Christmas bells.....

just enough to make it seem colder than it is...











what's that saying? "walk tall and carry a big stick" ..or sumthin? I say sit with your back to the sun and cast a long shadow... and feel all cozy and warm too....

It snowed a bit overnight... and looks like... erm... well, it's beginning to look like too-close-to- Christmas already!

I found some little bear bits today while tidying my crafting room. No legs though so had him/her sitting in a scrunchie to stay upright...

Ruggles wanted to play... so we went outside and I took a few pics of him with the new little sleigh my friend brought me yesterday. Maybe it needs a larger bear...or maybe just several little guys...














hey... hurry up will ya?... this snow is cold on my bum...











acckk.. get it off.... it's melting and I'm getting wet down there ....what do you mean are those my clangers? NO ...they're Christmas bells you ninny!














ahhhh...much better...a warm blankie and a buddy to keep me company... this is more like it. Where's the hot chocolate?

Wordless Wednesday

missed it...

Yes, I did.... totally missed Monday...but, let me lure you in to Tuesday disguised as Monday with a mouthful of chocolate cake ... even if it is the last measly bite .. we can pretend it's Monday 'kay? It was all that remained of Mr. BV's serving (mine was long gone) before I finally remembered the camera and shouted STOP .. !! What a piggy I was!
Remember 5 minute chocolate cake in a mug? Well, when Susan did hers she mentioned the use of butter instead of oil and divvying it up between a couple of ramekins and baking it instead. It truly is much nicer than the rubbery microwave version, although if you simply must have chocolate .. and must have it "now" ! ....... by all means just nuke the mix.

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so, ..... Monday's photo of the week ... we're pretending remember ....??

I just didn't feel like hanging out in front of the computer yesterday.... I was busy re-organizing rooms and storage spaces and closets and, in general, purging unwanted and unused "things".... ooooooh..... does that feel great! We had leftover Shepherd's Pie ready for supper so I had a whole day to do my own thing...except later when somebody needed an extra set of hands to help with gluing on trim for our newly made louvered doors for the back of the stereo units.

We made cupboard doors a few years ago... and they have been in position...looking great...but unpainted for these several years.













Now... with finishing the rooms... we decided to put in some louvers to get some air flow inside the cupboards to help cool the stereo units and also to match the little louvered doors we made for the storage area .. whose doors are on the side wall to the right of these doors, in the exercies room. That bracket on the left set of doors is where my tv hangs ... so I can pound away on the treadmill and not keep looking at the clock to check if more than 2 minutes have passed since I last looked. 40 minutes can speed by in no time while surfing back and forth between Dog Whisperer, Superstructures, Biggest Losers or Boot Camp ... ah, the power of the remote and some entertainment .....














We bought a bi-fold louvered closet door... trimmed the louvered part to the size we wanted... cut and routered a space in the center of our existing cupboard door... glued the louver into position and trimmed the edges to conceal any of the cut area... now... they just need a few coats of paint in the soft sage green of the trim for the rooms... et voila.... aerated cupboard doors.

Some people seem to have trouble finding things to post about, and here am I ... waaaaay too many pics and thoughts whirling around in my poor little pea sized brain. I never stop to think whether anybody will care if I am busy building airy doors .... I just toss it into the mix, becuz...pehaps somebody will be slightly interested or will see my joy in getting my house, my room, or just a door completed and being one step closer to having a totally finished house after 23+ years of renovations. For me it's more like where do I stop>? the trick to decide what and then to jot down something shorter than a mile long....I'm overly long winded, overly opinionated, overly passionate about tiny things or almost non existent things, overly excitable, and, most days, just have too much to say about little or nothing. Oh, well, .... I still like me. That's a good thing isn't it? .... I tell myself it is.












eg: .... a tiny self seeded snapdragon that showed up in the patio ..... how cute is this little guy? I ran right back in for the camera of course....

Mexican souvenir.....

look at that will ya? I hit the big five oh..... no, it's not my birthday.... I just noticed I have 50 followers.... hahhaha....

my horsie from yesterday is one side of a pair of bookends.... almost dainty looking, but very heavy weight wise. A chunk of some beautiful pale green marble (similar colour to the walls) and a solid bronze horse. They are vintage.... many years old...belonged to Mr. BV's folks. They used to be a favourite tourist souvenir from Mexico .... everybody had them. When we first acquired them I thought..oh, great... more junk .... but, we dutifully kept them and they gathered dust in various places in the house and storage spots. Actually they make perfect doorstops. But, yesterday, I dusted them off and polished the horses... and now have them on top of my new "old looking" set of drawers in the office that is taking the place of the old credenza we used to have... which, sadly, is no more... .... proudly doing their job. I kinda like 'em there.











