el bee baby

Windy

Can't get this song out of my head.  It's one Finn's sugarpop faves.   It's driving me slowly crazy.  I'm waking up in the middle of the night with it in my head.
Pretty soon, thanks to the aural assault, I'll actually start to love it and then my friends, please please please intervene. 
I was singing along with it earlier today and Finn caught me and was mad that I was 'mocking' it.  Imagine my horror in the realization that I was earnestly singing it and not making fun of it at all!  This is clearly a cry for help. 
(Finn and I watched the video together.  I questioned whether it was 'appropriate' or not.  Probably not.  He told me that he could see why the guy wanted to go out with the girl.  I told him that girls don't really look like that and that the guy shouldn't be trying to 'go out' with a girl who has a boyfriend.  ~Not to mention the whole ethics of her 'scene'~  Finn naturally tuned wetblanketmother out.  Can you blame him?)

Our friend Julie was over for dinner the other night.  She had a conversation with Poppy and her friend that went like this:

J:  So, you guys are in kindergarten, right?

P and M:  Heavy sighs..... Yup.....

J:  And wow!  Next year you'll be in grade one?

M:  Well.....  I don't think grade one will have much to teach us....

A HUGE windstorm last night.  Seriously the most ferocious sounding wind that I've heard.  It was trying to tear the siding off of Poppy's bedroom window.  Brave Dave went out, climbed a ladder and screwed it back into place.  He said the wind almost blew the ladder over. 
I was worried that the wind might blow the old oak tree over onto the house.  I always announce this worry to people whenever it's windy, hoping that they'll tell me that this is impossible and it will never happen.  (This is my method of self assurance.  It has a patchy track record as you might guess!)
I mentioned this to our 'across the street' neighbour and he told me that the oak tree that used to be on the corner of their lot actually did fall on their house in a windstorm.  In the middle of the night (of course!) it broke through the roof and into their bedroom.  Mmmmmhmmmmm. 
Now I shall have to up my worry quotient to 'active'.  I guess it might take care of us needing a new roof but I am a bit afraid of being impaled by an oak limb. 
(PS.  This tree is not on our property so it's not a matter I can take into my own hands.   I do love the tree too and would hate to see it gone.  Though of course I'd take treeless over impalement any day.)

Dave made this for me for Valentine's day.  (and kept it a secret too!)
He ended up steaming the twigs in the pressure cooker!  
 

 
I am lucky.  Poor Dave will get the hat that I started for last years Valentine's day.  I'm almost finished.  Did I mention that I'm the slowest knitter ever?

 

Tired eyes

Oh boohoo.  I've got the flu.  And my eyes are sandy feeling and achy. 
But I look out the window and I see this 
 
and I feel guilty for lying on the couch.  (this isn't to say that I'm actually leaving the couch.  I'm just looking at the view while I eat chips.  Why does being sick make me want to each potato chips?  I'll never know.)

So, we're on a parentally imposed TV ration these days.   I'll say only that a certain nine year old was wanting to up his screen time exponentially and it was resulting in a verrrrry crabby boy. 
I can't say what a difference it has made to his mood.  We've wiled away the hours playing pickup sticks, cribbage and battleship along with a goodly portion of fort building (interspersed with some irritation towards the younger sister) and cardboard skatepark construction. 
Honestly.  Can I just throw this thing away?  Is he still young enough that I can lie and say that the TV is conveniently broken and incidentally so is the Wii and the computer?  We'll see. I'm not sure he's that gullible. (or really what I mean is that I'm not sure that my words hold such credibilty anymore)
I told him that I was so enjoying feeling more connected to him.  He zoned out my newagehippyparentspeak and looked blankly at me and told me that his screens missed him.  Perhaps we'll push this another week or so. 

