Saturday, May 28, 2011

Blogging? What's that?

Wow, work and real life gets in the way of writing blog posts. What's funny is that I write them in my head all the time, but I don't get the chance to put them down so I can share them with you.

So, how are you doing today? Thanks for coming by. It is another cold, early March day... oh...wait... it's almost the end of May. Easy to get confused. It is only 11C out! (about 52F for my American friends). They showed the other day on the news the hottest May temp was back in 2005 and it was like 27 degrees. I totally remember that really hot May! I remember us melting away in our town house, and it was that day that we decided to go and buy our 1st big screen tv from Costco. It is still used in the rec room. Funny how we remember these things.

We did get our vegetable garden planted this week though, so that's awesome. We're keeping it simple to begin and we'll see how it goes. At least with all the rain I don't need to remember to water the plants. *grin*

Weight loss - down 20.8!! I'm thrilled with my progress. Slow but steady.

I just spent the last 3 weeks working in our downtown office. It was really good to see many old friends there and it was funny b/c it felt like I had never left, but oh boy did the commute kill me! I have become quite used to my cushy 10-15 minute commute now, getting up at 6, not leaving until well after 7, home before 5. Working downtown I was up at 5, gone by 6, traveling basically 3 hours a day... I was exhausted. I don't know how I did that for 12 years. Mind you, the train is nice - my daily sudoku, reading books, checking email and such on my iphone. But I couldn't go back to it! They were happy to have me though, and it certainly won't hurt me for having been willing to do so. And hey, the company paid for transportation.

I should probably update on the kids and all (they are good), but I'll save that for another time. See you soon! (or not).

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Quilters Blog Festival


I am writing this post to participate in Amy's Creative Side's Bloggers Quilt Festival.

I have not had a lot of time to be doing quilting lately. I think a full time job and two small children get in the way of that some times, but I am still sticking with my quilting, and have recently completed several baby quilts.

But I wanted to share this quilt. This is, by far, not the best quilt I have ever made. It is one of the 1st ones I ever made out of the Washington Quilt Shop Hop 2004 blocks. That was the shop hop that made me want to learn how to quilt, when I innocently tagged along with my friend Lisa to check out a few quilt shops. Little did I know.

I ended up making this quilt for my Oma, which she loved. She had me hang it on the wall of her kitchen/dining room, right where everyone could see it. And for a woman as crafty as she was, that meant a lot to me.

What I like about this quilt is that it taught me a lot of different techniques that I had to learn to finish the blocks. So is it perfect? Nope. Are the colours perfect? Nope! But it was one of my biggest labours of love, and inspired me to keep learning more and more.

Thanks to Amy for organizing this. There is a lot of beautiful stuff out there! I'll share some pictures of my more recent quilts soon.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Datebook: May 1, 2011

Good morning! It is a gorgeous day today!! I look forward to getting outside with the kids. I think maybe we'll go up to Alouette Lake this afternoon. Duncan has been asking to go to "the mountains when the weather gets better" for a while now.

Today is: beautiful and sunny. May 1 and spring has finally arrived!

I am reading:
I am reading Sherrilyn Kenyon's "The Dream Hunter" in paperback, and Kate Morton's "The Forgotten Garden" on ebook through Stanza on my iPhone. I am really enjoying that one and my Mom says her friend may have lent it to her, so I might borrow it to read the hard copy. The iPhone is not an ideal format for reading books. Nice to have on hand though.

Weight loss:
I am doing pretty good!! -18 lbs as of yesterday morning!! I am averaging about 1.5 lbs a week right now and am happy with that pace.

Exercise:
I have taken to walking every day at lunch. It is 2.5 km around the block I go, and aside from the one road which is all construction and has no sidewalk, the rest of the walk is dead quiet and very peaceful. I love it! As some people may have seen on my facebook, I met a personal fitness challenge on Friday. I said about 3 months ago I was going to walk home from work over the bridge. They laughed at me! They weren't being mean, but they just thought it was a ridiculous plan. Well on Friday I did it! It took me 15 min longer than planned, but probably b/c I stopped to take pictures on the bridge. I am really thrilled having done it. I need new runners though.

In the kitchen:
Beef stir fry
shake and bake chicken and either french fries or rice and veggies
left over chicken soup casserole
BBQ beef and rice
Kraft dinner Italiano - a favourite of ours. We make it with veggie ground round and it's not that horrible for us!

This week:
Bill starts swimming lessons again tonight. We received a call this week saying that Duncan got in on the waiting list for lessons to start next Saturday. We're very happy about this b/c he loves swimming! So he starts again. Monday is the Federal Election, so we'll drag the kids along to that. We think it's good for them to see the process. Friday I have a flex day. I might send the kids to daycare anyhow just so I can get some stuff done. Otherwise, normal week.

Around the house:
We're hoping we can get someone to take the kids on Saturday morning so we can borrow my parent's carpet cleaner and do our living room carpets. They are in bad shape! Bill plans on digging up around the side of the house to put gravel down to keep little creepy crawlies getting in. We're rather paranoid of ants since that incident a few years ago in the old place. The kids and I have the garden dug up. I am going to go lime it this afternoon (better done with little people not around), we'll fertlize next week and then get ready for planting! Looking forward to that.

Okay, Cordie wants "up!" so I should go get her.