Movin' On

The Bag Lady has been having trouble with her internet connection. It has been quite spotty over the past month or so, and she has called her internet provider several times. Sometimes she has actually even managed to speak to someone, rather than just listen to a recording.

The second-to-last time she spoke to someone, she was told they would send a repairman out, but he did not materialize. She was forced to call again on Friday, and spoke to a different person. This one talked to her at length and asked for a description of what was happening. He diagnosed the problem as a faulty radio receiver and assured her that there would be a repairman in her area on Tuesday. Of course, Tuesday is the one and only day she is not at home, but she sincerely hopes that this time around, someone does show up and replace the receiver, because it is extremely frustrating to not be able to access the internet when she needs to!

It has been a very busy time for Baggie lately. She had a table at the Christmas craft sale in her little community on the weekend, so worked there on Friday and Saturday. Then she spent Sunday helping to move her mother-in-law into town to a brand-new apartment in a senior's complex. Her mother-in-law was hesitant about the move, but decided that she would give it a try, at least for the winter. She can always move back out to the farm when the weather warms up, but in the winter, when it's bitterly cold or blizzarding, she thought it might be nice to just be able to go down the hall to the common area and visit with someone rather than having to bundle up, warm up the car and drive somewhere on nasty roads. There are several people living in the complex who are friends or acquaintances of hers; after all, she has lived her entire 82 years in this area, but it was a difficult decision to leave the place she has called home for 61 of those years! The Bag Lady is sure that her mother-in-law will be back out at the farm occasionally, bringing things back that she has decided she doesn't need in town, and searching for things that were forgotten or misplaced, like the remote control for the television that the Bag Lady knows she placed in mother's purse, but appears to have jumped out somewhere along the way!

Winter Pursuits

The Bag Lady has been playing around with her blog template. She keeps changing her mind about what she wants to use for the background picture (there are so many to choose from!) She tried a winter picture, but it made her want to put a sweater on. Then she tried one with barbed wire, but it made her want to put a bandage on..... ouch! And the picture with rain drops made her want to wipe the screen.

She didn't think a picture of jelly beans really represented her life, and neither did a picture of the Eiffel Tower. She finally settled on barn boards. At least, that's what they look like to her! She couldn't figure out how to change bear to part with the blog header picture, though.

Don't be surprised if she changes it again some day. But don't hold your breath waiting for it to change - she will probably forget all about it. That age-related attention deficit disorder thing again.

In case you were wondering, it's still darned cold at her house, so she's been spending an awful lot of time indoors, playing games on facebook indulging in intellectual pursuits, and cleaning out closets. She and the Rancher spent a portion of the weekend cutting and stacking firewood. The cats have shown their appreciation for all that hard work by sprawling as close to the woodstove as they can get.

If you've suffered through this incredibly boring blog post and made it this far, reward yourself by slipping over to visit the Bag Lady's cousin, Leah, at the Goat's Lunch Pail, and wish her a happy birthday!

Hobby Yarn

Well, winter has arrived at the ranch. There is a mini-blizzard raging outside and the wood-stove blazing away inside. The Bag Lady thought about going to town today.... for about 10 seconds. There is nothing pressing enough to force her into the cold. She has dragged out some yarn and is knitting a scarf. She is not a very good knitter, but she loves the process, so she has a lot of scarves. Funny thing is, though, she rarely ever wears a scarf. Sigh.

She also knits funny looking, misshapen dishcloths. She uses lovely multi-coloured cotton yarn for her dishcloths. Then, when it comes time to launder them, her brain goes into germ panic and she bleaches them, which ruins the lovely colours, so all of the Bag Lady's knitted, misshapen dishcloths are the same colour.

Beige.
At least they all match.

The Bag Lady's mother was an expert knitter, and the Bag Lady has fond memories of her mother, sitting in her recliner, knitting and watching baseball. The Bag Lady's mother was not a big baseball fan (actually, the Bag Lady suspects her mother just liked watching all those handsome men running around... ahem), but she could knit up a storm while watching television and never drop a stitch. The Bag Lady, on the other hand, can listen to the TV while she concentrates really hard on finding the stitches she dropped when she actually dared take her eyes off what she was doing in order to peer, blurry-eyed, at the action on the screen for a minute!

Does anyone else have a craft they love to do (but do it really badly?) Please tell the Bag Lady that she isn't the only lousy knitter in the world! Someone else out there must do something really poorly, but love doing it so much, they do it regardless. Anyone?

Oh, okay, the Bag Lady is just plain odd. And if you think her knitting is bad, her crochet skills really suck!

It's Monday, Isn't it?

The Bag Lady is wondering exactly when winter will arrive, and when it does, exactly how bad will it be?

There were a couple skiffs of snow in October, but it didn't stick around and the weather has been quite mild for this area for this time of year. But that is bound to end. In fact, the Bag Lady thinks it's going to end today.

It rained here yesterday, and of course, the temperature dropped overnight, so it turned to freezing rain. The forecast is for snow flurries - according to the weather channel, it is supposed to be snowing right now. According to the Bag Lady's own weather channel (her kitchen window) it is not snowing, the rain has stopped and the sky appears clear (well, except it's still dark.... but she can see stars and she hasn't banged her head on anything. That she knows about. Head injuries can be tricky, though, can't they? If you bang your head and it causes memory loss, will you remember banging your head? Something to ponder.)


