NO SNOW; SUPPORT LOCAL - RANT ON!

I am going to go on yet another mini-rant today.  I discovered something yesterday while shopping at the IGA in a little town near here, that has me really buzzed.

But first - the snow has not materialized... I think we have escaped that for now - good thing too, because we have just realized that we don't have a snow shovel.  We left it behind for our son when he bought our home in the Peg - we will remedy that very very soon, needless to say!

So, no snow - we decided we should go and pick up a couple of things in case it does snow - and we just felt like getting out for a bit - so we drove down the highway to our favourite little shopping mall in St. Rose Du Lac.

We love the IGA store there, it is small by city standards, but it far surpasses any city store in quality, and prices.  I needed a few basic staples like milk, butter, flour.  We were ready to check out and I discovered I had forgot to get flour, so  I backtracked through the store thinking how great it would be if I could get a 10 lb  bag of flour for a really good price.

Bingo - there was a sale.  A 10 lb bag of PRARIE FLOUR MILLS  flour, made in Elie Manitoba -  for $7.49.

What?  Never heard of Prarie Flour Mills flour before, Elie is less than an hour away from Winnipeg, how come I have never seen this flour in any store in Winnipeg?

I bought a 10 lb bag, we made a few more stops at a couple of little shops where I am becoming known as a regular; stopped at Chicken Chef for lunch, then headed home.

I got right on the computer and checked out PRARIE FLOUR MILLS...

http://www.prairieflour.iwarp.com/profile/profile.htm

They have been in business a long time, and an article was written about them in the Winnipeg Free Press Dec 14, 2012 - stating they ship flour to major American Cities such as New York!

So if they can ship to great big New York City and they can ship to little old rural St.Rose Du Lac - how come not  to right down the road, Winnipeg?

Wanna bet it is not the flour company but the Winnipeg retailers at fault here?  They most likely have contracts with the big companies from all over the world, when home grown is right next door.

This is flour made from wheat grown right here in Manitoba!  You bet I am going to rant about this.  To my way of thinking, this flour should be the only flour we see on our grocery store shelves here in Manitoba!

Now that I know this company and their product exist - you won't catch me buying any other flour ever again.

Now I can't wait to get baking!

Is it too early to start Christmas baking?

HAPPY NOVEMBER!

Can you believe it's November already?

In our neck of the woods November means one major thing... SNOW!  We have been under a weather advisory which is continuing through Wednesday for rain ( which we have now had for 3 days straight) turning to freezing rain or snow.  Accumulations - who knows!

Personally I don't think it is going to happen - but if it does - I am prepared!

Yesterday I starched 10 bears, so they need to be put together and embellished.  I have 4 to make for an order and a couple to make for gifts, and will have a few in pieces in case someone wants any before Christmas.

 I also dragged out several containers of broken or needing repair Christmas Tree ornaments that my Mom and I made in the 70's out of goose eggs.   Nothing major to fix, just beads falling off, angels falling out, hangers missing or damaged.  They need a few hours and some new glue and they will be good for another 30 yrs or so.

I haven't been able to source any more goose eggs and I really have a hankering to do some eggs, so I am blowing out chicken eggs and will make some small versions of these type of tree ornaments - and I'll do some baking with the contents of the eggs themselves... no waste there!

I have signed up for a Christmas Swap which has to be in the mail by December 5th, so I will have to decide what I am going to make and get busy on that as well.

So Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow! 

I have work to do!

ANOTHER MILESTONE BIRTHDAY!

Today is my Father's 95th Birthday.  Happy Birthday, Dad... hope you have a wonderful day! I won't be with my Dad to share his day, but he will be in my heart, and on my mind.

It is hard for me to imagine him being 95, just as I am sure it is hard for him to imagine his little girl being 60!  The passage of time waits for no one, and pass it does - in the blink of an eye, the years are gone.

While I am mentioning birthdays, there are a couple more.  My niece Alanna, had a birthday yesterday, and my brother Wayne, celebrates his birthday tomorrow.  Happy Birthday to them both!


                                                                      ...

Our shopping trip yesterday was quite successful.  We had a few places to stop, and a lot of items on our lists.  We accomplished almost everything - except the mole trap.  Tomorrow an Ace Hardware store opens here in town, so we will see if they have some traps.

In the meantime, we managed to pick up some more outdoor Christmas lights at Walmart.  Everyone here has been in a light decorating frenzy this past week.  It appears that this town lights up for Christmas big time!  We brought some lights with us from the other house, but not nearly enough for this property, so now we should have enough to make a statement.

In the mail yesterday, were flyer's announcing all the Christmas activities in our town.  Santa arrives on November 20th, during a Christmas Festival which is held at the Arena as a prelude to the Santa Claus Parade!... I did not expect that, for some reason.  They have outlined the parade route and it goes right past our house, so what a treat that will be for us newcomers!

