New Beginnings

Jan 3rd was my first vacation day even though my office has been closed since before Christmas.  My plan was to catch up on my reading and stitching.  We went to my mom's for Christmas so I got a couple books read on the way to and from her house (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9182478-hourglass and http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14003.The_River_s_Gift)  and a bit of back stitching done on Mrs. Tiggy-winkle while we were there.

My 3 yr old nephew lives next door and spends a lot of time at Grandma's, especially when his auntie is there, so there wasn't much time for stitching.  We made a trip to Christina Lake on Boxing Day.  It was beautiful but very snowy.  I got a bread machine for Christmas so I've made a few loaves of bread since we've been back and I've been getting the birds' area ready for another bird or two I'll be adopting this year from the bird sanctuary.

My cockatiels, Mal and Hawk are now sharing one cage so we took down the second cage to make room for the new one.  That involved moving and cleaning toys, perches, and playstands.  Mal has decided he likes kisses so he's a bit more sociable now.  We had our Christmas with them yesterday.  The birds got a new foraging toy, a preening/puzzle kind of toy and one with lots of bells on it.  I also bought them some Nutriberry popcorn.  Mal had a few nibbles from the ones I put in the foraging box but Hawk hasn't looked at them yet.  The other toys went in the drawer for later, since they have to look at them several times before they decide they're safe to go close too.  Llew, the hedgehog, got a new tunnel and some more mealworms.  He hasn't been in his tunnel yet but I gave him a few worms early since I had to clip all his nails.  I also bought some toys for Greyhaven Exotic Bird Sanctuary Empty Stocking fund for the parrots in their care.

I should be able to do more stitching this year anyway.  I'm not taking the last payroll course until September and I'm dropping one of my volunteer positions and cutting back on the other one in 2012.  I did a little stitching on L&L Celtic Summer last night and I've ordered Celtic Christmas.

recent books

It's been awhile since I've written.  Things get in the way!

High on a Windy Hill: the Story of the Prince of Wales Hotel by Ray Djuff

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Although the subject is interesting to me after having visited the area this summer, I didn't enjoy the book. It wasn't very interesting. It was formatted in columns like a newspaper which made the typeset very small and hard to read. The book also wasn't very well edited, I found several spelling and grammar mistakes in the first chapter which is the only one I read.

View all my reviews

I've been doing a lot of other reading too.  I'll add the reviews as I finish them.

Needlework news:

I finally finished the Victoria Sampler Winter Box I've been working on and I've started the Spring Box.

I've also finished stitching Victoria Sampler's Butterfly Lace Sampler.  I did the hydrangea version and I'm going to do the daisy version before I frame them, probably together.

I also finished a cute little bookmark that I got as a birthday present.

I've finished one sleeve of the Sherwood sweater I'm making for Afghans for Afghans, got the pattern material and most of the threads together for a Mrs. Tiggy-winkle square I'm doing for Solak.  I also started on another hoodie, for me this time, while I was on vacation.

Bird news

I've got sad news in this area.  We took all three boys in for a check up 2 weeks ago and while they were there Coco started bleeding.  We left him there in hospital and I went to visit several times.  He seemed to be improving and then a week ago Friday we got an emergency call from the vet that he was having breathing difficulties.  We rushed over there but he was gone by the time we arrived.  We got to hold him for a little while and then had to make some decisions.  The vet is going to do a post mortem since other than the bacterial infection, she hadn't been able to figure out what was going on.  Then his body will be donated to the Beaty Biodiversity Museum for future research into birds.

We all miss him a great deal.  Mal especially is having a rough time of it without his buddy.  He has a mirror to keep him from getting lonely but he's gotten very nippy and territorial now.  I'm trying to wean him from the mirror and to get him to spend more time with us and Hawk.  I'm hoping he returns to his sweet self soon.

We were scheduled to go on another vacation to Quadra and Vancouver Island but had to cancel the trip when Coco got sick.  We've spent the week at home rearranging the bedrooms and tidying up some and baking.  Our bedroom is now in the smaller north room with the balcony and the spare room and Llew have been moved to the big south room.

Happy New Year

I should start with an introduction to my family but I won't.  Let me just jump in here with both feet and you can meet people as we go along.  I've never written a blog before and I'm not sure if anyone is going to read it but I enjoy writing anyways.

Today is New Year's Eve and I'm almost finished my Christmas holiday from work.  The first part was mostly spent studying for my final exam in my Payroll Legislation course but that's all over with now.  I'm spending the day canning.  My beets are boiling and the pears are in the oven processing.  I still have to get to the apples.  I have this wonderful book on preserving that I bought from Amazon called "How to Store your Garden Produce" by Piers Warren.  It's a British book so there's a few differences in some of the terminology.  For example canning is called bottling in Britain, which when you think of it makes more sense.  It's been very useful, it not only tells you the best way to preserve each type of produce but explains each method as well.

I bought a Victoria Sampler pattern and the material for it just before Christmas.  It's called Winter Box and it's part of the Beautiful Finishing series.  I'll be starting it on Sunday as well as working on a few other VS patterns I have on the go Butterfly Lace Sampler and Happy Hearts Sweet Bag and Smalls.  I hope to get a lot done Sunday and Monday before I have to return to the office.

I've also been spending time looking through a couple cookbooks.  They were both recommended to me by the instructor at a food sustainability workshop I went to.  The first one is "A Good Catch" by Jill Lambert.  It has some excellent recipes for SeaChoice best choices fish and seafood.  I really enjoyed looking through it and I added it to my Amazon wish list for my next order.  The second one I'm still looking through but it's already been added to my wish list.  It's "The Flexitarian Table" by Peter Berley, a wonderful guide to cooking for vegetarians, carnivores and everybody in between without having to make separate meals.  I'm looking forward to trying some of the recipes before I have to take it back to the library.

I hope you enjoyed this first posting and let me know what you think.