Springing ahead

Now the wedding is over, life has finally started to settle into something resembling a routine. Brian is continuing to enjoy work at Home Depot and we spring ahead our time tonight. Lots of bulbs (I've seen mostly daffodils) are already blooming around town - only a few small ones so far in our yard. It doesn't quite feel like spring yet though, and especially not this afternoon as it is now gloomy and  rainy after a reasonable morning.

One little snowdrop.

These look as though they might be hyacinths. I'll
never know because that night the bulbs were
deftly nipped out by a passing deer!

This week we hosted the Newcomers' Euchre Group with two tables of players plus one spare. We were happy that more didn't show up as it was a nice size group - going forward we are going to meet at a nearby coffee house which has a very cozy back room complete with fireplace - then it won't matter how many show up each month.


The last two weeks has seen me have an ongoing battle with a family of sparrows who are insistent on nesting in our eaves - right above where we will be sitting out with our coffee once the weather warms up so it does not suit us at all. We removed a virtual condo of nesting material which had been packed into one section of the gutter, but the birds have worked constantly to remove the stuffing we closed off the entrance with. 


Their tenacity is to be admired...not so the trail of poop and grass, etc. which they leave. We have now had to stuff gutter guard into each little space along the gutter - we ran out of it and so there are a few spaces not yet closed off - yes, they are considering those spaces as possible nesting spots but continue to come back to their original spot to take another run at tugging out the fabric closing off their entrance! Must be wonderful to have such a small brain that you just keep doing what you have to do, no matter what obstacles are placed in your way.


This week at my quilting group, I was given the wonderful news that they had decided to make space for another lady and me to be permanent members - to date we have just been place fillers for ladies who have gone south for the winter and so our days were numbered. Happy days! I am now a Material Girl!!


Brian's hockey group has a monthly dinner which includes wives so we took that in last week - great bunch of people and we are continually amazed at the vigour of some of the older members of this group (many in their 70's and several over 80).


And I've been continuing my quest to go back and finish some quilting projects which have been very long in the making. The blue and white stars quilt was begun around 1999 at the first place I started quilting after moving to Australia. The "Canadian" quilt has been on the go for about seven years. So happy to have those finished at last. 

Finished!

Finished!

This one was started about 12 years ago and was a huge
amount of work. The top is now finished and I just have
to decide how to quilt it - might be a candidate for my
first hand quilting project.

Top finished -waiting to be quilted.

This is a recent project - even though I wasn't going to
start anything new, I couldn't help myself - I made this
to use up a bunch of brown/cream fabric scraps which
I was sick of looking at. Just need to quilt it now.

After all of that sitting down activity, I finally got my sneakers out of the closet and went for a walk - it was pretty chilly and I wasn't quite dressed properly for the wind but it was a start. The ferry was coming in just as I was almost home.

Almost looks as though he is walking on water.

Brian began work recently on privacy walls on two sides of our large open deck. Today we made good progress and are already starting to get a feel for the more enclosed space - it also means we can leave our blinds open more often at that end of the house. It was a bit chilly working out there but we were treated to an amazing view of two eagles flying around and around right above our heads - they are nesting in a tree a few houses down. They are huge birds - don't realize it when they are high up in the sky but these ones came down fairly low a few times.

Heidi and Antoine went for a 3D ultrasound of the baby yesterday and were thrilled with what they saw. As the images are on FaceBook already, I'm sure they won't mind my sharing them here - Antoine also did a short video of the ultrasound and it was quite amazing just how much detail was evident and in such a very small (but very active) baby. Oh yes, apparently it's a boy...of course it's a boy! I promise I won't post any more photos until the young fella is born.

Meet our new grand baby!

Oh yes, our very special niece Erin who lives in Ontario, received a romantic wedding proposal recently - on top of a small mountain overlooking a lake. The family cottage is on the edge of the lake. By the look on her face, you can tell she said YES to the handsome James.

Nothing very exciting planned for the next few weeks - I think we will just enjoy our rut for a while. I'm still hoping for some jobs to show up which I can apply for but it's a quiet time of year. I did apply for a couple which I was very glad not to hear back on.