By the way, we are not the newbies in town anymore.  A new couple (our age) moved in last month.  We walk Molly past their home, and noticed a lot of renovation work being done, so we introduced ourselves.  Hopefully we can get to know them in the months to come.

So back to the Christmas activities here - there is a Christmas Craft Sale; Christmas Festival; Santa Claus Parade; Christmas Midnight Madness where the local business stay open for shopping until midnight.  A Christmas Gala - which is a dinner and a social event, catered by the Graduating class of 2017!  There is Free skating at the Arena, and a lighting of the town Memory Star; to name just a few events in November.  And more events in December as well.  For someone like me who is "Christmas 
Crazy" every year, this is wonderful news.  I won't stick out if I go a wee bit overboard with Christmas this year!

I am busy practicing Christmas music on the piano so I can go and play for some Christmas services at the personal care home.  If I am good enough, perhaps they will let me volunteer to play for the residents a few times a month... I would love that.

So that wraps up another week...

Happy Halloween tomorrow, and don't forget to set your clocks back an hour before you go to bed on Saturday night!

Until next week -

OFF TO SHOP!

Today we are heading down the highway to Dauphin Manitoba.  They have a Walmart, and I am in severe Walmart withdrawal since moving to the country!

This Walmart however is probably the smallest I have ever seen, it reminds me of the very first Walmart that ever existed.  Can you say, small?   Can you say cramped?  Well you know what I mean!

Never -the -less it is indeed a Walmart and we need to go there.  The nearest Super Walmart is 90 minutes away, this little one is 40 minutes, so we will go to the little one - for now!

I need Halloween candy - seriously, from all accounts we need A LOT of Halloween candy!  We also need Christmas lights, and I need a bird feeder.  Yup, I still need that bird feeder.

I see the birds looking around the yard for one and then flying down the street.  I am missing some awesome photo shoots, so I have to get me a bird feeder.  I should have thought about this much sooner - I could have got some wood and made several, but I left it too long, and now its too cold to be outside in the garage building anything.

I also need to go to Canadian Tire and buy a Mole trap.

  OMG!  That beast is still out there digging tunnels everywhere.  I am way past done with that varmint... he has to go... I am not sure how I will react when I actually have to look at this creepy individual!

Gary and I were discussing just who is going to be the one to remove him from the trap, assuming we do catch him... we haven't come to any agreement on that as yet!

So we are on our way out on a shopping expedition... it is another gloomy day here... Maybe a good day to shop.  We have some pretty long lists... hopefully we will be able to find everything we are looking for.

Wish us luck!

Oh and guess who moved down to the kitchen?  Although they didn't stick around, yesterday was a day for flake spotting in our neck of the woods!

FALL SWAP RESULTS

Last month I was telling you about the red work embroidery I was doing.  I was just finishing up this little piece when a craft group that I belong to decided to have a fall swap, so I started another one... this one...

I decided to make it into a small wall hanging, and this is how it turned out.

  I didn't have a pattern, I just sewed until I had something I liked.  It was a fun project.  It went to Texas and my swap partner loved it.  I am not an expert quilter - I am a wanna be someday quilter.  Small pieces like this give me hope that one day I can tackle something more substantial, but until then the practice on these smaller pieces is fun.

The woman who got my name as her recipient sent me these items.  A set of candy corn hand warmers and a gorgeous cowl - both items that will soon be worn as the mornings get cooler.  I have every intention of copying the cowl pattern and making a few more in a variety of colours.  They would make great gifts  (and she has given me permission to do so).

There are a lot of cowl patterns out there, but I really like this one because it is not as bulky as some I have seen.  You can wear this and still close the neck of your coat or jacket, and that is important here in this climate.

Thank You, Sue - I will get a lot of use from both these items.

So now Sue is organizing our soon to start Christmas swap.  I can't wait.  The ideas are flowing but I will have to wait and see who of my friends name I get before I can make my final decision on what to make.  Always nice to send, always nice to receive.

I have talked about this group of crafters many times before here on my blog.  We have never met, but have known each other for a long time - many years!  We all came together years ago on a forum in the early days of Internet, and we have been close friends ever since.

Over the years we have weathered much together, several members have lost spouses and family members in the time we have known each other; some of us have suffered serious illness, heartache  and we have stuck by one another.  We have also celebrated life's good times together... marriages, graduations - births.  This group means the world to me, and I treasure these friends with every fibre of my being.

More and more now one or more of us mention the idea of trying to get together, even if just for one time to meet in person, which would be an emotional but wonderful thing, if we could pull it off somehow.  We are scattered all across this continent.  It would be difficult - but it would be something none of us would ever forget.

