Thursday, October 28, 2010

The Plant that Won’t Die

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This basket was sent to my grandfather’s funeral by my (then)18 year old babysitter and her family.  K doesn’t like to be referred to as the babysitter anymore, we call her our first born! When Hubby and I first got married my sister was pregnant with my first nephew.  She took a job caring for 2 little girls during the day and when she had appointments and when she had the baby I helped her out.  Shortly after my nephew was born she had to move out of town and the 2 girls became my daytime job.  I shouldn’t really call it a job.  I really enjoyed both of the girls and loved spending my days with them.  I stayed on with them for almost 3 years and in those 3 years I got so close to the girls that after they were both in school we remained in contact. Out of both girls K has stayed the closest.  We have road tripped together, laughed and giggled together had a few drinks together…We are friends.   

I wasn’t really surprised to see a tribute from K and her family when we arrived at the funeral home for the first visit.  This girl is wise beyond her years and she enjoyed going to Nana and Grampa’s house as much as we did.

When we were leaving to come home after the funeral I picked a piece of one of the plants off to bring home and start my own so that I would have a part of the basket for myself.  The slip survived the long journey home in February and sat in the kitchen window in a glass of water for weeks.  Finally it had roots and I picked up a little blue pot at the dollar store and put it in some soil.  I didn’t grow a whole lot, but held it’s own.  In April friends of ours were going to be overseas for almost 2 weeks and asked if we would watch their cat.  I said yes and brought the cat home with me to meet our cat.  After a few days the 2 cats became fast friends again.  They stayed together while we were away at the funeral at our friend’s home.  Our guest cat seems to like eating the leaves off of plants.  I thought for sure that my plant was done.  I moved it into the bathroom window where it gets plenty of light and can’t be reached by any of the felines in the house and it grew leaves again.  I was really excited.

The plant grew to be about a foot tall and I though it was time to cut it in half and put another piece in water to root.  The piece in the water is doing well, no roots yet, but the plant in the pot went brown and died.  I just left it hoping it would revive itself and nothing seemed to be happening.  Because it is up in the bathroom window I can’t see into the pot unless I actually take the pot off the sill and look.  I did this the other day thinking that I’d pull it out and wait for the other piece to show some roots and then I’d put it in and see what would happen.

Here is what I found when I looked into the planter today.

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The plant that won’t die!!

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Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The Final New Layout

I had done a Google search looking for a template that was "me".  I can across my current theme and fell in love with it as soon as I saw it.  I followed all the directions and downloaded the template and made the changes to the blog itself.  The one thing that I really wanted to do was add my own pictures to the top of the header.  I did some more Googling and came up with the answers.  I spent some time choosing and resizing the pictures and got everything into place when I realized that some things were a little bit out of sync with the entire template.


The Original

My photos added


The problem that I ran into was that the brown in the middle where the actual blog post covers was showing.  I had no idea how to fix it.  That's when I turned to the designer of the template Anisha who has her templates over at Splashy Templates.  I went to the template page and posted a question about my problem.  Within hours I had a reply from Anisha with a complete explanation about what was wrong with the changes I made complete with directions on how to fix it.  I had a hard time and she offered to fix it for me.  Within a few emails including the pictures I wanted and less than 2 hours she had me up and running with exactly what I wanted.  I am thrilled to say the least and can't thank her enough for all her help!

If you are looking for a new design be sure to check out her work!  You won't be disappointed!

Project 365-Days 19 to 44

I'm still going at it!  I bought some macro filters for my Canon and am having some difficulty adapting to them, but will keep trying!

Here is an update of them


From Behind



Sunflowers
Pretty Yellow

Dandelions..in October

Frosted Mums

Ghost Kids

Shelby

Weiners

Last Bloom

Cousins

Refreshments

Hermit Crab without it's shell

Last Bloom Frosted

Night Sky

Fall bouquet

Last Bloom Again

The Road

Funky Hat

Rainbows

Flickers

Flags

Above the Clouds

Rideau Locks Empty

Lily Blooming

Dried Blooms

New Life



Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Accomplished so far this week!



