Nails, Knitting, and Soccer

Today I went and had a manicure. I usually don't get manicures because a day or two into having my nails painted the polish starts chipping off. Even polish that's suppose to last 14 days only lasts me 3 or 4 days. But this time I went with the shellac polish. I chose a fairly neutral colour so that if it should start to chip it won't show up as much.

It's a nice light grey colour and goes well with the red I chose for my toes. I just chose regular polish for my toes because they seem to do better than my fingers, probably because I'm not constantly washing my feet like I do my hands. :-)  Anyway, I will be documenting my shellac nails from now until my next appointment in two weeks to see how they hold up. I'm rough on my hands, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

I remembered today to take some pictures of my knitting projects. This is a cowl called Song of the Sea and I'm using my Sip-n-Stitch yarn for it. The pattern is suppose to look like waves, starting with small ones and then moving to medium and finally ending with large waves.

I'm also working on a shawl with some silk yarn that I got from Belfast Mini-Mills here on the island. The shawl is interesting because every other row you increase one stitch so you end up with a swirling curve. I tried to get a picture of this but it's tough because it's getting big. I like the lace sections that come in between the garter stitch sections. It ends with a lacy section and has a fancy edging. I'll get there eventually!

Last night S had her first summer soccer session. She and some of the other girls on our street are signed up although she ended up on a different team than her friends. But she has a classmate and a fellow rink rat on her team so she's happy. The people running soccer this year are so much more organized than last year. Last year all the kids got white shirts but this year each team has it's own colour shirts. Also, they only had six of the 12 teams come at a time so there seemed to a lot less chaos going on. They had two teams per field with a coach and a tween/teen assistant to help them. This allowed the coach was able to work with one team teaching them a skill while the assistant worked with the other team playing a fun game. Overall, I was very impressed with how the first practice went. I hope this continues through the rest of the summer.

Tomorrow I have not one, but two dentist appointments. One is a check-up to see how things are going now that my cursed tooth is out. The other is to see if the lab made my night splint correctly. I've been sticking to the plan that the hygienist gave me at my initial cleaning so I expect she will be happy with how my mouth is doing.  I'll find out tomorrow!

J is for Jump!

Surprise, surprise! This morning I received an email telling me that the trampoline was ready for pickup. I was sure that I wasn't going to ever get that email so I had planned to go over to the store today and look for one. Now I don't have to. I figured the box was going to be either too heavy and/or too large for me to move by myself so I made the wise decision to go to the grocery store before going to pick it up. I chose wisely because the silly thing is heavy! Luckily two strong guys carried it to my car and loaded it for me. C was able to slide it out onto the garage floor by himself and then 'walk' it across the floor. It will get put together this weekend.

I also received a call today from S's school. The administrators met with the parent of the boy causing trouble on the bus. They decided it was best for everyone if they moved him to a different bus for the rest of the year. I am happy with the decision and I know my neighbour, whose daughter was the main focus of his attention, is happy with the decision too. She was going to pick her daughter up from school today but when her daughter found out the boy wouldn't be on the bus today she decided to ride the bus home. I'm very pleased with how seriously the principal, vice-principal, and teachers at the school took this incident and I made sure that they knew that I was happy with the way things turned out.

S starts summer soccer tomorrow - provided it doesn't rain! She is a little disappointed she's not on a team with her friends from our street but she does have another friend (a fellow rink rat) and a current classmate on her team. Also, there is another boy on the team whose name sounds familiar so I think it might be a classmate from preschool last year. The people running soccer this year decided to split the teams up into two time slots and it is a good decision. There will only be 6 teams on the field at a time rather than the 12 teams they had last year. It should keep the chaos down to a minimum, I hope.

This evening I decided I wanted grilled chicken for supper. Last time we grilled C gave me a lesson in how to start the fire since I really hadn't done it before. Well, tonight I did most of it (with a little help from C). See, fire!

And since I forgot to post this last week, here's the fire in the fire pit.

Last night we decided it was a bit too cold out to sit by the fire pit. There was a freakin' frost warning for last night! In June. Sigh. We stayed in and watched some TV and I got a lot of knitting done. Tonight isn't suppose to be as cold, so we may have to go light up a fire after the kids go to bed. Maybe tonight we'll break out the Smores kit. :-)

Chilly but Fun Sunday

Today was a chilly but sunny Sunday. The kids started out the day by going and playing with friends while C mowed the lawn. I enjoyed a little time knitting and then I sat out in the sun and read for a while.

