YAY!

Yesterday we took a long overdue drive to one of our favourite places - the Annapolis Valley.

Mr. Happy had been working in the Valley last week on a film shoot. They had shot some scenes at a local beach and he wanted to show it to me. We pulled the sleeping Mogrunt out of the back seat, carefully picked our way down the path to the beach and were treated to this:

The Mogrunt wandered out onto the beach, quiet except for our voices and the cries of the birds flirting (fighting?) above our heads, raised his arms up and shouted...

"YAY!!!!!!"

That was exactly how I felt. It was a beautiful place. The tide was out - and those that know the Bay of Fundy understand that this meant the beach went on for what seemed like forever.

You doubt me? Here, look for yourself. We were about two-thirds of the way from the high tide mark at this point (if the tide was high, we would be under about 15-20 feet of water here):

I grew up on the other side of this body of water - no, not the land you can see on the horizon (that's actually where my dad grew up) - and I still feel a fierce sense of home whenever I'm near it.

The boy had a great time running around on the beach - we eventually took off his shoes and once he got over the feeling of the sand (still mushy and wet from the departing tide) under his feet - and I think he wore off some energy.

When it was time to leave, well, let's just say he didn't go quietly.

Moments after we drove out the road, the sky opened up in the kind of torrential downpour that only seems to happen around farm country. Thank goodness we weren't out on that beach when it happened.

We grabbed some lunch in Port Williams, then headed up to Gaspereau Valley Fibres where I picked up some "Kitchen Sink Lopi" from Legacy Lane. It's listed on their site as a novelty yarn, which something in me finds offensive. It's beautiful, colourful and soft, so maybe it is a "novelty" for the Lopi name. I also picked up a copy of Ysolda Teague's Ishbel. I can't wait to knit that up. Surely I have something in the stash for it.

From there we stopped for a quick visit with the lovely Lala who has always said, "Stop by when you're in the neighbourhood!" Little did she know that we would take her up on the offer one day! If you've not seen Lala's artwork, you must click that link. She's a kindred spirit to fibre lovers everywhere.

After leaving Lala's hideaway, we headed for the farm market where we picked up some Gravensteins (which rival Cortlands as my favourite apple), and pears before grabbing a coffee at Just Us and then heading home.

It was a perfect day, made only more perfect by this:

A double rainbow that arched over our heads. The brightest bow ended right over the highway. And for those of you who have been looking at my photos on Flickr and have quote the "Double Rainbow" song, asking, "What does it mean?"... Let me tell you this:

When a double rainbow ends on the 103, it means that the roadkill is wearing green pants, a green hat and black shoes... and there are gold coins scattered all over the highway.

6 weeks

*Warning: Long Post Ahead!*

I didn't intend to be away from the blog for 4 weeks, but it seems that life has changed a great deal. Does anyone remember inverse proportions from school? It would seem that the amount of time that I now spend online is inversely proportional to the time I spend doing laundry.

(Note to self: get that wool soaker pad made for the bed. No one wants to wash their sheets every day.)

It's been a very busy 6 weeks.

To recap,

Week One: The MILKY WAY
My milk didn't really come in until early Friday morning. So, the kid went from a steady food delivery system on Sunday, to four, almost five days of crappy colostrum supplies for which he had to work HARD...

:: Leaving the Hospital

When the public health nurse came to check him on Wednesday, (one day after he had been discharged from the hospital) he had gone from his birth weight 7lbs 13 oz, down to 6lbs 12oz. To be completely fair, his birth weight may have been "pumped up" a bit by the fact that I was on I.V. fluids for 12 hours before he was born. Regardless, his parental units were completely FREAKED OUT by the lack of milk and took him back to the hospital late that night, less than 36 hours after he had been discharged. The doctor assured us that everything would be fine and sent us home.

At his doctor's appointment the next morning, he weighed 6lbs 10oz (keep in mind - different scales). The doctor scheduled a check up for 5 days later and encouraged us to feed, feed, feed. When we got home, I called in the recruits: Lulubelle arrived with a breast pump and reassuring words of wisdom. JAK arrived too and shared her tales of breastfeeding.

