Whining and Home Sitting

I’m home and pet sitting this week in town.

Hubby and I have had to juggle one car but it’s been a nice break to be in new surrounds. The cat is a Bombay. Very interesting: they are pitch black, compact and talk a LOT. Very dog-like, this cat. And fond of waking me at night.

I’ve never worked ft since we were married: always pt and then, since moving to the Great North, working for myself. This flexibility has meant we can vacation together. Hubby gets almost a month vacation! That is why I’ve added home sitting to my repertoire.

Walking this dog in this older area of town is fun. I see the wealth of historic houses, and read their interesting plaques, as we meander. 

Central to town is this cathedral. What you cannot quite see? It is encrusted in ice. Spring is still dueling it out with Winter.

Town has 3 rug hooking groups: the big overly organized one, the casual night group, and the cathedral support group. The support hooks copies of stained glass windows that are in the above cathedral and sell them. I belong to the casual night group but have belonged to the others in the past. 

All this to say that the Big Group is trying to organize a May hook-in and they’re having help issues. The covid years claimed two of our best organizers and the newbies may be intimidated by the former grandiose hook-ins. 

Righty so! I think we’ve gotten waayyy too complicated. 

Former hook-ins are free to the attendees and included a continental breakfast, beautiful luncheon and dessert, multiple gift basket drawings, gifts to everyone for coming, and so on and so on. 

If your groups do hook-ins how are they run? Too much going on? Too little? Any ideas? 

I say bring a bag lunch and we provide dessert and tea. 

And I leave you with the two finished pieces “D”, a wonderful woman in the mental health centre, hooked up in no time from her very creative mind.  

March winds of Change

March winds! So awful.

Right now I’m glad I’m renting as the yard is littered with limbs and there’s a long piece of siding laying on the deck.

I’ve been perfecting my oatmeal brown bread and freezing lots of it! 

It’s a pretty foolproof recipe as long as the yeast is good. The basic recipe is from Kings Landing historic site but I’ve added more molasses. 

I also hooked up my version of dancing rabbits. 

The “brown” background is actually mottled with pinks and greens and browns. This is Saundra’s challenge— of Woodland Junction— and it was fun. My finished is 4.5x 14.5” and I hooked a playful border with jute twine I use for gardening!

I’ve also finished repair on the hooked rug I bought.The one that had far more dirt than I could have guessed.

Look at the charming attempts at repair of another owner. I left those in place.

Someone cared about this mat. I love that.

A woman from the people with mental illness day centre has returned to our hooking group after a long absence. 

She is a confident artist IMO; she takes a piece of linen, draws a few guidelines with a sharpie and just hooks with a keen eye for colour.

The sights of the Nashwaak River breaking up and the birdsong of returning winged things are signs of Spring in New Brunswick.

They encourage my heart and keep my anxieties of word events contained.

Beautiful in its own right!

And I picked up a book first published in 1907 which promises to keep my mind on Abba and Creation. It’s called “The Shepherd of the Hills” and 

by Harold Bell Wright. 

Do you draw strength from the old things too?

 

Walking and Rugs

 A new week and it’s March?!

New Brunswick’s first signs of spring are here-

 this means temps edging above freezing and strong sunshine. 

Yesterday Willie Nelson (friend’s dog) and I had a lovely woods walk. 

We saw no one but there were little sled tracks and snowshoe prints everywhere…

Long winters generally send me into a funk, but not this one.

Work on the fundraiser geometric mat is plugging along.

 I was one of those kids in school who so badly wanted that good grade on group assignments that I’d do most of the work. 

I’ve been hogging this one as I want to see it finished but it’s time to hand it off. 

The rug is 32x21. 

Some of the hooking looks wavy but it’s not. 

Handling scraps of raffle tickets is a thing of my past. We will do this one differently and will try to include friends in the US on this one.

 I’ll keep you posted.

Another project was sent my way from City Hall.

 They were removing 26 tapestries from a long term display. 

They needed to be cleaned before being boxed and stored. 

Doris N was head of the taskforce. 

I learned a lot: panty hose over end of vacuum nozzle, and/or very light fabric over a hoop to work within, and don’t make actual contact with the tapestry.

Here are two friends who were also recruited.

May I just say it’s awesome to spend the day with great conversations and a task at hand. Of course the pay didn’t hurt…

Another project keeping me away from joining Saundra of Woodland Junction and crew at their rabbit hooking is a mat I got at auction for $40.

Because I got it sight unseen I didn’t realize it was heavy with dirt and grime.

 Awful. 

Yes, I was so disgusted I did the no-no: soaked it for several days in a tub. THEN I vacuumed it.

I sewed on backing in the breaking spots and have begun hooking in wools. 

