A little taste of Roma

I had a wonderful trip to Roma. Oh, the things to see and do. One of our evenings was spent at a reception held by the Canadian Club of Rome to celebrate the start of another year of events. I was very fortunate to be in attendance, it was held at the house of the Canadian Ambassador.
It is situated on the grounds of the Villa of the Imperial Prefect of Rome and the site of the Villa of Scipio Africanus. The enormous gardens are bordered by the majestic aqueduct feeding into the Baths of Caracalla.

Resurfacing

Well it didn't take long for that "nearly a year without blogging " to scurry by.
Where did it go?

Well.... a wonderful trip to Rome with sides to Positano and the Amalfi Coast, a villa in Collerosso and a Sunday afternoon trip to see the ceramics in Castelli.
Numerous trips to the Annapolis Valey
A couple or three trips to Toronto, both by air and car.
Lots of fabric cutting into little pieces and resewing them into big pieces.
The usual life gets in the way stuff.
Lovely times with my three children and my little granddaughters.
Many walks with George and Gracie
And it goes on.

Beautiful weather here in NS and now the heat and humidity has seemed to ebb so it is my kind of weather Warm days, cool nights. Bring on the harvest.

Perhaps I won't be so long in coming back.

Up and Away

I started this blog three years ago when I was traveling to New Zealand, and have sporadically contributed to it since.

Now I am going off into the wild blue yonder once again. Tomorrow I hop on Air Canada for Heathrow, Frankfurt and finally Rome.http://www.lonelyplanet.com/italy/rome.
A place I always wanted to see but didn't think it would happen in this lifetime.

I remember the film  Roman Holiday when I was a teen and of course the song Three Coins in a Fountain from the film of the same name, which I might add was made when I was a very young child! Everything was so exotic and historic and vibrant. Wow!
 I am so excited.

I will be visiting with family, my daughters in laws, and the TO family are there as well. Extra time to spend with a dear little dude.
We plan on the Amalfi Coast, visiting Sorrento and Positano, a trip to the villa, in the mountains and lots of Roman sites.

I am not even going to think about the amazing food and wines to savour. It will be such fun to sit at a piazza and people watch.

Keep posted, I really will try to keep up with the latest news.

Rainy Days

We certainly have had a plethora of rainy, drizzly, dreary foggy days this summer. Everything is either grey, sky and clouds and fog, or green, all the trees and grass.
Among all that miserable weather we did have a few days of sun and warm humid weather, my guess is perhaps a week total.
I am turning mouldy.

The oldest was visiting from the Left Coast for two weeks. He returned home yesterday and was sure to tell me about the sunny skies and warm temps in lotus land.

The youngest and family were Stateside for a weeks vacation, they had a great time.

In five weeks I'll be heading to Roma, I am looking forward to this trip, visiting friends and vacationing with the middle child and her little family, and sightseeing.

I hope I get some photos to put in these posts.

A brief hiatus

Well I guess it was a hiatus from blogworld but definitely not brief.

So many changes, parents both in long term care with 24 hour care. My sleeps are better since I am not wondering about them

A new baby girl born in late January and she is such a sweetheart. I visited for 5 weeks in the dead of winter, Toronto was cold, but what a pleasure and she brought her family home for a visit in May.

The other two granddaughters are growing like weeds. Anna in daycare and walking, wasn't she just a little baby? and Claire starting school in September.

Lots of sewing and quilting being done too. I am delving into the scraps and the four patches are piling up, soon I'll put them into some semblance of order and put them into a quilt. In the meantime I finished a wee baby quilt for a new little Rose.

We have had a couple of nice hot summery days a most welcome change from the dreary miserable spring we had in NS.

I am going to go outside and enjoy the evening.

Merry Christmas

This is getting to be a Holiday blog I am so infrequent posting updates.

Lots of changes since October.

Mom has successfully transitioned to a long-term care facility and Dad has had the paperwork done as well. Hopefully this will enable them to be together in a facility. It is hard top be separated when you have been married nearly 67 years.

Since I was so busy settling parents the past few months Christmas cards etc. went by the wayside. I will  be back on track next year though.
We are even dining at The Westin this evening for our Christmas meal.

I have managed to sew though and the Quiltville mystery, Roll Roll Cotton Boll is in various stages in my sewing room.

The girls, Claire and Anna give us lots of joy, we just spent the very early morning with them watching gifts being unwrapped. Santa was very successful finding their house.


Next year the home in Toronto will have a little one that Santa will have to pay a visit to.

George and Gracie continue to grow and make sure we don't sit for any length of time, they are great walkers and sniff lots of trees and poles on every occasion.

 May you all have a healthy  holiday season and a Happy New Year with family and friends.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if "peace" could have a chance.

Happy Thanksgiving

It is a beautiful autumn day here, cool this morning for DH to walk George and Gracie but they didn't seem to object.

 We enjoyed our Turkey dinner on Friday and two meals made their way to Mom and Dad. She still in hospital and he is bacheloring it!
Leftovers ruled most of our meals this weekend.

 I have been machine appliquing the top part of The Great Pumpkin wall hanging. http://pumpkinpatchprimitivequiltshoppe.blogspot.com/2009/09/great-pumpkin.html You can see a photo of it on this site.
This is a 4 or 5 year project. I expect when I complete the applique part this week it will be put away until I drag it out again next year. Then I shall put it all together. Frankly I am getting sick of looking at it after intensively working on it for the past 6 weeks.

I am starting to paper piece the diamonds for the Twelve Days of Christmas Mystery from Esther Aliu.www.estheraliu.com Six of twelve diamonds made and I hope to complete them today. Then I will start Part 2, I am only a week late with this mystery and I hope to catch up.

The newlyweds had their first anniversary on Sunday, congratulations to a great couple. Next year they will have a little person to help them celebrate.

Remember this?  It is at the long-arm quilters, should be ready in a week or two.