Conditions at 5:15: 12' and overcast
Expected later: rain this afternoon and 16'

Yesterday turned out absolutely beautiful. It was so nice to just get up from my desk and go outside without having to stop and put on a jacket. We've waited a long time for a day like that. It gives us hope that more days like that are on the way.

Well, the plane is finally getting somewhere. I talked to Lloyd yesterday and the work they've done was reinspected and they can now go ahead and cover it and then put in the engine. The next inspection will be when it's ready to fly. He has hopes that it might be done by the end of the summer but his little plane is also ready to be flown and unfortunately if they get a nice day, they will all want to go flying, rather than staying inside and working on the other one. But I suppose if he brought the little one down here, that temptation would be taken away. He thinks he may consider flying the little one down in July sometime. He needs a stretch of good weather in order to do that.

I'm working away at getting the house in shape for guests. I'm just breaking it down into little jobs. Last night I cleaned the back porch and rearranged it a little and I also cleaned out the car, which also badly needed some attention. I'm optimistic I'll be done before Sunday so I can go out and play, since it's now supposed to be a fairly nice weekend.

Well, it's been a fairly quiet week and not much to write about so I'm off for today. Hopefully something interesting will happen today!

A lucky streak

Conditions at 5:15 am: overcast and 7'
Expected later: 16' and mix of sun and cloud

I can't believe my string of good luck lately. Lloyd says I should be buying lotto tickets. First, a couple of months ago, I entered a contest on the Paul McCartney web site to win a copy of his newest DVD and didn't I win it. Then I entered a contest online to win coupons for packages of free bagels - and I won that too. Now the best one. On Saturday I was taking the garbage from the shed to the waste management place in town. While I was unloading the truck I saw an old wagon wheel just lying by itself on the floor. It was exactly what I was looking for to stand up against my new mini barn. (That was Brenda's idea). So I asked if I could have it and sure enough, I could. I thought it would be hard to find one and there it was in the trash!

I'm always amazed at where visitors to this site come from. I know they stumble upon it by accident when they are searching key words but it still fascinates me that someone on the other side of the world is able to read about our little island. This morning I noted there were visitors from Australia, Cairo, Istanbul and Santiago. The world has truly become a very small place!

Okay, I'm off. I have company coming on Monday and I've got lots of cleaning to do. My plan is to get it done by Saturday night so I can go out and play on Sunday, rather than spending the whole day getting ready for my guests. So every bit of extra time can be spent accomplishing little jobs.

 

Conditions at 5:30 am: 5' and overcast
Expected later: 12' and cloudy but rain in the morning

Yesterday was not such a bad day. It was cool and a little windy but it didn't rain very much.

I talked to Patti and the kids last night and I finally found out what a "pb" was. It stands for "personal best" so she was very happy with her results. She has certainly improved since she started. Next year all three will be skating - it will be interesting to see Tristen on speedskates. Please send me photos, or better yet, video. I think that would be so cute.

One happy boy reunited with his cookies

Speaking of Tristen, when I spoke with him last night he was lamenting the fact that he had forgotten his cookies. He wanted to know if I would mail them to him. I told him to check the mail as they hadn't done that yet. Fortunately they were there. He was one happy little boy. I was very surprised to see that it wasn't just a box of cookie crumbs. I tried to pack them as well as I could but I'm sure they got handled a little roughly in the mail, as I forgot to mark "Fragile" on the box. Now I'll have to send the recipe so he can make some more.

I talked with Donna yesterday and she tells me the benefit  on Saturday was a great success. I apologized for not turning up but she was totally understanding. She's going to join us for lobster when the IAAP ladies come. I also told her that Brenda wants to know when the dancing starts again and she tells me it's in May so that will  be coming up soon.

Yesterday was election day and I went over to the Rec Centre and marked my ballot. I didn't however, stay up late enough to see what the results were so that will be a surprise for me when the 6:00 news comes on this morning. One of the candidates in Charlottetown is one of our customers so it will be interesting to see if she got in.

Well, not much going on this morning so I will sign off for now. Have a great day everyone.

