Success!

So on my first day of holiday when I can do anything I want, like sleep in, what do I do? I wake up at 6am to write my list of all the things I should do today. Then of course I have to hop right out of bed to start on the list. Perhaps I take my love of accomplishing things too far?

I did not do anything really exciting today, but I did get all but three things done on my list, so I must count the day as a success.

Success #1: I was a two digit 99 pounds this morning which made me much happier!

Success #2: I stuck to my healthy eating plan all day except for a few raspberries. I’m not going to beat myself up over raspberries!

Success #3: I did all three of my planned exercise times. I had a lovely thirty minute run along the inlet trail and around Rocky Point Park this morning. As much as I enjoyed running in new areas, it’s also nice to do the usual and I did a 6:48km at one point. I wonder what hill I was going down? Lol🤣 I did the dynamic strength weight routine this afternoon and then walked the inlet trail this evening. As I write this, I realize I probably should have walked somewhere else to change it up, but oh well.

Success #4: I got out to Ankars Farms and bought some raspberries and have already started on freezing them. I went for blueberries, but the raspberries were just too yummy to resist! I’ll go back when I’m done the raspberries for some blueberries. I got strawberries from this farm in Port Coquitlam earlier in the summer and had been super happy with them. So good!!!!😋

Success #5: I got all my laundry done and put away and my sheets changed. I love the smell of laundry but for some reason it can linger in the dryer forever. Today it didn’t! Yay!

Success #6: Dealt with my accumulated holiday mail and made the phone calls and texts I needed to without procrastinating. I’ve been told that I need to replace my toilet because some have cracked and usually I would put off texting my cousin to see if he could come do this because I hate asking people to do things and I always feel like I’m disturbing people, but today I got right on it and he’s coming next week. I did learn that all toilets look the same to me so I told him I’d leave it in his capable hands:)

Success #7: I got another day of my 2014 LA holiday album labelled. Can you tell I’m really behind on making my photo albums. Yes I do them the old fashioned way by printing the pictures and writing sticky labels for them. I need to get this album done as you see it’s a domino effect. If I get the LA album done, I can print off the pictures from my phone for the Montreal album which will give me room to take pictures when I’m in Boston. Lol why is nothing ever simple?

Success #8: I did some research for my Boston trip. I am looking into knitting shops and gluten free/ dairy free food options and as usual, because I hate computer work, I’ve been putting this off, but I’m meeting with my travel buddy on Wednesday so know I need to get on this. All I know so far is that I may not be eating much in Boston:(

So with all of these small success, I think I did ok today. I should probably have just enjoyed the couch since it’s my only day at home today, but the list was calling to me!

Have fun!

AJ

Happy Day

All I can hear today is the Happy Days theme song in my head😀 It’s been a great day!

I met up with my running buddies this morning out in Osprey Village at Stomping Grounds and ran the river walk there.  Just kept going, stopped for some pictures and it turned out to be my second fastest 5k, woohoo 🎉 It was interesting though because the run starts I never a shady forest and then proceeds onto the dyke where it was blazing hot!

Had a lovely tea and they had a gluten free breakfast bagel that didn’t have any dairy on it!!!! I usually don’t get anything but tea and the breakfast bagel wasn’t on my eating plan for today but I figured I’d better eat something as I planned to grocery shop on the way home.

Grocery shopping went according to plan. I actually managed to buy only what was on my list. I got all my food prepped for the week and the kitchen tidied.

I have to show off my FO – the Reyna shawl in Indigo Moon is officially done and I am very happy with it. It’s such a light shawl that it will be great during the summer!

Finished the book Christmas in Hell by RL Mathewson. It was a quirky read, but it’s fun for the summer. I must have enjoyed it because I started the next in the series, Fire and Brimstone.  The Bradfords sure do seem like a weird family with their eating problem and kidnapping habit, but it makes for perfect reading.

I started my retro sweater pattern today. I should have looked at the pattern more clearly Sekt because the entire back is ribbing- 18″ of boredom coming my way. Oh well, I’m hoping it will be a nice warm sweater to wear with my leggings this fall.

I had to face reality this morning and get on the scale:( 101.8😞😖 I hate being three digits!!! Definitely need to deal with this right away because I know how quickly it can get out of hand and I’m NOT going back to where I once was!

I started the right way though- 37 minute run, 27 minutes of “running and weights” workout and an 75 minute walk this evening. I even did the ten minute complete relaxation lie down and eight minute ice bath that was recommended to my friend! Yay me!!

I’m going to end this Happy Day with a Hallmark movie.

Have Fun!

