A Little Bit of Yarn Dyeing

This is what I've been up to:

I always hate the way the yarn looks before it has been reskeined so I try not to lose faith until then ;-)

I haven't done any knitting in a few weeks now.. I don't know why, I just haven't felt like pulling it out. That's one reason why I decided to dye some yarn because then I at least felt like I was doing something. My Cricut has been getting some action lately too but it's all a surprise :-)

Other than that, things have been pretty quiet around here. We've been spending most of our evenings watching tennis (ok, evening to us is 11pm and later!) and that's pretty much it. A typical evening looks like this:
I get home at 11pm from work. Go on the computer or do Cricut stuff until 1/1:30am when the tennis comes on. We watch the tennis until it's over or I flake out and go to bed (the second part is usually the case!).

Fun times at my house, I tell ya!

Temperature: -35C (feels like -47C - !!!!)
Sunrise: 11:17am
Sunset: 4:58pm

Trying to Getting Used to the Silence

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments. It's been pretty tough to get used to not having him around. Like I mentioned before, Finnegan was very demanding of your attention and he let you know it if he didn't think he was getting enough. Sure it was annoying sometimes (like when we were trying to sleep - or when your arms and shoulders were too sore from carrying him around all day) but now that he's not here, everything is so quiet. Tilley is not a cuddly, affectionate cat and I miss getting those kitty snuggles and headbutts (he loved being kissed on the forehead). Finnegan was pretty much everything I wanted in a cat (minus the near constant meowing). I wanted a cat that would sit on my lap and want to be cuddled and snuggled when I wanted to and not just when they were feeling like it - it was a pretty rare day when Finnegan wasn't up for a good snuggle.
I'm having a bit of a hard time with just Tilley because she isn't cuddly and affectionate - she was the reason I got Finnegan in the first place...

Anyway... It's all about adjusting to how things are now and we're trying our best to look back at all the funny any annoying things Finnegan did and laugh (instead of cry which has been a pretty common occurrance lately). The one that got us laughing the hardest the other day (and my mum later when I told her) was the rivalry Finnegan had with Glen. Finnegan knew that he was here before Glen and took every chance he could to show how absolutely jealous he was anytime Glen and I were near eachother (ie: if we were sitting together on the couch or even worse if we were laying on the bed). Finnegan would physically get between us but the worst (and funniest) thing of all was that any time Finnegan had to jump up where we were or walk past Glen he ALWAYS (and I really mean always) stepped or jumped on Glen's crotch. Every.Single.Time. Any time Finnegan would go near Glen, Glen would be covering himself to avoid the inevitable.

I'm going in for a massage at 6 tonight and hopefully that will help me feel a bit better physically. Besides the stress at work (which, honestly has been pretty minimal - there's usually a once weekly occurrance of ridiculousness but it's usually been resolved in a few days) the Finnegan thing has really messed my body up (oh, I have a cold on top of it all too - great!). After my scope and getting my new stomach meds, things were going pretty good and now... Yikes... Things are worse than they were before the scope... I'm not getting too worried (though my doctor will probably freak the fuck out tomorrow if I tell him) because I'm pretty confident that it's the stress causing it and if I give it a few more weeks, things will be back to normal. Waiting out the symptoms is the toughest part.

We're getting our new hockey jersys tonight too. I'll try to post a picture soon wearing it. (I'm looking forward to hockey tonight - good stress reliever!).

Thanks again for all the comments.

Temperature: -25C
Sunrise: 11:34am
Sunset: 4:39pm

Finnegan: 2005 - January 2009

I'm really sad to report that we put Finnegan down a few minutes ago. I woke up this morning and found out that he had another urinary blockage. He spent most of the day in the window seat or under the couch. By the end of the evening he was visibly more uncomfortable and we knew that we couldn't make him go through what he went through the last time.
We waited until I got home from work tonight and the vet came over to the house.

One of the last pictures I took of Finnegan (this morning).

