Me, Afraid Up On Ladders

I consider it a little fitness challenge to get the old house into shape for whatever we will wind up doing with it...renting or selling or holding onto it.  We manage one visit each week and I have a list of chores for each time I'm there.  Last time, I scrubbed the oven.  It is a Jenn-Air stove, very old - several decades but still working beautifully. Not sure if you know but with a Jenn-Air you don't need a range hood; the outdraft is built in so you save valuable space in your kitchen.

 Cleaning the oven is definitely not my favourite thing to do but it gives so much satisfaction to see it all shiny and sparkling at the end.  I guess that is the upside of some of the tedious household tasks...the body gets stretched and the end result is pleasing.

Sunday was another trip back, this time to give the outside of the windows a clean.  This meant me afraid to go up on ladders because the windows on the back side of the house are quite high in places.  In the end, I decided not to risk it.

I decided to give the three regular sized basement windows another shine inside and out.  This meant me, deep in the grass, on my knees outside.  The weather was glorious and I had steady accompaniment from a couple of birds.

Late afternoon, on our return to the new house, we were surprised and in awe to see a barred owl sitting in the middle of our laneway.  I didn't have my camera and my arms would have been too tired to lift one at that point, but I recognized its features.  If finally lifted itself up to a tree just like this one and looked at us quite casually relaxed, me only a few feet away by that time.  It finally opened what looked like huge wings and swung itself rather majestically and silently off into the woods.
I considered that sighting my own personal  reward for a hard day's work.





We have engaged the movers for one more day with us.  They will get to finish all the basement, gardening and outbuilding stuff.  We thought we maybe could manage this ourselves but it was being moved in dribs and drabs and we are feeling like we need this all clued up. I like the idea of the house all clean, snug and secure with the winter coming on.

Meanwhile, harvest time is in full swing here in Ontario and the farm stands are dotting the roads.  We've been enjoying fresh corn for the last month and now the tomatoes, cucumbers. beets, green beans, peas, etc. It is a food bonanza to enjoy fresh picked food even if only for a few months of the year.

A time of year I wished I canned or bottled.  My mother is the queen of bottling.  Many times we would leave her house with a case of samplings of all the things she bottled.  She bottles lots of stuff, jams, beets, moose, carrots, berries..even her baked beans to keep handy for a quick meal.  She always says to me..so you're still not bottling anything?  with a kind of disappointed tone.

And now the apples are starting...
 


I love these old vintage style paintings.

Flowers, Moons, Hearts and Free Patterns

I've been listening to Floss Tube on YouTube while doing a little afternoon stitching.  I am amazed by all the cross stitchers out there posting little videos of their stash and stitching.  And all the projects some of them have 'on the go'.  It makes me feel my own little group is actually manageable.

Another of those fusible applique blocks I prepped BTM.

I decided to use a button hole stitch around the flower edges and a herringbone around the vase.

Ms Oh Sew Crafty is one of the Youtube channels I watch.  Stephanie has lovely projects she is cross stitching and beautifully, I might add, and she is a fine knitter as well.  

My wall of Moons as I think of them, is growing. 

Free Patterns

Crafts On Sea is a site with lots of free crafty stuff plus links to other free stuff.  Kate, a multi-talented lady, generously offers these designs for adult colouring.  What a popular past time that has become! And the research is holding...it is beneficial in lots of ways.   Who knew all that colouring we did as youngsters would have been so good for our minds.

I also want to remind you about this site...Make It Coats which has a bank of free patterns.  I love this free pattern with full instructions you can download.  It is called From The Heart, rated Beginner skill level.  This version was made using Tula Pink fabrics so very colourful. Hearts are a very popular motif and it is the choice of fabrics that make a simple design look outstanding.




Flowers, moons and hearts...sweet things.

Hope there is something sweet in your weekend.

Youtube and T.V. Shows to Stitch To

For a show to qualify as a good show to stitch to, it must be rather dialogue heavy.  Understanding the gist of the story without a lot of visuals is the name of the game.  If a car chase or creepy props are essential to the plot than it isn't the best show for my purpose.  I need to keep up without having to constantly look up.  

Dr. Foster

The story of a GP who finds out her husband is having an affair.  This was planned as a mini-series but the huge ratings have pushed BBC to say another series is going to be made. While some found it a tad slow, I personally loved the build up.  And there is something almost voyueristic about watching the rawness Suranne brings to her scenes.  She is truly suffering with the knowledge that a man she adored and admired (and thought it was same for him about her) could betray her.   

