A Special Party

Last weekend, it was great fun to head to my hometown for a special party.  My nephew

 

is headed to South Korea to teach for two years and his Mom, my sister,  hosted a going away party for him.

My sister has raised three, great, young people.  One of her parenting mantras has always been
"I pay for one degree and one body part."
If they needed/wanted  laser treatment on their eyes, there would be no braces.  Or vice versa.  Likewise, after 4 years of university, any further education was the kids financial responsibility.

My nephew graduated this spring from the University of Waterloo but would like to obtain his MBA.  A two-year, costly programme.  To finance this second degree, he decided to head off to South Korea to teach English.  To live cheaply and save his money.  The only potential  hitch in his Mother's plan to teach him financial responsibility could be  the threat that a good looking, 23 year old man might catch the eye of a lovely South Korean lady.  Sis has threatened him about falling in love and putting down Korean roots.

The party was lovely and it was a special surprise to meet a blog reader there.  Meet Jane. 

My sister's long-ago  babysitter and an avid blog reader.  What a nice surprise.    Thanks for reading, Jane.

And if you are interested in the happenings of South Korea's newest English teacher, nephew has decided - at his Mother's insistence - to write a blog.
 You can read him here.   http://jessegoestokorea.blogspot.ca/

Home Already

Robert Burns said it first, (and in his Scots' manner)  I am simply paraphrasing in my Canadian way.   The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.  Despite planning a full summer at the trailer, our 2015 time in Hearst has been shortened and we are home.

The bad news is, our trailer time has been cut short this year because Fred has a health issue requiring surgery.  While the 'under the knife' appointment isn't until the third week of August, he does have several pre-op appointments.  The first being this morning and so we are home.

The good news is that normally never home in July, I do not get to see the full extent of the fruits of my gardening labours.  Look at what greeted me yesterday when we got home.

And there was trailer knitting. I'll tell you all about it in my next post.

Fed And Reay To Travel

Well, summer has begun. The wool, the patterns  and the needles are all packed.

Miss Abi has had her Thornbury fun, has been fed all her favourite foods

 and is ready to head  home to Hearst. 

The three of us leave soon for the great white north to spend the summer at the trailer.  Blogging will be sporadic.  With no internet service at the trailer park, I must head to town and  a source of WiFi   to catch up on my computer life.

In the meantime, have a great summer everyone.

Happy Canada Day

Happy Canaa day everyone.
This is how we start July 1,at our house, every year.
Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFOPZX3U7CQ

New Muscles

I have new muscles.  At least some I haven't been aware of for quite some time.  The kind of muscles needed to dig holes and plant shrubs.  Different muscles than knitting requires, for sure.

We've been in this house almost 9 years now, and thought out landscaping days were long over.  But last spring, the result of frozen weeping tile, our basement flooded.    Which meant last summer, we had this done.

 

Before the contractor with the back hoe arrived, we  transplanted  many of the shrubs - and managed to save quite  a few. This year it was time to move them   back to the front of the house and to buy additional ones  to replace those we couldn't salvage. 

Silly me, I thought it would be a one day job.  Buy in the morning. Plant in the afternoon. But I forgot  our bodies are 9 years older than the last time we did this kind of work.  Quitting time comes way earlier than it used to.    My  landscaping muscles, rarely used these last few years,  complained so loudly last evening that  Cotton Concerto lay untouched. Today, being the third day of this one day job was a lighter day.  Tonight, maybe there will be knitting.

This And That

As a soap opera might begin -
 "When last we heard from Brenda, she was about to depart for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival", so begins  today's  blog post.

Maryland, a two day festival took us - well me, Lynn was home in 5  - 6 days  to travel, attend and return  home.  Not to mention the still-ongoing recovery time.  Pulling  a trailer full of yarn, books,  booth shelving and lighting makes it a slow drive.   We take two days for an easy drive down to West Friendship, outside of Baltimore and a day and a bit for a more intense drive home. The show was great.  More attendees and looser wallets than last year. A happy time for Shelridge Yarns

Home since last Tuesday, I have had a busy time here as well.  Knitting with my Ladies With Balls on Wednesday and the Meaford Knit Group on Thursday.  A library-sponsored Mothers' Day Tea on Friday, a Jennifer Potter Concert on Saturday and a collapse day on Sunday. 

I leave you with a pictorial of the events.

 Flowering trees in Maryland

 Lyn's  tiny bag of potato chips

 Our booth, ready for opening day.  

Festival Sights - sorry Needles - I didn't get out of our booth until 3:30 Sunday afternoon and by that time had completely forgotten to look up your friends.

 Our booth neighbours and their CanCan-like  feet display, ready for hand knit socks.

 A weaving demo.

 Bags of fleece going home with a happy customer.

 Hides.

And Knit Group

 Carol's funky & fun, 3 scarf sweater.  

 

 Sandy's Color Affection.  Or is that Affliction, Sandy?

 Sharon's lesson in Three Needle Bind  Off

 Doreen's great braided necklace.  

Another great use for the loopy yarn.  She had spent the morning at the school teaching 7 and 8 year old children how to make these necklaces.

