One Part Inspiration...

I started with the door wreath.  It was in the middle of November. I have been saving it since I got it at a such a good price at the end of last year.  All summer, I looked at the bag it came in, silently count the days til I could take it out and put it up in celebration.      My husband wondered why I put it on the inside of the door.  I told him it was so that I could see it. [It also means that I don't have to go outside to rescue it when the winter winds blow]    Can I just say, it gives me great pleasure to walk down the hallway and see the wreath hanging there as a harbinger of all that Christmas means.         Closer to the end of November, I told my him that the decorations would be like putting a frog in water and setting it to 'boil'.  He wouldn't notice too much at first, but eventually, he would clue in that we are now fast and furious into the Christmas season.  F...

Fresh flowers from the garden at work for "Music and Company" Father's Day Celebration One of the ways I have been amusing myself in this season of my life, is with flowers.  I always welcome the opportunity to play.  I can put aside all the cares of life and lose myself in the process of cleaning the flowers, setting them out in groups, preparing the container and then arranging them - trying to keep in mind all that I learned in "Floral Design - Part One".  Sometimes the flowers have been for a special occasion.  Sometimes I have created an excuse to bring them in - "Happy 150th day of the year" ; "Sorry for your loss of a filling"; "You're Retiring already?" ; "My kids are bugging me arrangement"; etc. etc. These two arrangements were done for my boss who was retiring.  We put on a party for her and I signed up to do the arrangements for the head table.  I bought an every day arrangement at Costco, took i...

Early in January, my daughter and I were talking back and forth on our phones.  She told me that she was planning to take a cake decorating course.  I said "Oh fun!" and her next message changed the course of my winter evenings.  "Do you want to take it with me?" I thought about it for a couple of minutes and then spontaneously said yes. It has been a blast.  I have learned a lot.   This particular lesson was how to transfer a shape onto the cake and decorate in the middle of it.  It involves parchment and tracing a shape with gel.  If you look close you will see that I was trying to make a cupcake shape on the cake.  You don't see it?  Don't worry.  It's not there.  I started trying to freehand it and realized that it looked nothing like the transfer would have if I had actually used the gel to trace the cupcake shape.  So I smoothed it all over and practiced using the star tip instead.  Goodbye cupcake. Hello avan...

Say you were going to have a baby shower and you were in charge of games.  Say you didn't quite know how they would all go.  It might be a good idea to try out the games on your husband and a couple of dinner guests to see what you might need for the shower. There are advantages to having your husband play the games that women usually play.  For one thing, husbands are very analytical, and can give you all sorts of  pointers on how to run the game more efficiently.  For another thing, you get a perspective on the games that would never have occurred to you in a million years.  And thirdly, it's a fun way to spend an evening with friends - to find out sides of them you never knew existed. Say one of the games was to try and guess the prices of baby items.  This game, played in mixed company would make the woman-friend feel very good about herself because the men would grossly overestimate the cost of the items.  For instance:  a jar of ...

I was going to write tonight.  But it just felt like too much thinking.  So I got distracted and started reading posts from other years about Christmas.  I have entertained myself for about an hour this way. "Oh yeah! That memory!" "I forgot about that.  That was a good one!" "Sniff" "LOL" And now, I am going to bed.  With visions of sugar plums dancing in my head.  I will be more diligent about a Christmas post another day.

*Agree at pancake breakfast to go garage saleing with mom and sister *Poke around, finding records and such *Help find the different destinations, with my eye out for anything that looks like a garage sale sign. * Land at the mother-lode of garage sales.  It is late in the day, and we have found a complex with four different houses with their wares out. *My eye lands on an electric bike.  Interesting!  I've always wanted an electric bike.  Go  investigate. It looks brand new. The price is 350$.  There is also a brand new bike rack for sale. It is marked $20.00. Talk to my mom, who informs me that she can't help me out with this one.  She needs to pay her mortgage more than spot me the money for a bike. *Engage the owner in a conversation about the bike - how it works, where he purchased it, what kind of use he has made of it.  Ask owner if he is willing to negotiate on the price.  He says "Make me an offer."  I am not sure what ...

