Dec 30 That is the last clue you are getting unless I can find the piece of paper that I wrote them down on! We are home. Maggie and Em only dug up one plant a ginger root that I was trying to grow, it had sprouted in the kitchen so I planted it... The experiment was a failure but the root was still in the pot... one of the cats dug it up, and by the looks of the dirt all over the bedroom floor they then proceeded to played soccer with it! Someone could have swept up the dirt, but at least it was dirt and not mud! Luckily there were no containers of water upstairs for Em to dump or I would have been cleaning up mud pies!
I tried out my new 'Wonky' heart press yesterday I might take pictures of some of them, I'll see. While I was in Edmonton I bought myself a 6 cm plastic penguin to use as a (penguin) model, will see if having a model makes my penguins more penguin like, or maybe I should just stick to what I'm doing, beads that give the vague illusion of being penguins..?
Tomorrow night we will probably stay home and let the drunk drivers have the roads to themselves! Should have bought a new movie to watch as there is nothing on TV! I guess the TV stations don't play anything worth watching as there isn't suppose to be anyone at home to see it!
Dec 26 Christmas has come and gone for another year, we all ate to much as usual. Edmonton has lots of snow, so we had a white Christmas. Haven't decided if we are going to join the Boxing Day crowds in the stores today or not... probably shouldn't has I'm not sure how I'm going to get everything that we have packed as is.... They were handing out pink flamingos on the street the day my sister and I went out for lunch and I have to get mine into my suitcase along with everything else! We start home tomorrow, but we have to overnight in Halifax, so I better go and stuff the suitcases!

Dec 24 Christmas Eve; we are having christmas dinner tonight at my sisters. She is cooking the turkey in her new oven... all you have to do is tell the oven that it's cooking a 16 pound turkey and it cooks it....???? I wrapped presents Friday afternoon, I brought everything unwrapped incase airport security got too gung ho, they weren't interested in anything in my boxes of goodies, so I guess i could have wrapped everything at home1 Mom's cat decided to help me... she started by shredding one of the pieces of wrapping paper, since I didn't object to that, she moved onto the gifts, She wasn't happy with just shredding those, she was taking big bites out of the corners of the gifts... sweet cat!
G & I went for a walk yesterday, there is a rather nice bookstore on campus, but they had already closed for Christmas, being closed the saturday before Christmas makes no sense to me, the radio was saying that yesterday was going to be the busiest day of the year for shopping in Canada. Actually we carried on from there to the grocery store and it wasn't all that busy, but I think grocery stores are open today. I haven't been anywhere this year where the crowds were too bad! The weather was much cooler yesterday than previous days too.
Dec 22 New game today! The weather here is actually quite decent compared to last month! sunny and going above freezing most days. could have used those temps on the ski hill last Sunday! While we were skiing I managed to plant my pole between my skis while I was making a turn, now anyone who has ever skiied knows that doesn't work! I came to an abrupt halt. G wanted to know what I had done... I told him less than two minutes later G was straddling a mogul I asked him what he had done, He said he was just verifying that you couldn't turn by planting your pole between your skies! I think that just proves what I have been saying for years... that the average MALE has to test everything they are told for themselves, regardless of how obvious the outcome! Yesterday we trundeled off to the North side to pick up a wavy heart press, it's actually a Christmas present from G, I don't have access to a torch here so you will have to wait until I get home to see my wavy hearts. The mandrel goes either horizontally or vertically which I think is sort of neat! Today we are off once again to join the throngs of Holiday Shoppers!

Dec 19  Back in Edmonton, we survived skiing, actually I never even fell while I was wearing my skis... Yesterday we went to Fairmont to visit a friend from Saskatoon who moved to Fairmont a couple of years ago. Of course yesterday was the coldest day they had had all winter! Actually it was unpleasantly cold while we were skiing too, but the snow was good! G had to pay an extra $12 for his rentals since he scratched the bottom of his skis! I managed to find snow to ski on not sure what his problem was?! Was warm and windy today, hope the weather at least stays warm!

Dec16  Greetings from Canmore in The Canadian Rockies.    Our flight was quite uneventful if you discount getting up at 4:30. The weather here is cold and crisp,  natives would say cool, I am now a wimp  so I say   it's cold!  Tomorrrow we are off to try out the Lake Louise ski hill.  Hope I do better than the last two times I tried skiing... In 2001 I tore the ligament in my right thumb and in 2005 I tore my right rotator cuff the later was body surfing down a mountain, if it hadn't been for the trees and lift line poles it might actually have been fun!
Today we spent wondering around Canmore then Banff.Monday we plan to visit a freindfrom SK thatmoved to Fairmont BC the year after I moved to NB.
 