For lunch we headed out to our favourite seafood place. Surprisingly it wasn't busy but that may have been because it was chilly and windy. I had the lobster roll and it was good. C got the fish and chips and I have to say, their fish and chips are the best I've had. They use potato flakes in their breading and it makes the coating light and crispy. J had a lobster burger which is lobster with warm butter on a roll. S won't eat seafood so she had the chicken tenders. I stole some of her chicken and it was very tender and used the same coating as the fish. It was a delicious lunch.

After lunch we came back and the kids disappeared. J went off to play with his friends (who apparently were coming by every 5 minutes looking for him while we were gone) and S went out to ride her bike with her friends. C and I spent some time sitting in the backyard reading. Okay, maybe I did a little snoozing. Then we came inside and C snoozed while I got more knitting done. Every now and then I'd see S go by the house with her friends.

At one point S came bursting into the house, begging to go to the neighbour's pool. Now, it was around 53F (11C) outside but she insisted on going. The pool is heated which is awesome when you're in it but getting out is cold! S went immediately into a hot shower when she was finished swimming. She decided to put on her PJs even though it was only like 5:00. I guess she thought she was ready for bed but of course after she ate supper she saw her friends outside riding their bikes and wanted to join them.

We spent a good hour outside while the kids rode their bikes and the parents chatted. Some parents that aren't out often actually came out to socialize. I feel very grateful that we live in such a friendly community where there are so many kids.

Now we need to decide if we're going to watch Game of Thrones tonight or have a fire in the fire pit. It's a hard decision because the fire pit is really nice but it is GoT. Decisions, decisions!

Busy Days

The past few days have been rather busy. Friday started out with our neighbour lettings us know that her daughter and S were being bothered by a boy on the bus. Apparently he's been forcing them to kiss him. It seems like he's been fixated on the other girl more than S but it was still a concern. So Friday morning was rather crazy, letting teachers and the bus driver know. The staff at the elementary school is awesome and they took the whole situation seriously. They have tracked down the boy and will be meeting with his mother on Monday.

In addition to that, I was busy baking cookies Friday morning for the school's spring carnival. I baked two batches of snickerdoodles and then delivered them to the school. I then had to run out and get a present for a birthday party. The whole time I was out I was expecting an email from a store saying our trampoline was ready for pick-up but no luck. The store had already canceled my order once and now they have pretty much ignored my second order. At least they haven't charged my credit card yet.

Friday night I took the kids to the spring carnival and they had a blast. J was busy running around with his friends for most of it. S saw a bunch of her friends but she stayed with me for most of it. There were so many people there that I think she felt a little nervous even though it was inside her school. As I was walking around, I was struck by how many people I have come to know in our time here. It's really nice to see so many friendly faces in one place!

Both Thursday and Friday night, after the kids were in bed, C and I went out back and started a fire in the fire pit. It was nice to just sit outside and watch the fire and talk. Last night we did bring a bottle of wine out with us. I needed a little something after all the craziness of the carnival. Thursday night was a little wacky since the June bugs were out. Those things are huge! And stupid. They kept flying into the house and would bounce off and then fly into it again. This is what they look like:

Today I got a chance to sleep in until 9:00. I probably would have slept longer but J's friend called to see if he could play and it woke me up. Even though it was raining we headed over to the horse track where they are hosing a RibFest weekend. There are bunch of rib/BBQ companies that have set up mobile restaurants. Since it has been forever since I've had good ribs, we donned our rain gear and headed over. There were only a few people there, probably because of the rain.

We tried some Alabama ribs first. They were good but C and I both agreed that they had too much sauce on them. I just had 1/3 of a rack so I was still hungry when I was finished with the first round. I got some ribs from a Texas BBQ place and they were a lot better. The amount of sauce was perfect and the ribs were meaty and delicious. I forgot to take a picture before hand but here's the results of my feast:

After lunch C and J headed to an event for C's work and S and I came home because one of S's best buddies was having a birthday party. It was a crazy, fun party. There was a small bounce house, a trampoline, and a ball pit (with 2000 balls) in the basement. Upstairs in the living room the kids decorated cupcakes and made their own ice cream sundaes. They didn't have a carpet in the living room which is good because there were sprinkles and icing all over the floor. By cake time, the kids were so full they didn't even bother to cut the cake. It was a really cute cake and I give my neighbour props for her decorating skills!

