Five On Friday

I've been off an airplane for only a few hours, just downloaded my holiday photographs and wanted to drop by for a quick 'hello' (HELLO!) before we head out on our May 24th, 2016 Victoria Day weekend. As I did last week, I am joining Amy and her Five on Friday posts. I hope you'll visit Amy and then drop by some of the other lovely blogs and their authors who are also joining in.

I thought I'd briefly touch on five highlights from my trip. Hopefully this post will be enough of a tease to encourage you to come back this week and see what I did in more detail! Who is up for a challenge? This is a Five on Friday quiz!

In which museum in Oxford was this picture taken?

The story behind this quote touched my heart. Who was this hopeless romantic?

Is this a common street name in the UK? Anyone (besides my tour guide, A, of course) know what town contains this street name?

What are this man and his horse doing?

What was finished being built in this town in 1779 (hint: the village bears the same name)?

See you on Monday and for all of you Newfoundland and Labradorians out there, have a wonderful May 2-4 weekend!

Five on Friday

I've been reading CJ's Above the River blog for some time now. On Friday's, she links up to Amy's lovely blog Love Made My Home and her 'Five on Friday' posts and I thought I'd give it a try too. It seems like such an easy way to have a blog post ready to go at least once a week. I rarely link my blog posts up to other bloggers work so I'm pretty intimidated excited about giving a link party a go.

One:

I continue to be the Chief Cook and Bottle Washer around here. These Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies are evidence of my most recent baking foray. It was actually a joint event as we'd run out of eggs and I didn't realize it until I was half way through making the cookie batter. Luckily, my handy neighbour, D, was able to help me out. Thanks, D!!! D stopped by this week and almost got her egg's worth in cookies. Gotta love it when you've lived somewhere long enough to know at least a few of your neighbours.

Two:

The cats remain contented and spoiled and are currently in the throes of Spring fever. Bella has been racing around and playing with her toys which, though not entirely rare, the amount of time she's spending playing is unusual. I am happy to report that I have found both cats sleeping on our bed At. The. Same. Time. A foot and a half apart but still on the bed together. This hasn't meant that the hissing fights have stopped entirely but I take some consolation in the fact that they are getting better at sharing.

Three:

This house is pretty much all about Legos. Legos on the floor, in the beds, on the tables and scattered everywhere else throughout the house. The worst part about them? When you step on them in your bare feet. AGONY!!! The best thing about them is the amount of imaginative play that they allow our boys. This week they made a climbing wall, zip line, fishing area, and dirt bike track all out of Lego and all Lego sized. Sadly, I didn't catch their creation on camera in time. The picture above is a reminder that I should capture their creations more often. 

Four:

The tulips in the back garden haven't bloomed yet but no one told my African violets that it's still cold outside. We've been enjoying this everlasting beauty for months.

Five:

I'm not going to the UK empty handed and must have something handmade to pass onto my friend, A. Here it is in the making. Shhhh, don't tell...

Maintenance

Both DH and I have officially lived in this little (too large) house of ours for longer than any other address in our entire lives. That's significant, folks, and we are enjoying every minute of it. We moved into a brand new house where all of the decisions with respect to paint colour, fixtures and finishes were already decided. The designer involved picked neutral brown tones for the paint colours and they were fine for our first five years.

Hallway before.

Then we put in our stove and the chimney stone wall and things started to darken up a little in our open concept home. Now almost 6.5 years into living in our home, it was time to paint. The marks, dents and holes from little boys may have hastened that decision as well...

Hallway before.

DH is a lovely man (have I said that recently?) and is the official wall painter in our house. I love to paint as well but my talents lay largely with stretched canvas and pieces of wood. Walls? Boring. So, DH is a sweetie and has done the majority of the painting in the rooms of any home we have ever owned.

Painting out from the hall. 

I have been really drawn to a Scandinavian and European style of white walls and that's the colour (non-colour?) we chose for the upstairs hall and main open living area. DH is slowly working on it as he has time and we are living quite comfortably in the chaos in the meantime. So far, nothing has been terribly inconvenient and I'm so proud of how much he has done. With such a large space, the concept of painting it has been a lot wee bit intimidating.

One of the hardest parts to paint - the growth chart!

One of the most difficult parts to paint over was the growth chart I'd started on one of the walls when we moved in. I'd never intended for that section to become the official growth chart but it did. Don't worry though. We took extensive measurements and pictures so that we can replicate all of the information on something like this which is totally more my style of painting.

Hallway after.

