July Long Weekend

Hi Meghan, thanks for reading :-)
Mr. H and I packed up our car (we joined Modo.com car sharing program to save money from renting cars and we also don't want to own a car), grabbed the dog and headed to the Okanagan for the weekend.  Canada Day was a Tuesday, so we took the Monday off and had a super long weekend.  It was a cloudy but hot and we sat around doing a whole lot of nothing and relaxing and chatting with the family.  We also picked a ton of cherries, 2 grocery bags full to be exact.  I have finished pitting them and putting them in the freezer - about 3 hours work.  Ma fingahs hurt, but they were free from my Grandma's tree!  We also got a few pints of raspberries from my mom's yard on the way out.  I will have free fruit smoothies for months!

The dog was stressed during the drive which sucked.  He was happy to see mom and dad but was even happier to get home.  It was like he started smiling when he recognised our apartment building.  He jumped out of the car and just walked/pranced in circles on the front lawn.  It was great for him to realise he's home - with us.  He's had a tough six months and I think the trip away for the 3 of us was great, we are a little family.

As for Mr. H and I, it was so good to get away.  It was our first time away since we moved in together 4 months ago.  Although we stayed at my parents we could feel our spark coming back (not that it went away really).  It was great for us to get out of our home for more than an evening and it rejuvenated us.  We talked about the past four months - Mr. H admitted the dog annoyed him for the first few months which made me happy that he could be so honest - and had a good ol' fashioned drunk talks about our future.  It's exciting and I can't wait for our next weekend away.

Two low blows, one weekend

Have you tried this beer?

It is amazing, I thought it would be super sweet, but it's like grapefruit pop.  Do you remember Western Family Pamplemousse?  It takes exactly the same.  It doesn't taste like beer but it is beer.  I finally found may tall can love.  After almost downing two of them last night, and boy did they go down fast, I thought to myself "you will be drunk soon" and right after that realised I had no buzz at all.  All I felt was not so thirsty and a need to go to the washroom but I still couldn't help but drink more.

I went to grab my 3rd and wanted to see how much empty tall cans give to the can collectors in Vancouver. Saw they would get 20 cents in Quebec and suddenly felt ripped off -  2% alcohol, 60% lemon juice and 40% beer!!!!!!!!!!  Yup, wasn't really drinking at all.

If you aren't in the mood for much alcohol and still want a drink, I highly recommend bringing this to get togethers, you will not have a hangover the next day.

Low blow part deux.  Laptops die on me, I'm like some of those who kill houseplants.  I think I go through a laptop a year these days.  I get viruses, it just happens.  I always go and back up important documents and all my photos to my external hard drive, but these days I hardly save anything to my computer and a few important (but not super personal) items are kept in google.  My current laptop became heavily infected a few weeks ago (thanks to Windows 8 not having a great virus protection program).  I quickly put all of the family photos that I scanned this winter onto my hard drive and made sure everything was taken care of.  A few weeks later, Mr. H restored my computer with Windows 7.  It's running perfectly and I worked on some blog posts.......

Where are my 2012 photos???????  Buh-bye Karl and Becky's wedding (thankfully some were saved on Facebook), Buh-bye Toronto, Kristen's wedding and Chicago digital photos (these were recently deleted from Facebook because I just don't want all my stuff up there anymore) and BUH - BYE to whatever the hell else happened that year (in digital photos).

Big blow weekend.  To soften it, I'll open my remaining can of beer juice and think of the new happy memories to build, such as apres walk cuddle time between my two guys :-)

quilt

Another project I’ve been working on is nearing completion. It’s a wedding gift but it’s almost 2 years late - that's right, their 2 year anniversary is almost here and I'm not done. I suck at completing something in time, even if I start 6 months in advance it won’t be done in time. I am the queen of slow, man. Anyway, I do have a few valid excuses, such as full time work with evening classes for 4 months then looking for new work and meeting Mr. H right away and becoming a teenager for one year. What's funny, I had two weeks all to myself before he moved in to our huge 2 bedroom apartment that was suppose to be put aside for finishing the quilt. HA, Ya right! Unpacking????? Buying new house supplies??? Those two weeks were over in a minute!

