I is for Innocence

I is for Innocence

Except for one year when my parents split up, and the years I was away at grad school, I've lived my entire life beside the same cemetery. I've always enjoyed going for walks in it. (It never freaked me out the way it did some of my friends at sleep-over parties.) While most of the tombstones I look at with nothing more than idle curiosity or admire the workmanship, one category always inspires melancholy: the saddest tombstones in the cemetery are those with the lambs, for they mark the graves of children.

H is for Hedgehog

H is for Hedgehog

This little sweetie arrived a while ago, but I haven't had time to blog about her. She will be taking up her duties as a pincushion soon, but for now, she's keeping me company on my desk.

G is for Growth

G is for Growth

The trees are putting out buds, the bulbs are blooming... and I'm sure my teaching job is producing personal growth too.

(Time to catch up with the ABC-Along...)

E is for Earth

Climbing Tree

E is for Earth, my favourite planet. Let's not mess it up, okay?

I did F last time, since I couldn't think of a good photo for the E I wanted. I ended up just going through my past photos. This is the "climbing tree" near my family's cabin that my grandpa cut and debarked branches a long time ago so that you could climb up higher for a better view.

Posting this E today seems extra nice, since Earth Hour was today. (Not that I remembered until after Earth Hour was over... and well before it started. *sigh*)

F is for Frost

F is for Frost

The windows in my new apartment have such pretty frost patterns on them most of the time. :)

Yes, I'm out of order in the ABC-Along, but I'm having trouble with E, so I'll do that next time. ;)

D is for Daddy

D is for Daddy

My daddy is handy... he made me this bobbin. Although I didn't help with this, we do make other things together. Two of my bookshelves are recent projects of ours. Coming up this summer: an under-counter cutting board, learning to do wood turning, and hopefully also welding up a second oven rack. What do you do with your daddy?

B is for Blanket, C is for Colour

B is for Blanket, C is for Colour

Since I'm behind on the ABC Along (I was supposed to have B posted by yesterday), I thought I'd try to get ahead by posting two letters today. ;) (Uh, yeah... this combined post is intentional, yeah... ;) )

I've been working on this blanket for about a year and a half now, I think. Yes, that's pretty close. I was dating J when I started, so my goal was to make this fit a queen sized bed. This was going to be "our" blanket, rather than "my" blanket.

I've been single again for around a year now, so I've been debating whether I should continue with the original queen-sized plans, or scale down to a twin. I'm getting close to where I'll need to make a decision. Will I ever be sleeping in something larger than a twin bed? Will it happen before this blanket wears out? Who knows. I can always make it big, and then use it folded... although having it the right size will be nicer. Perhaps I should just go for twin.

Although this blanket was going to be for two, I have not let my break-up poison my opinion of this WIP. I will still love it, both working on it, and when it is done.

B is for blanket, C is for colour. I love colour, and I love this blanket. Scraps of sock yarn have been kindly donated to me, allowing this blanket to grow and blossom faster than I can crochet socks myself. (Fast though that may be.) This blanket is full of the kindness of friends, and the kindness of strangers. Since I got a box of scraps from Shelly, who received scraps from many strangers, I will never know the source of all the squares. But I will know they are knitters (and crocheters), and that they will kindly donate yarn to people they don't know, so that every last scrap has a home. This is a blanket of love, even if it's only love for one. It's bright colours will one day be wrapped around me like a big hug.

I love this blanket. I love colour.

A is for Apartment

When I'm busy and can't keep up with blogging, what do I do? Join the ABC-Along. Although I joined a week or two ago, and I've known since then what my "A" post would be... I'm only just making it under the wire (by start time, although not by end time) for my "A" post. Given that it's what's putting me behind, it's only appropriate that my "A" is apartment. It's my big change... in living quarters, and possibly in life. I've shown you the outside before:

And it's about time I give you a feeble tour of the inside. (To supplement the two hallway photos, and the photo of me manhandling (prior to rib-busting) a coffee table.) Since this is also something I've been meaning to post about for ages, perhaps joining the ABC-Along wasn't that bad of an idea.

Here's my kitchen, looking nice and roomy:

This view makes me absurdly happy:

(Yes, that's my fuse panel, with a whole two fuses, in my kitchen cupboard.)

However, the roomy, spacious feeling disappeared with the appearance of a table that grew three sizes when I placed it in the room, and then the kitchen shrunk even more when I pulled out all the drawers in preparation for washing:

(I wonder if I can get the rest of the drawers lined and put away tomorrow?)

Here's my bathroom, which never did look roomy:

(The duckie curtain was left by the previous tenant... the caretaker was not impressed, but left it anyway.)


Although I have my living room tidied up, I don't seem to have taken any photos of it that way... so the semi-disaster state will have to do:

(I took the couch cushion covers off to wash them.)

There is currently absolutely nothing (besides a dish of vinegar with a shrivelled half onion) in the master bedroom, so I have no interesting photos of it. Just imagine a large-ish room with a closet, old windows, and baseboard heaters. Here's the second bedroom, with a crappy temporary desk and all of the non-kitchen boxes that have been moved as of when the photo was taken:


Finally, I'll leave you with a photo of the window I managed to break already:

Yep, not even a month after moving in, and I've already broken something. If you can't tell, I've pulled the bottom of the frame off of the sliding window pane. Whoops. Talking to my neighbour across the hall (the lady with the two kids), she did the same thing. So it's not me. It's the age of the windows. I still feel guilty.