Category Archives: Grains, Greens, Berries & Beans

Aug12

Has it really been that long?

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Usually when I plan to write a blog post, I take a quick look at my previous post to see what I talked about so that I don’t repeat myself. Well, holy yarn, Batman, it’s been nearly two weeks! You must have thought I’d died. If you even noticed, that is 😀

So, what have I been up to. Firstly, this…

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This is the beautiful Winter Sun Square by Pam at Hooks and Hills. She was asking for testers a while back so I quickly volunteered. I made it with the Stylecraft Classique Cotton DK and I happened to have similar colours to the ones she used in hers. I whipped it up in an evening and gave her a little feedback on her pattern along with my photos. She has published the pattern now, and that’s where the link above will take you.

Secondly, I brought home the cutest 100% cotton fabric remnant from work. It’s a full metre and of course being a remnant from the end of the bolt I got it at 75% off.

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Yes, even skunks are sometimes cute.

Thirdly, I have AT LAST finished the four squares for the Kanata Kerchief Tank. I need to block them now. These used a teensy bit over six 50 gram balls of the Scheepjes Linen Soft – I have one ball left for the shoulder straps which had better be enough.

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I had to rip back in a few places where my stitch count was off, but by the last square I was just desperate to finish and I did fudge a corner rather than rip out a whole round.

As for my plans to keep on top of all the things I want to do, the meditation has fallen by the wayside. I think a better plan would be to schedule an hour of crochet a day, but WITHOUT Netflix or other distractions. This would work like a moving meditation in which I could calm my thoughts while doing something with my hands at the same time.

French and German….well, Duolingo has been a bit neglected but I have watched a lot of German With Jenny’s You Tube Channel and also checked some children’s books out of the library in German to practise reading and comprehension.

My other blog, Grains Greens Berries & Beans, has a short new post inspired by a video I saw online  yesterday. I think what tends to make me procrastinate is that I want that blog to have long educational posts with lots of links and a pretty picture, AND I want to share on Facebook and Twitter, which all needs a solid chunk of time. If I lower my expectations a bit, I will probably blog more.

Exercise….I did make it to the gym last week, and had a long flat cycle ride with a friend this week. A Monday afternoon walk with Tai Chi Man was very pleasant followed by a cup of tea at our favourite little independent tea shop. When it’s this hot, the thought of getting even more sweaty is not appealing, though, and I am hoping that tomorrow’s forecast for a cooler day with RAIN actually pans out. Today is the 44th day without rain, which matches 2003 for drought. That year, we had the biggest baddest wildfire ever which burned for weeks,  across the mountains on the other side of the lake from us, and then started in on the houses at the south end of the city. Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes. This year, there have been hundreds of fires around the province, but thankfully the ones around here were relatively small and dealt with quickly.

Well, I think we are all caught up. I need to go out this afternoon to register for a class in the fall. I’ve decided not to go back to piano lessons for now, but I am going to join in with a class that some friends are presenting about Food and Health. They have asked me to do my presentation on one of the days, so I’m going to go for the whole six weeks. Plus I find it rather nice to have a predictable day off each week for getting things done.

Happy crafting and see you again soon.

Jul21

Fabulous Friday

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Let’s see, what do I have to share with you today? I probably should have got out of bed earlier this morning. I was up at about 7, and had to be at work by 9.15. So the first thing was to grab my lemon water and cup of tea, and then get on with making a pot of chili. It took about an hour to get everything going in the pressure cooker but it was a great way to use up the beans in the fridge and freezer, some spinach, Swiss chard, a couple of mushrooms, some grated carrot, a partial can of diced tomatoes and so on.

We used to have “refrigerator soup” most Fridays before I started working at Fabricland, because we always did our weekly shop on Saturdays and it was nice to clear out the wilting vegetables. Our routine is not so set in stone any more, because my shifts are all over the place. This week my only shifts were a five hour stretch last night plus an eight hour one today. I had a busy morning but because we are open until 9pm on Fridays we have more staff arriving at lunchtime to see us through to closing, and a couple of us were able to leave early today. So I’ve only actually earned ten hours worth of pay this week.

So to get back to the chili, and the fact that I put in a couple of loads of laundry and hung one load outside on the line, and had to eat breakfast and make a lunch, I didn’t have time to meditate this morning. And I actually missed it! It’s only Day 4 but I already feel it’s something I want to keep doing. So when I was told I could go home early if I wanted, I jumped at the chance (as usual) and fitted in my 35 minute session before dinner.