 My plan was to have the quilt done last Christmas but I was too hasty, I screwed up big time. It was time to start sewing all of the layers together and with my first row width wise I had already made my damage. I totally didn't look to see if the seams had lined up - sewing one oh one, me=dumb. It doesn't stop there, I started sealing that puppy up! I started even doing the half circle designs which was taking forever but I was so close to being finished. What made me realize that I had made a massive mistake? The fabric fiiiiinaaaalllly started puckering. It took near completion for me to see my mistake. Many hours (and many episodes of Friday Night Lights) followed with me bent over the quilt removing stitches. Not all was lost because I finished all 5 seasons pretty quickly and was able to focus on both tasks equally. Now it's pretty much summer and I haven't touched the quilt since. H and I finally have our home set up and I even sewed the other night, so I do believe this quilt will be touched very soon by human hands, seriously.

Buuuuuuuuut I have come to mistake number 2. Quilting one-oh-one, I sealed the puppy up, that is the last step! That made the puckering even worse :-( I figured this out while reading a quilters for beginners when I had nothing to read. Now I am back to undoing a lot more stitches and I decided that I am going to make the edge a different colour, so I went off to the quilting shop and picked up a blue.
 I think the quilt will be much better in the long run.

 

 I did show the blanket to the not so fresh bride and groom right before Christmas, they loved it. I then lied through my teeth to the mother of the bride about my fantastic attention to detail (she's a quilter as well) but how this time it just got me. Ha, and now because of Josh there will probably be a few dog hairs sewn into this quilt! I have learned my 2 big mistakes, go back through the instruction book if you haven't done something in a long time. And here is the blue that will go around the edge.

 

New Years

I think this might be the best new years ever, and who am I with? My bestest friend in the world:

I'm a bit done with New Years, for the past 3 years there has been a "just get through it" smile on my face, our family has either had severe illnesses and actual losses on New Years (and close to the date) for 3 years in a row. On top of it, I can't say no to friends and I'm helping co-ordinate where we'll go while all along I just want to do nothing. Friends falling out, putting on fake smiles as well when, ugh, it's so boring and I'm trying to get home as soon as possible. So I'm spending it with someone who loves me more than anything - except for food - and we are going to be just happy enough sitting beside each other. I was afraid that I would regret this decision but I've never felt better about it. Done scanning family photos, back on to knitting socks :-) Happy New Year, so long 2013.

Squares

I found a new charity for knitters! Knits with love, where you knit 6inch squares in any colour or design and bring them to Wet Coast Wools (that is only 4 blocks from my house) and get together and knit blankets for women in the downtown east side of Vancouver. I LOVE THIS, I love it as much as I love this, a charity where you donate warm clothing to school children. I can't seem to find the exact working link but it is through Vancouver Sun Children's Fund.

It’s nice to take a break from the mittens. I’m realizing more and more that I love knitting so much but I have very little interest in designing new items and making something flashy for myself. My poor Jane Richmond sweater has been at only 2 rows for almost a year. I get so much more joy out of someone else wearing something I made to keep themselves warm. Plus it’s less “stuff” that I have laying around waiting to be worn. I’m happy to meet other knitters who enjoy the giving aspect (I believe that all knitters are givers, how could they be selfish with it), but I’m an introvert so I have that excuse. Here is the finished item, but we need more knitters!

Tasha

We said goodbye to our darling Tasha this summer. She was 9 and 1/2 years old. She was a mix of collie and retriever with some other mild mixes in there too. We noticed over the past few years that her hips were going and signs of hip dysplasia were showing. Our hearts broke because she loved nothing more than running through the bush. Unfortunately it was lymph cancer that shortened her life. She was sick for about 2-3 months, wasn't eating that much and then became very antisocial with her brother and best friend Joshua. We all knew I'd be visiting in early August and she was getting really sick the week before I returned home, I hoped she would eat some food when I visited as her and I have a special bond and I thought that would help. She was so happy to see me and even jumped up a few times. But she didn't eat, just some grass here and there.

So we did what we loved, we went for some walks. She could only walk around the block and would have to rest halfway through. She was always so excited to go for those little walks but as my visit came to an end I would find she wouldn't want to go home, she would want to sit in the park and lie down. That was really difficult as when animals are dying, they try to find a spot a bit further (but not too far) from home to rest. Cats are especially known to do this. Tasha at one point walked into a flowered area and layed down. My mom mentioned "you know what this means" and we held the tears back. We got her home and then I flew home. It was such a heartbreaking goodbye, for both her and Joshua as we had decided that the next morning Tasha would be put down. It was even more difficult because her brother Josh from the same litter (but he was part retriever and labrador) and they had been the best of friends since they were 10 months old. Tasha came to us at 10 months as her former owners didn't want her anymore, which was a blessing as they had treated her badly. Josh was a lonely dog and drove us nuts with his neediness and when Tasha appeared all of his needs were met. For Tasha, she was nervous and scared we would hit her but she had Josh to look out for and take care of, it was a perfect match. We always felt that when one dog leaves, it would probably be better if Tasha was on her own as she wouldn't be as lonely. It's so tough now to know that Josh will have a few years without his best friend. My heart breaks for him, but he will be fine.

When I showed up the poor guy wouldn't leave my side the entire visit. Tasha slept in the corner but Josh was always watching my every move and was always inches away from me as he knew his sister was sick. I've decided to go home for a few extra days this Christmas mainly for him as he is going to get lots and lots of walks with me. It'll be hard but I can't wait to hug his big head. Lots of people say when some dogs die they can't have another one for years and years. There are just so many puppies out there, and although Josh lives far away and with my parents, I know I'll have my own dog after he goes. There is just so much love and there are so many unique dogs out there. I know my own little guy is right around the corner and we are going to have a blast, even if it's only for a short time.

Signs that you are at your mom's

Home for the summer holiday. I seem to catch myself doing odd things, such as eating brown sugar off a spoon, buying kraft dinner, putting on my 'give the dogs an outdoor bath' outfit - realising I need to finish a few errands and not changing out of the dog bathing outfit before heading out. I'm only wearing mascara, not doing my hair, waking up and eating a cup and a half of garden raspberries because that sounds great and I'll deal with the digestive consequences later. And finally I went to Wolverine with my dad and actually liked it. Life is simple in their in a small town, kind of miss it. I crave Harry Potter almost all the time and with all this time on my hands I've re-opened my Pottermore account. Oh what fun! I love reading the extra bits that J.K Rowling has written about her characters and I really love completing all the levels to the fullest. I was late on the Harry Potter craze but I am a full fledged fan. The only part I'm procrastinating on is the book in French, it's just so much faster to read in English ;-) Yay, a fan who tries two languages! It's been a nice visit but a tough one. I have to say goodbye to my darling puppy. My dad brought her home when she was over a year old but her first year wasn't that great. She grew into a loving a loyal dog but her final days are stricken with cancer. She still has some time left and I'm just so happy I get to spend one more visit with her. She taught me so much about companionship and I can't wait to adopt another dog in the future. This is going to be one of the toughest goodbyes. It's been a long time since I've been on here, I've made a new boy best friend and almost all of my time is spent with him. I haven't been up to many crafts as I've been riding my bike and becoming comfortable at my new job. I'm trying though, trying to get some charity gifts done, it's just so tough with Harry Potter's lego video game calling my name. Haha. This post has no pictures due to my computer dying during a thunderstorm at my moms :-(