Jo Knits!

Monday,

We are about to leave the house for a few days on the road, this time I'm a bit scared. It's silly, I've done this whole Walmart run last year but tonight we have 12 hours of travel to make it to where we are working on wednesday. We are however working tomorrow afternoon to set up the store to be ready for the inventory to take place the next day. I hope I will sleep a few hours, I have my pillow, my music, comfy clothes on, still I'm a bit stressed about this.

Our travel time this week is as much as our work time. Goes to show how much time we will be spending in a truck. Oye! My motion sickness is getting better, I am taking a whole lot less Gravol than last year. Still I don't like spending hours and hours sitting in a truck, I'd prefer so much more to stay home and sleep under the same roof as the kids.

I started a little baby sweater for a due-to-pop pregnant friend. Yup I decide to start knitting the sweater on the day she's due, nothing like working under pressure right? LOL!

There must be something in the air... I have 3-4 projects in progress and they are all blue, what's up with that? ;)

hugs, have a nice week!

Happy Easter!

We started our Easter day with a breakfast at Tim's. Tim Horton's is just one of those Canadian landmines, some will only drink their coffee and others hate it with a passion. When we work on the road, we stop for breakfast there every morning. This was still special as we sat down, relaxed, had a very enjoyable time there. The kids are showing off some stickers albums the lucky rabbit left them. ;)

We did our traditional egg hunt in the backyard and both had a lot of fun finding their little treats. This is what Easter is to me, a little hunt, some chocolate and just a fun family day. It was sunny outside, we took a lovely walk around the neighborhood, it feels like spring is here to stay. Just a perfect day if you ask me. :)

Remember when I said we HAD to go shopping with Zoe? Well she won an Easter contest and got 35$ to spend in all things easter. Since it was at a big chain store there was alot of chocolate to be bought. Zoe, with her heart of gold, bought something for everyone in the family and was pretty excited to have each and everyone of us find our little treats. :)

hugs,

Fun with a friend

Recipe for a headband:
difficulty: easy
yarn: donated
needles: cheapest possible, preferably some you got sucked into buying online from Ebay! :-]

First go out for pancakes to start off a beautiful 5-day weekend. Then decide you'll take the subway for an hour to catch up on life with a friend. Buy the bulkiest fashion magazine at the stand and enjoy not wearing high heels like red carpet people do. Arrive to friends house and answer shyly that no you don't have any knitting with you. aHA! Some things can be easily fixed in life. Talk, laugh, have both hubbies call at the house, have coffee, cookies left over from a funeral and bitch a tad, it was so much fun. ;) Dabble in Aran Paint, check out yarn websites, read who commented my blog, check out more blogs, talk designs, comment on everything in knitting magazines/Rowan books. Print a chart and finally cast on! ;) Knit until you are back on the subway and then go home and show off a new gift!!! Have people drool over it (no not the yarn silly!) and smile like crazy. :)

Yesterday I finally decided that this was THE day to buy my cell phone. It's only a pay & talk kind, no monthly fees and will get reception mostly everywhere we will be traveling. The day started with a big deception, the price I had seen online was not the same price in store, they were asking 25$ more. I was really saddened and just left the store after fighting over with the salesgirl that NO a monthly plan would NOT be best for me. After supper Carl decided we should check at another mall for more phones, we ended at the same kind of store and they had the cell for 50$ LESS, same phone, same store, even the phone cover was 10$ cheaper. I couldn't believe it how can they do hat when they are a national wide store chain? I snagged the cell right away and Carl got me the red cover to make it more like me. ;)

We stopped by the sporting goods store and I even found a headband, can't seem to find any in stores since I got my haircut. I really like it and joked to Carl how the Buff headwear looks just like those contestants wore on the Survivor shows. Well..... they are made by the exact same company. LOL! I thought that was so neat. You can even purchase them online at the CBS website.

Off to go shopping, yet again. This time we are obliged to do so but more on that tomorrow! ;)

Zoe had a classmate's birthday party she attended with Lucas. Kudos to parents who invite both kids to a birthday party, it's happened the two times the kids ever went to parties. LOL! Anyway the birthday girl is asian so Zoe wanted to dress up for her friend, let's just say her whoe family were impressed. :)
hugs,

Last questions

My last 3 that I received by email.

Do you belong to the montreal knitters guild?
No I do not belong to the guild nor does it interests me to be joining a group that meets two hours from me in public transport. Also I have received unsollicitated spam from the guild in the past and did not enjoy it at all.

what part of the city do you live in?
East, the very east, what's this interest in knowing where I live? LOL!

what is you favorite wool store in the mtl. area?
Well since I never go there and it's always like an event going I'm going to say Bergere de France in Boucherville.

