Merry Christmas

Well that went by awfully quick eh? I hope everyone has survived and came out a little happier, more relaxed and surrounded by the people that love you. If that fails, I hope you had sufficient booze. I actually worked through Christmas. I didn't really mind. I enjoy my work. I was still able to spend time with my family. I did miss the big dinner but that has been merely postponed. We will all travel to my Mom's for New Year's. I think she is more excited than we are. She has been planning for a few months. This will be the kids' first trip to Ontario and I think they are a little worried. The only thing about which I'm a little apprehensive is the long drive for them to keep occupied. Then I remember it's not like how my sister and I were young children. We had our books and Walkman's with batteries that would last about one hour tops and then had to listen to my parent's music for the remainder of the trip. Now they have their DS's,Ipods and whatever little electronic thing to amuse them in a car for a few hours.
This was my first Christmas with children. It was definitely an amazing experience and I hope that I have many more to follow. The kids were thrilled with their presents. I believe it took them 2.7 minutes to open everything. That's has to be some sort of record right? One item has to be exchanged for a larger size. You would think I would have learned from a past boxing day experience not to go out there! It's like a zombie apocalypse or something. I thought it would be a little easier because we would leave for the mall when I finished work. It was actually easier, but we were missing a few details.
We arrived at the mall at 10h00. We thought it weird that were not that many vehicles in the parking lot but figured we were just lucky.
Then we noticed a huge line forming outside Future Shop.
Ok.
That's a bit odd.
Oh well.
We continue to the mall.
All the stores are locked up.
Oh.
Maybe they open at 11h00 today.
As we are waiting outside this particular store to make the exchange a security guard that sort of reminds me of a Smurf informs us that the stores will not open until 13h00 and will not do exchanges. If the store opens prior, it will a 3000$ fine.
We make the decision to wait until after New Year's to do our little exchange as we notice the crowds start to form outside all of the stores. I don't like people enough to spend this much time in a line waiting to do a less than ten minute transaction.
Well then, let's share some pics!
Our Christmas tree:

No, I didn't toilet paper our tree. That is ribbon. ;)

Very important coffee!!!!

Hubby opening/examining his gift.

Napoleon pretending to be a present.

Rebel being "amused"...

Tom not being amused by anything..

There are pics of the human children, but I feel weird about posting pictures of children online.

Looking at the date at the bottom of my screen, I realize I'm a bit late, but
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! I hope this year will be everything that you need it to be.
Cheers!
Jocelynn

Suggestions?

Anyone?
I am in the market for a new computer. The one I'm currently using is a re-furbished Gateway model. It has Windows 7. That is about all I can sadly tell you at this point. My PC skills are basically pushing buttons to see what they do and hope nothing disappears on a permanent basis.
I pretty much just use my computer for games and researching recipes and knit patterns. In the future I might be using it for work related purposes that I cannot really get into at this point. I would appreciate any suggestions that any of you kind readers can tell me.
That's about all that is going on in my little world. See you later. :D

Twitchy and B!tchy

Let's start with Twitchy.
That would be Napoleon.
We drove Napoleon to the vet yesterday to see why on Earth he has this constant need to lick off all of his fur. My imagination ran rampant with possibilities. What if he has a tumour or a skin disease or nutrition problems or, or, or.....
Turns out he is just twitchy.
Napoleon's little body is just constantly in motion, even when he is at rest. The weird part, weirder than the whole licking off all of his fur, is that only half of his body twitches. The vet gave him a shot of cortisone to see if that settles the twitches. He warned us that it would take a few days to take effect. I can see a difference in Napoleon's behaviour right now. Unfortunately I can just attribute this change to him being stoned out of his little tree. He has been staring at the same spot on the floor for about two hours like it is the most fascinating thing in the entire world. Yep. He's trippin'
Okay, Bitchy.
That would be me after trying to do this Christmas shopping thing.
People are absolutely crazy out there. I'm so relieved I ordered a few my gifts online. I just don't think I have the strength to venture into another mall anytime soon. I have bruises on my shins from people trying to liquify through me. The odd part is I wouldn't mind if people accidentally bumped into me as long as they would say I'm sorry or something to that effect. The other part that is pissing me off is the lack of manners altogether. Like really people! How difficult is it to say "excuse me"? It's just two very small words that mean oh so much. Way to spread the Christmas cheer and teach your young ones how to act in society.
I'm going to see if Napoleon will share trip. I hope you all stay safe and have a great day. :D

It Snowed...

and the snow is still falling down.

