squirreling it away for Winter......

Lloyd has named our squirrel Frank.....and Frank has a 'mate' it seems....Susie spotted Frank with his 'friend' on the porch this morning...the first time we have seen two of them!!! I guess he spread the word that we are good hosts ;) We now buy squirrel food by the bagful at Home Depot.....they sell these bags of weird looking corn that you are supposed to attach to squirrel feeders but Lloyd hasn't made my squirrel feeder yet! So our squirrels are just nibbling them off the ground!

Grayson keeps trying to catch one of the squirrels but they are much too fast. Cairo is too fat and lazy and slow to even try. Jaspers a bit of a ditzy blonde lol...but he tries! He's still so kitteny in some ways!

funny words.....

You know when you post a comment on some blogs you have to type in those funny jumbled letters as a type of security against spammers...I was just typing a comment on a blog and the letters that came up spelled 'redcoc' not quite spelled correctly but if you read it...well lets just say it made me laugh ;)

It's 11:42am and a lazy Sunday morning.....Lloyd brought me breakfast in bed....so I've had two cups of coffee now and he brought me marmalade on toast. I told him I'm having trouble getting motivated to get out of bed.....he laughed and said not to worry about it. He has gone to do the mudroom (we bought some storage for it yesterday which I will photograph later - I am sick of washing the snow pants and then having the cats sleep on them and then having to wash them again so we bought some drawers for the snow pants and gloves etc etc)...anyway instead of telling me to GET UP, Lloyd just said to stay in bed and when he is done in the mudroom he will come up and rip the covers off of me ;)

Deal ;)

Very first attempts at crocheting...

I bought a beginners kit for crocheting today and have been watching learn to crochet videos at youtube. At first it was driving me crazy - I couldn't get the tension right, I kept dropping stitches.....it was a MESS. Then I got going fine...then it would mess up again..then I thought I'd done a million stitches but it was only about 5cm long!!!!

Anyway, my friend Holly suggested I use a bigger hook so I tried that and although it makes much bigger stitches which I don't much like the look of, I am at least doing regular stitches and regular tension and going faster and feeling better about the whole thing and feel like I'm getting somewhere!

I'm crocheting!!!!

So I am going to stick with the big hook for now and learn with this and then change when I get a bit better! I bought two balls of yarn and will practice. But my goal is to one day make a ripple blanket like the one here:

mysewingserenity.blogspot.com/2008/10/first-born-ripple.html

Isn't it gorgeous? It reminds me of the stripy blanket I was given when I was a baby!

So no laughing at my very first attempts in the picture - there was a stage a couple of hours ago where I was close to throwing the stupid crochet hook out of the window!!! I'm glad I stuck with it!! Check out my friend Julies knitting and crocheting blog at: wittyknitting.blogspot.com/ not JUST about knitting!!! Her homeschooling family have been looking at sperm on the kitchen table......hahahahaha OMG THIS is why Julie will ALWAYS be my homeschooling role model :) and why I would give anything to be able to drive over for a cuppa and to catch up....because they just do the coolest things :) she knits, she homeschools and she wouldn't have batted an eyelid to the fact we kept a dead shrew on our kitchen windowsill in a jam jar.....

For Mom....

So far I can only find this ribbon at any of the stores....its the narrowest I can find. I grabbed it anyway as I figure I can always use it to send to our girls we sponsor for their hair etc otherwise.....let me know if its any use for Lynn at all or if I should keep looking for the finer ribbon.....I know this is much wider than you wanted but I can't find anything finer at the moment - maybe before the wedding I will though.....

Hi Lynn - I know this isn't the fine ribbon you want so I will keep looking but I grabbed it jujst because it had the maple leaf on it and was all I could find so far! Thought if anything you might be able to make use of it for something - on balloons or chairs.........something!

Which swap?

Can you guess which swap these are for???? Lets just say I am sorely disappointed with them I received them today - they are on flimsy paper and are poorly made....stickers stuck on a piece of paper do not an atc-make!!!! And the note that was sent was written in a 'can't be bothered' attitude. I really got the feeling from it that the person who sent it wasn't botherd to even try. I had to give a 5 because she sent what she had to send - 2 atc's. But they don't match the swap in my opinion AT ALL :( I did NOT give a heart :(

I was so excited to get this swap too. I took sooooo much time making the atc's for this swap - throwing away many before having some I felt were good enough....HA....NOW you all know what swap it was huh?????

I know art is in the eye of the beholder and it's all in the interpretation but PLEASE...... :(

more dragonfly atc's

Here are my second set of dragonfly atc's that I received from the swap at Swap-bot - aren't they gorgeous?

distractions

Another game that entertained Sam for ages today was to cut a slot ina box and let him pop coins through it - I gave him a big pile of coins and the box with the slot and he had fun just pushing coins through the slot in the box for ages.....then playing with the coins on the big plastic lid. I just made sure to wash his hands well afterwards.

I'm taking an online writing class right now so I'm finding lots of new ways to keep Sam occupied :) And yes he WAS painting and playing with the coins on my bedroom floor!!! ;)

Craft time...

Sam did some painting and gluing this afternoon....he painted a Christmas Tree and then glued on some sequins to decorate it....very pretty Sam!

