This time for our yard sale we took a good hard look at some of the furniture peices we had and put a whole pile out in the yard. A good amount is gone but I’d still like to see some of the smaller items go.

There’s also the toys and books we cleaned out (tho Meaghan is still cleaning out toyd) and the boxes of both Meaghan and Sarah’s stuff they had here and there. And extra dishes. And random stuff. And things from boxes you finally went through that went unpacked from the last move.

I cleaned out a lot of my book when I realized we had so many we’d have to buy a new bookcase, plus there were so many we mostly just looked up stuff online because we couldn’t remember if we had a book on the subject or not.

Also? Turns out when you’re done to one last kid, all the extra homeschooling stuff (or anything loosely related to anything educational by any extension) that I have kept “just in case” get crystal clear when you’re down to one kid with specific interests. It’s also become crystal clear than when we *do* take up an interest, as a family, we tend to go overboard and buy a whole pile of resources anyway. This may or may not be related to the difficulties in finding what we have on hand… Hmm.

So. Here I sit.

Ron is being house husband too, since we got up at 6:30am. While I’ve been dealing with the occasional shopper, he’s been tidying up and even made scones for us. They were pretty yummy and he only had to ask a couple questions about how I follow (or not follow) the actual recipe.

***

OMG the funniest thing happened. I had the big huge wicker chair for sale – a homemade one from .. twigs, basically. I just sold it to a lady, who called her husband to see if he could come get it with his truck. Not five minutes later, a guy pulls up in a truck, hops out and heads straight for it. So of course, I assumed it was this lady’s husband. He siad his wife saw the chair and asked him to come back and get it.

Good thing the first lady who paid for it was still here, because i turned around and yelled, “This your husband?”

“What? NO!”

I turned to him and said “Sorry, that lady beat you to it!”

We had a good laugh. Her companion siad, Can you imagine? You’d be at home yelling at your husband asking where the chair went he picked up!”

Kinda felt bad for the other guy though. Ron thought it wouldn’t sell and here I could have sold it twice.

Went to Austin, met awesome co-workers, some of whom I had met before. Actually, now that I remember again – our flight to Dallas couldn’t land due to thunderstorms, so we diverted to Shreveport LA for fuel. Turns out since we were all connected us passengers found out the Dallas airport was closing and even if we could get there out flight from Dallas to Austin was cancelled. So we got off the plane in Shreveport, rented a car and rove for 6 hours to Austin.

At least we got to see East Texas. Y’all got no hills in Hill Country. I will show you hills.

We met our friends Abbie & Shane, who are awesome. They took us to the LEGO store AND the Apple store, and I was like a kid in a .. well, yeah. It was fun.

I should probably write a whole post on that, but this is enough to jog my memory later.

Meaghan is moving out and going to Fredericton for work, so we are cleaning out all kinds of crap that I’d been keeping “just in case” When you’re down to one kid, there’s a lot you suddenly realize you don’t need any more. We’re motivated to finish up a few things on our house too, with room to shuffle around.

My hands hurt today. They hurt often. I have an ergonomic chair, and a nice laptop desk we got (we got 2 actually) and I try and change positions when I’m not int he zone and stuck posting on the interwebs. As an example, I just checked and the forum I do support on says I have posted 108 times in the last 24 hours. Plus I tweeted & G+ed and emailed. I don’t do too much email any more though, which is nice. I’m sitting here in the living room, typing away on my Mac Air (work perk, love it) and thinking how comfy the couch is and how tired I am but still this nagging feeling I should work on a couple docs I have open in other tabs. This feeling would be part of the reason I got hired.

I got groceries today too, so it’s not all work. Grabbed some containers to organize my fabric, and a couple for the toys Meaghan has been sorting in the front porch. which was a total and complete mess and emma never used any of it any more. (partly given it was too hard to find anything).

Spring always makes me want to organize all the things.

Oh! And! I;ve been taking allergy meds. I finally found some that don’t make me narcoleptic or head spacey. There was one kind I tired, I wound up doing things like turning the stove on high and walking away for ten minutes. Not good. This kind (Claritin) doesn’t make me spacey, but I just go and go and then … drop. But I am not sneezing and itching, especially with all the dusty cleaning and sorting we’re doing.

We tried to have a yard sale last weekend, but it rained. So we’re shooting for setup this Thursday or Friday. Around here yard sales start Friday afternoons.

Between my hands hurting from the rain, and Rons sciatica bothering him, we’re turning into old folks.

