Blog Posts

A friend kicked and hit my dog.....

1/17/2018

Written Dec 23rd, 2017

It’s 5:30 AM, I’m wide awake with no sleep in sight. Over the past week or so I’d been going through a period of insomnia but tonight is different, tonight I am haunted by an incident that happened earlier in the evening that has snatched away my peace of mind like a seasoned pick pocket. An incident happened that churns my brain into a vortex of disbelief and hurt......

My little black toy poodle Jake has been known to nip one of our friends and I’ve never understood why, as others come and go without incident. There had been one time when Jake rushed at him barking and the friend grabbed and pushed him forcibly to the floor in a Cesar Millan style of reprimand, but it was done roughly and it choked him. I hollered for him to stop but he didn’t and only when I reached to grab Jake away did the man let him go. When done properly the dog is calmly put on his side and then held by the back of the head as one dog would do to the other in a pack situation, not forced down violently so that the dog’s legs are twisted and pinned nor cutting off their oxygen. I was upset, but because nothing like this had ever happened before I brushed it off as an isolated incident but vowed never to bring him to their home again.

So earlier this evening, the man and his wife, long-time friends of ours arrived at our house and Jake rushed the man and nipped his leg. It wasn’t a full on bite, it doesn’t break the skin or cause bruising, its more of a surprise than a pain. Usually we are diligent and hold him as he barks furiously at this man until he is in the door and all is settled, but this time we were distracted with other friends and didn’t make it to the door in time.

So the man was nipped, I saw it happen. Then I watched in horror as the man kicked Jake in the ribs, sending him across the floor up against the cupboards and then moved toward him to kick him again.   I screamed “Don’t kick my dog!”, Jake is as big as a minute compared to a six foot human and his little body is vulnerable. I rushed in and scooped Jake up before the foot connected for a second blow and carried him towards the living room. The man followed me and when I turned around, he was right there, drew his arm back and hit Jake in the face. The look on the man’s face ruffled me, it was pure hate. He was not the man I thought I knew. He was a stranger.
Shielding Jake from further assault, I ran into the downstairs powder-room, closed and locked the door and sat on the toilet seat. Jake was whimpering. I was sobbing.

I might be able to understand and perhaps forgive a knee jerk reaction to the nip, but trying to get in a second kick and failing that, following me and administering a blow to Jake’s head is totally a different story.

The evening was to celebrate hubby’s and my birthday and now it lay in ruins. Hubby, came in to see how I am and asked if I’m coming out but my blood pressure was soaring, my head was pounding and anger was breeding progeny in the blood vessels of my face until it was painted pure red. I told him I wouldn’t be coming out; I couldn’t pretend it didn’t happen. I was terribly upset and then wondered why hubby didn’t ask the man to leave but I guess I can’t judge when I cowered as well. We both couldn’t comprehend what happened. Call it shock I guess.

Years of past friendship with this man tried to balance itself against the abuse of our dog, and even though the man held no significance there I sat on a toilet seat, hiding from the reality of what just happened. I waited there for a bit then went upstairs with Jake. They all saw me as I walked by, no one said anything.   Henri, our cream boy followed us and I sat on the bed to mull over what happened, again and again and again and again....... I don’t condone Jake nipping, but the reaction didn’t fit the incident and it wasn’t a fair battle, like bringing a tooth pick to a gun fight. I won’t have my dog injured or beaten. How dare someone come into my home and attack one of my pets. One of my children!

I’m ashamed of myself now. I’ve written enough in the past that you all know I don’t do controversy well but my dog was abused and I didn’t stand up for him. When I told some friends they were appalled and told me they would have thrown him out by the scruff of his neck. I can’t stand the thought of him getting away with what he did but I suppose, in the long run, he won’t because if he valued our friendship at all there will be a loss.

It was the shock of it all. It numbed me but I should have spoken my mind, not ran and hid. My past comes up to haunt me once again. Being constantly bullied by an older sibling and then married to a man that abused me, stops me short but there are times when you have to step out of your past and stand up for what you believe in, defend the ones you love and I failed. This will be one of my bigger regrets and it will haunt me to know I didn’t fight for my precious little dog.

So now I’m in a quandary and my brain won’t settle for sleep to relieve me of dark thoughts. I can’t stop the chant, “Oh my god, my friend kicked and hit my dog”, “oh my god my friend kicked and hit my dog”. The fact that Jake didn’t suffer serious injury was a miscalculation on the man’s part. He clearly meant to inflict pain, I could see it in his face. Hubby tells me that he’s witnessed the guy kicking his own dog so there is a mentality that is bred in. He obviously has no respect for small animals or understanding of why they do what they do. Dogs can read people better than humans, Jake knows....

I view my dogs as my children, I love them as if they were born from my womb. Now when I think of this guy I see a black heart, one that can never be trusted around Jake again. Now that Jake has been hurt by this man, he will remember it until he takes his last breath.

So I stayed upstairs for the next hour until he and his wife left, listening to him laugh and drink our Scotch and eat our food. When I’m upset with someone I can pretend that it’s all okay, I can’t act as if nothing’s happened to spare his feelings when mine are in pieces, but I am ashamed that I hid.

So now I’m left to deal with the aftermath. I can’t get it out of my head. His actions. His face. Never once did he apologize, hubby said his wife said he shouldn’t have done it, but no one tried to speak to me to smooth it over or check on Jake to make sure he was okay. That hurt as well but maybe it’s telling, perhaps the value of our friendship was one sided. Their host was clearly absent from her own birthday gathering and they didn’t care. The other friend came up to check on me, my hubby told me later that she told the man that I view my dogs as my children, a fact that he knew already. Hubby is upset that this happened as well, we’ve renamed the scotch the man was drinking, “Kick The Dog Scotch” a black humoured, lest we forget kind of thing....

Now when I think back and remember things this friend said in the past like “It’s only a dog” when I spoke of the death of a past poodle,” and how he used to laugh, almost brag when their troubled dog bit (not nipped but full on bit) every dog it ever came in contact with, I’m wondering if my feelings for him clouded my instinct. Perhaps he wasn’t adding humour to somber events to remove the sting, but telling the truth and masking it with comedy.

But all the assumptions aside, the ugly fact remains that my little dog was hurt, kicked and then hit in the face, there is nothing more to say......Jake comes first, last and always. Time to find new friends.

30 Comments

Christmas Stockings and other stuff....

1/11/2018

1 Comment

Life is back to normal. All of the Christmas glitz and glitter is packed away and my house is back in order. A natural tree is lovely but oh the work; remembering to water it daily, all the vacuuming as it sheds worse than a Saint Bernard and it displaced my favourite sitting/hooking spot in front of the window. Our living room is small so there is only one place to put the tree and then we have to work around it like an insensitive lodger; from the far end of the sofa, I could barely see the TV through the outstretching limbs! Several times I had to prune it back a few inches so it didn’t obstruct the view of the screen.   We usually go for skinny, but this year we got to the tree yard late and the pickings weren’t slim, pardon the pun, so we had to take a fuller bodied one that was really too large for the room and the lights and ornaments we had to adorn it
When I was small we went Christmas tree hunting in the woods, a family outing where we all decided on the ‘one’ and then dad chopped it down and we dragged it to the car, tied it on the roof and made our way home; all part of the Christmas magic. Now trees are precut and leaning up against a fence, a trailer or in tubes in the ground, and you have to stand them up and turn them around to view from all sides to select the one that best suits your idea of what the perfect tree looks like.

I’m not a Charlie Brown tree kind of girl. I want one expertly pruned and shapely without bare spots or double tops. I want a natural green fir, not one with brownish tips that looks like it’s been starved of water or a tinted one in that nasty bluish green spray. I’ve never desired a pine tree and only got stuck with a cat spruce once, the smell emanating from it was a close cousin to a litter box, insuring a quick whiff of any tree before we pay the man.

I must admit the romance of finding the perfect tree, bringing it home and decorating it has its magical moments and tugs on lovely Christmas memories from childhood. But, and there’s always the but, after it shares its wonderful essence and the season is over, I’m saddened as I disrobe it of beautiful glass ornaments, unstring the lights and prepare to remove her limbs to make it easier to get it outside without shedding its needles from pillar to post. As I snip off the branches I mourn it. A tree is a living thing and here I’m dismembering it limb by limb like some sort of coniferous serial killer. Sure the tree doesn’t cry out but it weeps sap that permeates the air like an aromatic scream.

It doesn’t seem fair to pluck it from nature for such a short duration in the name of tradition. Every year I swear I’ll invest in a synthetic one, they look so real now you hardly don’t know the difference and they come prewired with LED bulbs, eliminating the most exasperating element of decorating a tree, fighting with tangled strings of lights and burned out bulbs.

Of course, the scent isn’t there but I’d be happy knowing I saved a real tree. I’m weird I know. Having feelings for inanimate objects leaks into everything I do. There’s a boat right now that fell over in the wind on our Government Wharf and every time I drive by it I almost cry for its misfortune. This boat isn’t used in the sailing season, she sits on the mooring ball year after year, without a sail and now she’s forever broken, lonely and cold, it almost breaks my heart.   Her mast is twisted and bent, lying across the ground snapped like a twig, and her keel is cracked. Such a thing of beauty and pleasure, now a pile of plastic, wood and scrap metal.

I didn’t realize it at the time but I fought hooking over the holidays. Every time I thought I should dig out my stocking and pull a few loops I found excuses not to. Normally I hook while watching Netflix but I sat there wasting time with my hands at my sides instead of working. It didn’t dawn on me until after the tree was taken down and my favourite chair was repositioned in front of the living room window to the why I didn’t hook.    I like this particular chair; it fits my rump nicely and has enough stiffness to sit up straight. My legs are short so it’s low enough I don’t need a footstool, everything feels right, fits right and allows for hours of hooking comfort.

So the tree displaced my spot and chair and my princess subconscious didn’t like it, so it found plenty of excuses to leave the hooking in the cupboard.   Funny how we have preferences, habits, and rhythms to lock us into the way we do things. I guess that’s where the old dog and new tricks thing came about.

So now I’m working on my Hooker Stocking again. Hooking the pillow for a friend for Christmas meant I had no time to work on my own stocking so Santa didn’t have anything to fill. A lump of coal might have gotten the light parchment background dirty so I’ll have to be extra nice to avoid that this year.

I’m really happy to report that others have been hooking stockings as well. Three photos have come in to excite me, one all the way from Japan. I didn’t design this one but Yoshiho Nara has graciously offered to add this pattern to our long list of available designs and I couldn’t be more excited. She is not only a beautiful rug hooker, her designs are delightful and I am proud to list them on the website.

The other two are the Chihuahua and Cardinal patterns. We now have over 60 stocking designs! There are very few that haven’t been hooked either by me or others but I’m hopeful they will all get done in the future. I love scrolling down the page, each one is so different there is enough variety to suit all, but if you want something custom designed I would be over the moon to come up with a new pattern for you to add to the collection. Smaller projects like these are quick to whip up and a delight to offer to your family, a perfect project for grandma to make for the grandbabies, a gift for hubby or self, an heirloom that will be used each year, hung with anticipation in hopes that Santa will fill it with wonderful goodies. And, they are a perfect size, not too big to cost a fortune to fill.

Chihuahua Stocking hooked by Robin Stewart

Cardinal Stocking hooked by Lynda Johnston

Designed and hooked by Yoshiho Nara, Japan
Yoshiho's Bunny (left) and Yoshiho's Kitty (right)
Beautiful designs and beautifully hooked! And how about that bunny tail, clever!

1 Comment

Just a "Little" pillow talk....

1/10/2018

3 Comments

You can do so much with a pillow sized rug. Make a chair pad, hang it on the wall, rest it on a trunk, coffee table mat or use it as a cushion for your home. It's rewarding to treat yourself to a smaller project after completing a larger rug, and if you are into selling your hooked items, small seems to trump large items more than not. A tourist, with limited room in their suitcase, will happily pay for a smaller piece, not only for the lessor cost but also for its packing ability. A set of coasters, a trivet, chair pad or pillow will fit nicely among folded clothing without creating a lot of extra weight.    Larger items are often bypassed for the smaller keepsake as only a few of your customers will opt to have the item shipped home, so unfortunately, 95% of them will just walk away.

Besides, who doesn’t love a good pillow? It’s an international accessory for the home, beautiful to look at and comfort for the head. Smaller projects also hook quickly, so there’s instant gratification for your toil. And as for gift giving, it’s much easier to give a project away when it worked up quickly as I recently learned over Christmas, than a rug project that spanned over a year or more.

Finishing the pillow can be as easy as hooking it, although I hear it all the time, how the hooking is fun but sewing on the back is a chore. A lot of rug hookers I’ve talked to farm that job out to local seamstresses, (I’m not sure if that name is politically correct anymore but I’m referring to the wonderful thread wizards that sew out of their homes for a living).
This clever way of finishing a pillow, first came to me by way of Linda Ruth, one of the Main Street Rug Hookers who made beautiful pillows using recycled Pendleton Shirt plackets for the backings. It changed the groan factor to a WOW factor when sewing a back on a pillow, even I could do it!   Using a wool shirt placket means there aren’t any buttons to fuss with or button holes to create because they’re already there! It’s ‘sew’ easy and another way to recycle those fabulous wool shirts.   And even if you are not concerned about making an opening to be able to remove the form, sewing on a solid backing, this technique works for this as well.
Then the brilliant Sue Cunningham took this great idea to another level with her suggestion of hooking the last outside border row around the pillow in a #8 cut strip. This is the row that you will sew the backing to and it also provides a straight line for a guide.