The furniture in the living room has been moved around several ways since we started this project. One option was to have the couches closely surrounding the fireplace. Both DH and I liked that arrangement as it was SO nice to be able to stretch out on a couch right next to a roaring fire at the end of the day. Before, the couches were more within viewing distance and not close enough for good warmth it seems. We've moved the furniture into some pretty funky positions which has been fun for the short term.

I've also been playing with updating the decor in the areas that are finished using what I already have on hand and no financial investment so far. That has been great fun and I look forward to playing with the living room once the final wall is complete.

Hallway after though the decorations aren't yet complete.

We're slowly getting there. Most recently, DH got a lot completed on the ceiling and next he's onto the right interior wall in the picture below. After that it gets a whole lot more finicky as he heads to painting around the kitchen cupboards and such. Slowly but surely and the colour is certainly brightening up the space just as I'd hoped.

Gone to the Dogs

On Crackbook Facebook, I am a member of Beagle Paws Rescue - CANADA ( or look them up at Beagle Paws). My sister used to foster for them for several years and, as we had a couple of beagles when I was growing up, the little brown and white and black dogs hold a special place in my heart. One of our beagles, Lady, could even fly (true story)!!!

This past weekend, DH was planning on doing more painting (we are painting the main level of the house and that would be the royal 'we' as DH is doing all the work) and as luck would have it, Beagle Paws was having a beagle meet up in Bowring Park to join all of their adopted and adoptable beagles en masse and to collect money to support the displaced animals in shelters across Alberta due to the disaster in Fort McMurray, Alberta. They needed extra dog walkers and I thought that would be a great way for the for boys and I to spend an afternoon out from under DH's feet and in the much appreciated sunshine (at least I'm pretty sure that's what that bright ball of burning gas in the sky was having had little experience with the darn thing of late).

The boys were ecstatic about the idea. As is likely usual for most children their age, they are desperate to add a dog to our family of seven - five humans plus two cats. DH and I are rather desperate too but are standing firm and waiting until Youngest is at least in school full time before we commit to the time, training and attention required for a new dog. So, we went out with strict notice that, yes, we were going to walk a dog and, no, we were not going to bring said dog, or any other dog for that matter, home.

Because I had the boys with me, we were paired with one dog who actually belonged to the organizer of the meet up. His name is Asher and he was a great little companion.

Asher loves people, other dogs and, especially, children. The boys were quite taken with him and didn't wander as far from me as they usually would in the park because they wanted to stay close to the dog. Asher probably didn't notice but he was a rock star to my three. There wasn't even any whining from Youngest to get 'up' with me as is usual at the end of walks/hikes these days (his wee legs are nice and strong but he doesn't seem to know that yet).

All in all, it was a great way to spend an afternoon helping out the Beagle Paws organization although I'm pretty sure Asher did us most of the favour. Hopefully we can join along with another meet up again soon.

Sock-tastic?

So, I'm going to England. On Friday. The thirteenth. To say I'm excited would be a massive understatement. I'm going to see a good friend who I haven't seen in two year.  I'm going to breathe in that English air that I haven't experienced since before Eldest was born which is a lot too long for me to be able to cope with. The United Kingdom is like my heart's home in many ways and nine years since I last visited is far too long.

We booked me a seat sale ticket to London Gatwick for my birthday present in November (2015) and my Mother's Day present this year is the associated expenses from the trip. Yes, I am spoiled rotten and I know it.

Here's my dilemma: what craft and how many do I bring with me? Am I alone here? What other crafters out there plan their craft project(s) in advance of clothes, underclothes and toiletries besides me? I can't be the only one!?!

So last week I decided that many crafters swear by sock knitting as the most portable of crafts. I'm working on a cross stitch right now that has also some input in whether or not it is coming too but the disadvantage of cross stitch is the sheer concentration it takes. Meaning that it's great to have on an airplane with not much to do for several hours (and I will have those on the way back. I plan on sleeping on the night flight on the way over) but I will also have train travel and train travel, my friends, means looking out the window and enjoying the rapidly passing English countryside which is almost impossible from the view behind my reading glasses, cross stitch chart and hoop.

Back to socks. Anyone who had been reading my blogging journey since I began with Fibreholic oh so many years ago will know or might remember that socks are not my friends. I have knit two pairs. One pair is too short for me in the foot (though I still insist on wearing them and hate them when I do) and one has holes where I picked up stitches and those little marks of imperfection make me crazy so I don't wear that particular pair very often. Not that either of those experiences have prevented me from purchasing sock yarn in the hopes that, one day, I would master the elusive title of 'Sock Knitter'. Heck, the Koigu yarn that I wound up to start my most recent socks were $12.99 per skein. Clearly I had more money than sense at one point. Mind you, it is nice yarn...