(I said I’d update. I didn’t say it’d be good. ;P )

Sarah came up for the weekend – actually, we picked her up on Tuesday when we went to Fredericton for an orthodontic consultation for Emma. Guess who is getting braces?

One of the things we did while Sarah was here, was dye our hair. All the hairs! Sarah wanted to bleach out the bottom half of the back and then do blue and purple streaks, so she needed extras hands and eyes. Hassle her for pics or look at her twitter.

And then, since the dye was there and all, she added a pink streak to my hair. I also touched up some of the blue for more contrast and left some of the faded, previously blue now mermaid green section.

See?

This way, it’s a warning for the people who think I am some mild mannered mom, that maybe – just maybe, I am a bit crazy.

So – to the adventure time.

For Mother’s Day Ron made us all yummy pancakes for breakfast because he is awesome at it. We had them for breakfast because we were going to my mom’s for potluck lunch with us, Addison & Kaytlyn and Izzy and Kaytlyn’s mom Lynn and her husband Patrick.

(charts will be provided later)

We all piled in the car, with half the food, and added all of Sarah’s stuff because we were dropping her back to Fredericton when we were done. Our place is 1 hour and 15mins from Fredericton. My mom’s place is another hour the other side of that. So lots of driving was done.

We were just on the other side of Fredericton, passing into Oromocto, noting how the water still had receded much by the marshy spot near the highway… oh… car broke down… they look familiar.. OMG it’s Addison!

We turned off at the next exit (RIGHT THERE) and then had to go 2 or 3 kms back down the highway so we could turn around and come up behind them again.

It turns out the fix for their radiator the previous Friday was not so much fixed.

Izzy was especially happy to see us. Kaytlyn more so, as they had someone who had stopped to get them some quick fix but by now, she had terrible heartburn and Izzy was almost out of milk. So Ron took off to the store to get some further needs (addison had lots of water since he had walked to the nearest gas station already) and I stayed to amuse the grandbaby.

Izzy of course was thrilled we were there. “NANNy! WHERE GRAMPY?” and then after she had Grammie on one side and Nanny on the other, both exclaiming she was the prettiest smartest ever, so of course she was all smilies.

Eventually we got everyone sorted, made sure they could hobble back home and went on our way. Oh darn. So when we finally got to my mom’s (almost an hour late) the email Sarah sent from her phone hadn’t been seen. We had to fill her in, so we were disappointed. Mom says next family dinner we’ll all just meet in Fredericton, stupid car.

We did eat half the food though, and I gave my mom the panel she wanted me to quilt for her. I’ve been DYING to talk about it, since I did different quilting everywhere on it and couldn’t post.

Side note: when I have too many things on my mind I can’t post about, it doesn’t leave much left I *can* post about, you know?

After we were done at mom’s about mid afternoon, we packed up most of the food (including the lamb roast) and headed back to Fredericton to stop in to Addison’s place. They had made it fine back home, and then dropped off Kaytlyn and the baby, but broke down again almost to the mechanics. And at an intersection.

At any rate, when we got there, Addison was back, and the girls were napping. So he had to entertain us all by himself while we were all just plain tired. Eventually Izzy got up, we heated more leftovers including the lasagna casserole they were supposed to bring to my mom’s, and I stuffed his fridge with more food I didn’t want but that they will happily eat till mid-week.

Then it was time to go and Izzy refused to hand out hugs. If you don’t hug people goodbye, they don’t leave, right?

****

Oh, I just realized I didn’t gush about my mother’s day presents. A & K got me a hanging basket of pansies, my favorite flower, as well as a framed picture of my kissing Izzy to pieces. Sarah got me a HUGE squirt bottle of Satsuma body wash from the Body Shop. It smells like orange pop. Meaghan made me red velvet cake with this super rich flour icing. “It’s a vehicle for getting butter into your mouth”. Emma did nice things for me, which is mostly what I look for, a mom’s day off.

I don’t mind reheatng, but I don’t want to cook on Mother’s day. That, and see all my kids. That’s all I need.

The super long drives I can do without. UGH.

Here’s hoping i can keep updating. I’m still trying to figure out when is a good time for me.

When I have my afternoon “off”, I like to go quilt. Sometimes I go to our local quilt shop, but it was snomageddon outside, and if I was going I really should have gotton groceries instead. So. I went to my room of my own and sewed.

I made this:

Nice, isn’t it? Now go look at the logo of the company I work for.

