Brighter days ahead I hope.

As I have talked about previously I work for a construction company.  I arrange trucking and materials for all our jobs, and I manage the flow of trucks daily.  For the most part we have the same drivers, every day.
In the morning when I arrive there is a parade of trucks waiting for me in the drive way.  The same two are always in the lead, they have probably been there for about an hour before me.  Last weekend, sadly one of them passed away.  I have been doing this job for thirteen years, and in that time you get to know people.  I want to first say this gentleman was a mennonite, he was dedicated to his church, his family and his job.  He was humble and caring, and in the 13 years that I had the pleasure of working with him, he never said a bad word about anyone.  He had an optomistic personality that could help change a bad day just with his cheerful attitude.  He also shared some of his life, his children, his grandchildren, projects his church was working on, the fabulous meals his wife would prepare.  I think, we as people, often disregard what we don't know about.  Our ignorance breeds prejudice and racism.  I learned a new respect for this community.  There were aspects of their lives that I would wish for myself.  The sense of community, helping each other in times of need, the positivity, their creativity was evident in every word he spoke.  I couldn't understand why their wives did not use a hospital when giving birth, they almost always have a home birth.  However, after he enlightened me about their customs I was enthralled at the way they care for their women.  A midwife delivers the baby at home in their comfortable setting, and then after, for approximately three weeks, other women in the community come and care for the family and the baby allowing the new mother a time to rest and recover.  Since the demands of her life are taken care of this allows her to bond with her new baby, get lots of rest, and not worry about the little things.  I am so glad he shared some insight into his customs and community, it gave me a new perspective and respect for them.

Compared to my last experience of having a baby at 6:30 pm and being signed out at 9am the next morning, their practises seem much more humane.  I actually talked the doctor into letting me stay for an extra day, I had two little ones at home and no help.  I couldn't even imagine going home that day, with all the demands, and staying sane.  My mother, even though she just lived a few blocks away wouldn't come and give me a hand, my husband had to work, Christmas was just 3 days away, and honestly I just felt really overwhelmed.

Yesterday was such a challenging day.  The truck belonging to the driver I mentioned was loaded when he passed, and I had a conversation with his son earlier in the week about him bringing it in to unload, he really wanted to do this, take the truck for its final destination.    I was touched by this, and told him to take his time and do it when he was ready, there was no rush.  About eleven o'clock I saw the truck coming down the drive way, and I was having hard time keeping my emotions in check.  They stopped at the scales and came in to get directions.  Now I just have to say here I have never met nicer young men in my life, their manners were impeccable, and I could see how hard this was for them.  John's son had his son with him and also his Dad's brother.  The family resemblance was striking.  We talked about his Dad and he expressed an interest in seeing the new asphalt plant his dad was always talking about.  I issued them hard hats and sent them on their way.  I watched that truck unload and cried a little, it just seemed so sad.  I called back to the plant to let them know of their arrival.  When he was leaving, he again stopped at my office to return the hats, he was crying as he said thank you, I was crying , it was so touching,  His son was about ten years old, and I gave him the hat to keep to remember his grandpa.  There were few words exchanged as the tears were getting in the way.

It took me a little time to pull myself together, but I managed finally, and then my mother called, they had returned from a trip to the cancer clinic in Hamilton, and finally had a diagnosis for my step father.  He has  Leukemia, as I was on the phone with her I was trying to keep it together because she didn't need my grief to deal with I am sure she had enough of her own.  When I hung up the phone it just poured out, I am sure anyone that witnessed this thinks I am emotionally unstable, but seriously I just don't care.  As i was driving home I called our eldest daughter to tell her the news, and she told me some too.  Our grandson Ethan who is five seems to be going blind in one eye.  They believe he has a disease that produces tumours on the nerves throughout the body, surgery can remove them, but there is no cure.  We are awaiting additional testing and specialist appointments to get a complete diagnosis.  We are a family that has never known illness, we are hearty, healthy people.  All of this just seems very overwhelming right now.

I am looking forward to brighter days ahead, courage to face whatever we must, strength to help those that need it, and a positive outlook no matter how bad things look right now.

