Thursday, April 24, 2008

Happy Sailing

I don't know if a cruise counts as sailing exactly.

Woke up to more snow and -3C. I am should be playing softball tonight and it has warmed up to 4C. I am thinking of staying home with PJ, who is very tired from a busy week. Not sure yet what I am going to do.

Right now I am off to finish packing. I am not sure if I will blog from the ship or not.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Fun Stuff

I have been having a great time getting ready for the cruise. I am not ready in a packed with my bags by the door kind of way, but I am crossing things off of my before I leave to-do list.

I finished the socks last night. I am happy with them, the colour is wonderful the pattern was fun, but I found portions of it could have been worded more clearly.



We had another ball game tonight, it is about -2C right now so it was a cold game. We had a great time and the cows got skinned alive. I don't know if we have ever played with it this cold and clear, it hurt your hands so much to catch the ball and to bat. At least there was no rain.



Today was observation day at school for PJ and Q. I love this day and so do the kids. Parents get to go to school with the kids and we see what they learning. The kids pick activities to show us and tell us how they work and what they are learning from the activity.

I enjoy seeing the different ways in which each of my children learn and hearing what their interests are in the classroom. Wednesday we have parent teacher conferences with these two. Sebass received a great report card not to long ago and we did not do a parent teacher with him at that time. I am sure we will have one before the year is out.



(gotta love PJ's tank top)

Saturday, April 19, 2008

House Hunting

I was surprised when I opened my blog to post today that I had not posted since Tuesday. I have so many post ideas in my head that I can't I have not gotten any of them typed up.

It has always been one of our dreams to own a bit of property. A couple of weeks ago we saw an ad in the paper for this house on 20 acres within the city limits. It is only 7K from where we live now and on city water. We decided to go and have a look at it.

The house has great bones but is very outdated and needs a lot of love. The current owners are also asking to much for and seem to be very firm on what they want for it.

Just for kicks I did a search on the MLS web site to see if there was any similar properties available in the area. (MLS= Multiple Listing Service) I wanted to compare apples to apples if you know what I mean and see if the house we liked was as overpriced I believe it to be.

I found this house and we went to have a look at this afternoon. Bang for your buck you are getting a heck of a lot more than the first house we looked at. This house is not within the city limits and that saves on the property taxes. It also means the house is on well water and I don't think you even get garbage service. We are asking a lot of questions about the house.

Meanwhile we had a real estate agent have a look at our house to find out what we could sell it for, we also have Deb working hard for us to pre-approve us for a mortgage in the event we do decide to purchase.

All this spontaneous house hunting has kept me on my toes. I am learning an awful lot as well. I find my mind so restless with all the possibilities that I can hardly sit down for a few minutes let alone knit or blog.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

It's That Time

I barked like a cow today.

Most of you know that signifies the beginning of soft ball season.

There is some fresh meat on the Barking Cows this year (lets call them veal) and we had a great time. We won our game for the season; we are happy to have that out of the way.

We won by default, the other team had no women show up. You have to play with at least 3 women on the line up and in the field. We played out the game just for fun, they had more runs than us but we go down for the win.

When the weather warms up a bit I will take my camera with me and show you what we are up to. It was a whopping 6C today on the ball field. We had snow on the hill up behind the house last night and a couple of flurries today.

I am so ready for spring, it is usually cold around here for the time of year.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Random

I have a bunch of random for you today. I forgot to download my most recent Leafling pictures and I am at work so I will show a bunch of stuff I have been meaning to mention.

I took a bunch of pictures out the airplane window on our way home from Vegas in Feb. (I know, I know, I should have posted these long before). I like the shadows the clouds created in this one.



This one I just love the texture of the land at the bottom of the picture. I tried to get some pictures of the really snowy mountains but they all come out blurry for some reason.



Here are some of the spring break Peter Puck pictures. Q's face made me laugh out loud in this picture. It does not look like he is having a good time. I bet the poor guy that has to dress as hockey puck has the same expression on his face inside his costume.



One of the mom's or dad's at the event took the picture above and below and was kind enough to email them to Paul. I am glad for the kindness or I would have no pictures of the event. Paul was busy bench coaching. He had as much fun as the kids did. Sebass is not in the photo below, he must be on the ice.



When we were in Vegas I cast on these socks at the first say of the seminar. It was a three day gig and the socks were done at closing ceremonies. I gifted them to Theresa, who had given me the yarn for Christmas. Is that re-gifting? I knit them with no pattern, just a plain standard sort of sock.



