Tuesday, March 27th - and I thought last week was busy!

It's been a bit of a whirlwind around here and it's not going to stop for a few days.

Last week I worked on cards on Tuesday and Wednesday, in anticipation of a big snow storm on Thursday. Good thing I did. While the storm wasn't as bad as some in the past, it was still enough to cancel most things on the island. Lloyd didn't get to work that night as our road was blocked and he wouldn't have gotten into town. First real snow day of the season and we had to wait till the middle of March to get it!
But looking back, this isn't snow...




... this is snow - remember back to March 2015???   We really have nothing to complain about ☺

Unfortunately we did have a storm related casualty. The cap on the back of Lloyd's truck was blown off and smashed on the ground. While we did have insurance coverage that might have replaced it, because of the age and such, by the time it was depreciated and then the deductible applied, it wasn't worth putting in a claim. Too bad. Now we'll have to try to find a used one to replace the used one...
One bright spot in the 'storm' was the tulips that Brenda had brought last weekend. They were still quite lovely and a constant reminder that Spring is coming...

While it was messy for a while, it wasn't long lived and by the next day things were moving well again.  The weekend was busy with Lloyd getting some of his projects finished up before he leaves. He's been working on bird houses and bat houses and wanted to have them up before he left. There are 6 (I think)  bird houses around the yard and two bat houses - one on the house and one on the garage. Hopefully we might see some bats this year. Apparently after several years of decline, they are slowly making a comeback. That would be awesome in keeping the mosquito population at bay somewhat, hopefully.

He's all packed and ready to go, only one more sleep. I had been asked to work out at our friends winery on Tuesday and Wednesday, bottling wine. These are usually fairly long days. Unfortunately I'd  forgotten that he was leaving on Wednesday so I wouldn't be able to drive him to the airport. Our neighbour kindly agreed to drop him off. Luckily the winery had a slight change in plans and called me on Monday night to advise we would only be bottling on Tuesday this week! Great news. Now I could drive him, shop for a catering job on Thursday, and visit a friends house for tea and to see her collection of quilts.  Everything happens for a reason. There was a reason Charles had some delays in his filtering. Made all my plans nicely fall into place.


Another friend of ours has a commercial client in town that he wanted to bring lunch in to. He was going to order pizza's but then he thought of us. So we I am taking lunch into town for 15 people on Thursday.  Lloyd is just dodging that bullet!

He'll be in Guelph on Wednesday afternoon and going out with the guys on Wednesday night. By lunch time on Thursday he'll be getting ready for his flight to Korea. He's starting to get pretty excited about his adventure.  Each day closer makes it harder to focus on the task at hand. Fortunately he has most things under control so it's all good. I had a small list of things I needed him to do for me before he left but those are all completed.

It's going to be pretty quiet around here. Brenda and Bernie are in Arizona at the present time and Patti and her gang are in Florida, although James will be home by Wednesday. He's coming home early as he has a piping competition in Toronto on the weekend. The good news is he can be the designated driver when Lloyd and him go out with the guys on Wednesday night.  Thank you James!

Cooper and I will have some nice quiet time together, just like in the old days. I'll have lots of card work to do next week with the changeover from Easter to Mother's Day, etc, so I'll have much to keep me busy. I'm also working on a quilting project so that will also fill in some of the time quite nicely. Then it will be time for me to prepare for my trip, which has since been extended. I'm now returning from Massachusetts via Guelph. I know it's not exactly on the way but very doable. I'm staying overnight with a friend from way back who now lives in Albany, New York. That will nicely break up the trip and allow me to catch up with some old friends. Then I have some visiting I'd like to do in Guelph and area. This time Patti will be working most days but I'll have my own car so I'll be able to get out to see lots more old friends.

Hopefully by the end of April we'll have seen the last of the snow????

Tuesday, March 20th - very busy week for a change

Remember the days when things around here were crazy busy sometimes? This week felt a little like that.

Wednesday, I enjoyed attending a luncheon at the Confed Centre. The featured guest was our neighbour Margie. Her book of stories has been made into a play that will be part of the summer line up this year. Can't wait to see it. I heard about this event a week or so ago and thought it was only appropriate that I attend to support my friend.  It was a lovely time chatting with other ladies at my table and hearing about the upcoming production, not to mention a delicious lunch.

Thursday was another busy day. I worked in town in the morning and then got back in time for a make up class of our felting course - last day before our open house.

Friday was finally our big day. We all carted our projects over to the Shamrock Club and set them up for friends and family to admire. I was really impressed with what we had all accomplished in a short eight weeks.

My works of  "art"

 I was happy with my work but I guess I have to up my game a little 😄.  Another member of the class did a picture of a tree that Lloyd fell in love with. So much so, that he convinced her to sell it to him.  We all gave her the gears later about the fact that she was now a paid artist!

Friday evening we had the pleasure of the VanGaals company for supper.  We thought we should get together before everyone heads off in different directions for vacations - Lloyd to the far east, me to Martha's Vineyard and the VanGaals to Arizona.  I'm sure there will be lots of stories to share once we all get back!

Saturday was a day in town. We've been looking at flooring for the kitchen. We visited a few places and brought home some samples to see how they look in the kitchen. After some discussion I think we may have found what we're looking for.

 After we got home I headed out again. I picked Brenda up and we met Meghan in town. We put some wine on to brew at the wine store and then headed out for a beer at a local Irish pub. It was a very cold day and we had to wait outside in line to get in but we did eventually reach our destination.

"Happy St Paddy's Day"

A couple of celebs from our local radio station

We got our drinks and stood around for a bit enjoying the music and chatting with people, but eventually we wanted something to eat. There was very little hope of getting a table there, so we headed down the street to our next destination.

Outside the Hopyard - (this one is for James!)

We had to wait a few minutes for a table but at least we could enjoy a drink at the bar while we waited.

You gotta love a restaurant with some of my favorite pictures on the walls!

After a great meal, we all headed off  home.

Sunday was another busy day. We had invited our friends Jens and Linda over for supper. We hadn't had them over since Christmas so we were overdue for a visit.

All in all a really great weekend.

Tuesday, March 13th - winter finally arrived - well sort of

Last week it was predicted we were getting a huge storm. We did get a bit of a storm on Friday night but nothing near what was predicted. Now this morning they are warning us of yet another one on the way for tonight. Not getting so excited about this one. So far this winter the predictions have just not lived up to expectations. Although Brenda was able to get out and do a little cross country skiing in the woods by her place.

 This morning's sky is looking pretty ominous. The old saying about "Red sky at night, sailors delight, red sky in the morning, sailor take warning". We'll see just how accurate that is later today.

Another pretty quiet week.  I only had to work at cards one day last week. That's always my day to do whatever other errands I have in town. The rest of the week was spent mostly in my craft room. I've always said I'd never make a whole queen sized quilt with pieced blocks because I have trouble matching up seams no matter how carefully I measure, cut and sew. Secondly, I think I'd just get too bored before it was finished. Well last week I was looking at my 'stash' of pieces. Quilting is somewhat like scrapbooking, at least for me it is. If you cut off a small piece of fabric (or paper) you throw it in a box. You just never know when you might need a small piece of some colour. My very large box of paper scraps should tell me that they rarely get used, but what the heck. So instead I've made some blocks that I believe are called crazy quilt. You just randomly sew together any mixture of colours and fabrics and the result is actually quite pleasing. I'm doing it so each block has the batting and backing on it so it's all sewn together at once. Then at the end I just have to sew them all together. I have enough backing material to make  52 blocks. I have 15 finished. 37 more to go. Next week I'll include a photo of a couple of the blocks.

We're both making plans for our upcoming trips. Lloyd is pretty much all set. He's going to Ontario a day early so he can spend some time visiting friends before he heads out. Patti and Greg and the kids will be away while he's there, so he won't see them but he is able to stay at their house so that works out.

I know it's not going to be very great weather on Martha's Vineyard while I'm there. In fact yesterday they had a blizzard warning for that area. But another month could make a world of difference. The down side is the weather not being ideal and lots of things won't be open yet, but the upside is it will be very quiet. From what I understand it gets extremely busy in the summer with tourists. I'm looking forward to touring around and seeing the sights without crowds of people. It was like that when I went to Nantucket Island a couple of years ago. Ideal for a relaxing vacation.

I'm hoping planning to do some bicycling while I'm there. My bike is in the basement and has been there for several years. Needless to say it's not in the best of shape. So I went to Canadian Tire on Saturday and bought a new one to take with me. I'm planning to do much more riding this summer.

My quilt project has quite a bit of hand sewing when it comes to joining the blocks so I may take a few of those for something to do on a rainy day. If it doesn't rain and I don't get to it, even better!

Lloyd and I went out to the home show on Saturday. We're planning to replace the ceramic tile in the kitchen. We've never been a big fan of it and after nine years, it's finally time to replace it. Lloyd thinks he may do that while I'm away, but that's a huge undertaking right after getting back and I expect he'll be jet lagged for a few days. We'll need to move everything out of the kitchen but fortunately we have another kitchen to cook in, and we can eat out there as well, or in the living room. While at the home show we were also looking at windows, siding, etc. All we need to do now is win that lottery and we could do it all at once!

It was a busy weekend for James. His cadet squadron traveled to Ottawa and did a fair bit of touring around by the looks of all the pictures on their facebook page.

 Looks like a great time was had by all.

Patti was in Japan and Meg was working, prompting Tristen to call just to chat.  He must have been pretty bored!



I did finally receive the photos we took out at Island Hill while he was here.

