Winter Days And Looking Ahead

Today is the quintessential winter day. It is -17 today and the sun is trying to come through the frozen fog. It is so pretty.

We are, once again cooking for company. My Mom and Dad are coming out today for an old fashioned roast pork dinner. We have not eaten with them since Christmas day.  Now that all the turkey from Christmas has been consumed it is time once again to fill the fridge with leftovers. Actually with all the cooking we have been doing there are tons of left overs. Last night friends came to help us ring in the New Year with a meal and once again we found ourselves stuffing our faces this time with a five course meal. We started with crackers and cheese and pate, then we had my yummy Lemon and herb fish chowder, salad, then the main course of sausage and pork roasted in plum sauce with candied garlic and candied ginger on a bed of rice with broccoli. Then lastly we moved into the living room for pie and desert. There was apple pie, lemon pie, and chocolate cherry chew bars. I don't want to see a large meal any more for a while. At mid night we toasted and hugged and banged a few pots since we didn't have noise makers and turned on some music (Highway To Hell by AC/DC which I thought was very fitting!) It was a lovely way to end 2011.

And so here we are into 2012. The nice thing is, and I really haven't had time to think about it, but already the days are increasing in length.  Usually I put a time watch on how the days are lengthening out here on my blog, but this year I have decided to not do that. I am just pleased to know that we are past the worst of the year.

And so.... now the work really begins. In the fall I really was just playing around at working on the levels for the MS Program but now it will be head down and arse up for sure. I have been working for a few days on the level 3 dyeing portion of the homework as well as the 50 hour project but today will be devoted to actually making serious headway with it. While I have managed to spin a nice bit of yarn on one spool I am now working on the second spool. this will be a 3-ply merino yarn. I will weave the 24 squares which are 6"x 6" and then, with one extra skein I will dye the 25 shades, using different mordants and different modifiers... and as back up I will have 25 small skeins of alpaca to dye as well (just as back up though)! Then after that I will be blending merino and bamboo with a touch of cotton for socks for the level 5 homework. I will start measuring out baggies of the fibre this week but probably won't get to blending it until later in the month. Each day two questions have to be completed, Level 5 in the morning level 3 in the afternoon, with the writes ups done at night. No sickness allowed. I really need to get this done.

I am looking forward to the challenges that I will be facing this year. And isn't that what new year's is all about?.... facing the next 365 days with anticipation. (Oops... that's right this is a leap year!)

Here's hoping your new year is full of happy challenges that bring you everything you desire...

The Motto for 2012: No guts, no glory!

Beyond

There are less than 24 hours to go in 2011. I thought it might be a good day to reflect a little on what's happening out there.... you know.... beyond.  Beyond, as in, beyond my little world... beyond, as in, the whole scheme of things. All year I write about the things that affect me... after all it is my blog... but sometimes it is really good to step back and think about the almighty Out There. As you may or may not know I am an avid sky watcher. When I get really down I always know that if I look up, then I will eventually feel "up", whether it is looking at the sky in the day or the night. Still, there's something good about lifting my chin and staring at the great beyond and realizing how insignificant are my little problems.... for that matter how insignificant is me. It is a good thing to remember.

You see, in the whole scheme of things, means that any burdens I bear are really insignificant. Because tomorrow some great event like a new nebula will begin to develop somewhere out there and my little bursting nebula is likely to be like popping a zit compared to it. I mean really, when there are things in this universe like this....

the fact that I didn't get my Christmas knitting done, the fact that the dust bunnies are chewing on my ankles again, or even the fact that I didn't succeed as well as I hoped in my latest assignment for the MSP, really doesn't matter at all. Sure it matters to me but maybe it shouldn't... Maybe I should just let it all go 'cause in the greater scheme of things, life is awesome... it's a real ride.... you just have to look around you and see.

Beauty is sublime and it is everywhere, and that means in every thing and in every one, even the old batt (wink wink) who lives next door to you. How lucky we are to be able to experience such beauty, and such greatness. And if we can just remember that, I'm pretty sure our whole world would be so very different.


Already in the South Pacific, there are people who are looking forward to the new year and are beginning to experience it... but I for one am going to take a few moments to sit today and think about all the good things that have happened this year. I will try not to dwell on the bad things because we do that automatically and I'm going to try to be a little different. Beside there will be bad things in 2012... it's just the way life is... and there will be plenty of time to dwell on those when the time comes. For now I am happy to look up to the great beyond and envision all the good that resides in possibility.