I thought having a completed pair might make her want to finish her first socks that have been on the needles for a while. (Granted she has been busy raising babies and making new ones). I saw on her blog today she cast on for a new pair this weekend.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Picture Fun

I was playing with the settings on my camera a week or two ago and I thought I would share the results with you. It is the same picture over and over again with different camera settings. I hope I don't bore you with it.

The only setting I was changing on all of these pictures was white balance. This first picture is the control if you will. It was taken with the plant in full sun and the camera's white balance setting on "Sun"



This second picture I changed the white balance setting to 'shade'. This warmed the picture up a little bit, it adds a bit of pink/red to the picture. A good setting for people pictures, gives them a healthy glow.



The third photo I set on 'cloud' This warms the picture up even more, adding some orange to it. When I was taking fall leaf photos I had the camera on this setting all the time. It make the colours of the leaves richer. It gave the colour a bit more depth to me.



Incandescent (the image of a light bulb) in your white balance setting. It adds blue to the photos. The light from light bulbs is a bit yellow and I guess this is to balance that out.



Fluorescent the camera adds magenta to the picture. It is easier to see the difference in the this picture and the one above if you look at the background of the picture (upper left-hand corner)



Last but not least, the flash setting in the white balance.



Amazing how much you can change a picture with those settings. I learned about some of this in the camera class I took a few months ago. I don't know how much I retained, but it has made my pictures a bit better and helped me learn about my camera.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Lucky

This is what we woke up to on Saturday morning. It was only about -1C and the snow did not stick for long. I love the snow, it is so pretty and peaceful, but I am ready for spring now.


I am not picky. I would be totally happy with 12C or 15C I am not asking for the moon here. Just a little bit of sunshine.



I got the cuff done on the lucky socks and then tried them on. I was only little bit surprised when I tried them on and they were to big. I thought about it when I read the pattern, cast on 72 st. I cast on 72 for the STR lightweight yarn for a size 10. So why on earth did I go ahead and cast on 72 for the medium weight STR? I was following the pattern. Lesson learned, again.



Next time I will listen to my brain when the pattern does not sound right to me. This is what my first sock looks like now:



Before I ripped it out I started a medium size sock (66 st) from the other end of the yarn and knit it for a while so I could try it on and make sure it was not to small. It fits perfect. Now I have a sock going from each of end of the ball.

I love the colour and the pattern seems to be pretty simple so far. The chart is well written and the instructions are clear once I got the size thing figured out.

Friday, April 04, 2008

Coming Along

My socks seem to be coming along. I keep wondering if I am going to run out of yarn before the socks are finished. I think I will make it.



Today was a wonderful day. The kids played 'adventure' together all afternoon without fighting once. I ran into Mom online and chatted with her for a long while, then I called my sister and had a chat with her. I was even lucky enough to catch Dad at Shannon's place and got to say hello to him too.

Thursday, April 03, 2008

WTF Photos

Pardon my language, but it seemed right for the post today.

As I looked through the pictures of the party on Saturday night and I came across several of them that made me think WTF. So I thought I would share the experience with all of you.











I spent most of the day playing with kids Thursdays are our crazy days but we sure have a good time with them.

I signed up on Ravelry yesterday and spent a little time surfing there today. There is a so much to check out!

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Beer Bong

It's not all sticks and string around here. Occasionally its beer bong time. These pictures will make Paul's mom so proud.

Paul has been playing in the city Hockey league and having a great time with it. He keeps telling me he is the worst player on the team and that he is having a great time. He is pretty new to hockey and there are some guys in the league that have been playing all their lives and seem to be quite good at it.

Last Tuesday his team won the league championship. Saturday night they celebrated at our house. This means lots of testosterone and lots of of booze.

The team was great, different people were stopping by all day Saturday with beer (a kegerator) and lots of eats, one of the guys went to costco and bought tons of food. Paul and I did not have to anything but open the door as they showed up and provide a garbage can for the empties.

I have lots of great pictures of drunken men I am going to share with you my favorite. Mike (a pharmacist ironically) brought a beer bong and loaded it up for Paul. When Mike open the valve on the beer bong he accidentally pulled the hose out of Paul's mouth. The following mess resulted:



you should click on the pictures to make them bigger, they get better when they are big.