Dec 13  Well we're leaving in less than 6 hours and my packing is still a pile of clothes beside a suitcase, all gifts are boxed but nothing is wrapped, don't see the point since the airlines have the right to trash anything!  Think it is suppose to warm up and rain today!
Slight change of subject, the top is a bracelet I made in Georgia in Sept, then 'assembled' here Assembly is gold filled links, not sure it's what I want but it fits.  The rocks from from a beach on Vancouver Island.  The bottom ring started life as a strip of silver that was 5 inches long and .5 inches wide... after I hammered some sense into it it became round...  It's the center part for a cape closure.  The pin part is half a bamboo knitting needle with a bead on the end.  Hopefully I'll find a computer that I can update from in Edmonton! If I don't hope everyone has a Happy Holiday!
 
Dec 12 Sunny cool and windy today!  We put a kitty door in for Em this weekend, he sometimes figures out how to get in the house, but when it comes time to go out he sits on the stool we have in front of his  door and looks at the kitty door... I think he expects it to magically open, and when it doesn't he goes to a real door and asks to be let out... usually he gets picked up and stuffed out through the kitty door!  Em did curl up in his shruken bed last night, he much prefered the lid to the box that has the Chistmas Gifts I'm taking to Edmonton ... but that is now on the box so he had to find something else....  We're going to the St Andrew's chamber of Commerce Christmas Party this evening, I had to join a Chamber of Commerce in order to get better credit card rates in the gallery.  It still costs me $62/month minimum plus the Chamber of Commerce membership, but I didn't have to pay any set up fees and my rate is 1.75% not 3 or 4% like I would be paying otherwise!
Our water heater is working again, G bought it a new transformer and installed it yesterday, about 30% of the house is heated with infloor heat too so some of the house was down right cold, including the bedroom so no official packing has  been done yet ... So far packing consists of a pile of clothes thrown in the direction of the suitcase that I moved into the room yesterday!

Dec 10 Sunny and above freezing today,  I put up my Charlie Brown  tree today, hope Em leaves it alone, he's never had a real tree in the house before, last year he spent Christmas in Saint John!  I refleted Em's bed yesterday I thought the walls were too floppy ... it sort of got forgotten, when I pulled it out of the washer G looked at it and suggested I put it back into the washing machine and make it into a hat!  I managed to stretch it back out to 13 inches it was 17 inches  in it's first incarnation!  Not sure if he's seen it yet or not  He is turning into a failry large cat, he eats over a cup of food per day and gets quite beligerant if he doesn't get food when he wants it!
 
Dec 9 Sunny today, G is off chopping me a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, think we got about an inch of snow yesterday, but it blew around so hard to tell how much we really got!  Yesterday I made  Christmas Tree Beads,  ( they are really  Puffin perches, remember the story of the littlest angel) Actually I am quite impressed... You get to see it/them Christmas Day!
Our water heater is being flakey again, I've learned though... I no longer assume that it is going to be hot, I had too many ice cold showers last winter... yes it works fine all summer....

Dec 8 Fluffy snow and wind here today, it all melted yesterday, but it's sticking so the ground is already white!  Robby's haggis and shot glass are cute, so  as soon as I get the other computer working on more than one cylinder I'll add Robby's "toys" to his picture!  The Haggis looks a bit like a speckled brown Christmas cracker... 
I tried to mail a few parcels while I was on the mainland Wednesday and discovered that in order to mail a parcel in Canada one side must be at least 10 cm!  I had two boxes that were 9 * 9 * 5  way bigger than  what you get if you  the squared 10*7*1 that is the minimum  but because side one was only 9 not 10 cm the PO  (and yes that's what I was) wouldn't  take the parcels!  One I bought an envelope for at the post  office the other one I brought home to wrap bubble wrap round the sides to make  it an 11 * 11 * 5 parcel so that they will accept it!  The extra wrapping will probably make it weigh more too so they can charge extra! I don't have anything even close to a correct guess on my game yet either!
 
