My own New Moon

I was talking to my mom on her birthday (August 25th) and as I was talking to her I was looking out my window at the moon coming up. I could not get over the size of the moon. When I first noticed it, it just looked like a purpley orange colour behind the tree line of our neighbours house across the road. As I watched it quickly made it's way up into the sky - I still could not believe how huge it was. It wasn't even a full moon - that was the night before. I tried to get out and get a good picture of it - but I couldn't find my tripod - the only way I can figure out to take good nighttime pictures is with my tripod. If I try to hold my hands steady - it is never steady enough. So I used my flash to get this one - but then the only thing that showed was the moon - oh well....it was the last thing I saw before I went to bed, so I could have nice dreams about Edward and Jacob!!!!! Chow for now Jacqui

Puzzle update

We spent a little time this weekend working on our puzzle. It is taking a little bit longer than I had anticipated, but it's been such a long time since I have worked on one, it is fun. It's nice to spend some quality time with Joel. We sit and chat and listen to music or watch some tv while we are "puzzling" away. Here is how far we are now!
I went into visit Granny with my Mom on Saturday. It was great to see her. She is doing so well, it just makes me smile to think about it. She looks great and she's getting back into the things she used to love to do, like reading, doing word searches and writing in her diary.
We got up early and took a drive back to the Grand Bend Flea Market on Sunday. I absolutely love this market. You can buy antiques, baked goods, Egyptian sheets, Crocs, movies, books, garden decor, blinds, knives, purses, belts, clothes, socks, and all kinds of other items. We specifically went back to get pepperettes and Joel wanted to get a belt buckle. He found one he liked, and I got my fix of pepperettes and Joe even got a couple of tools. One of the nicest things about this market too is the AWESOME local produce. There is nothing better than eating something that you know was grown right here in Ontario. If you don't buy local - you should - you will notice a HUGE difference in taste and quality. We also saw some old friends of ours when we were walking through the market so it was nice to get caught up with them. (Hi Keith and Linda!) We also stopped at Dale's Antique Market. OMG - this place is amazing. The furniture and antiques in this place are beautiful. There were only about 200 things that I wanted!!!! I could not get over the quality of the items in the market. There was this beautiful queen sized bed frame that had huge balls on the head and foot board, and these balls were the size of a large cabbage. I could not get over it. It was BEAUTIFUL (now to win the lottery so I can totally throw out all my stuff and redecorate from Dale's market!) You should check the place out if you are ever back in Grand Bend. It's definitely worth the stop. Then we headed home and Joe did some yard work, but I'll be honest..I was a couch potato for most of the afternoon - I did some laundry and worked on the puzzle a bit - and I even had a nap! It certainly was a lazy Sunday afternoon. Hope your Sunday was enjoyable as well. Chow for now Jacqui

CSAYL Challenge 62 - Anything Goes - Soft Pencil

This week over at the Christmas Stamping All Year Long Challenge Blog, we were challenged to create an "anything goes" card. Soft Pencil provided us the images (for more information on this gracious sponsor please visit the CSAYL blog). This images were not "christmasy" so that was part of the reason we were able to have an anything goes challenge this week. I used Textured Green Galore card stock by Stampin' Up! for the base of the 6 X 6 card. I then used a piece of designer paper, that I cannot remember who made, but I loved the froggies! I then coloured the images with Copics and stamped the sentiment using the retired Unfroggetable stamp set from Stampin' Up! If you have not participated in any of our challenges yet...please do. They are lots of fun! Chow for now Jacqui

Flower soft bear!

Well our timing did not work out yesterday so I didn't get to see my Mom on her birthday, but I did call her and we had a little chat, so that was better than nothing. I went for a simple card for her this year, using a bit of Flower Soft for the flowers, some dew drops for embellishments, and one of the Stampin' Up! embossing folders for texture. I hope she likes it! Chow for now Jacqui

Happy Birthday Mom!

Just a quick little post to say Happy Birthday to my Mom! I know she reads my blog every day so I wanted to make sure she saw this. I will post her card tomorrow cause I don't want y'all to see it before she does!!!!
Have a super day Mom, I love you, more than you will ever know.
Chow for now
Jacqui

Dragons...and puzzles!

