On the road again.

I love to travel and we are on the road again.  This morning we packed up the car and set out for Ottawa.  I slept the whole way so didn’t see much of New Brunswick.  We got as far a Edmonston and after a supper at Boston Pizza we settled into our room at the Quality Inn.  I have spent the evening so far making mirror and felt embellishments for a scrapbooking swap that I am in.  It is nice to be away from home and have time to do crafts, without feeling there is housework that needs to be done.  I look forward to traveling through  Quebec tomorrow.

National Scrapbook Day Celebration!!

Well here it is Friday and I still haven’t found anywhere to go tomorrow for National Scrapbook Day.  I did find two very interesting online challenges though.  I think I will join them.

One is a mystery challenge on CK.  Each day this week, they have been giving out lists of products to get together and what photos to print etc.  I just about have everything together for that one.

Today I found on online crop that will be going on at the Creative Crafts and Stickers blog.  It looks like Jen has a great time planned.

Another Grey Day

I am moving really slowly today.  It is grey outside and I always feel more up when the sun is here to meet me in the morning.  Today I will clean my house.  Did I sound convincing?  Well I intend do intend to do it.  House group is here tonight so I don’t really have a choice.

I am enjoying getting things prepared for our big retreat next month.  WIth 90 woman attending there are lots of details to attend to.  About 2/3 of those are people who have attended before and the rest are new.  It is a challenge to keep the same structure to the weekend each year but add enough new items to the schedule to keep it interesting.  We have several new teachers this year and a new demonstrator for the make and take area.  We will also be venturing into digital scrapbooking with an introductory one on one class operating throughout the weekend.  We also have two new stores joining us this year.  I am glad I can leave all the store details to Matt. 

In January I challenged to create a new scrapbook layout each day for the whole year.  I am so far behind now that I despare of ever catching up again.  Oh well off to face the day.

I

Oh NO!!

I just found two more boxes full of books and folders.  I guess I know what I will be doing tomorrow.  Will it ever end.  It does feel good though to let go of the past and look forward to new things in the future.

What a mess!!

I did it yesterday.  I actually opened and unpacked four boxes.  The contents haven’t seen the light of day for 5 years.  I now have two boxes repacked for the recyle, 1 small box repacked to go back on the shelf and another small box of homeshooling books to go to my son and daughter-in-law.  They are homeschooling my 6 grandchildren.  That only leaves some little piles around the room, that need to find a home.  The room is still quite a mess but order is slowly being restored.

I did put some folders of memories together.  I found it very hard to get rid of all the files for the years that I homeschooled my own children.  But that is in the past.  This summer my husband will be retiring and we will be entering the next part of our life together. 

Yesterday was our 37th anniversary.  We are such romantics.  We went out for Arby’s burgers and went to a movie.  After dealing with boxes and papers all day, I just wasn’t in the mood for a romantic steak dinner.  It was offered but I just didn’t feel up to it.

 

Rainy Day

So I know that we need rain in the spring for the flowers and the vegetables to come later but I find it so hard to get motivated on GREY days. 

I decided to pull out a box of history and see if I can get some of it to go into the garbage or in this case into the recycle bin.  Oh no! Printed on the top of this box is Home Schooling.  That means that this box contains “stuff” from the years when I homeschooled Lisa and Jason.  Grade 8 and 9 for Jason and 8 – graduation for Lisa.   Let me see Lisa is now 29 and Jason is 28. 

 Logically everything that is in the box is garbage.  Sentimentally, each piece brings back a memory which I like to hold onto.  I am about to tackle the box.  I will report back on whether I mannage to actually get rid of anything.

 

 

Change

I can’t believe how busy life can get and how quickly things can change.  We decided to leave Halifax and go to Ottawa for a little visit at Easter.  We set out on Good Friday morning.  We thought we needed a bit of a break so we went through the States.  It was a great day to travel and we made it to Bangor with no problem.  There were warnings of snow storms and ice everywhere but we saw none of that. 

We were surprised to find that our hotel was right across the highway from the local dump, but it was a great hotel – The White House hotel.  Our room was on the third floor,up under the roof which meant that our windows were skylights and the walls sloped up to the ceiling.  It was a nice room.

