Thursday, December 21, 2006

Three chocolate doors to open

Only three doors left on my chocolate calendar. I got all the shopping done last night and my bank account is now suffering the damaging effects of rapid weight loss.
I still have a little sewing and a lot of wrapping to do before I'm all done, but basically nothing to stress out about.

The big question today is to tip or not to tip. Generally I tip the Mail Carrier at Christmas time, but we no longer get mail delivered to our house, it all comes to a box down at the end of the Road on the other side of the Highway. I'm leaning toward no tip since I have to travel to pick it up and I've never actually seen the person who delivers it. At the office however, it's a different story. That guy comes right in and drops it off and he even bring cookies for the dogs everyday... so needless to say he's getting a card with a $20 bill enclosed. Do most people still give their mail carrier, paperboy, or garbage man a card with a small gratuity in it, or is that a lost tradition? My feeling is, I always tip the person who occasionally delivers food, so shouldn't I occasionally tip the person who always delivers mail?

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Five More Sleeps

Monday we left work at 2 and went out to the Vortex (Dre's word for the malls and box stores in the McCallister area.... I'm adopting it into my vocabulary) to shop. I hit fabricville first for a few things I needed there, while Darrell went to Canadian tire. Then we both headed over to the mall and wandered around. We picked up a couple nice sweaters at Sears, then had dinner at Swiss Chalet. We had the garlic cheese bread which is always awsome, and chicken pot pie, which was kind of bland and nothing to write home about.

When we got home I had a message from my Sister, Amanda, looking for addresses, so I called her back and talked for about an hour. I also got to talk to Cole for a few minutes. For a three year old he's really quite chatty on the phone and has a pretty good vocabulary. I asked him if he was excited that Santa was coming and he told me Grandma was coming home in three sleeps. Mom has been working out in the boonies for quite a while and comes home for a few days at Christmas, so she should get a kick out of knowing Cole is more excited she's coming than Santa Claus.

After I got off the phone I got to work on finishing my robe and an hour later it was done. It is sooooooooooo warm. I won't need to keep my blanky on the couch for watching tv anymore.

I still have a bunch of shopping left to do today and our house is a complete disaster area so there's lots of cleaning to be done.

I finally posted apicture of the second painting I did: I used Winnie the Pooh in this one. I'm not crazy about the way they photograph so I may go back to scanning them in sections and piecing them back together.

Painting for Issabelle


Here's the young porcupine a few days before Darrell moved him to his new home. I actually got really close to him to take the pictures but he didn't like it and waddled away as quickly as he could.

Young Porcupine

Young Porcupine

Monday, December 18, 2006

The Weekend

We had a really good weekend. Friday night I got a lot of sewing done, and finished both pairs of PJs by Saturday. Saturday I almost destroyed most of what I touched, and managed to kill my standup mixer while making a cheesecake. It was one of those stupid things you do that you know is stupid while you're doing it and you can actually see yourself wrecking the machine. Needless to say I felt like a complete idiot.

I was making two cheesecakes to take to Brian Chisholms annual Christmas party that night and burned the mixer out on the first one, so I threw everything into the blender for the second one and that worked really well. I saw Bob and Deb at the Superstore doing their monthly groceries, at some point on Saturday, and got to visit with them in the isle for a while. Brian's party that night was fun as usual, but most of the people we knew left fairly early so we were home by 11.

There is a really young porcupine who decided to take up residence somewhere on our property, and if it wasn't for the dogs, we would probably let him stay. However one encounter with him could portentially result in a blind dog and a huge vet bill so he had to go. For a basically nocturnal animal this little guy was really quite brazen and Sunday afternoon he was wanderin around the yard without a care in the world. Darrell got a big cardboard box and a long 1x3 and headed outside. I put the box down on the ground and backed away like big wuss, while he used the long board to guide the porcupine into the box. We popped a couple carrots in there with him and Darrell drove him out to the middle of nowhere, with no houses for miles, and he now has a nice new residence with some wild Apple trees around, where he won't encounter cars, people, or our dogs. Our dogs can now go outside without us having to worry as much

Sunday night I started making myself a bathrobe out of the artic fleece I bought this time last year. I'm most of the way done and only have the left arm, closing the sides, and hemming left to do.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

How to Spoil a Perfectly Good Day.

First off the weekend was a lot of fun. I got my painting all finished off, varithaned, boxed up and shipped away. I also got started on the two little sewing projects that I have for my Nephews. Saturday night we went out to the SJTC christmas party at the Summerset with the Bonds. It wasn't all it was cracked up to be in the e-mail but was really fun regardless. There was another group there having a Christmas party as well, so it felt basically like Karaoke Night at the Summerset pub, which it basically was. It was really nice to see everyone and sing a couple songs though.

