5 And A Beagle

Tagged by Justine at After Asia...

What were you doing 10 years ago?

We were 5 without a beagle and I felt like I had a new lease on life because the youngest was starting pre-school which meant there were two days a week where I was FREEEEEEE for 2 hours.

What were you doing 1 year ago?

I was just discovering blogs and re-discovering a love of knitting

List five creative things you want to achieve this year:
Re-do my bedroom - flooring, walls, furniture, linens (ah to dream)
Renovate the main bathroom - plywood floor has become tiresome
Renovate the kitchen - 30++ year old cabinets and plywood floor has become tiresome
Make a memory keepsake for mother and father (both turning 75) and father-in-law (turning 80)

List five snacks you enjoy:
chocolate chip cookies, dried mangoes, yogurt covered raisins, hmmm-I'm sure there's more, I just can't think of them right now.

List five things you would do if money were no object:
go to town on the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom renovations, buy a summer cottage on a lake, buy a house in Italy.

List five bad habits:
procrastinating, losing my temper too easily/often with the kids,
Okay, I've got lots more - but do I really have to share them with you?

List five things you like doing:
traveling, knitting, sleeping, reading, needlepoint

List five favorite gadgets:
MP3 player That's it - I'm not a gadgets person

Name one thing you like about yourself:
Right now I'm not too sure. It's late, I'm tired, I want to go to bed.
Okay, how's this...I like that I'm willing to try new things. This may not seem like much, but believe me, I've always been quite shy and I'm finding that as I 'mature' (nice way of saying as I get older), I'm not so afraid of taking chances anymore.

Knitting content:
Once again, I'm digging into the archives because I don't have a camera that I can download pictures from and I don't even have a scanner that's co-operating right now.

Here is a not so great picture of some of the recycled sari silk that I recently got. Not sure yet what to do with it.

I'm sure if you look closely at the deck of the ferry, you'll see THIS poor dejected object wishing its owner would TURN THAT MP3 PLAYER DOWN so he could hear when something of his hit the floor with a thud.

#3 came home for the weekend and in the hurry Sunday to catch the bus for his 5 hour trip back to the island (honestly, he could fly to Toronto in the time it takes to bus and float and bus again to the UVic campus) he more or less threw his stuff into his backpack and rushed out the door. Sometime Monday night he phoned to see if maybe he'd left the camera behind because he couldn't find it in his room.

We searched high and low and couldn't find it here either. Now to digress a little, we had company over on Sunday night and I don't know about you, but sometimes in this house (okay, most times in this house) there's a mad panic to clear the clutter and 'junk' out of sight of guests. So a few things (okay, quite a few things) were shoved into the bedroom. There was a chance the camera was buried under something.

After a second search this morning, I felt pretty confident in denying possession of the camera.

I asked #3 to retrace his steps. You know, try and recall the last time you saw it, try and think of possible places it could be. He was drawing blanks. The most ridiculous comment from him though was "Okay, I don't want to be blamed for this. It's not my fault that I can't find it. I just don't want 10 types of ---- coming my way for something I'm not responsible for." WHAT!?!

I'm thinking that due to the fact that he was the last to see it and it was him that was taking it back to Victoria, the most likely person to have misplaced it would be.....HIM. How was he going to dodge blame? All right, so he was accused in error of being the cause of December's plumbing nightmare, but the missing camera had his name all over it.

But this story does have a happy ending. I called BC Ferries this morning and lo and behold, they have the camera. Some kind, honest soul found it on the floor of the lounge and turned it in to Lost and Found. Thank you kind person! and thank you to all of you who turn lost items in to a L & F.

And here for the knitting content....

Last year's shedir from knitty.com. Made for a friend who was undergoing chemo at the time and who now has a full head of hair and a clean bill of health.

Katrina has tagged me and although these answers will expose just how unexciting I am...here goes
Four Jobs You Have Had In Your Life:
1. Waitress
2. Bookkeeper
3. Human Resources Administrator
4. Mother (ongoing, with no monetary compensation)

Four Movies You Could Watch Over and Over:
1. Any of the Pink Panther movies with Peter Sellers
2. Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. (One a year. Does anyone else laugh out loud at Cookie Monster's attempt to write to Santa?)
3. Out of Africa
4. hmm - can't think of another one

Four Places You Have Lived:
1. Burnaby
2. Vancouver
3. North Vancouver
4. (Only those familiar with the lower mainland of Vancouver would realize that these three cities are all within spitting distance of one another. I've never lived further than 10km from where I grew up. Sigh)

Four TV Shows You Love To Watch:
1. Grey's Anatomy
2. Dead Like Me
3. Amazing Race
4. Faulty Towers- even though I've probably seen each episode dozens of times

Four Places You Have Been On Vacation:
1. Italy
2. England
3. California
4. Hawaii

Four Websites You Visit Daily:
1. Bloglines
2. Yahoo
3. U of C (taking distance ed courses-yikes who's got the time)
4. Google

Four Of Your Favorite Foods:
1. Homemade tortellini
2. Sushi
3. Lobster
4. Spare ribs

Four Places You Would Rather Be Right Now:
1. Val d'Non, Italy
2. Kaanapali Beach, Maui
3. London, England
4. Knitting in an isolation chamber where I don't have to listen to a complaining 12 year old

Four Bloggers You Are Tagging:
-consider yourself tagged if you want to play!