I think I might like my job a wee bit too much. Is that possible?

The first time I tried to explain my job in a nutshell (other than “I do customer support & documentation”) I told the person I did the same things I was doing before, except now someone pays me to do it and I can still do it at home in my pyjamas.

While I was saying that, it occurred to me how lucky I am and I said so, all astonished-like. The person said, “Yes, yes you are.”

Looking over my last post, I just realized how else I could have done that corner design and it would have been much easier. Duh on my for not getting it the first time.

I stopped by the quilt shop and picked up the other follow the line design book they had and a 1×12 ruler for small cuts, which I have been wishing for but onyl while I was in my sewing room making small cuts.

We also went to the library to hear our friend Kate give a talk about Vikings. I tweeted what we were doing, and one of my followers thought it was really funny – since he is in Norway and technically a Viking. Tho I’m not sure how much he goes out berserking.

Saturdays are turning into my “bless my household” days, where I try and catch up on house work, do extra baking, send time with the kids and do less work than usual. Sometimes I don’t even check my laptop for a couple hours.

My two bffs both observe Saturday as the Sabbath, and I miss them from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.

I did try a half a pill and that helps with the spacey, still knocks me out a bit and only marginally helps with the allergic reaction I got going on in the lungs department.

(and all that by ron using the vacuum cleaner. the second time I stayed at the other end of the house for a good 2 hours)

Anyway. I made myself not cut out any more quilts. Oh SURE I have plenty planned, but I am not to sew together more from the huge pile I have waiting to be pieced until I quilt the two.. no three…oh wait, four that need to be quilted immediately. Meaghan’s quilt is half done now the one I was making for her birthday back in November. I have 2 top secret projects I am also working on.

I started these diamonds with my walking foot, but there was too much turning back and forth and even around, so I switched to my free motion foot with the stitch regulator. I love that thing, even when I think it’s going to sew right through me. Halfway done the top, then a curvy border. We already found a nice grey on grey floral for binding, just to frame all that white.

I picked up a nice piece for the back of Kaytlyn’s quilt. the local shop has some extra wide quilt backing fabric and had done up some precut bundles. Somehow the width did not click in my head and I have enough to back her quilt TWICE. But it’s not like I won’t need the extra somewhere else.

My nose is cold, my laundry pile is high, the boxes of decorations are still out, and I am still working on that whole balance thing. My brain has ramped up into the not shutting up part as well, so that’s not helping with the whole falling asleep and staying asleep situation. Either that, or my age is catching up to me.

Oh, got a haircut. nice and short. Why do I always wait so log? I’m going to dye it blonde again, and I was thinking of getting pink in it but now I’m leaning towards a nice shock of mermaid turquoise right in the front. Just because I can.

I forgot to eat breakfast, so when we got to Sarah’s we went in and I ate the lunch I brought. It was 11;30 anyway. I had one package of the Recipe to Riches Slow & Low pork. I only bought it because it was on sale for $5. No way I;d pay regular price – the whole box would feed 2 people and the box had a LOT of wasted space. :-/

We went a few blocks downtown, parked and walked to Yarns on York. Oh my yummy yarn. I don’t knit because I cannot stand the feel of yarn on my fingers. The clerk suggested maybe I was using cheap yarn (probably) but I also pointed out I don;t even like hand lotion for the same reason. *shivers*

Sarah suggested we go to this new spot – Pretty Little Freaks which sells retro stuff. OMG gorgeous. They had some steampunk heels my bff Rebecca would totally die for.

Then we went over to A & K’s house where I distributed the chocolate we got from England (thank you very much) and gave them 2 casserole dishes I had cleaned out the night before. Seems I have way too many and the ones I got for Christmas would not fit in the cupboard and are much nicer and more useful anyway. (some smaller one person and two person sizing).

Izzy was adorable as usual – she did eventually give me kisses. She was wearing her sleeper with rubber boots.

we hit the mall after that. Gahhhhhh… too many stores for absurdly skinny people. I was tweeting the whole time too so Ron would not worry e were in a ditch somewhere. Also? La Senza seems to have tarted right up. I told Sarah the only thing missing was the sex toy section. “They’e in the secret room at the back,” she said. I think she was joking.

After that, Michael’s where Meaghan picked up an armload of yarn. Sarah & I were pretty tired by then. We dropped her off then we went home. That was pretty much my day.

Work since then. I got home in time to put some supper in the oven.