Easy Steps to create the perfect pillow back

Step 1 - Find a complimentary coloured Pendleton shirt (maybe even use a bit of in the pillow front for a custom blending or if you have a shirt that doesn’t match, throw a little dye on it to blend with the rug). Button the shirt and cut out a square the size needed. If the shirt has a pocket on it you can leave it on or carefully remove it with a seam ripper. Cut out this wool backing the same size as the excess backing edge left around the hooked item. (Assuming you have already steamed and zig-zagged 1” out all around your hooked pillow top to cut it out.)
Step 2 –Place the loop side of the hooking with the right side of the placket and pin together.   Usually the placket will run horizontally across the middle of the pillow so make sure it remains straight across but if there is a hole in the shirt or if you tear the material when removing the pocket, cut the front of the shirt so the placket can be positioned higher or lower on the back.   Pin the two pieces together well. I pin the excess backing of the rug and the shirt together and then pin an inch away from where I plan to sew on the inside of the pillow. They have to be well secured together so there is no movement of the two pieces when being put through the sewing machine. If you don’t want to use pins you can baste stitch the two pieces together with a different coloured thread so it is easy to see and pull out later after the machine stitching is completed.

Step 3 - Now work from the back of the hooked side of the pillow and run it through the sewing machine staying in the center of that #8 cut row of loops.  The rug and backing will be thick to sew through so make sure the tension is set properly so there isn’t any bunching and pulling on the shirt underneath as it goes through the machine. Sewing directly down the center of the loop will insure there is no backing showing along the edge when you turn the pillow right side out. The great thing about using a shirt placket, is that you don’t have to leave a gap in the sewing at the bottom of the pillow to later stuff the pillow form in and then hand stitch up the gap.

Step 4 – After you have sewn around the entire pillow trim each corner point off in a diagonal line, leaving at least 1/2" so you don’t have a lot of bulk when you turn the pillow right side out.   Unbutton the placket; turn the pillow right side out, using your finger, a large knitting needle or proddy tool, to push out the corners so they open as much as possible. Steam press the bulkiness out, insert your pillow form and voila you have the easiest pillow imaginable. No sewing the usual gap shut that you struggled to force the pillow form into. How many times have I done this by making that hole too small and then almost tearing it when pushing the form through? No sewing on buttons or making those dreaded button holes or as some do, sewing on Velcro. You have a pillow that opens easily and it is very attractive to view. Your pillow will look professionally put together if you are selling in a boutique or impressing a loved one.

Tip – If backing shows anywhere around the edge use a coloured marker and rub it along the exposed burlap or linen. Markers come in many colours so you can match pretty much any shade. Especially if the border was hooked in dark colours, a bit of burlap or linen peeking through isn’t attractive.

Also, don’t turn your nose up at a linen or cotton shirt to use as a pillow backing. Do like Anne Holmes did by using one of her late father’s shirts to make a pillow for her daughter for Christmas. Not only was it a wonderful match for the hooked top, but a memory. Her daughter said that when she turned the pillow over she instantly started to cry.    She remembered this exact shirt he used to wear and the present means the world to her. Any time she misses him she knows that she can snuggle into the pillow with his shirt and it will be like she is hugging him tight.   What a beautiful sentiment.

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2017 Main Street Hooker Christmas Party!

1/8/2018

5 Comments

I've been so busy this season with home and shop that I didn't post our wild, annual Potluck Christmas party pics. We always have a great time filling our bellies and laughing.....a real good time! There were fewer of us this year, due to other commitments and some don't want to do nighttime driving so perhaps another year we will celebrate our camaraderie and love of rug hooking in the daylight hours!

A couple of shots of the hostess in her apron surveying the spread. I do this pot luck event for the leftovers and this year didn't disappoint! Free groceries for a week! HeeHee!

A beautiful arrangement from Seaside Flowers in Lunenburg. thanks Deanna!

Food galore, appetites abundant, a merry time!

Chow down time!

Rubbing elbows with some pretty special people!

Pam slicing the ham. (Upper Left), Sue's festive Tshirt (below left).

Sue sneaking ham to Fiz. Bad girl and I mean Sue!! (Below right)

Nothing like prezzies to bring out the smiles.

Sue hiding the infinity scarf she took off me. Thought no one would want it after she sat on it, but that didn't stop us! I ended up with it! (Below right)

A few candid shots. We're a happy group!

Take note how much that fabulous blue box is passed around during our little game. Everyone wanted it! I think everyone had their hand on it at one time or another. I'd call that the perfect gift!

5 Comments

My holidays....

1/2/2018

5 Comments

Personally, it’s been surprisingly busy this holiday season. Invites out and people in for epic eating and good times. My jeans are definitely snugger, having to open the snap when I sit while my bra cuts into my ribs as if it’s strangling me, definitely the result of too much abundance that needs to be quelled in this new year.

Power outages set the holidays with an unusual tone, harkening us back to our grandparent’s time when candles and oil lamps lit the evenings when one had to invent creative ways to be entertained. In Mahone Bay, our house was lucky with the power coming back on before midnight on the 25th, others in the province weren’t so blessed, surviving days in the cold. In this day and age, removing the creature comfort of heat must have been horrific as we are so used to and spoiled by convenience. We are on a well system, not town utilities, so we didn’t have the luxury of running water to drink or flush toilets, but that was balanced out by having a wood stove to stay warm but talk of buying a generator was a main topic of conversation.

Christmas feasts were delayed or ruined depending on the rate of doneness when the power flickered and then went out around 5:00 pm, but in our house we managed nicely on cheese and crackers by candlelight, hoping the power would be back on for Boxing Day when we planned our big dinner. I saw trouper's posts on FB making the best of their Christmas meals, those that had it mostly prepared before the darkness. One said they made their gravy on the wood stove and then had a wonderful meal with family all around, their table lit with candles and smiles as they celebrated togetherness in the surrounding darkness.

Socializing took its toll on me this year. Too much happening with a calendar filled with invites, especially with our birthday celebrations, hubby’s is the day after mine, so it was a very busy week leading up to Christmas. Something also happened Friday evening that knocked me for a loop and completely stole that night’s sleep. I wrote about it in the wee hours of the morning, needing to get it out before I burst, my fingers were like lightening bolts as the incident’s emotion spewed onto the screen. I’ll post it later when the anger and sadness mellows, but for now I’ll keep it light, I just wanted to help explain the sleep deficit that had been accumulating.

The biggest culprit of sleeplessness was taking on a project earlier in the week to hook a pillow for friends that have Felina, a 30 ft Nonsuch. It was a great idea but it should have been executed weeks before, not run up to Christmas Eve like a train out of control. Seeing 3:00 am a few nights in a row I struggled to finish it in a timely fashion which pushed back any Christmas prep I needed to do. No presents were wrapped or cookies baked as my addiction pushed me on, displacing things needing done and allowing a cavern to open up for stress to fill. I love to hook and perhaps I like to put myself under the gun to add to the endorphin rush but this was well over the top, even for me.

We were invited out for dinner Christmas Day so I planned to go to the shop and sew it up before we arrived at their house at 6:00. The lights out as soon as I reach the shop so that put an end to sewing and then we skipped dinner to stay home with the pups who were unnerved by the howling wind. Word was that the power might not come on until the following morning so before midnight, we all packed into the car and went to the shop to fill up water containers so we could at least flush the toilets and the power came back on shortly after we arrived so I sewed up the pillow then. The recipients of it were coming to dinner on Boxing Day and would be presented with it then.

I guess it was unrealistic to begin a project so close to Christmas but once the idea hit, there didn’t seem to be anywhere to go but diving in head first. It was the perfect gift that no amount of trudging around the stores in search of a present could beat. Homemade is always best, there’s love behind the making, giving the giving a deeper meaning and the joy I felt as they opened the present was all the payment I needed. Our boats mean a lot to us and decorating it with our handiwork can’t be measured.

But, the lack of sleep and exhaustion put a bit of a damper on the preparation of our Boxing Day meal. I struggled to prepare and cook, ignoring   the sofa’s inviting attributes to rest my weary bones. My legs ached and I had to take two sets of extra strength Ibuprofen to get through the day. By 11:30 pm, after the food was put away and the last dish washed, I could barely form a sentence, the words weighed as heavy on my tongue as the cold gravy we scraped from the pan. I literally had to stoop over the edge of the sink, my stomach and ribs supporting my frame, handling the delicate crystal and dishes with pronounced grip as not to drop and break them with my weary hands. Hubby deboned the turkey and I looked over once and saw him resting on his elbows while he worked, hunched over the island counter as his back pinged warnings. We looked at each other, our eyes portraying all the agony going on within our spent bodies.

Afterwards, we sat in the living room looking at each other, the smell of turkey a constant reminder of the heft of our day, too dumb struck to even speak, our jaws unhinged by shear exhaustion. Christmas music attempted to soothe us, fanciful songs and Hallmark card moments peddling the romance of Christmas, none portraying the hard work and the labour that actually constructs it. Sleigh rides and jingle bells are fun but far from holiday truths of the work to make our homes glow with tinsel and bows and the smell of baked goods about to come out of the oven. Maybe I’m just getting old, but as the matriarch of the family, the chief cook and bottle washer, it’s a lot of work to make everything look and taste this good. Being on my feet all day preparing for the dinner and tidying the house for company and then cleaning up after their full bellies had left us with a mess that spanned the kitchen from one end to the other. Hubby was drained too, he’s an amazing help in all areas but is seven years my senior. We’re ready to hang up our aprons and pass the baton anytime!

I love cooking and the Christmas dinner is definitely a meal to be made with love, to share with family and friends most dear. Once sitting at the table we enjoyed watching them devour the festive meal we’d prepared and we felt blessed. But peeps, it did us in this year so we decided next year that lasagna, a lovely salad and garlic bread will be on the menu, if that’s appealing come on by!

If the truth is told, I’m not a great fan of turkey, I could live without it for the rest of my days and sparing one the axe might bring more joy than the smell of its plucked carcass cooking, wafting through the house, bringing back memories of my childhood and my mother’s delicious Christmas feast. I think I could make new memories and install new traditions with an Italian menu, I’m told I make amazing lasagna so Christmas could smell like tomato meat sauce and cheese, it’s a festive colour too!

Perhaps I go a bit overboard with the side dishes that are time consuming to prepare. I like fancy dishes, more than the simple mashed potatoes, peas and carrots. I make three kinds of potatoes; sweet, mashed and dressing which is filled with goodies and seasoning.   Then I prepare Honeyed Carrots & Parsnips and that fabulous Brussel Sprout recipe I mentioned a while back that I would crawl naked over glass for and was the hit of the meal; gourmet cranberry sauce with orange rind and currants and the “Littles” family tradition Tangy Mustard Cauliflower. And to end the meal, Carrot Cake and shortbread cookies, made that morning.

All these dishes mean it’s a bit of a juggling act with one oven, to keep alternating between casseroles and the turkey and then struggling to keep it all warm. A smaller turkey might suffice; the 15 pounder was too large to rearrange the oven racks to accommodate anything else. I’m told that a lot of stoves now have a second oven in the lower section that is usually reserved for storage. I can hardly wait for this stove to break down. It’s been a hog, slow to heat and everything takes longer to bake. You have to add at least 20 minutes to every recipe or at least ten degrees to the cooking temperature to get anything baked.

For now lasagna seems a simple and reasonable substitution for a Christmas meal but maybe I’ll change my mind and go the turkey route again. Maybe if I get more sleep next year it won’t be a problem and besides, it’s like giving birth, no thoughts of another baby anytime soon, but over time we forget the all the pain and do it again.

The shop was closed between Christmas and New Year’s but I didn’t quite make it through the week with numerous requests to get in the shop so I decided to open Friday and Saturday from 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm.   I met some very nice people, new rug hookers that are embarking on the wonderful journey of this creative road we all travel. Friends came by to hang out in the Hook Nook so that was fabulous and then I stayed late Saturday to get some yearend items done. No rest for a shop owner in a new year. This week is inventory counting, the bowel movement of a business, the enema to purge all 2017 paper work to make room for the new. No fun there, but thankfully I have a book keeper to take over the reins after the counting is done so I can jump on the band wagon and ride it through 2018 spreading rug hooking joy!

New Year’s Eve, hubby and I and friends bedded down 2017 with a few bangs of expired boat flares and hand held rockets then stayed up till 3:30 am playing Five Crowns and Euchre and blasting 70’s tunes that transported us old fogies to our youth as only great music can. 2018 entered fresh and electrifying with its youthful presence, promising amazing things to come. I can feel it in my bones peeps, 2018 is going to be a fantastic year!

Today is January 2nd and I’m finally rested after a complete eight hours sleep last night. This is the first day I’ve felt fully awake and energetic since before Christmas. Although the shop was open with Deborah at the helm, I took today off to get a few things done at home but I’m happy to go to work tomorrow to get the ball rolling to close 2017 and welcome 2018 with enthusiasm and open arms.

HOOK ON EVERYONE!

5 Comments

Holiday Hours

12/28/2017

0 Comments

The shop will be open from 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm
FRIDAY Dec. 29 and SATURDAY Dec. 30.
We will open for regular business January 3rd.
Seasons greetings
and have a fabulous New Years!

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Happy Birthday to me!