I remember sitting and working on puzzles with my Granny for hours on end. She would sort out all of the edge pieces and then we would sort out all of the pieces that looked the same. You know how some have "legs" and others have "corners" and others have "tits!". Well we would sort all the pieces out onto trays with her and then we would put the edges together and away we would go. I used to love doing this with my Granny. I miss all the time that we used to spend together. On the weekend, Joel decided he would like to do a puzzle. So we grabbed his puzzle that he got for Christmas a few years ago and started in on the sorting. I must say......it was a totally different experience working on a puzzle with my 14 year old son and my husband than it was working on one with Granny. I don't believe Granny ever got out the tape measure to try and figure out the size of the puzzle....um..the box tells you that. And I don't think Granny ever jumped up and did the "winner" dance when she found a piece before me. It's definitely a little more of a competition working with the boys than it was working with Granny. Oh well..times have changed I guess and even though we are competing...I guess...I'm enjoying the time spent with them. Here is the start! It's a funky shape - so the edges were not as easy as a rectangular one. Chow for now Jacqui

Movie weekend

I picked up my little sister Courtney on my way home from work on Friday night! She came over for a bit and we talked "wedding stuff"! I think we got her thank you cards figured out.....pending Jay's approval of course! So I'm curious to see what he said....I hope he liked them...I think they looked great. We had a little bit of a visit and I loaded her up with the 3 remaining Twilight books she had to read.....she has enough pages there to keep her going for a while! Then she was off to visit with her girlfriends and to see a new baby that one of her friends had on Thursday! Sometimes it just takes my breath away to think that my little sister is getting married and has friends who are having babies already! The time is sure flying by. Makes you want to make every minute count. So Friday was our last night as a family for a while. Early Saturday morning we took Jade back to Woodstock for her job. She will probably be there until the 5th of September. So we had family movie night! Then first thing Saturday morning, Joe, Joel and Jade piled in the van to take her back to Woodstock with a side trip to London to pick up a dryer. We have been without a dryer since we moved, which has been okay as we have been using the clothes line, but with school fast approaching and fall being the time of year when many farmers like to spread manure on their fields....I'm not certain I want my clothes hanging out on the line at that time! A lady at work had a dryer for sale and it was at an unbeatable price, so we scooped it up. Now we have a choice - dryer for the rainy or manure days! and clothes line for the nice breezy days. I had another migraine on Saturday - I have had 5 in the last month which is unusual for me and I'm really getting sick of them to tell you the truth. It had eased off by mid afternoon so I was able to get some organization done in my house....some long needed organization! Then Saturday evening Joe, Joel and I sat down to watch the movie Prince of Persia, Sands of Time with Jake Gyllenhaal. What a cutie patootie he is! I really enjoyed the movie. I heard mixed reviews on it because it was based on a video game, but I really liked it. I liked the story line and I liked the way they did it. And yep..you got to see Jake's little smirk every once in a while too! Sunday we watched Defiance. Joe and I had wanted to see this one for a while, but just never got around to watching it. So yesterday we did. It was very good. I always have mixed emotions about saying a movie about the Jews and the holocaust is a "good" movie, because frankly it was not a good thing at all...but I hope you know what I mean when I say it was a good movie. It just blows me away when I think of the people who survived that horrible, horrible time. It seems so surreal and I cannot even begin to imagine in the horrors they went through. It makes it even more real knowing that Jade visited the death camps when she was in Germany. The acting was very well done, Daniel Craig did a great job as did Liv Schreiber. I would recommend seeing them both if you are looking for a movie to watch. Chow for now Jacqui

Eggplant Wedding

I was asked to make a deep purple card for another person who was going to a wedding. This is the card that I came up with for her. I have copied a couple of similar layouts, just changed the colours for the wedding! Chow for now Jacqui

BIG CARD....

