Oh happy day! I started sewing again. I was experiencing heavy sewing resistance the last few weeks, but that’s all behind me now. I found a cute little quilt-as-you-go pouch pattern and am looking forward to putting it all together. I like this pattern because the quilting happens with each strip – a quarter inch of quilting on each one. I guess that’s the way to do a small quilted piece. I’ll remember that for my next small piece. Once I get these two pouches sewn up, I’ll get back to quilting up the big scrappy quilt I’m about a third of the way through.

Also, I’m sticking to my scrappy style of sewing for the next little while. I’ve decided. I’m totally scrappy and I like it.

One of my swap partners listed her preferences about colour and style like this:

Faves? pink, orange, purple
Least faves? bold, funky, bright, clear colors

I hope I can keep the funky down on this project. But I wonder, who wants less funky? I love the funk! We want the funk! Just like George Clinton in the 70′s. I’ll do my best.

Meanwhile, the neighbour’s kitty, Cesar, was having a little munch on the grassy pieces in the front yard in between spring rain showers.

Speaking of out front…last night, when I left the house to go pick up Mike from work, a bat flew out of our front entrance. I’m pretty sure I know where he lives – there’s a little cranny right above the front door, perfect for a little bat to hang out in. So, in addition to hummingbirds, it looks like we have bats, or at least, A bat. I know bats are good bug control, so I won’t call the authorities. I don’t like the idea of bats flying around my head, though. Just the thought of a bat flapping around in my hair…oh. No. I just might get him his own bat house so he doesn’t damage the house. I saw bat houses at the local garden store, so I should pick one up.

This is little Roley. I’m not sure how to spell his name, so I thought it best to spell it out phonetically. He’s a teeny little thing – he only weighs six pounds! That’s half the size of Donner and a third of the size of Oscar. Sorry kitties…now the whole internet knows how much you weigh.

I took about 3 photos before he remembered he’s afraid of the camera. One photo after this one and he got the heck out of Dodge. Next time I’ll bring treats and see if I can get 4 or 5 photos before he takes off.

Roley is Monica’s dog and she’s my Artist Way pal. Over the last 7 or 8 months, we worked through The Artist’s Way book and did all the chapters and NEARLY all the exercises. Well, more like a lot of the exercises – there are tons in that book. We started a new one and will work our way through that next.

I start reading that book tomorrow! Back to the morning pages and time to get into a good habit of making stuff on a regular basis. I’ve been neglecting my craft room, so what better way to kick off the summer with a new habit?

We are eating like kings tonight at Chez Browne – that’s wieners, beans and rye bread toast. Classy, right? Right! Delish!

Not only do we eat well, but soon the hummingbirds out back will be feasting, too. I picked up a little hummingbird feeder this afternoon and will be filling it with a mixture of a 1/3 cup of sugar per cup of water. This birdfeeder is tiny, so I’ll be lucky if I can fit 2 cups in there. I can’t wait to see them all a flutter out there. So. Awesome. I think I may have to plant some flowers back there – like bee balm or another butterfly bush. I’ve got a huge one out front. That may just do the trick. In the meantime, I’ll get the hummingbird juice ready to go.

In other news, this fine long weekend is looking beautiful and sunny and it’s time to pull out the ill-fitting screen door and hope the cats don’t pull it down.

So far, so good. Nothing has fallen down – mostly in part to our dishwasher on wheels – I just put it right up against the door and it’s immovable at the paws of the kitties.

One more thing – Burnaby Recycles – Donner will make sure of that.

Fancy pops! This was my first and only batch of the night. I used chocolate almond milk on the top – very tasty – and then some weird concoction called flax milk. It has vanilla flavours to it, but it’s not my favourite beverage. It’s sorta watery and a little weird – very similar to rice milk. Even frozen it’s a bit odd. But, that’s okay! The chocolate made up for it and I love how the line is very clean and straight. I’ll be trying it with all sorts of juices and anything else I can freeze.

Sorry, Andrea, it clearly says on the directions NOT to freeze any artificial sweeteners, so no Diet Coke Popsicles. Ah boo!

Of course I had some help/supervision:

And unfortunately, due to a user error, I broke one of the popsicle sticks. Whoops. When they say not to fill past the fill line, they really mean it. Not even a little bit over the line. OR I don’t even know my own strength. Well, I am rather strong, so I’m sure that didn’t help. But there were extra sticks provided, so we’ll still be be able to have striped frozen treats all summer long.

I can make frozen treats in only 10 minutes!

A bit of an impulse buy, but who could resist a popsicle making machine? I know. I’ve already got one, and it’s called a freezer, but technically it takes longer than 10 minutes to make chilly treats. I was really looking forward to making them tonight, but first, you have chill the machine in the freezer for at least 24 hours. That means I can make popiscles tomorrow night any time after 10 pm.

My frozen treat maker will be christened by filling it with chocolate almond milk. I hope that works. I will let you know tomorrow at 10:10 pm.

