Oct 27/10

Postcard from Afghanistan! What a fantastic item to find in my mailbox today after work! Then I turned on the computer to see that my brother will be home in December and posted to CFB Gagetown. CFB Gagetown is about an hour away from where the rest of the family lives so we are very excited considering some of the alternatives like Edmonton.

Oct 21/10

There has been some stitching going on here, I promise! Nothing is finished enough to photograph just yet so instead I present my carrot muffins that I made last night. My best friend has a huge vegetable garden and she gave me a big bag of carrots last week to have for Thanksgiving. Several of my co-workers took home some of the carrots while these ones:

 became these last night:

I used a basic muffin recipe from my trusty Fanny Farmer cookbook but added a little more sugar and oil because of the shredded carrots that I added to the recipe. Straight out of the oven with a little butter made a little piece of heaven here last night!

Oct 17/10

I have finally been doing some thinking about the house I would like to build on the 10 acre property I have in the country. At the moment, this one is the front runner:

It is a pre-fab cottage built by a local company. There is one bedroom and bathroom at the back with an open kitchen, living room and dining room at the front which you are looking at right now. The view from my lot is a stunning view of the Kennebecasis River. When I was touring this cottage, I could so see myself sitting on the couch on the left side of the house with a fire in the fireplace, taking in the beauty of the sun setting behind the hills that form the valley. My bedroom would be the loft on the second level (you can see the windows of the loft through the upper triangular windows). How lovely it will be to lay in bed and to be able to look out across the valley.

The only problem is as I see it is that there are a few things that I would like that I need to ask the builder about because where it is pre-fab, I do not know how much lee-way I have in getting things like in-floor radiant heat instead of electric baseboard heaters and a on-demand water heater instead of the traditional tank. Oh well, if one does not ask, one will not know!

Oct 9/10

So, the other day I decided to do a little exploring in my own back yard because I am so so so guilty of having travelled far and wide, but not close by. All of my friends and family were at work on Wednesday so I hopped in the car and drove to Alma, NB which is on the edge of Fundy National Park. Here are some photos from my stroll on the beach:

 I was watching my footing because the mud flat/beach varied between muddy and rocky bits as the tide had gone out but the sand was not dry. As I was tripping and squelching along, I spied this little rock. If I had approached it from any other angle, I may never have seen the little face in it.

 This picture was taken from the little boardwalk across the street from where I parked my car. The tide was pretty much at its lowest point. It took me close to 15 minutes to walk from this point to as close as I could get to the water's edge without sinking in the mud.

 The harbour in Alma:

 The view from the restaurant where I had an awesome if somewhat expensive lobster roll:

 Me, thinking "Good Gravy! How far am I from the car?". That is Fundy National Park in the background.



Part 2 Oct 3/10

I was out to my property in the country this afternoon to do some work in and around the apple orchard since it was such a beautiful day here. Most of my time was spent cutting back raspberry canes that were growing around some of the trees. I had just collected up all my bits and pieces when I noticed this little guy scurrying up and down a couple of trees. He stopped to take a long nibble of this apple so I had lots of time to observe and then photograph him while he filled his little belly.

Oct 3/10

My ort jar is about to over flow so I captured its image for posterity before I wander over to the garbage can to empty it out. The reds that you can see are the result of the many Christmas ornaments that I have been working on! Orts have long been a fascination for me. I like to collect them and used to keep them in a large once-was-a-fish-bowl jar that took years to fill. Then, the decluttering inspiration hit so now I use a smaller jar and take photos before chucking out the contents. I mean really, what was the point of keeping all of those clippings except as a reminder of how much stitching I had been doing?

Oct 2/10

Some of my co-workers are entered in the Walk for The Cure this weekend so I did this up for them to raffle off:

The pattern comes from the Oct 2009 The Cross Stitcher and I found the frame at Michaels for a sweet 40% off! No mystery threads this time; I actually used the published floss list to stitch this one. I am tempted to go back and pick up a few more frames because I really like the look of this one even if the fancy matte is actually plastic. For $17.99 less 40%, it more than did the trick!