Popping by

This has been a long time between blog posts...it's not usual for me. Lots has been happening, but it's kind of overwhelming.  Like, when the weather finally warmed up, and we had a radiator pipe burst in the basement.  Like that.  

When each challenge has happened this year, we've worked as a family team and well, just kept our heads down and dealt with it.  Often, it means I'm doing home school/remote school with kids and dog while closed up in the guest room while the masked professor deals with a procession of tradespeople.  But, you know, now our pipes work, our heat works, our hot water works, our dishwasher has stopped leaking, and even the mice influx seems to have finally stopped ... lots has been fixed while we continue to stay home. 

 I hear some people take exotic hot weather vacations. (not us) However, it's a pandemic, and last I checked, there are still 250,000 people ahead of us to be vaccinated in our province... so we just spent that money fixing stuff.  Thank you, careful, masked tradespeople! Did each bit of damage happen for a reason? because of construction nearby?  Because of the extreme weather? Because that one little dishwasher valve wore out? Who knows.

In the work department, I've had some articles published, but it's not been frequent work. In one case, somehow the article's comments became like, well, a real tire fire.  I've been told by my Canadian friends that in Manitoba, people say "dumpster fire" to mean the same thing. When I say the words 'TIE ER FIE ER" --my accent comes out, straight from Virginia, with hints of my time spent in North Carolina and Kentucky.  It's slow just like when you're driving on the highway and see the huge plume of black stinky smoke.  Everyone ahead of you slows down to rubberneck and you're stuck in this horrible endless traffic jam. People are all aghast at the fire, which will take forever to put out and how did it happen?  And what kind of nasty pollution will it leave?  While the thing burns on endlessly and stinks. It's so awful that it's hard to look away.  (OK, now you can imagine how negative the comments were.)

So, I'm not linking to that article.  No need for anyone to go read those comments.  Hint:  it ran on the CBC and in this personal essay, I implored people to hold on, the pandemic's not done with us yet. I say this despite really missing my family and being so tired of this, we'd been lucky so far.  We were privileged, despite losing a family member in NYC last spring. The article ran at the end of March, and well, here we are now, starting the third wave. Just. Not. Over... yet here, folks. (Sometimes the true news is an opinion that hits home.  That's what people really didn't want to hear...)

While all this is happening, I am actively making things.  Sometimes, it's lots of food to get ready for holidays.  (We had a great Passover and spring break, and having a Zoom seder works fine for us. It's also awesome not to have to go anywhere and pack soggy matzah sandwiches for lunch...)

I've also been sewing, knitting and spinning up a storm as I find it a tremendous way to relieve stress right now.  I made a really large scarf out of beautiful red silk from Japan (a deadstock fabric remnant sent to me from Fabcycle in Vancouver) and a tiny bit of coordinating floral print.  I am knitting a sweater...probably for me, maybe a new design, but I'm sort of winging it so we'll see how it comes out. 

I finished the big new wool bathmat from Churro and Hebridean wool.  It's been a great addition to kid shower or bath time!

--Also, I was recently told by one of my twins that there was no way he was going back to wearing store bought pajama bottoms as the flannel ones I made were so much more roomy and cozy.  But oh, by the way, spring is coming and both twins grew.  So, now I'm sewing a pile of lightweight pjs in cheerful colours.  There has been some dispute over who gets which fabric. (pretty much all from stash or deadstock remnants)  I've encouraged both kids to realize that since they share the same room, they can always get to see the pjs across the room, even if they aren't wearing them.  This seemed to briefly mollify them!

I've also been spinning up some Dorset/Rideau (I think) wool.  This fleece was handed to me as a gift.  It's really soft and cozy.  The first couple skeins were ones I processed myself from start to finish, but then I decided to have the rest of the fleece processed by my favourite local woollen mill.  The roving came back clean and lovely to spin. 

 Alas, despite everyone's best efforts, this fleece still has a lot of field left in it. At each stage, there's lots of vegetable matter to remove.  I'm likely to still be removing it as I knit.  However, the wool is really something...I have spun it as a chunky two ply and it will possibly make a sweater for one kid or another for next winter (after dyeing it) as they are growing like weeds.

There's lots more to tell you, dear blog readers, but no more time in a day to fit it all in.  For now, I'll leave you with one finished pair of pajama bottoms  and our table, set for the first Seder.  It was great having my parents 'sitting' at the end of the table with us.  The table was really long.  Thanks to Zoom, it started in Virginia, and ended in Winnipeg. 

-And, because we live in Winnipeg, and it's mid-April, we're expecting another snow storm.  Happy spring time!!

Canadian companies retool for pandemic, why not climate change?

Here's an opinion piece that came out this weekend on the CBC-Manitoba website.
Pandemic proves companies can change in an emergency-so what about that climate crisis?
True confessions:  I actually wrote this at the end of February.  I didn't write this in response to the pandemic.  However, the news was changing so fast at that time, nobody had room to run it.  I was supposed to check back in at the end of March. Well, we all know what happened by then...I was at home, home schooling and so was everyone else.  I forgot all about this piece.

I reread it at the beginning of May...and changed about three sentences. (that's about all I have time for, right now!)  It seemed more likely than ever that Canadians could make fast change if the political will was strong enough...so I resubmitted and it went live this morning.

May stories

It's been such a long time since I posted here...because I've been swamped with real life stuff.  Homeschooling, job issues, and a death in the family in NYC --not the virus but she died alone in the hospital because of it--awful.  

I decided to  show this last month mostly in pictures...with one article link.  Thanks to the Vancouver Jewish Independent, I still get to write a column every so often!  This one is about how three big world religions find common ideas to discuss and help us get through during these challenging days. 

Uniting in significant times

In our province, our PC (Progressive Conservative) premier, Brian Pallister, has decided that this would be a good time to cut the budgets of Manitoba's universities and also to cut public sector jobs.  

According to every economist and all the business leaders and columnists in the media, this will create an even more depressed provincial economy...think of Herbert Hoover in the US for a reference point. 

 However, our premier keeps pushing this.  It will definitely affect our household--our biology professor--and since my work is uneven or nonexistent these days, it feels very personal.  We made signs and went in our car to a couple social distance "honkathons" at the Legislature Building.  Here are the signs.

We've been doing school at home.  Kids built a 'bonfire' for Lag B'omer...and played outside, of course.  (This would be jousting with pool noodles, on hobby horses, if you have not seen this particular version of the game before.)  We also had hotdogs and I had to bake buns for them.  Cause it would not be a day outside without them...

I've been knitting whenever I can, mostly to maintain my sanity...and I finished the next Woolly sweater for the kid who is growing a lot but still really wants to wear a sweater with sheep on it.

There were some pretty great Mother's Day cards.

The professor took boys on a lot of bike rides, which gave me time to do crazy stuff like work and have an hour by myself.  (Hahah, not kidding.  One hour!!)

I've baked a lot of bread. Our local bakery is closed, we shop about once a week, and these people in my household are like locusts!  You'll note here that now I have to cool the bread on a rack on top of the refrigerator.  When Sadie the dog stole and ate an entire loaf of bread (anyhow, that's what we think happened, although she may have shared some with Sally, hard to say?)---well, I got creative.

It's been a long month...but I hope you'll still come back and check in and I'll find time to write more...
  Stay well!  Wash your hands!  Take care.