 

On The 6th Day Of Christmas

We've had some more company today... only this time for breakfast. Our friends turned up at just after 10 a.m. and we sat down to a great table set for a king I think.
We had the Wife Savers Breakfast.... only jazzed up to my version. (See recipe in my Recipes section... which I will be adding to the right momentarily).

This is my Christmas version just before it went into the oven. It was delicious. (Even if I do say so myself.)

We had a plate of toast and another of sausages and bacon. Homemade apple juice and some lovely coffee. Then Teapot entered with the most gloriously beautiful fruit salad I have ever seen (which he made) and everyone ogled it in all its glory. It looked like this.

Filled with good things like Star Fruit and Watermelon, Cantaloupe and Grapefruit, then there were oranges and that white and black stuff on the top was Dragon Fruit. It was almost too pretty to eat.

What a morning... it all turned out so nicely. However, yesterday turned out to be a great day too. We did something a little different. We went to the woods for our lunch with company. It all started with me getting the brilliant idea that it was such a warm day with all the newly fallen snow that we could easily have a day with our tea in the woods. And then I was lamenting the fact that we had guests coming which would cut into our time in the bush, when all of a sudden I realized that I could  finish cooking our meal at home and then take our guests to the woods with us. And so it went.

While I was cooking our meal and getting everything together, Teapot headed down into the bush to find the right place, which needed to be sheltered from the wind but open enough to get some sun. Then unbeknownst to me, he set up a lovely bower to receive us and our guests, and it was close enough that it was in yelling distance to our house. I even brought beads to decorate the spruce bower that welcomed our party.

You can just see the red and gold beads in the spruce bows.

And what was on he menu?? I made soup. Cream of Turkey Curry soup.... and we had sandwiches. I made ham and jalapeno cheese with lettuce on rye. I made ham and Swiss cheese on rye with mayo, sliced apple, and Red Chili sauce, (the apple toned the Red chili Sauce down slightly). I made sausage and cheddar with curry mayo, and tomato on multigrain. Then there were home made corn chips (unsalted) with jalapeno cream cheese dip and chocolates and mini oranges for desert. It was a gourmet meal and we ate it by in the most unlikely of places.... I mean who ever had a gourmet meal by the side of a fire in the forest?! It really was an awesome day though, and our friends seemed to enjoy it as much as we did. Here are a few pictures....

Hot Mochachino while the soup was re-heating.

Our friends starting to goof around.

.... and then they start to get rambunctious.

Then we had to get a group shot and I am as usual glad to not be in this one.

So after our guests left yesterday, we had some more friends show up in the evening. And last night was night of leftovers.. which is a good thing because the refrigerator was starting to bulge at the seams. 

After all is said and done, we are having a relaxing afternoon this afternoon. We just watched Gnomeo and Juliet (the movie) and I loved it so much that I might have to buy a few of those cute wee gnomes for my deck! Still, I am feeling somewhat pooped out and I might just have to go for a snooze soon. Later, we will be watching the last installment in the Harry Potter series. With no more company till tomorrow night, which I think will be fairly easy since there are only two coming, I am ready to laze, snooze and maybe spin some more. Then, we will ring in the new year with two days left of vacation time before getting back to normal.... if that ever is this case in this house.

Christmas this year has been a great time and reminded me somewhat of the Christmases of my youth... when visiting and going out or inviting friends and family in were the norm. I have been missing those. But this one may have reaffirmed my cheer and enthusiasm for Christmas Season even with all the fake/plastic sentaments/decorations.

Maybe Christmas is not so bad after all. : )

On The Fifth Day Of Christmas...

Well actually there is more company coming... this time for lunch. I like doing Christmas lunches because the guests leave early in the day and you can still sit around in the evening and watch movies.  It's actually a really great way to enjoy your friends. Then this evening teapot has invited one of his co workers over for a beer. It'll be them in the kitchen while I spin in the living room and his kids and my kids get along greatly.