Thursday night after he was born was our worst night. He wouldn't feed on one side, so I pumped what I could and we fed it to him with the dropper from his Vitamin D drops. I was in tears and Mr. Happy, meanwhile, was reading through every childcare book we had, trying to figure out what we could do. Let me tell you, at that point, there are no books that will help you. You need to remember that you have a magnet somewhere, in all the stuff they shoved at you in the hospital, with a breastfeeding help-line phone number. I didn't remember. Luckily, my milk was there with a vengeance the next time he woke up.

On Friday night, he was a different baby. He had lots to eat that day, and drank his fill at midnight that night. The next time we woke up, it was 4am and he was crying, "Feed me!" Mr. Happy and I almost had heart attacks after having slept for "so long" between feedings.

Thankfully, all has turned out well with the milk "delivery system" and at his next checkup, he had gained his birth weight back, plus an ounce. Phewf!

One night after the "milk truck" arrived, I got up around 2am to go to the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror and sent the following text to Angela (who lives on the opposite side of the country, and who I knew was working late):

"Milk came in. Look like tired, old stripper with wonky boob job."


Week Two: DAWNING REALIZATION

How do parents do this with more than one child? How do single parents do this? How do teenage moms do this without support?

:: "Do I look fat in these shorts?"

Also: Pippin visits. Pippin the dog who is never any problem at all. Pippin the dog who knows the drill. Pippin the dog who loves hanging out with his Auntie and Uncle. Pippin spent the week gagging and threw up in the house and outside. We spent the week telling him to "Stop eating grass" and ended up taking him to the vet for a shot of anti-nausea medication.

The week ended with a visit from my BFF, Becca, her hubby and her wee girl. It was soooo great to see them. We hadn't seen their daughter since she was only a few weeks old. She's such a cutie!


Week Three: GETTING USED TO EACH OTHER

:: Naps and Knitting

I spent the beginning of this week with a fever and the chills. We spent the rest of the week hanging out at home and doing our best to behave. The fever, as it turns out, was most likely "Breast Milk Fever", perhaps as a result of a mild case of mastitis. Not fun. I don't recommend it.

:: I kees you back, Dad.

Week four: ROAD TRIP!
It seemed like as good a time as any to hit the road, so we headed out with the Mogrunt in tow.

:: For such a little guy, he sure has a lot of luggage!

He had some very special people to meet:

:: His Great-Grandmother, the mother and wife of the two men for whom the Mogrunt is named.

:: His Uncle Steve. The Uncle who is threatening us with "Junior Dragsters" and the like.

:: My BFF from high school, Leslie. Love her, miss her, wish she lived closer!


and he had some places to go...

:: Lake Utopia, where his mom spent her summers water-skiing.

:: and Grand Lake, where his dad spent his summers wind surfing.

Week Five: HOME

It was a great trip, but if the truth be told, it was great to get home. We've settled in to more of a routine, with bedtime baths being the highlight of the day.

:: Bath time with his Lamby towel from Auntie Kerry.

Week Six: SMILES

I made it out to knitting a couple of times. I've even managed to DO some knitting. You know, when I'm not trying to make this little face smile:

I'll try to post some knitting content when I have a chance. HA! Hopefully it'll be before the Mogrunt's first birthday! This post actually took me three days to compose!

Why Did We Have to Leave?

Re-entry into the "real" world hasn't been the easiest. It was very hard to leave the cottage behind.  Can you blame me when the view from the deck in the evening glows as golden as this?

When something as simple as a walk leads you down a lane this perfect?

Where it's ok if you knit all day long, even when you're a growing boy who only sits still long enough to eat mass quantities of food:

Where swimming is fun for everyone: Humans,

and dogs alike:

When your bed buddy is as cute as this?

Where, when the sun shines, you can't imagine why you would want to be anyplace else?

Back and Blue

I'm back from vacation.  A little blue to have left the wonderful cottage, but happy to have brought the blue skies home with me.  

