Traffic stuff

By now you should know that I tend to talk about traffic, not lately, but if anything comes up, yes.

Here is one view how to drive in Toronto

and here is a list, too

Enjoy!

Back from Retreat

There I walked and admired the early spring beauty. Those stairs took you down to another set of steps that led to the creek below.

Some of our local crocheters and knitters got together for the weekend in Canterbury Hills, Ontario. We had a fabulous time. We crocheted, knitted, cross stitched, and one young lady was even spinning and making her own yarn. We ate and chatted and had truly a fantastic time.

I made a square with crochet thread and painted a woman, deep in thoughts, with watercolor crayons, started knitting a sock, crocheted a freeform scrumble, and knitted something a little bit. I also wrote my morning pages on Saturday morning, but Sunday morning pages are done with invisible ink. At least I can't find anything on the paper. Well, I might write something tonight. I like planning things, but doing something about them is another story.

Right now I am going to just take it easy and relax.

Second week in Finland

The morning was not too exciting. We had breakfast and lunch and worked on a crossword puzzle at home. YEAAA. Then, finally, we decided to go for a ride, towards a nearby seashore area, which is about an hour and some drive. First stop was in a small town, where we had a coffee and danish in a quaint little restaurant by the water. Of course we took some pictures. Here we are on the patio of the restaurant.

We went for shopping in one of the discount stores. I bought two balls of sock yarn, a tee shirt, and candies. I wanted to go to the center of that town, because I was there some 12 years ago, and I remembered that there was a beautiful yarn store. It was a red brick building, on a small "hill". There was no such building, no such hills. We drove thru the town three times, and no yarn store. Needless to say, I was miffed.

From there we headed towards my sister's family cottage by the sea. The water was calm, the sun was hiding, hence the pictures turned a bit
glum (sp?). Nevertheless, we enjoyed our little trip to the cottage. We sat inside, had some typical Finnish "donuts" (no hole) called "possu" (piggy), and red lemonade. We pretended to be kids at a summer camp.

From the cottage we headed towards another town, where we were supposed to find a clothing store, with beautiful and unusual garments. We ended up asking directions at a gas station.
I forgot to tell you that we were in the Swedish speaking area, and my Swedish has long gone. I do remember a few words, but not enough to ask where a particular store is. The poor girl didn't speak too much Finnish, and I asked if she wanted to talk English, but she ignored me, which made me think that she didn't speak that language.

We did not find the store, and the closing time for stores was near, so we decided to go back home.

I am not too disappointed about our shopping of today, because tomorrow we go to Keskinen, which is a large shopping place. We are not planning any shopping, it's a therapy trip for my sister, her friend and myself. Of course, if we find something that jumps into the shopping cart, we might consider accepting some items to come back home with us. In my case some extremely yummy cotton thread, which I am going to use for Irish Crochet. I already bought two skeins of it, but now want more. Sheesh.

Another thing, please forgive me if there are any typos that I didn't catch. this keyboard is weird (i before e, except after c.....weird????), and there are some fonts that truly interfere my excellent spelling skills (as if...)
This computer reads Finnish, and does not want to do the spell check in English, or I am too lazy (tired) to figure out how.

more country

Here some other pictures I took.
I took that bicycle and went grocery shopping. My sister's car is diesel, and there are too many tricks to use that sort of car, so I chose the two-wheeler.


Other pictures are of the farmhouse porch, and that little red house is nearby my sister's home. There are lots of mini houses around here; for one reason or for another. I think that one is for storing sand for the winter. Need I ask?

Greetings from Finland

Here are some pictures I took today, on the way to a farm, to buy home-made cheese. You cannot imagine how good it is. I tell you, it's delishhhhh!!!

I have other pictures, too, but now I am needed in the kitchen. I promised to make a special salad for dinner.

Later.

In Finland

Here I am, and have done shopping already. I bought some Nalle and Seitsemän Veljestä yarn.
I finished the batwing shawl in the plane, and made a bracelet with beads. I have alse bought two magazines, Kauneimmat Käsityöt and Moda.

There is one cute purse in Moda magazine, I might even make it one day.

Here is the shawl, which I made for my SIL; there is also a bracelet on top of the shawl (grey and black shades). I have my own little room, in the attic.

Well, I was brave and reduced the size to show the bracelet. It is supposed to be grey with black but in my eyes there seems to be awful lot of green. Oh, well, my eyes are green, so maybe there is some reflection.

Oh, and here is a new and improved picture of the black to grey to white shade shawl, which should go well with the bracelet, or vice versa.

I have to go now lunch is ready.

Just everyday stuff

There are three lanes on one of the roads that lead to my work. There are no "right" turning signs anywhere. Sometimes when I am on my lane, ready to turn to our little street, there is usually some dingaling who is going straight and I have to wait for the lights to change so we can proceed. GGGRRRRR.

This morning, I sort of cut in front of another car, not really, she was "nearly" parked about 200 yards away from the lights. This is one intersection before mine. She wanted to turn right. Heheh, I could see that she was shaking her head in disgust. Oops, I am in the way, and she has to wait for the light to change. For a miniscule second I was annoyed, and told her under my breath that there is no right-turn-only - lanes here, but then remembered my own reaction to the same phenomenon. Then I giggled and I was in a good mood. Yes, I do the same thing, I shake my head in disgust! I was smiling, how silly is that?