My aim is to get it up on the wall eventually. 

Aren’t the colours and design super? I love those.

Got a friend I’ve been missing coming for a walk. 

She’s been lucky enough to tend to her parents full time but one just went into a care home and she’s torn up. I’ve seen little of her for the last year. 

She’ll be leaving my home with soup and lemon bread.

I’ve been lucky enough to have time to do that.

May you give enough attention and prayer to the suffering this week while balancing self

care and quiet♥️

Happy Anniversary To Me

♥️♥️♥️♥️

 We’ve been married 32 years today! Where did the years go anyway? I was 19, he was 20 and we raised two awesome kids! 

We’re going out for Indian food tonight with some friends who don’t know it’s a special day. I can’t remember the last time hubby and I ate at a restaurant together. We’re kind of easing out into the world again. This is my gift to Erik:

I should have taken a before picture! He goes into this cabinet each morning to fish around for container top and matching bottom to take to his lunch in. We keep a pretty clean home but toss things into cabinets; when this cabinet was opened, things feel out and he’d get all discombobulated. Let’s just say I recycled 9 tops whose bottoms have mysteriously disappeared. Crazy. Any bets on how long this will stay straight?

I finished my rug. Minus the binding but that’ll be done by Monday. I don’t let the binding wait.

Dark photo. The rug is subdued but not that dark.          

And I finished a Dalmatian ornament.  A very late Christmas present for my friend Karen and her dog, Soprano.

Now I work on the new rug our group is hooking for a retreat house we go to. This rug will be raffled off. 

I guess this just shows a portion of the geometric. It’s about 2x3 feet.

The nonprofit centre  is in dire straights from having lost so much money over the pandemic. Frankly it’s not looking good for them and that’s just plain terrible. 

I walked a good bit today but wore my icers as it’s so slippery out. We hit 38F today and the snow is melting and refreezing at night.

                  Love how inviting these trails are! 

                 Willie Nelson the dog was with me                        

                 but  wouldn’t stand still for a picture 

                  as there were so many deer prints. 

                              Happy Thursday 

Snow Hook Snow Hook

 Yes, I’m less irritable but not myself. Thanks for the encouragements. 

At the advice of one of you I took an online zoom course with Deana of Ribbon Candy Rug Hooking: designing like Magdelena Briner Eby. The class was small and we interacted easily. Deana sent out lots of copyright free designs for us to experiment with. I love history so hearing Briner Eby’s story was a bonus. And there was a link to the recorded session for later. At  $45 I don’t think you can beat it. 

Our province is getting blasted with a foot and a half of snow so hubby and I are home today.         I put together a cake for a party we’re attending Saturday. Made do without grocery trip, so I used an apple pie filling I’d made and frozen back in October. The result, a Bundt with a crumb topping, looks good. 

I also worked a lot on the Woolen Memories pattern while watching Celebrating Appalachia on YouTube. (Tipper is amazing).  

I can see the dark area above a flower needs to be lightened but I’m liking it so far. The paw print on the top photo is traced from one of beloved dog Lucy.          I started this rug before she died and reader Peggy of Canada suggested that.   

                 

And my son’s friend was in a store in Connecticut and took this photo as it struck him funny. As it did our family with our wonky senses of humour.

Stay safe and have a good weekend.

Irritability Warning

This isn’t a hooking blog today. This is a vent space for me today. 

I’ve been incredibly irritable for two days. I’m post menopausal. My hot flashes come one on top of the other, I’ve got cold sores all over my lips. That’s a new one that came four months ago… and everything anyone does rankles me: People being mean, people being kind, people needing from me, people giving generously to me, people’s bad habits, people’s good habits. 

I’m sure the fault lies in this bag of bones but I’d like it to have an outside reason. 

I’m a Jesus girl and the last thing I want to do is sit still with Jesus and meditate on the why. 

Which means that’s probably best for me. 

So, I googled Bible verse on irritability and the results were verse on anger (not the same) and bitterness (not the same either, thank you ). AND they were compiled by men. Which also pissed me off. Let me put off kilter hormones in your brains and cold sores on your lips and then I dare you to write your pithy messages.

Double dare.

Ok, I’m done. 

Here’s me enjoying a chilly snowshoe with hubby before irritability. BI.

Loving Kindness

 The last couple days since Lucy’s death have been hard but we’ve had so many well wishes and words of support. Our landlord gave us a tulip bouquet and other friends brought us a Lebanese meal. So many lovely people understand animal love.

I’ve put more work into my Woolen Memories rug.

   The blue vase is more of a teal.

          For me, keeping my hands busy helps the sadness.

        As do walks, prayer!, and time with others.