Flowers for Mothers' Day

Our son left for Kenora last weekend to spend the summer fighting wild fires. Before he left, he bought me Flowers for Mothers' Day. 

I found this on the mantle along with a hand-written note last Friday when I got home from work. It was sweet of him to think of me with all the other things he had to prepare for his summer away. 

  

Thank you for buying me Flowers for Mothers' Day. I love this white Fuji Spider Mum paired with purple irises ... perfect choice.

In case you're wondering, our son has been sending regular updates from Kenora this week. He loves where he's staying (a cottage on a lake with three other young men) and loves that he gets to work fighting wildfires. 

I found a video series online called "Playing With Fire". My son tells me he knows some of the people in the videos. They are his coworkers. 

About Playing With Fire:

"Drought and climate change have turned Canada’s forests into fire bombs that go off every summer. In Ontario alone, there are over 1000 blazes each year. Even with new technology, the essential weapon in the fight against fires is the initial attack crews. These firefighters are ready at a moment’s notice to protect our forests, our communities and our lives. Playing With Fire is the story of two northwestern Ontario crews, one in Kenora and the other in Sioux Lookout."

As you can imagine, I will be sending lots of 'stay safe' wishes his way.

I am truly happy for him and looking forward to hearing all about his adventures. It's bound to be an exciting summer. 

Be the first to comment - click on No comments: below  

Mothers' Day Weekend

This was a perfect weekend to celebrate Mothers' Day. With such warm and sunny weather, I asked my SO (Significant Other) to take some garden shots on Saturday. Our magnolia tree is in full bloom and beautiful. Who doesn't love magnolias?

We have flowers blooming along the back wall of our house as well. I love the white Flox. It's such a pretty tiny flower. 

I also love this purple Pasque Flower. It's so intricate and colourful with lacy green leaves. 

Our garden is relatively small but I thoroughly enjoy the few flowers and herbs we grow. I say "we" but really I mean my SO. My gardening enthusiasm ends with the enjoying part. It's my SO who takes care of planting and maintenance. 

He was extra busy planting pots and cleaning the pool this weekend. He added some green by planting basil and removed other green by adding five 10 L jugs of chlorine to the pool over the past few days. The pool looks quite inviting although much too cold for me.

"We" also planted sage and parsley (no photo) and our garden is already full of tarragon, oregano, mint and chives. I love using fresh herbs from our garden all summer long.

On Sunday to celebrate Mothers' Day, we gave my Mom a bouquet of white roses, crochet dish cloths and a card. My favourite pattern for crochet dish cloths can be found here. I like to add a single crochet border to this pattern to give a clean finished look.

In my recent clutter clearing efforts, I found this card from 1972 made when I was almost 9 years old. I thought the verse was funny so I wrote an updated version and gave it to my Mom along with the original. 

Clutter clearing trick - scan paper items so you no longer have to keep the original. You'll save the memory without the clutter. I plan to do more of that to cut down on stored photos and various keepsakes.

I took my Mom to Starbuck's in Byron where we enjoyed cappuccino on the patio then spent some time chatting in my parents' back garden before heading over to my In-Law's for lunch. Lunch was delicious and it was great to get everybody together again. Our son who recently got a part-time job was working but we did manage to save him some apple pie.

After lunch my SO and I had massages booked for 3:00 and 4:30 p.m. which was exactly what we both needed. Me for my shoulder injury and my SO from doing so much extra work around the garden and pool. 

With the timing of massages and extra jobs to be done at home, we missed our son's first soccer game of the season.  Luckily our parents went and our son was happy to report a win which was very exciting and a great start to his season.

My SO also planted Tuberous Begonias in a pot which sits in the corner of our patio. We loved these flowers last year as they were full of blooms all summer long and into the fall. We also love the ambiance provided by colourful light sticks in this pot all year round.

Sitting outside enjoying a glass of wine at the end of the day. A weekend full of simple pleasures.

Then to top it off, our son finally took the time to check his email and discovered he has been accepted at both Carlton University and University of Guelph in Computer Sciences. He had already been accepted at Brock University back in February. Now he has a decision to make. How great is that? He is looking forward to the next step after high school but also thoroughly enjoying himself right now.

