A Memorable Mother's Day

This year, we really tried to have a memorable Mother's Day for my mom, since the loss her mom (aka my grandma) was so new. We thought of me going home to surprise her, but let's face it, I've been home a lot lately! So my sister and I hatched the plan of my sister Sarah driving my mom up to visit me in Guelph, since she's never been to visit me here yet. So Mom and Sarah hopped in the car on Saturday night, and arrived just in time to eat some delicious buttertarts, drink tea and sample some turducken from our earlier guest that day (more on that later) before heading to their hotel to sleep.

They showed up bright and early on Mother's day morning, where I had tasty pancakes waiting for them to fuel our day of shopping at the new Target and Len's Mill for fabric. After shopping was accomplished, we picked Zen up and headed to high tea at the Boathouse.  We gave each us fancy tea names like Penelope, Pritchard and Condalezza and sipped our tea with outstretched pinkies and exaggerated English accents while we discussed hilarious topics. Overall, it was a day to remember and possibly the start of a new yearly tradition!

Happy Mother's Day to all the awesome moms out there!

♥ Craftzilla

Have You Met....everythingok

Have you met my lovely friend Sami, who has an awesome Etsy shop called everythingOK?
If you haven't met her yet, you definitely should! She's just ventured into the world of 'creative unemployment,' and is reaching for her dreams of being employed in a creative field, hopefully in television! This girl doesn't need anymore training to be creative though: she's a photographer, maker of fibre-y things and illustrator. I thought I'd share some of my favourite things from the everythingok Etsy shop with you today, since hey, creative types also like to eat and stuff.

Sami LOVES her some Doctor Who, which shows in things like an adorable Tardis mug cozy above, and here amazing illustrations of the doctors and their companions like this one of the Ninth doctor and Rose  (my desire to re-watch the Ninth Doctor series is growing...)

Her photography and descriptions are amazing- I love this holding hands print

The description she gave is probably also the cutest thing ever and makes me wish for more warm summer days and holding hands walks:

Somewhere in Manhattan (or possibly Brooklyn) holdin' hands down the road. It's much safer to walk down the street holding someone's hand, and in some cases, it makes your heart do backflips.

The colours in this photo, "a crack in the universe" are so amazing! I wonder where this crack leads...

The below picture is actually from the art show she had where I met her in person and we chatted about the evils of university professors telling students not to take notes over downloading Powerpoints later.

Make sure you visit Sami over on Twitter, on her website or on her blog too for more photos, nerdery and some really thoughtful posts. 


♥ Craftzilla 

Dealing With Loss and Finding the Good Moments

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It was a bit of a hard weekend -- I got a call on Thursday that my grandma was being moved back to palliative care from the nursing home, and she ended up passing away on Saturday morning. It was good that the whole family were together, and that I decided to take Friday off instead of waiting until Saturday to go up to Peterborough.

There were good moments of the weekend along with the bad:

 ...going to garage sales with my dad and finding a sweet ice cream maker
 ...calling relatives to tell them the news
...going out for a patio lunch of pizza, beer and ice cream right after it happened, and raising a toast to my grandma
...making arrangements at the funeral home
...sharing memories and stories
...eating hot dogs and chips out on my parent's deck and enjoying the sun
...taking back those three pairs of pants that will never be worn, with the excuse of "the size was wrong" since my mom didn't want to freak out the pre-teen girl on cash.
...laughing over my grandma's thriftiness in not wearing the pants, of dying before her rent went up at the nursing home as well as partway through the month so she still got her old age security check
...writing my first obituary..luckily my sister helped.
.. finding photos that I didn't know existed of my Grandma, from Legion events --that's her in the middle, looking very much like a president or fighter pilot in her spiffy Legion blazer, right?

What's next:
...celebration of life in a few weeks at the Legion
...visiting the memorial gardens as a family
...trying to stay positive

♥ Craftzilla 

Making Memories: New Sewing Machine

Source: favim.com via Gillian on Pinterest

I've talked a lot lately about my grandma being ill, and part of that has resulted in the sale of her house and liquidation of some of her assets. Not to get into too many details here, but this ended up meaning that some money came my way, and I was stuck for awhile trying to decide what to do with it. There's the obvious action of paying off some bills, but I wanted to have something that I could hold, something that I could use to make me thing of her every time I used it.