Tomorrow, the returning saga of "Did Brenda knit?"

Jazzmania

While no wool was viewed or purchased during my weekend  - unlike my knitting friends who spent time and money at the DC Knitters Frolic -   we had a great time here in Thornbury at Jazzmania.

Events took place from Friday to Sunday, but we had tickets only to the Saturday afternoon show.  The Toronto All Star Big Band.  The kids in the hall, so to speak.  

In the past, seating was on a first-come, first-served basis, so I convinced my group  that we needed to arrive early.  Only after walking through  the doors, did we look at our tickets to see that this year there was seating was assigned.  Oops. We were a bit early.

But it wasn't long before the both the band and  guests arrived and music filled the hall. 

One of the things I like best about this show is that the women are dressed up.  Skirts, dresses, flowing palazzo pants.  And lots of those special ladies' shoes that say "I dance."  Heels of a 'just-so' height and thickness to ensure no toppling. Straps across the instep to prevent removal during those twirling jitterbugs. And dance they did.  We counted several couples that did not sit down for entire 45 minute sets.

The band is wonderful.  Young.  Well dressed.  And in love with music. 

Even sis and her hubby took to the dance floor.

No new wool, but still,  a great weekend here. 

Just A Bit

Just a bit of car knitting was all that happened needle-wise this weekend.  Fred and I took off for the big smoke. We had some mega-city errands to run (shopping at Ikea) and wanted to visit with  Peter and his Lady Of Spain whom we hadn't seen since the time between our Florida and Hawaii vacations. The idea started when I tried to get tickets to the Blue Jays home opener.  But those tickets sold out faster than I can think.  We chose the Friday night game instead. 

I had some air miles to spare so we treated ourselves to a room at the Sheraton across from city hall.  Saturday, we  caught the last day of Peter's latest art show at the Godard Gallery, went to lunch with Danny Marks at The Rex, ate dinner at an outdoor patio and had our first trip to the now, almost-new Ripley's Aquarium.  Whew!  How much can be packed into a two day weekend?

 The roof top patio at Wayne Gretzky's bar before the game. 46  steps to climb to get there.  We didn't see one overweight person up there. I need a selfie stick!

 The Pan Am Games count-down sign at city hall.

Volunteers in red shirts setting up displays in front of city hall for an International Children's Day celebration.  Who says big cities are not warm hearted?

Danny -  wearing the hat -  and friends at The Rex.  Noon to 3 every Saturday. The regular drummer was on vacation and the substitute had played with Anne Murray for 24 years!

Two of my favourite men.

As cool as it was by the time the sun went down, you couldn't stop these Canadians and one Spanish transplant from eating outdoors on the first warm day this year.

A couple of shots from the Aquarium.

Some marvellous Toronto Architecture and lots of big city fun.  A great weekend.  Now back to our normal programming.

  

Hawaiian Review

Three weeks in Hawaii has taught me that there is another 'half' out there.  For a mere three weeks, I was one of them.

We loved Hawaii. The weather, the culture, the scenery -  but mostly the people.  Everywhere, every time  we encountered a person of Hawaiian heritage, we saw a fun-loving, kind, gentle,  hard working, happy, helpful  person.  Quite different from the 'native' issues other countries experience.

The  first 5 days of our vacation, we spent in  Honolulu.  That is on the island of Oahu and some of its iconic places are Waikiki Beach

 

and Pearl Harbour.

 We spent most afternoons at Waikiki which was a short walk from our hotel, and took a half day tour of Pearl Harbour.   At Waikiki, there is a public park and often there were performances of native Hawaiian dance at the park.  Below  a chiildren's group performs native Hawaiian dance.

The remainder of  our trip we spent in Kaluai Kona, home of the Ironman Triathalon,

 on the island of Hawaii.  It is as different from Honolulu as night to day.  Small town versus big city.  Totally a tourist town  versus working city with tourists.  Lava rock, non-swimmable beaches versus Waikiki Beach.

While in  Kona, we did a lot of day-trips.  We went   up the mountain to Volcano National Park to see a live volcano.  Fortunately - in my opinion at least - we saw only the geo-thermal steam geysers not flowing lava.
 

One day we travelled to the south end of the island - the southern  most part of the U. S. A.

 There we watched, as many jumped off the 40 foot cliff into the Pacific Ocean.

A small coffee farm was one afternoon's attraction.  A couple and their  two children from California opted out of the 9 -5 routine and bought a run-down coffee farm in Kona.  They have spent several years converting it to a viable business.  They  gave us a tour followed by some home-made chocolate chip cookies and a cup of the best coffee I have tasted - EVER!

Fred would be upset if I didn't mention that he and my BIL went on a deep-sea fishing charter and Fred caught a 457 pound Blue Marlin.   He has a picture that looks just like all the ones you might see on television.

 

He is still thinking of that day.  This morning he measured the fish in the picture so he could calculate the scale.  A little something to add to his story.

Home now and adjusting to the 6 hour time change.  I have picked up my needles and wonder of wonders, have not forgotten how to knit.