Jan 11, 2025

Be Careful What You Wish For

There’s been a lot of storm activity going on around us, but thus far we’ve been safe from the major winter storms that have been burying towns and causing states of emergency. So for my birthday, which was yesterday, I flippantly said it would be nice to have snow. Well . . . I got my wish.



It was beautiful. Until I realized that I’m the one who was going to have to shovel it, and in a timely fashion because the hubby coaches youth bowling on Saturday mornings. He can’t shovel snow because a) he has really bad arthritis and b) he has a really bad hip. These days he can barely walk (with the aid of a cane) let alone shovel.

So despite the fact the plough hadn’t been around yet, I was out there in the dark shoveling. At least it was light snow, not the heart attack kind. I just tell myself it’s good cardio. LOL The hubby left for bowling and I was halfway through my first cup of coffee when a road grader came by to plough the road and bury driveways.

But I don’t think he was one of the town plough boys because he didn’t do the whole crescent, just straight down to the circle, then around the circle (we live at the top of the circle). So I finished my coffee and pulled my outdoor gear on again, and went to unbury the driveway. He was up at the top of the street by then, and when he saw me he drove back and asked if I’d like some help. I said sure, and stood back while he swiped the end of the driveway clear. And the other reason I don’t think he was from the town is because he had a little boy on his lap inside the cab. Unless maybe he was called in at the last minute and couldn’t find a babysitter. But I still think the town would have frowned on it.

Anyway, it was like a birthday bonus to not have to do all that extra shoveling. And later I heard the sound of a snowblower and watched some guy come down the crescent with a his snowblower to clear the driveway of the little old lady just up the circle. He did the end of the driveway of the guy just across the street from her too, probably because that family helps out the old lady a lot (his driveway was already done). Kindness is a great way to start the day, don’t you think?

The picture below is only half the driveway, and the bare spot is where my car is usually parked. The hubby took it instead of his because mine’s an SUV while his is a little sporty car and I did not clean his off or unbury it, although I did shovel all the way to the back gate. 😊



The hubby been waiting for a hip replacement (his second one) since the fall and his mobility has been steadily declining. When he talked to his surgeon’s office in November he was told that the hospital his surgeon works out of wasn’t taking any more surgical bookings until the new year, and when they started booking again they’d be starting with the patients the surgeon saw in May. The hubby saw him in September. So we figured late spring, early summer for his date.

However, Tuesday the surgeon’s office called and said they had a cancellation and asked if he’d be interested. The date? January 16 – Thursday. It says something about the pain he’s in for the hubby to answer with a resounding yes to such short notice.

So he started a list of all the things we needed to get and all the arrangements we need to make before Thursday. We need boosters with handle bars for both toilets, thank goodness we got the renovation on the bathroom done so we have a walk in shower now, he needed an extra cushion for his chair, he still had the device that helps him with his socks, but he gave his grabbers away so he needed a couple of them, too (one for upstairs and one for downstairs).

Still to be arranged are the walkers he’ll need to get around with for the first couple of weeks. Again, one for upstairs and one for downstairs so he doesn’t have to struggle with them on the stairs.

And here’s the part that ticks me off. When he had his first hip done, they kept him in the hospital for a couple of days to make sure he could handle the stairs. Then, when he was sent home, he had a nurse come to change his dressing, and a physiotherapist come to our house for his therapy. This time? He gets to stay in the hospital overnight, and not only is no one coming to change his dressing for him, we have to buy our own medical supplies to do it. And despite not being supposed to even ride in a car for two weeks after the first hip was done, this time he has to go to the physiotherapist, the physiotherapist doesn’t come to him. I don’t know what’s happening to our medical care system, but it’s not good.

My posts on this blog are probably going to be random for a while, but I am going to try and post at least once a week. I don’t know whether I’ll do a recap of everything I did on my year off from blogging – I don’t know if anyone will be interested – I might just keep on keeping on.

See ya next time.

Dec 24, 2024

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year


It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

I didn’t intend to take this long of a break from blogging, it just kind of happened. I’ve kept both blogs live, though, and I think it’s high time I get back at it. Not right away, mind you, but in another week or so. There’ll be changes, of course, but we’ll deal with that as they come.

