Post #601

Got half way to Newfoundland and my flight turned around.

The weather was so bad that we couldn't land.

I'm waiting at the airport until I can get another flight at 8pm.

Gah.

Best Husband Ever

Ok, I'll admit it, I'm still recuperating from the weekend. It's kind of exhausting, playing hostess to 140 people. It's more exhausting when you don't sleep well. It wasn't for lack of comfort... because let me tell you - those beds at the Lord Nelson are like sleeping on a cloud. I woke up both nights with the weekend's agenda running through my head. Ugh! Shut off, brain, shut off!

I'll also admit that I've been so wiped out these last few weeks, what with travelling, getting ready for the conference and then attending the conference, that I haven't felt inclined to knit anything that I can show you - (No worries, IL, I'm still plugging away at your piece!) - Thus I must apologize for the distinct lack of knitting photos on the blog. For that matter - any photos.


Now, I'm sure you're wondering about the title to this post. Mr. Happy left the house this morning, before the crack of dawn, to travel to Toronto. A friend of his owns a cottage in the Muskokas and that cottage is the ultimate destination. A group of about 8 guys are headed to the cottage for the weekend. They're flying in from all over Canada and I believe that one is even coming from Dubai. Mr. Happy hasn't been able to get together with these friends in years. The annual cottage gathering is an old tradition that started when they were in high school together. Mr. Happy only just found out that he was able to get away from work in order to join the gang. Needless to say, he was pretty excited about it.

He promised to buy me a present while he was in Toronto. While I don't usually buy him presents on business trips, I wasn't going to turn down such an offer. Tonight, he navigated the Toronto transit system and found his way to Lettuce Knit.

Once there, he found himself amidst the Wednesday night knitting group. They had received advanced notice of his arrival and asked to see his socks so as to ensure they had the right husband. Mr. Happy gamely lifted his pant-legs to show off his orange socks. He then called me and passed the phone to Megan so that I could let her know which yarn I wanted to go along with the pattern I had requested.

As if I didn't already love him with all my heart and soul...

Travellin', Doin', Makin'

Travellin'

This past week I was in Newfoundland for a total of 35 hours. I flew in at 9:15am on Wednesday morning and flew home at 8:00pm Thursday night. Let's not talk about the turbulence on the way home Thursday night. It's the first time I've ever been that freaked out on a plane.


Doin'

I was in NL for my annual trip to the student career fair. I spent Wednesday night talking to students in various stages of their program and I spent Thursday having one-on-one interviews with students who will be graduating in the spring.

Surefire way to get a pouding headache? Spend an entire day doing interviews. And drink more coffee than you usually do!


Makin'

Friday morning, after getting to sleep in for the first time since last Saturday, Mr. Happy and I took a trip out to a local fabric store where I bought some things that I needed to make this:

Forgive me, Knitters, for I have sewed.

Pattern: "Wasp Bag" from Machen Machen.
Fabric: lightweight denim exterior, lightweight cotton interior.

The instructions confused me a little, but the design is easy enough for an inexperienced seamstress like moi to figure out.

I made a freezer paper stencil of the Minou silhouette that Angela sent to me.

Now I just need some glittery buttons for the handles.

I am so fricking excited about this thing. You have noooo idea.

Running Away From Home

Last Thursday Mr. Happy announced that he was taking Friday night and Saturday off (nothing revolutionary for those with 9-5 jobs, but quite out of the ordinary for him). As soon as he said it, an alarm went off in my head:

Me: Let's run away.

Mr. Happy: Ok, where to?

Me: We have a gift certificate to Oak Island! [1] Ohhhhhh... we can watch cable TV!

Mr. Happy: Ohhhhhh, that's right! Let's go!

So we set out for Oak Island. After checking in, we decided to drive back to Chester for supper. We ate in the F'ocsle Tavern (delicious pan fried haddock) and then, as it was a relatively rain-free evening[2], decided to walk around the town.

Just as we were about to enter a corner store, Mr. Happy noticed a Chester Playhouse sign stating that Old Man Luedecke would be playing there, that night! We turned around and saw that there were people standing outside the Playhouse - it was our lucky day - intermission!

We ran over and talked to the lady in charge. She let us in for 1/2 price and we got to see the rest of the show! While we waited for intermission to end, Chris (aka the Old Man) came into the lobby. He was surprised to see Andrew there and came over to talk. It was the first time I had had a chance to meet and talk to him. What a great guy; he's just as genuine as his music. With intermission ending, we went in and found a seat in the playhouse.

If you haven't heard him before, please check out his music. It's not every day that I fall in love with the music of a banjo player.

