Family Ties

95 years ago today, on August 23, 1915,  my grandparents, Geraldine Isabelle Brown and George Renwick Anderson were married in this church in Mt. Whatley, NB near Aulac, just a few km from the Nova Scotia border.

My grandmother's family has attended this church for about 150 years and continue to do so today. Many of my ancestors are buried in the cemetery.


This is George and Geraldine circa 1916 before my mother, Muriel, their only child, came along.

They were a very handsome couple. I'm told Grandma was referred to as 'the pretty one' of the three sisters. I see why. Grandpa looks pretty dashing here, too.


 


Muriel arrived in 1917. Here they are circa 1920.

And many years later,  in 1954, their youngest grandchild (ahem), Geraldine was born.

Grandma was thrilled that I was named after her. I never really liked the name, Geraldine, but after my visit to New Brunswick, I realize some pretty nice people in the family were given that name. But I still prefer Geri.

Grandma and Grandpa were married for 51 years until Grandma died in 1966. Two years later Grandpa married Grandma's sister, whom we referred to as Aunt Emma. It is some of Emma's grandchildren and great-grandchildren with whom I visited last month in NB.

Happy Anniversary, Grandma and Grandpa.

Time Crunch

Today I had to abandon my knitting for a while to get a book read. About three weeks ago I found Adrienne Martini's "Sweater Quest: My Year of Knitting Dangerously" on the New Books shelf of my local public library.  I had read about it in someone's blog and was thrilled it was available to me right away. Of course, it has sat on my desk since then because I always seem to have tons of other stuff to do. I do like to read but I find it relaxes me so much I have a tendency to doze off. Although the napping is good, it doesn't get me to the end of whatever it is that I am reading. Realizing it is due on Tuesday, I tried to renew the book but can't because someone else has put a hold on it so I had to get it read pronto. And that was my main objective today after getting back from the gym.

I finished the book at about 11pm. In it, Martini writes about her experience acquiring the pattern and yarn for an out-of-print knitting pattern for the very intricate Alice Starmore Fair Isle style sweater, Mary Tudor. It's kind of the knitting equivalent to Julie Powell's "Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously" whereby she writes about attempting to make all 524 recipes from Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". I really believe Meryl Streep should have won the Academy Award for her portrayal of Julia Child in the movie. But I digress...

With the book done, I was able to get back to my regular knitting. I continue to putter away on Freny's socks. I turned the heel and am almost finished the gusset decreases. I should be able to finish the first sock tomorrow.

I really like this Regia Kaffe Fassett Design Line colourway (04452).

I have been looking for vacation properties online for Skip and me for the winter in the south. I sent an inquiry today for a 'villa' with all the amenities in our price range. We're keeping our fingers crossed that they indeed have the vacancy indicated on their website. We hope to hear back tomorrow. Wish us luck!    

Kindred Spirits

My long-time friend, Freny, and I are musical kindred spirits. We were in the same music class in Grade 9 where she took the clarinet and I selected the oboe. In Grade 11 we both transferred to the same school when our respective families moved to the same part of town. The summer we moved, Freny and I attend Ontario Youth Music Camp (OYMC) and had a blast. Freny has been living in Australia for about 25 years. This summer she came to visit her mother and other family and friends in Canada for about 5 weeks. On Thursday, she came here for a visit before beginning her trip back to Australia yesterday.

Thursday night, I hauled out my oboe and she sat down at the piano and we jammed for about an hour and a half. I hadn't played for about eight years since retiring from the local community concert band. Surprisingly, my lip held up and my reed was pretty stable and aside from a few 'clinkers' we did a pretty good job. It was a blast. I videotaped a couple of the tunes with my nifty new camera but unfortunately, I had it on the wrong setting so the video portion was WAY too dark. All one can see is the faint light of the piano light over the music. However the audio wasn't too bad. We played 'Night and Day'

and 'Unchained Melody'.

It certainly wasn't the best performance we'd ever done but it sure was fun. And it felt great to be playing again. I realize how much I miss it but I really don't want to commit to a group that rehearses from September to June, as my absence during my winter holiday would not be fair to the group.

I stared some socks for her using some Kaffe Fassett Design Line Regia yarn. I got almost the whole leg done on the first sock today on the way into The Big City to see "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work" - a documentary made about her life. The jokes were great. She sure is driven to work, work, work to maintain her staff and opulent lifestyle. During a tour of her NYC apartment, she joked saying, "This is how Marie Antoinette would have lived had she had money". I'm reprising the Practice Makes Perfect pattern I knit for myself a while back using a generic sock pattern and incorporating a portion of the cable from Fiona Ellis' 'Practice Makes Perfect' scarf.

I really like the colours in this yarn. The gold reminds me of turmeric and the turquoise and fuchsia are very tropical. Then there's peach and teal and olive green. Wild! I love knitting for people who appreciate what goes into the creation of a knitted item.

It is so cool to be able to pick up with Freny wherever we left off during the last visit. Thursday night we were 15 again. I guess there's still a lot of those young girls still left in us.

Cross Stitch Gallery

I'm in the process of going through a bunch of cross stitch UFOs, collecting all the odd skeins of DMC floss and finding small projects that I've finished stitching that just need to be framed or finished into ornaments. Some of the items are almost 15 years old but I can always pick out out the stitching of the date and update it.

So here's a gallery of some of my little UFOs.

I have one of these dated 1996 (the year we moved into this house) framed in my kitchen.


3 1/2" x 5 1/2" on 14 count Aida

I stitched this little 'Told In A Garden' piece on Monaco cloth.

2 5/8" x 2 5/8" over 2 threads













I bought this stocking kit at Hedgehog Stitchery two years ago. I have the backing fabric and they're ready to finish.

2" x 4 5/16" on 28 count linen over 2 threads

I bought this little kit in Harlingen, TX at Judy's Stitchery Nook. I think I stitched it in two nights while on vacation on South Padre island.

2 3/4" x 3 3/4" on 32 count linen over 2 threads

I stitched this up two nights ago. It's the 'Friends' FlipIt from Lizzie Kate. I used a scrap of linen.

I do prefer stitching on evenweave fabric rather than Aida cloth. I believe it gives a more 'polished' look to the piece.




A couple of years ago I took a couple of Hardanger classes at Hedgehog Stitchery and have completed a few small projects as well.

Hardanger is fun to do and very easy to finish most pieces. You just cut around the buttonhole stitching and add a hanger to the back and voilà! You're done!

Dim Sum

Last Tuesday we visited Skip's mother's grave - about 80km from where we live. On the way back we stopped into our favourite dim sum place in Markham, Grand Lake Chinese Cuisine & Banquet. 
Often we order from the carts of food that roll by at different intervals but that day we ordered from the dim sum menu and they brought the dishes to us.

On the top left is shu mai, lovely pork steamed dumplings. Top right is har gow, steamed shrimp dumplings and below them are shrimp and snow pea dumplings.

We also enjoyed these baked dumplings that had delicious, a sweet flaky pastry exterior and barbecued pork inside.

They had a glaze on the top with a sprinkling of sesame seeds.




My favourite dessert is mango pudding. At this restaurant they are made in fish-shaped molds and are carefully turned out onto the plate and then evaporated milk is drizzled on them.

Yum!

We have had a hot summer with plenty of rain. The fruits and vegetables are about two weeks early this year. With no trees along our back fence, our back garden gets a lot more sun so things are looking very lush and verdant. Skip wanted me to take his photo amid the plants.

Pansy and Bidding Adieu

Since finishing the second Sekku Dianna shawl, I've been itching to cast on another shawl using some lovely Handmaiden Fine Yarn Sea Silk. It's gorgeous colourway called Pansy. I decided to try another Gail (Nightsongs) by MaweLucky (Jane Araújo). 

It has required considerable concentration and I really need to use lifelines but I've finished almost 3 repeats out of the 5 that I think I'll be able to get out of the amount of yarn I have.

Jennie's funeral went very well on Saturday. The eulogies by the minister and Skip were nice and Scooter did a fabulous job with his contribution of Chopin's Prelude #15 in Db Major. (I snuck a flashless photo)

I think he was very pleased to be able to play for his Grandma's funeral service. He said it was a good experience to play the piece in public before his big Grade IX Conservatory Piano exam coming up this Friday. He said he didn't even get that nervous, but he was glad we had the music there.

Sobey's did a good job on the food and we were able to divide it among the Skip and his brothers. I had a long nap in the afternoon after the funeral and went to bed early that night. I'm feeling much better now.

Tomorrow we're driving to the family plot in Nashville (near Kleinburg) where Jennie would have been interred today. Then we'll go out and have a lovely dim sum lunch in Markham.

I have a big load of stuff to take to the Salvation Army and then my part will be pretty much done.

I just noticed my sidebar gadget of upcoming knitting book releases got updated. It was frozen for months and all of a sudden, it's working again! Unfortunately, it's frozen again. Harumph!

I sure hope this is a better week.

Balance

Life has a way of reminding us that we need to have balance in it. From time to time something is thrown our way to 'interrupt the regular programming', yet it actually is a way to balance things out. With all the good in life, there has to be some sorrow, I guess.

Thursday morning, peacefully in her sleep, my mother-in-law Jennie died.

 Jennie Watson
(1917 - 2010)












She had been declining pretty rapidly these last few weeks and became bed-ridden and last weekend stopped eating or drinking. We knew it was just a matter of time but it was still shocking to get the call. Things are going quite well as far as all the arrangements and the running around that has to be done. In the community where she lived in the nursing home, the funeral home is next door to the lawyer and 1 block from the grocery store where the food was ordered for the reception after the funeral tomorrow and the florist is 1 block from the grocery store. The banks are 1 block the other way and a restaurant with tasty food is on the way. We handled all the errands on foot this morning. I have one more errand to run today and then I can relax.

Jennie (Vincenza Cudia) was the second of 4 children who were born in Canada of parents who had immigrated from Sicily in 1914. She was raised on the family farm which was located at what is now the corner of Martin Grove Rd. and Belfield Rd. In 1943, she met Archie Watson at a square dance and they were married on October 27 of that same year. Along came Fred in December of 1944, Andy in July 1946 and Ron in Apriil 1948. It was a very busy household. In 1949, the Watsons moved to a farm of their own in Ballantrae and began raising chickens. For the first couple of years, Jennie made and sold her delicious, home-made pies to support the family as Archie worked hard to get the first couple of batches of chickens to lay enough eggs to sell. They worked hard on the farm and after the boys moved on to their grown-up pursuits with their own careers and families, Archie and Jennie sold the farm and retired, moving to his brother's home. They soon bought it from him when the brother moved to BC after he retired from his job at GM. The house was the manse of the local church. We learned today while talking to the minister, that the money the Watsons paid for the house had been set aside in one of the church accounts and was left there until just a couple of years ago when it was decided that it and the accrued interest should be used to replace the windows in the current manse. It was nice that we got to actually see today the good use this money had been put to. After Archie's death in 2005, Jennie lived in the house until March of 2007 when she went into a nursing home and the house was sold.

It is nice to think that after a long life of hard work and family life, that Jennie is with Archie again and finally at rest.

After all the errands today, I turned on the computer, only to find a message that Keith Fury, the husband of my new-found cousin Linda Etter Fury, had died suddenly this morning. I had just met them both two weeks ago when I was in NB.  Last weekend they had just been to a big family reunion of the other side of Linda's family where over 200 people had attended.  My goodness, what a shock to know that he's gone!

Keith and Linda had planned to stop in our area to visit friends on their way to Florida with their RV later this year. Her whole world is now changed in an instant.  I am glad Linda has lots of family and friends there to help her through this dark time. I just wish I could be there, too. I copied this photo of Linda and Keith from her facebook profile pics. I believe it was taken at dinner as they were celebrating Valentine's Day this year. What a lovely photo of them both.

I think I'll go and give my loved ones a hug now.