Back & Forth

An old draft I found from 2010 that I'd not posted:

My daughters are catching the bug and the knitting fever.  AM, my 17 year old, loves to knit toys and in the last 2 weeks has knit 2 16-18 inch sock monkeys. CE, daughter #1 at 20 years old, knit an elephant for her girlfriend. She's moved onto making a hat from Noro Silk Garden (sort of raising fiber snobs).  Now, the trick is to make sure they don't loose my Addi needles!! Now SL, CE's girlfriend, is being drawn into the web!!  At first she was completely opposed to knitting cause that was for those old grannies.  Well, her first project is with a rich purple Lambs Pride (wool & mohair) and after a few rows, she wants to do patterns & color changes!!
Mission accomplished.  Now when they have to seek counselling for all the things Mom did, they can knit in the waiting room. Brooohaaa.
Now one more to go. My son was learning but his dad made fun of him and he quit and took up skateboarding. Can you imagine - falling down over knitting ;)

Last night I had a dream!

Earlier this week I received my second to last mark for this term - leaving me on pins and needles for the very last mark of my Bachelor of Business Administration degree. My mind played with me last night and drifted me through a dream that reminded me that there was still one more assignment to do. My sleep was rattled with the too familiar stress and panic of getting an assignment completed. But  ahhh the relief when I rolled over on my cat, felt her squirm and realized it was but a dream.  I set a goal in January 2012 to graduate with my BBA in May 2015 and have successfully accomplished that goal. Now to exhale and live without the pressure of class and classwork. But for how long will this leisurely period sustain itself before the desire to push myself towards another major goal (i.e. MBA) starts to swallow the exhale?

For today, I rest in my natural state, no make-up and no pressure.

Life is a ride

I completely forgot that this blog had been started and see that my last post was nearly 2 years ago. As with all of us, so much has happened in thei last two years. My grandson can now count and spell his own name.  In September, he will be heading off to school. Courtney is now married and they are living in Canada for now, at least until she's finished university (uni and she & her wife call it).  They it will be back to South Africa for them.  In addition to a grandson, we now have 2 granddogs, 1 grandcat, 1 grandlizard, 1 grandhorse, and 1 grandbunnies.  Alishia-Marie has matured into a wonderful mother and great worker. My baby boy is now 18 and 6 foot tall. No longer my little Bubby but always my Boy!! He and I will graduate this spring, he from High School and me from University. Better late than never! Frank and I celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary next month. Crazy! Oldest married - 4 year old grandson - married 20 years and I'm only 27.  Here's a little glimpse of the last 2 years.

Father's Day 2013

This is my Facebook post on Father's Day:

To all the Fathers that have helped make us who we are, thank you. To the Fathers of the future, raise your children with love and discipline. To the Fathers of the present, hold your baby(s) today - no matter if we are 2 or 62, we are always your baby.To the Fathers of the past, this is a difficult day for those of us that watched you slip away from this world because the love you gave us is stronger than time and you're always on our hearts.Thank you Wally Bishop & Ralph Grew for being my fathers!Thank you Frank Gallant for being the father to my children!Thank you Bryan Thorne for giving my sister stability and love to raise Tavis Thorne & Tyler.

I have been so incredibly blessed in my life with wonderful men. First it was my dad, Wallace Meldon Bishop (1915-1983), and then my step-dad, Ralph Levitt Grew (1932-1997) and now with my husband, Francis Robert Gallant.

My drive & strong work ethic comes from my parents.  My compulsive movement is from my dad. When I was a pre-teen, say 8 to 10 years old, I was sitting on the couch either knitting or sewing. My dad looked over at me and said to me with his famous big teasing smile, "My mother always said an idle woman was a useless woman and I'm glad you're not going to be useless".  My grandmother was born in 1888, before the days of factory made socks, food and clothes.

That one comment 30+ years ago started the drive in me to make him proud and to make the grandmother I never knew proud. He likely wouldn't have even remembered making the comment but I cherished everything he said.

From that little girl on the couch learning to knit came the woman that was working on this today:

Second Cup Knit In

The Fundy Fiberistas met for the first time for Knit Knight on King Street at Second Cup. Service was so so but the atmosphere was truly a pleasure.
Our group is now in our 5th year together and the bond grows stronger as the months and years progress. It's a wonderful experience to have a group of women to socialize with and share our life experiences. We're all strong, independent women that have strong family ties and I think it would be fair to say there's a streak of feminism that runs through the group. Not the bra burning feminism but the feminism that celebrates each woman as a strong contributor to society, family and community. We are all religions, socio-economical status and family structure.  Our group ranges in age from 20 - 95 with the average age in the mid-thirties.
I encourage all women to find that special group of women with common interest and enjoy the interaction.

