about to be eaten

So, the next attempt at formatting was done through a Google application. It seemed to work fine, and would even post for me directly (no copy and paste required) but Blogger decided it needed to add a whole bunch of extra empty lines. Back to the drawing board...

I tried to do too much today. I'm still not used to the way I get tired so easily. A list of tasks that would have normally been a busy but fun saturday had me worn out and grumpy by early afternoon. I made bread and cranberry chutney, with a quick run to the grocery store to pick up the extra stuff I needed for the chutney. I took a bunch of photos for the new book, and I even fit in some knitting. The bread and chutney are for two Thanksgiving suppers we're going to this weekend (read: I will not be eating anything on tuesday!) I'll have to share the recipe for the cranberry chutney, since it turned out fruity, tangy, spicy and so good!

In case you didn't know, Thanksgiving is in early October in Canada, because this is harvest time. The end of November is winter for most of Canada (with the exception of Vancouver Island, and a few other mild spots). I think it's a bit sad that Thanksgiving is just a North American holiday - if you ignore the slightly fictional pilgrims and natives story, it's really just about celebrating the harvest time with your family. I'll take any excuse to roast a big turkey, cook loads of yummy veggies, and eat pumpkin pie!

And to give you a good laugh, here's a photo I took a while ago while we were goofing around with our kitties. Greta seems quite unconcerned that she's about to be eaten. The photos of Mila were too silly to show to the public, poor thing.

time to get sewing

My brother-in-law is working from home today, so I get a break from babysitting! Although, I've really enjoyed being around other people during the day, and my niece is a very good baby (when she's not teething). I even manage to get a reasonable amount of work done most days. Well, maybe not yesterday - I spent the morning making mincemeat and the afternoon finishing a toy for my niece's first birthday. I have to take some photos of the toy before I give it to her this weekend, because it turned out extra cute!

So, today I'll finally have time to sew the bags for the next set of kits. It will be nice to sit down in front of the sewing machine after just knitting for so many weeks. Hmmm, I just realized I'll have to cut the fabric on my kitchen table, rather than my sewing room floor as usual. Bending is not much of an option now with the size my belly is getting! I probably won't get time to dye the yarn and take photos for another week or two, though, so the kits will be ready closer to the end of the month.

Oh, and we also got the computer back, so hopefully there will soon be some photos of our trip to share! Thank goodness getting a new hard-drive was only a minor problem, unlike for some people - we've known it was going to die for quite some time, so we did back-ups every other day or so. Yay for no lost data!

Oh, and for those who were confused about the mysterious photos comment, I meant the photos of the owl and baby, the squirrel, and polar bear. The bat will also be in the new book, but I'll wait to share the rest until I get photos of them. I can hardly wait, though, since I'm super pleased with how they turned out!

P.S. I tried writing this in open office, then copying it here. Let's just say it didn't work as planned, and I'm tired of messing with it so there are no links or photos.

post editing

I need to find some better way to write posts, as the formatting on the final post never looks the way I want, and they give you such a tiny window to work within. In fact, the editing window is often smaller than the photos I want to use, which makes it really tricky to get the photos moved around to where I want them, let alone get the paragraphs in the right place around the photos. Any bloggers out there who have any suggestions? I guess the fact that I use linux, rather than MS, makes things slightly different too.

problem at lulu shop

I seem to be unable to send replies to any messages on Lulu. I will try and report the problem to them (making my way through their maze of forums which have nothing to do with my problem... argh!) In the meantime, if you need to contact me, please send an email to barbara (at) fuzzymitten (dot) com. In fact, it's always easier to contact me this way, although if my inbox is really stacked, I might take a day or two to reply.