I've got ZZtop's La Grange in my head.  Dave and his 'men's club' are going to tackle playing this.  Rock on I say.  Though I'm jealous that I'll never (unless I take up smoking a pipe or something) be able to master that low, wild rumble of a voice. 
I think the 'men's club' might be open to name suggestions too.  I suggested 'canned hair' which caused me laugh hysterically at my own 'wit'.  Dave laughed too (though perhaps not quite as heartily).  Did you ever see those infomercials?  There really is such a product.  Carefully colour matched to ones existing hair, you spray your scalp to mask the thinning.  But is it waterproof?  Can you still walk in the rain? 
Swimming?  Important questions before purchasing.  And what about crying whilst lying down?  My curiosity will know no bounds until I find someone who's actually used this stuff.  (I should assure you that I'm not asking for my own personal use. hehe)

I've been working on wool pants these past few weeks. 
 


I'm going to stick some customs in both shopping carts if anyone is 'innerested'.
And ps.  the shop discount still applies.  The dollar is still unusually high.  I'm still trying to decide what course of action to take on this one. 

 

 

 

the smell of sensible

While I was surfing etsy, Poppy popped up on a chair next to me.

Me:  What are you eating?
P:  Dessewt.  (Dessert)
M:  What is it? 
P:  Chocolate ice cweam. 
M:  Oh, of course.
P:  Couldn't you smehw (smell) it's ..... sensible.... smell? 

So right.  Maybe I'll have a sensible breakfast.   

Finally we got some snow!  
They cancelled school in preparation for 'snowmageddon'  or maybe they were calling it the 'blizzard of oz'  (do they realize they're referrencing an Ozzy album?  hehe).  I have a pet peeve with weather monikers.  The weather man kept shortening 'blizzard' to 'blizz' which bugged me.  Smallifying the weather seems like bad karma. 
Anyways, I keep finding myself talking about the weather to people and stating emphatically how I'd just like to have a 'big solid dump' (of snow!).  I return home and then feel somewhat embarassed at my unfortunate choice of words!

 
 
Snippets of blue evening through the windows.  And the dilapitated shed that used to be a barn.
Snippets of the eternally rearranged interior of our house. 

 

 

Song for a grey day

Makes me long for springy green and the return of the music festival season.

 
Look what lurks outside our front door!  (Is that why noone's come a callin' these past few days? hehe)

 

Yikes!

 
 

vestido

 
 
 
 
 
brrrrrrrrrrrr!
shop discount:  baddollar25 (gives you 25% off!)  The canadian dollar has gone up so much these days, making my pricing seem sky high.  Sadly almost all of my fabrics are purchased in Canada so I can't even revel in the fact that my cost of production is lower.  boo.  oh well, it comes and it goes.

Juorc

Poppy handed me a little piece of paper yesterday and asked me with a badly concealed smile if I knew what it said. 
 

Bravo to you if you can decipher it!  Yes, that's right.  It says "juorc".  Perhaps you might interpret that as 'jerk'?  You'd be right! 

I laughed aloud a bit and then silently, a lot.  (If you know how Poppy pronounces and elongates her vowels, you'd also realized that her spelling is bang on!)  I told Dave about it later that evening and he asked me if I'd taken it personally. 
She might be getting back at me for hard heartedly continuing to shovel the skating rink while she lay on the snowy ground moaning dramatically.  Not a big fan of the cold weather, that Poppy.. 
She's leaning how to skate quite well but every time I would comment on her progress, she'd immediately stop gliding on her skates and start doing that beginner-ish quickstep whilst insisting that "NO she could NOT skate, SEE? She was just waaaaalking." 
This strong will should serve her well in the future.  It causes much internal cursing on my part in the moment and much hilarity later as I recount it to Dave.  At the same time, she's also the most loving child ever.  No one enjoys a lazy bed snuggle as much as Poppy.  Finn (being 9 of course) has no interest in going through a lexicon of kisses before bed like P does. 

Did you know that yesterday was 'Blue Monday'?   Supposedly the most depressing day of the year.  And apparently (according to Gian Gomeshi on Q) it was named after a New Order song.  Can this be possible?  I must have misheard this.  However, the New Order snippet I heard on the radio was enough to launch me back into the 80s (which might have induced depression in itself).  I did find myself captivated by that wall of synthesizer and thought about taking my New Order record back from my parents.  (though I'm SURE they listen to it all the time)  I might leave the pixie boots and Pat Benatar haircut in the closet though.  (I'm misleading you, having never been cool enough to sport either of these!)