Here's his web page and here's his myspace page

Mahone Bay in the fog

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel and then headed to Mahone Bay where, of course, I went to Have A Yarn. I've been meaning to pick up yarn to try out a particular baby sweater pattern[3]. If you are pregnant and a friend of mine, this may or may not be for your baby. It may just be going into my gift stash. Yes, I have a stash of gifts for young and old alike. No, I don't think it's weird.

Here's a picture of the cuff:

I also picked up some Lana Grossa sock yarn to make socks for my niece. They're quite splashy. Despite having already cast on for this project, I have no photo of it. The yarn is from their "Sunset" collection - It's the sock in the middle of the picture Girls just wanna have fun, if you know what I'm sayin'.

We left Mahone Bay and headed back "up the coast" to Chester where we wandered in and out of a few artists' shops. Then we had lunch at the Kiwi Cafe.

I fell in love with the colours in the cafe. It was so cheery on that overcast afternoon. Mr. Happy ordered the Adult Grilled Cheese (so delicious - on homemade bread) and I ordered the Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato soup. We did a little sharing:

It was a short trip, but it was really nice to get out of the city and slow down for a while. I'm headed into a very busy time at work, and I know that I'll be thinking of the music in the Chester Playhouse and the visit to Mahone Bay when I'm standing at a booth at some conference this fall.



[1] Thanks again to the very, very kind friends who gave this to us for our anniversary.

[2] There's been so much rain here lately that we no longer classify things as sunny, we classify things in terms of dampness.

[3] I fell off the "Knit the Stash" wagon quite a while ago, but must note that I have definitely curbed my insane yarn-buying habits. I've decided that this "knit the stash" plan is more of a lifestyle change than a cold-turkey diet. Whereas before I treated the LYS as a all-you-can-knit buffet, I’m trying to make better, healthier choices. It’s much easier to do now that I don’t visit my LYS every single weekend. I've got my eye on some of the new Trekking tweed, but I'm going to wait until I get a couple more projects finished before buying it. See? Old Stephanie would have bought it the first day she saw it.

This Week in Stephanie

Good gawd, this was a busy week. 

Monday night I got my hair cut again - I went for a trim but got a cut, if you know what I mean. After my haircut, a certain blog slacker arrived for a last minute sleepover. Despite my best intentions, I didn't get to bed until midnight.

Tuesday night was KOL. I met up with one of the KOLers earlier so we could chat. 

Wednesday, I crawled out of bed at 6am to attend my company's charity golf tournament. No, I don't golf, silly. We have to work at the tournament. And we work hard*. But I did get to spend my day like this:

I sat at the 4th hole and explained the "closest to the prize" game that we had set up. It was our first year running that game so the person in charge of organizing the tournament volunteered me to work that tee. It was quite nice at the 4th hole, the sun was shining, there was a hawk flying in the air, the golfers were friendly and funny... and the icy cold wind which was blowing off the lake made me wish I had worn my long stripey socks.

I did a lot of schmoozing with the golfers who came through. They would pull up to the tee, see me sitting there, and would say,

"You're knitting?"

My reply (only to those I knew well) was, "Hey, I may be knitting, but you're golfing. I don't think either of us are in a position to criticize."

On Thursday, I again crawled out of bed at "arse crack o'clock" to drive to Blackville, NB with my coworker. We drove the 4.5 hours to Blackville for a 20th anniversary celebration. We stopped for coffee, but not for lunch, so by the time we were almost there, I was threatening to eat one of the porcupines who had dared to cross the highway (and hadn't made it). Now, I usually try to keep the blog and work quite separate, but I have a good reason for talking about this trip. When we arrived at our destination, this was waiting for us. This, right here, ladies and gents:

is the best damn slab cake I've ever eaten in my life! It was marble cake with the creamiest, lightest frosting. It came from Patty Cakes in the Miramichi. If I ever meet the woman who made it, I'll kiss her right where she eats.

After about 4 pieces, my coworker looked at me and said, "Stephanie, I think you're going to have to drive."

I replied, "Why, Dave?"

Dave burped and said, "I've had too much cake."

heh heh. It was that good.

Dave did drive, despite the sugar high, which allowed me to snap pictures on the way home. This:

is a sure sign that we were in my home province of New Brunswick.

And this:

is a disgruntled postal employee perhaps? (CUPW: Canadian Union of Postal Workers) Needless to say, we didn't tailgate him.

When we arrived home, 14 hours later, there was someone waiting to snuggle with me:

Pippin!

He had actually arrived on Wednesday night, but he looked so cute on Thursday night when I got home.

Ok, ok, one more picture:

Whoop, did I mention that someone got sheared? Pippin spent so much time swimming in the ocean and the lake that his fur was well and properly matted. The groomer released him from his furry straight jacket, making it possible for you to see how fit he is from all that swimming. He has amazingly strong legs.