He passed away peacefully just before midnight surrounded by me, Glen and Tilley. Tilley seems a bit more upset than I thought she would. We cleared a space on our small counter for the vet and put some towels down and that's where Tilley is laying right now. I'm going to miss him emensly. He was always by my side either on the computer or snuggling with me in bed. He loved playing fetch and just graduated from fetching recipts and candy wrappers to thick hair elastics. He also loved catching elastics and recipts in mid-air and doing flips.

He had such a personality and I'm going to miss his constant opinions about everything and him greeting me at the door every day when I came home.


Temperature: -24C (feels like -35C)
Sunrise: 11:53am
Sunset: 4:19pm

Behind the Scenes

I just spent the last hour or so going through all my posts and tagging them (too much spare time?). I thought it would be fun to put the temperature in the tags because it might be interesting to see how many days had the same temperature - or even to see which months had similar temperatures.. Anyway... I was basically sitting up waiting for my boss to email me (I wanted to make sure I got the email before I went to bed) so I had time to kill... bleh.

Another interesting note is that this is my 80th post... I know I said I was going to have a contest for my blogiversary (which never happened - woo, go me!) but I think I've decided to have one for my 100th - only 20 posts left!! That should give me enough time to think of something awesome.

I thought I'd post a funny - but washed out - picture of me with the cat.. Notice him on my shoulders... This is where he spends most of his time now-a-days...

Basically, he is still super high needs (attention wise) and will wander around the house meowing if he's not on your lap or of you're not carrying him around with you. He didn't like the sling I improvised for him (hah!) and so this was the next best solution.
So because I titled this post "Behind the Scenes" I figured it was appropriate because he's usually sitting on my shoulders while I write my posts (he's not at the moment because he's running around the house being a menace!). And yeah, I can assure you that I'm not that pale in real life... In my defence it was 2:30am and I haven't been feeling well/getting enough sleep.


Temperature: -31C
Sunrise: 11:57am
Sunset: 4:14pm

A Bit More Crafting

Looks like our heatwave is coming to an end. It was 5 or 6C yesterday and everything was melting like crazy. It didn't feel like January AT ALL. Now that we've had our short taste of warm weather, we're going to get a harsh wake-up call when we get into the -30s and -40s again! The only crappy thing about all the melting is that it didn't melt enough. All the roads and parking lots have deep -now- frozen tracks in them and it makes it hard to walk through. .. It would've been nice if it melted enough so all the roads & parking lots were clear! With everything melting and freezing again it's REALLY slippery... I almost fell a few times yesterday!

January at work means the start of the resident's birthdays. For whatever reason, all our residents have birthdays between the middle of January and the middle of May and yesterday was the first of 5.
I of course couldn't pass up this prime Cricut using opportunity!

Sorry the second picture is kind of crappy. I only brought my small camera with me to work and didn't use the flash.
I took down the "JOE" and the dog and put it on his bedroom door. He was pretty happy with the dog cut-out (loves dogs).
We have another birthday in about 2 weeks so I'll probably cut out some more letters (maybe something a bit more girly?).


Temperature: -2C (feels like -6C)
Sunrise: 12:16pm
Sunset: 3:52pm

Heatwave!

We're having a heatwave here in the Arctic! It's currently -1C but it was 0C about an hour ago when we went to the store. The forecast keeps changing every time I look at the weather site - they said it was supposed to be +4 tomorrow and +3 on Saturday but that's changed now.

Here's a picture I took on Monday when it was around -38C

Brrr...

I have a bit of a rant about IVs... I just had some medical stuff done yesterday that required me to have an IV (sedation) and do you think they could get the frigging thing in?! Guess how many times it took? FOUR. It's bad enough getting poked with that massive needle once but four times was pretty unbearable. They tried three times in one hand and once in the other (they tried it on the left first, then the right and then decided to leave it to the anaesthesiologist. Great! Except the nurse that wheeled me in decided to have a go before he got there - she got it on her second attempt). For someone that gets needles on a semi-regular basis it's not a big deal to get poked but I'm seriously scared about IVs now and I think next time I'm just going to ask that they wait and let the anaesthesiologist do it (since they won't put it in the night before). It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't hurt so much!! At least the side of one of my fingers isn't numb like last time...