After a weekend get away and a very lazy day yesterday I sat last night and finished a very simple and easy hat and mitten set that I hope will fit the little girl next door for her birthday next week.  The mittens are the basic pattern that I use.  Instead of doing a cuff off ribbing I used the main blue to cast on and then knit one row before adding the eyelash.  I knit 2 inches and then knit 5 rows of stocking stitch before starting the thumb gusset.  The hat is just a very simple rolled brimmed hat and did the embellishing on the brim the same as the mittens.  For the trim on the top of the hat, instead of gathering the top stitches and sewing them, I used each one and casted on 18 to 21 stitches then casted them off. 






Today I sat for a few hours and sorted through all of my yarn.  I save all the bags that we get our sheets and comforters in!  They have zippers and are see through.  I made 3 piles.......
To go to a local daycare to see what they can use.  What they can't will be donated

Might list some of this on eBay

My keep pile....yikes

Ten on Tuesday

Ten Ways to Enjoy Halloween

1.  Carve a Jack O Lantern
2.  Decorate your yard
3.  Get creative with your costume
4.  Candy Apples...mmmm
5.  Get lots of candy for the kids
6.  Play some spooky movies
7.  Watch your favorite scary movies
8.  Have a costume party
9.  Dress in orange and black
10.Take the kids trick or treating


Want to play along?  Sign up with here.


Thanks to Carole Knits for the great ideas every week!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Post Number 50! 25 More Things About Me

26.  I want to be an Estetician
27.  Sometimes my hubby drives me crazy
28.  He is a drinker
29.  I'd be lost without him
30.  Some of my best friends were met online
31.  I drive a Ford
32.  I have always had GMC vehicles
33.  I used to be a speed demon
34.  Now speed scares me
35.  I'm not a morning person
36.  I'm  not much of a night owl anymore either
37.  I love to read
38.  I like all kinds of music
39.  My sister is one of my best friends
40.  We used to fight all the time
41.  Even through snail mail
42.  I miss my grandpa
43.  He had an aortic aneurysm when my child was 3 days old
44.  He lived against all odds
46.  We had 6 years we weren't supposed to have with him
47.  My Nana still lives in their home
48.  She still drives at 88
49.  They celebrated 67 years of marriage last year
50.  It's hard to imagine being married that long.

Weekend Recap

I had an amazing weekend!  I started with a flight to Ottawa, shuttled to the Cartier Place Hotel where I checked my suitcase and then took a quick cab ride up to the Rideau Centre and some serious shopping!  I wandered through the Byward Market and then met up with a friend for the night!


The Market is a great place to wander!  There are all kinds of little shops, restaurants, buskers and funky stuff to look at and buy.  I took a wander into Sassy Beads and picked up some beads for myself and while I was there I made a bracelet for a friend of mine who recently broke on of hers that was a gift to all of us from another friend.  The one that she broke meant a great deal to her so I picked and sorted through the store and came up with one for her that has the letters "YGG" in the middle.  She is a university student at the age of 48 and You Go Girl has become a mantra!  She was thrilled as was I!  I bought some chinese pajamas for the girls and a hat for a little guy.  I ended up going back on Saturday and bought more hats for all three kids!! We are going back to Ottawa in 2 weeks for a wedding and I scored a great suit at The Bay that was 40% off and because I was a tourist I received an additional 15% off.

Friday night S and I went and did a little bit of shopping, had some dinner and then just went back to our room and relaxed, bitched, drank some wine and had some really good laughs.  Saturday morning we were a little slow moving, but managed to make it to the wedding shower of another friend and met up with the rest of our gang there.  After the shower, I played tourist all alone and wandered through Ottawa and took pictures and marveled at what was around me.  People from all over the world come to Ottawa and very rarely do we play tourist in our own back yard!!  I took some pics......

From the Air

Gotta love Clouds

Ottawa from the Air

More Ottawa

Ottawa Airport

Funky Pumpkins in the Market

Grapevine

The view from our room

In the Market

Part of Parliament Hill

Rideau Locks

Outdoors at the NAC

The Parliament Buildings

The Unknown Soldier

Thought it was pretty

The intersection of the hotel

I spent Saturday night with my cousin and her family and had a great time sharing a little too much wine and conversation in the hot tub.  Sunday was quiet and nice.  The perfect way to end a great weekend and nurse a hangover!