The purple chair

I loved my purple chair!  

 Was it a good-looking chair?  Not especially.   

Was it comfortable?  Definitely not!  

Did I sit in it often? Um, is once a year often?

Nevertheless, I loved that chair because my Dad made it for me.  If you knew my Dad, you know that he wasn't exactly a handy kind of guy.  He owned  2 power tools (a drill and a jig-saw), a couple of screwdrivers, a hammer and a large supply of black electrician's tape.  (His preferred method of repair for just about everything.)

Anyway, many years ago, he & Mom were getting rid of the adirondack chairs in their back yard and I jokingly suggested that he use them as a pattern to build me a new one.  Ha ha, big laughs all 'round.  

Well, damned if he didn't!!  He proudly gave it to me for my birthday in 1999.  It was unfinished, because as much as he didn't like building or fixing things, he liked painting even less.  I think he expected me to paint it white, because theirs had been white and I had liked them.  Nope, I painted it purple!  When he saw it, he was obviously surprised by my colour choice, but thrilled that we had designed a whole area of our garden around it.  I told him it was perfect, but I needed a foot-stool to go with it....He became ill soon after, and I never got my foot-stool.

When he died in 2000, the bunch of us were over helping Mom to clean out his things, and in his workshop in the basement, I found it.  My foot-stool was 3/4 finished.  

I've been in denial for years about the condition of my chair.  Sure, it was a little the worse for wear, but surely it was still salvagable?  Maybe it just needs a paint touch-up.  I finally had to admit that it was worn out, beyond repair, and downright dangerous.  It was time for it to go :-(

 I found a resin version and I could've been swayed to go with pink, but when I saw the $299.00 price tag, I choked and left the store in a hurry.  I only took a picture of it, because that little pillow was really comfy and I wanted to remember to try to make one.

Dan found a "bear chair" kit for $49.00  Okay, that's more like it.  He built it for me, then I just had to take it apart 1 piece at a time and glue it and screw it back together.

Okay, it's stopped raining;  time to paint it.

Primed

Ta da!  (Same foot-stool)

It's even comfortable, so I can sit in it and enjoy a glass of wine.

Cheers, Dad.

Spring!

I know, I'm weeks behind posting pictures of spring, but that's the way my life works sometimes.

Spring officially starts for me with the sighting of the first crocus.  

Our local off-leash park has been especially green this year.  

I love the way this path just kind of meanders through it.

This tree is just down the street from us.  Every year I'm blown away by how huge it is, and by how many blossoms are on it.

Tree in the park

Our back garden smells SO good right now!

Sorry, this is a really crappy photo, but considering it was taken from my office window, across the road and several hundred yards away, it's not bad.  This little calf is just minutes old.  He was just standing up on wobbly legs.  You don't see that from a highrise office downtown!

Our last week-end in Canmore was wonderful!

  This is the view from Cari-Ann's front deck.  Nice eh?

Bill & Vi came up to install the doggy gates that they made to keep Muñeca in.  Taz is helping her favourite person in the world to test them out.

We spent ages at the Quarry Lake off-leash park watching dozens of avalanches.  Cool!

I'm pretty sure we woke this guy up on one of our walks.

On a completely different note.  I've been thinking of trying my hand at quilting.  I'm gathering the accoutrements, but I haven't gone as far as actually buying fabric yet.  I love the idea of choosing fabrics and making patterns with it, but the idea of sewing still scares the crap out of me...

I thought I'd start small, like maybe a pot-holder or something.

One of my co-workers just had a baby, so I decided to make a pair of baby moccasins for her.  Over the years, I've made probably a dozen pairs of these, but none in the last couple of decades.  I was surprised to find that Tandy Leather still sells the kits.

They turned out okay, considering how long it's been since the last pair I made.

A rainy day.  This was taken from the kitchen window.  I just like the streakiness.

No rain today, though.  Bright & sunny - perfect for painting a chair.  More on that later,

Mountain get-aways

Cari-Ann is in Bolivia for 5 weeks and she generously offered to let us use her house while she is away.  We've been having a blast pretending that we live in Canmore.  Well, on the week-ends anyway.

A couple of weeks ago we drove up in a snowstorm.  It was kind of spooky the way the mountains were just barely visible.

Cari-Ann lives in a quiet neighbourhood right at the base of the Three Sisters.

There are miles of bike paths and walking trails, and we've explored most of them.

