Random Thoughts

One morning, this week, as my husband took A. into daycare, I was left alone in the car for a few minutes.

It was quiet, well, almost, I turned the radio off and listened to the birds chirping. The trees are finally budding and the hedges are starting to turn green. I saw a squirrel running along a wire against a steely-blue, almost lavender sky. The wind was pretty strong and had blown the neighbour's gate open, so their giant poodle was happily roaming the front yard.

It's such a common picture, but it gave me tremendous pleasure to watch. This sense of calm overcame me, a true ..ahhhhhhh moment.

Spring is such a happy, positive, invigorating time. It makes me think of all my projects and plans, and their progress. Now that things are settling down, I am finding renewed energy to continue working on my stash for the Craft Market I am planning on participating in. So here's a picture of what I worked on in the past few weeks.

Our Easter

We celebrated Easter this past weekend. The advantage of celebrating it a week later then most people, is that I've been able to scour Pinterest for cute decorating and crafty ideas. The amount of talent and inventiveness out there is crazy!

I had it all planned out. The menu, the activities and the decorations, and I was pretty pleased with the results.

Holidays and family gatherings, such as these, can be tough. Our family is always reminded that we are spread all over the globe, and only get to meet face-to-face rarely. At the same time this fact makes us appreciate the family members that are close by, and nurture these relationships as we know they are precious.Generally I would say that we are too dependent on technology, but to be honest I cannot remember what it was like before we discovered Skype. To be able to "see" your family, to have cousins that have never met interact, recognize and speak to each other has helped me tremendously in accepting that we are living our lives separated. But I am getting too sentimental here.

I started this post by telling you how nicely I had planned out the festivities. As always, plans are one thing, and reality turns into something completely different. The kids squabbled all day, over chocolate, over coloring the Easter eggs, over who was doing a better job with their activity book. I bought the wrong dough for my dessert, and then forgot to defrost the blueberries I needed for it as well (thank God my sister had brought a "just in case" cake), and then I realized I had forgotten to buy lemons, a major ingredient in one of the dishes we were preparing. Finally the laptop shut down in the middle of our Skype conversation because it was not connected to the power-supply.

So our Easter celebrations ended up being the usual mayhem that our family celebrations are.

I will be leaving you with some photos that portray a completely different picture, make you believe it was all a very "zen" get-together. But I am not complaining, after all, how boring would that be?

Butterflies go free

Tomorrow I start my new job. I feel a little nervous, to be honest. Not surprisingly, I have turned toward my kniting to make me feel better, to calm my thoughts. It's amazing what a soothing effect it has on me. I can't help but wonder, what do people do, that do not have such an activity to turn to? I will tell you more about my knitting project in a few weeks, but for now, I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Easter. I will be posting about our own festivities next week, as we are celebrating orthodox Easter, which falls a week later this year.

In the meantime I will tell you a bit about our trip to the Montreal Botanical garden this weekend. Every year, they have the "Butterflies go free" exhibit, and this year we thought the kids would really appreciate the experience. As you walk into the greenhouse you find yourself surrounded by swarms of butterflies. If you can sit still for more then a minute ( which the kids did not), you might even have a butterfly land on you.

It's truly a bit of magic.

Spring is taking it's time in arriving here. After that one week of incredible weather, we are back to wearing scarves, and any little sign of warmth and green is celebrated. Seeing all those beautiful flowers and colors, has lifted our spirits and has made me once again think of all the projects I am planning on working on this year. I feel energized.

Getting back into the swing of things

Life is strange. After trying for months to make changes in my life, to get things onto a positive track, and feeling trapped, like I was hitting a wall, it seems my persistence has paid off.

Not only did we manage to sell our old place, and move, but I have finally found another job, and will be starting my new role in a couple of weeks..

