Winter wonderland

The inevitable has come. Yesterday's snow storm is today's winter wonderland.

This is the view from one of the back rooms. (Is it the library, the TV room, the room with the deck access? Hmmm. We are stifled with the usual indecisiveness when "things" hardly matter.)

Well, it is rather pretty to look at. This is the moment when I can look at the landscape to see if there is enough winter interests amongst the perennial beds. There is one stick between the deck posts in the middle of the picture. That is my native Eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis) that I planted last summer. It is nothing to look at now but it has the potential of being the focal point when it matures. (in 5 years)

While the snow slowly filled the landscape, I was indoors having a cooking marathon. I had a 2.5 kg of turkey breast thawed out & I had a mission!

There are 4 dishes in this photo. top L>R : turkey pasta with Thai basil sauce, veggie chili with tempeh, jambalaya; L corner: turkey barley soup. Still in the slow cooker & not shown is the turkey savoury stew.

I had a coworker who did this batch cooking with 2 other friends. The menu for 4-5 dishes & shopping were planned ahead. They met each Saturday when the spouses minded their small kids; they cooked everything from scratch. Then they split the fruits of their labor into 3 ways with each person packing her share according to her family size.

Cooking in large batches make sense for us because now that there are only the 2 of us, I don't feel like cooking all the time. Of course, I do this almost every week, snow storm or not.

Love at first sight

The anticipation of going to Halifax to witness the miracle of birth of my first grandchild is indescribable. It was just as well that I had occupied my time finishing projects that needed to get done before my departure! I gave myself lots of time to be there in order to visit with Valerie & Richard, to offer any assistance...and distraction as we waited for baby's arrival.


















Newborn Kilian (5 minutes old)

My experience of witnessing Kilian's arrival was emotionally overwhelming, needless to say. And I wasn't the one who was hormonally-frazzled and in labor for more than 36 hours with minimal sleep! It was an Amazonian effort for Valerie and it was a proud moment when Kilian was presented to her: truly a God's child.

From that moment, I could not help loving this child as I had when I held Valerie (& Michael) for the first time.

So, here are some more photos of Kilian for those who are not in Facebook:

Proud parents holding 10 minute old Kilian















Grammy & Grampa going ga-ga over 5- day old Kilian.

Rushing into the new year

Time comes and goes no matter what one does or does not do. Somehow, the new year came and I had a good reason to be industrious: the arrival of a grandchild in Halifax, Nova Scotia- a little less than 2000 kms. away.

Firstly, I had to finish a quilt that I had started 2 years ago for Valerie & Richard. It was meant to be a Christmas present but having arthritis in one's thimble finger is not at all conducive to any handiwork. While I could have machine-quilted this queen-sized project, I cringed at that prospect so, I hand-quilted during the day; then, pampered my hands with massages & anti-inflammatory medications at night.

The pattern, called "Ragged Robin", was appliqued into a block and the blocks were pieced together.

Here is the finished quilt on Valerie's bed. Yes, that's Valerie B.C. (before child).

Secondly, the perennial and annual seeds I harvested from my garden and seeds from friends had to be sown: about 2 dozen varieties. The last couple of winters, I experimented with indoor sowing. While I had an overall success with this method, I was up for another horticulture challenge: winter sowing. I am not posting any photos because all it will show is rows of plastic 2L juice containers and plastic salad tubs with growing medium in them. How interesting is that?

So, with those 2 things accomplished, I packed my bags to go to Halifax.