Maybe I have a bad memory, maybe I need something to hold, like the locket of hers I've put on every time I miss her or feel upset that she's sick. Maybe I just like the idea of something tangible to remind me of her every time I use it. Maybe I'm just one of those people who don't like getting money even as gifts, and always want to DO something with it. Or maybe I just needed an excuse to buy a new sewing machine since mine is older than me and barely chugging along anymore.

So that's what I did - meet my new co-creator, Bernina 330:

I'm hoping to master more than the art of threading this fancy machine (I literally had to watch a video to even do that much, which made me feel pretty technically challenged)  in the weeks to come, and do some creative sewing. Best of all, every time I thread it,  I know I'll be thinking of good memories of my grandma, which will make sewing an even happier occasion than it usually is.

♥ Craftzilla

Bits and Pieces

My mind is in bits and pieces lately, so my post might as well be too:

The picture above is one I took from my grandma's house of my grandma and grandpa on their wedding day. If I remember correctly, this was in the mid-1950s, and the wedding took place in Ireland. My grandma looks so pretty!

Moving all the things out of grandma's house and garden when I was there the other weekend was a lot of work! Old ladies own a lot of concrete garden pagodas and Buddhas that all weigh hundreds of pounds. We found some awesome photos, memories, and keepsakes though, some of which I hope to share with you soon. I added to my Bulgarian embroidery and embroidered fabric collection, as well as my so-tacky-but-I-love-it jewelry collection.

One term of school is over, and another has started already! I like the accelerated semester for summer, since it means I actually get two months off of school, but my brain is sort of in need of a vacation. Luckily after this term, I only have one class left, so the end of school and getting to put a fancy BSW after my name are coming up quickly.

Only a few weeks until one of the events I've been helping with a bit, Ignite Guelph, is coming up on April 23rd. I'm excited to see how it all comes together.

Someone really needs to bring over some wine and help me gather all the 8000 documents I need to do my taxes.

I bought three pairs of pants online, and THEY ALL FIT PERFECTLY. I'm hoping they don't disintegrate into thin air like leprechaun gold the next time I wear them.

Speaking of pants, I also tried on these awesome yoga jeans from Second Demin Co. at my friend's store, Grey Rock, and I loved them. Also, I'm now a member of the Sisterhood of Fab Behinds, so here's the evidence below.  Or I may be peeing into a corner, according to my Dad, who is the classiest of all dads.

I watched this epic movie tonight and I don't  regret it even one bit. Hilarious.

I own some washi tape now! Got an amazing deal for 8 rolls on Pick Your Plum awhile back,  and now just have to decide what crafty things I might get up to with it. Send any washi tape crafts my way!

I'm working on a secret blog project that I'll share soon, as well as a fun custom order for a friend that I want to share when they're done, but don't think the internet needs a photo of me wearing one of these things. Suspense!

And with that brain dump complete, it's off to bed with me!

♥ Craftzilla 

Memories, and Moving On

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You know the thing about holidays that seem to have lots of chocolate around in stores, like Easter? I will buy lots and I will eat it, and likely be sick of chocolate before the holiday even gets here.

However, hopefully I'll work it all off this weekend since I'm going home to help my parents sort through my grandma's house before the new owners move in.

Wow, that's even sad to write :(

Grandma is still hanging in there and actually moved out of palliative care about a month ago. She moved into one of those assisted living kind of places, which are high on independence, still have 24 hour care, but are super costly. So unfortunately, her house had to be sold. Luckily it sold in record time, and over the asking price, so she will be comfortable and cared for.

But it's that same sense of impending loss that came over me when my parents sold my childhood home. All those memories, from the years our family lived in the house next to my grandmas will be gone, in a way, because the spaces will be filled up with all the memories and laughter and tears of other people. Other families will eat dinner together, and other kids will build snowmen in the front yard and draw on the sidewalks with chalk until their grandma gets upset at their mom for letting us draw there (what else are you supposed to do with chalk, really?)