Dec 7 Much later than I intended... yesterday the computer crashed... I had to restart it for something to work and it refused to start.... Then I went to Saint John, took me half an hour to get the ice off my car and back up the ice covered driveway, but I allowed 40 minutes so had 10 minutes to spare! Today I was going to update in the gallery.. Em came in with me and decided to start breaking things! (Revenge for being abandoned for 24 hours!  I left him in the house, he could have been outside in the windstorm we got last night!)  He was up to his normal habit of dumping 'cups' he sticks his paw into things and dumps them, however this time it was a ceramic wine goblet and when he pulled that  onto the tile floor,  it ended up in a gazilion pieces... Em was ejected and I went back to trying to get the other computer to work. I still haven't found a lot of things and there are no shortcuts but everything other than the high speed connection is working!  It rained this morning so our snow is gone.  Since it is suppose to get cold overnight we should have ice everywhere tomorrrow! I made Robby his shot glass and his Haggis today...  I bet you can't wait to see what a glass haggis looks like! I can just see them on ebay now... all the copycat artists will be making and trying to sell Haggises!
 
Dec 5 Todays clue includes the one that got lost on the 3rd...  Robby McPuff is at the top of this page Poor little guy obviously fell off his bar stool once to often as his beak is little bent at the tip... He will come complete with a Puffin size shot glass to hold his wee dram... unfortunately you will have to provide both the wee dram to put in his shot glass and the haggis necessary to keep him happy!
It SNOWED here yesterday we have about 1cm of icey snowy looking cold stuff on the ground....  When I went to get the mail yesterday it was still coming down as sloppy rain...  Since I didn't want to get my socks wet I wore my crocs with bare feet....  Today I will wear socks, my poor little toes were not happy by the time I got home yesterday!
I washed my unbleached cotton sweater on Sunday (to get both the blood out and to shrink it)  and lay it out on the floor to dry... anything facing the air turned a horrible brown colour... I rewashed it and stuck it in the dryer and it came out the right colour... but why did it turn brown the first time????
 
Dec 4  I put up a hint # 2 yesterday but it seems to have disappeared,  I'll put that one back up some other day!  Raining again here this morning!

Dec 3... NO Snow just lots of wind and rain....  The question for today is do Real Men use Lobster Crackers to crack lobster claws? Since it's lobster season here I stopped and bought a couple of lobsters on the way back to the ferry last night, they kept me company whwile I waited for 2 hours in the ferry lineup, the ferry wasn't running at all because the tide was too low... and that is ferry singular since the ferry that has been gone for 10 weeks being fixed is back and tied up at the warf  so that we can admire the new paint job.... but doesn't seem to be taking cars back and forth!  Anyway back to lobsters, we have two sets of crackers, my sister bought them for us when we moved out here  (so we would have them when she came out to visit...)  G only put  one set out  last night, he claimed we could share...  So while he was using the crackers (they had been strategically placed beside his plate...) I demonstrated that you could crack lobster claws with your hands... the way real men are suppose to! (Real men defined here as Island lobster men)  Worked like a charm, only catch was the blood pouring out of my thumb... the second pair of crackers was found... but I now have blood on my unbleached white cotton sweater I'm knitting and probably everything else I came in contact with last night.
Here's a link to an online "bead magazine"  I am the feature artist for December.... There is a picture of  the bottom of my glass shoe in the article... it looks a bit like a Praying Mantis climbing over a wall of coloured beads, Here's the link to the story behind the shoe (it was done for a show at the Bata Shoe museum in 2003) and a picture of the shoe the right way up with my foot in it... 
Dec 1.... 24 days til Christmas... Is your shopping done? Auto is going to Sue In California..... Congratualtions Sue  (She has been trying to win a puffin for almost two years... see perserverance does pay off!) There will be one more Puffin draw on January 10, 2007 to celebrate the second anniversary of my web site... then they will be for SALE...{Only new ones, family memebers will not be sold!}  Yesterday was unbelievably warm for the last day of Nov in NB...when I walked to the mail box I had to take my jacket off... this morning it's raining and the rain is suppose to turn into that S word overnight... YUCK!  We went to a Christmas social in  St Andrews yesterday afternoon/evening.  I t was being held in one of the old Inns, the had moved all the restaurant tables out of the main floor,  so people just wandered around, however there was a big bottle neck in the central hallway, not to mention a real dip in the hard wood floor,  I wonder how many meals get launched into space by waiters tripping...
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