Saturday, November 02, 2013




The first weekend of November 2013 ... does
anyone know what happened to October???
It seems to have passed by in a flash which is
frustrating to me because it's my favourite 
month. The fact that  there are two major 
holidays in October probably has something 
to do with it.    Thanksgiving and 
Halloween.   

November came in like a lion with strong
winds and heavy rain although the temperatures
were quite mild, thank goodness.   There
was concern that Halloween would be 
spoiled by the weather and indeed it wasn't
the most pleasant of nights out but the 
heaviest rain and the strongest winds did not
occur until much later in the night so the
kids were able to get out and do their 
trick or treating without too much hardship.

Whether the parents who accompanied them
would agree to that observation or not I can't 
say.   Many of them stood on the sidewalk 
in front of our house huddled under an 
umbrella, sometimes clutching a cup of 
some sort of hot beverage and trying to
be patient as their offspring went from
door to door.   

We had about 50 kids come to our door
between 6:30 and 8:00 which is about
normal for us.    We handed out the
mini chocolate bars by the hand full
and I'm very proud of the fact that I
did not eat a single one (or multiples)
of those delicious morsels.   We had
lots left over because I tend to err on
the side of caution when it comes to
preparing for special occasions such
as this so on Friday morning the 
caldron went to work with DH and 
it returned home that night empty!!!!



Thank you for the kind words about
my zentangles Rowyn and Vonna.
I've been filling small sketch books
with my practice pages as well as 
 finished pages such as these here.



I do use a protractor .... is that the
right term? ... a compass?? ... for
the mandala designs since I cannot
draw a decent circle to save my life.


Here is a great site for finding zentangle
patterns and instructions on how to
make them. 

.
And needless to say I have a few (cough,
cough) books on the subjects too.   These
are some of my favourites.   I love the Designs
Originals publications.  


These three books are smallish in size but are
jam packed with instructions and ideas.  I refer
to them all the time. 

Just a warning .... these things are crazy addictive.
Once you start, you might not be able to stop.
You've been warned!


And since one cannot indulge in too many
hobbies here is another of my (our) favourites.
I began a Lizzie Kate Christmas design this
week and am enjoying it so much. 


Whenever I have some spare time I sit at my
desk stitching and listening to talk radio on
my computer.   I'm stitching this one in 
hand ... without use of any kind of frame ...
which is something that I haven't done for a
long time.   For these smaller projects at least
it works just fine.  I have to use a table magnifier
and an Ott-Lite as well to see properly.

This is being stitched on 32 count Lugana in 
Light Taupe ... which doesn't translate well
in either of these pictures.  

***********************************

Toronto has been in a tizzy for the past
few days thanks to some unexpected and 
astonishing revelations about the city's
mayor Rob Ford.   Allegations of the mayor's 
drug and alcohol abuse, rumoured and hinted 
about for months, plus reports of a video 
showing the mayor posing with suspected 
drug dealers whilst smoking from a crack pipe
have been rampant for half the year but
the mayor has strenuously denied everything
and angrily heaped abuse and scorn at anyone 
(newspaper reporters) who claimed any of it 
was true.  

On Thursday Toronto's police chief 
announced that the alleged video had
been found in the deleted files of a 
computer and the police had a copy of
it.   Oops!

Cries for the mayor to step down and get
help for his problems are coming loudly
from all quarters but he is still denying
all of it and refusing to quit.   

So it's been an interesting time for sitting
and stitching and listening to talk radio.

Note:    I am not at all fond of the mayor
in any case.   Although he does seem to
have done some good work in the early
part of his term in office he is also - to me -
an obnoxious, overbearing bully who 
has been systematically alienating both
allies and opponents in his push to 
implement all his plans for the city and 
he is definitely not a suitable representative
of the city to the rest of Canada and the
world.

********************************

Time to get back to the stitching and the
talk radio.   Have a great week all.

Cheers!




4 comments:

Judy S. said...

Great to see you back, Judy!

Rowyn said...

We bought a bunch of chocolate for Halloween this year, and no one turned up. It was bucketing out of the heavens though. So DH and I ate it! I wish I had, had the willpower not to. lol

Loving your zentangles. I've got some proper pens on order to give it a go - I can't wait until they arrive.

Enjoy your Christmas stitching. The big day isn't really too far away!

Jennifer said...

Hi Judy, Glad to see you blogging again . Love your Zentangles. Beautiful . I am almost done Christmas rules but picked up another stitch to make for Elisabeth for Christmas so have been working on that.. You are inspiring me to get a blog entry going. Hope all is well . ox

Andrea said...

You zentangles are great. It's just started to emerge over here.