Meanwhile, it’s Christmas Eve, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t post my annual Christmas videos.

Enjoy, and I’ll see you in the New Year.











Jan 13, 2024

Christmas and Birthday and Gifts, Oh My!

Feeling a little nostalgic today. We finally got some significant snow, but as this seems to be the pattern our weather has been following lately, it immediately warmed up and started to rain. While I appreciate I don’t have to clean off my car or shovel the sidewalk, it would have been nice to keep the white stuff around for a day or two.

I miss the Christmases I used to have when I was a kid. Mostly, I miss the snow. The snow would start coming down in November, and by Christmas we’d be up to our eyeballs in it. Thanks to global warming, it’s rare we have a white Christmas anymore. In fact, the weather was so mild I was still wearing my fall coat until the end of December. And really, I only put it away because I refused to wear it for New Year’s, even if I could have got away with it.

My birthday comes about 2 ½ weeks after Christmas, and I was hoping for snow for it but all I got was rain. And as anyone who has a birthday near Christmas will tell you, it really sucks. People think that just because Christmas is barely over, your birthday is no big deal. But let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth.

Birthdays have always been a big deal to me. Not just my own birthday, but anyone’s birthday. Sometimes my big deals don’t always work out the way I envisioned, but at least I try. Take the daughter’s 16th birthday. I worked like a dog planning a surprise party for her. I’m not sure the party was a total surprise, but I know the fact that her boyfriend showed up without a present was. Seriously boyfriend? And here I thought I’d planned for everything. LOL

This year I had a milestone birthday, and while the one or two people who still thought of birthdays as no big deal made me sad, the number of Facebook happy birthday wishes helped make up for it. And my stitchery guild sisters sang happy birthday to me at our meeting, two of them contacted me privately for more birthday wishes, and I talked to one of my sisters for an hour and a half – and while I was talking to her, my other sister tried to call and had to settle for leaving me a voice mail. The hubby got me a generous slice of the healthiest cake he could find – carrot cake – that was still pretty decadent but hey, it was my birthday. 😊

On to the presents . . . the hubby and I usually get each other one big present for Christmas and a couple of little ones. This year we made the decision to get our own big present. So the hubby got himself a new colour printer, and I got myself this:



It’s a Singer Quantum Stylist computerized sewing machine. It took me a while to settle on which machine I wanted. For a while the leader was a Brother machine that did embroidery, but I figured if I was going to embroider something other than an edging, I’d probably do it by hand. Still, the Quantum did come with its fair share of decorative stitches:



Have you seen pictures of those stitching calendars? The idea being to do a stitch a day for an entire year? I always love looking at them and I always intended to start one of my own, but by the time I remember I was going to do it, we’re usually well into the new year. But this year, my daughter gave me this:



Not only does it tell you how to get started, it has iron-on templates for the base to work on, and pages and pages of ideas and inspiration. We went away for the new year, but I took my stitching bag, and the book, with me so I could make my start. I don’t know which is harder, coming up with a new little image for each day, or actually stitching the little image. It’s going to be a challenge to keep it up, but so far I’m having a lot of fun.

And apparently, great minds think alike. I don’t remember every mentioning the stitch-a-day calendar to my sister in New Brunswick, but she must know me better than I realized because she sent me this for my birthday:



This is a whole stitch-a-day kit, that includes thread, material, and a tutorial. Looks like I’ll be set for next year too. LOL

I can see this is going to be the Year of Sewing. I’ve yet to figure out my sewing machine, but I’m keeping up with my calendar and I still want to finish my zentangle. In the next guild meeting I’ll be learning sashiko (Japanese embroidery) and I’ve just started a 12-week stitch-along course in Blackwork.

But that’ll be a post for another day. 😊

Jan 1, 2024

Happy New Year

Well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? 😊

While I’d love to report I got scads done during my blogging break, I’d be lying if I did. After getting off to a slow start, I lost a week to illness. It might have been a bad case of food poisoning, it might have been a prolonged IBS attack, it might have been a reaction to a medication I was taking – we may never know because I was unable to get a hold of my doctor.

But in due course I recovered, and then it was full speed ahead for Christmas. You may recall that during the summer I went on a jam making frenzy, the idea being to make jam sampler baskets instead of cookie baskets this year.

