderness?); phones that work all the time; fresh clean water from our taps; freedom to meet together and worship the God who created us. There are so many things that we consider 'normal', that simply aren't normal for a great number of people in this world.

No, I'm not saying Canada's perfect. There are many things wrong with our country as with all places. But, today, on Canada Day, we should be thinking of all that's good and strong and right about our country. We should put away the complaining and whining and count our many blessings. After all, if you don't like it here, there are plenty of other places that will take you.

And many, many people who want to be here.

That Will Never Happen

"Oh no, Daddy, the ball went near the kitten!"

"Well, just go get it, Sweetie."

"No, the kitten will claw me."

"What if he claws ME?"

"He wouldn't. He knows you're the big boss."

"Oh, I'm the big boss? So I get to boss people around?"

"Well, me and [monkey-boy]."

"Ok. What if I told you to go get the ball?"

"That will never happen."

She took it really well...

"What?" you ask. "Who?" you ask.

Monkey-girl is repeating Kindergarten. We've known it was a possibility since November. She's just kind of 'young'. (Her birthday is in the middle of October, and she's always been a bit 'young' for her age.) The problem isn't academic, it's maturity/resilience/coping/whatever you want to call it. We made the decision to go with the teacher's recommendation a few weeks ago, but I hadn't yet figured out how to tell her. I was quite sure she would take it quite badly.

Well, she took it very well. Very, very well. She was very calm, listened to us explain that she was going to do Kindergarten again, smiled when we said she'd be like a special helper to help the new kids...I am amazed. I asked her if she wanted the same teacher/class or the other one, and she thought about it for a bit and decided to go with the other teacher/class for next year. (That is what I expected her to do.)

I've been holding a lot of stress inside worrying about this since November. (A lot of things have just been pushed aside mentally, as I couldn't deal with them.) Now that it's finally decided and she knows, I can let it go. I still have concern for her having to deal with unthinkingly cruel remarks, but we can take care of that when/if it happens.

Back to life!

More crafting progress...sort of ***UPDATED***

Oh, you don't want to know...

...I started a couple more projects. Bad me!

But first! I finally finished up a couple of doll dresses I had made quite a while ago. All I had left to do was the weaving in ends and attaching ribbon and sewing on buttons.
















Then..........Monkey-girl needs a white summer cardigan (and it's hard to find nice ones in the stores that will go with all her summer dresses). And Monkey-boy needs a new blanket because his is...well, it's falling apart.

Yeah, lame excuses for someone who hasn't finished any more of her huge list of 'works in progress' (WIPs).

What's worse is that I had crocheted the back, both fronts and both sleeves of her cardigan and realized when I was trying to sew them together, that my guage was wonky...much tighter for the sleeves than for the rest. (ACK!) AND I had remembered her measurements wrong, so the one I was making would probably only fit her for a couple of months and then be too small! So, I ripped it all out. That was hard. I'm starting over and paying more attention to my tension this time so that hopefully I'll at least be able to block the pieces to the right size. My goal is to finish it by the end of June.

For Monkey-boy's blanket, I let him pick out the yarn as he wanted a 'rainbow blanket'. Well, do you think I can find the orange yarn in the same brand as the other colours? Of course not! The yarn companies make it, the stores just don't stock it! Bah! I tried using a different brand, but it's quite a bit thinner (even though it's labelled worsted weight), so it's just not going to work. Of course, it's the orange I need, and I started with the red, so the blanket's on hold until I can find orange yarn that will work.

Then, the fabric store within walking distance from my house lost it's lease and had a closing out sale with fabric 70% off. You know I was bad! I let Monkey-boy pick out some fabric for some shirts as he's become SUPER-picky about his clothes (he's not quite 4). I picked up some cute stuff to make Monkey-girl a summer dress. And, of course, I bought some nice twill for some slacks and skirts/skorts for me. Woo hoo!

Then I came home and used stash fabric to make Monkey-girl a pair of shorts and a (very cute) skort. Stash fabric! Well, maybe I can say I was just making room for the new stuff...yeah, right.