Who has a six pack? Who does? Who?


* I really don't want to minimize the amount of work that goes into the golf tournament: If you've ever organized an event like this then you understand that it doesn't all come together like magic. There are a thousand tiny details to manage both before the tournament and on the day of. By the time I got to sit down at the 4th hole we had already been at the course for 3 hours.

Running Away From Home

Has it really been 12 days since I updated? Whoa.

Let's do the easy stuff first. Last Sunday, Mr. Happy and I ran away from home. It had been ages since we had been out of the city, so we jumped in the car and headed across the Harbour. With Steve-O-Rino's coffee in our cupholders, we drove to Mahone Bay on the South Shore. It's about an hour's drive from our house and while we drove the weather changed from foggy and cool to sunny and HOT...

We were thrilled when we drove into town and discovered that there was a Flea Market in full swing. Mr. Happy is one of those guys who appreciates a good Flea Market - so we parked the car and practically ran to the market. They had some high quality fleas at this place - antique stands were mixed with fruit and vegetable stands - and everyone seemed to know someone else at the market.

We walked around, squinting against the bright sunshine and roasting in the heat (26C?), eyeing the tables of antiques and not-so-long-ago household items. We settled on a set of 38s - the soundtrack to South Pacific in a hard cover book with sleeves for the records - and a more recent album - Tammy Wynette's D-I-V-O-R-C-E.

We stashed our records as well as some local produce in the car and had lunch at The Cheesecake Gallery. Yum.

I can't remember who had blogged about eating at this restaurant, but I am so glad for the recommendation. It was delicious. We didn't just eat cheesecake - we both had sandwiches and salad. My salad had mixed greens, sliced avacado, grilled pears and pistachios. It almost outdid the cheesecake. Almost.

After lunch, we walked around town and of course, took some time to visit a certain store...

...where I bought some yarn:

We continued our walk around town and discovered that Mahone Bay has been invaded by monsters:

After a lovely afternoon of reaffirming our belief that Mahone Bay is indeed a lovely town... we drove home.

Heh heh... I'm behind you... squishing yer motorcycle.

Newfoundland

I was in St. John's a couple of weeks ago for a conference. While I was there, we did a few touristy things:

We visited Conception Bay and ate fish and chips - not just any fish, mind you, cod:

With all due respect to my dear friends in Newfoundland, I think I still prefer haddock. I sincerely doubt the cod had anything to do with what happened later in the evening, but I won't be having cod any time soon. I don't know if it was the all the questionably-refrigerated tartar sauce or all the grease, but I ended up standing in a bathroom stall at the Geo Centre about an hour later with my hand clapped over my mouth staring at the toilet. I was waiting for my sense of dignity to over-ride my nausea. Let me tell you, it took a lot of convincing for my stomach to understand that I could not throw up into a dirty-looking toilet, but I won and held on to my supper.

We went to Signal Hill in the fog:

Which was, surprisingly, a new thing for me. I've been to St. John's about 7 times and have never seen fog there. Snow yes, fog no. We could still see quite a bit of the city and some of the distant coves.

Henry got this close to George Street:

...and then I grabbed him and pulled him back. Luckily, the Cotton Club was undergoing renovations. He was carrying a wallet full of Canadian dollar-bills - I don't know where he got them, but the thought of her Majesty's face folded over the edge of a g-string was enough to make me tackle him.

I did go to the yarn shop while I was in town. I even met a knitter at the conference (Hi Catherine!) who wanted to go with me. Catherine was working on a sock when I passed her booth - Knitters always find each other. We don't need a secret handshake! Anyhoo... I said, "Hi, is that Opal 6-ply?"* and she said, "Why yes it is." and the next thing I knew, I was telling her that I was heading to the shop and that she should come with me.

Catherine is from Vancouver and wanted to find herself some Fleece Artist... of her own... I showed her the project I was working on at the time (a Travelling Vines shawl made with a Silk/Camel blend - yes, camel) and I thought she was going to shove it into her bag and make a run for it. And I don't think I could have caught her. She had longer legs than me. Lucky for me they had some nice FA for her. Oh, and while I was there, I introduced her to Ilga Leja's patterns!

So, to sum up:

Tourist attractions, check

Seafood dinner, check

Visit to a yarn shop with a nice knitter, check

Kept Henry safe from George Street, check

No puking, chu-eck.

All in all, a great trip to Newfoundland.**


*Note: I did not say, " Hi, I'm Stephanie, I'm a knitter too. That's a lovely sockyou're working on." Just "Hey, I know that yarn!" Yeesh.

**Except that I intended to buy a really cool knitting poster at Nonia and I totally forgot to go back to the shop on my last day there!