Passover and a CBC opinion piece

Today is the last day of preschool before a two week Passover vacation.  My twins are bursting with excitement, revved up by the teachers, about the holiday.  I could do with just a little more time to, say, work and get ready/cook for the holiday...without two three year old helpers!  However, "it is what it is..." and I'm going to see how we can all work together to get ready. (Note: Passover is only 8 days, so this is just a REALLY long school vacation...)

In the meanwhile, this piece just came out on the CBC:
Time to make nice after True North, Bowman brawl

For those of you who aren't in Manitoba, there are some struggles over how a new hotel development will work in downtown Winnipeg.  Right now, it's a big hole in the ground, but after all the wrangling is done, it's going to earn folks a lot of money!  We drive by that hole every time we take our boys to dance class at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, which is right near there.

Before anyone thinks we are pushing our boys into something too young or inappropriately... I should mention that the RWB has creative movement classes for preschoolers in their professional studios, and to encourage boys to dance, it's something like $80 a boy for the whole academic year.  (yup, everything is X 2 for us, so that sounds good!)  Both boys love it. We like the 45 minutes when we can sit quietly on Sunday mornings and they are in the studio without us!  We all highly recommend it!

One last knitting-related note.  I've had my patterns for sale up on Loveknitting.com (as well as on Ravelry) since the beginning of January as a sort of experiment.  I haven't done any promotion to speak of, and to my surprise, a few patterns sold anyway.  So, if you're reading this, could you perhaps leave me a comment and let me know--if you're a knitter--do you prefer buying patterns in one place or another?  I'm curious...  Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Hope you are enjoying spring!  We're finding lots of puddles and muck to stomp in.  It's great.

Crete and elastic time

Time is elastic like a rubber band when you have jetlag. On one hand, we've accomplished a ton since coming home...a Manitoba driver's license and license plates for me, a lot of errands and house fix-its, canning chutney and plum sauce, etc. On the other hand, it took me 4 days to get the camera, its battery, and the little cord that hooks it up to my computer in the same room. It took me a while to upload photos...and thus, I've delayed telling you about all the Greek adventures.

Oh, and we got our luggage back, no problems, it was only a day long excursion to Chicago, apparently.
Now I'll narrate all these photos. At the conference the professor attended, they always have a traditional Cretan dance performance on the last night, including live music, lots of raki to drink, and friendly companionship. The professor and I enjoyed it all but went to bed relatively early, which was all for the best!

One thing that occupied me during the conference was a small black puppy that was living on the beach below the conference center. It had been abandoned and had created a den for itself in the vegetation on the beach. It didn't let me get close, but it did allow me to feed it quite a bit of meat--I left it, like offerings, right near its den. An old man who spoke about 5 languages (but not English) told me, in French, that yes, the puppy was being well-fed. Hopefully someone will be able to coax it out and give it a home.

After the conference, the professor and I had a few days of holiday on our own. We rented a car and headed to Rethymnon for a night.

In Crete, history lives right alongside modernity. So, you can see a Venetian townhouse (from the Venetian occupation) right next to an Ottoman-era mosque (Turkish occupation) or graffiti or a kids' playground. It's a really interesting hodgepodge of ancient and modern.

Gardens also flourished right in town. From our room on the third floor of an old Venetian dwelling, we can see the city, the mountains beyond, and this amazing empty lot, made into a huge garden space. Peach, orange and pomegranates flourished, as well as every other kind of warm weather garden produce. This is to the right of the view.

Just on the other side of the wall, the neighbors live in three separate stories. Their garden, thick with oranges and flowers, is in a courtyard off the street, where the whole family (3+ generations) gathers for meals.

In the courtyard of the hotel, we had breakfast beneath this awning, surrounded by grape arbors and cool shade.

To the left, also in the same courtyard, was an enormous formal pool, filled with koi.


We ate at two different restaurants while we were in this city. Both had courtyards filled with lemon trees. We sat beneath the citrus and had long leisurely meals under dappled light.

Next time, I'll show more pictures and draw this out so you can imagine more of the adventures! I did indeed finish the socks pictured in the last post. I didn't finish much else, as the roads are mountainous and so windy that it's hard to knit in the car. I did see lots of other treats in the meanwhile, though.

Now I'm off to meet my new doctor...I'm entirely healthy, but want to have a family doctor just in case. Oh, and it was easy to get an appointment and his office is around the corner. So far, I'm liking Canadian health care...It took me a year to find a doctor in Kentucky, where there's something of a primary care doctor shortage.