Place of Execution

More familiar faces in this one...Juliet Stevenson we've watched in many programs ( The Politician's Wife comes to mind) but it was fun to see Lee Ingleby again after watching him in Inspector George Gently.
This is a crime drama playing out in a village where a young girl disappears.  We enjoyed it very much on Youtube.


                        

The Last Enemy

This is another of those "who can you trust if you can't trust your own government" kind of shows.  Benedict is great as a mathematical genius trying to discover more about his brother's sudden death and of course, there is much more than meets the eye.  It gets a little convoluted before you are shown the whys and wherefores, but we liked it.

                              

William and Mary

This is the perfect 'stitching to' show...the charming story of how two people, a little older and with children, manage to meet and make a go of it.  Martin Clunes is a favourite and we enjoyed Julie Grahm in The Bletchley Circle so much. 

                     

Friday Night Lights

This is one of our favourites...
You don't have to know anything or even like high school football to enjoy this show.  The up and down lives of the adults and team members in small town America are portrayed in a way that pulls you in.  It is sad and heart-warming.  Wonderful acting and I also like the way the scenes are shot with a lot of interesting close ups and angles. This made me actually watch sometimes during intense scenes. Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton need no introductions.

                                

We watched three of these on Youtube...William and Mary, Place of Execution and The Last Enemy.  

Out and About in the Big, Bad World

It is time for the college and university kids to head back to school. ( I may have told you this story; forgive me if I have. ) I always think back to the time my two daughters were doing just that.  They were five provinces away from me living on the 15th floor of an apartment building in the big city.  I remember the phone calls went something like this..

Me: .Is your door locked?
Them: Yeesss (said with sighing)
Me: Is the patio door locked?
Them: Yeesss ( and a few Oh Moms)
Me: Walk right over to it now so I can hear the click.
Them: Oh Mom (now annoyed) Who's going to be out on the patio? We're on the 15th floor.

 I tell them  about a story I read of a fellow who learned to rappel down the sides of buildings for the express purpose of breaking into apartments through the patio doors.

  Them: Oh Mom, only you would know something like that!!

 Much guffawing at my foolishness.  Sadly we all know it isn't all foolishness, is it? But the young have that innate fearlessness/ trustworthiness that propels them headlong into the big wide world.
My special concern (among many!!) was because I had raised them in places where you basically didn't need to lock your door; fear of strangers was not an issue. Of course, this fact just fueled extra concern on my part...  I worried that would give them a false sense of security out and about in the big bad world.
Anyway, they somehow survived and are now in the big bad work world I suppose I could say, though luckily in their case, they both enjoy their jobs.

Been on a happy roll with my recent reads.

 Just finished this one, The Green Road by Man Booker Prize winner, Anne Enright.  I loved it as I did her big winner, The Gathering.  I think I liked this one a little more.  I don't know how an author can write meaningful and a little comic all at the same time but she manages that feat.  She always strikes a chord or two in me with something a character is saying.

At one point Anne writes this about the mother of the clan, Rosaleen.

"...Rosaleen at six.  Rosaleen at seventy-six. It was getting harder to connect the dots between the two."

That's the way I feel sometimes.  Thinking back to the worried mother in my story and my journey to now being the family grandmother.  There are a lot of dots in between to connect. And for me to reach back all the way to age six; connecting those dots would be like threading wet tissues.

And I'm sure my daughters think a bit like that too.  Trying to remember themselves as teenagers and now young forty-somethings with jobs and motherhood themselves. Reconciling the two...

 The narratives of our lives, the stages, the experiences, finding meaning and trying to hold on to that meaning and carry it forward.  Or simply trying to remember who we used to be.

Books and Blueish Blooms

On my knees in the garden...I have had three massive weeding sessions because the garden was a little neglected during the sale period.
It afforded me the chance to get up close and personal with all the growing things here and there are so many.  Lots taking turns with blooming which I am so happy to see.
  Learning the names of some of them has been fun.  I'll show some of the blueish ones today.

New to me is Purple Globe Thistle which looks blue in certain light; there are three well established clumps of this unusual plant here.  I've learned it is very popular with butterflies and also bees which is great and a good perennial to include if that is an aim for your garden.

