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.