12/18/2017

4 Comments

Today is my birthday and call me foolish but I’m quite relieved. Probably no one is ever happy to age, to reach 59, one year shy of the big 60, but this chick is doing a happy dance and I’ll tell you why.

Since I turned 58, I’ve had a rough time mentally. The back of my mind constantly taunted me with the fact that my dear mom passed away at 58. The fact that I was born in 1958, and how things always happen to me in threes, that number kept haunting me. 58, 58, 58! I thought it might be my time to kick the bucket and it made my cup that is usually half empty, down to a quarter full.   I’m not alone. Several people have told me they were a little apprehensive making it through the same age when a parent died, and worried that the same misfortune would prevail.I’m not usually so negative that I willingly bring disaster on myself, but my over active imagination has a mind of its own. There are dark crevices filled with deep, black rivers that leak into my thoughts now and then, whisper in my ear, telling worrisome tales to remind me how my life is as fragile as a robin’s egg.

My mom and I lived totally different lives, lowering the chances that we would follow the same patterns, but we are genetically linked and that’s pretty powerful and therefore concerning. Fifty-eight was so young for her to leave, a terrible loss, and it knocked me off the high horse of invincibility, slapped me in the face with my own mortality and taunted, “You’re next!”.    Most of us walk around avoiding that kind of thinking, and usually so do I, but 58 kept up a mantra in my head, if it could happen to my mom, it could seal my fate as well.

So this morning when I woke up 59, I silently rejoiced, breathed a sigh of relief and jumped out of bed with a bit more enthusiasm than any time in the past year. I certainly don’t want to die young; I have so many things I want to do. I have so many plans I can’t leave just yet. So now my head is silent, the Reaper’s whisper is gone, and I’ll be okay until I reach 67. Of course, I might still be struck down in my prime, but it’ll not be a self-fulfilled prophesy through worry.   Sixty-seven was when my dad died and the next emotional hurtle to pass. I’m not greedy, I don’t need to live to be 100, I just hope for the privilege of more time to accomplish a few more things……

4 Comments

Coffee in bed? Not bloody likely.....

12/12/2017

8 Comments

I recently chatted with a friend whose hubby brings her coffee in bed every morning. I laughed to myself as I destroyed any chance of that happening in the Little house years ago, but then coincidentally I was served coffee in bed this morning.

It could be me, a receiver of royal treatment, but I rebuked earlier attempts by my hubby who is a wonderful morning person, up with the first beep of the alarm and smiling to greet the day. His cup is not only half full; sometimes it just overflows, splashing all over my waking grumpiness. They say opposites attract and hubby and I are living proof. No matter what time we go to bed, midnight to five in the morning, he is as happy as a lottery winner when he wakes. He’s happy to be alive with a whole new day to explore while I curse the sun and chirping birds outside the window.

When we first moved in together, as the alarm beeped and the sun peeked through the cracks in the blinds, he greeted me with a lively “Up and at’em sweetie, it’s a new and beautiful day!”   His voice was melodious, filled with happiness and the promise of a whole new day of possibilities, happy to be in love with me and our new life together. Happy, happy, happy, oh blessed joy. Is there anything more annoying? When a relationship is building in the first quarter and the ring isn’t on the finger to cement the relationship so it doesn’t crumble when the truths come out, there can be a little deception going on to put forth one as lovelier than perhaps one is.

Day after day I was assaulted with this cheery optimism, clawing away at the finish on my deceptive morning veneer.   My smile grew thinner and faker, my lips pulled back baring teeth like a junkyard dog as his jolliness plucked the string of my very last nerve. I think I managed a month without snapping, newly in love I was happy to see the sunshine in his smitten eyes but then a particularly sleepless night destroyed the ability to keep up the charade. I turned on him, akin to the possessed girl in the exorcist; I think my head even turned 360. With teeth clenched and only my lips moving, I hissed. “Stop with the cheerful crap…don’t ever say up and at’em again!” My face was mean, my words audible poison.

With eyes barely open, I acknowledged the hurt and shock in his. I knew I had to come clean with an explanation. “I’m just not a morning person sweetie”, I cooed, trying to smooth things over with my little girl, cutesy voice, “I need eight hours or I’m just a little cranky” I added.

Truthfully, he was 50% responsible for my lack of morning glory. Considering we never went to bed until at least one, if not two in the morning when I had to get up at 7:30 for work. We are a couple of reincarnated cats, when midnight hits we're ready to prowl. Considering I was riding a sleep deficit every night, I’m not sure how I managed a whole month without losing it.   Somehow each day I managed to wake up, but was sour and I was used to being that way, until Mr. Perky came along. What’s to celebrate when all I wanted to do was crawl back in and sleep until I felt refreshed, then I could be a happy camper, embrace the day with unbridled enthusiasm. It still might someday, we're hoping.....it's on my bucket list.....

So that was that, he left me alone experiencing the joy of a new day on his own, slinking out of bed as if I was covered with razor sharp quills. He no longer offered coffee or breakfast, I was avoided like the morning plague I am. To this day I think he’s a little scared of me when I ask him to help wake me up early if I have an appointment. He calls up to me from the safety of downstairs as not to witness my angst and whining. I guess once bitten twice shy. After all these years he’s still perky and I’m still nasty, mostly because we never go to bed before 1:00 AM. Sometime he phones the house phone from his cell, the ringing can pry me awake better than all else we've tried.

So this morning I was on the sofa, which was technically my bed for the night. I tossed and turned until 3:00 am and finally said screw it and headed downstairs with my book to quiet my racing brain. A juicy murder can do that believe it or not. I read for an hour then stocked the wood stove and crawled on the sofa under a wool throw so I wouldn’t wake hubby and the pups all nestled upstairs in our bed. So when he placed a hot brew on the coffee table for me this morning, he was technically serving me in bed….and I have to admit, it was rather nice.

8 Comments

Another theft and another rant.....

12/5/2017

19 Comments

This blog is directed to the person that stole a Hartman Hook from the shop this past Saturday. You are despicable, the lowest of life forms, a wart on the ass of society and I’m being far too kind…...

My husband caught you red handed, palming the hook when my dog barked and distracted him. As he turned back to watch you, he said he is 99% certain you took it. That 1% saved your sorry arse from prosecution, but you and he both know you did it.

I was busy with another customer and a friend who had dropped by and hubby didn’t want to cause a stink in front of them and by the time I was free, you headed out the door and I didn’t have time to get up to speed, be told exactly what went down. If I had known, the feces would have hit the fan. All the frustrations of past thefts would have bubbled to the surface and I would have made an example of you as 17 years of experience let loose.

I would have followed you outside and tapped you on the shoulder for a reality check. The police would have been called and you would have been prosecuted for your immoral ways.   Be aware, I have the most incredible facial recognition skills and even though I looked at you for a short time, I’ll remember your mug. Yes a mug, short for mug shot that you should own right now. If you dare enter my premises again, I will kick your sorry ass out my door and let it hit you as I slam it on your backside. If you are suffering financially, steal food, something necessary to support life that can be understood and perhaps even excused by a judge, but a hook?

Your mother must be appalled to call you daughter, or perhaps you were here as a tag team to steal as much as possible. How do you feel that I am painting your mother with the same brush, she may be totally innocent but is under suspicion because of her association with you. How am I supposed to feel about her if she ever comes back to the store? You were both in the back pattern room for a long time did you steal there as well? OMG, how you ruined my happy day!!!!!!!

You took far more from me than my inventory. Besides the $40.00 hook, this is the result of your selfish actions.

My faith in human kind has been tarnished once again. Although most of my customers are honest, wonderful people and I delight in them, the likes of you will stick in my crop all the days I am in business. I will never forget and I’ll be burdened with the memory of you, making me suspicious of other new customers, until I get to know and trust them. I’ll watch people more closely with suspicious eyes and dark thoughts because of you. When someone steals I feel violated, whether I see it done or notice an item is missing that hasn’t sold, it affects me forever. You cause me pain and suffering as surely as if you run a knife through my heart!

You took money from a small business’s pocket. You stole wages from employees and food from my mouth. The only thing I’ll eat now is a loss. I’m not a big mogul that has insurance for things like this.

You made me feel sick to my stomach for the rest of the day. Once again I have to be aware of the terrible things some people do, how the likes of you has no respect, scruples or consideration for others.

Bring the hook back, say you are sorry, and all will be forgiven. I’m not a mean person that holds a grudge after forgiveness is offered.   If not, never darken my shop again or face a person that is sick and tired of being sick and tired over the likes of thieves, crooks and criminals like you.

Do festivals bring out the thieves? Perhaps they think they can hide their black hearts in the crowds, blend in with the normal, respectful, honest folk?   Last week-end, during the first installation of the Father Christmas Festival, a man and his wife were in. A few years back I saw the husband steal a cutter wheel, put it in his pocket so slick and polished I questioned what I saw. The crime was so blatantly casual my brain wouldn’t accept what my eyes had witnessed. I even saw the imprint of the small round metal wheel in his front pants pocket and the empty space on the shelf and still my brain denied the act.

So he came in this past Saturday and I became his conjoined twin, stuck by his side as if pulled in my magnets, turning when he turned, constantly talking his ear off, leaving zero opportunity to be alone to stuff his pockets with my stuff.

His wife was once again dressed to the nines. Her outfit, shoes and coat probably equaled the value of my entire wardrobe. She barely acknowledged me as she separated from him and browsed the store. It made me wonder if they were partners in more than marriage, perhaps they were a tag team for a five finger discount.   She always makes me wonder if her clothing budget is the reason he steals but then I am only making assumptions because by the look of her he can well afford to buy what he wants. So you’ve had your last bit of fun Mr. Mr. If I catch you again I’ll go bat shit crazy on you both.

I’m a nice enough person, kind, honest to a fault, generous and helpful, but the days of being a door mat are over. Just because I design door mats, that doesn’t mean I am one!

Something has changed in me since I turned 50. The naive, pushover that began my life is gone, so if you want to push my buttons I recommend you duck…before the bomb explodes.

19 Comments

Venturing out again....

12/1/2017

3 Comments

When Honey was still with me I pretty much quit my social life and going out to restaurants was collateral damage. She was very delicate and I had to keep the excitement down so she wouldn’t faint. Each episode brought her closer to the end so I tried to extend her life as much as possible by keeping her relaxed and safe. I don’t begrudge that time with her at all, she was my #1 priority. Hubby says the food is better at home anyway so how could I ever argue with that!

Now that my girl is gone I am getting used to not being a caregiver. For a long while I found it strange that I had little purpose other than to cater to myself, my husband and my other babies, all of whom didn’t need me to the degree my little patient did. Without my little ward, I’ve learned to once again venture away from home on my own for work, groceries and errands.
So two Saturday evenings ago, we went out to Rebecca's Restaurant with friends. I haven’t eaten there since they first opened and I wanted to try their new digs since their move to Keddy’s Landing at the head of the bay.

I was a bit down in the tooth, not wanting to go out but pulled up my big girl panties and made an effort to enjoy myself. Holy frig, the food was incredible and exceeded all my expectations! I had the Seafood Pasta and all I can say is WOW! Everything we ate was scrumptious, the starters and the dessert, not only tasted fabulous but looked like it was prepared for a photo shoot in a Gourmet Magazine. Not one complaint among us. I can’t wait to go back for that dish again as the taste and memory lingers on.

They also had live entertainment that evening. A local singer and her guitar strummed us through the various courses of the meal. She had an amazing voice, soft at times, but when she belted out those high notes the hair raised on my arms.   Her name is Erika Kulnys. We chatted and had fun with her. She also had an entourage that must follow her around, and later one of them joined in to sing with her, it was a like a kitchen party!

So life is getting back to normal, whatever that might mean. I still well up when I speak of Honey and I look at the rock on her grave hardly able to believe she is gone. Life continues though, drives right over you and you can choose to get up and shake off the dirt or wallow in it.

I just finished a book by David Maginley, ‘Beyond Surviving’ and although it is about people with cancer it was interesting to read how others deal with dying and death, not only themselves, but others. David happened into my store a few weeks back when I was feeling lost and vulnerable and we chatted. I thought the timing was orchestrated somehow, as if it was meant to be. The book allowed me to put a name to my suffering. Apparently I experience Anticipatory Grief; suffering since the day she was diagnosed; knowing the inevitable was inevitable. It didn’t prepare me or take away from the intensity that I felt after her passing, but that glass half empty kicked in and I couldn’t appreciate the time we had when it was tainted with knowing she would be taken from me. At times throughout her illness I thought I might be losing my mind, so I was grateful to discover that I wasn’t alone, that many people deal with the dying of a loved one the same way, enough so as to give it a name. When the time comes for my pack of three to be reduced to two, I might be better able to cope with the impending loss and not feel so utterly alone, better for them as well as me…..

3 Comments

Time to make the doughnuts....

11/27/2017

10 Comments

Last Wednesday evening The Main Street Hookers decided to mix it up a bit. We put down our frames and projects for a social. I invited the crew home to my house for doughnuts. Sugar highs all around and the sweet smell of cake doughnuts and deep fat clogged our pores, and probably an artery or two, but in the moment if one was unlucky enough to drop dead, what a way to go baby!

For me doughnuts are a childhood memory, to be exact one of the top rated links to my past. For me food is comfort, transporting me back to simpler times when a grandmother kept a tin of doughnuts in her panty and the smell of deep fat painted on her walls and embedded in the draperies almost drove me delirious. Like living in an old fashioned bakery, so sweet that even looking in the tin caused a toothache.

