Oct 8 - Addicted to something.

And so it is Monday. And it's Thanksgiving Day in this beautiful northern land. Pat's folks and Jeffs are coming for supper. I'm making ham, mashed potatoes and gravy and corn and fresh bread. Mom is bringing pumpkin pie and Steph is bringing a salad.

It's also almost snowing. A few flakes drift down every once in a while, the sky is grey and heaters are humming. I smell fresh northern air when the door slams behind the boys and ham smells waft all over my house.

What am I addicted to? I think someone else could see better than me.

(And then she kept going and didn't finish this or post it. Anyone else know what she's addicted to?)

Oct 7 - Hope

We spent our Sunday in Norquay at Derek & Ashley's wedding. It was quite a big wedding for their little congregation to host. Neither of them are super young, so they had lots of friends and congregations included in their celebration!

It was fun. It was good. It was tiring.

I got to be with Tracy for only a small moment, it felt like. She helped us clean up after the night before supper, bless her. We served 450 - 475 people at that supper. Like, Ruby had made all the food and planned and arranged everything but we were only four couples serving and we ran all evening.

We spent night at Richard & Natalie Goossen. We had never met them but isn't it wonderful that that doesn't need to hinder us? We enjoyed their hospitality very much. Especially the Sunday pants. My stars!! I had Pat's pants out and he told me he wanted to wear a different pair and I thought he was getting his pants and he thought I did. And so... an hour before the wedding started we realized that possibly we'd just go home and possibly he'd wear blue jeans to church and that's when Richard went and hauled out a pair of Sunday pants he'd just got. They were a big too long for him and that was the saving grace. Natalie and I laughed so long and hard. It was truly a very refreshing moment.

And so we went to the wedding.

I do hope I remember what I need to for the upcoming weekend.

Oct 6 - A Recipe

I'm all for the fall recipes these days. Like apple cake with ice cream and syrup and pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing and pumpkin muffins and carrot cake. Here's one of my favorite carrot cake recipes.

Stony Creek Carrot Cake

3 eggs
1 1/4 cups oil
2 cups white sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups coconut
1 cup crushed pineapple, drained
2 cups grated carrots

Mix first 8 ingredients, then add remaining ingredients. Bake at 350 F for 50 minutes. (I say a bit less) Frost with cream cheese frosting. Enjoy!!

Oct 5 - Outfit

Write about an outfit that you associate with an important event.

Nicole's Wedding Dress

Two years ago when Jodi asked if I would sew Nicole's wedding dress I glibly answered sure. I mean, I have sewed a number of wedding dressing in my day. I love sewing loops and fine work. Right?

Well.

The dress got sewed. And many stories can be told about the process. I didn't want to talk about it for the longest time. I didn't tell Jodi all the history for quite a while. And even now, I can laugh a little bit about it.

It started out with no pattern. And definite opinions about the pattern. It should have three scallops on each side, a sweetheart neckline, curving down into tight loops and miniature buttons. It should have flat sleeves with a curving sleeveline down over the hand and buttons and loops meeting on the inseam. It should have a wide belt with loops and buttons. And a straight skirt with no darts but fitted exactly over the behind.

So I hunted down a similar shaped friend who had just got married, borrowed her pattern and started from there. It worked.

The cream fabric was almost iffy with with seeing bra lines and panty-lines so I ended up lining the bodice and the skirt. And so eventually the dress was almost together, the loops all finished and only the finishing touches left. And then the first complication came up. I was on my way to Jodi's to get Nicole to try it on. Colby was sitting in the front seat beside me and the wedding dress was in a bag on his lap. We don't know how it happened but the bag tipped over and the dress fell out at his feet and the dear boy stood on the almost white wedding dress with his shop welding boots.

I took it home. I bombarded my mother, the queen of everything-laundry. I bought baby soap and fabric softener and spot cleaned that dress. It came out pure.

And then the second worry came.

