THE STORAGE WARS :)

We're winning them, actually. Yet another trip to Victoria and back, and we got rid of enough stuff that we won't need to rent a storage unit!

With HUGE thanks to Hailey for a LOT of work over the past two weeks (especially this week because I've been sick with this stupid cold that won't go away), I brought the last of our possessions home to Salt Spring yesterday. I still have a lot of yarn for sale, but it's all much more manageable than it was, that's for sure!

Being in Victoria meant having time with the boys, too, so that was nice -- including a brekkie with Joshua, who is now 18!!

And Gibson turned six the other day, too ... where is the time going??

I know one place it's going... to the Lighthouse Shawl. I'm FINALLY on the edging, but that may take another week, it's so huge!

I've done several departures from the original pattern because I wanted to add lots of beads, use up some stash, and make it bigger than the original. Besides, I was having lots of fun playing with stitch patterns! But I'll be glad when it's done...

I'm having a facial this morning, for only the second time ever in my life ... and then off to the doctor to see if I can get something for this cough!

WELL.

Sometimes my life just goes from adventure to calamity, adventure to calamity.

On the weekend after I wrote my last post Hailey arrived from Whistler to help me organize a major sale we've been planning for quite a long time - to move out of the 10' x 10' storage room we've kept in Victoria since we moved from there (read: MAJOR STASH REDUCTION).

We took the ferry into Victoria on Monday and spent Monday and Tuesday completely gutting the room and getting stuff out onto tables (at our son Jason's club, where the storage room is), organized and priced. Got to spend both evenings on beach picnics with the boys and Mischa ... and was too tired to take any pictures!

On Tuesday evening we went to a coffee shop so I could fire up my laptop to check my email, do some Welcome Wagon admin stuff, and invite you all to the sale. Well. To make a long story shorter, my computer was broken. Badly broken. So broken that I had to spend well-earned stash sale proceeds on a new one.

The rest of the week since then has been a bit of a blur ... the sale ran Thursday, Friday and Saturday (many thanks to those of you whom I'd emailed before I lost your email addresses!), and then it took Sunday to sort all the leftovers again before we came back here to Salt Spring. Hailey and I will be going in again tomorrow to make sense of what has to come back here to the Island -- we'll still have to rent a small storage space here. Here's a pic of one small shelf of the stuff I had for sale:

And here's a pic of her purchases a happy customer posted on her Facebook page:

I've spent the last two days attempting to get the new computer set up -- they were able to salvage my hard drive, but not all the info was retrievable. Including all my email address lists!

So... I'm exhausted. And I got a cold somewhere along the way. And I have a new computer that I should be happy about. And I haven't got a whole lot of info and data that I had last week. At the very least, I'd love it, if you've been in my email address book, if you would email me at skipper at mvwindwalker dot com so I have your email address again -- thanks!

And I still need to find storage.  :}

Russell Island #2

Once more with feeling...

We saw flora:

 And 'other life forms' (warning: graphic photos):

Ok, so ... the eagle and its nest were the prettiest!

 And more Canada Geese with their babies:

The beach was pretty cool, too.... lots of interesting rock formations and driftwood:

And there was this pretty boat anchored out in the bay:

Michael went kayaking for the first time this year ... and so did most of the kids on the sail training boats:

There! I fought with blogger and I won!
*

Nice!

 

That was a lovely respite, even though we came home two days earlier than planned -- sitting through a 25-knot south-west wind in a two-foot chop makes you want to find a nice solid dock to tie up to!

We had a few neighbors...

This was a sail-training school field trip with about 12 teens on each boat:

We never left the boat on day one, and Michael cooked us a gi-normous brekkie on day two:
 
The scenery was amazing, as always!

We went ashore for a long walk -- there is a great trail around the whole island. Saw lots of flora, driftwood, a bald eagle guarding its nest, and some other ... life forms.

Aarrggghhh .... blogger is not cooperating with my photo uploads this morning, I'll try again later!

BAD BLOGGER

I want you to know that every evening I make plans for my blog post the next morning. I think about what I want to talk about and how I'll approach it, I take photos or look through photos I've already taken, and prepare them for uploading.

And then I get up in the morning ... early, usually ... and I wrap a shawl around my shoulders and sit and knit as the sun comes up. As the morning light arrives, I spend some time at the bow window checking out my little corner of the world. Are the clouds hanging in the valley across the bay from me? Are the trees a little greener than they were yesterday? Is anyone anchored out that wasn't there when I went to bed? Is there a wind blowing in to the harbour?

 Yesterday I saw new babies for the first time this spring... too cute!

 
I listen for the sounds too... otters playing on the docks, kingfishers announcing their breakfast plans, songbirds in the blackberry bushes on that little cliff behind us, the ferry starting up and leaving on its first run of the morning.

Then I usually start a little fire and put the coffee on because Michael will wake up soon. Then I have 20 minutes or so while the coffee is brewing ... which is the time I *used* to use to blog.

But these days? Waiting for the coffee gives me 20 minutes more to work on the Pi shawl -- which doesn't even get me a full round, now that I have 900 stitches on the needles! There is progress, though, and I can see a light at the end of the tunnel -- it's about 52" across, now, and it will need to be 70" before I bind off. I've already used about 1200 yards of three different yarns.

And I won't have a blog entry again now until at least Friday, because today -- finally!! -- Michael and I are going off the dock for the first time this year. We're just heading out to Russell Island or maybe over to Prevost for a few days, but I'm really looking forward to it. The weather is supposed to be amazing, and we can use a little 'breather' right now. (I keep reminding myself that I have a pretty amazing life compared to lots of people, but it *has* been a stressful year for us!)

So this is where I'll be if you need me....  :)

 ... looking back toward  our little corner of the world...

... and maybe I'll have a finished shawl when we get home on Thursday morning!