I was craving my nana’s doughnuts for months but fear kept me from hauling out my mother’s old electric fryer. I knew their power and my blood sugar couldn’t handle it. Oh the delicious cake doughnut, with a crisp outer crust and soft doughy inside and subtle nutmeg influence. The smell and taste decrees one is too many and a thousand is not enough. Hubby would have found me in the closet with crumbs on my chest babbling incoherently as the diabetic coma slowly engulfed me.

So I figured if I had the gals over for doughnuts and made them promise to fill their stomachs and a Ziploc baggie on their way out the door, I’d be safe. No leftovers, no death. I’d test a few; get them out of my system and move on to the next memory, shortbread cookies.
My house smelled of deep fat and doughnuts for three days but there wasn’t any complaining. It was sweet perfume. Why they don’t actually invent a cologne to dab behind the ears is a mystery. Men would follow you home, even better, dogs would follow you home! Hey Dragons Den what do you think?

Anyway, we had a blast. My two assistants were a great help, thanks Anne and Deana, coating them in either plain sugar or a cinnamon and sugar blend and serving them to the appreciative crowd kept me overseeing the hot fat. I managed to sample enough to fill the craving. I prefer mine plain, not letting anything get in the way of the flavour and my memory.

There were groans as we all sampled the wares. It would have been a good night to wear stretchy pants; they were headed for the hips anyway, so why fight it? Someone commented their sugar scores were up the next day, I didn’t get my meter out as I’m not sure if it registers triple digits. Anyway, it was a fun night, not one to do often but it should be a once a year tradition, maybe during warmer months so I can deep fry them outside or at least open the doors and windows.

There’s more fun on the horizon, our annual Christmas pot luck dinner is next week. Food and games and lots of laughs, that’s the way we hooker’s roll!

10 Comments

Alternate way to finish a Christmas stocking....

11/27/2017

0 Comments

By Guest Blogger Nancy Hurlburt

I thought I would share with you photos of 2 stockings I did for my family in Australia. I looked at your blog for ideas on how to finish them but I ended up trying a different approach. I followed a Pinterest post on sewing a lined stocking. I also chose to put batting in the back section to give it more body. My steps were:

1 I steamed as usual and zigzagged edges. I also made a second row of zigzag stitching around the ankle section so I could clip the edges.

2. I sewed the lining and front together at the top, right sides facing each other. I did the same for the back except that I also added the batting to one of the back pieces.

3. I spread the 2 pieces out and pinned them, right sides together. The hanger was pinned in the appropriate spot.

4. I sewed them, stitching very close to the hooking, using a regular stitching foot ( I had tried a zipper foot before but I couldn’t get close enough). I left a 4 “ opening on the sole of the foot.

5. I pulled the right sides through the opening. I hooked a few extra sections where I didn’t get close enough with the stitching. There weren’t many spaces. I couldn’t use a hoop but it wasn’t difficult.

6. I pushed the lining in, hand sewed the opening and steamed again.

I was very pleased with the finished stockings.

Thanks for the great patterns.

Nancy Hurlburt

Ho Ho Ho (I just realized this stocking pattern was never posted on the website....so that makes 60 designs in the line!)

Father Moon

0 Comments

Puzzled?

11/24/2017

3 Comments

Aunt Audrey, hubby and I have been burning the evening oil and sometimes the midnight as well. We’ve been working on jigsaw puzzles and so far we’ve completed two 1000 piece scenes, one of Van Gough’s Irises, and currently a Peggy’s Cove folk art piece by artist Eric Dowdle.    It’s surprisingly addictive and I’m finding it difficult to turn off the light to go to bed even when my eyes are burning out of my head. It doesn’t help with the insomnia either, when I find myself pondering a particular piece that has alluded me. It never ceases to amaze how you can look over the pieces many times and not find the one you seek. Even looking at the picture of the completed scene and knowing the shape and colour it should have and I still can’t secure it.   Then because of human arrogance, thinking I could never be so incompetent as to not find the piece, I think probably my poodle Henri must have eaten it and I ask him..."Did you eat mommy's puzzle piece?". Then I get up the next morning with a cup of coffee and a fresh pair of eyes and that elusive piece practically jumps into my fingers and I place it with smug satisfaction while Henri seems to say, "See mom, I told you I didn’t do it!"

Puzzles haven’t been a part of my life since childhood and quite frankly, I was surprised at the availability in stores considering the fast paced internet and video games have taken over the world.   Although I did notice that you can buy electronic puzzles online to play on your phones and ThinkPad’s. I assumed the younger generations are attention deficit now, lacking the patience to take on a twelve to twenty-four hour commitment so I was pleasantly surprised the puzzle has survived the modern day entertainment devices.

There were endless choices in several shops in the mall, a varied selection of sizes and prices and I noticed that Costco has a section of puzzles on my last visit and even the local Pharmasave has them on a shelf. As children we used to have a family puzzle set up on a card table as not to tie up the dining table and we would pick away at it for days. Santa brought them, a fun project for all the family to work on.   Maybe the Little’s will have to reinstate that tradition, a communal puzzle on Christmas Day, with eggnog and ribbon candy, (those of you that are my age will know what delicious treat that is)!

It’s been awhile since one lay out across our dining room table, perhaps as far back as when Aunt Audrey stayed with us during her condo renovation and quite frankly I forget the fun of piecing a puzzle together. It’s an adventure in identifying and detecting through shapes and colour to put together something beautiful.

The original jigsaw puzzles were cut out of wood, but the new paperboard versions are much cheaper to produce. I looked online for puzzles and you can still buy them on wood bases but of course the prices of those can reach a hundred dollars, or even more.   A painting or two-dimensional art work is clued to the cardboard before cutting and the choice of patterns is endless. Puzzles are like rug hooking in that you need to like the project you are working on, and like rug hooking, I make my choices by colour, that always attracts me first, and then the subject. After this folk art piece we will be working on a couple of clipper ships with a beautiful hazy sunset and sparkling ocean.   Hubby should like that!

I guess I’m not a puzzle aficionado; I never had a system on how to organize the pieces other than picking out the edges to start and then digging through the piles to find what I’m looking for. Audrey has it down to a science, separating in one of two ways, by piece shape or colour depending on the type of puzzle. I’m not sure which one works best for my brain and I think it depends on the cut of the puzzle on how it should be split into piles. The Iris’s pieces were uniformly normal, or traditional looking like the puzzles of my youth, so separating by shape worked nicely. This second puzzle, the folk art picture, the pieces were cut in all kinds of shapes and sizes, with pieces as small as a pinkie fingernail to doubles, larger, odd shapes, so this one was best categorized by colour.

Although I seek the most intriguing picture, the manufacturer is important as well and I looked for a high standard of quality.   The feel of the pieces are paramount. I like solid and firm, the picture well backed with cardboard and cut clean, so the pieces almost click together. Puzzles aren’t expensive overall but some are more cheaply made and no bargain. After a casual walk down the Bridgewater Mall to have a look at what is out there, we purchased the next project. Until this latest addiction runs its course I’ll need a subsequent project; but I do need to get back to rug hooking. Since Honey passed I haven’t felt like turning on Netflix and I hook with the TV on, so my evenings are open and I’m filling them with the quiet fun of a shared project with my aunt and hubby, and my thoughts focus on the work at hand not the sadness of loss. I can’t serve both masters simultaneously so I’ll have to take turns, force myself to leave the table to sit in my living room with frame on my lap and hook one of my new Christmas stocking designs. This puzzle thing is temporary and will peter out but for now it fills a void nicely.

I like a challenge but only to a degree. Audrey brought down a puzzle of Van Gogh’s Starry Night that boggled the mind. It looked pixilated as each piece of the puzzle was made up of tiny pictures. Two hours in yielded only four pieces fit together. Glasses on and glasses off as I had to examine them up close with a magnifier. My eyes were crossed with the lack of better lighting.   My brain went into overload and frustration rose until I was fidgeting in the chair. I don’t need instant gratification but this was like walking in mud up to the knees. A puzzle shouldn’t take longer than a few days and this one would have been ringing in the new year!

So while brainteasers were on my mind, the idea came to me to design a puzzle pattern. So I’ve created two 16” x 16” pillow topper or chair seat. It can be filled in beautifully with hit and miss, mixing up the directions vertically and horizontally for more interest. Or even solids or luscious plaids filling each space with their boldness, so many ways to make it impressive. The grid of the puzzle pieces would be done in black to create the shadow for piece separation and the extra piece sitting on top will have a shadow along one side to appear as if it is stacked. I’ll also be working on a larger rug sized puzzle with the pieces on top, a few pieces randomly here and there for added interest. I’m thinking I should hook the pillow for a demo in the shop. It might be just the piece to get me back into hooking. So many projects, so little time!

I mentioned Henri previously. The fun part of putting a puzzle together is my cream poodle, Henri. Always by my side, he lies under the table and when a piece gets brushed off with our sleeve, dragged to the edge and falls to the carpet below, he is waiting. He chews on it a bit. The glue might taste bad so he doesn’t totally demolish it, but there are teeth marks and saliva in the paper. Every puzzle we’ve done has at least one piece that is misshapen and rough, making it even more special.

3 Comments

From boring to beautacious!

11/8/2017

5 Comments

Please lay your eyes on the latest addition to our studio. Presenting…..The coffee table of all coffee tables.   Drum roll please!

Sue posted the unpainted coffee table on her Facebook page Perfectly Imperfect by Sue and I commented “It’s mine!” But someone else got there before me and I was pretty upset, I’m a bit of a princess and this just doesn’t happen. Sue told me I was next in line if the woman didn’t show up as promised the following day. There were some tense moments with pins and needles. I couldn’t leave it to fate so I put a call for help out to the universe and it came through per the usual. The woman couldn’t make the viewing so it was MINE!

I’ve wanted a coffee table for the shop since I created the Hook Nook at the front of the studio. We had a tall table with a very tiny base so it was tippy. I wanted a spot where the gals could kick back and relax, put their feet up if they wanted, while hooking, chatting or sipping a brew. This table is 40” in diameter, a biggin, but absolutely perfect, reaching everyone sitting around it to put their hooking gear on. I could see my new table in my mind’s eye, all painted and sporting my company’s insignia, the beautiful compass rose.

Next we had to determine the colours. I’m a primary girl all the way and my shop glows red, gold and blue. The table was going to be front and center as folks entered the shop and next to my staircase highlighting the beautiful riser rugs I’ve been working on, so it had to be spectacular. We couldn’t use yellow in the design because that was the base colour so I asked for a nautical green as an accent. Sue worked her magic by mixing a bit of this with that and the green was perfect. She finished all the painting and waxed all but the top of the table, the drawer front panels are red on the left for port and green on the right for starboard.   Clever eh? Green is by no means anywhere near the top of my favourite colours list, but for this project the nautical theme dictated I had to use green so I went with it.

After she’d done the base, she dropped the table off to the studio for me to do the compass, I have a lot of experience in measuring up the angles so I knew I could whip it off, exactly like I had in mind. She also supplied paint for me to finish it and after I completed that job, the next step would be for her to do the waxing to seal it.

The compass went quickly and the paint dried fast, especially with a fan blowing across the top so I was able to knock it off in less than a half hour. Tape kept the edges from bleeding so the points were crisp and clean. It was rather stunning if I do say so myself.

I was amazed at the quality of the paint. I had been distracted with Honey and several weeks went by before I got to it. Sue had delivered the paint in plastic containers with cellophane over the top, not exactly an airtight seal. Surprisingly, there wasn’t any skin on the top like regular paints. It was a bit firm but once I started stirring, it all blended beautifully. I only had to add a spot of water to the red to thin it out. What a great product to work with!

The paint was creamy and thick so one coat did the job. I was a bit stressed that it came off easily after it dried and before it was sealed so we kept an eye on it until Sue was available to finish the table. It experienced a bit of scratching on the red when I put something on it and fretted that I might have to recoat it but Sue said not to worry, that she planned to rub some of the paint off so it appeared stressed and old. Huh I thought?

Well I wasn’t prepared for the razor blade that came out as she rubbed it across the compass to remove any bumps or thicker paint. I said “OMG” and ran to the kitchen to hide as the blade cut through to the yellow surface beneath. My perfect crisp points and marks were scratched! It was like watching a train wreck, I couldn’t look but I couldn’t turn my head either. She laughed and said, “Don’t worry, wait and see!” I don't have any pictures of the razor blade moment cause I was hiding in the kitchen from the trauma of it all.

I came back out in time to catch her using a wet cloth to smudge and wipe off even more colour and I screamed again, “OMG” and hustled away. My perfect compass that I stressed over was now in ruins, or so I thought. I’m pretty anal and a borderline perfectionist so it hurt, I won’t lie. That stick somewhere shifted and dug in. It was painful to watch.

She kept reassuring me that all was fine but I was skeptical. When I came out of the kitchen and saw how the points and marks were now missing areas I kind of swallowed a lump. It was done so I had to accept it, and it was time to let that stick go. I could feel it slipping away, and the next thing I was a stranger, someone I didn’t know, pointing out other areas needing a bit of rubbing to balance the wear. It was actually rather freeing. I pointed and she rubbed and we worked until we were both satisfied and then stopped.

Sue let the surface dry and then patted on the secret recipe antique finish. It not only sealed the top of the table but it aged it as well, taking the starkness out of the bright compass and yellow base, toning it down to an aged patina.   The antiquing actually made the distressing reasonable; as if the table had been painted years ago and lots of use had rubbed away some of the finish and motif. I gave Sue a thumbs up, pretty impressed at that point. What fun. How I love how my new table looks old, a perfectly imperfect fit in the Hook Nook.