What a great time

Conditions at 5:20 am: 2' and overcast
Expected later: 10' and sun

A lot of people have told me we don't really get spring here and I'm beginning to understand what they mean. It's not winter, and it's definitely not summer, but it's certainly not the spring weather I'm used to. Here it's mostly cold and wet. But we are into May and hopefully it will improve soon.

Yesterday Brenda and I went to Halifax on the first ferry of the season, to attend the Saltscapes show. It was a great time. We left here at 5:30 for the boat. Enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the cafeteria and before we knew it we were in Nova Scotia. The drive to Halifax was very pleasant as the weather was clear, something we didn't really expect as rain was predicted. We stopped in Halifax and had a tea and a snack before heading over to the Exhibition Park. We were very surprised at the number of cars that were there already. By mid afternoon the place was packed. We sampled all kinds of stuff including several wines and beers. It was a really nice day. At one point we had to take our bags out to the car and start over collecting pamphlets and brochures. There's an incredible amount of things to see and do in this part of the country. I'm going to organize everything by province so that whenever anyone comes to visit I can share the information with them. We filled in all kinds of ballots for weekends away and various other things. But the number of people who where there will make our chances  of  winning anything pretty slim but we had fun just the same.The last thing we attended was a display by the PEI shellfish festival folks. There was a couple behind us and the husband was insistent that his wife try an oyster but she was really reluctant so I said I would go up with her. It was great for me but not a pleasant experience for her. She found it most disgusting. Fortunately for her there was a wine booth right next door and her husband was able to get her a sample to wash it down.

The timing was perfect. We knew we had to leave by 4:00 to get the boat and we were pretty much done looking around by then. We had a good trip back and made the ferry with 10 minutes to spare. We could not have timed the day any better.

A big thank you goes out to Caitlin for coming by and letting Cooper out for a few minutes. I'm sure he and his bladder thank you from the bottom of his heart!

Now I can't believe it's Monday again all ready. Yesterday a man came out to look at the truck and left a note on the windshield. I called him back and he's coming by tonight to look at it. With any luck it will sell.

Conditions at 5:30: 15' and overcast
Expected later: 17' with showers in the morning and sun and cloud in the afternoon

Yesterday was a bit wet for part of the day but at least it was quite warm. It will be nice to see some sun this afternoon. It tried hard to burn through the clouds at times yesterday but never quite made it. Last night I let the dog out and it was windy but very warm. It was so nice to feel the mild temperatures finally.

I forgot to pick up the magazine I promised yesterday, so will try to remember to do that today so I can share the recipe I had a Brenda's.

Thursday's are usually fairly quiet and yesterday morning started out that way, but things picked up as the day went on. There were two fellow who left to take a car to Moncton to do a dealer trade and I guess they got to Crapaud when they realized they'd forgotten the dealer plate so I had to take one out to them. It had stopped raining and it was a lovely morning to go for a drive.  That took up a chunk of my morning. Hopefully today goes just a quickly.

I received an email from my friend Donna and she tells me there's a benefit in Mount Stewart in aid of Cathy Coffin on Saturday night. The family is hosting it as they've experienced considerable medical expenses with her two amputations. I may try to go for a little while but not for long as I need to get up really early on Sunday morning. It will also depend on how long we work on Saturday as I understand we're doing inventory.

The weaving is going well. I did a little bit last night. I had stopped by the Co-op on Queen Street to pick up some fruit and they had bags of ripe bananas on sale, so I bought some and made two banana nut loaves to put in the freezer. That will make a nice treat to put into my lunch. I had planned to do a couple of other things but I watched a couple of programs on TV and then sat and wove until time for bed. I'm on my third placemat. It seems like a slow process but I only do a little bit at a time.

Well, as you can tell, if you've managed to read this far, there is really nothing going on right now and things are pretty boring, so I will go for now and report back on Monday.
Oh, I almost forgot (and how could you?) today is the big wedding day. What on earth are all the entertainment shows going to talk about next week? I suppose the actual wedding will be rehashed for the next little while. I have to admit, I am taping it to watch at a later time.

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Finally some warmth - maybe.

Conditions at 5:30 am: light rain and 5'
Expected later: more light rain and 18'

Finally we are going to get some nice warm weather, which will be nice, even if it is raining. The grass is starting to get nice and green everywhere you go and it's so nice to see.

