Bit of This, Little of That

I feel quite accomplished today. I sat down. I picked a brush. I picked up some needles. I also picked up the remote control. At the moment, I am currently picking up a glass a rye. It has a been a good day.

First we start with a wash:

I just hate to see a white canvas, (rather an off white canvas).

Next I attempt to sketch in where I think I will have things situated.

The more difficult part I find, is waiting the few days for things to dry so I can better attack my idea without it turning into an interesting mud colour.

I have also been trying to fix my lily painting. I refuse to lose to a painting. I will be victorious, or destroy all evidence that I tried.

It's a work in progress, don't judge......please.

When I picked up the sticks, I worked on the baby niece's sweater:

I like this one very much. There is very little seaming. For the most part, it is knit in the round. You just divide the stitches for the front and back, and later work in the sleeves. Well, that is the theory.

We went on our walk tonight and stopped Main St. Yarns and picked up some yarn that I had neglected to earlier from the sock club. I'm a bad traveler :(




Rebel seems to favour this one:


And while we sleep, we have our little guardian on deck to make sure we are safe.

Somehow, I do not really find this comforting. It explains the weird bed head when I wake in the morning.
I'm off to finish my drink and surf the net. I hope you all have some cool plans for the week end. Even if it just involves housework and a time for yourself. Night everyone. :)

I Love The Scent of FO's in the Wee Hours

With a little help and encouragement from loved ones, it is amazing what you can do in a few days.
I have an awesome drink on hand:


It's called a French Kiss. If you are interested, leave a comment, I will send the details.

Coupled with some good tunes:


I have seen this group live. They are amazing. Bif puts on a great show. It's full of energy and attitude.
Mix together,


End result is a smiling man with a kick azz scarf:


I'm just looking outside the window as I type along to the beat. We may get a snow day tomorrow:

I hope I can find my truck in the morning:


Have a good night everyone. I'm going to try and settle down so I can sleep a little tonight.

So This is 2009.

Welcome to 2009!! I hope is was exciting for all of you. It was fairly low key over here. We made a nice super, drank some champagne, and watched movies until the wee hours of the morning. Those are my favourite kind of nights. A few people asked me if I made any resolutions. At the time of my answer, I said no. I have since this afternoon, changed my opinion of the whole idea. I have been thinking about this quite a bit if truth be told. I want to dedicate a certain amount of time for my creative outlets. I have been slacking in my painting and drawing. I have a lot things on hold and there really is no need for that. I always say something along the line that I need the daylight. Well, I live in Canada. The light is sometimes a bit shy and won't show herself until March. So let me change that perspective and just look at it as a way to create something different, with interesting colour combinations, and perhaps new ideas. I also need to gain a new perspective with money. Do I really these things I desire? Most likely answer is: Of course not. So let me streamline things a bit and concentrate my efforts to a goal. Perhaps one of home ownership? I will start small and work my way through from there. I will also take better care of myself. I cannot help anyone if I cannot help myself. So I will evaluate things more closely and make sure I acquire the things I need to be a better version of myself. I do not know how successful this will be. If I put forth an honest effort, whatever I accomplish will be worth my valuable time.
HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone. I wish you all lots of love, health, and whatever you all desire the most.

What I Did On My Christmas Holidays :)

I am actually still enjoying my Christmas break. I do not usually have this much time off, so this is amazing. Firstly, I have been keeping my vampire hours. I love it. I sleep when I am tired, eat when I am hungry and do not have a single worry. This is a very rare treat for me.
During this time, I have been doing some serious knitting.


I also received another installment of the Travelling Scarf group of which I am a member.

This is so cool, in that it is worked sideways. I had never tried this before. I will do shortly as soon as I have a few other works in progress off the sticks.

I did a lot of work with my Naughty-Nice Scarf, from the Son of the Stitch and Bitch.

It is just so much fun. My husband cannot wait until he can wear it. I am hoping it is soon, or at least before Spring.

I had my crack team helping me pack.

Yes. There is enough room to smuggle a cat if the need should arise.


Unfortunately, Rebel was pounced upon shortly after this discovery was made.

I have been able to visit with friends and share in wonderful food.