For those of you wondering if I had been in hospital all week having my foot amputated, the answer is "No".  I consulted a few health care professionals (one being my dad, the pharmacist who is as good as a doctor, trust me) before I left town and their answer was all the same:  Rest, Ice, Elevate, etc.  Which I happily did the night before I left on vacation (hard to do while sleeping, but nonetheless, managed), and on the ride to the cottage... The swelling went down by Sunday morning... and an rather ugly bruise showed up in its place around my ankle.  All is well, though, and I have no pain in my ankle. 

The scratches are healing up nicely and my entire being benefitted from the peace and tranquility of floating in the water in Grand Lake.  (ok, ok, I may have thrown my nephew in a couple of times, always good for stress relief.  Especially when he came up sputtering and shocked.)

Thank you everyone for your concern!  Who says the internet is a cold and lonely place? 

While we didn't have perfectly blue skies during our time at the cottage, it was always clear enough to go swimming every day.  Yesterday started with a thunderstorm, but ended with clear skies and a beautiful sunset.  

I spent last night picking blueberries in the field near the family cottage and am happy to say it was the best crop I've seen there in years.  I was taking handful after handful off the bushes.  

I also had a lesson from Mr. Happy's Auntie Kathy in how to make Grammy Happy's pie crust.  There are some secrets that will never leave the family.  

Anyhoo, I just meant to check in.  Mr. Happy and I are having a fete tomorrow, and I have a zillion things to do before then. 

When I have a chance, I'll share some photos with you.  

Back From Vacation

Mr. Happy and I are finally back from vacationing in our own home. On Jun 27th, we moved out of our room so that we could finally say goodbye to this:

...the 80-year old wallpaper. It's had a good life, and while we really liked it and know that wallpaper is coming back into fashion, it was old and worn and past its prime. It wasn't until I looked at the picture that I realized:

1. Whoa! That's some busy wallpaper.
2. Our room is a mess.
3. Huhn, that's a lot of wall space above our bed. I should get some art or something to hang there.

I moved as many things out of our bedroom as possible and picked up some paint for the project. We decided to paint our room the same colour white as in the craft room. When Mr. Happy and I first got married, we lived in his parents house while they were overseas. Our bedroom there was white and I remembered how bright and cheery it was in the morning.

As you may recall, when I picked out this colour the first time, I had a bit of a problem getting the paint mixed properly. I wrote about it here.

When I went in to get the paint for our bedroom, the young man told me that he had heard about the initial problem. He then took the cans of paint and mixed them for me. I wasn't paying attention to what he was doing as I had other things to pick up. It's Schmamadian Schmire, you can always find things to pick up. Apparently, I should have watched him like a hawk watching field mice having a family reunion picnic in an open field:

Lesson learned: When you pick out a paint colour at the store, INSIST that they look up the colour in their computer. Do not, under any circumstances, encourage them to SCAN the colour. The scanner system seems to be unreliable and produced PINK paint not once, but twice, even though the guy at the counter assured me that it had been "re-calibrated".

When I realized that there was a problem, I went back for more paint. This time, I was armed with a PICTURE of the paint can with the proper formula on the top. Luckily, I had a new haircut, so the guys at the paint counter didn't recognize me. I think I may be getting a bad reputation at Schmamadian Schmire.

I stood at the counter and when the guy started to scan the chip, I asked him to look up the formula in the computer. Then I asked him to show me the formula so that we could compare it with the formula on the can I had at home. It wasn't the same, so I asked him to mix it with the formula I provided from the original paint can. He was very nice about it and a bit shocked at the difference.

While getting the right colour paint has been a pain in the arse, I am really happy with the results. I'm also quite happy with the Debbie Travis paint. I'm just not happy with clerks taking the "easy" way to do things. Scanning the chip rather than looking up the colour seems to be "easier". I've worked in retail from the age of 15, so I know that the "easy" way usually ends up costing more in the long run, either for myself, or the customer.

Anyhoo, here's the finished product:

See?

Bright and Cheery. Crisp and clean.