The table has four large drawers that come out all around it for storage. The knobs she brought were nautical in flavour, monkey’s fists made of jute rope, how perfectly nautical for a rug shop in the beautiful harbourside town of Mahone Bay.

Well done Sue.

Drawing the lines.

Taping off to begin to paint the first point.

Red first.

Sue applying the finish, apparently a 'secret recipe' antique glaze.

All painted and the blue is still drying. Sue uses Annie Sloane Chalk Paint.

Sue rubbing her hand over the finish. Perfection!

The Hook Nook's new/old coffee table. Come on by and put your feet up and stay a spell!

To visit Perfectly Imperfect by Sue's Facebook page click this link to see other up-cycled treasures.
https://www.facebook.com/PerfectlyImperfectBySue/

5 Comments

The Good OL Hockey Game....

11/6/2017

2 Comments

This past weekend I designed a pattern with boys playing hockey on a pond. Winter’s coming, it was never more apparent than yesterday’s lower temperature after we’d been spoiled with an uncommonly mild October. Sunday was brisk, and the first time I dug out a heavier jacket. As I went outside with the pups the cooler temperatures made me clasp the collar tightly with one hand and stuff my other one into a pocket. I’ve been hearing snow has already fallen in other parts of Canada, and today it seemed possible on this coast as well. Snow is coming and snow means ice, and ice means skating and of course, hockey. Not the rink kind, that’s probably been going on with manufactured ice for a while; I mean the backyard fun, the frozen ponds and the hose filled low areas of the lawn.

I coloured in the design using PhotoShop to give it more interest than a flat black and white drawing but hooking this pattern will really bring it to life. The boys can also be made into girls with a bit of hair adjustment. Back in my day boys played hockey and the girls looked pretty doing figure eights, but I guess I'm dating myself. Maybe I was tripping down memory lane as I drew this design, not even considering that girls now play hockey. Silly me. The pattern is 26" x 39". I really like the hockey stick border, a very different way to frame a design. I hope all you hockey moms and grandmas will like it too.

When I was a kid there was a natural pond adjoining our property. At night it was almost deafening with thousands of peeping frogs and during the day It was a great spot for catching pollywogs where I spent many an hour in rubber boots and a pail wading in the water. It just dawned on me that my dad never warned me away from the pond’s edge or perhaps that’s one of the memories that have gone through my mental shredder. He was always beating the danger drum, everything on the other side of our front door was a means to an end, maiming and killing little children. Everything was geared to bludgeon, hang, stab, break-a-neck or drown the youth, making the world a very scary place. I’m surprised the miring mud and weeds that could entangle legs and pull one down into the black depth eluded him. Maybe no child had drowned there marking it a taboo for ever more.   Perhaps mom was a bit more relaxed while her paranoid, gate keeper of a husband was at work but I do know she kept a close eye on me from the kitchen window.

In the winter the pond would freeze solid and the bigger kids cleared the snow so they could skate. It was big enough for the boys to play hockey while the girls twirled in the corners doing figure eights. Up until the age of four, I used to watch them skate through the frosted windows of our house. I imagined them to be fairies. Oh, how I dreamed of growing up and joining them with my own pair of skates.

In the Veinotte house, birthdays were always monumental. My mom was a class ‘A’ baker and we loved her desserts, especially her delicious scratch cakes, lavishly decorated to suit various occasions. My all-time favorite was cut pieces of a white sheet cake that were assembled into the shape of a long eared bunny, coated with creamy butter frosting and sprinkled with long, desiccated coconut, a confectionery imitation rabbit’s fur. Before dressing the cake in a coat of sugary goodness, she would wrap coins in waxed paper, burying them deep below the crust’s edge. The walls echoed with squeals of delight, when my wedge of cake produced a nickel or a dime and sometimes even a quarter.

All birthdays were significant and memorable, but my fourth stands out as the pinnacle to which all others paled, for this was the year I received a pair of bob skates. They were double bladed, not the single blade of a figure skate like the older girls enjoyed, for a kid it was like training wheels on a bicycle, allowing easier balance to ensure more skating and less falling. They weren’t as pretty as regular skates with their white leather shapely boot, these had brown straps that buckled over my winter boots, but I didn’t care what they looked like, I now had the blades to glide and dance like the fairies.

Completely awe struck, I used to watch the older children skate on the pond, pretending that their rosy cheeks and happy faces belonged to fairies. I longed to join in their ice dance; the images filled my daydreams and frolicked in my head at night as I slept on my pillow. The delicate movement of the girls in their tights and twirling plaid skirts, their blades glinting in the afternoon sun was music without sound. How I longed to join them, arms stretched out as I pirouetted my way down the length of the pond. I would practice in our living room, the oilcloth flooring my ice, and I would sashay this way and that from one end of the room to the other.

Until I grew older and became proficient on real skates, I would spend a good deal of the time on my rump, my bulky snowsuit and short legs didn’t allow the freedom to fly, but I didn’t care, it was still magical. The crisp cold didn’t bother me, the nose candles and the numb, red cheeks couldn’t take away from the smile frozen on my lips. In my glory and oblivious to the cold, mom had to drag me inside before my toes and fingers froze to solid blocks.

So on my fourth birthday, when I tore at the pretty pink wrapping paper and discovered my dream had come true, I remember hugging mom, telling her over and over how much I loved her, backing up my words with little dewy kisses all over her face. Our mother always chose our gifts thoughtfully. Watching me day after day sitting with my nose pressed up against the partially frozen window glass, she knew the perfect present to make my heart sing and it did, the gift brought feelings of pure joy; a euphoria so overwhelming it almost induced a catatonic rapture.   That night I slept with my skates, hugging them tight, knowing that tomorrow I would be out on the pond dancing with all the other fairies.

When I was older the town built a proper rink with a cement footing, a fence around the parameter, pole lighting and a building to warm yourself while you put on and took off your skates. Back then I was like most teenage girls, pining for a boyfriend, fantasizing about holding hands while circling the rink as music blasted through the loud speakers. There’s a memory trying to come through, of me skating with a boy, but for the life of me I can’t give birth to it.   How wonderful it would be to revisit that time to see what a little imp I was and who I might have had a crush on. I’m not even sure it’s true, as a young girl, my imagination was so overripe perhaps dreaming about it so much forged a fake memory.

I would like to try skating again, although now it would be more awkward than fluid, with the accompanying worry of a fall and hip replacement. It would be so much fun to glide down the ice holding hands with my fella, the frosty air stealing my breath, a pleated skirt for twirling, attempting a circle, well, these days perhaps something more akin to a vacillating oval, but oh what joy it would be.

I don’t own a pair of skates anymore; the last pair turned mouldy from being forgotten in the basement, the age cracked leather boot turned an ugly grey, the blades brown with rust. I don’t recall ever having a new pair of skates of my very own, although a lot of my memories have been eaten like moths in a trunk ful of wool, so Santa could have brought a pair at some point. Usually my skates were hand-me-downs; the last pair came from my mother who also loved to be out on the ice. Dad always filed off her toe picks; apparently they made her stumble and fall as they caught in the ice. He called them killers anyway; they tripped a person up, causing spills where the blades could slice a throat. Not sure what field that one came out of, but someone must have had a nasty mishap because our worrywart dad had it in his memory file of fun spoilers and childhood dream crushers.

I’m no longer willing to invest money for a new pair of skates for the few times I might get out on the ice and it wouldn’t be pretty because I’d need extra padding to prevent all the bruising. I’m not as flexible as I used to be and the fear of falling would stiffen my frame even more. Why couldn’t skating be like the bowling alleys, where I could rent the appropriate footwear, do it and get it out of my system without the bite of the cost buying new, on top of the cold. Ah well.....maybe I’ll have to pencil it in on my bucket list....

I used to be a hockey mom. From awkward beginnings as Shane struggled to stay up on his feet, to watching him proficiently cover one end of the rink to the other with the speed of skilled confidence, I was there. It was a thrill to watch my beautiful boy out there on the ice. Professional hockey has never interested me but watching my son playing offence while we froze in the bleachers sipping hot chocolate and screaming encouragement with all the other parents, well, it was as exciting as it gets.

My boy turned 38 last week. I can hardly believe time has slipped by so quickly.   Shane is now a man and a very fine one, but as a mom I still see the little boy, maybe I always will.

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A very sincere thank-you......

11/2/2017

15 Comments

I didn’t cry today. It’s the first day since Honey died that I haven’t. Life is moving on faster than I care to experience and I can’t fight the flow.

I was deeply, deeply touched by all the comments and heartfelt response to my blogs about my dear little girl. Being alone at the time, I wrote because I felt I might burst if I didn’t let my feelings out, working through the pain with words was the only thing I could do.

I actually cried over each and every one of your responses, I could barely read them through the flood of tears. Some of you took the time to send emails and private messages and there were so many heartfelt comments on Facebook that when I tried to “Like” them all days later, a big Error message flashed on the screen and Facebook BLOCKED me out thinking it was some sort of hacking. I explained that the hundreds of comments were an outpouring of support for the loss of my beloved pet and they lifted the block so I could continue. My sweet Honey almost crashed my FB page, how cool is that!

A special thank-you for the beautiful fern Anne, and Lorraine, I will plant your gift of bulbs on Honey’s grave so every spring I’ll have a special reminder of my girl. Thank-you for all the hugs at the shop everyone; I accepted your embraces shyly, but needed, loved and appreciated every squeeze.

The outpouring saddened me and lifted me up at the same time. I know a lot of very wonderful people, mostly met through rug hooking. What a wonderful community we are. I thank everyone from the very bottom of my heart, and Honey would have been over the moon to know how much everyone loved her. She was a very special little girl.

Once again thank-you all; your support has helped more than you know. I have so much to be grateful for. I feel as if I am in a very exclusive club; people who love and have lost animals understand the sadness, loss and grief of membership.

I never realized how depressed I was over the past year. I was mourning her loss long before it became a reality but I wouldn’t change a thing. I loved her enough to dedicate these past 12 months to her needs, no regrets at all. I am a better person for loving her.

So I am back at the helm and going a mile a minute. A switch has been turned back on and the light is growing brighter every day. Through the pain I’m finding my smile and it feels good.....

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Farewell to our angel.....

10/30/2017

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The tears of a clown.....

10/27/2017

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Now I understand the statistics that say a full time, family caregiver will die within six months to a year after their spouse. You truly lose your purpose in life after they’ve gone. I’ve been a constant companion and nursemaid to Honey for almost a year and now, there are no alarms needed for medication three times a day, no middle of the night jaunts outside, no scheduling every part of my day around what is best for her, no worries that she will faint, carrying her up and down the stairs, making sure she has water wherever we go, keeping her comfortable, feeding her special foods......there are no longer any needs bigger than my own or the rest of the family......and quite frankly, I’m lost!

I meander around the house. The walls drip with sorrow; I open the doors to let in a breeze hoping it scrubs away the sadness.   I am alone with my thoughts, too many thoughts, analyzing the past two days, driving myself nuts with too many questions and even more doubts.

I know things will get better, and I know I have a lot of other purpose in my life; I just need to reacquaint myself with simpler daily routines, things I’ve put on the backburner, my other pups for instance. I realized this morning when I threw a ball in the house for Henri, a forbidden fun while Honey was sick, fear of her bounding off the sofa to lay chase and flopping dead on the floor put a stop to it. Poor Henri, ball is his favourite thing, so even his life had to change. Lucky for him, it will change back.

And a new thought emerges, beating its way through the blinding sorrow to form a glimpse of things to come. Fresh from losing a precious baby, I look at my other three, all around the age of six, and I wonder how I can ever deal with future loss, what if they all expire close together? I’ll go stark raving mad, they’ll have to lock me up and throw away the key.

I had Honey the longest at 12 years, she was the matriarch and the reason for bringing the others home. I fell madly in love with poodles and wanted oodles of them! Honey was definitely special, not that I loved her the most. My heart shares equal affection for my babies; each one brings something different to the table, each of their personality’s a polar opposite, individual and amazing. If we were on a sinking ship and I could only save one I couldn’t choose. I’d rather go down with them all than live with a broken heart filled with guilt.

As for most of the people I know, they really only loved Honey. I guess they knew her more, being with me longer; my other three aren’t so appreciated. They are less interested in humans, more aloof, not inclined to put themselves out there for people to scratch and pet. They tend to only want to be with hubby and me. For that reason, they aren’t as popular. Honey was different that way, what a little schmoozer she was.

I feel useless, floundering around. Sometimes the sadness builds and I feel like I might burst, other times I feel weirdly calm. The world feels so different now. Even the wind seems to be charged with a strange energy, it’s banging my screen door, letting me know it’s out there. I imagined its Honey telling me to forgive myself for what I’ve done, but I can’t. I feel like I’m losing my mind.

I begrudge how life is going on around me, cars are passing by the house, the waves are hitting the shore, planes and birds are flying overhead, while my house and yard is in full, funereal lock-down, filled with reminders of loss everywhere, the emptiness of it is suffocating.

I’ve never experienced grief like this. Even when my parents died I was devastated but the pain wasn’t as severe, it didn’t cut through my soul with razer sharpness. Studies show that we bond with our dogs like we would with a child. We spend a great deal of time holding them and staring deeply into their eyes as we would a baby. They say a dog has the mentality of a two year old so they really are babies. Then they are with us 24/7, by our side, through all that we do and feel, always there to comfort and make us smile, waiting to do whatever we want, no sass or barktalk, they are good to go.