At the end of the school year a friend of mine at work asked me to make a large card for her. The kids in the class all wanted to sign a card to say thank you to one of their teachers for all the help she had given them. It's not really fancy, but the idea was to have room for them all to sign, so this is what I came up with. The kids and the teacher liked it...so Success! again. Chow for now Jacqui

Christmas Stampin' All Year Long - Challenge # 61 - use 2 or more ribbons

This week over at the Christmas Stampin' All Year Long Challenge blog, we were challenged to use 2 or more ribbons on our card. This week we were also sponsored by Pink Cat. Please see the CSAYL blog for more information on this sponsor. The image was provided by Pink Cat. I coloured the image using the Copics. I used Basic Black and Kiwi Kiss Stampin' Up! card stock for the card. A border punch was used to punch out some sticky tape and then glitter was applied to the tape to make the icicles across the top of the image. I used two different ribbons from Stampin' Up!, although it's a little hard to see the second one in the picture, so I put them both beside the card when I took a picture of the card! This was a fun challenge - not only cause it was a fun image, but I am finding a little bit of my groove again for stamping and getting more comfortable stamping in my new space! Please join us for this weeks challenge! It's fun! Chow for now Jacqui

Donna's birthday card...

Well...I made this great birthday card for Donna back a few months ago. It never made it to the mail cause I thought I was gonna get together with her close to her birthday. Then we moved...so it got packed....then she came to visit me at the new place..and I, of course, had no idea where the card was!!!! So this past weekend, when I saw her..I gave it to her! I was pleased the way it turned out. I used a Stampotique image to create this card. Happy Belated Donna! Ya know I luv ya! Chow for now, Jacqui

Eggplant Shower

One of the ladies at work was asked to attend a shower for a friend who was getting married and she asked me to make a shower card for her. She had liked the layout I did a while back, so I went with that layout and used the colours she asked. Elegant Eggplant and Basic Black! Chow for now Jacqui

Holy cow.....er bat....Batman

Yep...we have had a couple of bats in the house. I'm blaming Jade! Every time she comes home we have another bat. I tease her that she is a vampire and she says "yeah, he's my boyfriend!". Which reminds me of this commercial for pizza! You can see it here at this post if you have not seen it before. The first one we had was just kind of hanging up on the brick chimney part of our house in the family room. Joe more or less put a big bowl over him and kind of scraped him off the wall and tossed him outside. The one from yesterday - way more exciting! I first saw him when I came out of the bathroom after having a shower in the wee hours of the morning. It's still dark out when I am doing that so I'm pretty sure the light attracted him. So he came swooping into the kitchen - I called Joe and he tried to find him, but could not. Joel hunted for him during the day yesterday but could not find him either.....but last night Jade was watching tv and then she started screaming "bat..bat".. So the boys went bat hunting again! I was already nestled in my bed with a good book so I let the chaos unfold without me...although they were loud enough I could tell what they were doing! So I thought I would look up some info on how to get bats out of the house - cause we have always heard tennis racket or something cause their echolocation will go through the holes in the tennis racket - but we don't want to kill them, we just don't want them in the house. So this is what I found out! Bats are helpful little creatures. A bat will eat her entire weight in insects each evening. (not sure why they give it a female designation there....) Bats will bite if they feel threatened. Bats pose a threat to your pets when cornered or trapped, as they do carry rabies. Cats are especially intrigued by bats and being superb hunters can pull a flying bat out of mid-air. Bat dung is highly toxic. To remove a bat safely and humanely from your home, you need to follow these steps: 1. Stay calm - Don't panic (yeah easier said then done when the thing is swooping around your head!) 2. Close all doors to corral the bat in one room and keep him from flying around the house. (okay mistake number 2...we opened everything so he would fly out!) 3. Put your pets in a different room and close the door (k...we were good here - we had control of Shadow) 4. Turn on an overhead light. This will disorient the bat for a few moments because he will think it is daytime. ( I thought they went towards the light cause that's where the bugs go when it is dark!) 5. Wait for the bat to roost. Bats roost in the daytime. He will fly to the nearest object, often a curtain. He will cling on and hang upside down quietly. (yep - they definitely hang upside down) 6. Get a hand or dish towel and rubber gloves. (hhm...not a bowl and a tennis racket??) 7. Enter the room quietly and close the door behind you..(hhm.....Jade screaming "bat...bat" and Joel hollering at her to open windows and doors......I guess that was wrong!) 8. Carefully place the towel over the bat. Wrap it around his body and pull him gently off your curtain or from where he is hanging (yeah I'm thinking I really don't want to get that close...but I think my rubber gloves will fit Joe!) 9. Talk softly to him. He is frightened and will make buzzing noises. This is his echolocation. ( HE IS FRIGHTENED?????uum..he's the one with sharp little teeth with the ability to fly while he is carrying rabies) 10. Take him outdoors, open the towel and wait for him to fly off. (personally I'm thinking a nice toss out the door would work..help him with lift off) 11. The bat will not "turn on you" or attack you in any way. He is just glad to be free. (yeah and we are just glad he is out of the house!) Don't worry, bats do not indicate that you are not clean (Thank God!) They are just looking for a safe, warm place to raise their pups. (hhm...learned something new - I never new what baby bats were called....I guess pups) oh and if you were wondering like I was...a group of bats is called a colony. Hope this little post helped either make you chuckle or give you a good visual of my crazy family trying to get the bat out of the house, or gave you some pointers for removing one from your house in the future!

