Life's a Stitch

My life in cliche

I avoid cliche. I dislike exclamation points. And forget those over-dramatic screamy all caps. But, as the high school teacher who taught me "a guilty conscience needs no accuser" and "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" used to say, "there is an exception to every rule:"

"Where does the the time go?" says I. I swear that time goes faster in retirement than it did when we worked outside the home, and then time seemed to move at the speed of sound.

Then: "What, that yearly grant deadline is here AGAIN?!" 

Now: "Didn't I  just listen to CBC's Backstage with Ben Heppner?" If You're Canadian you realize that it is possible to listen to the same CBC public radio show six times during a given week, but in this case, it really is Sunday night AGAIN. And my baby turned 26 today. How did that happen?

This week while grocery shopping, I had an example of being in the right place at the right time (cliche). As I entered the grocery store the sun came through the doorway at just the right moment. I took this picture with my phone, maybe a painting to be:

I "struck while the iron was hot" and a minute later it was gone!

 

 

It's a wrap, so to speak

The retirement adventure continues. For the past two days, instead of house hunting, C and I had the ultimate knitting, painting and woodworking experience. Imagine getting paid for the things you love to do that don't seem like work. We were hired as skilled background, AKA extras, for a made-for-TV Christmas movie, brought to you by a feel-good channel that, at this point, I can't mention. 

The scene was a craft fair in a community hall. We set up and staffed three booths, you guessed it: my knitting, watercolours, and C's bowls. What's it like to be in the background of a real movie? Think 12 hour of: check in, sit, sit, sit, eat, act, sit, eat, sit, sit, act, sit, eat, sit, sit, wrap out, go home. The fact that we brought with us creative skills made it pay well. The food was delicious and the people were interesting. All in all a good experience.

Sorry no pictures. None allowed. 

The week in pictures

These were taken in Sudden Valley, Bellingham, Washington, where we spent many happy summer days and nights while the kids were growing up. The only modifications to these photos are the yellow tone in the first and ever-so-slightly deepening of the exposure in the second. In other words it really is as beautiful as it looks. These two were taken at the community's little Lake Louise, as opposed to the large incredibly beautiful L.L located in Alberta.

C cooked his popular cedar planked salmon two ways: piri-piri and tandoori:

The leftovers made wonderful lunchtime sandwiches.

Finally, one of those paintings that wasn't thrilling me based on a reference photo of a tulip flanked by floaty forget-me-nots. It bugged me all day; I knew I wasn't going to like the background in the finished product. It reminded me of a black table cloth with blue flowers. Good thing I recently learned a painting saving technique: crop the heck out of it and use it mounted on a notecard or in an oversized asymmetrical mat. Not sure what I'll opt for, but I like the heavily cropped version much better:

Real estate update: we haven't yet found a house, it's early though. Both of the ones we had appointments to see were sold before we could cross the threshold. The market might be a tad too hot for us at the moment.

 

 

 

 

Sold!

Our realtor arrived today with the official sign:

It all happened so quickly, which I suppose is a good thing. We do have a long closing date so we have plenty of time to look for something else. 

For Easter I treated myself to a course in pet portraits. Better that than chocolate. It was all about the cats and the dogs, but I chose something different. No, not a bunny, it's a llama using models from a friend's relative's llama farm. Here's the first one: