September at the speed of the light

This is my 50th post! Who knew I would find so many things to say, and so many things to learn and do since I moved here!

September has not been an exception; it's been so busy, I feel everything has been done on automatic pilot.
I've always felt that September, for me, was the real beginning of the year. It's the time I take my resolutions, I plan my year, I rework my budget, I take a big breath and get get back in every day's craziness.

So, here are some general news, for those who know me: I now have 3 work contracts at the university, 2 in the chiropractic department (one for the neuromusculoskeletal affections research group, one for a Chair in Knowledge Translation for health, set at McGill University) and a third one in the nursing department in the cardiovascular health laboratory. Tree groups, 3 supervisors, 3 cultures, 3 ways of working, 3 sets of deadlines. I'll get used to it, and anyway, it's supposed to be temporary, but let me tell you that the past month has been brutal on a professional level.

But to get distracted from all that work, I had a lot of options:

1. Get ready for our trip. We both took only a week off this summer, and it was far from being restful, so we are leaving on Tuesday for 2 weeks in Hungary and Romania. I didn't get the chance to organize much, but the good thing with going back to a place where you've spent so much time already is that there is no need to organize. This year, I added a visit to Dracula's castle (my man said he could not go to Transylvania and come back without having pictures of the castle), but besides bringing a few presents, letting people who have access to internet know we're coming, all I have to do is to buy a phone card when we arrive, and let people know we will pass by. AAhh, vacations. I can't wait.

One of the places we are going...I've never seen it in fall yet, I can't wait. 

2. Can. I canned an insane amount of plum jam, grape jelly and tomatoes. All by myself, since my man was busy getting ahead in his studies. He's going to miss the equivalent of 3 classes while we are gone, so he had to spent all his evenings writing papers and homework since he started his class at the beginning of the month. The bad thing with canning is because it doesn't happen often, I forget what I learn from a year to the other. So I have a batch of good grape jelly, and another one that did not "jellify".  The plums are good, but a little runny. And by the time I got to my 3rd box of tomatoes, I had everything under control, but let me tell you that evening of the first box was messy and painful.

3. Sew. I decided to learn how to sew properly. It's been on my to-do list for, like, ever, and I've never done anything about it. I wanted to register for weaving lessons, but I would have missed a third of them while on vacations, so I called a sewing school instead. (Not really thinking I would also miss a few classes, but hey, there was not much thinking done in September, as I mentioned earlier). So I ended up in a year-long class, which I LOVE. I don't know what it is, if it is to put a method to whatever I was doing without knowing how, or if it is just the teacher who is so experienced both in sewing and teaching, but I'm very happy I decided to register. I love how we learn techniques while making something at the same time. I'm making this skirt (model B) to start, and the teacher said that by the end of the year, we will have 2 skirts  2 blouses and 2 pairs of pants.

4. Exercise. I told you, September is the month of resolutions for me. I have not been very good at keeping up going to work with my bike, because I just get so red and sweaty in the last hill that I scared my colleagues. So I decided that since I had access to a gym at the university, I would use my lunch hour to get in shape. I registered to power yoga and aquafit. One of the unfortunate thing about going to that gym is that you have a few people teaching every single course. I know they are kinesiologists, and they know how to tell us to move and what to be careful with, but I do not enjoy that everything is taught the same way. For example, I would enjoy my yoga class to be a little bit more "yogic", and last semester, my zumba class was aerobics with hips. So I think I have to keep registering for classes where I my only expectation will be to move and sweat, such as in the aquafit one. I've also been doing Pilates for the past 2 years or so, and I kept that, and asked my teacher if it could become a little bit more intensive. Hopefully all these, plus my 15-minute walks to and from the bus stop twice a day will give me more energy, which is really my primary goal.

5. Get sick. I managed to get a little sick...but it's okay, I finish my antibiotics today, so  I'll be fine for my trip!

6. Go to funerals. My 84 uncle passed away a few weeks ago. He had had a very good life, so even if it was a sad event, we all managed well. It was great to see relatives I had not seen in a very long time, so all that driving around to get there was well worth it!

7. Start the Farmers' year. I'm still part of the local Farmers' circle (a women craft association) board, and we kick the year with our first meeting at the beginning of the month. I think over 100 members showed up, it was hot in the hall!

8. Harvest. In the past years, we had an urban garden, in containers that my man had modified for gardening. This year, we didn't have any time to take care of our garden, but still planted 2 kinds of cherry tomatoes and some other things, including containers' carrots. (I forget what else we planted, because it obviously didn't work). The fact that we actually planted something this year was due in good part to the fact that a colleague came to visit a few months ago with his young child, and we had to keep that child busy while his mother used my sewing machine to make curtains. So my man showed him how to plant seeds, and it actually turned into a a few very nice tomato plants!

We even got a few carrots!

9. Shop. I got those buttons on Etsy. Love them, but realized they are too big for my Peasy, which I will talk about further in the next paragraph.

10. Go to Montreal. I took a Friday to go to Montreal for ice cream (beet sage ice cream!) with friends, a haircut in an Aveda salon (no aveda product in 3R) a crazy concert featuring musicians I had met at camp this summer, yummy Romanian food, quality time with a little guy I love and an awesome zumba class taught by the best teacher ever.

11. Knit. Yeah, I know, difficult to believe I actually had time to knit something, right? Well, if we count the trip to Montreal + the fact that I take the bus for 10 minutes twice a day, that's about how much time I had to knit in September. Minus the days I chatted with friends who also take the bus, minus the days where my man picks me up from work, minus the few times where one of my supervisors gave me a ride home.

But, yeap, I managed to finish (kind of) my Peasy, which I rename the humility reminder cardi. Or, rather, I will finish it AGAIN today. Why did I need to be reminded to be humble? Well, because after knitting that cardigan quite quickly, without any mistake (well, not any I can see!) lace and all, I was ready to believe that I had become a good knitter. or at least not a beginner anymore. Until I got to the button bands. You, know the easy part, where you pick up stitches, and only knit for a few rows, and bind off, and that's it? I'm not even talking about the other band, where I had to make the button holes, because that went not very well,  but let say, quite well.

So this button band story started at the yarn festival I went to in August, I had a lot of time to knit, and did my first band on the Sunday afternoon. Catastrophe! I did the bind off so tight, it looked like a corset. I undid that. Once, twice, three times. Both sides were never symmetric  Did the bind off 4 different ways.  Changed for bigger needles. Asked my friend and knitting mentor Elizabeth, who told me that I just didn't pick the same amount of stitches on both side. What? That could not have been it? How did that happen, I was convinced I had followed the pattern exactly as it was. Well, I still had to re-do it 2 or 3 times, but I think that now, that's it, it is done. Well, I also realized that I forgot to do 2 button holes, but I didn't have any energy left to panic with that, so I just decided that I would sew the whole thing and wear it as a sweater, and add buttons to decorate. Eventually. That cardigan-turned-sweater is bathing as we speak, because I am wearing it in Europe next week. So I have decided.

Old picture, it is now symmetric!

But wait, that's not the only thing I knitted! I'm also almost done with this hoodie, which I am hoping to bring as a present in Romania next week. the back and front pieces are done, and I'm halfway through both sleeves, which means that tomorrow, I hope to knit the hood, block and assemble on Monday to pack. I don't see a lot of sleeping in my near future, since there is a lot of other things to do before we can leave on Tuesday, but hopefully, I'll be bringing 2 finished objects in my suitcase, and maybe more, but I don't want to talk about it so it get jinxed.

I will take a lot of pictures while I travel, and promise this time I will also post a few on the blog with explanations when I get back. Enjoy the fall, and see you in 2 weeks.

Spring might be coming to 3R as well...

After a few surprisingly beautiful days in March, that made us believe spring would be early this year, the weather went back to its normal spring blah in the past few weeks. Spring is not a nice season in Québec. It's grey, dirty, and it takes forever to see anything green. I get really jealous to see pictures and updates from Facebook friends who have tulips in their garden, or who are posting beautiful pictures of fruits trees in flowers. The only reason we know it is spring is that it's past March 21.

When do we usually know that it is really spring, and that we can expect nice weather? When the geese come back from the south:

Pictures from April 2010, we did not have the time to go this year

In 3R, the geese started to arrive on March 18 this year, a few weeks after they arrived on the south shore, but still wayyyy earlier than usual. It was a beautiful day, and they obviously got confused about what date it was. I hope they are well, because we had snow and cold temperature since they made it here.