I'm so excited for him and looking forward to the inevitable changes this year. I wonder what it will be like to have him out of the house in September? I wonder if I will finally be able to sleep through the night? The house is going to be so quiet. I haven't decided if that is a good thing or bad thing but I'm leaning towards good.

I hope you all enjoyed your Mothers' Day weekend including the ups and downs and everything in between because that is what life is like with kids or without. 

Very Good News

It has been almost 2 weeks since my last post Crochet Cushion Covers. In that post I mentioned taking a break from crochet due to a painful bout of what I thought might be frozen shoulder (left side) starting Easter weekend. 

I am happy to report that I do not have frozen shoulder which is Very Good News. My physiotherapist Jim Millard at Body Mechanics in Byron Village tells me I have what is commonly referred to as 'baby' shoulder. Basically, a shoulder injury from 20 years ago flared up after riding to work on my commuter bike all week then taking it for a longer 35 km ride on Good Friday. It's a fun bike but the straight bars put my arms in a position similar to cradling a baby (hence the name) which pushed my shoulder joint forward in the socket creating an impingement. That's just a fancy word for pinching. The prolonged irritation caused inflammation which resulted in extreme shoulder pain whenever I tried to lift my arm in any direction or even lay down to sleep.

The first week, I visited my chiropractor Dr. Carolyn Dalgity twice for laser therapy and adjustments. The second week, I saw my physiotherapist who immediately diagnosed the problem and taped my shoulder for a few days which helped immensely.  He also gave me some simple shoulder exercises designed to get my rotator cuff muscles to activate and relieve the tension in my shoulder and neck resulting from other muscles doing extra work to compensate. 

I will continue to see my chiropractor and physiotherapist once a week until the inflammation has completely cleared. Already it is much improved which is Very Good News and I have the all clear to ride my bike also Very Good News. Although, I am riding a different bike to avoid aggravating my shoulder too much.

Crochet has taken a bit of a back seat while I've been nursing this sore shoulder but now that things are improving, I'm happily back at it. I made a bonnet for Sweetie Bear using this free pattern. Does it look like a baby bonnet or more like a bonnet worn by a granny? I haven't decided if it is an improvement or not. What do you think? 

Another small project I finally finished is this cute little mouse. If you would like to make one too, this pattern by blogger Yellow, Pink and Sparkly is available for free and can be found here. The first time I made this mouse I used pink yarn for the dress and added a small button nose. I gave it to our niece who happened to be wearing a very similar style dress in red when she was visiting and she loved it. 

This time I made an aqua dress using a 3.25 mm hook instead of the recommended 3.0 mm as I do not have that size, at least not among my favourite Addi-Swing crochet hooks. If you're not familiar with this ergonomically friendly hook and are interested, there is a very thorough review on blogger PetalsToPicots site here. 

Of course the aqua dress is too big and does not look right on this little mouse. You'll have to take my word on that as I did not take a picture of the mouse wearing the aqua dress before making a new dress in white using hook size 2.5 mm.  

This white dress fits just right. Doesn't it look adorable with a little green ribbon adding a pop of colour?

I'm considering making a bear from another free pattern by Yellow, Pink and Sparkly found here. I expect this bear will be just big enough for this lovely aqua dress to fit nicely. When I finish I'll post a photo so you can see how it looks. 

I love making these little crochet toys but I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all of them. Over the past few years, I've made a bunch for my grandson and a few for my new granddaughter. They have so many toys now that they don't really need any more. I might just continue to enjoy the process of making them and taking photos for my blog and then perhaps sell a few. Do you ever make anything without any particular purpose in mind? I like the idea of making things for fun but for some reason I hesitate to make things to sell. Although if I made something for fun and somebody wanted to buy it, I would be willing to sell it. Phew, that is a roundabout way of saying I might perhaps be selling a few of my hand-made pieces.  

So my Very Good News is I'm on the mend and getting back to enjoying some of my favourite hobbies - crochet, biking and blogging. I hope all of you are also keeping well and able to get out and enjoy this warm spring weather which has finally arrived. It looks like a perfect weekend to celebrate Mothers' Day here in Canada.

Happy Mothers' Day to all the wonderful Moms out there and especially to my Mom, my Mum-In-Law and my Daughter. Have a wonderful weekend.