Craft Fair

I have just booked myself in for a table at my first Artists/Craftspersons/Small Business Expo... and it's next Saturday! Yikes! I had been planning on doing one, but thought it would be later in the month. I am going to be busy!

Sourcream Cranberry Coffeecake

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9-inch square baking pan.

In a small bowl combine and blend until crumbly:
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Set aside

Chop 1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries into halves, set aside.

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together thoroughly:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
Set aside

In a large bowl, beat well:
1 cup sour cream
2 eggs
Once well beaten, add 1/2 cup of the chopped cranberries, and mix.

Add the dry ingredients to the sourcream/egg/cranberry mixture and beat until just smooth. Overbeating tends to make a tough cake.

Pour the wet mixture into your greased cakepan, smooth out with a spatula. Sprinkle the sugar crumble overtop, and then sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of chopped cranberries.

Bake 30-35 minutes or until a a toothpick comes out clean.

August Soundtrack

What Do I Know of Holy, Addison Road

Paperweight, Josh Radin

Fearless, Taylor Swift

Small, Amanda Falk

July Soundtrack: It All Looks Different

Chances, Five for Fighting
Say Your Name, Bethany Dillon
In the Beginning, Bethany Dillon
From the Inside Out, Hillsong
Great Are You, Downhere
Enough, Jeremy Camp
Love is Waiting, Brooke Fraser
Brand New Day, Joshua Radin
Say, John Mayer
Enough, Chris Tomlin
Healing Begins, Tenth Avenue North
Beloved, Tenth Avenue North
Lead Me, Sanctus Real

Cinnamon-y Goodness

June Soundtrack: Somewhere to Fall From

For the First Time Again, Jason Gray
Lifeline, Mat Kearney
Today Was a Fairytale, Taylor Swift
Straight Away, Mat Kearney
On A Night Like This, Dave Barnes
If It's Love, Train
Gone, Matt Nathanson
Somebody Like You, Keith Urban
Feels Like Home, Chantal Kreviazuk
Until You, Dave Barnes
I Could Get Used to This, Everlife
Lullaby, Dixie Chicks
Everything Falls, Fee
Always Enough, Casting Crowns
I Am, Jill Phillips

Downtown

Yesterday I had to go downtown for a friend's party, and with the whole G20 hoopla, and expected "significant traffic delays" due to closed highways, freeways, streets, and protesters, I left an hour earlier than needed.

While I hadn't previously been downtown many times before this year, in the past month or so I had already been there three times, and was able to find an alternate route easily after hearing a warning on the radio that my anticipated exit was closed. So, lo and behold, I ended up downtown an hour early. I didn't have my good camera with me, but I did have my point-and-shoot, so took a few pictures as I walked around.

Overall, I'd say it was quite deserted. Might have been because it was a Friday night, or maybe because the G20 was scaring many away, I'm not sure. Every store seemed to have a security guard out front, which isn't normally the case.

Here is Toronto's Flatiron building, also known as the Gooderham Building. Located at 49 Wellington Street East, it was built in the early 1890s. On the left, above the "Le Papillon" sigh, you can see a sliver of the CN Tower.

I like the crazy fire escape. It's also interesting to compare this photo of the building today, with all the giants in the background, to this one of it shortly after it was built. Everything was the same height back then!

On the backside of the building is a mural facing a small park, which was painted in 1980 by Canadian artist Derek Michael Besant in 1980. I sat down on a bench and took a picture of it and some hydrangeas, and then went over to the bottom right corner to read a plaque about the history of the mural. When I walked away a security guard shouted to me "You don't have to leave, you can stay and enjoy!" which made me chuckle.

This bird was drinking out of a dribbling water fountain. There were also lots of pigeons about. And The Ice Bear Project was also kind of dropped off in the middle of the little park area (I say dropped off because it really seemed mishmashed into place, it wasn't centred, the stand was weird, kind of looked like it had just been dropped off as an afterthought. Unfortunately I thought I'd be able to find good photos online and didn't take one of my own. It was a little more than half melted, the sculpted skelton's entire upper body was exposed. The concept is that it's a comment and demonstration of global warming, and that global warming not only effects all of us, but also is caused by all of us. In town for the G20, I wonder how many working on climate change policies have seen it.

Here's the only real G20 business I saw in effect. This is looking west from the corner of 1 Front Street West. There were a whole lot of people taking pictures of this, and not a whole lot was going on. And apparently anyone within 5 metres of this fence has their rights revoked.

