Totality

 I've had the eclipse in my calendar for years. I bought glasses months ago. 

But I wasn't sure I was going until Monday morning - was it worth it if it's cloudy? Who would go with me? 

So on Monday morning, I booked the afternoon off. At noon, my niece and I got in the car and drove an hour south. The traffic was slow leaving Ottawa, but picked up as we got farther away.

We found a park on the St. Lawrence and settled in to watch. Somehow, we were surprised at how cold it got, but we stuck it out. 

When we hit totality, the crowd cheered. (I guess they were team moon?)

We got stuck in a parking lot on the way back, and decided to hang out in a grocery store until the traffic died down, so we didn't get home until 7 or so.

It was worth it. 

Quilting again

 

This winter, I've been quilting again. I started with an All About Me quilt for Miss M, who turned 10 in February. 

As part of looking for ideas for that one, I found a pattern I loved. I had barely finished the first quilt before I was working on the second one, which I finished last weekend. 

I took 1.5" strips of black and white, sewed them together, then cut strips that were 3"x18". I sewed a 1" black strip to both sides, then started building the colours on each side. I had a design laid out on graph paper so I knew which colours went where - dark blue, light blue, yellow, orange, pink, red, purple, green. When I had colours on each side of the black and white strip, I cut the squares to 12.5" square. 

It took 49 squares to make the quilt. The back is black. 

I still love it.

The end of the Mazda 5

 Back in 2013, I bought a used Mazda 5. It was great. It had storage space or seating, and I took full advantage of both.

When my mom brought the 3 ten-to-twelve year olds to visit, it picked them up at the airport. 

When I started building furniture, I hauled 8-foot-long boards home in it. 

It was there through Halloween parties, road trips, injuries, renovations, storms, COVID, picking up the puppy, and everything else that has happened in the last 10 years.

It was hard to find a replacement! The Mazda 5 had a lot of storage, not to mention the flexibility of the 6 seats. But it was time, so on Friday I traded it in.

It was a good car.

I'll take the potato

 This year, we did Halloween a little differently.

In addition to candy - of which we had a lot - we had pencils. We also added one potato to the bowl.

Kids were given the chance to choose two different things. The pencils were surprisingly popular. But if we mentioned the potato (i.e. "you can choose candy, a pencil, or a potato"), they took the potato. If we didn't mention it, they didn't take it. 

It was an interesting experiment!

The littlest vampire wishes you a happy Hallowe'en

Still outside

Back in 2020, my Pathfinders moved outside (like everyone did, since inside was far more risky). Over the past couple of years, most groups have moved inside.

We haven't. We still meet outside all year - and we have no intentions of ever moving back to indoor meetings.

We've built sand castles in the snow, built a quinzee, identified trees, used power tools, and found constellations in the sky. And we're more active - there are chairs available, but most of time we're standing or walking or playing.

In some ways it's harder - it does get cold in the winter, but the worst days are the cold, dark, rainy nights in March and November, when there is little snow on the ground.   

And in three weeks, we start again. 

A productive weekend

 This weekend was very productive. 

Wanda and I painted the siding. It took all day Saturday and half of Sunday, and it looks great! I was so inspired I cleaned out the shed and cleaned up some of the general mess outside. 

Last weekend the pup turned one. She enjoyed her birthday cookie.

The summer is speeding by, but hopefully I will have time for a couple more projects before fall.