On the forth day of Christmas... yesterday... Teapot and I took the Daughters and went to Chetwynd for an afternoon of swimming. It was great! The public swimming pool there has been a great favorite of ours for many years and this year they have added a wonderful new water slide. I swam back and forth and back and forth till my poor little legs (and shoulders) were ready to fall off and Teapot and the Daughters went back and forth between the slide the pool and the hot tub. Then Teapot went into the sauna for a half hour and fell asleep. I had to send Daughter #1 in after him! The afternoon was rounded out with a long leisurely soak in the hot tub for all, and the great thing is that there were very few people there and we loved having the deep end to ourselves. Then we headed off to the local Chinese Restaurant for a a lovely meal. (Well we had burned all those calories... so we needed to replace them... I mean really!) After all was said and done, we headed home tired but replete. It was a great way to spend our 20th anniversary.  (And a big Thank you to L... we found the card in the door when we got home...).  When we get to our 25th we are planning a trip to Prince Rupert on the train.  That's something we've wanted to do for a very long time...

And guess what... we woke yesterday morning to newly fallen snow. The ground is nicely white and it actually feels more like Christmas. This morning it is lightly snowing again but I can see clear sky on the horizon so I am expecting the snow to stop and the sun to come out.  The trees look so pretty with their coating of snow on the branches. Very pretty indeed.

In between all the fun and games I have been spinning.... I am working on my level 3 project. A baby blanket which will be dyed in 25 shades of Logwood I am trying to kill two birds with one stone. It is two questions in one. After Christmas it will be back to the level 5 homework... but for now this merino baby blanket spinning is fairly mindless and can be done with company here...

So for the moment I had better get back to work... First Cream of turkey curried soup for our company.... and then some dainty English style sandwiches... and I don't know what for desert. Maybe we will eat out in the bush with a big old fire... yeah maybe that's the way to go.

20th Anniversary

Well, Teapot and I are celebrating our 20th today. There have been some lovely anniversaries and there have been some really awful ones. Last year was an awful one. We planned a big party and then no one came. But there have been really lovely ones too. There was the year my mom and dad came to stay with us, (that was before children) and took us out for dinner at a hotel in Kenora, Ont. It was lovely with a beautiful view out over the Lake Of The Woods and it was lightly snowing. There was something magical about the crystal and china dinnerware and the snow swirling outside the wall to wall windows way up high in that tower restaurant.  Then there was the year that Teapot and I got a baby sitter (something we never did) and went out for dinner only to discover that no restaurants were open during the Christmas season except one take-out..... so we took take-out back to the church hall (because it was the only place we could think of to go, that wasn't home and I had the keys for it). We had dinner and then we played music on the CD player that the church owned, and we danced some lovely slow dances all around the hall. It actually stands out as one of the nicer anniversaries.

20 years gives you plenty to think about and in our case we are lucky to think mostly happy thoughts.
Happy Anniversary my dear, dear Teapot.

Great Goodness... We Got Gifts

Well, Christmas is over for another year... hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!! That was maniacal laughter if you weren't aware.

So the big day is over and I feel rather like something momentous happened but I'm not entirely sure what.
I need to back up actually to a few days before Christmas. And I have pictures to prove it all....
So Daughter #1 and Teapot arrived home from their trip into the great white north where they had had a bit of every kind of weather imaginable. Daughter #1 survived her trip into the wilds with no snow pants and I was very worried about that but the weather stayed on our side and she wore several layers of pants with wind/rain pants on the outside. The weather stayed warm and wet though the last night they were there there was a dump of about 8 inches of snow, but by then she was in her shelter and sound asleep. Yes she had built herself a great shelter that looked like this...

...that's her sleeping bag in there.

They were out there for two and a half days and had two meals for the whole time unless you count the squirrel they managed to catch, cook and eat.  Eeew!Well it was wilderness survival!

But when she got home she was as hungry as a bear and so was Teapot so I had promised them a pan Scramble and pan scramble they got....

Hash Browns, onions, tomatoes, corn, garlic, egg, and cheese.

And while that was cooking I made the cranberry sauce for Christmas day dinner...

They spent the rest of the day recuperating.... from their trip but really they didn't look too worse for the wear.... and in the end a good shower to wash off the stink and they were as right as rain.

Meanwhile I was still working on Socks... remember the first socks that I made that I had trouble dyeing... well, I finally got them finished on Christmas Eve and they looked like this when they were finished....

I know one sock looks bigger than the other but they are not. I tried them up against each other and they were the same size so lets just put it down to bad photography.

