Puzzle Done!

It took me a week to finish my jigsaw puzzle. 

It was s lot of fun!

I had to turn the card table around to finish the top.

Now I'm going to enjoy looking at it for a while...

Those bright colours cheer me up!

My "Sky" Collection

For the past few months, I've been part of a "creative circle" of painters, meeting once a week in a church basement in Almonte to do art.

We all work on different things - and it's fun!

What to paint?! Whatever we feel like!

One woman sketches the human body, another paints  flowers.

I've been drawn to the many sky pictures I have stored on my cell phone. I can't stop myself from taking pictures of beautiful skies.

Now I've been trying to replicate the sky's awesomeness in paintings - every week a different one...

There it is... lined up on the piano - my spring 2024 "sky collection."

(Hopefully, more to come...)

More Jigsaw Puzzles

I haven't worked on a large jigsaw puzzle for years - and my current one is going more slowly than anticipated. Here it is, after a week!

When my daughter finished her 1000-piece puzzle in only a few days during her Christmas vacation, I expected to take the same amount of time. But it's taking me much longer!

My neighbour, Mary, has been working on jigsaw puzzles too, this winter:

I am currently working on a 1000 piece puzzle that I have had for maybe six months.  This photo was taken about four days in.  

I methodically do the border first and then work on specific areas of interest.  I just put some music on and I could get lost for hours.  

For Christmas I received four 1000 piece puzzles and I have already completed three. 

I still have the one puzzle to complete from Christmas (Ravensburger Abandon series) and also a 2000 piece puzzle that I have had for a bit.

Unfinished puzzles do not hang around for long, considering that I am the only one who works on them.

(I'm pretty sure mine will be the only one I do this winter! Maybe I should listen to music, like Mary, or - like my daughter - tune into some podcasts while I work on it... but I have a one-track mind!)

Not the Lego I Know!

A friend recently showed me some of her daughter Kim's Lego creations...

Building by building turns into a city block...!

Then add a few extras, like the pink car!

(Kim has also made some realistic-looking Lego plants and flowers... but I forgot to take pictures! Hopefully I'll get a chance, another  time...)

Back Doing Pottery

Last week I returned to the nearby pottery studio for the first time in 2 1/2 years... since Covid arrived in Ontario.

As I gathered up my supplies in the basement, I also grabbed a shopping bag full of unglazed cups snd bowls. 

Why were they still unglazed? I don't remember! Maybe  I was waiting for s quiet day in the glazing room... and it never happened.

So I spent my first two hours glazing pots.... and this little owl.

It was nice to be back!

Room to Write

I always wanted to be a writer… For years I kept journals - but I never wrote the novels I hoped to write when I was young.

When my children were adolescents, I began to carve out a bit of space for myself in my schedule. A few night school courses in quilting followed… Also correspondence courses in writing…

Eventually I developed the habit of simply buying books to “teach myself.”

I recently came across a notebook I used with one book I was reading - a book called “Room to Write”… I have almost no recollections of doing the exercises in the book. But I did some of them - and I’m currently re-reading what I wrote back in 1998 and 2000 - as I fill in the empty pages in my notebook.

It’s so interesting to jump back all those years as I read the stories and exercises assigned by the book… So interesting, in fact, that I recommend - for anyone keeping a diary or journal - to leave a few blank pages here and there - to write in later. 

Re-reading what I wrote is more than a trip down memory lane… It’s interesting to see how LITTLE (about me and my life) has really changed! Twenty years ago, I was dealing with clutter on my desk - and, even then, it annoyed me that I couldn’t remember what I had eaten - or done - the previous day!

Hobbies!!

I’ve always loved books. 

I buy them not only to read now, but for sometime later when the mood strikes...

I also have the habit of buying yarn - not only when I need it but when I see it at a good price... which is why I have bins of yarn upstairs, waiting to be used!

I also love plants - every sunny window in the house has some...

Terry sometimes complains about all the space my hobbies take up...

But it could be worse!

I could collect antique cars (like one of our neighbors)... Or like another, a block away, who seems to be collecting antique tractors!

We’d need to enlarge our driveway if I collected those!

Hot Air Balloon Overhead!