A sort of perwrinkle-Chinese Bell Flowers, another one new to me.  Two pretty bushes of this interesting flower are in the back yard.  Lots of blooms and the bees also enjoy this one.

Many little clumps of this blooming plant are dotted here and there. A close relative of sage, this is blooming Salvia. I was struck by how pretty the leaves are.  It doesn't seem to have spread like some of the other plants have done.  Just stayed neat and tidy in its own little spots.

And my latest reads.

..something literary

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan is a tough read but well worth the effort.  It is the story of the Australian POW's working on building a railway through the jungle of  Burma. Okay it isn't all about that.  The story follows the phases of one man's life including his love life but it is his time with the Japanese as a prisoner that I remember most clearly.  This was because it was horrific. But cleverly, Flanagan took advantage of the camp situation to also take us into the minds of some of the Japanese guards.  This insight provides another layer of thought on the subjects of prisoners and the hows, whys and ways of survival. I found myself talking about this aspect of the story to several people. This book richly deserved the Man Booker Prize, in my opinion.

A special note for haiku lovers.  The Narrow Road to the Deep North was taken from the title of the famous author and haiku master, Basho's text on his travels written in 1687.  Flanagan inserts Basho haiku verses here and there throughout his book to great effect. I loved them.

I meant to copy out some of the ones I really liked, but because I seem to be operating on half a brain these days, I forgot. 

And something completely different...

My name would have been on the holds list for a year before I'd have gotten this book, The Widow by new novelist, Fiona Barton.  When I saw it on the Express Reads shelf  I thought I'd give it a try.  Express Reads means I just have 7 days to read it and it has to be returned on the dot...a $2 a day fine is incurred if you don't.

 Anyway, no problem as I read it in 5 days because it is one of those easy reading books not requiring any deep thought or reflection.  This is basically a crime novel; an abducted child and the ensuing  investigation.  I did find the widow's turn to talk the most interesting bits in the book. I must admit I did enjoy this book overall though I am getting so tired of these types of books being compared to Gone Girl. 

 Why do they keep doing that and when will it stop, I wonder.

Hope there is something blooming or good to read in your weekend.  

This Caught My Eye

                                  

From wonderful Purl Soho comes the complete and free pattern to make this Ticking Stripe Wrap/Scarf .  I love the stripe of bright colour and I love how they write out their instructions.  Great detail in requirements, etc. so the guess work is nil.  And the best bit of all is that this is mostly stockinette stitch!

If you are thinking at all of a hand worked Christmas...

Making Hexies is all over the quilting world.  Those little hexagons that most people fashion with the EPP method are being sewn into all sorts of lovely projects and this one caught my eye.  This is a photo of Pamela's work from her blog Hokkaido Kudasai. Pamela is an American teaching English in Japan and is embracing all things Japanese particularly in her stitcheries.  Her blog is very interesting combining local photos and hand work.



I just love her little hexie Christmas ornaments, especially the fussy cut little motifs.  A lot of Christmas fabric lends itself to fussy cutting come to think of it.


Bee-utiful Quilt Along

 Each block features a bee or two and little inspirational sayings.

 

These blocks have been popping up around the web.  This is Pamela Morgan's Quilt-Along on the Moda BakeShop site and that link is Here for the free patterns to make these sweet blocks.
Pam's blog is Sweet Little Stitches and I love how she writes, not only about her quilting projects, but other topics as well.  Pam also generously shares tutorials and even videos of these to help us replicate her lovely work.  Check it out.

The Upside of a Little Deafness

Not long after we moved in I was awakened at 5:45 am with the sound of loud hammering.  I got out of bed and peered out the window a little cautiously because it sounded like someone was hammering right on the side of the house which made absolutely no sense, but..

  I realized the sound was coming from the Treehouse (yes, the property came with a real Treehouse); was someone in it hammering?? I pulled on a robe and ventured outside.  Here is what I saw.

Can you spy him?  Mr. Pileated Woodpecker, I mean.

What a racket he was making and very unmindful of me beneath the tree.  I ran back in the house and came back with the camera and he was still hammering like crazy, pausing from time to time to dip his beak and that incredibly long tongue of his far inside the recesses he was making.  

No returning to sleep for me. And by the way, the dogs gave no heed to the hammering at all which was probably an indication that they knew there was no danger.

 Meanwhile Hubby slept right through it.

Sometimes being a bit deaf is a blessing!