Author: Pam

Safe Arrival

So we have safely arrived back in Manitoba, it feels good to be back on Canadian soil once again. Our travel was uneventful as all good driving days should be. There is something to be said about the events that make a good story, but I am more then happy not to have a new story at this time. We are making our selves at home in our house with my brother and sister. We can be reached through our old phone number if any of you still have it around.

Dabbling in Quilting

So I made a promise that as soon as my computer was home and I could download some pictures off of the digital camera I would post a backlog of my quilting projects since I have been in Massachusetts. I do not classify myself as a quilter. A “Quilter” I think would have more creativity and inspiration than I possess, but I do enjoy seeing projects take shape. I think I spend more time dreaming about projects then actually working on them, because of this I have only 2 quilts to show for my time here. Both of these quilts were actually started in Manitoba with Quiltpixie and Geekchic.

This quilt started as a mystery quilt organizied by Quiltpixie. We were given instructions about what kind of fabrics and quantities to buy, then we showed up for the weekend and quilted. I made significant headway on the top of this quilt, but did not finish it. I ended up making it larger then the instructions originally called for and added some borders, making this a nice queen size quilt.


From October until June of 2004/05 I drove up to Stonewall with Quiltpixie and Geekchic and we did this Block of the Month (the blue and yellow squares). When I discovered that I was expecting I made them into a baby blanket. I used iron on transfer for the bambi squares (it works well but do not use it on something that you intend to wash).


After my initial experience with machine quilting a large project, I chose to hand quilt both of these pieces. I am not a purist I machine pieced the tops, just quilted the sandwiches together.

Accents

So I found this quiz about accents on Neither Right Nor Left. Since moving to Massachusetts many locals have tried to identify my accent, two common guesses are French Canadian and British. Whatever the guess it was always decided that my speech was “proper”. To sound like the locals one must say hot as “hat” and sorry as “sarry” (make sure you stretch out that vowel). I was more then curious as to where this quiz would place me, well apparently I speak exactly like I should coming from Manitoba.

What American accent do you have?

Your Result: North Central
 

“North Central” is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw “Fargo” you probably didn’t think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot.
The West
 
The Midland
 
Boston
 
The Inland North
 
The South
 
Philadelphia
 
The Northeast
 
What American accent do you have?
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Blood Diamond

So Lowell and I went out to celebrate tonight, not only the 3 passes on his starred paper, but the great reviews from his profs (which I noticed that he omitted telling you in the previous entry). We had a gift certificate to use, so we splurged and went to a very nice restaurant. L, by the way, was such a good boy and allowed us this little luxury, which we haven’t taken since he was born. Really the meal was way more than any meal should cost, way more then any decent human being should pay for a meal. This fact was driven home even further for me as we watched the movie “Blood Diamond”.

As movies go, I enjoyed it. I won’t go into any sort of critique for fear that I would ruin it for any of you who want to still watch it. The basic story revolves around the smuggling of diamonds out of Sierra Leone, which is in the middle of Civil War.

Almost at the end of the movie L cried and I went to nurse him. I was sitting there, not sure how I could be so blessed to be living and raising my child in North America. My life is not adequate to say thanks. I won’t be making any huge difference to the injustices of the world, but I should be conscious about the little part of the world that I can impact.

Applique


So after some helpful tips from Quiltpixie I am learning how to applique. The pieces don’t always turn out on the angle that I had planned, but isn’t it the imperfections that give character. I have a feeling that it may take me a while to finish this project, but it is a great thing to do when you only have a few minutes.

Helping Hands

As Lowell said in the previous post the pressure is on. However my boys still want to find time to hang out with each other, so here L is ‘helping’ Dad grade exams.


We now have a new camera to take pictures with, but little time to experiment with a variety of subject matter, so here is another picture of the most entertaining thing in our lives.

3 Months


So we went to see the pediatrician (actually it was a nurse practitioner) yesterday, L is now 16.5lbs and 25″ long. This places him in the 90th to 97th percentile. L also received his vaccinations. 4 hours after his needles (the poor boy received 3 of them) I was regretting our decision to immunize, he was inconsolable. After some Tylenol the redness and inflammation went down on his leg and he has been in a much better mood since. Everyone reassures me that he won’t remember this experience, good…but I will. Thankfully I haven’t paralyzed him or caused brain damage.

L is sitting up really well these days, he still slouches a bit but everyday he gets stronger.