(Isn't this fabric great!?!? I love it. It was in my Grannie's stash and was just a small piece. Just the perfect size to make these shorts. And I might get a barbie skirt out of what's left. :) )

Then I went to the Fabricland in Langley with my mother-in-law and went a little nuts on the flannel. I love to make baby blankets for new babies in my circle of aquaintances and friends. The blankets are about a metre square with two layers of flannel. They're the perfect size for bundling a baby even once they get quite big, and I found them to be SO practical when my monkeys were babies (very absorbent too!) Two ladies I know have just had babies and two others are pregnant, so this wasn't a completely selfish shopping spree. Of course, I did buy some more fabric for monkey-boy. It's a really nice blue with little race cars on it- my boy LOVES cars!

Once I get some of these projects done, I'll post more pictures. And if you are still reading this, I'm amazed! ;)

The hair cut...

So, since Monkey-girl decided to cut her hair, I had to try to even it up. So, here are before and after pictures.

Before:

After:

I took at least 6 inches off. It's still a bit wet in this picture, so once it dries, it looks a little shorter. There are still some short bits on the left side (shoulder length), but I couldn't bring myself to cut all her hair that short!

Stay tuned...

...more posts coming.

I have a few things to post on, but haven't pushed myself to the computer to do it. :(


...and now the kids say there are 'kitty-yuckies' by the stairs...guess I'd better grab the paper towel and take care of them.

Why must children try to cut their own hair????

"I only did three cuts on each side..."
(The HotWheels sized car is there for scale.)

I guess we'll be having a hair cut day today. (sigh)

Bye bye tree

I will miss your piles of leaves for the kids to play in.
I will NOT miss your piles of leaves plugging the gutters.

This picture is when they've just started to take the lower branches off. (Sorry it's blurry. The camera focused on the truck and I didn't notice.)
Now, what to do with the newly available space? Hmmmm. Maybe monkey-girl's apple tree (she started it from a seed), or a raised bed, or some Rhododendrons or some combination. There's actually quite a lot of space without the crazy tree in the way. Oh!!!! I know!!!!! A Secret Garden. Now I have to get the graph paper out and start planning!

(It was planted WAY too close to the house by the previous owner. He probably didn't realize how big it would get. I hated to get it taken down, but it was just so impractical. I couldn't bear the thought of trimming it every year and cleaning the gutters multiple times each year. I was also a bit worried about roots into the foundation - ours and our neighbour's.)

Monday, Monday (bah da, bah da da da)...

Oof. I'm tired.
And it's Monday.
And "Monday, Monday" from The Mamas and the Papas is going through my head. (Just the chorus, really.)

Maybe I'll put the CD on and see if that improves my mood.

Ugggh!

How can your own children make you so crazy?

Halloooooo.....

Yes, I'm still here.

It's been a couple of weeks. I know.

Well, what has happened in the last two weeks?

A friend's child got chicken pox (and I wasn't sure if my kids were going to get it - they haven't).

Monkey-girl's school had their spring fair.

Friends' little guy had a birthday party.

This: (The house settling caused a nail to puncture a copper pipe...who puts a nail where there's a copper pipe????)

Kitten's eye started watering (he's fine now - vet gave him some eye-drops). We think he must have got dust in it (or something) after spending the night in the crawl space under the house.

Monkey-girl got her dance photos taken.

Mother's Day.

And yesterday, TKHubband was rear-ended on his way to work. (He's okay....a bit sore, but okay. We'll find out about the car today.)

So, I haven't been sitting around eating bon-bons all this time, I've been unmotivated to blog because life has been, well, life. I finally decided I'd better get some of this posted or soon it will be a month with no posts. And that wouldn't be good.

Crafting Progress

Here's an update:

Knit Ballet Wrap Cardigan: Back and both fronts DONE! So, maybe 60% done. Sleeves, tie and assembly to go.

First pair of knit socks: DONE! I made them for monkey-girl.









Paton's Bohemian Vest (oh, so soft!): Cast on plus 2 rows. Now, before I get in trouble for starting yet another project while I have so many on the 'in progress' list, I have a reasonable explanation. This is my 'take with me' project. It requires little thought, so it is great for doing while I wait for stuff (kids' music/dance classes, doctor offices, etc). Most of my other on-going projects are a little too large or complicated to just pick up and do whenever with limited time and space. (I'm using 11110 Indigo Indulgence.)