So yeah.. I have another day off work before I go back for two shifts (then my days off again) so besides taking a lot of naps I'm hoping to get some time with my Cricut. I want to get a "Happy Birthday" sign cut out for one of the residents.


Temperature: -1C
Sunrise: 12:32pm
Sunset: 3:35pm

Are You Sick of Crafts Yet?

The sunrise I noted for the last entry was actually for the next day (which is probably going to be the case any time I make an entry after a certain time).
The sunrise festival was tonight. I had to work though so no fireworks pictures. Thankfully we can see most of the fireworks from work so we didn't have to traipse out in the freezing cold.

I have a few more craft pictures to post tonight. A picture of part of my brother's fiancée's birthday present and her birthday card (belated - whoops!)

Mug - Says Cristine and has a seahorse

Envelope - used my Cricut markers (I coloured in the letters & picture)

Card

And here's a picture of two little bunnies I finished a few days ago. I've been meaning to get pictures of them so I took some quick ones tonight. Now that the sun is back my FO pictures should be a little better.

Other than that I've been really busy work work (I wonder how many times you're going to hear that over the next 6 weeks?). Thankfully it's one week down, 6 to go and hopefully the shenanigans that went on, on Thursday and Friday won't be repeated. I think I'll need a vacation when this is all said and done!


Temperature: -36C
Sunrise: 12:54pm
Sunset: 3:10pm

Cricut Crafting and Possibly a Sunrise?

I can't say our weather has improved much since my last post but it's not -40C at least! (Ok, it's not much warmer than -40 but those few degrees mean the difference of getting freeze burn unlocking and closing your door and your hand just being friggin cold).

I'm happy that things have returned to their regular schedule now that the holidays are over! I of course excitedly rushed to the stationary store today to get cardstock only to find out... They don't have any! (Ok, they had some but only MASSIVE packs of one colour... I was looking more for packs of multi colour since I don't need like 500 sheets of emerald green cardstock...). hrumph... Here I've been pining away for the stationary store to be open for two weeks only to find out that they don't have what I want anyway (apparently there's some coming in).

Quilting started back up tonight too which was fun. I took my Cricut in with me since I told the girls I'd bring it when it got here (and then we didn't have quilting for two weeks). I did my first fabirc cutting project - woo! I'm SO not used to layering things so it took me a while to figure out what fabrics to use and what I even wanted to make! I ended up settling on a snow globe:

It's not quite finished. I'm probably going to put a moon on it (in the same fabric as the trees only yellow). It's too bad I didn't have a wider strip of the blue "snow" but I don't thing the seam line is as prominent in person as on the camera. The snow globe is 7½" and the trees are 3". I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it? One of the ladies suggested making a quilt and each block having an appliqué (or every other block). It would definitely give me an excuse to cut a bunch more fabric!
The snow globe cut fine but the trees were a bit more finicky and I ended up using scissors to cut part of a few of the trees out (it really didn't like cutting the stars on top!). I used max. pressure, low speed and blade depth of 5.

Going back to the topic of weather (only because this info is on the same site): Apparently we had a sunrise today? I don't think we did I think the website updates in a later time zone and this info is for tomorrow (I guess we'll see tomorrow). So yay for the sunrise! We made it through the darkness! It's only going to get lighter from here!


Temperature: -35C
Sunrise: 1:25pm
Sunset: 2:36pm

You Don't Want to Know How Cold it is Out There...

Here's a picture of Tilley I took the other day:

And here's a picture of the card I made for my boss (sorry for the crappy dark photo):

Other than that... We didn't do anything for New Years... I worked until 11pm and had an incredible headache. We watched the Edmonton fireworks on TV (compared to the Sydney fireworks we watched 5 minutes beforehand they were pretty disappointing... There isn't a lot of competition when Sydney spends $5M AUS compared to Edmonton's $200,000 - or there abouts) and then watched some Lost and went to bed. As you can see, we live a pretty exciting life :-p


Temperature: -42C (yikes...)
Sunrise: n/a
Sunset: n/a