Finally getting the rooms sorted out and finished up.... the office being the smallest of the three .. it is almost finished. Still some boxes of papers to go through and either store in crates in the huge storage area under my craft room...or move some back in here. Storage area sounds good to me. It will keep this room lovely and organized and especially.... ....clear of clutter.














Love how the sunlight plays in patterns over the walls and floor from its brilliance shining through the glass block windows in this room. I will appreciate less clutter...because this is the colour of our new carpet. Guess who wil be spending a bit more time vacuuming? Must be nuts... but, it looks amazing, even stunning...however, you do notice bits of fluff and popcorn and stuff like that on it... well, so far only one kernel of popcorn; we are paranoid about messing up our still new smelling carpeting after waiting so many years....

One slight snag in my organizing...... we may have to upgrade our computer... and somebody is considering a switch to a Mac because they came out with some amazing changes only two days ago... ....that'll surely mess with my head big time! But, at least I am at the point where I am thinking what to put on the walls.....oooh....love that part...yes, that's what I'll do. Think only on the fun things. Perhaps a lamp for the desk...... a pencil and pen tray to put inside a drawer to get rid of the old cup that I used to use on the old desk.... and a new interesting little waste basket...and a .....hey! what do you mean I won't be getting anything for Christmas ????

Wordless Wednesday

Photo a week...

it's Monday....again.... spun by in a twinkling didn't it? The week that is...

Didn't get much accomplished yet again either.... although I did bake breads... and some muffins ...gotta keep the freezer stocked up with lunches and snacks..... got some appointments out of the way and went shopping for an hour today.










Finally got some new runners. My old ones were so embarrassing and so wrecked I didn't dare wear them to the shoe store. Sure didn't want any runners or jock types seeing how far gone they were. I wore right through to the soft foamy inside of the heel.... yikes! I put a lot of miles on those babies. And, I wasn't doing myself any favours by continuing to wear them either.

Here they are...the brand new Nimbus 2010 model.... hahah...just kidding... if you are a fan of you-know-who.... you'll know where that came from.....











Why are they all so shiny this season? and the colours...wow! This was the most subdued I could find ... silver and purple.... apparently purple is "in" big time right now. Gee... again? sheeeesh. As usual, save something a few years and it comes right back in style again. But, for this, I prefer something more like my old ones..... soft beiges and some real looking leather even if the uppers had some light purple on them.... this is a bit.... uh, garish to me.... but, I wasn't having the raging neon hot pink or the wild lime .... maybe for next summer when hopefully they'll be on sale. Decent running shoes are shockingly expensive. I refuse to buy cheap ones for the miles I expect to be putting on .... they feel as comfortable as slippers and are light as a feather too...... I'm gonna try them out on the treadmill in the morning...

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I haven't done any fun stuff with bears or dolls since I finished Madame La Pompadour. This renovation push just took up too much time and energy. But, now, I must find some fun time in my days.














This little sweetie named Darla,was one of the needlefelts that I wish I had never sold. I have tried in vain to recreate her face several times.....











The past two days I've been trying again...and this time... it is getting close. The beads on pins for her eyes and nose are just "test eyes"... they just pop in and out, but give me an idea how she could look ..... and I think with a bit more work... she could almost be a second little Darla.... the nose shape just isn't quite right yet.... When it is, I'll embroider a nose and put in some black onyx beads for eyes. Sure have missed playing with wool and things....

nope.... ... it can't be wordless today..

so it is Word Wednesday.... and the word is snow. About 5 inches now....

After I shoveled... I took a walk around the neighbourhood and got a few pics....














.... a lovely drooping rose.....














everything is still green... fall didn't even happen.... and now....winter......











crabapples didn't get picked...and are still clinging.... saw a magpie and a squirrel in the same tree, busy nibbling some fruit....



























...lovely green fronds of a weeping birch... touching the snow covered ground.....














aha....the mugho pines
didn't mind a bit...














the roses on the other hand probably wondered where the little pointy white hats came from....

uhm...jingle bells? ... photo of the week

a day late again.. and this time I won't even bother to claim I have excuses... even if I do....lol

The doors are now on all three rooms that are nearing completion....the carpet is installed but there are problems to solve in the main room.... my hair is falling out, both of us have a wrecked knee and my nails are down to the quick.... ..other than that...hey, life is wonderful.

On a high note...the new desk and a set of drawers for the office were delivered and the guys were soooo careful I almost cried. "Thanks", my new best friends...!!














Winter arrived overnight...and the flowers were shocked... .. so are all the leaves on most of our bushes and trees ... it was so nice for so long they forgot to turn or drop. Highly unusual...the robins are still madly diving about trying to get some of the last berries.. although they cleaned off the Mayday berries last week...before the leaves even fell off..which they still haven't done...they are a lovely dark burgundy and clinging still. Maybe the robins knew something we didn't.. or don't.... this could be a different winter...... hmmmmm........I don't want to even speculate... I have never really seen them bother with the berries on the Mountain Ash across the street, but they were in and out of there all day two days ago.