Signs I Need to Go to Ikea

1. I am almost out of meatballs. I can't just eat 4, that's a weird number.

2. I am out of Lingonberry sauce/jam.

3. My awesome print from Natasha arrived and I need a frame. I can't wait to put it up.

Phyllis Irene

A year ago today, on a sunny summer day, my grandmother died. It's strange to think that a year has passed already. She lived for 91, and in us her memory lives on. What follows are excerpts from the eulogy I gave at her funeral:

My Gramma was born in Ontario in 1918. Following her birth, her parents decided to move to the Swan River Valley to farm. She grew up on that farm with her brother John and her sister Francie, south east of Swan River, where they attended local schools.

Following a career in teaching, she married my grandfather, and moved to Blue Skies Farm north of Bowsman. Although my grandparents’ time together was short, they both had a love of the land and of horticulture They shared a common vision for their property and worked together to carry it out. One of the last books she was rereading was a book of my grandfather’s on soil management. In one of the last telephone conversations I had with Gramma, she gave me marriage advice as she often did, and told me that one of her most precious memories was of the unity of thought she had with my Grandpa Ernie, and how much enjoyment marriage was.

Gramma always enjoyed sewing, and after their daughters Connie and Jennie were born, she sewed clothe from whatever was available- mostly old flour sacks, old curtains, and old wool coats, until yard goods became more readily available. She made coats for the girls and also took a tailoring course where she learned to sew suits and clothing for herself, all on a treadle machine. These clothes often continued life overseas via the St. Faith’s missions. I think that I learned frugality and a love of sewing early on when she often gave me packages of scraps to make doll clothes and other crafts.

Gramma believed strongly in being involved in her community and in doing things for others. Because she wanted her daughters to learn from her example, she taught Sunday School and led 4-H, continuing to share her gardening experience with 4-Hers many years after her children were grown. She always enjoyed being involved with young people and their parents, willingly mentoring and sharing information, listening to their hopes and dreams.

Two of Gramma’s outstanding characteristics were her fierce independence and determination. A story from her early life related by her brother, John, will give you an idea of how she developed these characteristics. In his words:

"Shaw School, where we started and attended for several years, was just a few miles away. When Phyllis was seven, Dad bought a docile small white horse and cart for her to driver herself to school. She was responsible for seeing that Jimmy, the horse, stayed at the school during the day and for getting herself home after school- a big responsibility for a seven year old. She took me with her for a special day for beginners before I started school."

This determination and independence then served her well when she chose, as a woman, to continue farming after Grandpa died. She was fortunate to have Great-Grandpa Provins and wonderful neighbours who helped with their time and advice. But she also faced tough adversity that would have deterred many others. For example, she would have to wait to get her machinery fixed regardless of the order in which it was received. She was in great physical condition and could work circles around most people. On March 15th, 1980, her diary says, "Shoveled by garage and over to the big trees- an hour. Split wood for four hours."

Five weeks later her diary read, "Washed hair and was going to dry it outside while putting the siding back on the house where the insulating men took it off to drill holes. Began to fall off ladder so jumped. Felt cracks at top of leg bone. Didn’t faint. Went in, phoned Ed Baird, got cleaned up and used my dust mop as a crutch to get to the car. Picked Ed up and went to the hospital. Had x-rays. Broken hip bone just above the ball."

She went by ambulance to Winnipeg and had a pin put in her hip. She came home on May 17th on crutches, but that didn’t stop her from gardening that year just the same as usual.

Always interested in the interdependence of the land, plants, animals, and people, Grandma cultivated and tested numerous varieties of garden vegetables, flowers, herbs, and fruit trees. She carefully recoded such things as height, days to maturity, disease resistance, size, colour, and flavour.

The beginning of Gramma’s love affair with lilies began in 1947 with a Lemon Lady lily given to her by my grandfather. This developed into a passion over the years. She experimented with cross pollination and waited patiently for the years to go by until she could see the results in the form of a new lily bloom. Form the knowledge she gained, she wrote articles for newspapers and magazines such as Grain News and The Manitoba Gardener and progressed to giving talks at various meetings and conventions. She worked for five years with Professor Lenz of the University of Manitoba maintaining lily test plots and recording every detail. Through these activities she became more widely known and her circle of friends increased rapidly.

Friends, gardeners, and lily enthusiasts were welcome in her garden at any time. She was always very happy to host Open Garden tours for the various societies she belonged to. We have many photographs of these happy times. She gave anyone who was interested lengths of yarn of a particular colour to mark the lilies they wanted bulbs from. Sometime before freeze-up she dug, bagged, labeled, and distributed the bulbs, never charging. People’s friendship was her reward.

In 2000, Gramma was deeply honoured to receive the Manitoba Horticultural Society’s first Prairie Garden Award for Excellence., With her price money she purchased a Mantis tiller to ease her gardening load. Unfortunately, someone else wanted to ease their load and took the tiller from her shed.