Wow, the power of the Harlot is even greater than that of Mary Poppins. Remember the spike in visits caused by those Mary Poppins photo seekers? Well that pales in comparison to the spike from curious Harlot linkers. Is there such a term?


I'm in full training mode for the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics. I've decided to make an entrelac baby blanket for my husband's cousin in Italy. It seems like a fitting connection - the Olympics are in northern Italy and the cousin is in northern Italy. I've never tried entrelac before, but the Lady Eleanor from Scarf Style caught my eye so it was off to google to find instructions on the pattern. Laura from Sugar Bunny Boulevard had assured me that it was a snap, but I have to tell you it's taken me two nights and some frogging to finally get it.

Next it's off to the yarn shop to pick out the colours. 16 days in February? I think I can handle that.

I'm wondering though if this competition of the Harlot's could qualify for a government grant. Maybe a little subsidy for the yarn purchases we'll all need to make. With all of the power she wields, I think Stephanie should contact the COC. Or maybe the Arts Council of Canada.

Friday, the answers to Katrina's meme

Labels: Entrelac

This is a watercolour picture of our house. It was a gift from our neighbour down the road, unfortunately the quality of the photograph isn't the best and doesn't do proper justice to the painting. This is what our house looked like during the brief time we had snow.

If you were to look in the window on the far right, you'd see these on the floor of #5's room. Fuzzy feet from knitty.com.

Of course, there are times you'd probably have to lift a layer of clothes to find them.

If you took a look in the next window, you'd see these just about anywhere in #4's room. Rib and cable socks from Interweave Knits -Fall 2005.

Here they are posing rather demurely in the sock drawer. But just before the picture was taken they were getting a little too cozy for my liking, with the dust bunnies under the bed.

Then, if you were to head on down to the living room window you'd see this

The RR needlepoint is finished and ready for the mail. Not the best photograph, but I was in too much of a hurry to wait for better lighting.

Finally, should you open one of the garage doors... you'd see THIS under construction in anticipation of another 40 days and 40 nights of rain. When is it going to stop? Oh wait, it did stop for a day, didn't it. Just in time to keep us from breaking a 53 year old record for the number of consecutive days of rainfall -now we have to start all over again.

***A big THANK YOU to all, for your sweet b'day wishes! I had a wonderful day and it was made all the nicer by your thoughts and wishes.***

As I spend this weekend living the last two days of my 45th year, I happened upon these two 'pearls of wisdom'.


Everyone is the age of their heart.
--Guatemalan Proverb

To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.
--Bernard Baruch

Pretty much sums it up, I guess.

Have a great weekend everyone. Knitting and needlework to post on Sunday.

When I was around 15, 16 years old, it seemed like most of my friends were either getting braces or glasses or both. I, thankfully I'm sure for my parents, had both straight teeth and perfect vision. But as I mentioned in a past post, I'm a kind of "grass is always greener..." person. I used to wish I needed glasses. Call me crazy. I also used to envy one of my cousins who had naturally curly hair. Mine was poker straight. I used to envy another cousin who had beautiful thin blonde hair. Mine was thick, thick, thick and brown. Well, now that we're all older, the cousin with the curls goes through quite a regular procedure to straighten it and the other cousin and I have the same colour hair; grey. (That is we would have if we both didn't use those handy little products to cover the grey.) Another thing that we've acquired now that we're older - glasses. All I had to do was wait 30 years. Of course now that I have them, I don't want them.

Here they are posing with my newest project.
Yes Li, you thought this was a knitting blog, but it's taken a slight detour. Quite some time ago, I signed up for a needlepoint RR with someone in Italy. I have to stitch a flower and send the canvas off to someone in Missouri while I wait for a canvas to arrive with a flower stitched by someone in Belgium. Eventually there will be a rotation involving 6 of us and I should end up with my original canvas back with the addition of flowers stitched by the other 5 women. This has to be in the mail by the 15th. After that, it's back to the socks.

While I must say I am thrilled by the unexpected spike in visits to this little ol' blog...I'd sure like to know why this image is attracting so many.

Up to 70% of the visitors have come to this site because of a google search for this image. Could someone please let me know why? This mystery is driving me to distraction. (not that it takes much to drive me anywhere...distraction, crazy, around the bend...)

Another fresh year is here,
another year to live!
To banish worry, doubt and fear,
to love and laugh and give.
- William Arthur Ward