Now it’s all about rebuilding. Forcing myself to eat, trying not to cry so my one eyelid can heal. Remembering the good times and trying to diminish the trauma of the recently bad. Peel off the scab to allow the healing skin to breathe.

Along with the lack of purpose, I also have a new sense of freedom that brings feelings of guilt. I was out of coffee cream and dish detergent so I had to go downtown last evening. I fixed myself up as best I could and went to the drugstore. On the way there I realized I just left the house on my own, without my girl or the omnipresent worry of leaving her behind.   Honey needed constant watching so we never parted, only when hubby was home did I venture out to the store for provisions knowing she was in good hands. Well, not as good as mine of course, so there was always that nagging doubt and fear that tainted the outing. I’m the maternal one, the worrywart, the fusser, whereas hubby was more relaxed and maybe not as observant to her needs. I’d come home and she would have passed out because he hadn’t grabbed her up in time and I'd think, oh shit, won't be doing that again.....

I fretted she would die and I wouldn’t be with her. I needed to be there when she passed, so the warmth of my body and words of love whispered in her ear would perhaps give comfort as her beautiful light faded and went out. I used to park the car and rush to the door to scoop her up before the excitement built to a faint. Four dogs barking that a car was in the yard was a bit of a circus, noisy and charged with excitement. The anxiety of coming home left me breathless. She’d be so frantic to see me; wiggling and reaching out to me from daddy’s arms as if she too worried I wouldn’t be there for her. I suppose the only silver lining of putting an animal to sleep is the guarantee you will be there at the end.....

I don’t care what the so called experts say about dogs and their emotions. I wasn’t just part of a pack, ranking some position in their hierarchy; perhaps the top dog designation experts like to coin. Honey loved me, as pure as any love there is. All my dogs do. I can see it in their eyes, in their actions. It is LOVE, not some kind of loyalty because I feed them and care for them. They say now that a dog is much happier with their human than other dogs in the house so the experts might be getting closer to coming around to my way of thinking.

With a dog, it doesn’t matter if you are gone for five minutes or hours, they are just as excited to see you on your return.   You are their entire life and I like being needed to that degree, throw in my feelings and it’s a pretty balanced relationship. I need to be needed in a breathless kind of way, no human ever makes me feel like they would die without me and probably I wouldn’t want hubby to come bounding to the door when I arrive home and jump up and down to lick my face as if his life hung in the balance while I was away. But when a dog reacts that way, their unconditional love rushing into your waiting arms, well it’s simply wonderful! How true is this little anecdote: Lock your dog and your wife in the trunk of a car and come back in an hour, see which one is happy to see you.

The newness of being free of the burden of worry, is almost a burden in itself. I don’t want to feel free, not yet, not when my baby is barely cold in the ground. When I love something, I pay respect for their passing, I can’t be all rosy and smiling, not yet, it’s much too soon to move on. If I smile or laugh it’s for someone’s benefit, it’s a superficial facial motion to make others feel better, a mask like the tears of a clown. I’ve thought of that song today and how appropriate that the word “honey” is in the lyrics. I’ve capitalized the word to make it her name.

Tears of a Clown

by The Miracles

Oh yeah yeah yeah
Now if there's a smile on my face
It's only there trying to fool the public
But when it comes down to fooling you
Now Honey that's quite a different subject
But don't let my glad expression
Give you the wrong impression
Really I'm sad, oh I'm sadder than sad
You're gone and I'm hurting so bad
Like a clown I appear to be glad (sad, sad, sad, sad)
Now they're some sad things known to man
But ain't too much sadder than
The tears of a clown when there's no one around, uh
Oh yeah, baby
Now if I appear to be carefree
It's only to camouflage my sadness
And Honey to shield my pride I try
To cover this hurt with a show of gladness
But don't let my show convince you
That I've been happy since you
'Cause I had to go (why did you go), oh I need you so (I need you so)
Look I'm hurt and I want you to know (want you to know)
For others I put on a show (it's just a show)
Now they're some sad things known to man
But ain't too much sadder than
The tears of a clown when there's no one around, uh
Just like Pagliacci did
I try to keep my surface hid
Smiling in the crowd I try
But in my lonely room I cry
The tears of a clown
When there's no one around, oh yeah, baby
Now if there's a smile on my face
Don't let my glad expression
Give you the wrong impression
Don't let this smile I wear
Make you think that I don't care
'Cause really I'm sad

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Tomorrow, our last day together....

10/23/2017

65 Comments

A week or so ago a gentleman was in the shop with his wife and mentioned my absence from blogging. I told him that lately, with Honey so ill, my thoughts are steeped in sadness and how I don’t want to fill the pages with gloom.   He said he reads my blogs, enjoys them and hopes I get back to it soon. I was touched and felt a little guilty. Sometimes my life swallows me up and refuses to spit me out.   I try to fight the darkness that consumes me, but while I can still see beauty all around me, I can’t seem to feel it. The numbness that accompanies the sadness it is a cross I bear.

Things are coming to the end for my beloved girl as death taunts her now with the relentlessness of a dog with a bone. My days are filled with teary reminders that soon my little peanut won’t be giving me kisses or those big beautiful eyes won’t be following my every move. I feel so badly for her, she loves life and her family. She loves working at the shop greeting the customers that venture in. She’s a bright spot in a lot of people’s day. I thrilled that blogging will immortalize her, she’s known all over the world. People come in from different countries and say, “That’s Honey!” What a special little girl you have been, a princess of people’s hearts, the Lady Diana of pups. And like her, you too will die while still beautiful and well before your time.

Honey, my constant companion for 12 years, we’ve been through a lot of good times and of course some bad. She warmed the counter while watching my shop grow from the humble beginnings of one room to where we are today. She was beside me, comforting me, when we lost Louis after a tragic accident. She has been by my side when hubby is away at work so I never feel lonely. She is one of my best friends, always there for me, up late at night when I struggle to sleep, snuggled close when I’m feeling under the weather. I tell her my secrets and she never betrays me. She handled our boat like a seasoned sailor. She loves company, hauling out the Welcome Waggin, her tail spinning like a top. She was full of social skills, for both people and all dogs.

The heartbreak of losing her is no surprise; they come with that guarantee as a puppy. I didn’t have my head in the sand; ripe from losing our German Shepherd, I knew it was inevitable when our beloved pet’s lifespans don't equal ours.   They say the price of love is sorrow and of course that is part of it, but the joy they bring makes it so very worthwhile, and the reason why we do it over and over again.

So it’s time. I’m forced to deal with things, think thoughts I don’t want to think and face the big looming inevitable. I’m okay with death and bodies; it’s not seeing that sweet little face again that shreds my heart. It’s her absence I dread. Death is as much a part of life as birth, although one hopes that there is plenty of filler in between. But it’s never enough is it? No matter how much time we have, all we want is more, another day, an hour, two minutes.

It’s been a roller coaster ride to the end. I think she’s ready and then she does something hopeful, finds a burst of energy to run after a ball or shakes a squeaky toy, eats out of the bowl instead of being spoon fed against her will. Then I second guess what I know, replacing it with what I feel. The big internal debate, do I set her free on a good day or a bad day? To me, it seems like murder on a good day and mercy on a bad one. I’ve been flip-flopping back and forth; trying to make the right decision and just when I think I’m ready to commit, my heart gets involved and overrules my head.

That is until today. After she had an uncomfortable night, of watching her struggle to breathe, I faced facts this morning and made the appointment. Then she surprised me by eating on her own, not much but enough nibbles to sustain her, but I won’t waver, I can’t waver, she is frail, skin and bone, she makes little noises when I pick her up indicating pain. She sleeps so much now, as if it’s a cure for a failing heart.   Her eyes, although always on me are now sad, the spark has burned out. I know it’s time, to be exact, tomorrow at 5:30 PM, we will say our goodbyes and my tears will soak her little head for the last time.

I don’t do death well, there’s a part of me that can’t let go, mourning to pathetic proportions. I don’t have much experience watching people grieve, so I’m not well versed in the subtleties of it all. How I should act? What’s deemed acceptable in duration? I kind of go off the rails, led by my aching heart. Over the top and not far from the edge, that’s me. I’m the kind of person people shake their heads at; tell me I’m loved despite my quirks.

The truth is, I literally want to die when one of my babies pass. With Louis I crawled into my bed for three months and cried myself sick. His death was a tragic accident; he was bitten by a black widow spider in the woodpile. One day I was on top of the world and the next I fell headlong into a dark abyss. I had no time to adjust or prepare like I have with Honey’s long illness, not that time makes it any easier. But I will be better able to function, get on with life sooner, go to work although tears will be at the ready, lingering at the ducts waiting for one of a thousand emotional triggers to let loose the flood gates. I’ll leave the mascara in the drawer and tissues in my pocket for a while. I know she wouldn’t want me to be sad or cry, but I’m not as brave as she is….

My fear has kept me awake nights, dozens of times reaching out to see if she is breathing, if that enlarged heart is still beating; sometimes when she is really close to me, I can feel the vibration of it in the night. But I’m also torn, hoping she is gone when I touch her, cold and empty of her essence naturally. All along I’ve hoped I wouldn’t have to decide her fate; I wanted it to be a natural passing, on her own terms and peaceful.

I’m not oblivious to some who think I am well over the top, I know some pets are not treated like anything more than chattel. One woman told me they put their dog down after it had a seizure and threw up some blood. She complained that it took a week to get the stain out of the carpet. My God, I thought, that poor baby. My Honey has been peeing the bed since they put her on diuretics a year ago. I’ve never done so much laundry in my life; and you all know how I dislike laundry! I’ve cleaned up the occasional diarrhea that’s part and parcel of medications, I’ve set the alarm once and sometimes twice to get up through the night to take her outside so she doesn’t have to lie in discomfort with a swollen bladder, reducing what little sleep I seem to get but never too tired to kiss her on the way back to bed and assure her she is loved. I always gave her as much water as she can drink, never worrying about the wet blankets and quite frankly, that might be the reason she hung on for so long, instead of dehydrating from the drugs that don't discriminate where they took fluid from, I made sure she had plenty of reserve. I’ve massaged her twice daily, morning and night, cooked her favourite foods, bought her endless grocery store roasted chickens because the last few months she only wanted to eat knuckles. I carried her from pillar to post, through the heat of summer and the hot flashes her warm body created. I’ve not eaten in a restaurant or left her alone for five minutes in almost a year, turned down social events because I would never leave her alone, she was the center of my universe for as long as she needed to be. I begrudged nothing, I’ve had no complaints, and I’ve felt no inconvenience. For me she is family, adopted into my life and treasured as much as human flesh and blood. She was never a burden and for me, putting her down was never an option.....until pain got involved.

I get far more from my babies than they get from me, the unconditional love is limitless, and having four poodles, my cup runneth over with liquid gold.   Holding one of their tiny bodies in my arms a parental warmth washes over me, I’m their mother in every sense of the word. I would do anything for them.

I’ve spent the day crying and holding her. I tremble knowing what tomorrow will take from us both. My eyes are swollen; my left eyelid has exploded with ulcers, burned by acidic, salty tears. The lid is red, ripped apart and bleeding as grief flows from my body through this small conduit. I’m a sight for sore eyes but my Honey doesn’t mind, she licks my hand and snuggles up to me as if I’m the most important thing in the world and to her I am, so it shatters my heart into a million pieces knowing I’m the one calling the shots that will end her life.

I’ve been in a constant stasis of grief for a year, I’ve been sad since her diagnosis. Every faint, every cough, every stumble breaks me. I feel so badly for her and I hate that I can’t fix her. She has outlived the expectations of our vet; they are amazed she has hung around considering she has been in the last stages of Congestive Heart Failure since that fateful appointment back in November. She’s almost made it a year, saw her 12th birthday in September, things were to the point where I hoped Christmas might be possible, but now I think we’ve done all we can and love is no longer a good enough reason for either of us to hold on.

I whisper in her ear that she should die on her own terms, but she refuses to leave me, her hoes and bros, her daddy. Even as I write this she stares at me, sometimes winking her left eye as if she knows. She still follows me wherever I am in the house, our bond an invisible tether.

Her heart beats on, steady and loud; it shakes her body, rocking it back and forth. Her lungs are clear and she still breathes deeply, the problem is with her abdomen, it’s filled with fluid, pressing on her lungs and causes breathing problems. She eats less, her stomach is squeezed by the fluid. We had the liquid removed once, a traumatic event for Honey which failed to drain enough of the fluid to do any good and afterwards her entire abdomen turned black from bruising. It was tender and sore and I swore I wouldn’t do that again. No heroic measures, they aren’t worth frightening her only to grab a few more days of reprieve. She doesn’t understand we are trying to save her. We can’t communicate that, all she sees and feels is the pain of needles, the sterile, frightening environment and strangers poking and prodding, forcing her on her back for x-rays and the awful horse sized pills she has to ingest twice a day.   When the technicians whisk her away from me for procedures, she stresses, her heart beats even faster threatening to explode and I’m on pins and needles until she returns to my arms. She shakes like a bobble head, pulled and pushed to and fro by the pounding of her enlarged heart. Animals don’t understand the world of medicine, this is not a part of their natural, instinctive world. In the wild they get sick, crawl away, find a hole and die and accept it readily as their fate.