Speaking of Island Hill, we had the owners over for supper on Sunday evening. (It was supposed to be Friday but our brief storm postponed things). We had bought our goat(s) from them and had talked about having them out for supper but it just never happened. While Tristen was here and we went out   to visit I took my calendar with me and we set a date. I find it you don't do that, it never happens. So I brushed up my cooking skills and made a really nice dinner and we had a very lovely evening. I suspect we may do it again sometime, as we all really enjoyed ourselves.

Tuesday, March 6 - things are still pretty quiet

Our weather continues to be up and down with still no real winter in sight. They are predicting a possible 15 cms of snow on Thursday but we've been told that before and it's just not happened. As we head well into March we're all beginning to think that this was the winter that wasn't! But anything can happen in March so who knows. A memory Brenda shared on Facebook was the year we were till cross country skiing in May - both on Mother's Day and the 24th of May weekend. Albeit we were in short sleeved shirts and Bernie was following us around the field in the tractor as he got ready for spring planting, but we were still able to get out there. Unlike this year, when the skis have been used once, and the same for the snowshoes.

Lately, it almost seems like Christmas here. Almost everyday something seems to be arriving from our friends at Amazon or other online vendors. Lloyd has been receiving items he's ordered for his trip and I've been getting stuff I've ordered as well.It just seems the arrivals are all spread out so that something arrives almost every day! First it was new packaging for this years cookies, then it was my walking poles.

We attended a local event recently that was a hike of a local trail. Because the trail was too icy we hiked instead across country. Walking poles were supplied and I was anxious to give them a try. I was impressed at how well they worked and after doing some research on the benefits of using them, I decided to order my own pair. We've been trying to get out and do more walking. With both of us heading out on holidays soon,  we know we'll be doing lots of walking.  I always tend to over do it and end up with painful shins which kind of messes up your holiday. So we're hoping that getting in some extra walking ahead of time will be beneficial. Lloyd has even purchased one of those gadgets that tracks your steps!

Lloyd's diet is still going very well. He's lost weight to the point that the smaller pants he bought a while ago are now too big. I know it's not easy to be giving up the foods you really, really enjoy such as fresh baked bread, etc, but he's done extremely well.

Our needle felting class is also going well. We have our last class this Friday but unfortunately I'm going to miss it. Next week is our Open House when representatives from the Government branch that funds the LEAP program will visit to see just how their money was spent! I think they'll be impressed.  There are some pretty talented ladies in our group.  Watch for pictures in an upcoming post.

Meghan and her band of merry dancers were very busy last week. They had their first competition of the year and did very well. Here's the list of numbers her studio performed (Meg is in Comp A)

and here are their results. Very well done!  Congratulations to all the dancers. Looking forward to seeing those numbers performed at the next recital, although I know some of them were performed in last years event. I understand how they were prize winners!

Here's a note from the dance studio:  Thank you to @bedazzleddanceofficial for such a fun and amazing first Comp of the season! We had a blast and it was great to see you again! With 18  1st places, a 2nd and a 3rd up against talented competition from other studios. 5 judges awards, an MC Mark award, two 3rd overalls and three 1st overalls we can’t be more proud of all our dancers hard work and dedication

Tuesday, February 27th - welcome back!

It's been a couple of weeks since I was here. Busy, busy times.
Tristen arrived for his visit a week ago Thursday. His first solo  flight, arriving in the wee hours of the morning on Friday. After a quick stop at the all night grocery store for milk, and a quick visit to Lloyd at work, we were on our way home.

Friday morning was quiet. I had to work for a bit so he could sleep in. Then in the afternoon the three of us were off to the Race Track for supper to celebrate a delayed happy birthday for Lloyd. I didn't realize there were no races on at this time so it was just dinner. But still a nice time had by all.

Saturday was our movie day. We headed into town and had lunch at Dairy Queen before seeing two movies - Peter Rabbit and Early Man. We enjoyed them both but agreed we liked Peter Rabbit best.

Sunday was our day to visit Island Hill Farm. They weren't open but we were allowed to visit anyway. I don't have any photos from there but I know Tristen has some.

Monday, Islander Day, was a lovely mild day with lots of sunshine but we were pleased to find out that there was enough snow on the cross country trails at the local ski park to facilitate a trip out. We picked Brenda up on our way and were on our way.  We had a lovely time in spite of all of us falling at least once. Most of the trail was good but some areas were a bit icy. Nonetheless, we enjoyed our outing.

Tristen's departure was delayed a bit with him leaving on Wednesday. As a result we had to find something to do on Tuesday. We went into town hoping to go bowling, but the Alley was filled with many seniors. Just our luck. Instead we went and did a bit of shopping and in the end Tristen found a new toy he didn't have but did have the money to purchase. Lucky us!

He was scheduled to leave on the early flight on Wednesday but weather seems to have caused some delays so it was lunch time before he got on his way.  I think his first flight was a success.