One thought came to my mind this morning, on my travels to work. I don't hear too many stories about violence against Tim Hortons coffee place. There are no robberies, no break-ins, etc, and I just wondered about that a little bit. This thought came to my mind when I saw a
police cruiser driving along the road towards Tim's. I see those cars quite often on my way to work. I am just wondering if that has anything to do with anything.

I have recuperated from my trip to Philly, or Valley Forge in King of Prussia. BTW, I should have known at the Toronto Airport that something was going wrong when the officer at the A/C counter was giggling because of the name or the place where I was going. Doesn't everyone know every place in the world? Well, I don't, but I don't work for the Airlines.

I think this is going to be an interesting day. I am full of sarcasm and plausible wit.

Yes, I am back from the trip. I have tons of pictures, and I am truly happy that I went. I really didn't need my suitcase, did I? I managed. It was just so funny to claim my suitcase at Philly airport, WHEN I WAS LEAVING. Hello, there you are, did you miss me?

I think I should do some office work, what do you think?

I started crocheting a Blue Jeans shawl for my sister, who has a birthday next week. Fortunately she knows that her gift is going to be late. It takes at least 5 days to go to her by AIR mail. AIR!!!! aaarrrrggghhh. Will it get there? I should be finished with the shawl by Sunday, unless something more interesting comes up. This shawl gets its boring moments, but I have to do it. It's a pretty shawl, don't get me wrong, but there is nothing freeformish in it. I have found two mistakes already, mistakes, no, design changes. Not going to frog, because the yarn is mohair, Angora Alize Special in deep purple, and frogging aint going to happen.

I was going to post some pictures here, but the blogger isn't in a good mood today.

picture

of the gals. Swiped from Sherri's blog. Roseanne, Drea, Maggie, Pirk, Violet in the back, in the front: Rose, Dawn and Sherri

Trip to Listowel

Personal log, watching too much of those Voyagers et al.

We met at the gas station in the corner of Yonge and York Mills. Seven in the morning. Rosey, Sherri, Maggie and I were ready for the road. Traffic wasn't bad, ok, only at one section of the 401 there was a few too many cars, but the slowdown didn't last very long, and off we went merrily.

Got off the correct exit, heheh, but later on noticed that we were on the rong road. Turned around and around, back to the original road, where we went wrong, in exiting, or rather not exiting. That was our first sight seeing tour of suburbs of Kitchener. Tralalaa, we were traveling merrily and the girls in the back seat were investigating crochet magazines, and the front girls were either listening or ignoring, but excited in getting to the yarn sale.

OOOPs, we came to a T-intersection, which was not really marked in our map. we turned rigt, but then Maggie said that she thinks we should go to left. Another Uwie, and left we went, and went and went, until Maggie decided that we should ask directions. This is, according to Maggie:
"we are in trouble". fortunately two wonderful Amish persons, the man, gave us directions to Listowel, and off we went, relieved that we were, after all on the right road.

There were lots of different yarns, in the tent. As I went in, my excitement slowly diminished, and I just stared at the yarns. I picked some Grace cotton, walked to the next selection, picked up some lavender cotton, two packets, to make something for my granddaughter. Picked some Astra yarn, walked around, more or less lost and very distracted. I went back to the lavender cotton section, put one of the packets away, took a light yellow packet.

Ok, if I am going to explain all the different turns and twists in that tent, this is going to be too long, so I stop here, only to tell that I went back once more, and got some other kind of yarn, and one more time to get yellow Grace cotton. I bought nothing inside the store, which was right beside the tent.

We had lunch at Diane Sweets, in the downtown area. Dawn joined us and we enjoyed the food very much. I had a Western sandwich, a salad, and French Fries. One of the best WS I have had recently.

We took a different route returning home. Hwy 9 was supposed to take us directly to hwy 400. Well, I think it would have, if we stayed on hwy 9. First I turned south too early, and had to make a Uwie, which started looking like professional U-driving for me by then, heheh. I also made another too early right turn and had to make yet another, you know what, hmph.

Finally we got the right road, at least the sign said "Toronto", it was hwy 27. Soutbound we went until we hit hwy 407. I was happy, a fast road finally.

Maggie was the first one to go home with her new stash, and then Roseanne, who lives downtown. I was nervous about the rush hour traffic, but considering the time and the area, it was a piece of cake. Off got Rosey, and Sherri and I headed towards her home. We took a sideway and the traffic was wonderful. After leaving Sherri, I thought I might have a heavy traffic ahead of me, but I was wrong. I was at home within 15 minutes from Sherri's place.
Now I'm tired.

This is so weird

I am telling myself to go to sleep, so I will be able to get up early, check the e-mail, have coffee, shower, and hit the road.

Have you ever noticed that people who drive on the passing lane, drive the slowest.

One more thing: Why do people drive on the diamond lane, when there is no other people in the car than the driver? Why do buses drive on the centre lane when the bus is full of kids, isn't the diamond lane for buses? (7-10 am and 3-7 pm)

Oh, don't get me going on this diamond lane thing. I am supposed to talk about crochet and knit.

I'm tired, and going to sleep, as soon as this blogging novelty wears off.