However, I think this weekend might be the real beginning of spring. Here are a few signs:

Costo mango, Asian pears and lettuce containers as mini greenhouses

 A new tenant! A chickadee made a nest in there this week, after it was left empty last year

Urban garden is ready to go (as soon as it stops freezing at night)

Another sign is that I'm getting productive again! I got a few weeks where I just wanted to go to bed as soon as I got home. Maybe it was just starting to work full time again that did that, or trying to get organised despite a schedule that changed every 2 days in the past 2 weeks. I was working for the chiro lab 3 days/week since September. I added 2 days/week in the cardio lab 2 weeks ago. A few days later, my chiro boss asked me if I would like to work a little less for him this summer, since he won't be too busy, and this would help stretch his budget to keep me longer. Super! Then, on Thursday, I was asked to work an extra day/week for the cardio lab. I'm going to try to only add half a day, since I already have a bunch of appointments and other things scheduled for may, such as getting a house, painting it, changing its windows and its floor, and moving into it! So hopefully the 4½ days/week will work, and that schedule will remain the same until the end of this contract (end of August).

So, I did not get much time to knit and weave since the last time I wrote. If you recall, nothing was quite working, and that's how it was until this weekend. I saw my mother on Saturday, and asked her about Peasy. She could not tell me anything new, except that what I had done was right, but in my head, it was still wrong. This morning, I woke up, having decided to just get through it, and yes, it was ok. I have no idea if it got fixed, or if I was wrong all along and it was ok, and I just realised this this morning, but it doesn't matter. I can now go ahead with it. I started the front lace, and I think it will be quite easy, it is very, very well written.

I had another nice surprise this weekend.
I realised that this weaving pattern, which I thought was boring because it was not colourful enough:

boring

looked like this underneath:

Colours!!!

So I am a happy crafter.

Today is the last day of my 4-day Easter weekend (good way to start working full time, no?). I think I'll use it to finish another woven piece.

Talk to you soon!

a better knitting week

So, I realise that my last post was a little bit negative. Nothing seemed to work, so I just put everything aside for a few days until it got sunny again and I got the chance to spend 2 full hours in my favourite knitting environment: the 3R-Mtl bus. I actually would rather pay lots of money to take that bus than use amigo or other carpooling systems, just for the knitting-time quality. 


I usually take this bus early in the morning, because I usually have a day full-jam-packed ahead of me when I go to Montreal. Fortunately, that's when I'm the most productive (this time, I took the 6:15am  one). I get to spend 2 full hours focusing only only on my knitting. I sit on the first row, where I have a little table that is more stable than the ones in the other rows, I take my pattern and my iPod out, put my iPod on the pattern so it won't move, turn on my iPod to one of my several knitting applications, take a sip of the café au lait I got right before I left and bang, I can knit for 2 hours straight.

This time, my main problem was that I had not followed the instructions properly, and did not do the decreases at the right interval. But somehow, I did not panic (my self-instruction "breathe" do help a lot) and kept going even if I knew I was not following the pattern. Let's call it knitting intuition, or, ahem, maybe more properly, stubbornness. Somewhere else in the pattern, I had to decrease every 6 rows, and somehow, even if it was VERY clearly written in the pattern I now had to decrease every 5 rows, I did it at every 6 rows again...but not constantly. Actually, even with my hi-tech iPod application, I'm not sure at all what I did, so it added another layer of stress: how am I now going to make sure both fronts are symmetrical?

After over 2 hours spent waiting at the passport office with my bag pack on my bag (practising for this summer, and strengthening my lower back...not) I arrived at Elizabeth's place for a session of pilates-knitting, She also did not look stressed or worried about the fact that I was doing whatever, since the final product looked OK. She also did not look worried or even puzzled at the fact that my needles were not at all where they were supposed to be (I was not stressed, because I had not realised yet I had not followed the pattern for that either). Anyway, the left front is now finished, and somehow, I finished it with the right amount of stiches left, and the right length. I started the right front, which I seem to be knitting as randomly as the left side, despite my super iPod application. But, people, take a look at this: it is starting to look like something I will soon be able to wear. (Ok, I've been saying that since about a month after I started it, last year, when I thought it looked like a cowl), so let's change this to: People, take a look at this: it is starting to look like a CARDIGAN I will soon be able to wear...maybe even on July 20, when I leave for Romania!!!

Other crafting news: after asking my man if he could see the mistake in the weaving, and he was, I did undo the inch, and weaved a couple more inches. But nothing to get exciting about yet.
Sewing: I'll try to get back to the skirt today, as I have a day off. (but I would rather try to finish my cardigan...).
Gardening: it is all green again, the new tomato plants look good and are full of flowers, and the one thing that survived our early planting, a zucchini plant, has started to produce one tiny zucc, with flowers for a few more.

Life is good again, except for the pictures that refuse to upload...I'll re-post when it's fixed, until then you'll have to use your imagination.