The bodice did not fit the brides changing bosom line. Just a very small problem. The neckline did not sit flat. So I ended up moving the top five or six loops and adjusting the center two scallops and if you've sewed scallops, with lining, with loops. Well... it got done, many prayers later and looked good.

And then.

Girls, I was getting afraid already. Then, the unthinkable happened. As I was painstakingly sewing the buttons on a large snag appeared down the center front. Bold. Audacious. Defiant. I stared unbelieving. Do I start with a new dress? Could I make this work? Carefully, feverishly, I opened the side seam and between the lining and front I inserted a sharp needle and carefully, ever so carefully, hooked the offending snag from the back and worked it out. It was impeccable. It was a miracle.

And then.

Oh, yes, it goes on. The wedding day arrived. I had arranged with Jodi that I would run over there in the morning just to make sure the dress looked okay on the bride. This has never occurred before in my wedding dress escapades but this was right. Nicole got dressed. The bridesmaids fussed with their clothes and we all helped arrange and get ready.

All of a sudden Nicole came running down to Jodi and I, panic in her eyes. There on her bodice just above the bosom was a large red mark. Bright red. Juicy. Suspicious. We stared. What was it? I honestly don't remember in the panic and flurry of things exactly the order of events but it came out that Sasha (their foster girl) had just put nail polish on when she went to give Nicole a hug. I have no idea where the thoughts came from, except God. All I could think of was rubbing alcohol. We worked there together, Jodi and I, one hour before the wedding was supposed to start.

And the spot came out. Miraculously, it disappeared. There was NO TRACE of red nail polish on the cream colored wedding dress. It could only be a miracle.

My hands get clammy writing this. I haven't sewed a wedding dress since. I'm not exactly keen on doing another one, but God is faithful. He is gracious. He is bigger than all our needs. That I know.

(Please do not pass on.)

Oct 4 - Write about a humorous quote.

Apparently, why stop with one?

Oct 3 - Write about a way you relax.

I'm going to shamelessly back-post this month. Just a heads up.

I currently read to relax.

I used to have a long hot bath.

Or sew a quilt.

Or create something with my silhouette.

Or paint something.

Or build with wood.

But now I don't do anything but spin my tires. Or read.

Just saying.

Oct 2 -Write about a book that changed your life.

I'm just gonna quick list off books I've read lately and what I thought of them.


Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson - This is a hard read. I'm slugging through because the black theme always intrigues me.


A Place Called Bliss by Ruth Glover - This was an easy read and enjoyable. It's the first book in a series called The Saskatchewan Saga and it's all about history in our little area. The one glaring fault is that the books are not well written.


Barefoot Contessa by Ina Garten - All the cookbooks girls. I've really enjoyed reading these. There are lots of good ideas, lots of beautiful pictures and lots of really good step by step instructions.


Silent Tears by Kay Bratt - I haven't read it yet but it's a true story of a Chinese orphanage.


The Elsie series - I hated. I couldn't even finish one book.


Peace Like A River by Lief Enger - Very well written. Very hard to put down. The story is hard though, thought provoking.


Wild At Heart by John Eldridge - I had to return it before I was done and I'd like to borrow it again. It's a slower read but good insight to understanding men - which I am in need of. Lol!


And these are all just in the last while. I'm a speed reader and I love to listen to books while I'm walking or on my way to town or even while I fold laundry.


What have you been reading?

Oct 1st - What's a current favorite snack?

I'm going to challenge myself to writing before reading this month. So... here goes: a current favorite snack. Hmm. For me? For my men? For all the stuff and functions and yariva we've been partaking of?


In the last week I've made fresh gingersnaps and sliced cheese for a teacher coffee-break. And I brought Costco banana bread for a Villa board evening (just being real). And I made hot crab dip in a sourdough loaf for the teacher orientation night. And sent chips (only chip, horrors) to a youth function. And fed youth boys coke and chocolate bars late at night.