We found a cool steak house for supper.  We started off with all the peanuts you could eat.  I have never seen peanuts before that were roasted and salted while still in the shell.  They were delicious.  Our dinner of steak, salad, sweet potatoe fries and wonderful rolls really hit the spot and when the bill came we made the decision to always eat here when we are in Bangor.

The next day we set out for Burlington.  Again, except for a little drizzle, we didn’t see any of the storms that seemed to be going on all around us.  We decided to go across country and found it a little difficult to stay on our path, when going through some of the towns but we persevered and got into town quite early.  Our hotel room turned out to be a suite.  They had turned two regular motel rooms into a spacious suite.  We found a cute little italian restaurant for supper.  The salad and pasta was just what we needed. 

I spent the evening figuring out how to bead daisy chains like we used to make as teenagers.  This will be part of a class that I am teaching next month in Ontario.

After a breakfast of waffles we were on the road again and we got into Munster in the early afternoon.  We were met at the door by our son Matt, who should have been at work, and his two children, who were very glad to see Granny and Gramps.

Matt was there to tell us that Grandpa Irvine had died that morning, quite unexpectedly.  We were in shock.  He has been living on his own since his wife died last year and we were going to Ottawa to visit with him and see for ourselves that he had enough helpers coming in.  We were also going to talk to him about the possibility of going into a home next winter.  We were even considering moving to Ottawa and moving in with him for a few years so that he didn’t have to leave his home yet.

Everything changes in an instant.  Bruce organized the funeral arrangements for his dad.  We organized for our oldest son to come home.  The whole family was together again.  We all agreed that we need to organize a family reunion.  Bruce and I have lost 3 of our parents in the last year and a half.  We are tired of family reunions that revolve around funerals.

In meeting with the accountant and then having dad’s house appraised, we realized that it would make sense for us to inherit the house and let Bruce’s sister have the rest of the estate.  So all of a sudden it was decided that we would move home in September and our daughter Lisa and her son Gabriel would move in with us.

We have wondered for a long time what we would do when Bruce retired.  Now it seems to be all mapped out for us.  When God puts a plan into action, there are very few decisions to be made.  Everything is falling into place without much stress on our part.  Now we just have to sell our home here in Halifax and prepare to move.

Sometimes change comes with incredible stress and tearing away.  This one seems to be wrapped in grace and peace.  At each step we get a little surprise and bonus.  We are learning to live each day to its fullest and not give a lot of thought to tomorrow.  God will take care of tomorrow.  I am really looking forward to seeing what God has for us in the months to come. 

Having a wonderful weekend

Friday was my birthday and my husband surprised me with tickets to the local dinner theatre.  We had a wonderful dinner and then the waiters and waitresses became actors and the McBunkers went to visit their relatives in Cape Breton.  Maude and her husband Walter were there, along with Meat-Head and Gloria.  Archie and Edith were side splitting.  Archies parents in Cape Breton were too funny for words.  It was so nice to get out and laugh.

 Yesterday we went down into the Annapolis Valley in search of the Bald Eagle.  We found buttermilk pancakes with stewed blueberry sauce and local maple syrup.  We didn’t get there early enough to see the main group of eagles but we did see one sitting in a tree as we drove out.  Bruce missed getting the picture as he couldn’t get the camera in focus quickly enough.

 I spent the rest of Saturday putting together the invoices and registration confirmations for CropTopia.  We have 77 people signed up now.  With registration cut off around 100 we are well on the way. 

I am spending the evening tonight getting all the new items entered and getting our online store ready to launch.  It is a big job to build a store from scratch.  I was supposed to be at a  crafting workshop tonight but decided to give it a pass this time.

I am having an interesting time trying to figure out all the ways to use this blog.  I try something new everyday.  Today I put my picture at the top.  Let me introduce myself.  My name is Susan and I am married to Bruce.  We raised four children; Patrick, Matthew, Lisa and Jason.  They are all married now and they have had 10 children.

 We have lived in England and in many parts of Canada; Ottawa, Burlington, Waterloo, Victoria, Dartmouth.

 I am into scrapbooking, sewing, reading and computer games.

I am very active in my church and love to teach others about my friend Jesus.

I am spending much of my time these days developing my plans for CropTopia.