By the time we got back from the party and C and J got home from their event, everyone was pretty tired. I sure didn't feel like cooking (and didn't really have anything to make) so we headed out to the restaurant up the road for supper. The kids were so tired that they really didn't give us a hard time when we said it was time for bed tonight. Now I plan to go sit on the sofa and work on my knitting. With sitting outside by the fire I haven't gotten much knitting done lately, but the quiet time with C has been nice. :-)

New Shoes!

New shoes were purchased today although not for me. The kids needed new shoes to get ready for the summer. Here in Canada kids have two pairs of shoes for school - an inside pair and an outside pair. In the winter the outside shoes are usually snow boots but at other times their outside shoes are just regular shoes. Having an inside pair of shoes prevents the kids from tracking all sorts of stuff into the classrooms.

J has just about worn out his outside school shoes. They have a hole in the side and he's just about worn through the heels to the soles. I took him to get a new pair of shoes to close out the school year.

The new shoes are lightweight and should hopefully last through the summer. We'll get him a couple new pairs of shoes in late August for school. His current inside shoes will become his "nice" shoes for over the summer since he amazingly kept them in good condition all year.

S also got a new pair of shoes. She requested shoes with laces instead of Velcro because she taught herself to tie shoes and has been practicing it at school. I expected her to pick the shoes with sparkles and glitter on them but instead she picked a rather simple pair (which were more expensive of course!)

She's very excited about wearing her new tie shoes to school tomorrow. I also had both kids try on their summer shoes. I was surprised to find that S's sandals, both her closed toe and open toe ones, still fit her. Of course J's sandals don't fit so I'll have to get him a new pair of those. I'll do that in another week or so.

In the knitting world, I finished a pair of gloves the other day because you know, winter is coming. I almost had to wear them yesterday since it was 8C/46F. On June 3rd. Yeah. Welcome to Canada. Anyway, here they are:

I'm not sure I like the buttons; they are pink the gloves are more a purple colour. I just placed them in the correct position for the picture. I'm thinking I may stop by the fabric store tomorrow when I'm out and pick up some different buttons. Who knows, I may still end up with the pink ones.

I've started two other projects in the mean time. One is a cool shawl made of a raw silk in a pink colour and the other is a long cowl. For the cowl I'm using my Sip-n-Stitch yarn, which is a bamboo wool blend. I'll take some in-progress pictures tomorrow since I just started the cowl and it doesn't look like much yet. I'll work on it tonight while we're watching Marco Polo unless we get our new fire pit going and sit out there for a while.

Today has been much nicer than yesterday. It was warmer and the sun was out which was a nice change from the cold, dampness of the past few days. J decided he wanted to ride his bike to school today so we let him. He met up with a couple of friends and they made their way safely to school and back home. He was tired when he got home but he had a good time riding his bike and plans to do it again tomorrow.

Tomorrow is suppose to be another nice day. I have some cookies to bake in the morning for the kids' Spring Carnival at school. After I deliver them I may have to go down to the RibFest they are having at the racetrack or else head out to the beach to our favourite seafood shack. If I don't make it out there tomorrow I will definitely get out there this weekend. I can't wait for one one their lobster rolls!

Tuesday is for Housework

Today has been a busy day. With S's friend coming over this afternoon I wanted to make sure the house was in order. Also, it just needed a cleaning. I cleaned all three bathrooms and ran the vacuum through the house. I also mopped the kitchen floor. Yeah, our visitor was only 5 years old, but her mom was coming to get her and I wanted the house to look presentable.

I also reorganized a few of my kitchen cabinets. I recently got an electric kettle and found that it was on one side of my kitchen (by the sink) and all my teas were on the other side, which just didn't make sense. I turned the cabinet above the coffee machine/kettle into a "coffee/tea station" and moved my baking things to the cabinet right behind where I do my mixing/'prep work for baking. I thought for sure I would go to the wrong cabinets today but actually I didn't, which tells me that things were in the wrong place before.

I did quite a bit baking today. I made a batch of mini blueberry muffins for S and her friend (okay, I may have eaten a few). I also tried out something new for me - yeast rolls. In the past I've made yeast-based bread, but that was usually in my bread machine. But S's friend's mom shared a 30 minute yeast roll recipe with me. The recipe can be found here. For my first time making them, they came out almost right. I think I didn't knead the dough enough before I let it rise the final time. I had to end up baking them an extra 5 minutes, probably because they were kind of dense. S was the only one who didn't like them. I think if they were lighter and fluffier she would have liked them more. I'll keep trying until I get them right because they were good.