I also came back from shopping the day before Christmas and had a party for the Knock-out Knitters.  Here we are enjoying our gift exchange....

Then on Christmas eve day we went to a friend's house and had brunch. we left the Daughters there as they were having a blast playing video games and Teapot and I came home to finish putting up the Christmas village that I hadn't put up yet....

After that other friends showed up for a short visit and one thing led to another and suddenly it was time to go to church. The service was lovely and I had a nice compliment from a fellow who sat in front of me and told me I had a lovely voice. I loved singing all those old familiar tunes and tried to sing them all the best that I could.... I loved that.

We got home late and the girls hung their stockings.... and went to bed leaving Teapot and I to finish wrapping and stuffing stockings. 2:30 a.m. we crawled into bed after taking a couple of pictures of the tee and all the stockings lined up on the couch....

The next morning we were up and opening gifts thanks to Daughter #2 at 7:00 a.m. (she was very excited....)
Here are some of the highlights of Christmas morning......

Surprisingly she did like her present but she wasn't pleased about having her picture taken...

Daughter #1 liked her hoodie too.

I can't wait to try out my reeds.

Teapot needs new glasses I think!

New slippers which I haven't taken off.... except at night when Narmin's nose moves in...

A very happy Daughter #2 getting her Christmas iPad "cheese"

Daughter #1 getting her iPad.... "awesome"

 And then stupid got all choked up... not sure why... lets just put it down to age...

.. I do have to say that I was so pleased that the girls liked their gifts... we also gave them a new snow jacket for Daughter #2 and ski pants for Daughter #1.

After all the gifts were open at our house... we went to my parents house.... and opened more gifts there!

Mudder getting her new bird feeder...

Here's Pops getting a new book...

New boots for Teapot...

New boots for me too...

Dinner was just fine. We have much for which to be thankful...good food, wonderful family time, great gifts of things that we need. Plus a few things that we didn't need. Yesterday was a down day to pat our bellies and no we didn't get out into the bush for our tea because the wind which has been blowing for days and the ground is now covered in ice that is polished to fearful rink. So we will wait a few days and wait for the snow that the forecast is calling for and hopefully then we can go out in the bush without breaking our necks.

This evening there is company coming for dinner and tomorrow Teapot and I will be celebrating our 20th anniversary.... then who knows what for the rest of the Christmas season....

But for now I am off to drink another cup of tea and spin some merino rovings.

All's well that ends well...

Shopping?!!!... Really?... On Boxing Day!... Huh?

I realize that there are a lot of people out there who think of boxing day as the best day of the year... because they can go shopping and get great deals on all the stuff they wanted and didn't get for Christmas. I'm not one of them. They can't count me among their numbers. I couldn't shop today for all the money in the world.... well maybe if I had tons of money I might go shopping for great deals. But the money is blown and now is the day I enjoy best of all days of the year. I put my feet up and read... in my jammies, till late in the day if I want... I don't go visiting and we don't invite anyone in... (though I do try to get dressed before 3 p.m. since someone of their own accord might drop by). We might even watch a movie. Later when there is enough daylight we might even go for a mug up in the bush. Daughter #1 will saddle up her horse and down to the forest we will go. We will light a fire, and have a wee drop of tea (probably from one of the nice new ones that my sister-in-law sent) and munch on left over turkey and some of that homemade cranberry bread I made (see my recipes to the right for the recipe) then afterwards we will maybe pass around a box of chocolates and the dogs will beg for left over bits of turkey the horse will munch on some hay and we'll throw a little more wood on the fire to help keep us warm as the wind blows through the tops of the trees. It is warm these days so no fear of getting too cold. i almost wish it were a little colder. Somehow all the ice and warm wind has taken away all the good things about winter. It will be a grasshopper summer... I am sure. But for now I won't worry about that. I'll savour my breakfast of Chilean cherries, and Fruileano cheese, Birdseed bread toast, and grapes. Yum...Then I will the email ( I hope to hear from you) and ignore all the boxing day sale events that will be there from Interweave Press to Amazon.ca to Indigo Books and Cold Water Creek. And then I will go and get that book that I just started on Christmas eve and put my feet up and be taken away into another world, another time and another place.

Hope your Boxing day is all that you want it to be... whether full of boxes and stores or quiet home pleasures, or skating, skiing, or quiet walks in nature. It is the one day of the year you can choose to do exactly as you want!