It's a dying art.

One of the things that I do, and I do believe it is a dying art is can.  You know what I mean, preserving food for consumption later in the year when fresh is not as easy to acquire.  Now I see a lot of posts about preserving food due to budgetary concerns, however this has never been my motivation.  When I was growing up our mother was not in the home, this was the 70's and my dad was tasked with trying to care for and raise 3 children.  We were farmers, but because of society constraints he was not prepared for this.  We lived on frozen (thank god for the invention of T.V. dinners), boxed and tinned food.  We had to be able to prepare a meal and feed ourselves when he was busy farming.  Can you say Spaghettio's!!!  We tried classing it up and we added ground beef, and quite seriously thought we were gourmet cooks.  To this day I still have a soft spot for t.v. dinner mashed potatoes.  All our potatoes came from a can or box.  I digress, so back to the matter of canning, my motivation has always been to feed my family real food.  When I can, I know what went into it.  I feel it is worth the effort to do this, and now that the birds have left the nest, I make enough for all the households, so they can eat well.  

Our weekend started with a trip to a tomato field across from where I work.  The lovely farmer always drops by and tells me where to go to pick.  He grows a few different things, I usually get cucumbers for pickles, sweet corn, and tomatoes.  The last couple of years I stopped making pickles, and I still have corn left over from last year, so that is out.  Just tomatoes this year.  After I bribed my son with a trip to Tim Horton's for an ice cap he helped me pick three large laundry baskets full and we spent the rest of the day shopping.

Sunday I got up early to begin production in Chef Boyardee's  kitchen.  I made salsa, bruchetta, spaghetti sauce, and pizza sauce.  I worked all day Sunday and still had one and half baskets left.  Monday night was more pizza and spaghetti sauce.  I have one full basket left for tonight and I need to make more salsa and spaghetti sauce, wrapping it up with just plain stewed tomatoes.  I work 11 hours a day at my job, and then head home to work until 10pm in the kitchen, not because I have to, but because I really want to.

The finished product.

There is another aspect to this that I feel proud of, I can look after myself.  A lot of the people I talk to always think we do these things because we are "cheap".  That's just not it, Ragu is cheap when it goes on sale, but should there ever come a day when I can no longer purchase store bought items, I know I possess  the skill and knowledge to make my own.

How I spent my long weekend.

I work in construction, and we put in a lot of hours every week.  When it's the long weekend we always try to leave early on Fridays.  I was able to leave at 3pm, and headed straight for home.  My son had called me earlier to see if we could go thrifting.  I love a good thrift shop, and we set out as soon as I got there.  I picked up this lamp for $5.  There was a tutorial on pinterest on painting them.   I also bought a dress that I plan to overhaul, more on that later.

$5 goodwill lamp

I used Krylon Dual paint and primer in satin ivory.  The lampshade was purchased from Wal-mart, and yes I have seen all the tutorials on how to refurbish the ones from the thrift store, but didn't feel it was worth the time. 

I also decided to make a trip to Windsor to go to the fabric store.  Our store closed earlier this year.  I am making a baby quilt for our eldest daughter's day care provider.  The nursery is going to be gray, so I think I found the perfect fabric

I drove home and couldn't wait to get started on this, by the time I thought to take pictures I had already pieced it together.   This is the finished product.  I need to learn how to properly bind a quilt, and those corners, I might have said a bad work during that part.

That took up the first 2 days, one day left, I think I will spend it with my favorite teenage boy.  The time is fast approaching when he will be leaving.  I need to cram all the time I can.

Learning to use the new machine

I love pinterest.  I think I spend more hours a day looking at that site, than anything else I do.  I find so many great ideas.  This one seemed so cute, and since I bought a new sewing machine I thought I would try it out.
I made my own pattern out of newspaper, and just used some scraps of fabric I had from previous projects.

As I am writing this, the little owl purse it being taken to Ottawa to go to its new home.  This whole project took about 2 hours, and I am sure that could be minimized by knowing how to work your sewing machine.