18 Years

Happy Anniversary to my Farmer. He spent the day combining wheat. Every year I wonder how we ever managed to pull off the wedding during wheat season?? Oh well, maybe next year we’ll spend our anniversary together.

Read Full Post »

Prayers Needed

I was hoping to post an update by telling you Grandma is back home and everything’s fine…

But I can’t.

Mom’s health has been being neglected by her family ‘doctor’ (Dr. Terri Rheaume) since her fall last May. Since January Mom’s legs have been swelling. Every time Mom calls the clinic (the clinic refuses to see people in person even though every other type of doctor can manage) she is told it’s “just old age”. Well, fast forward a couple of weeks ago and Mom’s legs are now so swollen she can’t fit into her pants and needed to borrow on of my dresses so we could take her to her kidney doctor appointment. She could barely get out of the car!!

Two days later, we get a phone at 4:30 AM, it’s Ella saying Grandma fell in the bathroom and she has the ambulance on the way. Wow that was one fast drive to Beachburg. Thank God Ella was there. She was AMAZING!!!

Mom was very lucky and only fractured her right shoulder when she fell. Somehow she missed the tub and the toilet. Her legs just gave out on her. The hospital was horrified by the size of her legs. In the first 4 days they were able to drain (with medication) 20 lbs!!!!!!! of fluid. Even with that much weight gone, her legs are still huge.

She started doing better at the hospital. Physio and the wonderful nurses were doing a great job to get her back on her feet and walking again. It’s hard since she can’t use her right arm, so that means no walker for now. The hospital has also discovered that she has A-Fib and ‘slight’ heart failure. Stuff you would think your primary care doctor should know about.

So my sister and BIL arranged for Mom to go to the nursing home/retirement home in Beachburg. Everything was fine on Friday when she arrived. Just a little congestion, which is normal for this time of year. Then a cough started. It’s sounds like she’s coughing up a lung. I called the head nurse and spoke with her. We decided to send Mom back to the hospital (the Home’s doctor doesn’t come in until Wednesday). I’m here at home waiting for a call to say the ambulance/bus has arrived and she’s on her way.

Please, everyone, we need your prayers.

Read Full Post »

Urgh!!

I am NOT loving the new changes at WordPress. For some reason I can’t put pictures in my post from my phone. This is all I get:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/133377216@N07/o28WMx

Very frustrating because I want to use the data on my phone and save the wifi for Ella’s new math program. Sigh, the trials of living in rural Ontario without unlimited internet. ..

Read Full Post »

2020 Knitting

Not much knitting this year. It’s been very hard for me and my knitting has suffered. Hopefully 2021 will see a much longer list.

Ella’s Legend of Zelda hat

Grandma’s fair isle sweater

Lillian sweater for me

crochet produce bag

pillow lace

Ella’s birthday socks 

Scarf/shawl

Totoro Hat for Ella

Felted mice for Belinda’s cats

Dagi sweater for me

fair isle shawl for me

crocheted edging for slips

 

Read Full Post »

The Fourteenth Day of Advent

This Advent is not like any other. Well, that’s not true. This year is almost like 2012 when we lost Colin’s Mom. I just can’t seem to be bothered. It doesn’t help that Ella’s having a hard time too. Even Merry hasn’t been getting into any trouble. Last week we headed out for our tree to our favourite place.

Ella was not a happy camper. She refused to take off her mask for the picture. I’m worried I’m never going to get her out of the house again when this is all over. Ella found us a really nice Frasier fir, as usual the first one she pointed out was the best one.

Finally got a happy Ella because Daddy finally found…

The BUNNIES!!!!! We couldn’t snuggle them this year, but Ella’s tall enough she could reach and pet them. That made for a much happier girl.

And of course, Ella did a beautiful job decorating. I literally did nothing to the tree this year (besides bring the boxes down from storage). Colin does the lights and garland and Ella does the rest.

Ella and I started our Christmas baking today. We made a pile of sugar cookies. I have the dough ready for shortbread, gingerbread, and pecan hedgehogs. She wants to send a package to one of her online friends so we have to get moving.

What’s cooking this week?

Monday:

schnitzel on buns and French fries in my air fryer

Tuesday:

chicken cacciatore with potatoes -crock pot

Wednesday:

breakfast for dinner (French toast for Ella)

Thursday:

leftover chicken

Friday:

ribs of some kind, to be announced later 🙂

More ideas at I’m an Organizing Junkie.

Read Full Post »

This Week -30 October 2020

We met up with a couple of other home school families at the Park again this week. The day started cool, but once we got in the trees and started walking it was perfect. We took a different trail this time. It lead us down into the marshy area before we get to the Ottawa River. We had to throw our runners in the washing machine when we got home. It will be a nicer walk once the ground freezes. According to Ella’s fitbit we walked just over 6 km!!

And boy were we tired. That’s more walking than I’ve done in a long time.

Colin has been busy drying our popcorn. It’s almost ready to start eating! I like the red corn the best. It pops up so white and it tastes the best.

I’ve worked a bit on my new sweater, but not really enough to show you guys.

We’re still waiting for some sunny days, or at least some non-wet days. Colin is getting really antsy to get the soy beans off.

It’s been a quiet week. We’ll see what next week holds.