Around the 'hood.

Whatcha lookin' at Taz?

Taz is fascinated by chipmunks and squirrels (and there are a LOT of them!)

Along the trail

Not a great shot, but this robin is building a nest in the tree right outside the kitchen window.  She didn't stick around long before she was off for more construction materials.  I've been checking the window regularly to try to get a better picture, but I haven't seen her since.

We're pretending to be locals, but we give ourselves away by going gaga over the wildlife.  

Lots of deer, and elk in the neighbourhood.

At least they use the crosswalk.

This would've been a nice, but I clicked the shutter just in time to get a butt shot.

A reflection in a neighbours window.

And now for Taz's favourite part.  The local off-leash park is spectacular!

We've been thinking that it might be time for a change of address, so it's been fun test driving Canmore.  Of course, unless we win the lottery, that's not likely to happen, but we've had 3 wonderful week-ends pretending...(one more to go!)

Bye bye Lola

Lola was on holidays at our house for a couple of weeks while Lesley & Dave were in Hawaii, but she went home last night.  Look at this face!  Is she adorable or what??!!

This is her "Let's play with the ball" look.  Actually it's her only look.  She is completely obsessed with her ball.  We got this look even after an hour at the park playing with the stupid ball.  As soon as we got home, it was like we'd never been out.  If you ignore the look, she'll nudge her ball a little bit closer to you, then a little bit closer, then a little bit closer....the ball has to actually disappear before she'll give up.  Now that she's gone, we have to go around the house and retrieve all of the tennis balls from the tops of shelves and from out of cupboards, wherever we stashed them when we couldn't take the game anymore. Except for the one-track mind, it was fun to have a little dog around the house for awhile.

The only problem was that I couldn't say her name without hearing the Kinks...

•♫♪♥¸.•*¨*•♫♪Lola, L-O-L-A Lola, la la la la Lola♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¨*•♫♪

I tried another Pinterest recipe for dinner tonight.  

White chicken enchiladas with green chile sour cream sauce

Of course I substituted seafood for the chicken.  I also added some sour cream to the seafood and sprinkled it with cayenne pepper. (Not enough)

Maybe I wasn't very hungry, or maybe it's no fun cooking a big meal then not having anybody to share it with, (Dan isn't feeling well) whatever, it wasn't that great.  Kind of bland.

It wasn't awful, and it WAS quick and easy, so I haven't written it off completely, but next time
I'll add more heat. (extra chiles)

I'm back

Had a little discussion with myself about whether or not to continue blogging, and decided what the heck...

If nothing else, it serves as a memory aid when I need to know when or where something happened, and frankly, I need all the help I can get in that department.  

It also makes me take photos, and taking photos makes me notice things that I wouldn't ordinarily notice.  

It also justifies the new camera that I bought for myself.

This is the Canon SX260 HS

I spent a week in Hawaii, lugging around my gigantic Canon Rebel with the honkin' big 18-270 lens and I hated it.  I was totally uninspired to take photos because it was just too much trouble to dig it out of my bag.  I'd read about this new one before I went to Maui, and I thought I could just go down to my local camera store and pick one up to take on holidays with me.  Nope, didn't work.  It was too new, and nobody had it in stock yet.  I think that's why I didn't enjoy the big camera - I had my heart set on taking this new one with me, and I couldn't.  

This baby has almost twice the zoom of my big camera  (500mm!) and it fits in my pocket!  

It's also a pretty colour, but of course that doesn't matter to me at all :)

My first coupla weeks back at work were brutal!  Two 5-day weeks, and I was by myself for one of them.   Had a few re-entry problems.  Just minor things like, y'know, forgetting how to do a cheque run...that messed up a couple of days right there.

Anyway, I'm back to the regular 3 days a week now, so this was my first mid-week break. 

I've had a pretty productive day today.  

I've been baking since early morning and the house smells wonderful!

I made Feta/ricotta/spinach rolls that don't exactly look like the picture on the recipe, but they are delicious! 

I made 2 apple pies (sin canela) 

and I had some pastry left over, so I made a few cheese scones too.

Mmmm...mmmm!!!

I had planned on making shrimp enchiladas for dinner, but I'm thinking Chinese take-out sounds pretty good instead.  I've had enough cooking for one day.

Anyway, welcome back to DTL.  I'm enjoying spring this year more than ever.  Things are just starting to green up and bud out.  I love it!