Gentle Arts Craft Patterns

I was browsing through some old photos this morning and happened across a favourite of mine that I thought I'd share. Jesse the dog has been gone for a few years now and I still miss him. Fifi the kitten is now a senior. She was a wee little abandoned thing that we took in and she thought Jesse was the finest substitute Mom she'd ever seen. He was okay with that. He liked his cats.

I have a friend who creates beautiful stone art work. I'm excited to be listing some of his pieces. Check them out in the "Other" section in my store.

Barbie is taking advantage of the "staying at home" to practice her Tupperware sales pitch on her roomie. All of the dishes are genuine Tupperware, originally either keychains or magnets gifted to me over the years.

My first winter on my own is proving to be a learning experience. On Christmas Day, my sewer quit, or at least became drastically slow. I fought with it for a few days before calling in the professionals. As it turned out it was a fight I couldn't have won. It was tree roots in the line. This week, the water pump that brings water in from the well quit working. I knew it had previously had some issue with the switch, so I phoned a local electrician. That day there was... a wind chill of -55 Celsius and he couldn't get a vehicle to start, but my next door neighbour had a truck inside a heated shop, so he went and fetched him. They were able to get the pump to start, but not to pump water, so I made some calls to find out who to call and brought in some professionals who specialize in water systems and pumps. My well line was frozen! The first time in nearly 20 years. The same wonderful neighbour got a heat lamp down there and in a day it was thawed out, but the pump didn't build pressure. I had water, but I had to go down to the basement and turn on the pump when I wanted to use it, then go back down and turn it off when I was finished. This morning the professionals were back, serviced the pump and got it cleaned up and working again, and explained that it's probably going to quit again because of stirred up sediment that plugs things up. They taught me what to clean and how to do it until the sediment is cleared up. Now I keep thinking about that old superstition that bad things happen in threes. I'm eying my furnace and saying "Don't you dare!"

This morning was -39 Celsius - cold enough to finally make me sew the missing button back onto my parka. It's always nice to have help with a job like that.

It was -37 Celsius when I got up this morning. Definitely a chicken soup with dumplings sort of day.

Charlie and I have an agreement. When I let him out for a run after dark, he gets a treat when he comes back in. It works well and makes him more inclined to hurry in when I call him. Tonight it's cold and windy. He asked to go out so I opened the door. He went out, spun in a circle on the step, came right back inside and poked his nose at the treat can. I guess technically he's in the right but I think I've been had!

Covid rules for here were that people should celebrate within their own household with one exception. People who live alone could interact with one other household as long as there were no more than five people total. So my sister, her husband and an adult daughter who lives with them came to my house for Christmas. I was in the shower Christmas morning when I heard a faint beeping sound. First I thought I was imagining it, but then it suddenly dawned on me that it was the... water alarm in the basement. I turned off the water and got out so quickly that I didn't even properly rinse my long hair, and I hurried downstairs for a look. There wasn't a major flood, but a small puddle around the floor drain which wasn't going anywhere. I got dressed quickly and hurried outside to the septic field. It happened to be pumping out when I got there, so I knew that part of the system was fine and not frozen up. It had to be a blockage of some kind in the house portion of the system. I kind of knew what needed done next and could probably have handled it myself if necessary, but as it happens, not only do I have wonderful blood relations, I have wonderful in-laws. My brother-in-law spent a portion of Christmas Day snaking my floor drain for me and got me all fixed up. That was the best Christmas present I got this year! When my husband knew that he was terminal, he worried about me being alone on the acreage and who I should contact about problems. He told me that no matter what the problem was, the first person I should phone was this particular brother-in-law because he was a good guy and very knowledgeable about a lot of things and would look after me. As it happened, I didn't even have to phone him. He came through my door right on cue.

It's cold out today and I had nothing to do. Well, actually lots to do but nothing that I really felt like doing. So I filled my cookie jar instead. That's probably not a good idea now that I live alone, but Charlie is up for sharing. He sat by my feet and bummed bites of cookie dough all through the process.

We didn't get the rain that they threatened us with, but it's sure windy out and my sidewalk is full of drifts again. I saw a sundog peeking through the trees.

I'm still playing with dolls today. I made them some Christmas cards. I downloaded some images of cards, sized them down to an appropriate size for Barbie and printed out a bunch of them on a sheet of card stock. Then I cut them out with a ruler and x-acto knife. I wasn't quite fanatic enough to try to print a message inside or to make envelopes for them. I think they might lay flatter if I run an iron over them, especially to flatten the fold.

I didn't do any decorating this year and wasn't really planning to, but seeing a niece post pictures of a Barbie house she's building for her little girls made some of my Barbies jealous and they wanted a tree trimming and gift wrapping party. I obligingly cut them a tree and I see they've got it nicely decorated. I don't know about the gift wrapping though, as it appears someone brought a whole case of wine to the party. I'm guessing it was the one sitting on the floor.

It's a beautiful blue mild sunny day today, perfect for playing ball in the driveway with Charlie and wandering around the back yard with Sam. Fifi, the old girl, just peeked out the door, demanded new food, and went back to bed.

It's cold, cold, cold out today. A good day for snuggling up with a cozy blanket, a book and a lap dog. Even if the lap dog is a bit on the large size.

I tucked my cross stitch stand out of the way in a corner over Christmas. I went to get it out this evening and discovered it was in use.

I went out to a museum board meeting this evening (small group, all masked) and when I got back the house seemed a little cool so I went to nudge the thermostat a tad higher. The furnace was turned off! Pushed as far to the left as it could go! Sam likes to climb around and poke at things. He pulls things off my bulletin board, plays with the blind pulls, etc. but I never would have thought of this one. It's right above the printer which he likes to sit on. Luckily I was only gone for an hour and a half.

I made myself oatmeal for lunch today. Not instant oats or even quick oats, but regular old-fashioned slow cooking large flake oats. I waited until it was done to make the toast because oatmeal is just better with a side of hot buttered toast. I sat down at the table, sprinkled on some brown sugar and opened a new box of milk from the fridge, one with a few days yet before the best before date, tipped it up and out came foul smelling slime into my porridge. There may have been a couple words of "shop talk" in my dining room if anyone but Charlie and the cats had been here to hear me. I'm stubborn though. I threw out the whole mess and started over with some UHT milk out of the cupboard.