Category: home life

And here’s the roll over 10 second video That’s “Big Empty” by the Stone Temple Pilots on the radio.

She’s a good old girl.

It’s all the little things together that made this a big weekend. Starting with dinner and a movie (Fargo) with Sarah and Monica Friday night at home. Then Saturday all three of us up early and off to Havelock to Grampy’s House. He choked up a little when Sarah kissed him on the cheek. How wonderful that she could see him and visit for awhile.

  Monica and Sarah went to a bridal shower in the afternoon at Salisbury while Dad and I shared lunch, reminisced about hunting and fishing memories, and snoozed between conversations. My dear old stubbornly wonderful father. I will miss him terribly someday.

Home to Saint John for a relaxing evening of Netflix with nachos & cheese and to bed with dreams of stained glass possibilities.

Sunday morning, Monica and I up early    coffee in hand and laptop on lap playing around with blogs and pictures. Then worked for awhile in the basement winery bottling two batches of Shiraz. Should be a good easy sipping wine; one with hints of spicy berries and the other a bit rounder with a percent higher alcohol.  

Finished in the winery to a beautiful breakfast of scrambled eggs. Father’s Day off to a roaring start 🙂

By noon the skies weren’t even half bad. A fresh nor-easterly breeze brought a promise of adventure for the day. Even the gardens perked up a little.

Of course, found some quiet time amid laundry shifts to play with some glass and select some colors for an upcoming project I’m planning. Hint – found a perfect purple for grapes.

And Monica found time to finish the triptych cross stitch she has been working on for more than a decade. A beautiful trio of birds on a continuous branch in full blossom (maybe cherry). Can’t wait to get this framed and on the wall. Will blog it again, I’m sure.  

Now, off to Fredericton with Mon and Sar to get Ry and all go to Isaac’s Way. I’m sportin’ Pink Floyd hat and shirt… so I’m ready. Now just waiting for Sarah to blow dry her hair. Sigh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Had a wonderful time and meal with my family at Isaac’s Way restaurant in Fredericton.

The food was fantastic.

The décor was fantastic.

The company was fantastic.  

and surprise, surprise, my children paid for everything. Including the dessert at Dairy Queen. What a Father’s Day.

Without question, the greatest gift of all is my children. Thank you Monica, you gave them to me. I love you all.

Gotta love that. Bring it on. Even the birds are singing praises.

Visited Dad on Saturday and enjoyed the back deck on Sunday with feet up, sunglasses on and magazine in hand. Thank you up above for the wonderful weather. Thank you whoever invented the BBQ.

In the middle of enjoying all this good fortune, I finished the Schiffer Panel. What a super experience; my biggest piece to date and I definitely learned a lot from this journey… like how flexibly the piece is in its finished state. At four feet long and only 14 inches wide, it is quite springy when picking it up. But it hangs well and I’m very pleased with the finished result. Looks nice in the living room window and the colors are spectacular both in the daytime light and at night with the house lights on.

Love weekends like this. Bring on some more 🙂

Great Feeling – its a long weekend, there’s friends, family and lots of fun doing fun things. Nice to see you Maneau and Jake. Nice to see you too, Monica. Thankfully a bit of rain meant I could stay inside and work on the project. Starting the soldering phase. Yard chores will wait.

 

I’m getting excited for it now. I think spring should pass us directly into summer. Thank you very much. That would be just reimbursement for the awful winter/spring we had. The birds are certainly ready…     as are we all 🙂

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, things are sprouting up and budding out. Wooo hooo!

Had a great weekend with Dad and Monica in Havelock. Started with overnight Saturday and breakfast at the airport with Dad, Mon and Uncle Lee.    Then a drive through the country to Corn Hill where Monica picked up her new Campfire rose. It survived a mouse attack through the winter and has some nice healthy little shoots coming out on it.

Next to Sussex to get some flowers (thanks Marlene) for a visit we had planned later. Leaving Sussex, we drove through Penobsquis and up the old Trans Canada past a familiar old landmark. Does anybody remember Old Blow Hard? the broken down Race Horse at Animal Land? Here he is in all his Old Glory.

On we journeyed through Portage Vale and Goshen back to Petitcodiac and Havelock and straight to the cemetery to visit Mom’s grave and give her some flowers (thanks again Marlene).

Finished the foiling on the Schiffer Villa Panel this weekend. Enjoyed many hours with my feet up on this phase of the project. You can follow the entire project under Panels/Schiffer Villa. Here are some shots of the finished foil job.

      

 

 

 

Well, that didn’t take long. It’s a wonder the tulips can even survive when they get their leaves chewed off every year.

Fan-freakin-tastic Brit Floyd concert last night in Saint John.

  Darrel and I were front row center !!! and were BLOWN AWAY !!!!!!!

The band were exactly on their game and music. A full range of favs from many albums spanning 40+ years.

Super Great Night… Brit Floyd 2014

This is sweet… snow is melting, birds are singing, glass is grinding.

Sweet and sorrow, too. My Dad is not well and in the hospital. We are with him to visit when we can and with him in spirit when we can’t. Lucky for me he is here in Saint John and only 15 minutes away so I get to see him lots. Poor Delberta has to come from Fredericton but, she was here today (Sunday) and we both got to visit him together. How wonderful for the three of us. He is very frail and I’m mindful that these moments will be fewer and fewer.

The Schiffer Panel is progressing. I finished the thorns on the center stem today. Still have the small stems and leaves to do before the birds so looking forward to many happy hours ahead.