When the children were small, there was an urgency within our parental hearts to create Christmas memories.  This included going out during the day (or at least in the early evening - so as not to interrupt bed time) to the bush (tree farm) and tramping through the forest (lines of trees) and selecting the perfect tree to chop down (my husband's job) and bring home (set on top of the vehicle with ropes or tie downs or both).   Then we would hurry home and make a great ceremony of bringing the tree in (after its trunk had been trimmed to the perfect length) (my husband's job) and setting it up (usually more than once because we got a cheap stand and it didn't have the strength to hold up the weight of the tree), and setting out hot chocolate (my job) and cookies (decorated by the children and me).    Decorations would be unpacked and the children would put on the least dangerous ones - usually all on the first three branches - and then when they went to bed, th...

I got a gift from one of my piano student families and when I opened it, I knew I would love it. The colours, the whimsy the ribbon. So cute. But what did it all mean? Want to find out? Click on the link below My Animoto Video

SIGHHHHHHHH.  It's been so long since I posted.  SIGHHHHHHH.  What have I been doing???  SIGHHHH.  I don't know.  Just a lot of bits of nothing that have been grabbing my attention with the tyranny of the non-urgent? We made it through Grade Eleven Socials and English, my son and I.  I learned tons about Canadian History and have used so much of my newly-remembered knowledge in my groups -  where the people I interact with every day lived the history we studied.  I got myself a celebratory decoration in honour of my efforts.  My husband took care of getting my son something to mark this milestone.  Every evening, I dodge remote controlled helicopters in the family room - as they learn how to fly them and land them.  My twenty-something son texted at midnight on a Tuesday not long ago to tell me he would be home in 16 hours.  It has been lovely having him around - and I guess that accounts for s...

We have been in the throes of more upheaval at The Pokeaway.  Since my Dad and brother came to visit, we have had all the baseboards in the upstairs installed and painted.  All the doors are painted and the cubby holes now have entrance doors.  The bathroom was repainted (in case you don't remember you can look  here  to have a reminder of why) and while we were at it, we move the corner desk out and this one in.  I quite like it.  Mostly because now I will have a filing cabinet at my fingertips instead of the makeshift system I have been using for three years.  YAY! Another thing I am proud of it that I hooked up the computer myself. My husband has been extraordinarily busy and hasn't had a time frame where he could crawl under the desk and hook up the cords from the printer or the monitor, or the sound system.  So I asked myself, and I said yes.  I followed the colour patterns on the cords and matched them to the ones on the hard...

And this, was all that was left of the sentry this morning.  It makes me wonder who is winning the battle. :)

For the last week or so, there has been a battle going on in our neighbourhood.You might remember I mentioned in this post http://onepartinspiration.blogspot.com/2011/08/blessings-in-disguise.html  that they are installing water mains on our street.  Part of the installation means leaving supplies and machinery in place, so when they come to do the job, everything is ready to go. At the end of the road, there is a large pile of gravel which is part of the supply list. Someone keeps coming and helping themselves to the gravel.  Someone else is watching them. That someone keeps putting up signs.  The first day, I drove by, the sign said "We saw you take the gravel.  It's not yours.  Please leave it alone.".  The next day there was a new sign which said "Black truck and back hoe, licence plate ______ We saw you."  And last night, when I drove by, I saw this.  The sign says "Arnold is watching". 

Recently we were invited to one of the young cousin's bridal shower.  I was honoured to be invited.  She made it easy on us, by registering at several different places.  So my mother-in-law and I set off to find the 'perfect gift' for her.  We looked at the list and narrowed down what we would buy. Eventually we decided on serving spoons/forks and placemats.  She bought the spoons and I bought the placemats.  I said that I would take care of wrapping them up.  On my way home, I decided to drop into the dollar store and see if there might be some pretty boxes - and I found this one.  I picked out the ribbon to co-ordinate with some of the colours I saw in the box.    I am not a terribly precise person when it comes to making gifts come alive in the wrapping.  This may surprise some, because I actually had a job as a wrapper for Birk's Jewellers when I was, just out of high school.  I look back on that ex...