Last night I was invited to the Van Gaals to taste test a new recipe, It was a beef and bean casserole and it was really good. It was topped with biscuits and sprinkled with cheddar cheese and then baked - yummy. I'll pick up the magazine today and post the recipe tomorrow because it's worth sharing.

Speaking of sharing, when Tristen was here, we baked cookies for Easter. We made sugar cookies, then he cut them out in Easter shapes. When they were baked, he did all the icing by himself and put on the sprinkles. He was very proud of his treats and we put some into a container for him to take home. The rest he ate over the next few days. Unfortunately we forgot to put the container in his suitcase and he was a little disappointed when he got home and realized we'd forgotten them. So I packed them up in a small box, and mailed them to Guelph. He's going to be one happy little boy when they arrive. Because Monday was a post office holiday they didn't get mailed until Tuesday, and the lady there told me it will take 5 days, so he likely won't get them until early next week. Hopefully they are not just a box of crumbs when they get there.

When I was at Brenda's last night, she asked if we were missing a hat. I asked if it was black with a red maple leaf pin on the front? It was, so the missing hat has been found. Lloyd will be ever so pleased to hear that as it's his favorite hat.

The ferries start running again this weekend so Brenda and I are heading out early Sunday morning and going to the Saltscapes show in Halifax. It opens at 10:00 am which is about when we should get there and there's a ferry late in the afternoon that will get us home in decent time. We had originally planned to go on Saturday and stay overnight but I have to work on Saturday as we're doing inventory, and we wouldn't get there until it was over for the day. If it's worth it, hopefully we can plan to go for the entire weekend next year. This working for a living is really getting in the way of having fun!

What an inspiration!

Conditions at 5:30 am: 4' and overcast
Expected later: 7' and light rain

Yesterday morning I dropped by the WEAVER'S Guild to drop off Sheila's DVD. Of course, while I was there she toured me around and showed me what everyone was working on as it seems to change every week. Claude, the lady I met at Sheila's house was working on a very loosely woven shawl made with very light pastel colours of boucle yarn and it was absolutely gorgeous. I totally have to make one of those. Then I met Libby. Now this is where it gets really interesting. She's working on a rag run. The warp is thin strands of very strong linen fibres and the weft is strips of T shirt material in various colours. She's making it rainbow colours and it works it's way from purple to blue to green and will continue on to yellow, orange and then red but all in slightly muted colours as a real rainbow doesn't have bright red, for example. She collected T shirt from thrift shops until she had just the colours she wanted and the tore them all in strips. When they are torn they automatically roll into almost a bias tape shape, making them perfect for weaving into a traditional rag rug. That opens up all kinds of possibilities. She has even done some with strips torn from old blue jeans. Now that would be a very sturdy rug. I can't wait to finish my placemats so I can move on to another project. The possibilities are endless. I'm also remembering the beautiful scarf that Rosie had at UPEI that was woven with silk fibres. I was stunning and so incredibly soft. I guess that was the inspiration that struck when I first saw the ad for the  loom.

I finally talked to Lloyd last night. Everything went well on the flight back, although we had packed all of Tristen's toys in the side pocket of his suitcase and the they put all the bags on the sky check so they had nothing to do on the flight home. Of course with it being such a small plane, there was no movie or anything either. Congratulations to you Lloyd for keeping him entertained for two hours. I also need to send out a big Thank You to Caitlin (and Ethan) for looking after him a couple of times, which allowed us to spend some time together, out with friends.

I ordered my fire wood last night and he tells me there should be no problem getting it here by the long weekend. He doesn't sell any that's blocked so I guess Lloyd will have to do it.

One very proud little boy

This breaking news just in:
I opened my email and there's a picture from Patti. It seems the Speed skating club had their year end party last night and James won an award for Junior Athlete of the Year. It was a total surprise for them and as she said, if she'd had any idea he was going to get an award, she would have dressed him a little less casually! Well done James! I also got an email from Meghan telling me that she got "11 pb's" at the party.  I have no idea what that means but she's going to call me tonight and tell me all about it.

Well, better go for now and get ready for work. I did sleep in slightly this morning and I'm a little behind schedule. The good news seems to be there's no freezing rain as predicted so that's a great way to start the day!