Organizer

"Small Wonder.
Your planner, journal, sticky notes, and calendar all in one little place.
See your day at a glance. Create categories and assign each category a color-like green for family and blue for work-to quickly spot different types of events. Enter repeating events just once. Remind yourself of appointments with an alarm. Now what paper calendar can do all that?" www.palm.com

This is something I'm dreaming about getting. I don't need a phone or an MP3 player, I just need something that I can carry around that has a calendar and a spot to make lists. I like lists. To-do lists, shopping lists, honey-do project lists!:). This would be really cool to have. Guess what? My birthday is next month. Anyone?

New Crochet Project

This is my new project. A blanket made with all different size and color Granny Squares. I just learned how to crochet these Granny Squares and they are fun and take no time at all. Once again, I am procrastinating from that cross-stitch project.

Gardening Part 2

We've been discussing it over the past couple of days and have come to the conclusion that, while my ambition to have a vegetable garden is good, it's a bit premature and would result in great disappointment. As we haven't had the house through a full gardening season just getting the yard and gardens in decent shape for flowers and other types of plants will be a full-time job. I think I'll focus on that and leave the vegetable gardening for next year or for a couple of years down the road.

You may be able to tell from the picture of our house in the sidebar that there were a horrendous amount of weeds growing in our garden beds. Well, just before the snow fell we pulled them all out so at least that's done but there are grading issues and we want to widen our front path and plant big cedar hedges in the back to block out the traffic on the busy road behind our house. There are lots of projects. Big projects. I don't need to be stressing and fiddling over vegetables while all of that is going on.

Here's the preliminary sketch courtesy of my Dad.

Gardening

I would really like to take up gardening this year. I do not have a green thumb so this will really be a challenge. Thankfully, both my father and my sister, Diana have green thumbs so I expect to get lots of advice from them. On the sidebar, I've started a list of links to help me remember sites I've found that could be useful. I've also just checked the average last frost date for Ottawa and it is May 5 so I have just over a month before planting begins.
I love the idea of eating fresh veggies straight from the garden. I think that I will start out with just a few different kinds so that I am not overwhelmed. We already have a rhubarb plant on the side of our house and since this garden gets the most direct sunlight, I think it will be a good place to have a vegetable garden. Right now the soil in that area is very low and looks like it drains towards the house so we are going to have to add a lot of soil to make a proper bed.
I would like to have lots of wonderful flowers, as well. I will leave that up to my dad for now, as he is already drawing diagrams and plotting in his head.
I'll try to keep you posted on this endeavour. Any advice?

Oma - 89 Years Young

My Oma is now a great-Oma. 4 times over (with number 5 due in 3 months). We celebrated her 89th birthday over the Easter weekend. To me, she doesn't seem a day older than when I first became aware of her existence.

We spend a lot of our weekend with Mike, Diana and Hadassah (and little Nemo, who stopped moving everytime I tried to get near:)) Here are a few pictures.

Hadassah's hair is getting longer and fuller. She is also working on her 8th tooth. She walks around a lot now and is starting to form phrases of words. Not real words but if you could understand her I'm sure she is saying some pretty profound things.

Diana and Mike just finalized the purchase of a new home. We went to see it on Saturday and were duly impressed. Too bad it isn't any closer to Ottawa.

Seeing Hadassah only every 6 weeks makes me wonder if she'll ever really know us. I'm pretty sure she doesn't remember us when we see her although she warms up to us pretty fast.

I resolve to make sure she knows us even if we live far away.

Heard in an Elevator

So, Reuben and I got on the elevator with an elderly couple (65-70?), minding our own business when out of nowhere the woman says "You are the hippest looking couple I've ever seen!!"
What could we say?

Rachel and Martin Come to Town

Recently, we had visitors. My cousin and his wife were in town and they brought with them second cousins. Here are some pictures! Rachel seriously watching my Dad seriously play the organ.

Little toque I crocheted. Too little even for the tiny newborn it was meant to fit. You live and learn or should that be; you crochet and learn.

Martin - Brilliant smile!

Cousin and second cousin.

I couldn't resist throwing in a picture of Elyssa!

Rachel loving her dollies. They really were real babies to her.

Oh wait! Another Elyssa pic ... how did that get in there?

Pretty girl!

Of Alligators

My parents are in Myrtle Beach soaking up the sun, playing a little **ahem** golf and discovering the wildlife. Who knew? I thought they only inhabited Florida. Well, apparently they inhabit South Carolinian golf courses too as they found out when trying to find a ball in a marshy area.

Did you know that there are only two kinds of alligators? The American kind and the Chinese kind and they only live in these two countries. All the rest are crocodiles. Well, that's what Wikipedia told me anyway.

I wish I was down there with them . . .despite the wildlife.

The Aftermath - A Documentary

Turn up the volume! It's The Acorn singing about enjoying the snow and ice in Gatineau. Check out Reuben's blog for more info.

Snow .....again

Well ... this is how we weathered the storm. This is what we woke up to on Sunday morning. Our front walkway was impassable. We're all shoveled out now. We spent yesterday evening with friends who are within walking distance and when we finally trekked home our road was plowed so we were up late digging ourselves out ... again. I had Reuben guide me out of the driveway this morning because I would not have been able to see anyone coming past the huge snowbanks. I am thankful that Reuben is able to shovel so much. I would not have been able to do this myself.

Elyssa - March 5

Look at this picture of my niece! Isn't she beautiful? She looks so grown up in those overalls. And yes, I do have gushing Aunt syndrome. I'm so proud of both my little nieces. I can't wait to meet the next one due at the end of June. Which reminds me, I better get started on that cross-stitch I promised to make:)

Another Snowy Post

As I trudged laboriously through 15 cm of overnight snow with snow and ice pellets ummm, well, pelleting my face; I wondered again, why do we live in Ottawa, Canada???

While the wind whistled around our heads and our faces slowly begun to experience the first touches of frostbite as we waited for our bus (which was half an hour late); I wondered again, why do we live in Ottawa, Canada???

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/03/05/snow-east.html?ref=rss#storycomments

Ta Da!!

We bought a mirror and light fixture too. They will both be returned because they just don't seem to fit but at least the door is on and we can hang a towel. The toilet tank is back on and the toilet paper holder is affixed. YAY!!
Do you like the color?

Bathroom Update

And I also want to update with pictures of our bathroom as we finally picked a color and finally painted it!! We still need to buy a light fixture and mirror. We also need to hang the bathroom door, put the toilet tank back on and affix the toilet paper holder to the wall. It's coming together ... finally!
I will try to post a picture of the wall color, at least, soon.

Hair Update

I really want to post a picture of my new do but I haven't had a chance to download the pictures off our camera yet. So I just wanted to let you all know that it's coming up . . .



And here they are! That's sweet Elyssa... I predict toe-chewing in the near future:)

Commute #2

So this morning on the commute to work, I was listening to Feist. Wow! She's great! So dynamic and quirky yet easy to listen to. Her songs speak to my heart. Anyway, I was on the train and it's so dreary and rainy outside that when I closed my eyes I was taken back to another train trip. This one was our journey from Zurich to Geneva. It was sooo rainy that day. As we gazed out the window we saw such wonderful landscape. This time it was mountainous hillsides planted with grapevines that dropped down to a lake. Little towns nestled into the hillside and great expanses of farmland. And when we arrived in Geneva, we found this great, bustling city just being drenched in rain. Geneva is at the tip of Lac Leman on the border of France. It's a very multiculteral city compared to Zurich because the United Nations is located there. We splashed around in the fountain outside the UN building. We also visited John Calvin's church and the Reformation Wall.