All Over Once Again

I'm home. I have been for a whole 24 hours. How in the world did it come to a resounding end so fast?

Wednesday seems only like yesterday but already it was 5 whole days ago. Teapot and I left here right after school on Wednesday, and we arrived at Blueberry at about 5:45 p.m.  It was just in time to get my casserole into the oven and ready to eat for supper. Unfortunately the oven wasn't warming it fast enough and so we ended up eating the darn thing almost cold! Other than that the food for the week was amazing. Between eating home made basil pasta with garlic chicken and asparagus to Taboulie salad, from cheese cake with fresh mandarin orange slices drizzled with dark chocolate, from home made cookies of all sorts to  fresh fruit of all sorts, the food was just outstanding. I didn't get my Aspic made... I kind of figured that was pushing my luck... so I will save that for another time.

As for spinning... 556 metres of merino, plied and off the spool into a skein ready for washing. Then I spun two 100 gram bags of black alpaca/merino rovings... into singles. I am turning that into a 3-ply yarn. Two of my skeins for level 5 are now finished.... I have a garnetted yarn done and I have a two tone yarn spun off two different colour rovings at once. I finished the large 14 inch pin loom woven sample piece. I didn't get a chance to work on the tapestry but I did get some of Teapot's mittens knitted. So all in all I am happy with the results.

The weather has been glorious for the last week... temperatures have been hitting highs of +6 degrees and the sun has been shining for the most part. At Blueberry there is an outdoor wood burning furnace and the first night there the caretaker must have thought we were cold.... at night in bed it seemed like hell had risen up and swallowed me whole. I woke in the night with a mouth so dry I thought it had turned inside out. In the dark I fumbled to open the window... I unhooked the lever... but the window would not budge. I thought that I had chosen the wrong blasted room and so went in search of one of the empty ones in hopes of finding a room with a window that opened. I found one and scampered back to my room in the hopes of dragging my gear to the other room with the working window. I had a problem though. Being an old log building with squeaky floors, I was trying to figure out a way of hauling my gear to the room with the opening window without waking everyone up! I really wanted to cool down but I didn't want to make a big disturbance in the middle of the night. When I got back to my room I fumbled around in the dark and found my cell phone and switched it on so that it would work as a flash light. I made one last ditch effort. I had a look at my window and worked the locking lever back and forth in the hopes of getting the window open... the curtain was in my way so I hauled that back and that's when I discovered that the window actually had two locking mechanisms. Well that made all the difference in the world... sometimes I wonder at my stupidity. The rest of that night was fine and as a matter of a fact all nights from that point forward were really good.

I am sad actually that it is a whole year before I can go to the Blueberry again. Sometimes I wish we could have more than one retreat... but we have tried and we never get a good turnout later in the year. People are busy... people are doing things and so our retreat goes down the tubes. One year we tried a retreat in the fall but that didn't work either. No... I guess February is the month of our Blueberry retreat. And that's that!

Meanwhile Teapot and the girls held down the fort at home while I was away. Poor Teapot had dogs with diarrhea to deal with and Daughters who didn't do their chores when they were supposed to. However, it worked out in the end as he got everyone back on the straight and narrow.

Today was a day of relaxation, unpacking (slowly), electrical work since we had a friend come by and finish off a couple of more electrical outlets. As of this moment in time, we are now completely hooked up except for five light fixtures and some wiring for lights on the deck. (The renovation continues.... will it ever end!)  Teapot had to go to town today to take the truck in for some servicing and while there, he mentioned that the truck had been bucking a bit when it was shifting from second gear to third. The transmission is now in parts and we have a loaner from the dealership for the next few days. A red monster truck. He arrived home with a whole pile of groceries at supper time so once again a day of family time was lost. (Darn!) We are trying every which way to have some family time together but it never seems to happen. But I guess we will have to keep trying because when he got home a friend called to say that his truck had broken down on the highway and he was looking for someone to give him a tow. That will happen tomorrow afternoon. And so another afternoon bites the dust for family time.

Well, all are in bed and I am getting tired. I have some pictures to post from the Blueberry but it is going for 11 p.m. I think I will post them tomorrow. That will be later in the day because for the first time in a long time I am going swimming. The seniors club has a few younger seniors that want to swim and they are having a hard time getting enough people to go with them so they have asked a couple of young whipper snappers (I'm one of them!) if they would come along just so they can justify using the Lions Club van.  I'm going just so I can help them out and because I love swimming. (Not because I'm a senior.... I'm nowhere near that! Sure I'm not even menopausal yet! So don't go calling me a senior cause I'll send nasty thoughts your way! ... Just kidding... maybe)

So for now I will say nighty night cause Teapot is warming up the bed... but not too warm because I'd hate for hell to swallow me whole again! : )