Signing off,

The Juorc

 

new year new leaf

Talking about our predisposition to worrying with a friend on New Years eve, I decided that my new years resolution would be that I would only worry about small things.  This is my resolution:

I will only worry about how slow I am at knitting in the Continental style.  Or knitting at all, for that matter.  At the last 'stitch and bitch' I went to, someone commented in exclamation marks that I was THE slowest knitter she had ever seen and that if she had to knit with sock yarn as slowly as I was, she would just QUIT (Actually, I think she said she would kill herself, but that seemed indelicate)!
Sadly, I am not mature enough to have not taken her comments totally to heart and have nursed my wounded pride, asking myself (and sometimes others!) "I'm not THAT slow, am I?".  heehee. 
Pathetic anecdote aside, I do like the idea of limiting my worrying to something little.  Of a scale that won't keep me up at night.

Here's what I love doing these days:

It's soothing in it's simplicity and looking at the light of day through them somehow adds up to something greater than the sum of their paper parts. 

For the third year in a row we've had the pleasure of a quick and thorough thaw followed by freeze that makes for the best skating ever.  We could have skated over the whole lake.(except that I have irrational fears of falling through ice!)  It was glassy smooth, almost too smooth, where you'd notice the fact that you have neglected to get your skates sharpened in recent history. (Laziness is a fool's vacation!)
I took pictures in the gorgeous late daylight.  It almost looked like they were skating on water. 
 
 
 
 
 

Check out Rae Spoon.   

 What a beautiful voice...   

Work wise:  I've got some print diapers ready to list but just have to get my act together to take some pics.  Tomorrow?  Mmhmmm.

rocket fuel

Coffee... My fuel of choice these days.

Dave and I used to live in Enderby BC.  Another tiny town.  Such is our way, it would seem.  (and we're only becoming more countrified with each passing year)  We had the good fortune for two years, to live in a reconstructed stacked log home, up on a bluff overlooking the valley and the town.  It was probably the most spacious and atmospheric place I'd ever lived, with a big cathedral ceilinged living space and a broad porch with floor to ceiling windows.  There were also an incredible bunch of stinkbugs.  Incredible, I tell you.  Straining my water glass with my teeth was common practice.  Checking my ventolin inhaler for lurking stinkbugs was a necessity.  Yuck. 

Anyways, I digress.  We knew no one in the area when we rented thehouse and had moved as a result of Dave and his buddy Brian getting a placement with a timberframing company.  I was in my off season from planting (November through to January) and would spend my days waking up late and trying earnestly to knit and/or doing lousy oil paintings.  I had recently become a coffee addict (so many wasted years!) and was making up for lost time it would seem.  Our coffee budget was astronomical as we made pot after pot of stovetop espresso.

One day I was alerted to the sound of our dogs barking madly, madly, madly.  Not the 'freak out' there's a bear alarm, more of the 'I am letting you know that a stranger is arriving".  This seemed to go on for the longest time.  I opened the door to find an elderly man there with dark glasses on.  He introduced himself to me as one of our neighbours and I encouraged him in to have a cup of coffee.  We chatted a bit.  Me slightly bewildered as to his visit.  He, perfectly content and comfortable to sit in our living room sipping our 'rocket fuel' (as he called it). 

Little did I know at the time that this was to become the first of many visits.  Dear Doug frequented our house, stopping every few weeks to catch up on our news and most certainly to carry the news of 'these crazy hippies' out to all the other folk that he visited in our lonely neck of the woods. The most astounding thing about Doug was that he was almost 100% blind .  I was astonished when I found this out.  Our house was only reachable by teetering down a steep, deeply snow covered embankement and making ones way along a narrow, boot packed donkey trail.  The fact that Doug at 85, wouldn't let this slow him down was entirely characteristic of his nature.  We found out after chatting to neighbours that he regularly still drove his atv on the trails around the tiny lakes in the area.  His wife had tied plastic bags on the trees at head height so he could see them as he drove!