Awesome!

I also had time to review the slideshow that I have put together for a presentation I’m making tomorrow night. This presentation, which I’m calling Wholistic Nutrition, has been scheduled for months and I had started writing things down and mulling over how it was all going to come together back in May or June. With the deadline looming, I discovered Google Slides, which is a free Powerpoint type tool which is easy to use. Using the material I wrote weeks ago, plus some text from my blog posts on Grains, Greens, Berries and Beans (my whole-food plant-based blog), plus some nifty photos from Pixabay (free Creative Commons pictures), I found that doing a slideshow was a better way to get my thoughts in order and present everything attractively.

I sound like an advertisement, don’t I!

I ended up putting the whole thing together in a day, with a couple of tweaks since, and I even had to get a bit of advice from my techie sons about changing my display to incorporate two screens, as my laptop will hook up to a projector. I feel a bit nervous about relying heavily on technology, and just in case my speaker notes aren’t visible while the slideshow is playing I will be printing them out.

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I do actually have two WIPs to show you. I have finished and joined Parts 1 to 5 of the Everything is Cool and Groovyghan CAL 2016. Part 6 is a long strip that attaches to this piece, and I had to wonder why it was made separately when I could just work it straight onto the piece I already had. So what I did was crochet a row of sc along the edge of the joined blocks (after I took this photo) instead of making a row of foundation sc, and whilst I have a few extra stitches I think it will be okay (famous last words) as I think the pattern repeat for part 6 is a multiple of 5 plus 2, and I have 172 stitches. This is only five more than the pattern calls for so I think I’m good.

Good grief, that photo makes the blocks look so wonky. There’s going to have to be some serious blocking when all the parts are joined.

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This is my other WIP. It’s the Kanata Kerchief Tank, available as a free Ravelry download. It’s a pretty top, made quite simply with four large squares, partially joined and finished to make the shoulder straps. It calls for a DK yarn so I’m using a new yarn to me, Scheepjes Linen Soft, and a 6mm hook.

I figured that this top should be the priority, so that I can wear it this summer, and then I’ll probably follow that up with the toddler dress with the pink Linen Soft. I’m really looking forward to making that.

I also managed to binge watch Season Six of ‘Suits’ on Netflix this week. There are only 10 episodes and I’m 99% sure there won’t be another season, considering how it ended, but I could be wrong. (Who, me?)

Wishing you all a happy sunny weekend. Have fun, stay healthy, be happy!

 

 

Mar15

New venture

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I do apologise if this blog gets a little quieter in future. However I have been working on setting up a brand new website/blog all about the benefits of a Whole Food Plant Based diet.

Having been vegan for thirty years, and getting more and more interested and informed on the plethora of scientific evidence that this is the way of the future, I wanted to start putting my money where my mouth was, as it were. Actually, I have, for now, set up a free WordPress blog, so no financial investment at this time. However since graduating from the Centre for Nutrition Studies Plant-based nutrition course at eCornell, and even before that, I have wanted to do something concrete to help get the word out.

I know there are many resources out there, but each website, book or documentary adds a little more to the mix, and different approaches appeal to different people. Even if only a handful of people get the message via my new blog, and it makes a difference in their lives, then it is worth doing.

The yarn has been lying dormant for a couple of days while I played with Squarespace (professional but even though it is supposedly user-friendly I found it frustrating to set up), considered my options (do I want to commit to a monthly fee for a site which won’t be generating income, at least initially), investigated the WordPress options (from free up to $30 a month, depending) and just dived in to a regular basic blog because I just wanted to get started already!

Setting up the blog took a bit of time, getting the first two posts published, creating a new Facebook page, opening up a new Twitter account, and I needed to get out for a walk in the evening to burn off some of the tension of all that laptop time.

I’d love it if you were to check out my new website, Grains, Greens, Berries & Beans. Long name but I like the alliteration and the other options I considered were already taken. My youngest son helped with the logo that appears on my Facebook and Twitter profiles. I gave him my idea on paper and he translated it into digital!

I have so much information to share that it will take a long time to publish just what I already have planned, and of course new things are appearing on the web all the time. I hope to create a comprehensive resource for all things related to the Whole Food Plant Based lifestyle. I’m excited to get on with it.

Thanks for visiting.