The rest of the week was fairly quiet, once he was gone. On Saturday Lloyd and I went over to Mount Stewart to participate in a snowshoe event. Unfortunately there wasn't enough snow so it was a hike instead but a lovely time just the same. Then on Sunday we joined some neighbours for brunch at Red Shores to celebrate a 60th birthday of one of them. All in all it was a busy but great week.

Lloyd is busy finalizing his plans for his trip which will be coming up before we know it. Yesterday we were talking about travel and we realized we have a week of our time share we need to use before the end of April. Unfortunately  on such short notice not a lot of options exist. But all is not lost. One destination on my bucket list is Martha's Vineyard.  I was thrilled to find a resort that had space. So, I'm going on vacation! I leave the day that Lloyd gets back.  It's not exactly tourist season down there but it should be great anyway.

February 13th - An Early Happy Valentines Day!

...and our roller coaster weather continues. Crazy weather indeed.
In fact, we've not seen this much ice around since we've been here, which will be 9 years at the end of April. Hard to believe.

Saturday I had a catering job in town (more on that later) and when it was time to go home, around midnight, it was raining. Not so bad as we didn't have to contend with icy roads. Sunday was below freezing with a dusting of snow on top of the water, that was now frozen. Monday brought temperatures well above freezing leaving a slick layer of water on top of all the ice. Getting to the garage was quite a challenge. Should have gotten my skates out of the closet!

 After Lloyd got up from his morning nap, he and our neighbour Frank, went out and got some sand to spread around in both yards. Makes a huge difference.

                                                                          
Now Tuesday is expected to be -14' with the wind chill making it that much colder. Then on Wednesday we're back into the plus side again.  I'm hoping for decent weather on Wednesday as I'm hosting my second annual Valentine's lunch. It was a great day last year so I'm hoping this year's will be just as enjoyable for my guests.

It was a fairly busy week. Our Friday craft class was cancelled as our instructor couldn't make it. Not sure why but we should be back to normal this week. It was just as well as I had lots to do to prepare for our catering job on Saturday afternoon.
 

Soup, sandwiches, sweets for 25 volunteers helping out at the Heart and Stroke Gala.

 The ballroom all set for the gala...

Meanwhile backstage...

 At first glance it appeared I might have too much food but in the end, there was lots. Although there really wasn't much left, just a couple of sandwiches and that was about it.  By all accounts they were happy clients.  Rave reviews for our Tomato, Corn and Black Bean Soup. Either that or they were all really polite people! I now Meghan went out on a limb hiring me so I'm really pleased that it worked out so well.

Once everyone had eaten, it was time to head to our work stations. Brenda and I were in charge of the wrapping room - packaging all the silent auction items when it was over. There were bits of confusion part way through but in the end it all worked out.

While we worked away, James was in Sault Ste. Marie at a Biathlon.  He tells me he had a great time in spite of not advancing to the next competition, which is the National one. I was a little disapointed to hear that as it's actually being held here on PEI. But if we don't get some serious snow soon, it might be a challenge for the hosts.

He really didn't mind as he has an opportunity at the same time to visit the universities in Ottawa - something he needs to do before making his final decision. So it all works out in the end.

This week there was a video on Instagram of the girls at the dance school getting ready for their first competition of the season coming up very soon. They've all been working really hard and I know they'll do well.

February 6th - the roller coaster continues

Okay Mother Nature - please bring on some winter! Our weather has been an insane up and down swing. One day it's +10' and then the next it's -16'. Up and down - we have to keep two sets of outdoor clothes on hand at all times.

Once again a pretty quiet week. The highlights of our week was needle felting on Friday and Craft night at Sharyn's on Sunday. But that's winter for us retired people!
Here's the first two needle felting projects. Quite an interesting old fashioned craft. 

My needle felting projects so far...

 I'm also happy to have time to spend out in my craft room. I'm just playing around with some scraps of fabric I had in  my stash and made some place mats. I also made a table topper for Valentines.

After much back and forth consideration, I decided to go ahead with our Valentines lunch.The invitations are done and some delivered so now I'm at the point of no return!  We have a small catering job a few days before, hence my ambivalence, but really  I have no excuse. However we won't have goats giving birth at the same like we did last year. It did provide the entertainment factor though.

Lloyd is still busy planning his trip at the end of March. He's really looking forward to it. He's got his flights all booked as well as his accommodations.  One of the plans is a home stay, where you actually go and stay with a family. He's really looking forward to that one. Everyone is so surprised when he tells them that he's going by himself and are astounded at that fact. They obviously don't know us very well. Traveling solo is something we're both really good at. Maybe next year we'll go somewhere together. That would be different.

He's been ordering super light weight items to take with him, as he's hoping to travel with just a back pack. It's going to be quite the adventure.