I started taking the tree down and packing away decorations. I want to write a post about how I choose decorations and how many you need for a tree. I wanted to do this last year too and even took pics but never wrote the post.

I tried to remember what I did this year and can’t even dig around my blog to check. So serves me right not blogging.

For my new job, we can make our own hours essentially. This is awesome. On Sundays, the two other people in charge have church and family time, so Sundays I tend to keep a firm eye on things.

(I still can’t believe the things I’m in charge of some days. Just try not to think about it and get the work done.)

Aside from that, I clean up the house, do laundry and try and get in some quilt time. I fond a pattern for some super fast baby quilts and so I worked on those today with the fabrics I got on Friday when our quilt shop had a huge 50% of sale. I also had a gift certificate from my mom, so I used it up too.

Here’s the fabrics and the pattern -

Super nine patch baby quilts

I’ll put these up in my etsy shop (SIX! BABY! QUILTS!) and if I need a quilt for a baby present, well I have one.

***

We have eggnog to use up. I only bought 1 litre and hardly anyone drank any. I like it but I just cannot drink a huge glass of milk any more. Not if I want my insides to keep on liking me.

Eggnog pancakes for dinner tonight.

***

I’m still in my jammies. We try not to get dressed on Sunday unless we really need to go out.

Anyway, Ron and I went to Toronto last weekend to attend and speak at what is known as a WordCamp. Basically, it’s a bunch of our nerdy friend talking code. And some normal people trying to figure out how to even use WP.

We got up a o’dark o’clock on Friday to head down to Fredericton airport. Mom met us there to take Emma & Meaghan to her place, after a shopping trip. Ron got to pick the seats on the plane, and chose the last row for us. That was an experience. At least we got on almost first. There were a bunch of Australian military guys also on the plane. They were headed home so were joking with each other, and eventually us too.

The flight was pretty uneventful actually. It is becoming old hat. Takes abut 2 hours or so in air time to get to Toronto. We did go into Pearson, even tho there was a special to go to the smaller airport. We just didn’t want to transfer in Montreal. It turns out we know someone who has done that way a couple times, and he pointed out all the up sides, so we might try it. It does save a $50 cab ride downtown.

Not that we had to worry about that when we got there. One of the organizers met us there and gave us a list. It was awesome being picked up.

By now it was lunch time locally so we were starving. I was a bit worried at the hotel check-in as our credit card company called us a few days before we left to say our cc had been lifted and they canceled it and were sending a new one. Which, naturally, did not get here before we left. But the hotel let us pay cash with a deposit. so *phew*. We dumped our stuff, grabbed a map of downtown from the lobby and headed off to Eaton Centre. Man, it seems bigger than it was 20 years ago.

We found lunch and stood around to eat it as there was only a small section with chairs nearby and all full. Then fortified, we made our way up and down. Ron bought a new hat and a book at Chapters. It was nice having time to look around, but the crowds were ugh. Completely missed the Apple store too.

After that, we hung out in our hotel room waiting for the speaker’s dinner. Some of the others from out of town were in the same hotel so we walked down with our buddy Dale. Another invisible internet friend who actually does exist!

The dinner was held in a chi-chi frou frou restaurant called the Bowery. Supposedly New York Chic with a bit of old timey farm hipster kitsch tossed in. Yes really. There were hay rakes as a ceiling decoration with ripped up half-renoed walls. Mismatched silverware. Rough wood tables. Kinda like home really. Very noisy – the music was so loud most of us were complaining.

We got there at 7, the appointed time, and finally started getting food around 8:30 or so. Seriously. Our party had a fixed menu, so we had three choices for starter, main and dessert. I am still kicking myself for not taking pictures of the food, even though I had the camera right next to me and took pictures of other people. We thought the salad was a safe pick but it has something in the vinaigrette that burned my lips off. I still have dry and flakey skin around my upper lip today. It was that spicy. I had maybe 6 bites hoping it would get better.

The chicken I had was good though. It was grilled and on a bed of chard and mushroom with some lentils. Very earthy tasting but went well with the chicken. Turns out they get their chickens from the local Mennonites. Ron had the steak. We both had cheesecake for dessert. It was very Food Network like.

The next day I was groggy and headachy because we couldn’t figure out how to close the curtains. Turns out they were hiding behind the sheers. After a full day of socializing and work stuff (basically) we skipped out on the after party and took a cab over to cousin Dave’s place.

