Short Post Today

We had some unexpected, unwanted excitement yesterday. DDIL is 34 weeks pregnant. She went to work and on her way into the building fell pretty hard. Four guys in a van witnessed it, but did not make a move to help her up, ask her if she needed help or ask if she was okay. It took her awhile to get up and then she went into labour. They took her to the nearest hospital, then had to transfer her to a different hospital. Nicole was in for the better part of the day. Good news is that they were able to stop the labour and she is now home resting. An interesting aside, is that she is still going camping today. They told her she is okay and is okay to go, so her, my daughter Gabie, and two of my grandchildren are off to a camp ground not too far away. She will be able to rest, sleep and in general relax for the next three days. Being able to rest, nap and relax are all things she probably would not do at home, so as old Martha says "This is a good thing".  Grandmom (me) has still got a whole lot of sewing to do for the new wee one---- so will I sew or will I do a few chores today? I am hoping I can squeeze in a bit of both.

My dog Roscoe follows me like he is my shadow. So, I am sitting on the sofa the other day having a cuppa. He is at the other end, sleeping away, not a care in the world - he rolls over and finds himself on the floor. Boy did he jump up fast! Then he looked at me as if to say "Why did you do that!". My friend Wes thinks maybe he was just so embarrassed that his eyes were actually shocked and he was saying "You really didn't see that --- right?"   Dogs are so much fun! Latest trick - bring in so much mud, I actually have mud balls on my floor! Gotta love living in a construction zone - a new kind of mess every day to clean up.

Going to be a gorgeous day today and this week. Back to the heat and I am hoping no humidity this time round. Enjoy this day of rest and have a great new week!

Blessings

Jean

Gone......

Summer appears to have left for the year. We are currently sitting at 15C I think that is about 60F or close to anyway. Finally we had rain and boy did it ever come down the last two days. From here on in we may have the odd 2 or 3 days together where it reaches 30 or more, but now we will start getting more 26 - 28 degree weather. Nice. Sad though, as the other day, I was driving down one of my favourite ways home and had to stop to take a second look - there was a nice row of poplar trees with all their leaves turned yellow and a nice pile laying under the trees. I am lead to believe that since we had 30C temperatures way back in March, and no rain to speak of this summer, that the trees have just had enough and want to have their winter siesta. I sure hope this doesn't mean that we will lose a whole lot of trees because of the freaky year. Manitoba already has a lot of trouble with Dutch Elm disease and we are losing a lot of 100 year old trees. By the way, the day I saw the trees was on July 30th - way to early. Normally you start seeing the odd few leaves start to turn around the end of August and the majority are around the end of September.

Summer has been great. I did not hit as many fairs as I had planned to, but I still have a month to go. I may go to a couple yet this weekend. For some of us in Canada, it is a long weekend. Why you say only some of us? Well, some have adopted the idea of a civic holiday. Most of the provinces decided way back that summer is way to short here in Canada and so within a few years, the holiday was born. But, alas not all provinces have picked it up yet. I think it is generally in the Maritimes as well as Newfoundland/Labrador, Quebec and Ontario that don't. Hope they catch up to the rest of the country soon. It is so nice to have a long weekend in the summer.

Summer has also seen me take my first lace making course. I quite enjoy it and hope to keep up with it. After all, my six year old granddaughter tells everyone she meets that Grandmom is learning to make lace and she is going to make all the lace for my wedding dress. Good thing I have a few years to go on that one! Summer has also taken me into the quilt world and a course with a teacher from the US. I was not impressed, so will leave out her name. She did not teach me anything I wasn't already doing, and she was very rude the first day and calling Canadians dumb. Well, if you are going to teach and go to other countries and to peolpe that have paid a lot of money to learn from you, well, you have no business calling anyone dumb, or making other rude comments that she did. This teacher does not like the new way of quilting - sending it out to a long arm quilter. In ways I can see why, but there are a lot of people out there whose forte is not quilting the quilt, it is more design or sewing. She also is against using one line of fabric to make quilts. She thinks that everyone should use fabric from multiple lines. My way of thinking is that if it gets people sewing and being creative, then what difference does it make. At some point these budding quilters are going to probably start to venture out of their comfort zone and learn colour, quilting either by hand or machine or whatever other aspect they find interesting.

We as a family have been looking at cottage/cabins and are now quite close to making a decision. We are interested in a remote area - 3 hour drive, dog sled in, boat in, or snowmobile in. We are very excited and both of the ones we are looking at means that I can quilt, stitch, knit, make lace or whatever looking out over the lake.

What have you all been up to this summer? I hope lots of fun things.

Blessings

Jean