I left it a little late to get the baskets, and the only ones left were rather on the large size. Now I’d already planned on including scones or biscuits (gotta have something to put the jam on, right?), but even with the scones the baskets were a little sparse. So I made four different kinds of fudge. LOL

The home made ornament for this year was the fabric stars I learned to make with the stitching group. It took me about four days to turn this:



Into this:



Half a day was spent cutting, a day and a half was spent folding and ironing strips, and two days were spent actually folding the strips into stars. I averaged about 3 stars per hours. But it gave me an excuse to sit in my chair and watch TV.

I had fully intended to make tiny God’s eyes using metallic thread and tooth picks as well, but they never got past the experimental stage. They turned out to be more fiddly than I expected, and while I’m tempted to give them a shot now that the holiday madness has died down, we’ll have to see if I’m in the mood for them or not.

One thing I did do while on my break, was a lot of thinking about what I want to accomplish in the new year. I came to the conclusion I could get a lot more accomplished if I eased back on the blogging.

When I first started blogging, many, many years ago I was writing short, pithy posts on random subjects. The last couple of years I’ve been bogged down in this strict blogging schedule that takes more out of me than might be apparent.

Coming up with a subject, researching, writing the post – these things can be pretty time consuming. So with that in mind, I’m scrapping the poetry posts – it’s getting harder to find new forms anyway. And I’m finding the only poetry I wrote last year were examples for the new forms, or homework for my poetry group. I wasn’t writing poetry for fun any more.

I’ve also decided that the posts on this blog are going to appear a little more randomly – I’m no longer locking myself into posting every Monday. If I have something to say, fine. If I don’t I’m not going to worry about it. This means I might post once a week, or two or three times a week, or skip a week completely.

AND I’m going to focus more on the crafting side of my life here – what I’m working on, the progress I’m making . . . I have a lot of things I’d like to accomplish craft-wise in the year ahead and a lot of things I’m going to learn. I’m taking a class in blackwork embroidery, and another in sashiko. And that’s just for starters.

I confess I went a little crazy, the last few weeks, shopping online for craft supplies. That alone should be worth a couple of blog posts. 😊

Dec 24, 2023

Happy Yule

As promised, here are a few of my favourite Christmas videos to help make the season bright.


I'm Climbing Up the Christmas Tree


Imperial March/Carol of the Bells


Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire


Little Drummer boy – David Bowie and Bing Crosby


Faith Hill – Where Are you Christmas


TSO – Christmas Eve in Sarajevo


TSO – Christmas Cannon


Dec 3, 2023

I Break For Christmas

December always seems to sneak up on me – so much to do, so little time to do it in. So this year I’ve decided to make things a little easier on myself and take a break from blogging for the month.

I’ll probably be back to post a few of my favorite Christmas videos, but that won’t be until later in the month.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and I’ll see you in the New Year.



Nov 29, 2023

Espinela Verse Form



This Spanish form was named for Vencinente Espinela, and is often referred to as “the little sonnet.” Being a musician, he designed his form to be pleasing to the ear when recited. Here’s where it can get a little confusing.

It is also sometimes incorrectly referred to as a Décima, which is a Spanish term for any ten-line stanza. However, there is also a popular song form from 15th century Spain called the Décima which consists of forty-four lines (an introductory stanza followed by four ten-line stanzas).

The Espinela has only two stanzas, with four lines in the first and six in the second for a total of ten lines. Each line has eight syllables, and it follows a strict rhyme scheme of abba/accddc.

Schematic:

xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxb
xxxxxxxb
xxxxxxxa

xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxc
xxxxxxxc
xxxxxxxd
xxxxxxxd
xxxxxxxc

I think the nickname of “little sonnet” is an apt one, it is very much like writing a sonnet. And like a sonnet, the Espinela can be written on any subject.


Evening Song

Skin still warm from the summer sun
Glimmering in the fading light
Waiting until the moment’s right
Waiting until the day is done

Waiting for that special someone
The touch, the taste, the feel of him
The bending to another’s whim
Anticipation building slow
Reach the peak and then overflow
The moment caught, too soon to dim.