This was the last questions I had received, it was fun while it lasted! :)

Today's questions are from Cynthia!

What section of the city do you live in?

I live in the very east, very french part of Montreal.

Do your children go to French or English school?

I would have preferred my kids attend english school but sadly they are not allowed as I haven't gone to english school when I was young. With french being the primary language in Quebec kids have to go to french school unless one parent attended english. I know french is harder to learn than english but we don't have much opportunity to teach english to the kids from day to day. I try but it's hard to always speak to them in english, it's just not natural to me.

Where do Montreal's knitters buy their yarn these days?

Well there are a few places that I know of:
La Bobineuse, La Tricoteuse, Les Lainages du mouton, Lainerie Lepine, Mouline Yarns, Bripoint something. (I'll edit and add all the addys later on).

Off for pancakes at the best pancakes restaurant in town, so says the saying on their window! ;)

hugs and wishing everyone a great weekend.

Lee Ann's questions

Today questions were asked by Lee Ann, another knitter I have had the chance to meet locally. This is a very funny and high energy person, she makes me think, makes me laugh and would beat me up if I ever thought of failing in life. Sure I've known her for less thn a year, it feels longer though. ;) Still hoping she'll get a blog someday...

What knitting technique would you like to learn and master?

I'd like to learn more about knitting with colors, that's something I'm scared of but someday I will be ready or courageous enough to try a fair isle. Even if it's a sweater for a teddy bear. ;)

What other handcraft would you like to learn (or what other handcraft have you already learned and love to do)?

I tried tatting once and although the end result is beautiful I find it's alot of work for it. A craft/hobby I'd love to try out is pottery with a pottery wheel and make a bowl or something. LOL! I'm intrigued by spinning but don't think I have the patience for it. Another craft would be painting, I'd love to try it out even if I can't draw at all. LOL! One of my greatest passions is taking pictures, I wish I had time to learn more about that also.

What's your favourite thing to eat?

Pasta! You would think I'm italian as I'd eat it all the time if my mom would let me but mom doesn't enjoy it as much as I do. LOL! Since I never can say just one thing I'll add a few more, I enjoy nice heartwarming soups, so cozy, such a feel good food to me. I crave fresh fruits when we travel as we don't have much access to them on the road. I'd say blueberries are my fave fruit but then again (here she goes....) I also like apples alot, oranges and melons, oh and can't forget strawberries. Ok wait, maybe the list would be shorter if you had asked me what I don't like to eat. lol!

Well off to begin our last day of the week. LOL!
hugs,

Work and questions

Well it was meant to happen, we have to go back to work today. teehee! It was fun having a few days off though and since we only have 2 stores this week we'll get the chance to enjoy another long weekend. Next monday though will be painful, we are going to be traveling by mini-van/truck for 12 LONG hours to get to the northest Walmart of Quebec.

Onto questions from Caroline! Someone I have yet to meet but there's hope she actually lives in the same city I do!

When did you learn to knit?

September 11 2002! (I can't believe I lost my entry about it too!) I had prepared myself to learn to knit on that special day. It was a year on the dot after the WTC events. I had put the kids in daycare for the morning, went to buy myself a coffee and bought some overpriced acrylic yarn to start knitting. I sat down in front of my computer and played the videos over and over and over again until I caught on casting and knitting. Purling would come a few days later. I picked that day to learn as for me knitting was always associated to charity. I wanted a way to give back to those who had lost everything.

Does your whole family speak French and English?

I was born into a family with a dad speaking english and a mom speaking french. I always went to french school but reading books from the babysitters club made me keep my english. Then as a teenages I'd buy Seventeen and Teen magazines, I also watched tons of American television. Cheers was one of my favorite shows, I also watched Roseanne, The Cosby show and many, many, embarrasingly many more. (Hey I didn't have many friends when I grew up!) That's how I picked up on slang! LOL! Now I speak english with a french accent but if I spend a weekend with my Ontario-based family I loose the accent.

Now for Carl, when I met him he could say: yes, no, toaster in english. Working in many warehouses he learned to speak english pretty well for someone who's been learning for about 5 years. Of course, it ain't always good english, come on he learned from the 'boys' but he gets by.

As for the kids.... sadly they don't know as much as I'd like too. Each time I talk to them in english they look at me funny, what's up with her, they seem to think. We did notice though that if we speak in english to say something the kids shouldn't know they DO understand. LOL! They mostly watch english cartoons so I'm sure they've picked up on some of the language.

How did you choose your kids' names?