How To Vacation in Your Own Home

When we first moved into our 80 something year-old home there were 6 rooms that had wallpaper. This included the hallway - which should really count as two rooms because of its size.
This wallpaper dated back at least 40 years if not 80. In the first year that we lived here, we stripped the wallpaper in four rooms. We scraped,*we painted, we plastered, and we cried with joy when those four rooms were done.

And then we rested...

...for a few years.

This rest went on until we could no longer stand walking through the hallway, so we stripped the wallpaper, and wisely** hired a painter to take care of the hallway and a big gaping hole in our kitchen ceiling (plumbers, sigh).

And we rested again. Until the front room reno lit the fire under my arse and sparked a whole new list of home projects. On June 27th, I came home from work and spent my Friday night cleaning out our bedroom as we*** had decided it was high time to say goodbye to the ferny wallpaper in our bedroom.

This gets me to the title of this post. For just over a week now we have been sleeping in the "back bedroom" also known as "Serge's room"**** Mr. Happy and I have been joking that it's like being on vacation in our own house. We've never slept in that room before, so it's kind of like visiting a foreign land. It is also much quieter back there which is a nice change from our room which is on the front of the house.

So, here are my tips on how to have a mini-vacation in your own home:

1. Move all of your things out of your usual bedroom.
2. Turn your bedroom into a construction zone - rip down old wallpaper. Prep the walls for painting.

3. Move into the spare room.
4. Pile your clean clothes on the chairs and floor in the room.

5. Stay up late reading and/or knitting.

6. Delay the work on your room as long as possible so that you can stay on your vacation for an entire week.

7. Take time to make jam and bread in the middle of what could be prime construction time - you're on vacation, you don't have a deadline!

Despite the fun I'm having on this vacation, it will be nice to get back into our own room. Here's hoping it's all done soon.



*80 year-old wallpaper often comes off easily.
**That's still up for debate as the walls could have used another coat of paint.
***More like, I decided and Mr. Happy came home to the construction zone.
*****Serge was our boarder who moved out in 2004, but we still call it his room. We're like parents who keep their kids room as a shrine, only Serge took his Little League trophies and bottles of wine when he left.

Good Friends + Tiny Chihuahuas = Great Vacation

Ok, as you know, I spent the last week of May in Vancouver with my dear friend, Angela, her boyfriend, the Dictator, and their two chihuahuas, Minou and Birdie.

I hadn't seen Angela, the Dictator or Minou in FOUR YEARS and hadn't met Birdie at all. I was a bit nervous that Minou wouldn't remember her Auntie Steph and that Birdie wouldn't warm up to me at all. I didn't want to miss out on tiny dog snuggles...

As it turns out, I had nothing to worry about... Minou remembered me:

Almost every morning I woke up to the sound of her running and jumping onto my bed. Her long tail would be whipping around as she gave me a quick slurp on my nose before sneaking under the blankets to sleep by my tummy. Say it with me, "Awwwwwww!"

Miraculously, I woke up the first morning to find Birdie dancing beside my bed, begging to be lifted up. Birdie, the grouchy dog who acts stand-offish and has been known to bite people she doesn't know, wanted up with me!

I think it is safe to say that I've earned my title as "Chihuahua Whisperer".

Angela mentioned that we are the kind of friends who will attempt to eat a dozen donuts together... but when your friend makes you breakfast that looks like this:

...who needs donuts?

Or when your friend makes Cardiac Arrest Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream:

...and introduces you to Pajos:

(amazing crab cakes, delicious fries and perfect lemonade!)

...who needs to worry about fitting into their pants? Size 6 is overrated.

These two ate with us, and they don't worry about pants:

Lest you think that all we did on this trip was eat and lay about, I will tell you that we went for walks:

We chased squirrels:

We hung out with old friends:

and new friends:

We went shopping:

1. Amy Butler Fabric, 2. And then we went to Tarjay, 3. Koigu, 4. Soya Sauce containers, 5. Bento boxes, 6. watch out for the crocodiles!

We sang:

We sewed:

...and we did other things that burned energy:

...some of us more often than others.