Motivating quotes and sayings lined her cupboard doors and backsplash. An anonymous example is "Nobody knows about your integrity, sincerity, talent, or good will unless you give examples in action." She lived by putting others before herself and always sharing what she had. In the words of her lily society friend Brent, “She treated everyone fairly. Everyone had a chance with her. She never judged anyone by their appearance. She always gave encouragement and encouraged the horticultural board to try things even if she didn’t approve. She’d say, 'Well, try it, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll fix it.'"

Another friend, Diane, had fond memories of the fun she and Gramma had riding to lily shows and conventions together. One of the words Diane and several others used to describe Gramma was the word ‘encouraging.’ One of the seedlings Gramma shared with Diane turned out to be an unregistered lily. As she often did, Gramma declined to register it. After much work persuading Gramma to let her do so, Diane registered this lovely yellow and burgundy lily as "Phyllis Irene."

Species lilies are those that originate in the wild and are often used to develop other lilies. Gramma’s last talk was on species lilies. Recently, an award in her name was created for the best enhanced species lily.

While Gramma's horticultural life was growing, she also became a grandmother to my two sisters, Pamela and Jillian, my brother Edward, and myself. Along with her many special horticultural awards hanging in her house is the World’s Greatest Grandmother award.

Going to Gramma's almost every summer was always a special highlight for us. We all have many special memories of time spent with her, playing in the creek, running around and having parades in the garden, picking fresh vegetables and flowers, playing on the porch running our own glove, hat, and vitamin shops, and eating fresh baked bread out of her wood burning stove.

Some of our friends couldn't understand why we would choose to go to Gramma’s whenever we had the opportunity. In college I would usually come to visit her most fall and spring breaks, and I had a very good friend who didn’t realize until third year that I also had parents and didn’t live with my grandmother!

Gramma once told me that although her father had to leave school very early in life, "he never stopped learning." This love of learning was passed on, and a short time before she died she told my Mom a couple of months ago that she wasn't ready to die because there was so much more to learn. Every birthday and Christmas we could always be sure we would receive books as gifts. Gramma loved to read and enjoyed many magazine and newspaper subscriptions, some of them paid up until 2015. She was always interested to hear what we were learning in school and encouraged us to continue our education.

A eulogy for Gramma wouldn't be complete without mentioning her love for animals. Cats, skunks, and raccoons were all welcome at the feeding bowl on her porch. She also enjoyed watching the many birds that came to the feeders in her yard. She liked dogs but she particularly enjoyed the antics of her many cats. One particular cat that she had for 19 years spent many hours at the garden with her, but was also her protector. Big Spot would meet people at the door; if they passed muster he would walk away, if they didn't, he stood guard. Occasionally his judgment later proved correct!

Gramma was a very principled lady who always made time for others, who cherished her friends, and loved her family. When asked what was the thing that made her happiest in life, she looked surprised and said, "I’ve done what I wanted to do where I wanted to do it."

The world was a better place with Gramma in it.

Cupcakes

May Soundtrack

Gone Away, Lucy Schwartz
Fight Another Day, Addison Road
Something More, Ingrid Michaelson
Beautiful History, plumb
Hey Soul Sister, Train
From You To Me, Jon McLaughlin
All I Have, Mat Kearney
What Do You Want From Me, Adam Lambert
It's Amazing, Jem
More Like Falling in Love, Jason Gray

I really should post more often, shouldn't I? This Friday I went to the Distillery District in downtown Toronto. I happened to pick up some "vintage lucite" floral beads from a place called Tank. Normally I don't like plastic beads and think they're tacky, but somehow if you call them "vintage lucite" it makes it a cool plastic. :) Today I went to Michael's after church and picked up some freshwater pearls to make the blue bells and pink earrings above complete. The clear blue beads are ones a friend gave me for my birthday. In the end I wasn't satisfied with those fishhook wires and ended up swapping them out for some longer trendy wires... and didn't take a picture of the finished product before giving them away.

April Soundtrack

Everything's Right, Matt Wertz
I Will Not Take My Love Away, Matt Wertz
All My Days, Alexi Murdoch
Absolutely, Starfield
Call Me on Your Way Back Home, Kiersten Holine
Giving Up, Ingrid Michaelson
Beautiful Disaster, Jon McLaughlin
Carolina, Matt Wertz
All of Creation, MercyMe

Little Guys Need to Keep Warm Too

I stumbled upon this pattern on Whipup at the end of February, and knew it would be perfect for my good friend Jodi's expected son, Caleb. Now that he's been born, I can show the finished product! Hopefully he doesn't grow out of it too too quickly.

I used some washable yarns I had on hand... and the pattern used so little yarn that I could have probably made another whole sweater with what I had left. I finished it while I was in Alberta visiting my family a couple of weeks ago. My Mom gave me some buttons out of my Gramma's stash, so this sweater is now festooned with some special old wooden buttons.