AJ

Bittersweet Homecoming

Today was the day; after 19 days of lazing around my parent’s boat, I had to come home.   It’s always bittersweet for me coming home from a holiday. On one hand, having 860 peaceful, fully stocked  square feet to myself is bliss, however, I enjoy spending time with my family, being on the water, and coming home means unpacking, laundry, grocery shopping, in other words, work:(

I worked on my Reyna shawl on the ferry while my nephew played on his iPad. I was actually very surprised that no one spoke to me about my knitting. I’ve always avoided knitting in public because I thought tons of people would ask questions and my shy personality didn’t want to deal with that. I wonder if that’s the normal experience or if I just had the sleepy Saturday morning crowd?

My condo was in one piece, and other than being slightly warm, quite lovely.  Before I left, I had put water bottles with holes in the lids in a few of my plants. It worked for one but not for the rest:( My lavender and chives may never be the same again:( Is there a better holiday watering solution out there?

I have finished my Reyna shawl but it is being blocked so I can’t share a picture quite yet.  My shawl turned out to be 12 rows shorter than the designer’s as I just didn’t have quite enough yarn. I got smart and measured the yarn I had left when I got near the end by taking an arm measure, knitting a row and then taking another arm measure. This way I knew exactly how many arm lengths it took to do a row and I knew exactly how many rows I could do. I thought I was so smart until I started to do the bind off. It was a new technique for me and made a pretty edge (though it had the tendency to roll on me), but it took double the yarn I had planned on. I ran out of yarn thirty stitches from the end and had to tink the bind off and go with my usual bind off.  With this bind off, I had success and have less than a meter of yarn leftover😀 I dislike having yarn leftover and feeling like I could have done another row and then there’s the question of what do you do with that tiny bit of yarn?  I am very happy with the Reyna shawl! It’s gorgeous!!!!

The Indigo Moon yarn in Hollyhock red turned out to be beautiful! The variegation is quite subtle, but very pretty. The yarn was easy to work with, though it is definitely a heavier and slightly rougher than the fingering wool I have used in the past.

I managed to also do some reading today. I love Goodreads!!! I was looking through “my books” and noticed the Neighbours from Hell series by RL Mathewson and when I looked I saw there were some I hadn’t read yet. I’m working on Christmas From Hell and quite enjoying it. It’s a trashy romance or chick lit ( whichever you prefer to call it) so perfect for a laid back summer day!

With being back home, it’s time to get back on the healthy wagon! I was going to workout tonight but I have a shawl taking over most of my living room floor so I just went for my usual walk along the inlet trail. It was a lovely night! I ran into two families that I know from school, but I know this is a side effect of living and teaching in the same community:) I actually think it’s a good thing for my students to see me out and about so that they realize teachers are normal people with lives too!  I also noticed, that while I was away, the city removed the extra railroad tracks that were used for the handcar races during Golden Spike Days when I was a kid. I’ve noticed that Golden Spike Days has changed dramatically since I was a kid and I guess this is just the next step:( It’s kind of sad through as I think my childhood ones were better, but maybe that’s just nostalgia talking.🤣

Well I’ve finished my knitting project, so it’s time I went and started my next one. This one is a retro pattern from one of my Grandmother’s magazines and some recycled wool from a vest, but more about that another time.

Have Fun!

AJ

The Best Laid Plans….

Well my mom and I had today all planned out and it was derailed by hurricane dad😝

I got out for my usual run in Ladysmith. It’s amazing how quickly you can get into the pattern of doing something. It is a nice route for anyone in the area- run along from the Ladysmith Community Marina to the Ladysmith Marina and back. It takes me about a half hour, but I’m quite slow.  I found the perfect shirt to describe me, 🤣

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Today was PCOC day. We got my nephew through it and he was so proud to be a legal boater. I decided that since I had just spent a week reading the material with him, perhaps I should replace my 1989 boating course certificate with a PCOC. Unfortunately this took another three hours of my life and $50, but the little plastic card will be much easier to carry around than my large certificate. I think it’s similar to carrying a ghetto blaster rather than an iPod lol.

I did get lots of knitting on my Reyna scarf while I was “studying” for three hours and will hopefully be able to finish this tomorrow on the ferry home.

A trip to Costco to pick up pictures to make a holiday album for my nephew was crazy.  Who knew absolutely everyone in Nanaimo went to Costco at 1pm on Friday???

My mom and I managed to sneak out for an ice cream at Roberts Street Ice Cream while we were picking up a photo album for the holiday picture project. It was a lovely end to a day that didn’t go according to plan, but still managed to be quite good and productive.

It is my last night on my parent’s boat for this trip😞 I am really going to miss the boat! As I look at my photos I’ve come to the realization that I absolutely love water and sunsets! 

