What have we been doing?

In an effort to offer photographic proof that we do leave the house from time to time...we went for a walk in Gatineau Park in Quebec this weekend. It was nice and pretty and full of mosquitoes already.




This is a swamp that beavers made/live in. It is also a park where you can hand feed chickadees...if you are not a small girl with little patience who is prone to whining that is...

And this is our duckling. As in 'The Ugly Ducking' ballet. I love our new ballet school. The girls do real ballet and no one looks like they are in a strip club apprenticeship program.

some fun things to hand sew

This is a long dog sampler I did when we were still in China. It was addictive. SERIOUSLY addictive. I would love to do another one of their samplers. The French can do samplers.

Source: rosylittlethings.typepad.com via Chriseda on Pinterest

a kit to order from this awesome blog, I have also ordered and made up most of her Xmas ornament kits. I also have her second book and it has fun and very lovely things to make in it.

finishing things up

So I am bored, nothing new. Actually I am probably not bored, I am just not that impressed with all the school business that is May and June. All the school seems to want of parents is to make them exhausted. How many different types of end of year parties can there really be?! So, in an effort to bring on the happy, I have been working hard on my mitired blanket. I bought all the wool-cashmere blend at the infamous Wool Spinning City in Beijing. I then sat at a cafe through almost every child Chinese lesson in KL...well, after I sat through listening to the other mothers make disparaging comments about me before they realized my Mandarin is actually ok...



So all the squares are done now, I think, I have not counted lately. But I moved on to adding an edging. So I have about 30 odd more squares to edge. Then I sew it up and figure out some kind of backing. I think currently thinking cream or wild flannel backing.

I don't think this is on the official life list, but I have been carting these things around far too long. Plus we no longer have a lamp in the tv room so knitting is all I can do blind at night...maybe when it is done I will look into buying a new lamp.

In other more boring and unrelated news...pre-bidding continues. I have agreed to my husband's top pick and he has agreed to mine. Both are hardships posts, I mean Hardship posts - with a capital H. And that ear tube/adenoid surgery the youngest had last November seems to have been a total waste - she is back to poor hearing and chronic ear infections. Awesome.

cooking

I went away for the weekend. It was not super fun but springtime in Vermont is lovely. I am back in the cooking saddle again so to speak and we are having this for dinner. Not super Chinese but yummy nonetheless. I am going to do better with trying some new recipes. I have been in a cooking rut.

mother of the year

Now I am going to be boastful. A friend told me I am mother of the year 2011 for what I used as punishment on the oldest yesterday. I had parent teacher conferences, they did not go well at all mostly, so the next day, I drug his sorry behind to the Emily Dickinson museum. Where he had to go on the 90 minute house tour. Followed by the garden tour! Mother of the year 2011, that is me!