And, in the time it has taken the Bag Lady to compose this babbling nonsense, the sky has clouded up, so she thinks there is not much chance of a gorgeous sunrise like this one from a week or so ago....

Photo Finish Friday - Redecorating

(The Bag Lady's internet connection has been extremely spotty lately, which is causing her great anxiety and inconvenience because of the home-based business she is attempting to start, as well as really annoying her because it's keeping her from the even more important blogging!)

Here is the "before" picture of her bathroom (which she forgot to take until she already had the primer coat on, but heck, the bathroom was white originally, so it's close enough... well, except she doesn't usually need a stepladder to do her business!)


And here is the unfortunate "Creamy Carrot" choice.... (what the heck was she thinking??)



She is very pleased with the end result, even though the process reduced her to tears at the time! (Sanding between coats is not a step to be skipped!)




Well, what do you think? Was she right to switch horses in the middle of the paint job?

Photo Finish Friday is the brainchild of Leah, over at the Goat's Lunch Pail.

Remember

The Bag Lady's father and two of his brothers served in WWII. The Bag Lady has, in previous years, posted pictures of her father from his navy years, and has some of his things from that era. Recently, she was going through a little zippered pouch that belonged to her father and came across some photographs. One of them was a picture of one of her father's brothers in his army uniform.

This was taken in Stanley Park, Vancouver, BC.

The Bag Lady's uncle (who is, coincidentally, the father of Leah, who writes the always interesting blog, The Goat's Lunch Pail) is on the right.

Carrot Complaints

The Bag Lady has been redecorating. She decided way back in April to paint the bathroom.
It was white.
It was boring.
She thought "Colour! What that little bathroom needs is some colour!"
It is no longer white.
But the Bag Lady is having paint troubles. The paint that she bought isn't covering very well, and the roller marks from the previous coat are showing through the next coat. (Yes, she knows she should have used tinted primer, but she didn't have any and she didn't want to run to town to buy tinted primer when she had a perfectly good can of white primer that had scarcely been used..... just hush!)
She is going to slap another coat on today, and if it doesn't cover better than the first two, she is going to hang sheets all over the walls. Well, maybe not. But she will start to feel a little desperate. You see, she has a party planned for later in the week, so she really wants her house to look nice. What she really doesn't want is streaky orange walls in her bathroom.
Sigh. ("Creamy carrot" looked so pretty on the little tiny paint chip. If you ever visit the Bag Lady, be sure to bring your sunglasses in case you need to pee. Really.)

Photo Finish Friday - Sunrise

Who stole the week?



There have been some gorgeous sunrises around the ranch lately.

Photo Finish Friday is the brainchild of the Bag Lady's cousin, Leah, over at the Goat's Lunch Pail

Somewhere Warmer

The weather in the Bag Lady's neck of the woods has been relatively mild lately. There were a couple of days last week that were cold with a little snow, but it melted, and yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day with a bit of a breeze and enough warmth to be outside without a parka, gloves and toque sweater.

In spite of this, the Rancher found it felt cold in the house, so he lit the first fire of the season in the woodstove. Ahhh - there's nothing quite like heat from a woodstove. It surrounds you and caresses you with it's warmth, soaking all the way in to your bones.

The Bag Lady has been on a bit of a cleaning binge. She tends to ignore housework during the summer, giving everything a "lick and a promise", for the most part, because she has so much to do outside, and, really, who wants to do housework when they can be outside, enjoying the sun and warmth? Especially in the north, when every moment of summer is to be savoured and enjoyed to the fullest because always, in the back of your mind, is the thought that winter is just around the corner. Winter, with it's cold, short days and long, colder nights, is not the Bag Lady's favourite time of year. Oh, there are things about winter that she likes..... err.... (hang on, she's thinking!) The sun sparkling off freshly-fallen snow is pretty......
Actually, if there weren't snakes and really big bugs in the warmer climates, she would move in a heartbeat!

But there are snakes and really BIG bugs elsewhere, and she belongs on the TV program "Hoarders" has a few baggage issues it would take years to thin out her belongings enough to be feasible to even consider moving so she stays put. But if she ever were to move, it would definitely be 'somewhere warmer'. Although, when she does think about moving, she ponders where she would go. 'Somewhere warmer' seems a little vague. When you factor in things like earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanoes, cyclones, brutal high temperatures, and snakes and really BIG bugs, her neck of the woods starts to look pretty appealing. The summers are gorgeous with long (no, really, they are long) daylight hours and warm temperatures, there are no volcanoes close by, the mountains protect us from even the most enormous of tsunamis, tornadoes are rare, and earthquakes even more rare. Oh, there's always the chance of an asteroid hitting close by, but that could happen anywhere. There are mosquitoes, but she has never seen a spider bigger than her hand! And all three of the snakes are non-poisonous garter snakes.

So she'll probably stay where she is, whining occasionally about the cold in the winter (but never about the heat in the summer!) and dream once in awhile about living 'somewhere warmer'.

Is that a cobweb in the corner? Look at the dust behind that...... time to get out the vacuum.....