So now that it all seems to be falling into place, I can focus on my knitting again. It feels like ages since I've picked up the needles! And I never got a chance to blog about finishing my Effortless Cardigan. It's a great sweater, a pattern that I've wanted to knit forever, and of course it did not disappoint. None of Hannah Fettig's patterns do! I debated for a long time what yarn to use, and when I saw the Classic Elite Moorland on sale at Webs, it struck me as a good choice.

And it is .... in a way. Because mohair sheds, so I tend t leave a trail wherever I go. You can tell what chair I've  been sitting in, or what coat I've worn. Also, and this I am not sure is due to the mohair, I've got quite significant pilling where my watch and purse rub against the sweater. Bit I still like the yarn, it's great to work with, I maybe chose the wrong project for it.

Make no mistake, I'm still proudly wearing my sweater, but it just goes to show you that I still have lots to learn about pairing yarn and projects.

Now let me share some shots I got of the Effortless. We had really wonderful weather for about a week, so I am glad I got the hubs to dig out the camera.

Now that my creative mojo is slowly returning, I've got some, hopefully interesting posts lined up, so don't give up on this blog just yet!

Still alive

I know, I know, I promised I would not disappear again for days on end. But sometimes, the best laid plans....well don't quite work out. My last weeks and especially weekends have consisted mostly of this:

And certainly not enough of this:

Right now, I am not even sure where exactly my knitting needles are. And to be honest, as much as my fingers are itching to pick up a nice calming knitting project, I am completely exhausted, and can barely picture getting up tomorrow morning and facing a new drive to work and a new schedule, more boxes to unpack and things to put away.
But it's all good, it's all very good. I am super-excited about this fresh beginning.

L♥ve is in the air

A. and I have been working on his Valentine's cards for a few weekends now. They are safely tucked into his back-pack, and I know he's bursting with excitement and can hardly wait to give them away today. 


And this has made me think.... Valentine's Day was never a huge thing for me, but it is always nice to be told you are loved, right? Sometimes little gestures are all it takes.


Like the one my hubby made. He is halfway around the world all week, but before leaving, he got me this delicious tea, called "Read My Lips". This is how it's described :" It's a totally decadent combination of China black tea, vanilla, peppermint, chocolate bits and spicy red peppercorns. Plus it contains little red candy lips for a kiss of sweetness. In other words, it's a completely satisfying spring experience with no guilt or strings attached".


It smells divine, like most of the David's Tea choices, and yes, there really are little red lips in the tea. 


To make the experience complete, I baked some brownies, after all, mint and chocolate are a perfect pair, just like the two of us!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Looking good

I cannot believe it's been weeks since my last post! Three, to be exact. Where has the time gone? We're in February?

I do have a good reason though. Last summer I mentioned that I was trying hard to make some changes in my life. And I am finally seeing results. Our house sold, and we are moving! I am surrounded by boxes, lists, and well...dust. The new house is also ready, and I have to admit that my knitting obsession has been pushed aside a bit by my decorating obsession. I have to warn you, this year, you may see quite a few decor-related posts. But that's OK, right? Gotta shake things up a bit.

And because I want to keep things interesting, I took another fairly significant decision. This year, I will be participating in a craft fair! I don't have a lot of other details for now, but what I can tell you is that it's the Montreal POP Puces Market. I visited it this winter, and it's such a wonderful event. Local artists showcasing and selling their work. I felt really inspired, and encouraged. Also reading about Rebecca's experience over at nook, made me think that I'd probably have a blast!

So I've been experimenting with patterns and sketching out ideas. I had never tried a felting project before, and since 2012 seems to be a year of new adventures, I dove right in. Inspired by a woven basket that one of my good friends brought me back from the Philippines, I knitted and felted this little catch-all. It now proudly sits on my night-table, and I find it really practical. So I am thinking I will whip up a few for the market, and Etsy shop. I've already tried different sizes and also stripes, but the simple one, like this, I like best.

Now, what do you guys think of using safety pins to pin the basket into shape? I find it cute, a more "masculine" touch, but I am toying with the idea of trying beads or buttons.

In closing, I promise to not take another extended break...it feels strange and I do miss everyone that visits...