The other night, it happened again. I did something stupid, and am bruised and battered. I can show you this one. But not the other four, because they are in impermissable places. They do have the most interesting shapes however, and have provided me with much entertainment as I have tried to find a comfortable way to sit, and lie down. I am rather prone to injury. I should accept that by now. But it never occurs to me in the heat of the moment, that my actions will result in disaster. I just think " Hey, look at that! I can skate backwards!" or " I will just show the youth pastor how to wrap my hand around this rope swing and swing over this gulley .", or " Why don't we just jump off this moving hay wagon and see what happens ", or " I'll just try and look really cool, as I slide down this bannister, while my school mates are watching ." This particular event happened when I was at a bridal shower. I don't want to go into details, b...

I was going through one of my music closets the other day, and ran across a journal. It had been given to me by a friend from work. I had decided to use it to keep track of the funny things my piano students said. I read through it and and started chuckling. I am so glad I decided to keep it. I had forgotten many of the things that were in it. Like these: Me: "That's the funniest thing I have ever heard!" Student: "What's the second funniest thing?" Me: "What's on the next page?" Student: "The next song." Me: "The next song is about a Pterodactyl. That's one animal you wouldn't want to invite to your Spelling test on Mondays" Student: "Why?" Me: "Because it is very hard to spell Pterodactyl." Student: "Our spelling tests are on Fridays, anyways." Me: "What does this sign mean?" Student: "Oh, that's a coffee break". At least he remembered what I'd said the week...

Rollers and brushes, and paint, oh my! There is so much to be done. My husband donned a cap and sprayed his way around the downstairs a couple of weeks ago. Since then, we have been making our way through the laundry room, powder room, pantry, kitchen and dining room. Spraying is great. It saves time, but uses up a lot of paint. And it makes for interesting designs on the face and hair. Rolling is more my cup of tea. I've rolled and brushed my way through a few houses now, and this is where I feel more comfortable. So we compromised; he did the primer and the ceilings, and I am doing the rolling and the edging. Of course, it is always more pleasant when other people join in. I have hosted a few painting parties already, with more to come, I am sure. This of course, depends on whom I can bamboozle into believing that a painting party is SO much fun!!!!!!! Let me just say, that I absolutely love the colors I have chosen. "Safe Harbour" which is a sea-foam green/blue (depen...

Do you ever watch T.V. with closed captioning? I do sometimes, when I am trying to settle down, but my husband is already sleeping. I put the T.V. on mute, and read the CC, to catch the action, while letting him rest. There are a few things I've noticed about CC. : First of all it's not always that accurate. Secondly, there's a lot of times when they throw letters together like the person is going to be able to figure out what they are talking about. Third, sometimes, whole batches of dialogue go by without any CC. It's like the scribe gets so involved in the action, they forget to tell the viewer what they are seeing. Recently, I wrote down some of these things I've seen on CC. just to prove my point I am transcribing them here, as I saw them. These are real folks. I am not making this stuff up. I find it endlessly entertaining. " Self steam ". Hmmm. Does that mean the person is self-motivated? Or needs help feeling better about themselve...

At the moment, I'm keeping my husband company, while he watches the semi-finals of the World Cup Soccer Tournament. I'm still in my jammies - although it is already well into the afternoon. It is day three of my July holiday. The first of July was a great taste of the holiday to come. I got to go to the parade with my #1 son, and wave at all the floats, and enjoy the community atmosphere. We had a great vantage point. The only thing was, that the candy ran a little thin by the time they got to us, so we didn't clean up as much as we normally do. My son kept the crowd entertained by yelling random things to the parade entrants. " Thanks for coming to my parade , I really appreciate your support ", and " I'm 100% for whatever cause you are representing" . And when the candy-throwers actually looked like they had some goods, he yelled to the little kids " ATTACK! " It's been a few years since he went to a parade. I had one more day...