Of course, I’m also going to miss being able to watch a Hallmark movie every night using my parent’s wifi. There! Now you all know my guilty secret😛

It is always so peaceful on the boat (except for when my father insists on listening to Hank Snow on Spotify😫) and so neat to meet people from all over. Boaters really seem to be a very friendly group of people on the whole. It is so nice to be able to wander the Marina talking to people from all over and of course dreaming of a new boat (footitis can hit in the blink of an eye)!The one thing I have noticed though is the names of boats. I know that during emergencies you have to spell the name of your boat in the International Telecommunications Union phonetic alphabet. With this in mind, I’ve always thought that Bob (Bravo-Oscar-Bravo) would be the perfect name for a boat, but I haven’t seen one called this yet!!! Some of the names are crazy ( Nostril Agony, really???) and others would be painful to spell in the phonetic alphabet (like Huckleberry, Bateau du Vent, Merriweather, The Beat Goes On, etc.) People should really think of this before they name their boat!!!!! I do have to say thank you to the Ethel Faye (the boat, not my aunt) for another lovely holiday😍

Chill

Today has been a pretty chill day:) When my students ask what I do in the summer, I always tell them I like to lay in bed in the morning with my cup of tea and think about what I want to do that day and then go do it. (I don’t mention I have to get up and make the tea first😞)

The biggest decision of the day has been; should I read or should I knit? Definitely my type of decision. I’ve been trying to read as many books as possible while I’m here so I can leave them for my mom so she can read them and then pass them along in the awesome book give and take the Ladysmith Community Marina has.

I have made it to chapter nine of Blossom Street Brides by Debbie Macomber today and so far it’s been a good and easy read. Perfect for a summer boating day:)

In knitting I have made it to row 69 of the Reyna shawl by Noora Laivola that I started this morning.  This is  what I’ve decided to make with the Indigo Moon wool my parents and I spent last night untangling. So far the pattern has been awesome. Super easy to follow and yet still interesting as it alternates between two stripes. I love that the designer/author even included a row tracker! As I was knitting along I was thinking that it would be a perfect project for a knit night or a knitting retreat as it would definitely be possible to visit while you complete the project.  The project is showing off my wool colour beautifully, but it could also easily handle a much more interesting wool too.

The wool is Indigo Moon Fingering weight in the colour Hollyhock Red. I absolutely love the variegation in the wool and it is easy to work with. My one concern would be that it seems much heavier than a typical fingering wool to me. I was set to use a 2mm needle and I had to go up to a 4mm as it was just too dense and tight. I am happy with it now through and think I’ll get lots of use out of the shawl:)

I’ve only left the boat twice today. The first time was to run back up to Main Street Yarn to get a longer 4mm circular needle. I remembered to ask, and the super helpful woman yesterday was named Lynn. I was hoping she would be there today as yesterday there was another customer from Halifax talking about a scarf pattern with moss stitch edging that uses up stash wool. She had found the pattern in a knitting magazine and I am kicking myself for not getting the details as I have plenty of stash to use up! If anyone has any clue, please tell me! Otherwise that will be another Ravelry search😛

The only other time I left the boat today was to walk part of the Holland Creek Trail with my mom. We’ve been saying we were going to do it for two years now and tonight we at least did part of it. We walked up Roberts Street six blocks and then walked the trail from there down to Coronation Shopping Centre (or almost).  The trail was beautiful, shady and cool on this hot day, very peaceful.

Holland Creek Trail

We didn’t see the Creek for a while, but when we did, it was satisfying:) I thought I had read that the trail was wheelchair accessible, but the part we did would definitely not be fun in a wheelchair!! Very hilly and several sets of stairs and roots. We took a footpath to cross under the Tans Canada Highway and returned along the old E&N Railway tracks. Perhaps not part of the trail but since they aren’t used by trains anymore a safe and quick route and surprisingly pretty with the sweet peas, butterfly bushes and gorgeous mystery flower (neither my mom nor I can remember the name) bordering the edges and the rabbits crossing our path.  It was a lovely half hour walk, bough we were very surprised at only passing one person!!! Don’t people walk around here???

Mom and Dad have gone off to Music on the Dock night and so I will now return to my dilemma of the day, knit or read???? 🤣

Have fun!

AJ

A New Start

Everyday little things happen that I don’t remember. I know I should and I started a “good things”  jar to help with this, but sometimes it’s tough to decide if something is big enough to put into the good things jar.  Does anybody else ever question this?

So this evening as I sat detangling the wool for my newest project, I decided that perhaps I should just record what happens on my days. I always think I want to keep track of what I wear, my new favourite things to cook, bake and eat, the newest project I’m working on, the cute things my students do, the places I visit, etc but I don’t have enough time or energy to have a blog or diary for each of those so this little site is going to have all my rambling thoughts on it:). So here goes!!!!

I’ve been visiting my parents on their boat for a few weeks, well actually we’re at 16 days now (can you say cheap holiday???) and so my life hasn’t been exactly normal, but I’ll take you through my day anyways.