I don't see a lot of hot air balloons these days. I don't know if the sport is waning in our community - or if the wind is simply blowing them in another direction.

But one morning recently I saw this one... It reminded me of the three times I went up in a balloon....

I remember how "magical" the experience was - gliding silently over the city, Twice the wind took us over the Ottawa River into Quebec.

One never knows where the trip will end! But champagne is served after every safe landing! We took the champagne glasses home as a souvenir!

Nothing Stays the Same!

Terry always looks forward to football season. He has been a New England Patriots' fan since he was a child.

This year his favorite player (Tom Brady) has left the team...

There may also not be any professional football this year - because of the coronavirus pandemic.

If so, it will definitely be a different kind of year for him.

But he'll have this set of Babushka dolls to remind him of the good years - a set brought back from Russia by our older son, who once visited there.

Father's Day Vintage Car Shows

Today is Father's Day in Canada...

For some reason, Ottawa and Toronto usually host car shows on Father's Day. I'm not sure they will this year...

But we happened to come across this one on Bloor Street in Toronto last year...

They shut down a busy main street for several blocks to make this event happen.

This is a beautiful convertible from my youth! My mother's younger brothers liked fancy cars.

For me, a car is a vehicle to get me from one place to another - without any problems - so I would never buy a vintage car, which would be more likely to break down.

I was surprised to see this old Honda Civic, much like the one I owned when I was single and living in Montreal.

Mine was yellow, too.

One of my cousins and his wife in western Canada have a vintage convertible given to them by his wife's father...

When Terry and I were visiting, he took the roof down and we went for a ride!

It was fun!

One of my mother's brothers, a former truck driver, rebuilt this old truck and later sold it...

We all have our hobbies... Vintage cars can be expensive to own...

I enjoy quilting and have a good sewing machine. But the cost of my machine doesn't compare to the cost of rebuilding - or maintaining - a vintage vehicle...

Dilemma: How to Spend My Winter?!

Winter - here in Ottawa - is not a constant temperature. Snow doesn't just fall and stay...

It melts... off roofs (for a while)... then freezes again!

When it re-freezes - as it is doing on our driveway - as it has done a number of times already this winter, I have to be careful!

I could fall!

Now that I don't have to go out to work anymore, fear of falling could be a real temptation to stay indoors... But I need to get out...

Taking a class would force me to get out and drive, meet people and be more active!

What to do?!

I can't let winter get me down!

Vintage Car

Terry and I stopped to admire a vintage Riley recently.

The driver appeared while we were looking at it, and Terry was able to ask him about its history - and the challenge of driving a car in Canada with the steering wheel on the right rather than the left...

This is the first time I've driven it in two years, the owner (a collector of classic cars) confessed...

I guess all collectors end up with too many things to really enjoy them - whether you're a collector of books (like me) or a collector of cars!

Barbie Doll Exhibit

On a recent visit to Montreal, I noticed a free Barbie doll exhibit in a downtown mall.

Would any of my daughter's beloved Barbies be there? I wondered as I wandered in...

(No, they weren't!)

This was a grand selection of special Barbies: carnival-costume Barbies.

Elvis wedding Barbie...

Royal wedding Barbie...

Others were dressed in historic costumes. The one on the right is Queen Elizabeth I, the British monarch of Shakespeare's day.

Some, like this "Mickey Mouseketeer" Barbie, represented modern times...

One Barbie (a 21st-century one, I guess!) even had a neck tattoo!

A See's Candies Barbie...

A M-A-C Cosmetics Barbie!

A Lucille Ball Barbie!

As well as Barbies in costumes from around the world.

Don't know who created this display - but I'm sure they had a lot of fun!

Modern Hand Embroidery

I learned basic embroidery stitches when I was young. Over the years, hand embroidery seemed to be one of those dying arts.

But it may be making a comeback!

My daughter recently took a course in Sashiko, a simple Japanese embroidery, originally used in mending... Many of her friends are interested in embroidery, too.

As embroidery projects are shared online, I've been saving photos of beautiful projects in my Pinterest "scrapbook"...

They are so lovely, I'm tempted to begin to embroider again, too!