yeah...so the caption under this picture from the web said "bats hibernating".......Um...if this is what they look like when they are hibernating.......YIKES.
Chow for now Jacqui

Movies....

This past weekend was a busy one for me. My dear friend Jenn is home for a visit from B.C. so we had to get together to stamp for a bit! So I spent Friday night at my other friend Kim's place, who was so gracious to host our stamping get together. We had lots of laughs and lots of chocolate, a bit of booze and lots of stamping! I left on Saturday evening.....a combo of a migraine and the fact the next day was our anniversary so I thought I should come home! Sunday was sooooooooooooo hot, we just were HUGE couch potatoes and watched movies and tried not to move too much so we didn't sweat!!!! We watched Our Family Wedding. It was pretty funny. I like Forrest Whitaker - he is a pretty good actor. It was a funny show about a black man marrying a Mexican woman and how they dealt with all their differences within their families. It was cute. We also watched The Joneses. This was pretty good as well. I thought it was going to be a comedy - there were some funny parts for sure, but there was drama too. I LOVE David Duchovny - have ever since his X Files days and Demi Moore is like a fine wine...she gets better with age. She is absolutely gorgeous. It was a pretty good movie as well. Then when we were flicking through the stations, we saw that Jeepers Creepers was playing - nothing like watching a little slasher/horror flick on a Sunday night! It was your typical horror film...blood - scenes where you jump - scenes that make you go hhmmm - and an ending that leads itself to a sequel! Chow for now Jacqui

Picklin'

I was excited to get back to the farm this year as I wanted to learn how to make pickles. I remember making them with my mom years ago when I lived on the farm but I couldn’t remember how to do them. So we decided to get a bushel of cucumbers and then we would make them at mom’s house. So day one you wash, measure and cut up your cucumbers into their buckets and cover them with boiling water ( I think you put pickling salt in them this night too). Then you let them sit for 4 days. On the 5^th day you drain off the water (which is really quite gross and odoriferous) and add a gallon of boiling water with a tablespoon of alum dissolved in it. The alum makes them crunchy!

Then the next night you drain off the water and mix up the syrup which is vinegar and sugar and green food colouring. You pour that over the pickles. You put the pickling spice in cheese cloth and let it sit in the liquid. You do this each night reserving the liquid and then on the 11^th day, you boil the syrup one last time and put them in jars and pour the liquid over top! Voila pickles!!!!

I brought a couple of small jars into a couple of my friends at work and they said they were good – so that’s good to hear! We were joking around saying next year I should make a bucket of red, a bucket of green, a bucket of purple and a bucket of yellow pickles and then put them in a jar together to make rainbow pickles!!!! We’ll see!

Chow for now,

Jacqui

Happy Anniversary To Me!