I started the day well with a thirty minute run this morning in Ladysmith. Did I mention that my parents haven’t untied their boat from the dock in the Ladysmith Community Marina in a year? I love being out on the water, but this works too:). My run got done but my legs were screaming the whole time from the squats and lunges I did yesterday, obviously I haven’t been doing enough of those on this holiday 😫 The best things about the run was I ran up this hill two times in a row and it didn’t feel hard (yay!) and I saw the cutest lab running with a woman! I somewhat felt bad for dragging my mom out to walk while I ran a whole ten minutes after she got out of bed, but then again, it was good for her😛

I made myself face the scale when I got back from my run since I felt so pudgy yesterday and it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I can live with 99.2 on a holiday. I’d better get back on track right away when I get home though so this doesn’t get out of control. I’m way happier at two digits!

Breakfast was awesome! Fruit salad with a dab of cocowhip and a chai latte with coconut milk. Much more decadent than I would have at home, but I am on holidays:) I found this Domo Authentic Chai stone-ground tea latte at London Drugs and it has done a good job of taking the place of a tea each morning since I’m without a tea pot here (insert gasp of dismay here).

I helped my nephew study the next chapter for his PCOC test. (Had I mentioned there are four of us sharing this small boat??) I’m starting to think that I should probably take this new test. I have a certificate from my safe boating course I took as a kid, but now that I’ve studied everything with him, maybe I should just update it anyways. I so have better things to spend my $50 on though!!!! Decisions, decisions… I don’t ever plan to actually drive the boat, but it would be cool to be able to say I have it when people ask. I guess I don’t look like the boating type as people seem shocked by my going on a boating holiday each year.  Can you call it a boating holiday when you stay tied to the dock?

Last night I had finished my latest knitting project so I had promised myself I could go to the local yarn shop and see if they had anything interesting.  I went to Beehive Wool Shop in Victoria last Friday and the awesome clerk there, Kate, had introduced me to some local yarn. I had never thought about asking for a store’s local offerings, but I definitely will from now on!!!  I hit Main Street Yarns in Ladysmith, BC at 10:30 this morning and finally at 12:30 I emerged. I knew right away I wanted to do something with the Indigo Moon wool from Gabriola Island, but I just didn’t know what. I had just finished a shawl, so I jumped on Ravelry to see if I could find something else, but ended up deciding upon the Reyna shawl I had in my favourites. The clerk was awesome! She was helpful when I had questions and offered opinions but also didn’t impose herself and let me take my time. It was a seriously tough choice choosing a colour out of all that gorgeous hand-dyed wool!!!

The fam and I headed out to Duncan after that. A quick stop in Crofton at my dad’s favourite second hand store (under the Brass Bell pub) netted my nephew a new reel for his fishing rod. Then it was onto the Pacific Northwest Raptors in Duncan, BC. I really wanted to see this place even though my dad and nephew didn’t. ( I don’t think I’ve ever met two such negative, grumpy people in my life! How can I possibly be related to them???). We got to the raptor centre  just in time to see the end of the flying session. It was amazing! I had to duck as a barn owl flew just over my head! I don’t love seeing animals in captivity, but it was still very cool and educational. Definitely a great stop! My nephew complained the whole time, but I think he’ll remember it. My mom and I loved it!  I certainly learned a lot!! Who knew that a stork was a real live bird, I always thought they were just a fairytale creature that delivered babies 🤔

A quick stop at Wal-Mart for more fishing stuff (don’t ask me what all those things are for lol) and fruit so I can enjoy my fruit salad again tomorrow morning and we were ready to head home to the boat.  Two things: I bough more fruit because if I take nothing else from this boat holiday I have realized that I can simply mix fruit together and happily eat fruit salad every day for breakfast. It gets really interesting when you add a new fruit each day. I wonder if there are actual recipes for fruit salad? So far I’ve been enjoying the random combinations.  Secondly, my mom and I were looking for board games for the boat and I can’t believe the price of them!!!! 😳$15 or $25 they all seemed to be. Maybe families would spend more time together playing board games if they weren’t so crazy expensive! Think I’ll just keep my eye open for a sale on Clue, Scrabble, Monopoly and Yahtzee.

It’s Wings Wednesday so my parents are out enjoying themselves. I promised my nephew pizza from the Roberts Street Pizza here in Ladysmith, BC. We had it the other night and it was good and he says he enjoyed the meat lovers pizza again tonight. I was going to get a gluten free veggie pizza with no cheese but it had to be a large and that is just too much pizza and too much money so I enjoyed a nice taco salad from last night’s leftovers.

So I’m heading back to detangling my wool so I can start my new shawl… If anyone reads these ramblings, feel free to comment or give suggestions. It’s been neat to be able to record my thoughts and questions.

Have fun 🤣

AJ