I always knew when Doug was making his way down our path, long walking stick in hand as the dogs would keep up their volley of barking for minutes on end.  It took him a long time but he was undeterred, either by the steep path or by the dogs.  He admitted to us sheepishly one time that he was a diabetic.  This was after he'd already eaten at least 5 sugar packed brownies that I'd pressed upon him.  And he never refused a cup of 'rocket fuel'.

I think of him often, but not nearly as much as I should.   He was inspiring to say the least.  His curiosity, good humour and modernism were as much of an amazement as his fearless tenacity to continue life as he always had. 

 

Last night as we were shutting the house down, turning off lights, filling water glasses, Dave said to me "Can you put Poppy's blind down?"  I went into her room and stared out the window at this:
 

So sweet....

Hope you're all keeping on keeping on through this crazy holiday period. 
Want a little something from the shop? 
Here's a coupon code for you that will give you 15% off of your purchase:  Advent2010

long time runnin'

 
Mmmhmmmmm.  Well I'm nothing if not inconsistent.  Or perhaps my absence would be better characterized as consistent?  Sounds about right.

Time flies. I've been madly sewing to the exclusion of almost everything else.  Well periodically I do watch youtube videos with the kids too.  Finn pains me with his musical choices, I must say.  I'm sure my parents felt much the same when I made them listen to endless repetition of Duran Duran.  (yes, I am that old!)
I tried to assert my 'once was cool' needs by showing him a Cypress Hill video.  I was somewhat surprised to remember how much cussin' there was (not to mention the dubious subject matter!).  Regardless, he wasn't impressed.  We had a conversation awhile ago where he told me with utter frankness that anything I thought was cool was definately NOT cool.  Ouch.

So, to cut to the chase for those of you (my loyal readers hehe.  Or should that be singular?) who are interested in el bee stuff, there are doll diapers in the store right now, ready to ship to arrive in time for the holidays. 
I've decided to focus on doing mostly instock stuff over the next months so do check the store frequently!

 
 
This is where we're at these days.  I went grocery shopping a month ago and came home with 5 cats instead.  We found homes for two of the kittens and still have two (names?  Disco and Crouton, thanks to the kids) plus the beautiful mama (who we still call 'The mama cat'  So original!).  A little more fur than I was hoping to spread about my home but I've managed to keep some clearly defined nocatzones. 

More soon. (I promise!)

 

The magic of the interweb and Canada's hinterland

Aren't these the cutest things? 
I almost want to eat them.  If I were a squirrel.

I just got this skirt in the mail.  I am in love with it.  So tidily made.  Such attention to detail. 

Stuff like this and this on youtube almost makes me cry.  The earnest-ness (the earnesty?  doesn't that sound like a good word?) of it is so amazing/heartwrenching/inspiring/helpful.  I'd never be working at the guitar without the wonders of youtube.  Which incidentally turned 5 recently.   As did someone else.  Doesn't she look like your eccentric great aunt?  Five... who can believe it? 
 


  

I went on a fieldtrip with Poppy's class yesterday.  We went to a classic interpretive nature centre.  I remember this kind of thing from being a kid.  When I think of these types of experiences, I hear the soundtrack from "Canada hinterland's who's who".  Framed in brown picnic table paint. 

Anyways, the 5 and 6 year olds in P's class were all sitting in a circle, focusing raptly on the guide who was displaying a moose skull for all to see. 
Guide:  "Does anyone know what this is?" 
Zack:  "It's a TRex!"
Guide:  "Uhhh no.... It's eats grass and it's very big."
Keegan: "A bear!"
Guide:  "Uhhhh no..... Here's another hint.  It's got antlers."
Ben:  "A cub!"
Guide gives up. 
This kind of Q and A went on all morning and I could hardly contain my laughter.  I just love that age group. I love that in their minds, absolutely anything is possible.  There is no such thing as a leap of logic.  The same age group skips merrily along the woodland path holding hands, looking into puddles and yelling out "That stick in the bottom of that puddle is SO.... BEAUTIFUL!" 

Honestly, my heart almost exploded with the sweetness of it.