Happy Spring Everyone. Let’s rejoice!

Nelson.

Wow. When they said Blizzard, they weren’t kidding. Took a few snaps just to document for the visually inclined. Starting with my sentiments to the poor birds this winter. They have suffered as have we all. Just doesn’t seem to want to let go. I haven’t seen a good ol’ fashioned blizzard like that one for quite some time. Here are some shots across and down the street in the afternoon.  

Of course, I found a shot that had an artistic component. The frost patterns on the windows were spectacular.

Later that night the storm raged on with high winds and major drifting. Zero viability. 30 cars abandoned in and around the city.  

So off to bed with alarm set early, expecting a big hoopla in the morning. Wasn’t disappointed.

A beautiful day on Thursday once you get yourself dug out. Off to work now but still found a moment to capture the sunrise through the celtic cross. Have a good day everyone.

Nelson.

At last! Ahhhhhh. What a beautiful day. It’s like 5 degrees and bright sunny skies. This is the weekend we’ve been waiting for. Never mind the forecast gives sn__ for next week. Right now, all is right. Ryan and Sarah are both home together so we had a wonderful family time last night eating chicken wings and watching Game of Thrones. Plus, Monica is cooking a turkey with all the trimmings for family supper tonight. And it will be another Game of Thrones fest after supper. Blessed are We.

Also found time this weekend to finish grinding the clear background of the Schiffer Villa panel and started to cut the horn pieces. The project is starting to take some shape on the bench but is still a long way from finished. That means lots of therapeutic opportunities ahead 🙂

 

2013 – a wonderful year full of adventure and discovery, some laughter and some drama, a bit of creativity, a little heartache, a few surprises, lots of love and lots of photos… all the makings of good blog material. Here’s to 2014 and to dreams coming true. May the best of the New Year come to you.

It snowed this morning…quite beautiful…so white…makes the Christmas lights twinkle a little more.

Our first snow of the year that stayed for a little while and then it was gone (sad) but was just enought to spark the Christmas spirit.

Decorations are a sure sign it’s coming.

        

Monica and I went shopping today and we found a perfect Santa with his reindeer. It swings perpetually and the deers’ antlers and Santa’s arm articulate with the rocking. The bonus was the 50% Sale…Love it.

And it’s also time for another stained glass project. A production line Christmas series made by nellyglass – called “The Thirteenth Star”. Here’s a little teaser. Watch for the full blog “Stars” coming soon. You’ll find it at the bottom of the Projects list.

A very early Merry Christmas wish for everyone, Nelson.

What a weekend – not only did the weatherman get it all wrong and we had beautiful skies and 35 degrees – but Plan A turned into Plan B and Plan C and Plan D before it was all over.

Originally the plan was for Mon and me to go to Moncton Friday night with Lorna and Peter to see The Divorces play at Plan B on St. George Blvd. at 10:00.  Well they didn’t start until 1:15 which meant we had alot of time to kill before. That worked out well because just before leaving Saint John, my cousin whom I had not seen for over 30 years, called to say he was in Petitcodiac and would love to see me. At that very same moment Lorna and Peter called with a crisis – power outage at the cottage! No shower, no hair dryer, no internet connection. CRISIS! So, they would go on to Sussex ahead of us to rent a room and get ready for the evening.

Which meant I had time to go to Petitcodiac to see my cousin, Perry Norris from Ontario (visiting at my Aunt Vesta’s house). I traveled 30 years back in time. Perry and I are only 4 months apart so we spent alot of time together as kids. It was great to see him. Bonus, cousin Sharon came over to Aunt Vesta’s also and that provided the perfect opportunity for a photo. She’s like an elf next to me. Our parents are siblings Delbert, Royce and Joyce. Uncle Royce was tall so maybe that’s where I got the gene.

Then, on to Moncton to see The Divorces. They are very good musicians. Country Music. ‘Nuf said. Lorna really enjoyed them – she is a groupie 🙂 and we enjoyed watching her in her glory. We got home to Saint John at 4:15 a.m. Slept until 10:00 the next morning. I haven’t done that for 30 years either.

Saturday was a lovely day at Haynes Lake for SeaFood Festival (oh, we eat so well at Haynes Lake!!!) and then Sunday I was off to Havelock to visit Dad for the day.

35 degrees in Havelock, not a cloud in the sky, air conditioning in Dad’s house still broken, Toyota Camry saves the day. Road Trip to St. Martins to see the Fundy Trail. Beautiful drive. Scenic views, fish burgers and onion rings, and Dad for company.

 

A perfect day. Topped off when I got home and Monica had Cobb salad ready for supper. Life is good and I am thankful.

Dad’s home air conditioning broke in 34 degree weather. So the survival plan was; spend the evening with Sis at Grand Lake and then the next afternoon with me in the car (with air conditioning) driving through the country.

   

 

 

 

Exploring to find a short cut through the woods from Harper Settlement to Portage Vale, we nearly got stuck a couple of times, bad roads, mud holes, branches scraping, muffler scraping – it was like off roading… repairs to torn splash guard later in the evening. All in all, a nice day.Great to spend it with Dad.

A little rain on the road to cool things down a bit and then home to BBQ chicken with chipolte mango sauce… mmmm delicious.

 

…and, we have a new peony open today – the single pink one, Very lovely.

      

Happy Canada Day everyone. Foggy and calm here in Saint John but mild and a lovely morning to see the garden. Take a minute and step around with me to see Monica’s peonies. They are all in bud and ready to open, if we would just get a little sunshine 🙂