You know how it is - another touchstone of your life isn't there where you left it anymore, and things have aged and fallen apart quicker than you could have guessed they would. And it's hard to take in, hard to participate in their destruction, but sometimes it's the only option.

The reality is that I'll probably never live in Peterborough again, my sister has her own house, and my grandma can't live on her own there anymore. Tenants are more of a hassle than it's worth for my parents, and hopefully the people who bought the place will make it a home and enjoy living there.

For me, I've got a spot set out in my dream apartment (or really, the next place we move) for one of the pieces of furniture that my grandfather made, to remember the times we spent there at this house before it was done. I chose the table and chairs - good, strong chairs, that look nice but are really hard to sit on, especially when you're occupied in a long lasting game of Monopoly or a Sunday dinner with a dessert to linger over. I want to be in that  new apartment that has space for this memory of how my Grandma's house used to look and the time I spent there, because I'm sure by the time I get there tomorrow, most of it will already be boxed up and packed away. And not to accidentally quote Dawson's Creek or anything, but I don't want to wait for my memories to be over/ fade before I can sit down on these super hard chairs in my own place, and remember.

Not to be a total downer, there should be at least some fun this weekend - my sister is dragging me and another friend of ours to see her husband's band play tomorrow night, so hopefully I can stay awake past 10pm and have a big girl drink or two. I also haven't visited Grandma at her new digs, so looking forward to that  and hoping she's up to it, as she had a bit of a fall the other day.

At any rate, I should stop eating chocolate and go pack for my trip now.

Happy Easter friends! Hope you are spending it with as many loved ones as you can :)

♥ Craftzilla

March Photo a Day -Day 1-8

I think the craziness of my month must be reflected in the fact that I'm just posting this first set of photos now, and it's already three weeks into March! It's been a month of lots of papers to write for school (have you ever reflected on group work for 16 pages? I have, and it wasn't pretty!), sessions for school, overtime and trips to Toronto for all the jobs, and to top it all off, I've been capital SICK off and on for weeks. March has me a bit down for sure, and I'm having a hard time crawling out of my winter funk. Amusingly, tonight I was at a class for my placement where we were talking about my old friend self care, including taking some time for yourself and doing things you love. So I figured I'd take a few minutes and share this first batch of photos with you from my March Photo a Day project, and let you know that I haven't fallen off a cliff or anything :)

Day 1 - "L is for...."  Love!  Look at these sleeping guys cozying up-- who couldn't love that?
Day 2- "I made this": I sure did! Zentron the robot (clock + Rubix cube+ Wine pourers=robot love), Love string art and a similar yet legally distinct knitted Hello Kitty

Day 3- Key  - I found this old diary key and love charm in my stash of jewelery

Day 4- Luck - Nothing luckier than my trusty charm bracelet that I got for my 16th birthday ! I like to keep it real with charms like my bottle of gin, and the car charm given to me by my mom, aka, "the only car I will ever buy you"

Day 5: Under - This is the lamp in our hallway...I think it's sort of retro and fun
Day 6 - Chair - Speaking of retro and fun, a friend gave me this chair and I love it's 800 layers of paint and classic lines.

Day 7- Fear - I fear that now that I have a donut pan that I will never stop making all the donuts. Recipe here.
Day 8 - Favourite- Jesse is definitely my favourite, even when he gives me sad eyes until I throw this freaking toy for him for hours on end.

So there you have it. Now that my sickness is nearing the end (hopefully, I can't cough anymore!) I  will hopefully be more in touch :)

♥ Craftzilla 

March Photo a Day

Now that I have a shiny new phone that can take more than one picture without chugging along, I'm going to try to do another Photo a Day challenge. In case you'd like to join in, I'm using the prompts from the Fat Mum slim site. I'll be sharing my progress here weekly, and aiming for daily on Twitter using the hashtag #FMSphotoaday.

♥ Craftzilla