The pattern was originally written in Norwegian, and is available free on Pickles. There were a few ups and downs, but thanks to some posted errata and some helpful Ravelers, I think it turned out quite nice. I hope to knit another one or two of these with other yarns.

Check out my Ravelry project page here.

March Soundtrack

Something Beautiful, needtobreathe
Love Never Fails, Brandon Heath
Choose, Christy Nockels
Simply Nothing, Shawn McDonald
Gravity, Sara Barielles
Listen Up, Brandon Heath
Why, Secondhand Serenade
Be Okay, Ingrid Michaelson
Come Thou Fount, Jars of Clay
Let That Be Enough, Switchfoot
No Not One, Brandon Heath
Here in This Moment, Beckah Shae

February Soundtrack: Out of Shadows

Live Like We're Dying, Kris Allen
Can't Go Back Now, The Weepies
Melting, Riley Armstrong
Soldier, Ingrid Michaelson
The Mess I Made, Parachute
When You Find Me, Joshua Radin and Maria Taylor
She is Love, Parachute
Valentine, Kina Grannis
Snowfall, Ingrid Michaelson
If My Heart Was a House, Owl City
Home, Vanessa Carlton
Corner, Allie Moss
Hot Air Balloon, Owl City
Meteor Shower, Owl City
I Am Yours, Bethany Dillon

Be It Resolved

Usually I don't make new year's resolutions, but this year I wanted to make a sweater... and finished it by January 17th. I told my Mom I'd post these pictures a long time ago, but sometimes life gets in the way of things... but here they finally are. I don't have a picture of me wearing it so this is all you're getting for now (and they're not even good pictures). The pattern is called Rusted Root, although I did make some minor modifications to it (see my Ravelry link for info) Overall it was fairly easy to knit and a great first sweater pattern to work with. I chose a cheap yarn as I wasn't too sure how the whole project would turn out. Now I kind of wish I had used a better yarn after investing so much time into it, it's already quite a bit pilly and I've only worn it 3 or 4 times.

I started another sweater right after finishing this one, but was having some issues with the sizing and so it's currently sitting and possibly never being finished. We'll see. It was a lot of effort to get it to the point where it is now, and really wasn't fitting properly so have put it on hold.

Another resolution, or goal for the year, is to write and publish a knitting pattern. Most of the time I make up what I'm knitting anyway, thought it would be neat to write it down and have others be able to knit it too. Currently am working on a touque pattern. Have a few kinks to work out, but it is coming along nicely. Let me know if you'd like to be a test knitter before I publish it, would love someone to test it out first before I put it out there as a freebie.

January Soundtrack: Soon and Very Soon

Half of My Heart, John Mayer
You Got Me, Colbie Caillat
In Your Atmosphere, John Mayer
Your Call, Secondhand Serenade
Free of Me, Joshua Radin
Tracing, John Mayer
Someone Else's Life, Joshua Radin
You've Got Growing Up to Do, Joshua Radin and Patty Griffin
Behind Your Eyes, Jon Foreman
My Love Goes Free, Jon Foreman
Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Israel Kamakawiwo'Ole
Let Your Light Shine, Bethany Dillon
Gassenhauer, Carl Orff
Coffaro's Theme, Curtis Fowlkes, Bill Frisell, Eyvind Kang, Ron Miles
Soon and Very Soon, Brooke Fraser
Amazing Grace, Josh Wilson

Tree Necklace

My Mom wanted to buy all of her daughters necklace charms this Christmas, but couldn't find a tree.

However, she gave me some money instead, and I ordered one of these that I had seen on Etsy. I got it in the mail two days ago and wore it to school today.

Dear Dell.ca

Thank you for selling computers. I have to say that I have been satisfied overall with my April 2008 purchase of your Vostro 1400 laptop. I loved the convenience of online ordering. I was familiar with your brand from my day job. I liked the customizationableness you afforded me with my laptop choices. I liked it that you shipped to my door.

It hasn't really given me any problems other than the fact that every once in awhile it tells me it doesn't recognize the adapter connected to it (and a quick re-seating of the cable end usually rectifies that issue). The battery life superseded that of most of my peers' laptops in teacher's college. And it's way cooler than my work T60 IBM laptop for my computer job.

I do have one complaint though. You send me too much mail. I get junkmail from you at least twice a month, if not more. Sometimes I get it at least once a week! I know, I know, I did purchase a "small business machine" as a "small business owner." But the key word here is small. It's just me. And I only need one laptop. And this one's still chugging away. The expected lifespan of a laptop is generally three years. It hasn't even been two yet! I'm hoping and expecting this one still lasts me a while.

I like my laptop. I recommend Dell to others.

But I do warn people about the junk mail.

Kind regards,
Michelle