This is the first year that I do not have to drive for a living or to get to my living in the white stuff. It is a wonderful change. I can actually say without any hesitation that it does look very beautiful and peaceful outside my kitchen window.

Socks and Bread

I'm trying to get Hubby addicted to television. I think my plan is working. So far on our queue is American Horror Story, (holy crap for a television show is certainly is freaky), Sons of Anarchy, and Once Upon a Time. I'm also watching Grimm, which I think I will introduce to Hubs a little later. He really is not a big television guy. Over dinner tonight I learned he had no idea who The Beaver was.
I finished a pair of socks for little Miss last night. She put them on immediately which made me feel very good since the art of cool is sometimes very elusive.

This afternoon I wanted to see what the big deal with making your own bread is all about. I do not have a bread maker nor do I have patience. I do however have access to the wonderful internet which helped me out huge. I located this recipe which made the most sense to me, for White Amish Bread. I must disclose at this point that my dough did in no way, shape or form resemble the picture. I then added some Italian seasoning, pepperoni and a lot of cheese. This is the result:

It tastes awesome!!

I'm going to watch a few episodes of Beauty and the Geek and work on another knit project. I hope you all have a wonderful night.

Would Not Trade Anything

I would never want to relive my teen years for all the money imaginable. To see someone so impressionable having to experience all this confusion makes me grateful I survived. Here you are a young person caught between a child and an adult in mind and in body. You have no idea which section to select your clothes in the department store. You have no idea what is considered cool because the rules are constantly changing. It is so important for your classmates to like and accept you at whatever cost you think you can afford. Sadly, there are a few of us that will not survive this tortuous time. For those individuals I wonder what happened to their support networks. At any age you can feel alone and isolated. At this age of uncertainty, it is ten times worse. For the survivors it is worth the wait. You get to be this strong person with a special personality. You no longer what others value as important or cool. You get to decide for yourself these important matters. I hope this one person I'm watching grow discovers this little tidbit. For the time being, I get to be the adult that really doesn't understand. At least this person has people in her life that truly care and love her no matter what she may orchestrate. I just hope I can survive this experience.
At this point in my life I can say that I would not change any of that experience because it has made me who I am today. I am so much stronger than I could ever imagine. I have this great family. I get to learn new things everyday. I will learn all about home renovations hopefully soon....Sometimes you just have to go through a lot of bullshit to get where you need to be.

It just dawned on me I haven't shown you what was on our front door:

Now I need to find a wreath for Christmas.....

Lot to Say and Unsure How..

There are some days where I feel like have only walked backwards. Right now I'm looking at a sink full of dishes and thinking I swear I just did those. Then there are days where I am on top of the world. The problem I struggle with most is waiting. There is something huge in the works and I'm not really able to talk about it for fear it will fall apart. Let's suffice it to say, in a few months I'll be able to divulge all. No Mom, I'm not pregnant. :D I've recently learned my Mom is traveling along the internet highway. My parents have recently acquired a laptop. I'm not sure how well it is working for them because I have yet to receive a response to an email I sent a few days ago. When last we spoke there was some man in the bottom corner that kept popping up and would not go away even though Mom pushed X. I have no idea what this is all about. I'm a visual type. I need to see who this mysterious man is in order for me to be of some assistance. We had a fantastic Halloween. It truly is a different holiday when there are children involved. It was nice to be all dressed in costume and actually have children to take Trick or Treating. It almost didn't happen due to disciplinary problems but, it is a work in progress and I have a very good feeling it will soon be resolved. At least I hope so. There are days when I have one nerve left and then the little darling jumps on it. I do have pictures of our Halloween adventure but I feel weird posting photographs of children online. I was trying to see if I could crop it a certain way, but it would really distort the picture. I did however find some truly awesome pictures/drawings/works of art thanks to a friend. I've not seen anything like Laurie Lipton's art in a very long time. I just noticed that I spent about an hour going through her webpage. You can truly lose yourself staring at these pieces because of all the crazy detail. Unfortunately I have a wee bit of a cold so I'm just going to sign off with my big cup of tea and veg out in front a television program. I'll post some pics a little later of the things I have been working on. I hope you all had a great Halloween. :D

Thank you

We just celebrated Thanksgiving a few days ago. It was a quiet affair but still a very enjoyable experience. I do have a lot to be thankful about. I have an amazing family; a rewarding job; hobbies to keep me busy and out of trouble; a roof over my head and more than enough to put on the dining table. I realize that this is more than most people in our world will ever enjoy. I have been keeping very busy. I tried my hand at baking a pie. Let us call this an experiment in the works. It will not win any beauty contests but it was still edible.