 I am so lucky in that my mother knits both DH and I (and the whole family for that matter) the most delicious socks. They are the ones I use all winter long and any other time I'm cold (they're on my feet now as I type in a chilly basement). I take horrible care of them - washed and dried in the washer and dryer!!! - and they never, ever let me down. I'm lucky that I've had to have only a couple of pairs ever darned on the bottoms and I have at least fifteen pairs in all.

But I still want to master socks. And I want to master them before Friday. Nothing like a deadline to get your motivated I say! I enrolled in a free knitting class by Lucy Neatby on Craftsy (you can check it out under 'Knit-Along 2016' - free!) and, despite the fact that I'm using a different pattern, I've gleaned so much from that class already. Years ago I'd invested in Lucy's Sock Techniques 1 DVD and have been devouring that one too in hopes that I can solve my ladders between my needles problem.

So I've turned the heel and started on the foot of sock number one, pair three. I'm learning a lot and want to have one sock completed before I leave on Friday so that I know what I'm doing when I'm on that train ride (Gatwick to Oxford where A and I are going to meet up and paint the town red. Squee!) and subsequent holiday. I called Mudder and she kindly transcribed the sock pattern in her head to the written word because that's the sock pattern I love to wear on my feet and I want to learn how to do it myself.

Here's how the sock is shaping up thus far (I might be my own worst critic):

1. I used the wrong cast on and the top of the sock is too tight around my leg.
2. I still have holes where I picked up stitches after turning the heel. But Lucy taught me how to fix those so they don't stress me out anymore.
3. I worked like a dog to try and not have 'ladders' between my needles (ladders in knitting are a vertical row that is looser than the surrounding stitches creating a gap/ladder like effect = undesirable) so have them for about the first two inches of stocking stitch on the top of the sock. I then tried Lucy's method of circulating the stitches and now have horizontal ridges running down the rest of the sock until I got to the heel flap. Crap. Just, crap.
4. I think I might have solved my ladder problem after all. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
5. It is highly likely that I will be unravelling this sock and re-knitting it if I can get sock number two to work out better. If not, you'll hear me stamping up and down and screaming on sock number two and having a grand ol' bonfire in the back yard.

I'll keep you posted. 

Mothers Day 2016 Memories

Hellllloooooo! Long time no type!  Busy as ever here and I'm missing my little writing sessions so I thought I'd park my arse and see what I could come up with this evening in betwixt and between getting the boys in and out of the scrubby tub.

I hope all of you lovely mothers out there had a lovely Mother's Day yesterday. Here on the Eastern Avalon of Newfoundland and Labrador it reached over 20 degrees Celsius and, despite the general overcast skies by the time we went for a hike (it had been much nicer earlier), we had a grand time.

We parked and hiked past the Geo Centre located at the bottom of Signal Hill and then proceeded to follow DH's sense of direction to a path he could see off in the distance.

The hike was a bit much for my bare feet but I managed to traverse the muddy and wet parts without going over my sandal sides.

I was determined to be out without Mudder's home knit socks and my hiking shoes for the first time in 2016.

Our path veered off the well maintained Grand Concourse trails and into the bushes. Some feet were not so lucky as mine when it came to getting wet. We did manage to hook back up with the Grand Concourse again later in our hike.

One area we walked in was barren and blustery with the wind. I love landscape like this. I thought the colours of lichen on the rocks would make for a lovely hand dyed colour way in some nice yarn.

And back down the hill to the Geo Centre we went. By this time, Youngest was begging DH and I in turn to get 'up' so rather than climb to the top of the hill and Cabot Tower, we angled back towards the car park and the van.

Happy belated Mother's Day 2016 my dear readers!

Meal Planning

At the beginning of January, I started meal planning again. This is something I've dabbled with in the past and really liked the end results despite the fact that I would drop it after a couple of weeks. This month though I've really tried to stick with it because I am becoming more and more allergic to the phrase "What are we having for supper?"

I'm sure I've written about the boys and their bland diet requests before. Things have not changed much for Youngest who seems to want to grow on peanut butter and bread alone. Eldest and Middlest have gotten a bit better however. They will eat salad (the greens, cut up apple and/or grapes), Middlest will eat peppers and they both love snap peas, carrots and corn.

With the meal planning I've been doing, I've been trying to use half of my 'old faithfuls' and half new recipes.

I've stumbled on some great new ones that I will write about here soon.

Anything that helps with the daily minutiae is a wonderful asset in my book!

***

PS I was lucky to receive a new camera for Christmas and I am hoping that it will result in even better blog content. The photographs above are some of my experiments.