And as far as my men go, I've brought out cookies & cheese and crackers & cheese and cookies & cheese, etc. We have a pattern going there. Also, Gatorades and cokes.


But me? I like my coffee. And a spot of chocolate. And fresh salsa with chips. And pumpkin spice anything. And a little wee moment of time to sit down.

Unedited

So I will continue to write. Unedited.


And live my life. Unedited.


It is what it is.


There's so much happening. So much good. So much busy. So many duties that I can almost forget the little beautiful things that bring joy. Like today, I watched the gold leaves dancing on the highway as I drove to town again. The third day in a row. This time with a sick 'friend'. Yesterday I cleaned at the Villa in the morning and taught school for an hour and took my middle boy for a dentist appointment and new glasses and only time for two more stops and we all went to folks for supper with their company and then had an emergency school board meeting late at night.


And the day before that... I did a shop run for Pat and brought coffee to the shop and paid bills and see...? I almost missed the blue-blue-blue-blue fall sky and the geese honking overhead. And the smell of a five-year-old's fuzzy head and wobbly number threes with five bumps and the smell of roasted chicken when I walk in the door.


And how about my good looking fourteen year old inching past me in height. And the starry eyes of noisy grade three boys on the school bus. And a living room with pillows on the floor and games strewn around. And coffee with friends in between pulling pork for the next 'night-before' supper. And little boys with new shoes. And fluffy balls of kittens tumbling and tousling on the deck. And rows of jars in colorful shades. And on and on and on.


Maybe especially now I need to stop and savor, if only for a moment, the moment. This beautiful gift of today. This weariness of life at it's very best.

July - The Large Gulp of Summer

Summer days. Summer daze. It's all the same. We've had a lovely July. One part was a Klassen reunion at Deer Valley Meadows in Alberta. That was Pat's moms siblings and all the descendants.  Or I should say, almost all. That was great!


And then we came home to Bible School for Wyatt in the evenings, in which he consumed copious amounts of chocolate milk and cookies and proceeded to do his sleepwalking/peeing-in-the-corners thing. I think he enjoyed his classmates and teacher as well.


Also, we hosted a school reunion for Pat's classmates in Swanson. We laughed and listened while the classmates remembered numerous events. The classmates even had a volleyball game, just them, with their teacher. It was great to watch! They truly had so much fun together. The group singing Sunday afternoon was the cherry on top of the sundae, including the tears and emotions.


We've had delightful visits around the campfire, installed lights around the trees, mowed the yard and weeded garden, eaten green beans and canned and blanched the rest. We've held baby frogs and watched our mama cat swell to rather uncomfortable-looking proportions and watched the papa cat catch mice. We've walked the road on warm dusty afternoons and paid shop bills and gone swimming down at the river. We've petted baby coons at the neighbours farm, laughed at ground squirrels eating lime & black pepper chips with all the paw-licking after and eaten s'mores made over candles on the kitchen cupboards with friends. We spent days planning our annual camping trip to the northlands only to cancel out last minute because of the ugly forecast. We've read books and picked up toys and vacuumed dirt and listened to birds singing through the open windows early in the morning. We've even spent hours (Pat & I) side by side, in the middle of the night, vacuuming flood waters in the basement. We've stood together on our covered porch, watching the lightning and listening to the thunder crash and admiring God's greatness.


The best days.


These are the best days ever.


The ordinary work days and long summer play days and go 'til we drop days.


Sometime soon, I'm going to have to put on a new hat; a school board wife hat. I'm not sure how that is going to coincide with the Villa board wife hat. I've had a few moments of anxiety trying not to think about it. All the cleaning days in August and September. And the meetings. And the stuff....


And this doesn't remotely cover the work topic. We laid off our one last guy in June and just last week got a redeeming order. The prayed for work. We all have our times of drought, I know. We are so grateful for so many blessings that don't involve money.


I have this beautiful thingy that says: There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. That sums it up. So with these few thoughts...!