Tuesday 26 November 2013

Urghh and Snow

We have had a weekend of plague and pestilence, I shall say no more about it except that both the washing machine and I are now exhausted.  Also it snowed quite spectacularly on Saturday night so here are a couple of pics.
This is the front doorway
The guard dog was buried
and the kids decided to shovel the patio, perhaps they thought I might BBQ?
So just one last time lapse (again), this is the river this morning.


Friday 22 November 2013

Wednesday 20 November 2013

Oooph, What a Day

Any readers in Southern Ontario will be aware that we had some strong winds on Sunday night and into Monday, not as bad as parts of mid America but still quite interesting.  We lost power at 10pm on Sunday night and didn't get it back until Monday night at 11.07 and it amazes me how useless we are without electricity.  We had no phone line or broadband, no heat, light or hot water, we have a gas hob so I was lucky enough to be able to make hot drinks and food (and wash up).  The kids spent a long time playing chess in the dark.
you can tell it was getting cold in the house, Rose has a sweater on
Tom had to keep going out in the car to charge up his iPhone and try to find signal good enough to get data.  While he was out he took this video of the lake, excuse the fingers but he kept getting blown over by the wind, also you'll have to look at it sideways as I don't have the right software to rotate it.
I spent most of the day fantasizing about how great it would be to have an Aga and a wood burning stove, I think I'm going to start looking for a hobby farm where these things would be appropriate.

Anyhow, power's back on and I've mainly caught up with cleaning the thin film of crumbs which seemed to be coating the entire ground floor, so here is the weekend.  Jacob had his first bonspiel of the year and was a bit disgusted as his team came last so no photos, here he is with his latest Mathletics certificate, Gold this time.  Do you think it counts as Work in Progress?
On Sunday we went into town and bought snow boots for the kids, here is Rose in hers, I'm not sure she will consent to wear anything else on her feet from now on.



Thursday 14 November 2013

WIP Wednesday Kids Special

I knew all this on time business couldn't last.

This week much work is in progress but none can be blogged for fear of spoiling Christmas so rather than post nothing here is some of the kid's work.  Rose made this poppy at school for Remembrance Day.
And here is a picture she drew of her friend Audrey.  I like the way she still writes her name ROZE, very Rock n' Roll, I hope that one day she will front an all girls Guns n Roses cover band although I'm not sure about the perm.
Jacob said all he has in progress is his video game and I could take a screen shot of it, a great idea but being a technological genius with a masters degree in IT I don't know how, so here is a picture of him playing his DS.  This is the view of him we see most these days.
When he gets home from school tonight I shall ask him to take a screen shot of his game and post it himself, I shall watch then I can do it myself next time.

Tuesday 12 November 2013

Just One More

I know I said no more time lapses but I just had to.

Arctic winds are currently sweeping in from the north over Lake Huron and we on the eastern shore are being hit by the results.  We might get another 10cm today.

Being English and clearly a bit daft I went for a walk after the kids went to school to see what the lake looked like.  It looked pretty dramatic and sounded like a freight train which was weird because the woods were still, usually when the lake is loud the wind is roaring through the trees too.  I took a couple of pictures to make the walk and the brutal stinging of hail on my face worthwhile.

Now I'm going to go and apply copious amounts of serious facial moisturizer to try to reduce the effect of intense hail bombardment.

Monday 11 November 2013

Sharks and Shoeboxes

Just a quick post today to prove that we are still alive.  We really are not doing anything very exciting at the weekends right now with my badly thought out children's sporting activities and the weather being cold and wet.  However, yesterday the kids and I achieved 2 things.

Jacob and I put together his build your own shark, it was fiddly and tricky and required a moderate amount of in my head expletives but we finished it.  One piece was missing after it had been on Jacob's table in the pit of doom for 2 weeks so unfortunately this particular shark has no bottom teeth at the front.  Oh well, it's probably safer that way.

 Rose and I put together a Samaritan's Christmas shoe box for a girl somewhere out there where times are hard.  Hope she likes it whoever she is, Rose did.

Wednesday 6 November 2013

WIP Wednesday - test blocks

Actually I've done lots of sewing this week.  I made 2 test blocks from Elizabeth Hartman patterns. I'm not keen on this one but I finished it off anyway to practice a wavy cheats free motion quilting technique.
I like this one and think it might feature in a large future project.  You'll probably see it again when its been quilted, I'm going to attempt pebbles.
I've also started a couple of things that are un-bloggable until after Christmas.  Someone will be getting something made out of this and the rest is secret.

Tuesday 5 November 2013

Time Lapse Tuesday

There's definitely been a change this week.  We had frost last Wednesday then 3 days of rain and wind so all the remaining leaves went yellow or brown pretty much overnight then immediately fell off.  Looks a bit sad now.

 So I think that might be the conclusion of my time lapse experiment for the time being.  I'm thinking that I'll give myself a month off then start another one of the lake as it ices up for the winter, that might be quite neat.

Friday 1 November 2013

Halloween proper

Another successful Halloween haul in our very generous neighbourhood.  Just like last year Jacob did a count when he got home and this is what they each got...
  • 5 bags of chips/crisps
  • 1 bag of popcorn
  • 1 apple
  • 1 can of root beer
  • 49 candies
  • An uncountable variety of pencils, erasers, tattoos, stickers, plastic spiders and other bits of Halloween related tat.
The weather was wet again but it wasn't minus 10 which made things much more bearable.  Here are the kids in their costumes.

Wow, no Stompeez
Is he un-dead Robert Smith or Owen Wilson?