Back to winter wonderland

I spoke too quickly, of course; we got an extra 20 cm of snow this week, bringing us back to winter. But of course, we, being used to Canadian winters, know all about this annual mid-March storm, which bring big heavy flakes of wet snow: it's the last storm that brings an eventual spring...I'm happy to have a little bit of white covering the ugly grey of our early spring.

I managed to go ski before the end of the winter! 

The only thing is that this year, I had already experienced a little bit of real spring, by spending a few days in Washington last week, where I presented at the ACC-RAC.

Random cute house with cherry blossoms in Washington

The presentation went very well, and my team wan 2 prizes out of 9. I was very proud of our postdoctoral and PhD students who wan. It was also fun to meet authors I heard about over and over in the past 2 years I've been working with this research team.I managed to wear something I made (and to take a picture of it...)

My skirt! 

Being there for work, there was not too much time to visit, so we carefully prepared our itinerary for the one day off we had.

We ended up spending half a day visiting all the main monuments

Michelle's garden!

And then spent the second half of that day visiting the Smithsonian museums. I was there with my man and 3 male students, a chiropractor, a kinesiologist, and an engineer. The guys decided to visit the museum of Natural History to see the dinosaurs, and I decided to visit the Museum of American History.

It was awesome. I had time to see everything, from the different wars that USA participated in to Michelle Obama's inaugural gown. There was a lot about American pop culture, with Kermit the frog, Dorothy's ruby slippers and Julia Child's kitchen.

Washington was also great for its wonderful food: we had awesome Mexican, Ethiopian and Turkish food! Nothing that can be found in 3R!

And I had a little time to knit..waiting for the plane on the way back. I also managed to go to a yarn store near our hotel, but I didn't have much time to shop, because my boss was with me. I ended up buying the cutest buttons ever. I'll take a picture for the next entry.

Then I came back to work. I was supposed to go back working full time as a research clerk (not sure at all of the translation...), but somehow, because of a few misunderstandings, I still worked 4 jobs this week. But Monday morning, my replacement is supposed to show up at the clinic, and April 1 should be when I go back to a quiet. life of only 2 jobs. Just in time to start preparing for my next trip: a week in Paris with my 2 aunts, who are both 80 and over, but incredibly active, curious and interested in everything (just the way I hope to be at their age).  I think it's going to be a lot of fun!!!
More details in the next entry. Have a great week!

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!