Pokey Peas Challenge for November 2024

Well, winter found us. I was grateful for my winter tires on the drive to work. Thanks for the positive comments kellyr21. joyfulnana I am still doing a little knitting, but the puzzle afghan is going to take me another year, I'm pretty sure.

The Awesome Ladies Project is having an online scrapbook festival this weekend, so I will have a few classes and hangouts to attend. I got a haircut yesterday. My hairdresser moved to a town 25 minutes away, which isn't really too long a drive, but it used to be only 10 minutes across town so I am adjusting.

Have a great day.

Hello Pokeys. Good to hear from so many of you over the last few days.

So good to hear about your mobility progress, nylene! Sending thoughts to gramma and family. Glad you got to work safely on these roads, justjac. Sunday I didn't have to drive on them cuz dd's family picked me up.

Dgs and I had a busy couple of days, but we managed to go through all the toys, discard the broken/unusable ones, and get the rest back into tubs and onto the shelves neatly. When I was cooking supper yesterday before driving him in to town for hockey, he disappeared. When I went to check he was building with TinkerToy in the basement. I didn't take a pic, just reminded him that we wanted the basement floor clear. He grinned and promised to put it away when he was done, and when I checked later, it was all stowed away again.

kitbop, how will the contract deadlock at Canada Post affect your family? I have been doing alot of Christmas shopping on line, and hoping the looming postal strike won't delay receipt of gifts too much. Hoping for a settlement that is fair to the unions, but hoping it can be reached without too much disruption. I noticed today that an Amazon order was being shipped via Purilator rather than Canada Post, so at least that one will arrive on time.

My focus is split between cards and pages. I hope to do some Christmas card prep on Saturday morning. I finished a two pager this morning while dh was in town, and have another one started.

Waving hi to everyone

grammadee - we must have been posting at the same time. Well done to you and your GS on sorting the toys and getting that all cleared up!

Good luck to the Canadians - hopefully the postal disruptions are minor.

layouts from this afternoon

sounds like lots of driving and not much scrappy fun for you today grammadee. Hope to see you tomorrow for the crop.

I have housework to do today and then will go with DH when he drops off DD18 for her ride - she's camping this weekend. I finished off a page last night and I think just have one more left to finish off 2022 so hope to get to it today. DD18 gave me the journalling last night which should help.

nylene - thank you so much. I'm glad PT went well and that you stayed home from Costco to rest. That's awesome that DH is making soup!

I finished the 2022 album (ok so it's 4 albums plus 3 trip albums, lol). Going to work on December layouts this weekend - I have gaps in 2012 and 2014 and I don't think I've started 2023 or even printed 2024...

We dropped DD18 off halfway to camp this evening - her leader met us there and picked her up. She'll be home Sunday. They are tent camping and doing an orienteering event tomorrow.

The silver didn't photo well on this one

Mixed up dough for rolled cookies to bake tomorrow, and butter tarts are in the oven. When they are done, I am heading into town for a hockey game. Tomorrow I plan to roll, cut, and bake the dough from today and make a batch of no bake Christmas tree treats. Christmas is coming!

Busy week ahead of me.

Planning to do a little cookie making tomorrow.

I am driving my sister in law to the city Tuesday morning for a two day set of appointments. While there, I need to take my dh's iPad in for a factory reset at the Apple store, pick up some card kits I ordered from a LSS there for our card making on Saturday, and do some Christmas shopping. I have specific stores to go to to pick up specific items &/or gc's. Dsil loves to shop, so I don't think she will mind a side trip to West Edmonton Mall.

Thursday I will finish my shopping binge in the small city more close to home. Again, I have a list. I also intend to print photos while I am there. In the evening, our book club is gathering at justjac 's.

That will leave me Friday to do some housework and prep for our card making marathon on Saturday.

Whew!

Happy Monday Pokeys! I feel a little disconnected this month - my work/home schedule is out of whack and I find I'm not popping onto the boards at "normal" times and don't post.

