Hockey Hockey Hockey

I worry that you must get tired of reading hockey content on this 'knitting' blog, but here goes. (by the way these are some of the pictures I told you I would show you when I got around to downloading them) PJ and Q played one another in a league hockey game a weekend or two ago. They had a great time and I did not who to root for so I rooted for everyone. That is Q in the above photo, a rare shot of him with his stick actually on the ice waiting for pass. He has a bad habit of skating with his stick up off the ice, making it very had to get that pass. He is working hard it, I love this picture, to me it is a picture of his improvement.

PJ shocked us all by volunteering to by goalie for this game. She is on the only all girls at her age level and they rotate goalies so that everyone who wants to try the position gets a chance. Last year she opted to never try the position, had no interest in it at all.

Her coach was shocked when PJ asked to play goalie as was I! I had no idea PJ was even entertaining the idea let alone ready to don the gear. I think the coach was almost disappointed when PJ volunteered. PJ usually plays rightwing, is one of the older girls on the team, she plays position well and is a strong skater, I think the coach missed having her in the line up.

I am thrilled she has developed the confidence to try the position and she had a great time in net. I also a bit glad she is not in love with the position. Goalie gear is very expensive!!!!

On another note, she played in her first all girls tournament this past weekend and scored 5 goals and had 2 assists. She won the award in her first game for the player with the most heart and won top gun for her team.

The girls very rarely get to play against an all girl team, all the teams they play here are boys teams. It was cool to see the girls play girl teams and have success.

Pictureless

I have been meaning to post for days but have not gotten around to downloaded some pictures I want to post. I still have not taken the time to download my photos so I thought, duh, post with no pictures.

SeaBass celebrated his 10th Birthday on Monday. I can't believe my oldest is ten! It is so cliche that it goes by so fast, but it sure does. He is closer to being a legal adult than to being a baby. I can't imagine how Shannon feels with Morgan being almost a full grown man now. (Happy Birthday Morgan)

We had some surprise company for SeaBass's birthday, Paul's dad arrived on Monday and brought his mom along with him for a quick visit. PJ had the idea to keep it all a surprise for SeaBass and we managed to pull off a small surprise party for him on Monday evening.

He had no idea! We even decorated the downstairs and the whole bit. He said it is the best birthday he has ever had. So we have been kept busy this week enjoying the company and keeping up the kids, it has been a good week.

They will heading home on Friday morning, I really enjoy having company. The house alway seem to empty when everyone heads home.

Happy Hooking

I posted a little bit about moving rooms around in the house. I am still in a state of juggling, but things are improving.

I finished the cabinets (I have not taken photos yet) and have been moving yarn around. I am to the fun part where I get to fondle the stash and wonder how I have so much lovely yarn that I have knit up yet.

I came across a fair bit of left over yarn from other projects and as I moved things around new and old projects came to mind.

I stumbled across some Knit Picks Shine that is left over a baby blanket I made at least 3 years ago and immediately a pattern I had seen in one of my books for a tote bag came to mind. I dug out the book and pulled out the pattern...only to find it was a crochet pattern!!!

Mom reminded me how to crochet again when she was here for a visit in the summer. So I decided I would give the pattern a whirl. The first results were not pretty at all and I was doing was getting frustrated. I decided to take the pattern to work and ask around to see if anyone one who dared came in the door to be adjusted that day knew how to crochet and could answer some questions for me.

I remembered when I got to work that our newest employee is a knitter and the more I thought about the more I was sure she crocheted someone a toque for Christmas. She took about 15 and gave me a refresher and TADA! A square.

At the time of the photo I had not finished the top corner, but now trust me it's a square. Tonight I think I will try to do another one. I am surprised at how much faster crochet seems to be than knitting, and I am still poking along on the learning curve. I don't think it is made a hooker out of me, but I think I may dabble for bit.

Snowball

You will have to forgive me, my pictures are loaded out of order but you will get the idea and nod your heads with me as you read, I know this happened to all of you.

We have basement suite which we have rented out to help out with our mortgage the entire time we have lived in this house. Our tenant moved out the last week in December and as part of another snowball I will share with you in another post we are going to remodel the kitchen in May.

There is full kitchen in the basement suite so naturally I was thinking I would not rent the suite again until after the remodel of the kitchen upstairs (or never rent out again, we will see). I can move into the kitchen downstairs, move our dining room table downstairs and not go crazy with my kitchen torn apart for a month while we all eat take out.

This whole plan began a complete juggle downstairs. Here come the out of order pictures, the one below is a photo of where the guest bed once was. I am hoping this room is destined to be my craft room or the crazy cave, whatever you want to call it.

This is the downstairs bathroom in which I have stolen Shannon's brilliant idea and have taken this over as my own. I can't even tell you how lovely it is to not have a sink full of toothpaste looking back at me every morning. I never realized how much bathroom mess I cleaned up every day that was not mine. It is such a treat to have a clean washroom all to myself.

This is the bed from the soon to be craft room moved into the bedroom of the suite, it is covered with everything out of my linen closet because of course during the juggle the closet took a nose dive and starting caving in on itself.

Paul kindly repaired the linen closet for me. I don't know why they built a 4 bedroom home with a little tiny linen closet upstairs but they did. So long ago Paul put cabinet this in laundry room for me, it works well, I just fold the sheets and pop them in here without a trip up the stairs. Now my linen closet is all cleaned out, tidy and off the bed.

The whole idea of craft room means I need a lovely place to store my yarn. I found some great pine and glass cabinets that were pretty inexpensive, but I did not want to leave them nude so that turned into another project. I am staining them with a 50/50 mix of white wash and black stain, trying to get a pewter sort of look. The first picture is closest to the true colour. I plan to finish them off with a couple of coats of semi-gloss clear coat.

They are coming along, but moving a bit slowly for my tastes, I only have evenings to work on them. Once I get everyone settled into bed I will see if I an make some progress tonight.

Hockey Tournament

We are just getting back into hockey season after a little break for the holidays. We have started with a bang with SeaBass in a tournament in Salmon Arm. He played two games today and I think has two games tomorrow.

His team has lost both games, but not for lack of effort. SeaBass was selected for team MVP for the first game today. I think the smile here says it all.

He was a bit upset half way through the second game he was called for a tripping penalty that he did not do. This is not just the parent talking, he was coming up the ice with the puck on a break away and a player from the other team took him out trying to stop the play. The referee (kids that are learning to ref as much as the other kids are learning to play hockey) called Sebastian for tripping. The call makes no sense to me, the player with possession of the puck would not trip the other player.

I find sometimes when watching it is so hard to keep in mind that everyone out there is learning. Sometimes the play gets to rough because the young refs are not confident enough to make a call. There was a player on the other team actually trying to instigate a fight and he never got called for his rough play the entire game.

We are all having a great time and are about to head off to a bowling alley with an entire hockey team and all their siblings. I plan to drink a beer, knit and watch the kids bowl. Sounds like a great way to spend a winter afternoon.

6:30 PM edited to add:

Bowling alley was not licensed, this means no beer at a bowling alley. Who would've thought?

5 people in hotel suite, hockey gear airing out in washroom of said suite; I really wish I had a scratch sniff blog to share with all of you.