Report from Courtney coming all the way from Namibia!!

Hey!Honestly, this place is amazing. I've done my first build week (oh my god, so hard) and one patrol week. Too much happened to write in an email in the amount of time I have, honestly. But it was all amazing. Really. The desert is.... I can't even explain how beautiful. It compares to my love of the ocean, really. But its been 40 degrees in the SHADE some days. Shorts that when I first put them on were so tight, and after a week barely fit from working so hard and sweating so much. I really love it, though. I've made two amazing friends... Sam (from Switzerland) and I have been inseparable haha he's sitting next to me now, actually. When I first got to Swakop we were in the same room, and then in the same tents at camp, and now in the same room again lol He leaves soon though, and I'm upset. I don't know that I've ever spent so much time laughing and being involved and making people laugh. And the other is Carli.. she's great! She's one of the staff and we just laugh all the time. We are always joking around and it's just really great. She's given me a really amazing idea for my future, and when we drive the 4 hours back to base camp on Monday I'm going to question her about her schooling and everything. I don't know how I will live without this place, honestly. I hate being in town now, I feel really uncomfortable. I can barely sleep in a bed, with a roof because I feel claustrophobic without the sky. When I get home, I'm seriously sleeping outside. Every day. I can cook amazingly over a fire now, too. You have no idea. So we should set up a firepit and I'll cook bush-man style. It's.... so good. Really.I wish I could tell you about Patrol week! It was hard, and it took us days to find the elephants. But when we did... I can't even. I was sitting on the roof of a jeep with Carli and if I had reached out my hand, I could have touched them. Wild elephants. There was something wrong with one of the herds and we thought a cow and her calf were killed but it ended happily and they found them yesterday.There is just... so much to tell. My life is changing, really. Johannes, who started this (in the video we watched, he was the guy tracking), is giving me a whole new outlook on everything. Carli is too. I feel so different. Last night when we went out to dinner, Carli was saying how the first Friday that I was here and we all went out I was really quite. Already I'm different, talking and laughing. It's really great. I never want to leave this place.Oh! And the river came down on Friday!!!! We got to base camp (seriously, no showers. for a week) and everyone unpacked the jeeps so fast and just ran into the river in the clothes we were wearing. Everyone was laughing, splashing and playing. It was so perfect.Everything is closed here on Sundays except for Church. But if I can, the next weekend I'm here, I'll get more time online and send you a proper email. I'm okay for money for now, but I'm not sure. My binoculars broke, and my work boots fell apart because of the heat, so I have to get all of that. And it's more expensive to eat here than I had thought. But, we will see. I love and miss you guys!

I read the words of my oldest daughter, holding my breath. She's so alive that I don't want to inhale and disturb her universe.  How can a mother express what she feels when she sees such amazing joy and growth her beautiful child. The world will be a different place now and she's going to make it that way.  To hear her laughing and joking fills my heart with immense happiness. It will be so amazing to see her in  51 days.

Get ready for RIMS 2012

This is the event I will be attending in April and I'm super excited to do so.

Tromping with Elephants

Oh, it's been a whole week now - exactly - since my beautiful daughter, Courtney, left for Namibia to work with a volunteer organization protecting elephants. It's not possible for a mother to be more proud of anything or anyone as I am of her.

She's 22 years old and worked her keaster off to save the money to travel across the world to fulfill a dream. Courtney is brave to step so far outside of her comfort zone to spend 3 months with strangers, a very difficult thing for her. When she's in base camp, she sleeps in the coolest tree house ever!!! Oh, would I have loved having that as a child! 

There's no Internet or phone service where she is, so there's zero communication until she gets to go into the city every couple of weeks. She'll likely spend her time horseback riding and not be on a computer ;)

She took a journal with her to record, in her elegant and charming style, all her experiences. That will be the best book ever read by this ole lady!

I'm in awe of you, my girl! How simply wonderful you've made life and how honored I am to have been given the opportunity to raise, know and love you.  Thank you for being my daughter!

Check out this site.

Happy 3rd Anniversary to Saint John & KV Fundy Fiberistas

The first Tuesday of February 2009 a small group of ladies met for a "knight of knitting" at the Lily Lake Pavilion here in Saint John. It was something new that I was hoping might stick but not really sure if it would or how long the gatherings would last. Once a month, a small group of us would meet for an evening and slowly the group grew and more new friends joined. After a year, once a month was no longer enough and we wanted to meet more often. So we added a second evening at Starbucks East and then the group really started to grow and grow and bonds became stronger and stronger. We were meeting for lunch and at each other's homes and hooking up regularly on our Ravelry group.  In October 2010, our friend Trish opened her own store and gave us a place to call home.  Now we flock to her store (Trish's Crafty Corner & Scrap Your World) regularly - in the morning right up until closing. We meet at least every week because we love to spend time together. Plain & simple.