Toadstool atc

Here is the toadstool atc I received in the swap at Swapbot....the envelope was filled with wonderful confetti and the swapper also surprised me with a Twilight badge!!! Yay!! I get to wear my Edward everywhere I go :) 1 week until I go and see the movie :) My tickets are tucked away safely ready for next Friday :)

What have you done today.....

......to make you feel proud?

ATC's from Erna!!!

I was lucky enough to be partnered up with Erna from South Africa AGAIN!!! So I now have FOUR of her gorgeous ATC's....Erna is an artist and her miniature works of art are just amazing!! I LOVE them! Her little notes in with the package are so funny too :) She added me as a friend on facebook si I get to see a little of her life on there now and her recent holiday was amazing - OMG the THING that was crawling on her bedroom window EEEWWWWW! But the monkeys outside were wonderful!

I love what Erna writes about her husbands artwork and the 'bride price'.....I wonder how much I would have been worth......in Canada maybe you could strike a deal in Elk or Bison....beaver pelts????

Dragonfly atc

Here is one of the dragonfly atc's I have received from a swap I took part in on Swap-bot. The lady also enclosed an extra atc she made for a map swap as well as some extra bits and pieces for me :)

12:30am and I can't sleep...

I blame a certain someone...and no names mentioned ;) lol!!!! ;) Or maybe its just me and my obsessional nature.....and my dad says thats my Mothers fault!!!!

I'm going to do a quick gratitude post and then go back up to bed and try to go to sleep....

Today I am grateful for:

1. My bravery this past week - In the last week I have driven on Calgary Trail for the very first time - YES - I drove to Toys R Us last Friday!!! OMG I think Lloyd was as shocked as I was but I DID it.....and Lloyd STUPIDLY said, well done, now you've done it once you can do it whenever you like..which basically means he's given me free reign to SHOP!!!! ;) Crazy guy ;) This week I also drove to Staceys house despite my fear of turning left across 50th St!!! She told me a way to get back where I could use traffic lights to turn left woohoo so no worries there and I had a great time at her place. And then today I drove to Tess's house WAAAAAAY up on 136th Ave - I mean thats practically Fort McMoney!!!!! Now I did have to take a Maxalt after each and every one of these drives but it was soooo worth the migraine every time :) I DID IT!!!! :)

2. Not having carpet in the living room - because the cat vomited in there today and if it had been carpet I would have had to scrub it for ages and because it was laminate, I was able to wipe it up in a couple of minutes and give it a quick spray of stuff afterwards.

3. Lloyd for making dinner two nights running.....pasta last night and butter chicken tonight! Yummy both nights - thank you baby! Last night I was in the bath getting rid a of a migraine and tonight he just planned to make his butter chicken.

4. All the waves and blown kisses I get from the children as they walk down the driveway towards the school bus in the mornings....

What are YOU grateful or today?

Snowflake/ Christmas ATC swap....

My friend Tess has hurt her back and is off of work at the moment, so today while Sam was at Pre-K I drove over to visit with her for a little while. Poor Tess really does look as though she's in so much pain :( I can't empathise with her at all because I'm the only person in my family who HASN'T had a bad back...(I got blessed with migraines instead sigh....) so I can't relate to what she's going through, but I do know she can barely move and can't stay in one position for long, so please keep her i your thoughts! She's off to her Doctor tomorrow and will hopefully get x-rays and thoroughly checked out and hopefully STRONG MEDS!!!!

I hope you're on the mend soon Tess!

The above ATC's were from a snowflake/ Christmas swap that Tess organized on the facebook 'addicted to atc's' group. Aren't they great? If you'd like to join the group then we'd love to have more members!! They're so much fun to make and swap and get in the mail!!! Get addicted and join at Swapbot too :)

After visiting with Tess I raced back to Sherwood Park and on the way ran out of washer fluid in my truck grrrrrr so had to run to get my pictures form Icon Photography then run to the 7-11 and grab some washer fluid and then get that into the truck then RUN to get Sam from Pre-K.....then we were finally on our way home!

The weather today was HORRIBLE....high winds (50-70km an hour) with a mix of snow and rain. I am glad to be home and warm inside although the sound of the wind blowing around the house outside makes me feel cold. The workmen gave up on roofing today - the shingles were blowing everywhere - they went back to decking and then left early - I don't blame them - pouring washer fluid into the truck was difficult - it was going everywhere because of the wind! I was NOT happy and told Lloyd so as I had asked him to refill it for weeks.....did not appreciate having to do it just off the highway on a day like today on my way to get Sam from Pre-K.....sigh.....and yes it IS one of his chores in this house - just the way we are...sorry if thats old fashioned - I'm a hopeless old fashioned pathetic girly - there - I admit it! And no I still don't put gas in my truck. My truck still magically refills itself. But I do know that it now refills itself much more cheaply than it used to ;)

Sam the photographer!

Sam took this picture of Laurie and I this afternoon! Great job Sam! He moves the camera around as he presses the button so Laurie and I were moving around trying to stay in the lens so we'd actually be in the picture! Thats why we look kind of funny :) But at least we are IN this one!!!! You should have seen some of the others ;)