First you must know I have a very special love for Elmo, the little red monster from Sesame Street. I teased Carl that if we had a boy he'd be called Elmo, that freaked him out and then he replied sure if it's a girl she'll be a Zoe? Well uh..... yup! It stuck and that's the story. For Lucas, he was going to be named Luc-Andre in honor of a friend but we lost contact with this friend as he took a wrong turn in life. We decided the name wouldn't stick well for our son. We went with Lucas (sounds like Luka in french, which is sort of a shorter saying for Luc-Andre).

It was very important for us that both names were bilingual and NOT in the top 50 of most popular baby names. Of course each year their names seem to become more and more popular, I guess people were inspired after we named the kids. lol!

Both kids wear there name very well, Zoe means life and she is sure full of it and Lucas means light and he has quite a 'bright' mind. :)

Thank you Caroline for your questions, they have been very fun to answer. I can't believe the various questions I got, some I did not expect at all, some I thought I'd get but didn't. Anyone is welcome to ask me three questions if they are curious about me. I still have 3 people to answer from this week.

p/s: check the time I'm posting at! Off to work...
hugs,

Feelin' blue and questions

Ever had a day where everything is off? Well, mostly yourself. So, instead of hitting Ebay or checking Elann, I decided to go to the shopping and cash in a gift certificate I got for Christmas from a toy store. Yes, *I* got one for a *toy* store. I'm a kid at heart and my mom knows it! I have been to the store numerous times but nothing ever interested me enough to buy.

Today I got lucky, the store received a new collection from Sanrio. Not too long ago I discovered a new love and Chococat is his name. He's cute, he's cuddly and non-furry, sorry I'm allergic to cats. I ended up buying more than my gc was worth but I actually started feeling better for the 1st time that day too.

I then stopped at Winners and found some cheap gifts for the kids, Lucas got a new Rescue Heroes board game and Zoe an Ello kit. Both were very pleased and I got them on reduction so all is well. Shopping IS the best remedy when feeling blue if you ask me.

Now on to a very fun part, people actually posted questions for me, you have no idea how excited I was each time I saw that I had a comment to read.

Today I will start with Aven's questions, I was lucky enough to have actually met Aven back in october at the Knit Wit book launch party. She came up to me and asked if perhaps I was Jo, I think my french accent gave it off. LOL!

Did you grow up in Montreal? If not, where?
I was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, never left the city except to visit family in Ontario (always Preston!) and Davenport, Fl once to see grandma for Christmas. Now last year with my new job I got to visit the whole Quebec province and each and every province that make the altantic provinces.

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you like to go?
Actually, where wouldn't I go? LOL! I have always dreamed of visiting Canada from one end to the other, now that I've seen the east side, I'd love to make it too Vancouver and discover the west coast. Then there's Scotland's magnific views I'd love to see, the country sides I saw in pics made me dream. They must have great yarns too.

How did you meet your husband?
Teehee, well.... we met in the gay village of Montreal after I spent the night in a male strippers club. Oops! What was to be a one-night is now on it's 8th year, we are both surprised it's been so long. We aren't married but in Quebec a couple is legally 'binded' when they have kids or having been living together for two years. I still hope to become Mrs Carl one day, it'll happen when I least expect it. edited to add: Carl thinks I may have been confusing in my answer and wants people to know he was NOT working at the strippers club! ROFL!

Thanks Aven for your great questions, I must add that making your own Tintin chart for a sweater is something I admire greatly. Can't wait to see it progress. :)

hugs, I'm keeping the other questions for tomorrow

Knitters stitch and ride! As seen on Ellen's blog, there are special train wagons that let's knitters get together. You can even get pattern cards and knit a new project every two weeks. That is sooooo neat!

Don't know how well this will do but ask me 3 questions, you can email me if you prefer me not saying who's doing the asking. I, of course, have the right to not answer all questions for any reasons but my own. :) I have seen this done elsewhere and wonder how much interest it could create here. I'll answer them in a future blog post. I'm just curious what people might want to know about me. LOL!

hugs,

Fly away butterfly

I'm not a super lucky person but once in a while I get stuff and it makes me happy! Yesterday, right after posting my blog entry I received an email from Adagio Teas, they are sending me a little something in the mail. That was fast! In the evening it was the kids skating lesson, they are learning their final show numbers. Zoe's favorite coach asked us if we would be interested in going to see a really neat thing at the Botanical Garden. As a matter of fact, we are planning to go this weekend, well we got lucky and received free tickets for the Butterflies go free exhibition. Now we are sure to go, hey free is good!