I have been watching movies galore. We had a C. S. Lewis theme night. First we watched, Shadowlands, with Sir Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. I loved the Narnia series when I was a small child. We then watched The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. During the entire movie, I was positively tripping on who was the witch. Finally, midway through the film, the Husband recognizes her as the angel Gabriel from the movie Constantine. Her name is Tilda Swinton. What did we watch. Hmmmmm. Atonement, Devils Mercy, Runaway Bride, Logan's run, The Fifth Element, Tomb Raider, and The Ruins. There were many, many more flicks, but unfortunately, I cannot recall them all at this point.

We enjoyed our walks. There are so many homes with lights adorning their fronts. It is super cool. Some of them are lit in tune to a Christmas carol. I am not sure how cool I would find this if I was living next door to one, but it is really neat to see.
This is a sidewalk en route of our walk.


Me all bundled and snow covered:

I really love that hat!

For Christmas, we went to my parents home. We had a great time. The journey to get there however, was something else. We drove through at least two feet of water most of the way. Many areas were flooded. I was very thankful to be in my truck. It is higher than most of the other vehicles on the road that did not fare as well. Normally, it takes us at the most two hours to arrive at Moms. This trip, no word of a lie, took SIX!!!!! First time for everything I suppose.
The trip was well worth it. We had a wonderful supper with all the fixings. We were entertained by Buddy. He provided us with his Poltergeist impersonation.

Now tell me that is not three shades of creepy.

My parents always have the best light displays:



Yes. Santa s Reindeer did rest on the roof of their motor home before continuing on their long voyage.

We stayed a few days with Mom and then turned for home. I really missed my bed. At least the drive home was more manageable.
I can handle snow covered roads with more ease. I did not need my water wings for the trek home.

Lastly, Santa was very good to us. Can you guess what we were doing all week end:


We have our games, and Rebel has his:

I have no clue how he managed to stay perched on that little box for as long as he did.

That is all I have to share for now. I truly hope you all enjoyed your Christmas. I wish you all, the best, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

HOLIDAYS!!!!

Today was the last day of work before my holidays commence. It took forever to get here! What a way to start my vacation time. The weather networks were forecasting lots of snow in my area. They were right. It took me an hour to get home this afternoon. Usually, it is only a 20 minute drive. Considering the obstacles I encountered, I made excellent time. I didn't drive over 40km/h. The visibility was extremely poor, and that is putting it mildly. At one point, I was just hoping that I was still on the road. It disappeared for a miles. I love those people that put up the snow fences. Those are incredibly helpful and I wish that more people would consider using them.
Since the husband will have to go to a class in the morning, we thought we would get the drop on the weather and try and clear out a path for the truck. It did not take nearly as long as I had imagined.


Now the beast is ready for more road work tomorrow.


The thing I love most about the Christmas season are the movies that are aired on television. My favourite one is showing tomorrow night. It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas. The human cast is most excellent. It includes Whoopi Goldberg, Joan Cusack, Matthew Lillard, Joe Rogan, William H. Macy, and so many more. My ultimate favourite part is Sam Eagle as a club kid in Club Dot. I did a little spit take with my rye at that point. For the life of me, I can't find an audible clip of that shot. I have found a few pictures though.

How disturbing is that little image eh? There is also one of Scooter as a go-go dancer. Those are healthy images eh?
hehehe

We had a lot of nice walks this past week. Lots of home decorated for Christmas. This one tree caught my eye.

I would love to know how they managed to get the lights all the way to the top of the tree.

I've been a little bit of knitting. Not as much as normal though. With all the cold, my hands have not been very co-operative. Here is a little something that I'm working on:

I'm not going to spoil it and say what it is. I'm sure you all can tell, but I will try and keep it a secret in case the young person it is being made for learns how to work a PC.

I'm off to spend quality time with my television set. I wish you all a wonderful night, er.....morning. :)

Mall Rat

I am an aging mall rat. For those of you unfamiliar with the term:
Mallrat:
-noun.
homo erectis drawn to its own ilk, who frequent establishments conducive to the obtainment of goods and services. Primary goal is consumerism or to be a voyeur in the midst of consumers. It's natural habitat is loud, colourful, filled with a multitude of consumerism. It is drawn to artificial lighting, and odours from the food courts or mid mall snacking vendors. It will lose track of time easily and readily. It can disappear easily into the abyss of shoppers and displays for hours on end only to reappear in search of nourishment. It can travel in schools or as sole individuals in a never-ending quest for the next unique article. It's superior knowledge of trends and cult lore is bottomless and fueled by those in it's school. It's lifespan is usually from that of 12 to 18 years of age, however it has been known to start at an earlier age and extend well into senior years.
-made popular by the movie, Mallrats, directed and written by Kevin Smith, released October 20, 1995.