I'm nosy

If I visit a blog that intrigues me.... or there might be dolls, bears, or certain types of artsy stuff hiding somewhere...or if I just have a "feeling" that I might like to know more than is first portrayed... then I look around for links.

Some of you are probably like me.... but, lots aren't or don't have enough time to surf around.. .... so, maybe those who aren't have never seen La Clownesse on my Picturetrail site.























The reason I thought of her was Carolyn's mention of it being the 120th anniversary of the Moulin Rouge which immediately brought to mind Toulouse Lautrec ...who seemed to be a fixture around the theatre. My doll was meant to depict his paintings of one of the dancers ... a project for a local doll making club.























































my early trials with Apoxy Sculpt for shoe making... I love that stuff....

I sculpted a face of polymer clay... early days with that stuff as well..it took fooooreevver to get it like this .. I didn't have a clue what I was doing... but, somehow it turned out sort of okay...














I glued on a skin of light stretchy t-shirt material... probably wouldn't try using that again. It is not easy to draw on. The very fine tips of the Pigma pens catches on each fibre... nowadays I like to use the firm spandex type fabrics... so much easier to work on.















an artist from the U.S. sent me this funny little ACEO of my doll.....

Wordless Wednesday

HUH????? !!! Photo a week...

WTF?? !!
Why would anybody do this? ARRGGGhhh!!!

In a small room 12 X 12.... there were no less than a dozen pieces of underlay... INCLUDING THIS PIECE .... cut so strangely you could hardly believe it....but then, if you could have seen the totally bizarro kid that was busy wielding the knife...maybe so....















We always come and go and check on operations with any of our renovation work that we hire out.... exactly because of stuff like this. We seem to have no end of problem with any of the trades.... over too many years to count now.
But, come on...even if you didn't know a frikkin' thing about floor laying... common sense, or something resembling it at the very least.... should tell you something. But.... if you wear skin tight skinny jeans.... with a wide, white belt buckled firmly around your upper thighs...( that would be below the cheeks of your ass folks, and much as I'm given to some exxaggeration on occasion.. I kid you not!!) ..... and the whole of your thin, holey, purple undergarment along with the hairless cheek of your ass is visible....well....I rest my case. Not to mention he was hacking, coughing and sneezing all over the place. I swabbed the house down with bleach when they left.

Which they did .... immediately after I discovered this fiasco happening in just the one room! The head guy of the group of 3 was absent all the time the kid was busy hacking up the expensive underlay. .... @ why us? Why can't we be lucky like so many of the people we know who have renovations done? Unbelievable..... and unconscionable... how dare they try to get away with something like this? I can't even imagine how they thought they were going to get away without floating the floor too...as they obviously were...because they were already throwing down underlay...instead of floating things first...which should have taken a couple of hours.

This was supposed to be the best floorlaying crew... we had specifically talked about it with our salesperson...because we have already experienced the worst..with our hardwood fiasco several years ago.... and a drunk, arrogant contractor that got several things done before he was caught..including taking home our hardwood to his own well stocked garage. Where does it end for crying out loud?

And...now......we are still not done with the shenanigans. The carpet has creases and flattened pile in many areas. They say it happens with regularity...I've never heard of it. They insist it will sort itself out after about a month of traffic and vacuuming, but it not...they have a plan B.... and something to do with heat application. I might have to invite 30 people over each night for that month....seeing as Greg and I won't be much traffic..... or take up tap dancing or something... no, it won't do. So... tomorrow the salesguy will be here...yet again ...to take a look and make some decision on what to do now. Meanwhile.... this is my laundry room














The portion of the pool table that is too heavy to lift, Mr. BV and I did manage to skid into there on a rug... very gingerly so we didn't wreck walls and painting efforts... it's leaned up against my washer and dryer.... that can't stay there a month. I guess they forgot that we are people.... must live ...must do laundry... and it would be kinda nice if we could move the rest of the furniture out of the kitchen, the front room, the hallways and bedrooms and back downstairs where it belongs. You can't even navigate through the front room for excess furniture.

The second really great crew...total opposite of the first... decent human beings... I could have hugged the Dad by the end of the day. I couldn't believe my ears when I overheard terms like "quantum physics" and talk of the Mayan calendar, etc.... being bandied about down here while they diligently worked tearing out glued down underlay and spending two hours floating things and re-doing ..... arrggghhh yet again! Why was this crew not sent to me in the first place? .... Ooooooh... I'm livid. The two of us spent a horrible weekend.... upset with all of it and I was in tears a few times with the situation.
They say 70 % of the things we worry about never occur..... well, lately...more than 90 % of my worries have already come to pass....I'm ready to shove a stick of dynamite up somebody's rosy red rectum!

