Guess where?

 Back in July - before the cross-country trek - we did a Guess Where tour. It was a lot of fun!

Wanda ordered it on line a couple of weeks before, and it came with 5 envelopes. You open the first one before you start - it tells you what to expect (e.g. prepare for walking, bring bug spray). Then, when you're ready, you get in the car and open the second envelope.

This envelope tells you about your first stop - where to go and what to see there. Our first stop was Merrickville, so we read about the ruins as well as some notable shops to visit. 

When we were done there, we went to our second stop - a short hike in Limerick Forest.

After that, it was back in the car for envelope #4 - the Spencervill Mill.

The last envelope was Kemptville for an antique store and another walk, but we were all tired so we left it for another day.

Summer 2025

 We again hopped in the car and drove from Ottawa to Regina this year. The family rented a kid's camp, so we joined them there for a few days. Here are some picutres.

From the car

Tim Horton's stop

Terry Fox memorial

Rainbow Falls provincial park off-leash area

Old Woman Bay (Lake Superior)

Let's explore!

Sudbury

A quiet evening at the camp

Summer by the numbers

• 8889.2 kms (road trips)

• 9328 kms (flying)

• 42 nights away from home

• 13 first cousins (everyone on moms side, 2 on dads side)

• 3 Great Lakes: Huron, Superior, Ontario

• 9 hotel rooms: (Oceanview Rocky harbour, Hotel North St Anthony, Oceanview Rocky harbour, Sinbad’s Hotel and Suites Gander, The Capital St. John’s, Super 8 North Bay, Super 8 Thunder Bay, Motel 6 Sault Ste Marie)

• 7 Provinces: Ontario, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba

• 10 nights in a sleeping bag

• 4 aunts and uncles

• 5 door knobs replaced

• 209,304,989 trees seen (estimate)

• 2 National parks (Gros Morne, Terra Nova)

• 3 Provincial parks (Buffalo Pound, Blue Lake, Sandbanks)

• 7 flights

• 2 compensation claims under the Canadian passenger bill of rights (+ 2 appeals, one successful, and one report to the Canadian Transport Authority)

Newfoundland

 In June, my Girl Guide travel group made it to Newfoundland! We'd been planning - and fundraising - for two years, and we were very excited to go!

We flew into Deer Lake, and visited Rocky Harbour (Gros Morne), St. Anthony, Gander, and St. John's.  

We went to L'Anse Aux Meadows, the Newfoundland Insectarium, and the Arches.

We saw Come From Away in Gander, toured a search and rescue facility, and went cod jigging. 

We met up with local Pathfinders, painted a picture of a puffin, and went to The Rooms.

It was a good trip.

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.

Well, 2022 is over!

 Well, it's been quite a year.

• 5 vaccinations (3 of them COVID)
• 1 new puppy
• 1 new human in the house (my niece moved in for school)
• 7+ days without power due to a storm
• 1 downed tree (that I had to deal with)
• 7 days in Yellowknife
• 3 Girl Guide camps (all in tents)
• 1 new dishwasher
• so very many masks

Here's hoping 2023 brings health, happiness, and an end to the pandemic.

Big news!

 Meet Baisley.

She's been with us for a month. She's a miniature schnauser/poodle cross. She likes treats, eating everything (edible or not), and people.

She does not like work days. 

Yellowknife!

 After 3 years - and 2 postponements - my Girl Guide travel group finally made it to Yellowknife. You can read about our trip here. 

It was a great trip! 

COVID made it a much tricker situation than we'd planned. We'd originally planned to go in March of 2021 and sleep in the Girl Guide cabin outside of town.

COVID cancelled that, and we rescheduled for March of 2022. We couldn't do that either, so we rescheduled for July. And, also due to COVID, the cabin was out, so we booked hotel rooms.

We had to do COVID tests the day before we went - all 3 leaders and 15 youth. I warned them in early July to be diligent about masking, because if they tested positive they couldn't go.

We had to figure out what we'd do if someone got sick while we were there (move two leaders into the same room, put the sick youth into their own room). We also had to figure out which leader would stay behind if someone couldn't fly back.

Everyone tested negative, and all 18 of us got on the plane. And all 18 of us got on the plane back.

Derecho!

 Almost 2 weeks ago - on Saturday, May 21 - Ottawa was hit by a derecho (intense wind and thunderstorm). 

The power went out as the storm hit, and we all hung out in the basement. It didn't last long, and we came back upstairs to find a tree had blown over:

The tree was lying on the power lines, but didn't do a lot of damage on its way down.

Others weren't so lucky - one of my neighbours had 2 trees land on his house.

A lot of trees were down in the neighbourhood.

And still we didn't have power. 

My cousin - who lives about 20 minutes away - got power back on Monday night, so Tuesday morning Wanda and I headed to her place to work. 

Her cat was not impressed. 

They cut the tree off the power line on Friday, and Saturday night - a full week after the power went out - we got power back. 

The freezer had thawed but was still cold, which was impressive. Wanda cleaned out the freezer while I cooked the thawed meat. 

And then on Wednesday, the company I'd hired came to remove the tree. They pulled into a driveway with a crane and pulled it out over the house. Then they cut off the branches and left it there for the city to pick up. 

And then yesterday the city showed up to dispose of the tree

I'm too lazy to go buy a purse

 Today I decided to make a purse. 

I cut 4 sets of 2 pieces of fabric. The outer one pieces were 13"x19"; the inner ones were 13"x20", since there was a direction to that fabric. I then cut the inner ones in half, switched one half upside down, and sewed them back together. 

Next I cut batting to match the size of the outer fabric and pinned the inner fabric (good side down), the batting, and the outer fabric (good side up). 

I then quilted the three pieces together with diagonal lines and repeated for the next 3 sets. 

Because I like pockets, I added a small pocket to the inside of one of the 4 sections.

I sewed binding to the top and bottom of each section, then folded each section in half and pinned a zipper near the top. The zipper pull was down, and I sewed the side away from the binding.

I then turned each section inside out and pinned the other side of the zipper to the other half of the section, being careful to keep it the same distance from the binding. I unzipped the zipper and sewed that side down. 

When all 4 sections were done, I turned them right side out. Next, I cut a flap out of both the inside material and the outside material and sewed them together on 3 sides, then sewed it onto the section with the inside pocket. 

I took a piece of cardboard and sewed a piece of the outside fabric to cover it. 

When it was fully covered, I  attached it to the bottom of the section with the flap. I then attached it to the bottom of another section (making sure that the zippers were going the same way). 

Next, I used bias tape to cover the ends of each section so that they were  closed.

x

I used a piece of cardboard to measure the same distance from each side. I then added the two sections that weren't connected to anything in between the other sections, and sewed each one to the next between the markings.

I added a closure on the flap and attached the strap, and it's done!