Tomorrow I plan to take her to the beach; she loves the smells of salt air, seaweed and dried sea creatures buried in the rocks. She loves to sit and watch the ebb and flow of the ocean, she loves the breeze tugging her ears as she stares off into the horizon. It will be a rough day for me counting down the hours. I will be held hostage by grief until she is gone only then can I slowly emerge from the sadness. I will rejoice that she was in my life and know that I gave her the best possible existence any little dog could imagine. She hit the puppy lottery with me as her mom and I think she knows it. I have nothing to be ashamed of and every reason to be proud of the care and love her daddy and I have given her.

My sweet girl will never be far from my thoughts; my love is not the kind that fades away. I just turn a page to a new chapter; the previous chapters will always remain intact, emotions and all.   I love all my babies that have gone before me, deeper than words can express, they will always be a part of me, their beautiful faces etched on my memory; all I have to do is close my eyes to see them.

Max, my German Shepard, now gone 15 years, his leather collar still hangs on the backdoor doorknob. It jingles every time the door opens and fills me with comfort.   I snipped a curl of Honey’s tail hair, a piece of her that will bring comfort as well, added next to Louis’s photograph on a kitchen shelf, my white toy poodle boy, who only lived on this earth for two short but precious years before he was taken, I forge a bond as strong as steel with my animal babies that can never be broken…..

“We, who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own, live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way.” ........Irving Townsend

65 Comments

Nova Scotia Treasures

10/11/2017

21 Comments

I’ve been dog tired for the past couple of weeks. I’m averaging about three hours of sleep per night and my brain is beginning to feel like I’m seeing through waxed paper. The other day, I knew things were really off when I meant to top up the pup’s drinking bowl, filled a cup under the tap and proceeded to pour it over one of their beds. It reminds me of the time when I tried to wash a yard of Dorr wool in the toilet bowl, mistaking it for the washing machine after a particularly lengthy stint of insomnia.

There was a time I could stay up all night, dance on tables and see the sun rise on a new day; be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at work and still put out a so-so amount of productivity. Nowadays I’m barely able to string a few cognitive thoughts together if I don’t get eight hours.

What began this reign of sleeplessness was taking on a hooking project with a sharp deadline, one of those no ifs, buts, or maybes, it has to be done. I was intrigued when I first heard about it and with hubby away it was doable. When he’s gone my social life….wait a minute….what social life? The point is when he’s away working; I feel freer to pursue extra things. It’s not anything he demands, I just like to hang with him when he’s home, enjoying the novelty of it all. When he’s away, there’s no one to plan meals around, no obligation to consider anyone’s feelings but my own.

Although this may sound appealing to some, having that omnipresent husband under their feet 24/7, don’t envy me, there are also the negatives of being alone. Sure nothing calls on my time to distract me, but then there’s little social fun and worse, no sailing.

The project appealed to the designer in me and it was a forum to showcase my ability as a rug hooker when I am more known as a designer. And more intriguing I also knew I could experiment with my favourite colours, red, blue and gold, the trifecta of all things exciting in my “primary" focused brain.

A couple of weeks ago, a gal popped into the shop looking to purchase a rug featuring highlights of Nova Scotia, of which I had nothing to offer. She wanted the rug to be given as an award of excellence for an event held by Destination Canada to be explained below, and needed it by September 5th. I thought about it and said that I could design something specifically; the time allowed was too short for a large sized rug, so I offered to do a 14” x 26” piece and would incorporate a few provincial icons. The deadline was Monday, Sept 25, without exceptions so I couldn’t go over the top with detail. The race was on.

The shop is busy, that goes without saying, and then hubby came home unexpectedly, so the design got placed on the backburner for a few days so we could reconnect and get a few things done that needed doing. The pressure was there, the pot boiled over singeing the joy of his return, and then there was the boat. We’d not been sailing at all this summer as he was away, so I was hot to get out there and feel the wind in my hair and stay aboard our sea cottage for a night or two. But although the fun had begun, that design kept niggling at me and I finally had to get with it or let her know it wasn’t feasible. She said she had a backup plan so the pressure was mostly on me, but I’d given my word so I had to follow through.

I worked on the design, which was quite exciting and I started laying loops and let me tell you, I was thrilled with the progress, the colours absolutely glowed on my frame. I was trying to make up for lost time and hooking into the wee hours of the morning every night, I even took the rug on the boat with me once but that was a waste of time as I’m more interested in napping while at anchor, I drift off like a baby in the gentle motion, calling the belly of Catalyst II, a teak womb.

So the deadline is closing in at a fast pace and I think I can do it if I don’t go to work, don’t eat or sleep for the next four days. But, good intentions and all, the clock ran out Monday and I needed two more days of hooking and one day to do the finishing. So I emailed the gal my apologies saying I would love to do it for next year and sent her a photo of my progress. She must have liked what she saw because her reply came back extending the deadline to Friday.   I assured her I could and would get it finished.

So that was the end of my sleep. Every night I worked well into the night pulling loops, and Wednesday and Thursday I was still up to greet the sun. I’m a fast hooker but I’m not a machine, I'm a mere mortal with limitations, and didn’t have the benefit of elves sneaking in after I'd crawled into bed to aid the progress.

And don’t think there was an ounce of sleep to be had when my head finally hit the pillow, I was so keyed with adrenalin I saw the sun creep up all the way,   squeezing the light of day through the cracks in my blinds, burning through my eyelids to keep me from drifting off. In four days I’d had eight hours of sleep, not enough for anyone to function on.

Tuesday morning as I lay awake, frustrated and as tired as an old dishcloth, the Nova Scotia tartan idea was born for the two side borders. An excellent afterthought where I had imagined a hit and miss would go. I even toyed with printing NOVA on the left and SCOTIA on the right in vertical lettering but there is a part of me that doesn’t care for souvenirs that boast the name of the location they come from. The change was designed and hooked on Wednesday. Once the drawing was down, filling in the colours came quickly and being a repetitive pattern it practically hooked itself. There was a lot of three cut to squeeze it all in but I never shy away from a fine cut when the detail is paramount.

The whipping went quickly in the mindless fashion it usually does, which was great because by then I could barely rub two thoughts together, but the darn sewing of the rug binding and the little custom label I had took forever. It was all small stitches, needle pricks, blood and swearing under my breath as not to disturb any of the sleeping pups and hubby. It took two hours to sew it all on, two hours! I’d glance at the clock seeing the minutes tick by as my needle stitched away, I might not be fast but I’m good, you can’t see a bit of thread on the back and that kind of effort takes time. I’m nothing, if not a professional hooker!

It all came together and I sent it off Friday, whipped and steam pressed. I enjoyed it so much I’m considering hooking it again for the studio, this time of course at a realistic pace. I think a rug of our beautiful province would be very happy in the studio, taking its place among the other hooked rugs of the shop.

The ordeal took me three days to recover from. The stress and anxiety, the panic and the pressure took its toll. So then you might ask, “Why did you do it Christine?”   You never sell your rugs; you like to look at the creations that come out of you, keep them around like old friends. Why invite that kind of pressure, especially when dealing with an ill pup and a busy shop?

Well good question, I don’t have a clue why I put myself through that wringer, but I have to say the rug that resulted from the effort was brilliant. In my humble opinion that is.... And if I had the chance to do it all again would I? Your darn tootin I would, cause I love to create and tell a good story!

Once it was packed up and taken away, I felt let down and kind of empty. The rug had been a very intense focus for so many days that I felt lost. I went home Friday evening and sat in my hooking chair with nothing to work on and I twitched uncomfortably, got up and paced the floor. It’s like a spring had been wound really tight and now it was unwinding and I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. That feeling lingered for the weekend as I faded in an out of sleep.   Now it all seems like a dream and if not for the photo I could convince myself that I imagined it all.

Although seeing the rug go was difficult, I try to balance those emotions with the knowledge my rug will be given to someone in a foreign country that will appreciate it, perhaps hang it in an office or place of honour. It would be too sad to think it was put it in a closet or trunk to be forgotten. I can’t control any of this but I sure like to think the receiver was gob smacked when he was presented with it. We received a phone call saying my Nova Scotia Treasures rug is going to be well traveled, taken all the way to Australia by writer Max Anderson. Wow!

A lit bit about the event my rug was featured in:

This year Nova Scotia is thrilled to host Destination Canada's Go Media Canada Marketplace 2017 in Halifax, October 1-5. Go Media is a signature networking event bringing together top media and travel journalists from across Canada and around the world to meet with marketing and communications professionals from various tourism organizations across Canada. Media attendees include domestic and international applicants representing top-tier print, broadcast, radio and online outlets. Internationally, media are invited from the US, UK, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, South Korea, China, Mexico, Brazil and India.

Each year, Destination Canada celebrates the best in travel and tourism storytelling by presenting the Explore Canada Awards of Excellence to celebrate stellar content creation from the tourism industry and travel media. Part of the event includes the presentation of awards to 5 selected travel media in recognition of their contributions towards helping to promote Canada as a travel destination. Nova Scotia is responsible for providing these "awards" which are to reflect the destination and be a "memory" of their achievement.

We would like to purchase one of your hooked rugs as one of the awards. We are looking for something that represents Nova Scotia in look/design. We would provide recognition during the awards presentation with verbal acknowledgement of the gift, recognition on signage / digital displays and a one-page information sheet for the award recipient telling the story behind your Nova Scotia inspired gift. Delivery would be required no later than September 25.

Max Anderson. The recipient of my rug being presented.
He's Australian and pretty darn good look'in.

21 Comments

Update on my Honey

8/23/2017

28 Comments

I’m sitting here with my coffee as distant rumblings of thunder tell a tale of things to come. It’s a bit of a grey day, dismal really, but they can’t all be sunshine and roses. Our lawn is fried to a crisp so we could use a bit of rain.

Lately the weather doesn't predict my mood, Honey does. If she faints it taints the day, if she makes it to bedtime without passing out, its glorious. I’m not deluded, things will get worse before the end, but in the meantime I’m working two steps ahead of every scenario to keep her safe. Every faint brings her closer to the inevitable and I’m not ready to face that just yet. I probably never will, life without my precious girl will be less brilliant for a very long time.

I have noticed she's slowing down a bit, but she's still happy, she eats, and she wants to play although I have to put a stop to that. Any excitement sets her off, her heart beats wildly, her blood pressure drops and then so does she, wobbling on four legs and then crashing to the floor in a sickening thump, as limp and lifeless as death itself. I have dreams of her in my arms, falling limp and lifeless, her head hanging down, her tongue dangling past her lips, her eyes loosing that spark, the essence of her. I know what it's like; my Louis passed away and I held him in my arms, I still feel the ache of it.

I wake up with heartbreak crushing my chest, it’s almost like a cruel practice for that terrible day when the dream becomes a reality. I’m not sure why I’m tortured so, other than my thoughts never stray from her illness, it’s the main focus of my life, every second of every minute of every day. No wonder it haunts my dreams. I love my animals deeply, they mean as much to me as any human life, they are a part of me and I am a part of them, the bond we share is stronger than steel.

Usually she’s in my arms when she passes out. The second I see the telltale signs I’ve grabbed her up to comfort and help her through it. I’ve gotten very good at detecting them, it’s like I know instinctively when it will happen. A mother’s instinct is a powerful thing and I am her mother in every sense of the word except genetically. I’m so afraid she’ll pass out if I’m not there and just keep going into the dark night. I truly believe I help her heart to start up again by stimulating her with caresses and hugs and my gentle voice telling her she’s loved and special. Sometimes after a particularly rough day of spells, I even tell her she can go if she needs too, I’ve heard the stories of animals lingering for their humans so I tell her I’ll be okay even though I don’t mean it. Obviously she isn’t ready to leave me just yet.

She’s nowhere near the end of her life, she’s a happy little peanut, no one’s told her she’s got an iffy ticker. She goes to work with me each day and does her bit at the shop, schmoozing and playing cute. Everyone stops to talk or pet her so she’s soaking up all the attention, especially from men. She’s always been a floozy, loves the male gender and makes the extra effort to smell them and get a few extra scratches on the head or belly. It’s funny how four legged and two legged animals interact with that kind of chemistry. The bond a son has with his mom and the daddy’s girl scenario seems to apply with dogs and humans as well.

So today has started well, no faint yet. My goal is to have three days in a row without an incident, but we haven’t been able to rack up more than two. In the meantime I don’t leave her side. It’s been almost seven months we’ve been joined at the hip. No eating out or socializing unless she accompanies me and no complaining about it either. She’s my number one priority right now. I left her once for groceries when it was too hot to leave her in the car and she fainted from the excitement of my return even though I parked in the driveway and literally ran to the door, let myself in and swept her up in my arms. Fiz, the barker of the family had warned the pack that a car pulled in and had the pups whipped into frenzy before I’d even gotten it in park. Fiz sits in the window like a sentinel and keeps the pack updated on bikers riding by, kayakers in the harbour, cars coming and going at the neighbour’s, she’s a nosy, gossiping, busy body so I’ve since learned to earned to keep the curtains closed.

So we live from one day to the next with fingers crossed. I awake in the morning and see her smiling face and thank her for hanging around another day. I wake up a dozen times through the night to touch her in the darkness to feel warmth and breath coming from her tiny body. Her birthday is September 11 and our wish is that she’ll live to see twelve candles on her liver cake, then perhaps another Christmas......

28 Comments

Mahone Bay through the camera lens...

