Can you guess what we did Saturday morning?

More snow removal...

In case you're wondering...yes I did go out and help after the photo shoot. Man was it cold! -29 with the wind chill. This morning was -20 with no wind. Freezing rain today and tomorrow! Guess what my plans are? Staying home, staying warm and sewing...see ya!

I passed

I was scheduled for a stress test yesterday at the hospital.

Here is a 9 second video of my drive in to the hospital. Just the kind of drive you want before a stress test. lol  Either way, I passed so that is a "good thing."

While I was out and about yesterday I took a few pictures.

Thought I would share.

We had very strong winds and blowing snow. A wonderful "blustery" day.

I love an untouched field of snow...it is like a clean fresh page just waiting for you to make your mark.

Do you remember the old song by John Denver? 

"Some days are diamond; some days are stone..."

(you know you will probably end up humming this song all day now...sorry...)

Hope you have a "diamond" day today.

Neighbourhood Bully and mystery puzzles and weather predictions

I use that term loosely...my neighbourhood is not your conventional neighbourhood. I live in the country, and I can see only one neighbour in the summer, 4 in the winter when the leaves are off the trees. I do have a lot of "feathered" neighbours though and one of them is a bit of a bully. He seems to think the feeders are put out exclusively for him.

He is not real good at sharing and occasionally sits on top of the suet feeder keeping all others away from "his" food. I have dubbed him the neighbour bully.

Yesterday while doing dishes and looking at all the birds from my kitchen window; oh I know I am one of the few who does not have an automatic dishwasher, but I did at one time and when we renovated the kitchen we decided to take it out and see if we would miss it. When the new cabinets were built we had one cabinet installed as a separate unit so it could easily be removed should I change my mind and want a dishwasher installed and here we are 13 years later and still no dishwasher! Every once in a while I think about it but then quickly forget about it again. Just think of all the entertainment I would miss if I was not standing at the kitchen window over my sink... I was counting up the different birds that come to dine at "Wendy's Winter Diner" and thought myself quite fortunate.

Doves, Grosbeaks, Blue Jays, Woodpeckers, Chick-a-dees, Nuthatches, and Starlings. There may be a few more but that was all that came to mind because they are the regulars. I had my hands in hot soapy water so I did not take the time to get pictures of all of them, but here are a few I have captured in the last couple days.

What else have I been doing besides dishes and bird watching? Well I did a mystery puzzle. For those of you who do jigsaw puzzles you know that the picture on the cover of the puzzle box is referred to very often while assembling the puzzle. Here is the picture on the box of the puzzle I recently assembled.

This however is what the picture looked like when finished.

This puzzle came with a short story of a "who-dunnit" nature. You had to assemble the puzzle and collect clues along the way to figure out the mystery. I am not much of a sleuth so I stuck to the puzzle making. It was a bit of a challenge making a puzzle with no picture to reference and as you can see it is a desktop and papers are crumpled and upside down and cups turned over so I never knew if my puzzle was being built upside down or right side up. I did finish the puzzle in one day but never did solve the murder.

I have also been working away on my PhD.(Projects Half Done). Right now that happens to be hand quilting a lap quilt that I started several years ago and never got around to finishing and working away at piecing a queen sized quilt for the cottage (also a vintage forgotten project)

I have been keeping busy with retreat projects and planning for mid February Retreat as well but of course I can't show you those until after retreat.

The weather Networks long term forecast says we have a prediction of 15 - 20 cm of snow coming this Thursday and 20 - 30 on the following Tuesday. I'm not sure how accurate they are but I forecast good quilting and bird-watching days ahead. We'll see who is more accurate...

My favorite weather is bird-chirping weather.
Loire Hartwould

I forgot...

Yesterday, in the wee hours of the morning, I had an amazingly clever title and subject for todays post. Today...it is gone! Vanished into thin air...how is that possible? I have been mucking around on my blog and a few others hoping it would come back to me, but alas, it was not to be; so instead, I will fill you in on what I've been up to.
I finished the old year with a finish! You may recall the dresden plate quilt I started in October for a dear friend who lost her husband. It is made from a collection of his shirts.
I have 2 more doilies to hand sew onto the centres of the plates and it is ready to wrap and mail. Next, I have to clean up some of my mess and get to work on the next project. Working on a PhD is no small undertaking and I am focused right now.
Back to the Dresden plate...earlier this year I was referred to a link on youtube with a tutorial on spray basting your quilt on a design wall (she starts on this subject at around the 6:20 mark of the video). It caught my attention and I thought I would give it a try because it seemed to make a lot of sense. I do not have a huge design wall, so I wouldn't be able to do a queen sized quilt, but for the size I was doing it worked very well! (with a little help from Mr. O)

Not the most becoming photos, but you get the idea. The whole process took about 10 minutes tops!

The machine quilting took considerably longer .

It is the first project "Ruby" and I have quilted together. It is far from perfect and I have a lot to learn, but we'll do okay Ruby and I. 

On Monday one of our granddaughters came to spend a couple days with us. We knew she would be visiting so we kept her Christmas gifts here. She seemed quite pleased with everything.

I had forgotten how life with a teenager can be...

Bathroom BEFORE a shower

Bathroom AFTER a shower!

Thankfully she picked up after herself. Despite having EVERY light in the house left on, the computer being in constant use and the frequent visits to the refrigerator and microwave we loved having her visit. 

She sat to the computer one day and saw my blog up on the screen and gave a bit of a giggle and said..."that's so cute! My Nan blogs!"

We miss you Lex!

p.s. I was hoping that as I wrote this blog post yesterday's brilliant idea would come back to me, but no luck...

(found on a lolriot.com)

Happy 2012!

"I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year, 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied, 'Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be better than light, and safer than a known way.'"

an excerpt from King George VI speech in 1939