Then a friend> emails me reminding me she's got something special to give me! Oh dear, am I lucky or what? :)

I'm on row 75 of the Charlotte shawl, all is well but it's time to add a safety line 'cause you never know. LOL!

hugs,

Time to relax, time for tea

Well our long week of work finally came to an end and it's time to relax, we have four days off. What better way to unwind than with a lovely cup of tea. The Adagio company needs help to get their google ranks higher when doing simple searches for tea. They are giving out rewards to those who are helping out. I have my eyes set on the neat Tea Pot they have created, if you look at the inginuiTea video you'll see how the tea is made and get poured right into your cup. How cool is that? On the road I think the paper filters might be quite practical for us, wouldn't I be fancy having some lovely Rooibos Tea in my room and just relax? But wait they also have these super high tech tea bags, they look like mini-pyramids and are so neat. LOL! I love them. We actually bring tea along with us already but these loose leaf teas are really good from what I read on blogs and their own reviews.

Now here's the thing, what is the difference between herbal tea and flavors tea
? I noticed there is a chocolate tea, come on, that must taste SO good!!! LOL! I believe, I'm more of a 'tisane' girl, a herbal tea drinker, so these are some that I would love to try: Apple Canata, Berry Blast, Cha Cha, Fox Trot and Strawberry Patch. Am I the only one that likes the dance related tea names? LOL!

As far as knitting goes, I hope to get back to it in the next few hours. I already plan on knitting another shawl right after, the Flower Basket shawl that you've seen everywhere else! ;)

p/s: Why not try getting some free tea yourself? Here's the rewards link from Adagio.
hugs,

Gone sleepin'

Just a quick hello to say that I'm working like crazy (I do inventories for a living, right now we are on a contract for all the Walmart's in Eastern Canada, we change cities everyday). If I had posted last night, I'd say I hate my job, today it's a tad better. Why? What was different? Today I got to count alone, I did a few rows on my own and this afternoon I counted next to Carl. Even though you might expect we'd talk alot, we don't it's just so soothing to be next to someone you want to be for a few hours a day.

See, I work with mostly early 20-something 'kids'. They act very childish, dream off having their latest crush cheat on their girlfrineds/wives for them and talk all day about non-sense. Frankly I am SO tired of hearing and seeing such childish attitudes, my boss is younger than me and often he acts like it too. It's hard to stay respectfull when you see him at the hotel tipsy from his supper and having too much fun ordering pitchers. That same evening I had to wait until 9:30pm to eat supper as Carl had went to help out to prepare the next day's store.

So today I counted alone most of the day and you get alot of time to think when you are alone. I might be leaving my job in a month, last year I went for 7 weeks throughout the martimes/atlantic provinces of Canada aka a small piece of heaven on earth. This year the maritimes is 10 weeks with only a weekend home after 4 weeks. I don't think it is worth it for me to be away from home for so long. Sure I might get to bump into Lucy Neatby and stop by the Fleece Artist's shop. We'll see I have hinted about this to my boss, who said that he wouldn't like it but totally understands so at least it's that. Still I haven't made a decision I'm just blogging about this maybe it'll help me decide.

hugs, off to bed (today after putting the kids in bed, not prior like last night!)

Rest?

Weekends are supposed to be restful so that the new week starts off with you all ready to work, right? Oye! My weekend was all but full of rest. First our weekends are mostly friday and saturday, then we wake up around 4:30am each morning to work so it's a great treat to wake at 7am on our days off. Still I don't feel that I've caught up on sleep this weekend. Then Zoe has to be at school on friday, she eats lunch at home (we have to go get her and bring her back) then we get her after school, saturday mornings are busy, busy with the figure skating lesson for the kids. Today was also busy with a visit to the health clinic and a haircut for each kid. Then sunday we usually leave for another city, this week we leave right after breakfast. Our weekend seems like it flew right out of the window.

In the past two days I did some yoga after a 6 months break. First day wasn't all that good but yesterday I was doing better already. I cracked open a dvd I had bought a few months back (saved myself from buying something new after all!) and I'm bringing the laptop along this week in hopes to have the time/energy for some yoga in my room after work. It might help me relieve from the stress we deal with everyday too. I am bringing along the 3 dvd's I have which are: power yoga and yoga relaxation (both in french) and the yet-to-have-tried windsor pilates dvd. Might even try to do a 20-minute workout in the morning to energize myself, hey I've been known to be crazy. LOL!

I am already planning on what yarn I should use to knit a Charlotte's web shawl again. The pattern is simple, the outcome is beautiful, what more can you ask for?

Have a great week!

Life...