Read Full Post »

Round Up for the Week -23 October

I’ve been working on my sweater a lot this week. You know instead of doing dishes, cleaning up the mess that is supposed to be my craft room (and which is filling up the hall too), or just about anything useful?

I’m starting on the sleeves. I’m not sure how much decreasing to do. I messed up the pattern so I can’t go by that. I may do minimal decreasing so that the sweater fits nicely over clothes.

We actually went to a homeschool group thing on Wednesday! It was so good to get out in the fresh air and have other adults to talk with -and not have to discuss corn or weather -ha ha!

Ella’s been busy carving up a bunch of Daddy’s pumpkins. She’s made a couple of cool faces and a Totoro. But I think this is her coolest one yet (she still has plans for next week). It’s a white pumpkin inside the bigger pumpkin. The picture really doesn’t do it justice, her painting of the iris is really well done.

Well, guess I should go throw a load of laundry in the machine and maybe do some dishes -or at least decide what we’re having for supper…

Read Full Post »

Some Day I’ll Get My Blogging Act Together…

Wow, I can’t seem to get posts done on time. I did actually make a menu plan this week, so what are we eating:

Monday: roast beef

Tuesday: hot beef sandwiches and mashed potatoes

Wednesday: chicken fingers and fries from Chip Pit (before it closes for the winter)

Thursday: Bavarian beef pie with the leftover beef

Friday: leftover pie

Saturday: pizza

Sunday: tacos

I’ll make next week’s menu plan after I see how much turkey is left over.

Ontario has been asked to scale back right now. We’re supposed to only have Thanksgiving with our household members. So that means no big dinner over at Colin’s Dad’s. I don’t mind. I’m not sure how far to trust the other family members and how safe they have been (even though we’re pretty safe here in Renfrew Co.). I’m doing a turkey leg for supper tomorrow and Mom’s coming over too. I have a pumpkin pie in the oven right now, mostly for Ella.

Colin has finally started at the soybeans. He’s been walking the fields and looking at the weather for weeks.

Yesterday, Ella and I spent part of the morning walking the soybean field looking for the intake pulley that fell off the combine sometime on Friday. Turns out it wasn’t in this field. Dad found it in the first field Colin combined! Oh well, it was a nice morning for a walk.

Colin and I went on a bit of a road trip on Tuesday. Not too far, just down the highway, but we were travelling some roads that even Colin has never been down. What were we doing? We were checking out an old bell. Colin has always wanted one. We passed one up back on our honeymoon and Colin has kicked himself ever since. As usual, Colin wasn’t sure about spending money for something not ‘needed’ but I told him to get it for himself. He never just buys fun stuff because he wants it and he deserves a treat. I think it looks really good on the ‘shade shack’. He painted it black, but I rather like it this way.

Too much sunshine, the yarn is a nice dark blue from Knit Picks.

I started knitting a sweater for me. I’m using one pattern for the ‘style’ but I’m using a cool custom sweater generator for the actual ‘pattern’. The pattern I’m copying is called ‘Dagi‘. It’s very cool hoodie with fair isle sleeves. Though I’m not sure I’ll be doing the hood. I needed to find another actual pattern to follow because I couldn’t get the gauge to work. It seemed much too loose for the yarn I have. I seem to have that problem with fingering yarn and sweaters. The pattern generator at Kniterator is amazing. Not only do I get to use the gauge that produces a fabric that I like, I get to make a sweater to the exact measurements that I want. Since I’m not overly tall, that’s a really great bonus.

It’s kind of funny considering how dry we were all summer (though that part wasn’t funny it was scary), but we keep finding all sorts of mushrooms around the yard. We found 2 giant puff balls and some cute ones that looked like a Smurf village. This is the most recent one:

It’s more pink in real life. I forgot to adjust the filter to make it look more like it did ‘in person’. The girls over on the Hygge Nook on FB said it’s called a Shaggy Mane Ink Cap mushroom. Never seen anything like it before.

Guess that just about catches you guys up on everything. Hopefully I can get my act together and make more regular posts.

Read Full Post »

Menu Plan Monday -Thanksgiving Edition

Happy Thanksgiving every one!  Colin’s family has a big thing to be thankful for this year.  On Thursday his sister’s husband had a heart attack.  Luckily he wasn’t alone and they are close to Renfrew so the ambulance was quick to arrive.  They rushed him off to Ottawa to the Heart Institute and they put in a stint.   He recovered quickly and was even home on Saturday!!  I’m taking Thanksgiving dinner to them today.  Colin and Dad are spending a second day down there getting their wood prepared for the winter.  Sure makes me glad we heat with corn, so much less work.

I’m not sure what’s up this week.  The bike park is closed so one of the other moms is trying to find the kids an indoor place.  I hope we can because Ella had so much fun on the ramps.

Monday:

turkey, dressing, mashed potato casserole, biscuits, corn, peas, Caesar salad, apple pie, and lemon meringue pie

Tuesday:

hot turkey

Wednesday:

turkey and biscuit casserole

Thursday: 

stew -freezer

Friday:

leftover casserole

Saturday:

leftover stew

Sunday:

breaded pork chops

I’m an Organizing Junkie is taking a holiday today, so you’ve just got me.

 

Read Full Post »

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Wishing everyone a very blessed Christmas!

 

Read Full Post »