Well today is our anniversary. 18 years. Wow, in some ways it seems like just yesterday and then in other ways it seems like we have been together forever. This year marks a new direction for us. We spent the first 20 years of our relationship in Woodstock where my husband was born and raised and now for the next 20 years or so, we are in my neck of the woods! I'm looking forward to all the new adventures we will have in the country and watching my kids get used to the country way of life. So..it's not our 25th anniversary, but a friend of mine at work asked me to make a 25th wedding anniversary card for her, so this is what I came up with. She loved it when I gave it to her so that's all that counts! Chow for now Jacqui

150 Years for North Middlesex

2010 marks the 150^th year of many of the communities in North Middlesex. All year they have been planning events and little celebrations. August 1st weekend, Parkhill had a parade. There were antique vehicles and tractors, Shriner's, funky cars, service groups, and horses. It was nice to see some familiar faces in the crowd and in the parade.

I must admit though – I would have enjoyed it more if the master of ceremonies had of turned the volume down on his microphone about 20 notches.

Here are some pictures from the parade

This was one of the first "floats" coming past us in the parade. I thought the horse was absolutely beautiful, so I had to take his picture!

One of the pipe bands in the parade. A parade is NOT complete without a good pipe band!

Some of the Mocha Shriner's. The Shriner's are always so good to come and participate in parades every where. I loved the Hillbilly look of their float!

Here is Janet Johnstone. She is one of the members of the Parkhill Horticultural Society who are instrumental in ensuring Parkhill looks beautiful in bloom!

Funky little vehicles are always a nice addition to any parade.

Now this is definitely the ultimate party vehicle!!! A picnic table on wheels!

Another Shiner addition to the parade. This particular float was sponsored by the Shriner's who's focus is on helping the mentally handicapped. A cause near and dear to my heart.

This classic vehicle belongs to Clinton Gilbert. He just so happens to be one of our neighbours!! He has many many antique vehicles and tractors. It was nice to see him in the parade!

Chow for now

Jacqui

Christmas Stampin' All Year Long Challenge #60 - Designer Paper Challenge

This week over at the Christmas Stampin' All Year Long Challenge Blog, we were challenged to use designer paper on our card. I chose the same colour of designer paper, but different designs for my card. This week we also were lucky to have In Style Stamps as our sponsor. Please check the CSAYL Challenge Blog for more information on this great sponsor. I coloured the image with Copics and then used my Nestibilities to cut out the image. I then sponged around the edges a bit. I added dew drops to the Christmas tree to add some texture. I added some ribbon to the top and bottom of the strip of designer paper and some gems at the bottom. I'll be honest - this is not one of my favourite cards I have made. I love the image, but could not get my colouring to look the way I wanted it to......but I had a deadline...so this is what the final result was. I may tweak it some more in the next few days, but I needed to get it up here on time, as I was a little tardy a few weeks with my move. If you have not tried a challenge over at the CSAYL Blog, you really should. They are lots of fun. It gets your creative juices flowin' when you have specific things you have to do and work on. Please try it and then leave me a comment to let me know how much fun you had doing it! Chow for now Jacqui

Mowin' the grass

When we first moved to the farm, we were very excited to have lots of space, but also a little anxious about cutting the lawn. We had a push mower, but the amount of grass we have to mow with that push mower was a little daunting. Joe mowed it with the push mower one weekend and it took him 9 hours to cut the grass. So the hunt was on for either another couple of push mowers, so we could mow as a family....or a riding mower (better choice if you ask me!) We managed to get two more push mowers. They are great mowers, industrial type so they have big honkin' gas tanks on them so you are not refilling every other strip of grass you mow! You should have seen Joe, Jade and I one weekend following each other like a lawn mower train cutting the grass! It took much less time this way, but was still a very hot hot job. Well thanks to Jade and her friend Brian, we finally got a riding mower for the farm. Now we can get it done much faster. Joel got a crash course in mowing the grass from his dad on the weekend and then he took over mowing the grass! It's nice as well to have a little motorized something - cause we can use it for other jobs as well. I need a little trailer to attach to the back..and then watch me put my boys to work!!! Chow for now Jacqui