You what I noticed today at the mall? Well too bad. I'm going to share regardless :). The senior citizens and the teen age groups wear very similar clothing. Have I mentioned this before? Both groups are prone to wear plaid and baggy clothing; Both have ear devices, albeit for different reasons; Both linger at the food court well past the allotted pointed time on the signage; Both appear to be there everyday. I could probably go on about the similarities, but I worry about revealing too much of myself.
Today was the day the husband and I designated as "shopping for the Christmas festivities". I won't lie, it was an utter hell of an excursion. The lines were worse than the ones at Wonderland for Drop Zone. I have discovered that my ultimate pet peeve are those that linger in the aisle, leaving their cart unattended, talking loudly into their cell phone about a useless topic, all the while ignoring the common courtesy to let others get by for fear that the other person would steal whatever they are vainly searching. I have also discovered that colouring books are far and few between. The technology of crayons has also increased ten fold. I was way out of my element today. I was victorious. I found what I was searching for, and then some!

Okay, that sounds way too negative. Let's change topics.

Friday was a good night. We watched Cloverfield. A very minding bending, sci-fi thriller. At the start of the movie though, I thought my cable was out.

That was the image on the screen for the first few minutes. When you have gone through as many televisions as I have, you get a scooch paranoid. It had a good plot though. I liked how the viewer sees it all through a camcorder. Reminded me of Blair Witch Project. I won't say too much more. I do not wish to spoil it for those who have not seen it yet.

We also had Thai food and this to drink:

It is a Pelee wine, called fittingly: Pelee Bird, Sauvignon Blanc. not that I always select wine based on the awesome labels, but this one is cool, (and it wasn't me who picked out this one due to the cute label;) ).

First the bird sees the drink, tastes the drink, then the drink wins. I love it. It's quite tricky to take a picture of something shiny. This was the best I could do:


I also worked on some very small mittens. I found not too many patterns for mittens to fit a 3 year old hand. This was strictly improvisational.


This is the yarn I used. It was a great deal at Zeller's and according to the label, 100% wool. Now that I think of this, it will probably felt. This may prove interesting.


The yellow piece of yarn is my waste yarn holding the stitches for the thumb.

The very tiny mitten emerges:


Complete with Idiot string.

I don't mean that to be offensive. That is what we used to call the cord that attached the mittens together and ran through the sleeves of our coats so we wouldn't lose them in our efforts to build the better fort.

Well I have rattled on for enough this evening. Actually, it is now the early hours of the morning and I still am not sleepy. I suspect I was overstimulated with my quest for the perfect colouring book and crayons. I hope you all enjoy the holiday shopping and I wish you all the strength and endurance to survive.

It's A Weird Little World Out There

It was a bit chilly out there today. This morning we had our Christmas breakfast with the drivers. It was awesome. For one hour, I get to act the goof and just be silly. I am just of the guys, there for a good time. There are no boundaries, no us versus them, just a group of people sharing a meal together. I loved every minute of it!
Now that I am home, I am relaxing and just surfing around the world wide web. OMG!! It can be a frightful place, but oh so fun.
I stumbled on this image today!
She is one brave lady. I"m terrified of the flu shot. :(
I'm not sure if I have shared this link or not, but I am willing to share again. It's my favourite part of the show to be quite honest. I always wondered how they can create so many different ideas over such a lengthy period of time. When this show first aired, I was in elementary school.
Another thing the net has taught me, no matter how bad your day was, there is always someone that is worse than yours. CAUTION: some very graphic pics, not suitable for all viewers.
There is also some self-help at our fingertips.
When all else fails, we can simply hide in the closet until the badness goes away for a while.


I'm going to try and coax Napoleon out of the front hall closet. I hope you all have a great night!