Much quieter! Even with the baby occasionally protesting over the terrible indignities babies have to put up with. Like, you are using a fork I want! Sybil made me miss Izzy. It turns out they also have the Going To Bed book, which Ashley and I wound up reciting. I think she’s read it almost as many times as we have. Eventually, we both had to pee. This is important, I swear. Ron went first, and when he came downstairs had such a big grin on his face, even Dave & Ashley wanted to know what was up. “You’ll see when you get there.” And I did.

When I came back downstairs, I pointed at him and went “SEE? TOLD YA it would look nice!” Turns out they had renovated their bathroom exactly the way I wanted to do ours in the old house. DOH. White subway tiles halfway up the walls and hexagon tiles on the floor. And it looked really good too.

We stayed until we all were yawning, and then we called the cab guy who drove us there. I think that’s neat – they give you a card to get the same guy directly next time. We had a great conversation with him too. He wanted to know how cheap it was to live in NB. Not as many cabs here tho.

Sunday we slept better since we found the dark curtains. Well, except for the 5am wake up from the gals down the hall who left like it was 10am. And then made as much noise as possible in the courtyard, which our room overlooked. Our window was open a crack too. We lingered over breakfast, talking with other attendees who were staying in the same hotel, then worked on the laptop in turns, since wed had internet issues the day before, and called the kids. Then we checked out, lugged our stuff a few blocks to a Wendy’s and back to the venue for the afternoon.

Ron & I taught a joint workshop for 3 hours – at least that was the scheduled time. It was another half hour till we had everyone taken care of, and another half hour to finish up with the organizers. We had thought abut getting something to eat and then heading to the airport, but decided to just go to the airport instead. Good thing too, as we had to wait around for a cab, then a half hour cab ride, then go through security. We were so tired, it took us a bit to realize we really should eat supper, so we did. The cafe was slow & crowded. But again, we hopped on the free wifi to check on things.

On the plane back, we had seats in the first row, so we got on almost last. And had to check our bag, which had a book Ron wanted to read in it. I even had to put my purse in the overhead compartment as there were no seats in front of us to put our stuff under. The guy across from us was really inconsiderate too, getting in everyone’s way.

A rather uneventful and quick flight home, plus we got to see everything lit up. We even flew over Montreal. I texted Sarah as soon as we got out in the parking lot, which way maybe 5 whole minutes after the plane door opened. We got to her place and Emma was fast asleep, so I had to wake her up and we bundled her and Meaghan and all their stuff into the car and drove home in the quiet dark.

1:30am and we were halfway into our own beds.

I think I’m still recovering.

In case you did not know, I live in a rural spot surrounded by potato farmers. Yes, right in the french fry capital of the world. Many of the farmers supply a frozen food company, who has requirements they need to meet – not only in terms of volume but also kind of potato and size.

Earlier this week I mentioned when the harvester gang came to do the field across the road. A harvester, a potato truck, a few trucks and cars worth of people, a trailer and a port a potty. It’s a small field – about ten acres. They were done in short order.

So the harvester pulls up the plants, pulls off the taters and spits out the plants and any potatoes that are too small. While this is going on, people sort over the potatoes, chucking any bad one, too crooked ones, or small ones that got missed.

This leaves some potatoes in the field, not enough for the farmers to go back and gather up and (I guess) not enough to bother keeping.

Yesterday we were at one neighbor’s house when another stopped in with a ten pound bag of potatoes. They mentioned they gathered them up from the field (not theirs).

This is expected around here – people know afterwards there are potatoes left and the farmer leaves them, knowing some people will gather them up. As long as you;re not tearing around the field, no one cares.

So we went over tonight after supper. Ron fired up our little tractor and we grabbed 3 buckets and five feeds bags.

It was kind of astounding the amount that is left behind. When we approached the field I asked Meaghan if those were piles of rocks, because that also happens when harvesting – just pile up the rocks. While there were some rocks piles, the rest were potatoes.

We were like kids in candy stores – skipping the busted potatoes that were driven over, the spoilt ones and the really tiny ones, it was very grabby. And kind of shocking.

Even though it is considered waste, we did maybe 3-4 rows, zig zagging back and forth, going a total of maybe 200 yards in, and filled those 5 feed bags. Figure at least 50 pounds each.

I kept shaking my head at how much was left, and thinking how many people it could feed. And that’s not just cutting bad parts off of the taters. There were (and still are) plenty good potatoes there.

I hate to see them go to waste.