I used whole wheat flour. Something else needs to be added when you use this type of flour. It was a little on the tough side..and by tough side I mean this will survive the apocalypse with Keith Richards and cockroaches. I have been knitting socks. Lots of socks.

I have named these Boy Squared. I used Tanis Fiber Arts, Tulip colourway, blue label fingering hand dyed yarn. A pattern will follow as soon as I can make some time to sit down properly. These socks are from the pattern The Weasley's Homestead

I'm using DY3 Hard Serendipitous colour group, hand painted self striping sock yarn. I also received a package today:

Yes, more sock yarn. This will be all my yarn purchases for a while. I'm trying to save up for something huge..... And because Hallowe'en is quickly approaching, I thought I would share one of my favourite songs:

Only Napoleon

First we dealt with the ant infestation. Next came the fleas. Now we have tail problems.

It would seem our little Napoleon has a nasty cut on the end of his tail. We have wrapped it up twice and applied medicine. He has twice unwrapped it and proceeded to lick the wound. This is pretty much how our days progress. I am quite relieved that his tail is healing. As a bonus, his fur is also growing in nicely. I'm all gushed out.

I finished one Gush sock. It has proven to be quite tight. I am putting them away for now and working on a few side projects. Like this one:

This is the making of a pair of socks for a special young person. He chose the colour. I readily agreed with the choice! I've also been cooking/baking: Curried Butternut Squash and Pear Soup

Gingersnap Pear Tart

Apple Cranberry and Pear Crisp

Crackle top Molasses Cookies

This endeavour sort of freaks me out a bit. There are hardly any leftovers so I must be on the right track. I'm like a Betty Crocker Martha Stewart type, except I measure time by drinks. The last one took two Rye and Gingers to be cooked properly. I think that covers everything. I'm off to watch Damages before I turn in for the day. It's getting really good!!!

When You Have a Ton of Pears....

...you learn how to cook lots of things. My other half came home from work one day with a very large bag of pears. This would be ideal for snacks if it was more than just two of us who enjoyed this fruit. We didn't want these green lovelies to go to waste. The internet proved once again to provide us with many ideas. Starting with Spiced D'Anjou Pear Bread It turned out amazing.

I just need to learn to read the recipes more thoroughly. It is for two loaves and I managed to fit the mixture into one pan. No harm though. The oven did not even get a taste of the concoction. I also made this Baked Pear Crisp:

While it was baking, it made the whole house smell wonderfully! It is not very sweet and entirely satisfying. Lastly, I made Curried Butternut Squash and Pear Soup.

There is a very important detail to be noted in the directions. The instructions say to hold down the top of the blender with a tea towel. Napoleon would absolutely agree that this is one important step. He is always underfoot when I am doing anything in the kitchen. I'm not sure if he will continue with this practice. I guess I didn't hold the top of the blender firm enough. As well, it was incredible hot. I don't know why this surprised me. I did in fact just remove the concoction from the stove top. Long story short, there was soup everywhere. The end result is fantastic and totally worth the little burn marks on my fingers:

My last little bit of news is my driver's license has finally been converted to the guidelines of this process. All I can say is, finally!

It's Really Quiet...

The first day of school was yesterday. It is now eerily quiet after all the activity of the summer. For the first twenty minutes of my day this morning, I was a little lost. Then I decided I might as well enjoy myself. I have a load of laundry in the wash, my coffee is perking and just hearing the bell now so it must be ready. Even the cats are all asleep on the couch. I have a list of shows on a post it on my screen for me to watch and a sock very close by to work on in a few minutes. This has the start of a wonderful day! A little while ago the postal service actually delivered a parcel to my door. Under normal circumstances, I need to travel to the post office, look in the post box, find the card that says I have a parcel waiting until such and such a day, then collect my parcel when the office is finally open. You can imagine my surprise when it was delivered right to my front door. This is what that lovely box contained:

I ordered these lovely skeins from Paloma Textiles. This outfit promotes free trade and Earth friendly products. I'm sure there are other companies that have the same mode of operation but I have not seen all that many. I am absolutely thrilled with my purchases. The colours are so vibrant and the way the the bluish/indigo skein is made from recycled sari just blew my mind. The gold coloured one is hand spun camel yarn. How cool is that eh? The cats also had a bit of adventure a few days ago. I can't recall if I told you about the flea incident? Sometimes pictures explain things so much better.... Before and after shots: Tom Wait a minute..I remember this place from the last time....