We have some art on our walls! Finally got enough painting done here, made decisions (trying not to overthink) and got out the hammer. I thought we had too much art...turns out we need more. I watch local auctions (estate or art) to find "affordable" art - currently have a winning bid on this one:
picture by kirstendrew, on Flickr

grammadee - I'm in the awkward shift from scrapping to Christmas project work - cards, journal your christmas and my MIL's calendar all need to be started, so that means putting away my Florida album. It makes me sad, but I can't have both sets of supplies out, and I don't have time for it all. What are you doing about mailing cards with Canada Post on strike? I thought I might make a shopping trip to Buffalo or Detroit in early December, and mail US peas their cards from there!!! But you and justjac might not get yours until the new year

I too have been making cookies - I think it's the cooler weather. A batch (about 4 dozen?) lasts 2-3 days at best. I don't start Christmas baking until December because I'm not organized enough to bake ahead and freeze. Are you family big butter tart fans? We are (except DH) but no raisins.

the strike doesn't actually affect us because DH is currently on a leave from work - Canada Post decided that his shift was no longer 5-11am, but instead he should work 2-8, or 3-9...as in AM. We've *always* firmly stuck to our "no night shift" policy in our family as it's too disruptive to our family vibe which we cherish. So instead of just quitting, he took a leave to give him time to watch for another posting. Nothing has come up yet (mainly due to the contract negotiations) and we don't know how it will end. After over 12 years with the company, it would be nice to keep going, but we won't sacrifice for a night shift.

Linda - I'm so happy for you getting your full-family Thanksgiving! DS's return is perfectly timed. It makes up for last year's plans falling apart!
Good luck with the cleaning and hope to see you today or tomorrow on the crop. I have chores this morning then plan to be on for a bit.

nylene - Your Alex looks so grown up (especially when I think of your graduating DGS with his baby face!) I think glasses do that too - people always took me as older than I was, but then I was tall as well. Alex looks tall?

joyfulnana - come be my next door neighbour please. Can you imagine our crafty play time? I think what's hard is that I might have someone on this street who would be a good craft buddy but it's like when we started our online crops: we weren't sure if we were actually gonna like the people we met. At least online, you can approach gradually and if it's not a good fit you just don't continue. If you invite someone in person and then don't like them...it's awkward. And if they don't get the message, you can get stuck!

justjac - we put our winter tires on this week: although we're still at about 8 degrees during the day there are snow-flakes on the weather app for the weeks ahead. Did you get lots done this weekend?

kellyr21 - did you get lots of art time this past week? Do you have a room as a studio at home?

Gonna drag DH off to Costco and to pick up an industrial shelving unit and a weight-bench I bought on an auction site. Got both (they're new) for about 25% of what the retail cost would be, and since we're starting to build our home-gym area the weight bench was a good find. Then I hope to pop on and crop with Mom this afternoon.

My weekend wasn't as productive as I thought. It was more a hang out event than classes except I did learn how to make a cute 8 page "zine" notebook out of one page of copy paper. I'll post a couple pictures when I get home. I also learned some gel plate techniques, but since I don't have a sink on the same floor as my scrapbooking using my gel plate involves hauling a bunch of stuff to the main floor and putting a table up in the middle of the living room, so I don't do it very often. I made a couple cards and a Book of Me layout and 2 daily pages for my December commitments to the ALP editorial team.

nylene my hair isn't much shorter. She took off 1-1.5" and shaped up my layers. grammadee I haven't done any baking and given my blood sugar issues, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I will make peanut brittle because it's our family tradition. I will make a pretzel M&M bark that my brother-in-law loves. I might experiment with some no sugar baking. We'll see.

kitbop I'm in denial about Canada Post. I will get my cards ready to go and when they can be mailed, I will mail them. Linda I will be doing some cleaning, too. With bookclub at my house the kitchen/livingroom/bathroom need to be company ready by Thursday. I also need to actually read the book!