I think I mentioned that I ran out of yarn making my GoT cowl. I had posted about it in a discussion thread on Ravelry. Yesterday evening I received a private message from the designer apologizing for the shortage of yarn and offering to send me another skein so that I could finish the pattern as written. That meant a lot to me, that she would offer to get me more yarn. I declined because my cowl is already done and honestly, I like the way it turned out. Mine is unique. :-) I thanked her for the offer and told her that I appreciated that she was willing to make things write. Good people do exist in this world.

I finished up a different cowl recently. I used Handmaiden's Sea Three yarn, which is a blend of silk and seacell, which is made from seaweed. It is very soft and should be warm in the winter. I just discovered that this yarn is discontinued, so I'm glad I was able to make something I like with it. I still have enough left to make a hat or a pair of mitts. Of course as I was taking this picture I discovered I managed to cross some cables in the wrong direction, but you won't be able to tell that when I'm wearing it. Also, I hid those mistakes when I took the picture.

The lighting in this picture isn't the best - the yarn is actually a little more purple than it looks here. I'll try to get a better picture tomorrow if there is some sun. It's suppose to be cold (8C/48F) and rainy tomorrow.

I am working on a pair of gloves right now - you can never start preparing for winter too early around here. I'm also working on a new shawl I'm making with 100% eri silk yarn from Belfast Mini Mills. Now that it's June, Belfast Mini Mills is open every day. I may have to make a trip out there in the next day or two to see what they have for this season. I'll do my best not to buy any yarn...no promises though!

Weekend Recap!

I'm back from our weekend of off-island hockey. It started Thursday with a ferry trip over to Nova Scotia. There are two ferries that shuttle people back and forth - a big one and a smaller one. Normally the big one is running but this time it was the smaller one. It had a nice observation deck on top where the kids played and ran around. It was windy but I do better with the wind blowing on my face. We went down below for a snack and I could feel the ferry rocking which messed with my vertigo. Going back out on deck helped a lot.

Once we arrived in NS we found our hotel and had some supper then it was off to bed for the kids. Friday the tournament began and J had two games. Both teams were really tough so J's team was 0-2 at the end of the day. We had a pizza party that night and the kids went swimming, which honestly, was all that mattered to them at that point. Saturday we had two more games and those games were more evenly matched but still no wins, which summed up the whole spring season. There were some tears at the end of the last game but once they got back to the hotel and into the pool they forgot about being sad and had fun.

Saturday night the team stayed up late and watched part of the Ducks-Blackhawks game. C was down with J and he said the kids burst into song when the American anthem came on. The Canadian kids knew about half the song which honestly is impressive. That is not an easy song to sing. They had a great time cheering and goofing around and the hotel staff was very patient with all the rowdy 10 year olds running around.

Sunday we came home, again on the smaller ferry. The weather wasn't the best - it was rainy, chilly, and very windy. I stayed inside as long as I could but it started getting really warm with everyone inside. Between the heat and my vertigo acting up, I had to go out on the deck for a while. I found a sheltered spot on the leeward side of the boat and hung out there. I was joined at various times by other people feeling a bit queasy from the rocking of the boat. One mom and daughter I know have problems with motion sickness, so they braved the chilly weather to keep from throwing up. It was nice to have company outside. :-)

Today I had to head back to the dentist. I got a call on Friday that somehow the impression they made of my bottom teeth was broken in transit to the lab and they needed to make a new one. At least this time I figured out how to keep from gagging on that nasty plaster stuff (although just thinking about that stuff makes me start to gag). It only took about 10 minutes to get it all done, so that was nice. I'm hoping this time they won't break it!

I also went out today and bought a scale for weighing my yarn. After the Game of Thrones cowl debacle, I wanted to know if they gave me the right amount of yarn and my gauge was off or if I was shorted yarn. I was suppose to have 300 g of yarn for this project. My finished project, which I ran out of yarn making, is only 290 g which tells me I was shorted yarn while I know others received over 300 g of yarn (they posted their weights on Ravelry). I suppose it could have happened to anyone but I will think twice before I decide to participate in other MKALs using that company's yarn.

This afternoon was a good one. The weather was cool (hello, what's up with that? It's June 1!) but the rain held off so the kids were able to play outside. We yard-hopped from one place to another until it was time for supper. The newest family on the block has decided that they are (probably) going to buy the house they are renting, which is awesome. They have a daughter S's age as well as two younger boys. They fit into the neighbourhood nicely so it will be awesome having them stay around for the summer. It's shaping up to be a fun one!