I just love kitchen machines.

Thanks to the internets AND the Canucks, Sarah Harris found me while searching for some Canucks blogs (I think). The thing is, she lives in the UK and loves the hockey! I’ve never met Sarah in person, but she’s sent me cool stuff from Jolly Old England – like this awesome Will and Kate totebag – and we’re buddies online. One day I will meet her in person – I’m sure of it – but today, I got to see her sketchbook in The Sketchbook Project. It’s a tour of hundreds? Thousands? So many art books created by people all over the world.

I made the most of my half hour visit – they have a tight schedule and have to close up at 7 pm. I didn’t leave until 7:20, actually, so they gave me a break/I kept holding up the show. Would you like to see the books I got to see? Here you go!

You can see more beautiful pages out of the art books right here.

I just may stop on my way home from work tomorrow, too.

Lelainia met me at the event and I took her photo with her traveling sketchbook.

Her book is about to carry on to Los Angeles…Oakland…Toronto…Atlanta…

Glorious!

On my way back from taking some documents to their destination on Burrard Street, I spotted this horse and carriage and HOPED it was for a gypsy wedding! Finally! My dream of shooting a gypsy wedding would be realized and all I will have left on my dream wedding photo list will be a winter wedding where the bride and all the bridesmaids wear both capes AND muffs, like this! Please! If you’re out there! And you’re looking for the perfect photographer to shoot your capes and muffs wedding, PLEASE CALL ME! I’m standing by for your call!

Sadly, no gypsy wedding in sight for me. I think it was just for a movie because this horse ‘n buggy was parked right outside a government building. Ah boo. Oh man, if Johnny Depp was in this movie, I’m going to be so sad because I could have had my other photo dream paparazzi shoot fulfilled! In my dream, I wouldn’t be chasing him or anything, he just waves at me, makes direct eye contact and walks away. And that’s it. I wouldn’t have to talk to him or anything – perfect for me!

Dare to dream.

In other news, I accidentally created a photo of Howe Street that makes it look like I took it at least 60 years ago.

Whoa. My camera + computer = time machine!

It was a lovely day today. In fact, it’s time to get the fans out of the garage! It was pretty warmish in the house when I got home from work! Yeehaw! It’s summer time.

Strawberry season is right around the corner! Come on sunshine! We want big juicy ones!

I’m not quite sure how this happens…one day my craft room is totally usable and then the next day?

Disaster area.

In the rubble, I found some books that I scooped from work. One of the books contained a very poorly translated Chinese quote. I hope you enjoy this:

Whoa. Why on earth did the author decide to use a translator from the 1930′s? I checked the book a little closer and found that the book was self published by some company in Abbotsford in 1999 and I think I met this author in my last job as she was in the “career management field.” I think it’s best not to disclose any more details about this book, just in case. Just in case of what? I’m not sure. I’m just judging this book by that quote…and therefore, this book stinks! That’s my review!

But I did take the advice and rather than wait for roast duck to fly into my mouth, I decided to just take the action and clean up my craft room so I can make it usable again, rather than close the door and hope little gnomes will clean it up while I’m in the other room watching Sister Wives and Toddlers and Tiaras for hours on end.

Tada! The roast duck! It arrived!

Woohoo! Flying roast duck! It’s ready for me to start sewing again.

This is good news because I have signed up for a sewing swap that I need to start NOW. I have no excuses now! I have to get sewing! In fact, I have been given so much free fabric these last few weeks, I can’t not make stuff.

Consider next week a flying roast duck week. Roast duck will be flying EVERYWHERE!

It feels like SUMMER!

Today I opened up the balcony door in the kitchen, slid the screen door over, put the dishwasher and the laundry basket in front of the screen door so that I wouldn’t have any escapees to tend with and we all enjoyed the warm air and the sunbeams. Oscar found his favourite one and just laid there, only opening his eyes up when he thought I may be getting close to the treat drawer.

Ahhh…another leisurely weekend….

I mostly remained calm as soon as I realized the parking meter ate $16 of my dollars. There was a technical difficulty with the machine. But after I called ALL the numbers dotted around the posters, emailed the Impark people directly and left the note above on the windshield, I was rewarded by having a car to drive after the big fancy work dinner tonight! Hooray! Thank you, Impark! Even though I didn’t talk to a single person, I didn’t get a ticket or towed. Their system works! Well, it worked for me this time, anyway.

I went for a lovely staff dinner tonight and enjoyed/overindulged in the most un-vegan dinner on the planet. After dinner I had some time before picking up Mike, so I went for an after dinner stroll down Robson Street, over to Georgia…

…took some photos outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. It was quiet there tonight. So, I hopped in the car and went to the Olympic Village and took photos of the city from there.

I like that this one turned out like a painting.

I’ve been such the social butterfly that this is the second night in a row that I wasn’t home before 10:30 pm. Phew! So I’ve got big plans to come home tomorrow right after work and hang out in my pajamas. I’ll be living large on a Friday night.