Everything else....ah whatever, it's spring, I have to play outside whenever it isn't raining!

Spring!

I love spring.

(Yes, I know, I love fall too....get over it.)

My lilacs are just starting to bloom and it's definitely a good year for lilacs. They're covered.

The one in the backyard gets completely neglected by me (poor thing). I prune it only so we can walk past and to give flower bunches to friends. But look at the flowers on it! (Sorry for the bad picture, it was early in the morning and the lighting isn't as good as it could be.)

The one in the front yard gets more attention because, well, everyone sees it and I don't like my gutters full of leaves.

I also have lilies coming up! (You can just see some of them under the lilac in the front yard.) I've never grown lilies before! My sister-in-law gave me lily bulbs for my birthday in March, and I didn't procrastinate (much) before I planted them, so now they're coming up! I'm very excited.

I also have bought a couple of trays of bedding plants for my planters on the deck and for the garden beds. I know I'll need more, but I want to know what I want/need before I buy too much of anything (like normal).

AND I dug all the weeds out of the 'rose garden' that was here when we moved here almost 10 years ago and I'm going to put in a bunch of freesia bulbs and other pretty things. (Yeah, it didn't happen last weekend as planned.)

Oof! Long post, I'd better stop before I break something! :)

All shiny and new!

Look at that! Look. At. It. It's a beautiful thing!
It's a fence, you say.
But look! It's standing up! All together! Not falling over and apart!

Our neighbour with whom we share just those 2 pieces of fence got it redone last week. The fence around their entire yard had completely disintegrated over the last couple of years (except for the section along our other neighbour who has a big dog). And they had come around last summer/fall to find out if all the neighbours who share the fence (I think 5 of us because of the layout) would pay 1/2 of the shared parts. We've been letting it just fall apart over the last 6 months or so because we knew it was going to get done.

Now, the rest of our fence looks bad.....

Why are fences so expensive?

Betta Betta Bo-betta...

So, here's the latest saga of the Betta fish....

Too much algae.

Turns out I was feeding him too much (and I know not to feed fish too much!) He needs 3 freeze-dried red grubs per feeding...it would be nice if the fish food manufacturers would put that on the label...course they wouldn't sell as much fish food then.

Once I get the water tested I'm going to get a small algae eating fish (I don't remember the name right now) and maybe a couple of other little fish that do well with Bettas. Once everything gets established, I'll post a picture.

It's Friday, it's Friday!

And the weather is going to be lovely this weekend! I'm going to plant the rest of my spring bulbs (freesias, I LOVE freesias, and some anemones), some bedding plants I already picked up and some seeds because it's just cool to watch plants grow from next to nothing. :)

I'm also going to a "Creative Loop" seminar at our church tomorrow morning where I'm going to a workshop on vocal harmonies. I'm pretty excited about this as I love to sing harmony, but I think I have a mental block on how to do it. (I understand the technical aspects and can harmonize to hymns, but can't seem to figure it out 'on-the-fly' with modern songs.)

Right now, I'm smelling a lovely pork roast cooking away in my oven. YUM! I'll have to finish this off and hurry up and make the apple sauce and mashed potatoes. That's a rule, you know. If you make a pork roast, you must make apple sauce and mashed potatoes and gravy. :)

My favorite salsa

1 medium-large tomato (or 2-3 Roma tomatoes)
1 sweet pepper (red, orange, yellow or green)
2-3 green onions
1 handful cilantro (or to taste)
1/4-1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1-3 Tbsp lemon juice
cayenne to taste

Cut up the tomato and pepper in 1/4 inch dice. Slice the green onions and roughly chop the cilantro. Combine all together in a bowl. Add the salt, black pepper, lemon juice and cayenne and stir well. Serve with tortilla chips.

If you're making this ahead of time, leave the salt out until just before serving, it tends to pull all the water out of the tomatoes and makes a lot more juice.

When I make this, I don't measure. I just sprinkle on the salt and cayenne and drizzle with lemon juice. Then I adjust to taste. Once in a while (if I have very not-sweet peppers) I will add a pinch or two of sugar.

If you want, add a hot pepper as well. (I don't anymore because my body has issues with day-old jalepenos.)

My son will eat this with a spoon (he's 3 1/2) it's so good!