We Haz Bloomz!

Last Thursday afternoon on my way to a work-related presentation, I happened to walk down a street that is not usually included in my regular travels.  It was a blossomly lovely experience!  So I felt obligated to share ...

What a delicious fragrance!

pls ignore date stamp ...
i haz a mental block against
remembering to change it
when i recharge the camera's battery ...

Oh so pretty!

I don't like the smell of lilacs,
but the new blossom clusters are such a nice colour!

A few trees in blossom is probably no big news to folks in other parts of the world, but it is exciting to me ... only a week had passed since our last snow showers!  Here in "the north" (which is really the geographical centre of the province of BC, not the FAR north), it feels like spring/summer will NEVER get here, then you blink once and IT ALREADY ARRIVED!

Over the weekend, I also found blossomly loveliness in a few other places around and about my own neighbourhood ...

This tree (my apartment building is behind)
isn't the nicest shaped specimen ...
it was run over by a truck two years ago ...
poor thing ...
but the blossoms are SO PINK!

They look so nice ... a long row of them
right down the middle of the street!

These poor beauties are drooping
from the effects of an unexpected rain storm ...
So was I ... I got caught several blocks away from home
and without a sweater or jacket!

I have no idea what this prickly little bush is ...
but the blooms are interesting!

Real good crop of these indestructible beauties!
(They're going to populate the earth
along with cockroaches and earwigs
after the nuclear holocaust ...)
My Dad used to batter and deep fry the blooms ...
yummy!
We also ate the new greens in salad ...
double yummy!

There is a short cut that I often take on my way home which runs behind two churches, across a green belt, and comes out right beside my apartment building.  Here is the entrance to that short cut path ...

It was about 8:45-ish in the evening when I snapped the picture above.  There was a big steaming pile of VERY fresh bear poop at the other end of this path ... I didn't hang around to take a picture of THAT!  Didn't see the bear that left the "deposit", but guess I'll stay away from this short cut on any early morning / late evening walks now!  Foolish of me to walk there at that hour ... I knew there had been a bear in the neighbourhood just a few days earlier.  Mizz Bootz was quite excited to see it from our balcony!  She spent an hour racing between our bedroom window and our balcony door trying to see it again after it disappeared, and was "chattering" and gnashing her teeth like a deranged Siamese cat all the while!

Here is the cross-stitch picture of the winged lion I have been working on.  Now that I've "de-stressed" myself, I'm finding it hard to focus on this project!  I know ... totally weird ... I can focus on counted cross stitch when I'm over-tired and over-stressed, but not when I'm relaxed and healthy!

This past week has been graduation/convocation time for a variety of people in my work and personal life.  I was delighted to attend one of the ceremonies at UNBC as "rent-a-mom" for one of this year's graduates.  Being back around the academic community makes me wish I was a university student again.  Maybe I will be ... I haven't totally abandoned ideas of completing my Master's degree ... but for now, I'm enjoying a non-academic Aromatherapy program (in my spare time).

Do you have a "bucket list"?  My list of things I want to do/learn/experience before I die is SO LONG that I'm either going to run out of lifetime or have to live to 120+ to accomplish everything!  I think I should retire soon so I can devote more time to my bucket list!

First day of spring

What a week this has been! It began here ...

... with myself and one of our board members making a presentation about our non-profit organization to a group of individuals interested in forming a similar organization in their community. No, the ground was NOT that bare of snow while we were there! That area of our province generally has LOTS of snow. The mountain pass between here and there can be quite the adventure, so we decided to leave the driving to ...

... which was a good thing, except for our sore butts from sitting for so long! The rest of my week was very BUSY. Every time I take a couple of days out of the office, I swear it takes me twice that time to get caught up again. I still wasn't feeling quite caught up by Friday afternoon, so decided to go in today (Saturday) to finish a few things. Besides, someone needed to check on the fish. Remember when I told y'all about our inter-office custody battle over Rocco, the (MY) Betta following our office renos?Rocco is residing in my office (where he belongs). In order to "smooth the waters" ... so to speak ... we invested in another fish tank for our reception area. Let me take this opportunity to introduce y'all to ...

... Flash theBetta and a few of his little Neon Flashers. Okay, that didn't sound so good ... his Neon Flashettes? Hmm. I'll have to think about that one some more! Flash is very small compared to Rocco, but I'm sure he'll grow ... especially with all our loving staff members lavishing attention and food on him! Oh, if you look in the hole in that rock (left side of the pic), you can see the suspicious eyeball of Sucky the Pleco peeking out. Flash spent his entire first day in our office "flaring" at Sucky ... "I'm big and dangerous and don't you dare come out from under that rock!" ... it was quite amusing.

On my way to my office today, I just HAPPENED to get off the bus a couple of stops earlier than I usually do, and so just HAPPENED to walk past my local quilt shop. (It was TOTALLY a spontaneous coincidence ... HONEST!) While there, I found a couple of fabrics to go with my bear prints ...

... one is an indigo / black geometric print, and the other a small floral dark red print. Now I just have to figure out which one will look best as the bear PAWS and bear CLAWS in the actual quilt blocks. Of course, I just HAPPENED to notice a maple leaf print ...

... that goes with my third chunk of bear print fabric. I've decided this bear print isn't going to be part of my bear paw quilt. And that's okay, because I noticed this ...

... tote pattern in a magazine, and immediately imagined it with that particular bear print. Oh, and I also picked up a piece of this fabric today ...

... a zany medieval map complete with castles and knights. I intend to make myself a zany apron out of this. I love zany aprons, and my usual supply of zany aprons has become sadly diminished.

Did y'all think I rushed home from the office and began apron sewing / tote building / bear paw quilting? I did not. I'm very particular about prewashing (thus preshrinking) fabrics before I start sewing, and I'm not allowing myself to prewash the bear paw quilt fabrics until I finish up other projects currently on the go. So did I finish any of those projects today? I did not. I sewed wacky wabbits instead.

Seemed like a fitting Saturday afternoon project for this time of year. This one is made from Easter print fabric. I made several flannel wabbits too, and they're really cuddly soft. Tomorrow I must dig through craft bins to find suitable ribbon for big floppy bows for all these wabbits.

What a nice day it was today! It was actually warm enough for me to go out in a fleece jacket. I'm SO tired of bundling into layers and layers of heavy clothes and putting on extra socks and heavy boots. My feet need to get NEKKID! BRING ON THE SANDALS! STRUT THOSE TOOTSIES!! Still too much snow and ice around for sandals though. This is my driveway:

Most sidewalks around the city still look like this:

As you can see, the snow banks are still pretty high, and will take more than one sunny day to melt away. The most well-travelled streets are bare ...

... but storm drains are still frozen, so by this afternoon, there were a lot of small oceans like this:

Of course, small oceans freeze into large skating rinks over night! Another reason to stick with the winter boots for a while yet. Is it spring in your part of the world???