How is it that you can have 30 women of all different socio-economical and family groups together with no judgments, gossip or clicking?  Our group is from 19 to 60's; professionals to full time mom's; professors to policewomen; married and single; with and without children; different religious & political views.  We all vary so very much but yet fit so very well together. We've supported each other through deaths and births and everything in between. These gals make you feel welcome into the fold and you are never a stranger long. 

So thank you , ladies, for being just you and for celebrating our 3rd anniversary as friends last night. The food was awesome and the time together even more awesome.

Figuring out this Math thingy

Well, I was thinking I was a somewhat intelligent being but realized that now it's not possible cause it's not. It's just not possible to make Math make sense. What exactly is e and logeX.  Now, give me knitting math - easy as pie but really, how many logarithms does a person need?

Sylvi Socks #8

Here's my 8th of 11 pairs of socks to knit for my Sylvi Sisters. Woohoo. Only 3 more to go ;)

How many times is it ok to be 27? Really?

Ok, let's just say that I was born in 1967 - for example. That would technically make me 44 today. But seeing that I'm creative and not technically inclined, is it ok for me to celebrate my 27th  birthday today - for the 18th time? Is it wrong? Na! Weird? Na, women all over the world do it, so it's not weird. So, it must be ok.

To quote a much loved and wise man, my dad "never act your age, cause people expect too much". Them's words to live by for all time.  So, thanks Ralph Levitt Grew (1933-1999) for the worlds best advise ever!

Today's cool location: Hawker - Now that's a place you wanna call home ;)

Vacation - 10 Minutes in Advance

Well, I'm off this week for a 10 minutes at a time vacation. Huh?  As a modern woman in these busy days, it's hard to sit and be still AND be okay with it. Have you ever had those weeks at work & life where everything is incredibly stressful, with everyone & everything pulling at you in a 1000 different ways? Well I've found the cure is a 10 Minutes in Advance Vacation. All this week, I'm sleeping when I want. Eating when I want. Knitting when I want. But must of all, I'm not planning anything more than a 10 minutes in advance. Wow, does it ever take the stress out of the day.  If you are only living for the next 10 minutes & tell people that, it's hard to have them & things pulling at you!

Today's Location - Warsaw, Poland.

Mad Sock Knitting

Ravelry - a knit and crochet community

Well, I have 2 full pair and 1 sock each of two other pairs for our Sylvi group. I'm going to knit a pair for each member of our KAL that finishes her Sylvi, plus one pair for our Photographer. It sounds like alot of work (there's 11 of us doing the KAL) but it's so much fun to see how excited the girls are getting. Angie is going to take a photo of us all in our Sylvis and wearing our socks ;)

Now, I have to get my needles together and finish my Sylvi too!!

This evening I spent the evening with Trish at her shop with Cameron. We knit and chatted until Frank was done is Union meeting. Alishia-Marie was out for supper with a friend, so Cameron and I hung out and cuddled. We were playing on the computer and somehow he managed to scrabble the letters on the keyboard. He's soooo cute!!

My wee little rant.

For those that know me, they know that once I get my knickers in a knot I'm a fireball looking for a target. Well, I tied my knickers up all by myself right good and the fireball target is ME.  I'm gonna share with you my learning experience.
I felt like the ignorant redneck from the back woods of some place really back wood-sy. You know what I mean. During supper today, I was sitting beside two Aboriginal Women and I realized that I know absolutely nothing about their history, their culture or the discrimination they've experienced. Not only didn't I know anything, but I'm so backwood-dumb-ass-redneck that I didn't even know how to ask the questions to start the conversation and to learn from these two ladies. I'm sure they thought I was putting them on when I asked them to explain something to me. It was like when someone outside Canada asks us if we live in Igloos because they don't even know we are a fully developed country.  Yip, that's me. The ignorant goober.  I didn't want to offend her by referring to them incorrectly, so I asked if the correct wording was Aboriginal or Natives. She was explaining that it's different by region. I mentioned we have MicMac in New Brunswick and I got lost from there. I was trying to understand how the different Nations are organized. So I asked if Mi'kmaq was like being Irish or.... Not a good question. Actually, it was a pretty bad question and a pretty stupid question and she let me know, I'm telling you. Not in a mean or hurtful way but in a way, let me try to relate it to something else we can easily understand - like when you say to your son of 7 years old, that he likes the girl next door and ask if he was going to marry her when he grows up.  He peers at you in utter disgust because she has coodies and that's just gross.  So, comparing an Aboriginal person to anything "white" is like asking your son if he's gonna marry the coody invested gross girl.  She doesn't see the world through the rose colored glasses I've always worn, oblivious to Indigenous people. The Lone Ranger & Tonto were NOT good depictions of the real world but are the only images I had.  Shame on me.  When she corrected me and rebuked my way of  relating anything Aboriginal in the European Colonialism of hierarchical measures, I felt the sting of being shame. I could almost hear her inner voice calling me a stupid white woman and I deserved it to be said out loud. First, I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about and I'm sure I haven't stated it here clearly, and second because I knew I'd stuck my big old foot right down my pie hole. In no was was she rude or abrasive but I was just plain dumb. How can I live in Canada and not now our Parliament and Supreme Court are built right over agent burial grounds? How could I not know that the Treaties signed between the THEIR land, our government made promises that had no expiry?
Thank you Grace & Tracy for giving me a wake up call that I promise the next time we meet, I will not be the dumb, redneck too clueless to converse with you. Thank you, ladies for this opportunity to grow as a person!!