The week so far has moved along very slowly. It seems like it should be over already but it isn't. I have 10 more doors to open on my choclate calendar before the big C. I'm still working on my sewing projects and really only just got down to cutting and sewing last night.... the weekend was basically prewashing and ironing. I didn't buy enough piping so I had to stop into Fabricville on the way to work.

So how do you spoil a perfectly good day? Turns out I had to kill some time because Darrell was recording a Voice over, so I popped into Michaels to see if they had any Batman buttons that I could use on Cole's Jammies, but they didn't so I headed to the Dreaded Walmart. Stepping into Walmart is enough to ruin any day, but try doing it in December in the morning... it's hell. I honestly hate going to Malmart for anything to tell the truth and we absolutely avoid the place the like the plague if it can be helped, but they are one of the only other places that might have had batman buttons so I had no choice. The worst part of the search was the fact that the sewing section is at the very back of the store.... so you have to navigate your way through all the completely clueless people wandering around looking for nothing imparticular. It shouldn't be that hard, since Walmart has big huge isles, except they piles islands of crap up in them so you can only get around them single file... heaven help you is someone decides to stop and chat with someone coming the other way. I could rant about how much I hate the place for hours, but suffice to say I hate the place and going there for any reason is like stepping into hell. They didn't have what I was looking for either so I soothed my pain at Futureshop by buying the Christopher Reeves Superman Collection DVD box set.

Friday, December 08, 2006

Friday December 8, 2006

Appetizer
Which language would you like to learn and why?
French. I live in a bilingual country and many of the projects we do have to be translated into french. It would make my life a lot easier if I had more than just a vague idea about what was being said.

Soup
What's the funniest thing you've heard or read so far this week?
I saw a picture on Garth Turner's website of Stephen Harper and George Bush, but it is made from the Brokeback Mountain Movie poster. I read a couple jokes in my e-mail that made me laugh, and I heard people on the radio debating the same sex marriage law again.... I find that funny because I'm stunned by the sheer ignorance of some people and the way they can wrap up discrimination and intollerance in a pretty little package and call it "Family Vallues".

Salad
Which movie was so bad you couldn't watch the whole thing?
Black Hawk Down. It sucked hard.

Main Course
If there were a holiday in your honor that didn't use your actual name, what would the day be called?
I don't know what it would be called but there would be lots of vodka.

Dessert
Name one movie which is coming out soon that you would like to see.
The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will & Jaden Smith. It's based on a true story and looks like a really good movie.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Raining

It's raining and 7 degrees...so bye bye snow. (For now)
There are seventeen unopened doors on my chocolate calendar until the big C.
Still so much to do and very little time to do it if I want to get stuff in the mail on time.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Snow & Ice

So the rain in the morning quickly changed back to snow and continued all day long and just like that it was winter in New Brunswick. It suddenly got quite cold to go with it. To be honest I really love the first snow fall, it makes everything so bright and clean looking. In fact I love the first snowfall of winter almost as much as I love the last snowfall of winter... now if we could just work that global warming thing into making them a little closer together that would be awsome.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Snow?!

Well it had to happen to us eventually. Thankfully the snow fall last night was no where near as bad as the western side of the country, and on the bright side everything looks so pretty with a nice blanket of snow on it. It's raining now so the snow is pretty much gone, but it was kind of nice to wake up to it.

The weekend was good and it started a day early. I didn't end up going into work on Friday although I had planned to. Darrell had a doctors appointment later in the morning Friday so he went in on his own to that and then stopped by the office to work on a DVD project that has been giving him grief. By the time he got home it was too late for me to turn around and head in so I didn't. Instead I spent an hour on my eliptical trainer (I can sing most of the Cabaret soundtrack while working out now although still a little breathlessly near the end) then puttered around.

Saturday I basically painted, and not much else. I got Seth's painting finished completely by the end of the day.

Seth painting

The photo is before a few little finishing touches, erasing pencil lines, and varithane, but it gives you the idea. Once the Varithane was on it the colour popped a lot more, but the shine reflects the flash on the camera. The painting contains all his information; the calendar has his birthdate, the clock has the time, Daisy Duck is sitting on a scale that has his weight, The Blocks spell out his name on the fronts and on top they have his middle and last initial.

Sunday I went to work on the painting I'm doing for my cousin and got most of it blocked out. I can probably finish in one more sitting.