I hope we can make it happen some day...

So - here's to my beloved Craft Buddies...

 Like Carol always says, " Love you to the moon, and back!" 

A RANT AND A RAVE!

It is so ironic how things happen sometimes.  Shortly after I posted my blog yesterday, I was chatting with a friend on Face Book.  After we were done, I went to the news feed and the first thing that popped up was this post.  I had not intended taking yesterday's post any further than what I had written, but this was far too timely... I had to share it with you today.

While this has never happened to me to this extent, I have had many people question and argue with my pricing policies.  Oh how I wish I would have been able to do what this crafter did - I  applaud her nerve, and her conviction in her product.

This is relative to what I was mentioning - many people choose not to recognize a hand- made product as more valuable than a factory- made one.   If you bought a factory-made crochet scarf, and I made you the exact same scarf, I would be willing to bet that while the two scarves looked alike, mine would be better made and last years longer than the one that was factory made.  A mass produced item made by a machine, can never compare to one created by two hands... never...

Cudo's to the crafter in this piece!

Moving on - 

What I was going to write about today was Snow and Men...

It is really starting to feel like snow is just days away here.  The past couple of mornings the frost has been heavy and the days have remained pretty frosty, even when the sun has finally appeared.

It is custom in my home, that once I see a snow flake - doesn't have to stick to the ground, I only have to see it... then snowmen can appear in the house.  Snowmen to me are not a Christmas decoration, but a winter one.

Usually the first snowman to appear after I see a flake, is the snowman cookie jar my son gave me for Christmas when he was very young.  

I don't have a lot of snowmen, but the ones I do have are pretty terrific... including this fellow I made many years ago out of a ply-board shape covered with quilt batting and fleece and dressed with my own hand-made sweater, mitts, hat, and pants.

He is three feet tall, and has been the greeter in our home during the winter season for quite a few years.

I have made many of these as gifts for family and friends, and I was intending to make some to sell this year - but my time has been limited due to our move - so next year I will try and make some of these cheerful fellows once again!

This fellow had become pretty pathetic over the past couple of years and I vowed I would fix him up before this winter... and then we moved.

The move all but destroyed him.  I had taped him into a few garbage bags, so his carrot was all a-twist, he lost his feet somewhere in transit, and his clothes were a mess.  His stuffing had settled over the years until he was a pretty gaunt snow guy, so yesterday I spent the day getting him all put back together - all ready for the sighting of the first flake.

This year he will stand in the kitchen beside my little school desk, and sometime in December I will add a string of white lights in his hands so he can celebrate Christmas.

Until then he has to stay in the craft room with the dolls...waiting... for that first flake!

IT'S A FEELING!

We had a wonderful day yesterday.  A cousin and her husband who live up here in the mountains of our beautiful province, came for a visit and stayed for supper.  It's been quite a while since we saw each other, so we had a lot of catching up to do.  It was a fun afternoon and evening, hopefully we can do it again sometime soon!

But all weekend, prior to their visit, I was in a feeling- like- Christmas, mood!  Don't know what gets into my mind, my heart  - but get me near the end of October, and I get possessed with the Christmas Spirit.  I put on the Christmas tunes, I think, I plan, I plot; and much of that planning is centered around gift giving.

Not gift-giving as in heading out to the malls and spending huge amounts of money on  things that could be and is purchased all through the year.  No my gift-giving obsession begins with what I can make to give as gifts for Christmas.

My library of patterns, craft magazines and books come alive like no other time of the year.  The huge bookcases that I have spent hours and hours organizing, empty out onto the floor in mere minutes.  First I organize piles according to ideas that are floating around my mind based on the type of craft I feel like working on.  Those piles then get sorted again according to supplies I have to work with and then get sorted again according to time I have to get the projects done, and then again according o the recipient's likes and tastes.

And then I get to work...

Before I even start the projects, I have spent hours, sometimes days and maybe weeks, preparing, planing and thinking.

I am sure I am no different than anyone else who gives hand- made gifts for Christmas and I am also sure that it is quite possible that some recipient's have absolutely no idea the time and effort, and thought that goes into each and every gift someone like me gives.

I am not tooting my own horn - just saying!

Anyone can go to a store and buy something, not everyone can make something.   I get that - but if you can't make something you still can choose to shop for your gifts at craft sales or stores that support local artisans and crafters, whatever they make or sell.  You might find exceptional things to buy at these places, and in the process you are showing your support for someones time and creativity instead of lining the pockets of some huge corporation somewhere far removed from our own country.

I saw this on Face Book recently, and it is so true.



Please consider supporting local talents and creative peoples, whatever craft they may promote, whatever medium they may work in.  Don't make hand-made sentiment go by the way-side.....