Rebel:

I have had enough now..

I get out nao!!!

Napoleon: I am not your good little kitty anymore..

We bathed all three cats and survived. Unfortunately, we may have to undergo this episode one more time....please don't tell the fuzzies.

I Have a Bald Cat

I'm not sure what to make of Napoleon. As you can see, he has developed a fierce licking habit.

He looks a little disgruntled, but I assure you he is not in any pain or discomfort.

I suspect because his fur (hair?) and skin is extremely dry. He does not have any red splotches. He eats as usual, which is everything. He also runs and plays as usual. Read that as, torment his fuzzy brothers on a regular basis. The only thing we can suggest for him at this point is to change his food. We did this just recently. We found kibble that has a high content of fish oils. We will give this a week and hopefully see some improvement.

I've been having a great time shopping. I'm waiting for a few delivers to arrive at the post office. I ordered quite a large amount of yarn. This is very much out of character for me. One place was having a sale and since Christmas is sort of in the horizon, I thought I would get a start on a few stocking stuffers. That is my goal. I'm sure that will change once the yarn arrives. I will have come back to my procrastinating, regularly scheduled programming.
While surfing the net I came across this site: Paloma Textiles.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif The colours of the yarn is what I found attractive. I believe I will be very happy with my choice when it finally arrives.
I've also been knitting. I've started Gush.

This is the top:


This is the sole:


A little while ago I also ordered some double point needles from an Etsy shop. It was a very good deal. I'm constantly losing one needle of a set so I was thrilled when I found these gems:


Unfortunately, I carelessly dropped a can of pop on my project into my bag and one broke. I may have cried a little. I have patched it with tape until I can find wood glue. It is not the same.


We all went to a beach that is about a 15 minute drive away from home last week. I have a small sunburn as a result. It was a great time though. I could not have asked for a better day.



This upcoming week end is our town's fair. I'm looking forward to this. It has even worked out that I am not scheduled to work this week end. Hopefully there will be lots of great photos to share with you all.

I think that is everything. I trust you are all well. Enjoy your evenings and I will be sure to post pics of the yarn, the fair and Napoleon's progress a little later.
Night all.

Happy Birthday to Me

I had a great birthday. My first one in Quebec. We went to a great Thai restaurant and enjoyed a fabulous meal. The only thing I found different was they did not serve alcohol. You were able to bring your own beverage into the restaurant. Do a lot of restaurants do this?

I finally picked up one of packages in the mail:


Here is the close up:

They are red. I have no idea why they look orange. Maybe the light when I took the photo.

I don't think I'll actually be able to knit with them. It looks like the yarn would snag on the decorative paint. They do look really cool in my basket of yarn with my skull needles.

There are probably a lot of details I could be sharing at this point but I'm sort of kaput to put it mildly. Whenever people stay in my home, I'm always a little worn out after they leave. I find it very stressful. It doesn't matter if it's family or friends or whoever. I just want everyone to be comfortable and enjoy themselves. I'm forever worrying if they have enough to eat, comfortable, if things are in their proper place, if anything embarrassing is within sight....With three cats you never know what they will decide will be their new play toy.

All is well though. I hope everyone is enjoying the weather. I know I am. In fact, I am going to head back outside and sit in the sun for a little while longer. Have a good day!

Getting a Little More...

Mature?..Older?..Seasoned?
At any rate, I'll be celebrating another birthday very soon. To me, it is just another day. I have however thought about this past year and am very content with my station in my life. A lot of change occurred. Got myself together and learned to live on my own..again. Found someone very wonderful who totally rocks my little world. Moved to a different province. So different in fact the language is not even remotely similar. I even embarked on a new job which I really enjoy.

It's been a very good year. It even makes up for this little tidbit I came across through my surfing the other day:

Good thing I'm secure. :)