8/21/2017

7 Comments

I must admit I was a bit disappointed in the eclipse. All the hype and there was little to see in my neck of the woods. Of course I wasn’t prepared to look up at the sun so I really couldn’t say what actually did occur, but the brightness of the day didn’t change from the view of my living room window. I relied on the internet to show me the various observations from across North America. Some were spectacular, giving folks a great front row seat; I think we were more in the nose bleed section missing the show. I hope everyone played it safe, no eye damage!

Despite not being wowed by today’s monumental event, I don’t have any complains where I live and the word to sum up my feelings would be “blessed”. If the stork dropped you off in Mahone Bay, and you managed to stay to an age where appreciation for our spectacular harbour view and quaint little town is coveted, you’d feel like me, that we live in paradise.

In our fast-paced lives sometimes we forget to look at how much beauty surrounds us. Sometimes we don’t see what’s right in front of us or take the time to really drink in what our eyes perceive. Like how we stop seeing our homes, until we go on vacation and come home after a couple of weeks. How they feel different, smell different, seem fresh and bright, as if seeing it for the very first time.

Through their camera lenses, there are a couple of photographers that are helping to remind us just how much our town shines. During early morning jaunts and dusk travels, two have really made it their passion to showcase picturesque Mahone Bay, and it’s abundantly clear our town doesn’t have a bad side. Lloyd Westhaver and Betty Meredith remind us of our fantastic sunsets and rises and sights about town and on the water. “We love the beauty around us and welcome you to share it” is on signs at both ends of the town to welcome visitors to our little patch of the world. I’m sure a lot of folks leave envious of our good fortune and some have decided to call the Mahone Bay home. We call them CFA’s, come from away’s, but really they should be called LSS, lucky so-in-so’s. I know I thank my lucky stars I never moved away. Many moons ago I felt embarrassed not to have spread my wings and flown the coop, but now I couldn’t imagine perching anywhere else......

Betty Meredith photo

Lloyd Westhaver photo

Betty Meredith photo

Lloyd Westhaver photo

7 Comments

A rough morning....

8/15/2017

18 Comments

I awoke to a pulsating, ear piecing wale. If a noise can be described by a motion, it was like waxing a car, the hand moving in a circular fashion over and over to buff it to a brilliant shine. The smoke alarm was singing its mournful tune, its blare cutting clean through to the bone, round and round it went, if not for the fact it is deafening, it could almost be musical in its deliverance. Although momentarily dazed and confused, I’m up off the sofa like a shot, the grey cells quickly assessing my surroundings. I smell and see the smoke, billowing out of the stove-top like dark clouds rolling in before a storm. The liver! The dog’s breakfast!

Pieces of organ meat are charred beyond recognition, cremated under the glass lid. Not only is the meat dead for a second time, my new Paderno pan is toast.

My biggest concern is for my pups, especially Honey, and the high pitched squeal that must be wreaking havoc on their sensitive ears. Surprisingly, the noise frightens them into silence, normally they’d be barking their arses off, but this hullabaloo is bigger than any commotion they can make. Unlike the sound of the wind gently banging the screen door on its frame or the hooves of wandering deer crunching on the gravel outside, this din is big, perhaps dinosaur sized and coming for them.

I grabbed the pan by the handle, it’s hot so I set it down on the cutting board, leaving a black imprint, the heat of its bottom searing into the wood like a branding iron. Wrapping a tea towel around the handle I head for the door, throw it open and set the pan on the ground, taking the offending trail of smoke with me. Then I run back into the house and start throwing open windows and doors to air out the house.

I know the fire department will come, they always do, and now that the house is safe, my concern is for my appearance. I’m still in my nightie, everything loose and flopping beneath. My hair is greasy and my face has red blotches that I would die if someone should see.

The alarm is still blaring and I grab the tea towel to swing in front of the smoke detector. That doesn’t work so I attack the panel, pressing buttons with abandon. The phone rings and I run to answer it, see that its ADT so I get out that I burned the dogs breakfast but we’re cut off because I’m still trying to kill the alarm at the panel. Protocol is to let it run, answer the phone, explain that it’s not a life threatening emergency and they will shut it off from their end. Now I know I’m screwed as I hear the fire truck siren start up in the distance, I know they are coming for me......

So I abandon the phone, happily the alarm is now off, perhaps they heard me explain how I burned the dogs breakfast before we were disconnected, so I run upstairs to throw on a bra and clothes, the siren blaring closer and louder as the pumper truck barrels towards the house. My hair is unfixable so I don a ball cap, about as unnatural looking on me as a hat on a foot. I smear on foundation to cover the broken veins and red bulbous nose and from a short distance it will suffice, but up close it would be an embarrassing paint job, like an old lady putting on rouge.

So the pups and I wait for the boys to arrive. The dogs look at me like I might be crazy, flying around the kitchen trying to tidy up the mess from last night’s meal. I might be careless and burn stuff, but I’m proud and don’t want anyone to see all the rib bones and remnants of vegetable peelings, wrappers and debris lying about.

I’m worried all the firemen will set Honey into a tailspin of fainting and seizures. Yesterday she fainted three times, once while lying in her bed and one of them was followed by some sort of seizure, a new, unsettling development in her illness. Her tiny body thrashed around, from one side to another while her stiff limbs pointed straight up. She collapsed when the repair guy came to the shop to have a look at our heat pump. She jumped down from the chair and danced around his legs for a pick-me-up before I realized what she was doing. Next thing she’s on the floor and I fell to my knees to help while she fainted, then came to and seized before I could pick her up. A new development I’m not prepared for. I had a rough and trying day yesterday, several appointments and emotional stresses and I was exhausted.

So that was why I had to nap shortly after getting up this morning. I put their liver in the fry pan, and I knew I should have put on the timer for 10 minutes but my fog rattled brain was too busy directing my body toward the sofa to lie down while it cooked. I always put water in the pan so it steam fries, but it was medium heat and went well over an hour so it dried then burned to a crisp, scorched the hell out of the cover and the fry pan and then the alarm went off.

I’m still in a fog, my eyes mere slits even though the excitement of the morning should have jarred me fully awake. The acrid smell of char is strong, a constant reminder of this morning’s event. I’m still so tired I want to crawl into a hole, close my eyes and sleep, but there is chicken cooking on the stove now, the replacement for the liver. I’m trying to stay awake by writing. No one wants a repeat of earlier this morning more than me and the pups want their breakie....then perhaps a little nap......

18 Comments

Reinventing the stair riser......

8/11/2017

1 Comment

Our Nautical and Country Risers aren’t just for the stairs. People are coming up with all kinds of interesting spots to hang them. I love it when I’m presented with clever ideas and hooking our riser patterns to hang over doors and windows is a fabulous suggestion, capping off a normally forgotten area with a lively decorative feature. The only downside is looking up to take in these fiber art beauties and tripping over the threshold!

Adena Clark hooked our Compass Rose Riser for her brother’s newly launched boat that he lovingly built from scratch. How wonderful is that? I see the boat sailing by our house and I’m thrilled that one of my designs is in its cabin! Two designs actually, as Adena hooked the riser patterns Wind & Waves we put together as a complete rug; another great suggestion! I’m in the process of finishing the Wind and have already completed the Waves so they will adorn the studio staircase shortly.

Check out the many Nautical and Country stair riser pattern available on our New Designs Website page by clicking this link:
http://www.encompassingdesigns.com/new-designs.html

So for those of you that don’t have staircases in your one level home, but adore the patterns and groan that they can’t serve you as beautifully as they do my shop steps, here is a way to hook and enjoy your favourite riser design out of the many available.

I’ve always said any item serves more than one purpose; I’m always coming up with ways to reinvent items and add interest to my home, so I adore the idea to hang a riser in areas around the house. One would also look fabulous on a coffee table next to a book or a candle holder, how about a table runner? You name it and it would be a wonderful embellishment for your home. If you can think of other ways to display one of our risers let me know, I’m always interested!

Our Mermaid Riser swimming over the top of our pattern room door.

Above is a Cape Henry 21 design sailboat called "Elvee" built by Ryerson Clark. (Photo by Ryerson Clark) Hubby and I say she is beautiful boat to behold.
Rugs hooked by his sister, Adena Clark.

1 Comment

Black and blue and happy all over.....

8/8/2017

6 Comments

I've been distracted by boat maintenance and being so tired at night that I fall into bed half comatose, not able to rub two thoughts together worth writing about.

We launched out boat after a week of back and arm breaking work, rubbing on the oxidation cream, wiping it off and then waxing her entire topside, shear agony for the rotator cuff. Then applying the bottom paint and all the mold removal that is typical from a boat sitting under a tarp. My legs still have a chemical burn where I lay on the cabin top in a pool of Spray 9 bubbles, blitzing the mold dots into oblivion while creating red rash dots on my legs. I hoped perhaps the chemical burn would prevent the hairs from growing, avoiding the need to shave, but no such luck as a healthy new growth continues. There’s no easy way to scrub the deck; the space is narrow between the cabin top and the life lines. I can only bend so much and twist my poor body into painful contortions for so long, so I sit on my butt and work from that position, soaked with the cleaner.

If either hubby or I were to end up dead and our corpse lands on an undertaker's slab, the police would be called in to investigate a suspicious death. We are covered in bruises from head to toe, scabbed from cuts and scrapes. We look like we took a nasty beating, punched and kicked in the shins, butt and arms. One of us would surely be sitting in jail for the other’s murder. Boat bites! She sinks her teeth into us as if she begrudges our efforts. We work so very hard to make her shine and she nips us as if we're taking a bone from a junkyard dog.   I suppose it’s bound to happen in tight quarters, so much to bang into or fall over. Maybe we’re a bunch of klutzes, off balance and accident prone, our continuous cry of "ouch" a duet out of tune. We now move like old men, bent at the hips and knees, practically dragging our knuckles on the ground, our bodies sore to the marrow. We grown getting out of a chair, reaching down to pet a pup on the floor, getting out of bed.

This past weekend was the Heritage Shipyard Weekend and hubby is on the committee and when he came downstairs with shorts on I took one look at his legs and gasped. They looked like a dog’s breakfast after a regurgitation, so I got out my compact and covered all the raging redness and scars with foundation. They looked like a new pair of legs, I couldn’t believe the transformation! This way, no one would think he suffered from scurvy or scabies, or some other debilitating illness that turns skin to a ragtag mess, making him approachable for questions or conversation.

Despite being top to bottom, black-and-blue, it’s rewarding work to bring our boat back to her former glory. Like renovating a house, it comes with a great deal of satisfaction, but I’m beginning to understand the joke how a boat is a hole in the water that you throw money into. Luckily we can keep the expense down by doing a lot of work ourselves, and quite frankly, the few jobs we had the so called professionals do have not served us well. Three hatches had their old Lexan changed for new, complete with new gaskets and all leaked like a sieve with today’s rain. A paint job around the ignition panel to cover a previous bad paint job left the surface lumpy and streaky. The paint colour matching was excellent but the technique of applying the finish was juvenile at best. I could have done better with a spatula.

Did I tell you the engine died on our way to Mahone Bay after the launch? I mean what the? We’re still waiting for parts so she sits on the mooring without a motor. We can run it for a short time, enough to get to the wharf but she overheats when taxed and the alarms screech and the bells ring so we can’t go sailing. If the wind were to die, the sail would be useless and we’d have to throw out the anchor and be stranded or dash upon the rocks along the shore.

Although sailing is the ultimate reward for all the work, I’m not bothered too much. As long as I’m on her, whether being on the hard or sitting in the harbour, I find the greatest peace and joy in her surroundings. Laying in her belly on a bunk or stretched out along her cockpit I feel truly at peace. I napped on her Sunday, we were tied up at the wharf so the marine electronics guy who has a broken leg and cast could get on board to install an inverter that converts 12 volt power into 120 volt. Although time at the wharf is included with our mooring fee, it is difficult to get in as other boats pay to hang there, so last year we never got in to run a vacuum on shore power and the boat got pretty grungy. So now I can clean her anywhere. I have lots of sanding to do this year as I am refreshing her teak inside the cabin and clean-up will be a breeze. I must admit having to do so much cleaning was a revelation that surprised me. I thought on the water things would stay pristine but the place gets as dirty as home.

So after the electronics guy left I basked in the sun. Monday was Natal Day and the shop was closed so I hung on the boat all day as well. We stayed at the wharf until they asked us to leave. I’ve not felt that kind of relaxation and total bliss for some time. Honey and I curled up and slept in the cockpit, even though people came to the end of the wharf and saw us. I hope I didn’t drool too much but I wasn’t concerned enough to go below. We were cuddled under a blanket and had the best, deep sleep I’ve had in a long time, rocking gently to and fro as if floating in a mother’s womb.

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A friend kicked and hit my dog.....

Christmas Stockings and other stuff....

Just a "Little" pillow talk....

2017 Main Street Hooker Christmas Party!

My holidays....

Holiday Hours

Happy Birthday to me!

Coffee in bed? Not bloody likely.....

Another theft and another rant.....

Venturing out again....

Time to make the doughnuts....

Alternate way to finish a Christmas stocking....

Puzzled?

From boring to beautacious!

The Good OL Hockey Game....

A very sincere thank-you......

Farewell to our angel.....

The tears of a clown.....

Tomorrow, our last day together....

Nova Scotia Treasures

Update on my Honey

Mahone Bay through the camera lens...

A rough morning....

Reinventing the stair riser......

Black and blue and happy all over.....

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