This year, I spent Christmas at home. It was a wonderful time spent with family and friends. It was very nice to see all my family especially all my nephews and nieces since they grow up soo quickly. Christmas Eve was spent at my sister’s house while Christmas day was spent at my parents/brother’s house.
Here is a short picture video of Christmas 2009
Life has been quite hectic lately. Saskatoon is keeping up busy. With the purchase of our new house and the move at the end of September, time has been flying way too quickly. I have done a few sewing projects, but not nearly enough as I’d like. One of the projects was making a roman blind for the kitchen. It turned out pretty good. I’m happy with the way it turned out. This video shows one of the attempts to make it work correctly. Eventually it did. There is something wrong with the voice and image working together on the video; maybe one day I’ll figure out how to use the uploading tool properly.
I’m currently working on a curtain for my office, since Andrew finished the office for me. I picked my favorite green paint colour and I absolutely love this room. Thanks Andrew!
We still love the house… although it’s a lot of work... especially for Andrew who’s doing most of the renovations... All I can do is watch and say how pretty it is… and it really is. Yesterday we removed the water pump from the pond…that means that our little fish will most likely die since they won’t be able to get the oxygen; poor creatures. I still see them sometimes… so very still underneath the thick cover of ice. I hope they make it through the winter… although I don’t think so…
I’ve been extremely busy at work lately. I’ve been to Edmonton 2 times now and one more trip is scheduled at the beginning of December. So this means that I have not been back home for quite some time now. I miss it a lot! I’ll be home for Christmas!
Wedding plans have not progressed too far. We’ve got the hall, the band, and … well pretty much that’s it. I want to buy my dress (the second one I saw) as soon as I get to Toronto. We also have to start working on our invites, or we’ll end up with no people at the wedding. I’m really excited, and according to my little cell phone countdown, I have 304 days left till the big day!
So back in February I planted some herbs, tomatoes and sunflowers. I have to say that my kitchen has turned into a garden; it's good that I have a big kitchen. My tomatoes have grown huge and they are now growing flowers. Soon there will be fruits. My sunflowers are massive! The tallest one is over 6 feet and growing everyday.
Here are some photos.
My Tomato plant.
About a month ago.. The Sunflowers are on the floor, and tomatoes are on the stand.
This is a bag/purse I made for myself two weeks ago. I took the pattern from
jarolinecreative. The pattern was very easy to work with, but I would pick a different type of fabric next time. I used a drapery fabric which was too thick, and it didn't help that I got the thickest interfacing that there is. But everything worked out great at the end. Even my inside pocket came out ok. Overall I'm very happy with my new bag :)
Here are some photos:
I found a really fun sewing pattern online some time ago and I’ve always wanted to make it. I took the pattern from nunodoll. This website features some amazing work by Runo. She is soo talented and I’m soo happy she made this pattern available to everyone.
I started making my doll 9 days ago… and it was soo easy to make. I had a lot of fun making “Timmy” that is what I called him. I gave him different hair made out of fur…which Runo was also nice enough to demonstrate online.
So here it is my newest creation.
This is Timmy.
The process of how I made him can be found here.
In the past I have never grown anything except house plants, and for most part I think I did a good job. Recently I have decided to start my own garden. In the spring I am hoping when the outside grass arrives, we can have a small section separated for growing vegetables. In the tray I have planted, Oregano, Basil, Chives, Rosemary, and two types of tomatoes. The only problem is that I have not marked which pellet contains which plant. I guess when more leafs start to grow they will be more distinguishable. I have planted those seeds 6 days ago, and already they have grown soo much. Soo Cute!
While visiting Toronto a week ago, I had the opportunity to go visit my cousin in Elliot Lake. The drive was about 5.5 hours, and both days were very sunny so there were no problems on the road. Elliot Lake is a small town of roughly 3000 people. It's a small and charming community. I am hoping to go back there in the summer to relax on the beaches and swim in the lakes. Very nice area.
The cold weather has arrived…the temperatures went from -3 degrees on Friday to -24 on Saturday, -27 on Sunday and the week looks like it will have similar weather every day. The nights are really cold -34 degrees plus wind-chill of -44. So I can now say that this is the coldest that I have ever seen or experienced and I’m not sure what to think about it. Yes it’s cold, and I hate it, but that’s mainly because I don’t have the proper clothing for this type of weather. I told myself that I will invest some money into a nice warm jacket to keep me warm thought this winter. Yesterday Andrew and I took a walk downtown on the way to Church and by the end of the walk, my eyelashes were beginning to get stuck together… that’s because ice formed on them….I took a picture of Andrew on Saturday at -27 degrees when he was shoveling the snow… he looked funny.
Apart from that … my car’s oil is not cooperating with the cold weather, so I can’t drive anywhere… all the cars have to be plugged in for many hours before you decide to leave… and shopping is interesting too. There are plug in spots for cars to keep them warm but they are typically away from the entrance. Another strange sight I have noticed is that people simply don’t turn off their cars when they go shopping. We drove to Wal-Mart and Costco, and larger trucks, and other smaller vehicles just left their cars running while they shopped. I can’t imagine them being in the stores for too long, but you never get to see that in Toronto.
Since we moved to the new house I decided that I will put up some pictures of all my nieces and nephews, because although I get to see some of them on my monthly visits, I still miss them a lot! So I bought some frames from the dollar store and Andrew was kind enough to glue them in packs of five. It actually turned out alright… I call it my “Wall of Home away from Home”
And lastly, I begun cooking for Christmas already... these are my cabbage rolls… I will have to see how they taste on Christmas Eve.. but I think they turned out ok.
Yup that's me... I have been so busy over the past two months, that I have not had the time to write or ad any entries. I have been back to Toronto twice now, and between traveling and working and school, I have been very busy. I actually wrote my final exam on the 6th, so I am school free for the next 3 weeks or so :). My trips to Toronto seem very fast paced; the time I spend there seems to fly by very quickly, but I still have good time. Work is busy and seeing my family and friends takes up the rest of the time. I am very grateful I get to come down to see my nieces and nephews grow up... because they do grow up quickly. I think I would go crazy if I was stuck in here without seeing them once in a while. I should not say "stuck in here" either... because it was my choice to move here.... :) Soo after my return from Toronto the first time, sometime in early November, we moved into a new house on the south side of the city. It's a fairly new neighborhood with very few homes. We've been here almost a month now and we finally managed to get our place furnished enough so it looks ok. I had to buy a new desk for my office and we bought a kitchen table which I love the most, mainly because I found it on Kijiji, and it only costs us $100, and it fits in soo well.
Other than that, I have not had too much time to explore the city, just occasional shopping for Christmas and just to get out of the house. It's getting darker earlier in here now, and the days are getting very short. The sun does not come up until past 9am and goes down before 5pm. The temperatures have been alright keeping at below -10, but this week it's looking like it will be very cold, -18 the average, and the weekend -22 and -24. Brrrr... I think I will stay at home during those days. I am planning to do some more sewing in the free time I have now that school is over for the semester. I already have some ideas, and there are some stores I would like to see. I will post my newest creations soon.