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thanks for all your concerns re: my back.... I figure it was a rib out of position and managed to press things back with the help of a doorframe. ..... by that night...it was alright.... so physically I'm fine. Mentally...I'm pretty bloody unstable.... nobody better mess with my head anymore this week... or I'll cheerfully strangle them and tear them into manageable size pieces to dispose of.

....... going offline....

I love this... forget where on the net I found it...but, I wanted to leave you with a smile on your face....

.....................supposedly the carpet has been found and shipped ... and the installers will arrive in the a.m .... so... this computer on its temporary desk of a DVD storage case is moving upstairs...in pieces....

The moving upstairs of too much stuff has taken a toll... I think I tore something in my rib area at the back near my spine .. ....or fractured something... good old EDS (Ehlers Danlos) no doubt. I can hardly turn my upper body tonight.... ice pack and Ibuprofen here I come. Maybe a shot of port before bed....

Talk to you next week sometime...or whenever I get this computer back online.... .... I will so be looking forward to new carpet...some new office furniture....and the computer staying in one spot for more than a few days.... and also being at a proper height..hahah.... instead of on hearths... tote bins..etc...there is light at the end of the tunnel.....

Tell all Thursday...

Yesterday's "wordless" is indeed a mushroom omelette. It just happened that for some reason it looked too perfect when I tipped it onto the toast... almost like a piece of fabric with mushrooms printed on it. So...had to take a photo. The slice of the yellow tomato...is the last tomato of the season...those yellows are different in flavour and so sweet. Must try a few more of those next year.

We brought in the pepper plants last night ...good thing too!














Heavy white frost on the rooftops this morning... -4C... brrrr.. Last Wednesday it was +32C.... where else but here does it drop 30 degrees in a few days? The golf course employees had a good laugh at Veronica and the Old Guys showing up to golf when it was barely +5C at 10:30 a.m. yesterday. They were freezing and had on their parka type jackets. I myself had on 5 layers ... (6 if you count the heavily padded bra) cotton camisole, long sleeved turtle neck, light long sleeve zip riding shirt, lightly padded vest and fleece jacket. And... another fleece parka liner popped over top til I took my first tee shot. It was cloudy and the wind was gusting when we took off...but, the clouds cleared and the wind settled a bit....so by the time we got to the 6th hole...it was not too bad. However, we were all pretty cold by then.... so elected to quit after the 9 and didn't bother going around the small course a second time. We sat in the warm clubhouse instead and had hot coffee and peeled off layers as we warmed up. I shot my best 9 of the season.... woohoooo.... hope I can hold the good thoughts til May now....and have a better beginning right out of the chute. I actually figured out a few things with my swing last week ... with Mr. BV's help .... and had a couple dandy drives. That's all it takes... a couple of great ones and you keep going back.... I know lots of folks hate golf and/or are just not interested. I love it. What a strange and wonderful game.

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So, today I should have been offline already. The carpet installers should be here floating the floor and getting rid of the old carpet... perhaps even getting to the underlay ....but, no...... nobody is here. Why? Because our carpet is still in transit......

"Hi there...my name is John and I work for the carpet company." (very British accent...so much so that I couldn't really get half of what he said til my ears adjusted to the voice...)

"uhm.....that's nice....when will you be here? "

"That's what I'm calling about".

"your carpet's not 'ere..."

"Where is it then John?"

"It's in Richmond"

"Richmond, Virginia?? ((shriek?....)) ('cuz it is coming from the U.S.) ..... or Richmond B.C. ??.... (in CAnada at least)"

"Oh ..hahhahahahh ..... Richmond B. C....."

"not very funny really ... John"....

"no....I know.... but, we'll have to rebook....and blah, blah, blah.... " (I didn't hear much or understand much after the rebook part........ I just saw red and my hearing went all blurry)

.....

The upshot of it is....we wait til somebody tracks things down....re-organizes an installer and we wait.....to see what they manage..........

I should have been totally ready for this..... it is no different than any of the other renovation stuff we have been through. But.... somehow hope springs eternal...... can you believe it? ...even after 23+ years of dealing with sales and tradespeople. You would think I'd learn not to bother giving anybody credit for anything or expecting anything at all from anybody....

Somehow, I'm not even totally furious either.... maybe I'm used to all the bullshit. But, I am disappointed. We worked our butts off to be ready for the appointed date. All the painting and fixing and moving out of furniture is complete. We have three empty rooms down here....and extra chairs, cushions, tables, lamps, rolled rugs, DVD holders, some cabinetry and huge tote bins strewn all over upstairs....until after the carpeting is put down. The couch, pool table rails and slabs and tv are on the landing and in the entrance to the laundry room... can't move around them...... and, now....... .........we ..........wait........ la la la.... la la la... la lala la la......