After more than a week of phone tag, I finally got to sit down and talk on the phone for an hour with someone from Statistics Canada. They are doing a survey about family and stuff. I love surveys and when I was a kid I used to be followed throughout the years to be one of the students that appeared in statistics. I loved it and was very excited that Zoe has the chance to participate in those activities too.

Then I did some searching on the web for the program that I WILL go back to school for. I am planning to go back to being a student in fall 2005, the program is Pharmacy Technical Assistance. I've checked for loans and I could be awarded almost more than I actually make right now to study!!! How crazy is THAT? Then I could start a year later to work at a salary that is 50% more than I make now. A great motivation too is that I know I have friends that will push me into keeping at it even when I find it tough.

To finish this little entry, I just noticed that I lost 4lb. Yay! Not that I'm trying very hard but it's nice to see that the scale is showing something good. LOL! I am actually going to go buy an exercise dvd today, not sure I should say which one but I think I may learn a thing or two from it. LOL!

hugs,

Oye!

Tough week on the road, I am happy it is over with and the next two days are dedicated to the kids! People from work don't have kids and don't understand that we don't sleep all weekend to catch up on a week's worth of lost sleep. Also we don't just have ourselves to take care of or think about, it's always kids first and then us. Anyway, our boss is slowly realizing that we are parents before being auditors/workers for him. My mom even has my boss's pager number in case of an emergency. LOL!

I received the new Ram Wools catalog this week. I liked seeing some Fleece Artist yarns in it but that's about all that appealed to me. The new book inspired by Elizabeth Zimmermann seems pretty interesting though. The Opinionated Knitter seems to define my personality pretty well too. It seems that I can get pretty passionate when giving my opnion on a subject, so much that people think I may be overreacting which I'm NOT! LOL! ;)

Knitted only a few rows on Charlotte all week so just refer to the pics in the previous post.

Have a fun weekend! :)

Into the web!

I got caught in the web and started my new shawl over the weekend! I got some Silky wool from Elsebeth Lavold, I wanted an excuse to try it out and this was a perfect project for it. I'm really liking it so far too. :) As everyone else says, the pattern is pretty easy and it's a good way to start lace knitting. The chart is easily memorized too.

Yesterday I got about 5 inches of hair cut, it is quite a change and hopefully people at work will remember who I am. LOL! After the haircut we bumped into some friends and we got invited to one of the kids sakting coaches competition. We brought Zoe along and the skater won silver! It was alot of fun and we got to talk with a coach we are thinking of having for Zoe next fall. The coach had noticed Zoe and says she has great potential, she works with another coach that we love so all is really good in that sense.

The Disney on Ice show was terrific, we had a blast and I realised that our seats werre WAY better than I had expected. We were in the second row and almost could touch the Disney skaters, it was GRRRRRREAT! Really I had a blast and so did the kids. This is what my job gives me the opportunity to do, to save and make special outings like this. We are leaving for 3 nights in 30 minutes, I still haven't packed except for my yarn and Charlotte's Web pattern. LOL! We are giving this week the ultimate challenge.... either we stay at this job or not... I'm not sure it's worth it all anymore, Carl is getting sicker and sicker with all the dust and frankly we aren't treated well enough to live in those conditions.

hugs, we get internet access tonight at the hotel! Yippeee!!!! :)

TGIF!!!!

I've been waiting all week for this day! We picked up our four tickets on wednesday night and even picked up an extra ticket for mom. Today we are off to see Disney on Ice, it's a show that will amaze the kids and I am more excited that anyone else here to go see it. They will freak out at our seats, we will almost get to touch Mickey as he skates by us. I'm SO happy!!!

Then we will have to stop by the yarn store because I finally found my next project to start, it will be a Charlotte's Web shawl. I even joined a knit-along to keep me motivated and have fun sharing the same knitting project. I'm hoping to get some knitting done while we are on the road this next week. We are sleeping three nights at the hotel (of course never the same one) and I like to hide in my room after a long day's work. We will get some meal money and both Carl and I want to try to be as frugal as possible, we're bringing our small 'hot pot' and we can cook some noodles and soups for our suppers. It gives us a chance to hide away from the other 50 people we work with all day, sometimes it's nice just to be alone.

So our little weekend is pretty booked, Disney on Ice today, tomorrow is the kids skating lesson (I bet they'll talk about the show there!), we might go to the Biodome in the afternoon and on sunday at 10am we leave for work. Busy, busy!

hugs, wishing everyone a grrrrreat weekend!

Happy Birthday Carl!

Happy Birthday to you Carl! Today he turns 27yo so for a few months we are the same age, he's always hapy about that. LOL! So to the guy that will play monkey all day in a ladder at Walmart, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! :) I wonder if I can make them say it on the intercom today! ;)

hugs,