Socks for Sylvi

There's a group of 11 of my knitting group tha are knitting the Sylvi coat out of Briggs & Little Atlantica. To keep it interesting, I have promised to knit socks for the first 3 girls done. One pair is done and I've started the second. As they all have such different sized feet, I wll knit to the toe decrease and then finish them once I know the winners.

Catching Up

Last night was our weekend Knit In and as I sat around and looked at all the faces I realized that I've been blessed with some wonderful women in my life.  We're housewives, mothers, professors, shop owners, policewomen, managers.  We're young and so young at heart. There is acceptance and sharing. No power struggles or judgments. We laugh at some of the funnies stories ever heard and cry as some truly sad events in each others lives. So, thank  you dear friends for welcoming me and making me feel welcome!!

Namaste Bag Give Away

Hey all. I was on Ravelry today (go figure!) and Hip Mountain Mama is having a bag give away.

Check it out at:  http://www.hipmountainmamablog.com/2010/08/namaste-hip-holster-giveaway.html?showComment=1281791478362_AIe9_BEOfb-L97Va71NR3_EdJmD1p1wwE2nBqqkXveqJsllabSbiZ15KG9aSuKy4o3_0ou721bpgpQ54rKy9-h_etQjuHFlc87NaEIljYKFzYLcZ8S2pI9JLko-B76D2da0nApdb6CAQg4iouX1b6lpO-mWmp8OTbtLyXBs16ZQOTJucxq1JnmcImzug2_GMd8RX3_e_xTty5b05MGzXK-AuztRQEBRXJfA_Lasa7XYykHUHdM5GXY8RWzC0L4HNm5H-1zfsVXW6ppI47csCjKKuFJe4F0oOsq1K6WRvxlvaDzoEUFLZuM9MbRwwbFNsD23vWxQaD2-tjcC_PuOxVXxqj9-yVj_ELCXq6kmbu2uPXbUwjibwCE33EC-UI5cAu34SJiNsoyOgG6PZc8F-uzDYEBs_jj7CgG_JLCywg64nQOgTxHnOmv1DXmexG3quKt_bcMdyso64xapbqdTMeDmRXB2xN2Y650e7jBuYF8An65ufOXH-FVTv36Yl-npZscAkkpHKnKRHT8kT4sEwBv0gW4jH-5zBYtnGclggWF-Zf0wLNRTong7ObuwurFt3wzsQIbEuMD0T5tpZXDjl26Yx8ArE4EBXhNXSkMjNiDnMWQWO4ECxTObSo0kT76K9HzV2Y_ze3QW8wX5HwFczF4Apc7vYLzeL9YZH0u3TetqJDfMRnH8c71qfHgFHhmtyZ5oWCMTeLGWSYKHqAndn5AvxFRyJ4-vhEdlibChk7nIKqL-SaRTBfOSLotsg0La-L83_cpcQlPF3h7D7ZoY-JSajyYqjH8qE6-MMENbGJVZXxn8jYc58jnA#c2259122524950408387

Yarn Diet Over!!!

Woohoo.  Alishia-Marie (my daughter) put me on a stash buster/yarn diet and it's finally over. I had a good dozen projects going and a whack of stash.  Well, I've knit down the UFOs (Unfinished Objects) down to 3 of the more difficult ones and beat the stash down quite a bit.  So she has now agreed to allow me to purchase more yarn and to start new projects.  For only being 18 years old, she's one tough cookie!!

Summit Shawl

I'm one ball of Fleese Artist Somoko into this shawl and have started the second ball. I can't wait to get it knit & blocked!