I felt tired and depressed today, I don't really know why but I took myself off to the library anyway, only to find that they had completely rearrange the fiction section. I just hate when they do that! Stores do that too and you can't find anything you want. There is really something to be said for the comfort of things staying the same. That's why I liked England so much, things were so old and had such history, it gave a sense of permanency, like there is something in this ever- changing world that is solid and you can depend on it to be there always. Vancouver is really bad for tearing down old building and old landmarks so the things I grew up with are rapidly disappearing. The city is owned by developers. And now, here is a contradiction, I have been feeling very bored with everything lately. Restless, wanting something really nice to happen to cheer me up or somewhere new to go, something to stimulate my imagination, to make me feel alive. I shop in the same old places, eat in the same old places, same old, same old every day. I know it's just a phase I'm going through and it will pass soon but for the moment, I would just like something really nice to happen!!

I got a bit of Christmas shopping done and bought Susan Boyle's CD, I Dreamed A Dream for myself. I listened to it in the store and it sounds lovely. I was watching her Britain's Got Talent You Tube again tonight. I love that clip, she is so natural and so cute, such a beautiful voice. I also bought some bits and pieces for my faerie pouches and a DVD for my youngest daughter. I have to chuckle when I buy movies for her because she likes all the scary stuff like Dexter and True Blood and I am the exact opposite liking Miss Potter, Serendipity and Heartbeat. Children are definitely born with their own personalities.

Time to go and watch Midsommer Murders. I'm surprised there's anyone left in Midsomer, there are several murders in each episode - a pretty scary place to live. *chuckle*

CHRISTMAS AT MY DAUGHTER'S 2008

Thanks for your comments HybridJ and Angie, you are still there. Funny how you have developed this connection with people you have never met and you miss them when they are not there. If I was as busy as most of you are with your families and work, I probably wouldn't notice it as much. I am not looking for sympathy or trying to get you to comment on my blog, I am just being honest about how blogging has effected my life. It's lovely to have creative friends all over the world - even if you have never met them.

Our letters back and forth with the Property Manager continue and we have reached the point where, rather than dealing with the problems we have, they are trying to silence us - 45 tenants out of 61. Interesting how that works - the abusers become the victims. The 45 tenants whose lives have been negatively impacted by 3 tenants are made out to be the bad ones. This has taken a lot of my time and energy because I was the one who organized the letter writing and continue to post responses and talking to some of the other tenants. I have other things I would like to be doing and need to find a better balance, but when I am involved in something like this, I tend to think about it too much and it keeps me distracted. I have continued to do some crazy quiting but I want to do so much more as I said in my last post. I can't believe that was on Monday, the week has gone by so quickly.

I am really going to make a concentrated effort to post everyday because I miss it.

Angie suggested I post how to make crazy quilts and I will try to do that in the next few days - with my limited knowledge. But I can tell you how to do the bags I make, copying the instructions I used from Haute Handbag and written by Pat Winter.

This is Christmas decorating weekend and I want to have a tree this year. I didn't have one last year and really missed it. I can't do a real one any more because whatever it is they spray them with burns my nose and throat. I've been looking for an artificial one but a lot of them are really tacking looking, made of some kind of paper. The nice ones are really expensive. I did see a Norwegian Pine the other day and may end up getting one of those. The are potted so can be kept, maybe surviving until next year.

I enjoy the lead up the Christmas almost more than Christmas itself. Listening to Christmas songs by Bing Crosby, Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole, Doris Day (dating myself here) listening to Dylan Thomas's A Boy's Christmas In Wales, watching The Holiday, Scrooge (with Alistair Simm, of course), Miracle On 34th Street (with Natalie Wood, Maureen O'Hara and John Payne), reading Winter Solstice by Rosamund Pilcher - just finished reading it - and A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flag. These are my pre-Christmas rituals and the part of Christmas I enjoy most, apart from getting together with my girls, of course.

So, if you decorate early, Happy Decorating and enjoy all your pre-Christmas rituals.

LATEST CRAZY QUILT BAG

I seem to have lost the energy around my blog. Hardly any visitors and many of the blogs I have been visiting have not been posting - except the lovely Rose and Bev and a couple of others that I visit but don't comment on. I have just felt like I haven't had anything very interesting to post lately. I have been busy writing letters to the Property Manager and writing the December newsletter. I have also finished another crazy quilt bag and am well on my way on another one. I have really enjoyed creating them.

I have done a couple of drawings for the book I have written for my Great Granddaughter. I think I will do it as a collage in a board book. I was also thinking of doing it on watercolour paper and sewing it together with ribbons and fibers but this might not be so smart for a young child. I have bought a couple of nice pendants - a rose petal in clear acrylic trimmed in gold and a leaf coated with copper - to make necklaces for my daughters. Christmas is coming up fast. Tomorrow we'll only be a month away from Christmas Eve. so I must get busy on them.

Time for bed. Sweet dreams.

THE RAINS HAVE COME

I have finished the newsletter for the building I live in and have just written a follow-up letter to our property managers, so tomorrow I should be able to get back to creating. I probably won't be going out because we are supposed to get up to 200mm of rain between today and tomorrow and some strong winds. Good days to hunker down and create.

Things are good. My elder daughter dropped by for a visit today, so that was nice - always enjoy visits from my girls. She is just getting over a cold, she works such long hours and was just stopping by between clients. I think young people today have to work so much harder and much longer hours than we did when I was young.

Still getting some side-effects from the sprays but, hopefully, that will be gone by the end of the week. The sniffer dog will be into the affected apartment tomorrow, so here's hoping the problem will be gone.

That's about it for today!

I will watch the Rememberance Day ceremony tomorrow and think about the futility of war and all the lives that have been lost in the name of power and greed. It's a very sad day and it's almost always dark and rainy as if the skies are weeping for madness of humanity.

Time flies by, a whole week has passed since I last blogged. I have been busy writing letters and dealing with more spraying. I didn't feel as bad this time but had to have my sliding door open day and night with the heat cranked. A bit chilly but it helped. All these little annoyances seem to take energy.

I will be getting busy, over the next four or five days, writing the newsletter for December.

The rains have come to Vancouver and it's been dark and gloomy for a few days now and very chilly, no more Indian Summer but we were really lucky this year to have it until November.

I haven't done much art or needlework and long to get back to it but I have felt kind of scattered. Hope that will pass soon, Christmas is not so far away.

My great granddaughter was one on Nov. 4th, it's so hard to believe she is so grown up already.

I love Skype, I was just seeing and talking to my granddaughter and great granddaughter. I love this picture of her she looks like she is actually reading the card.

Time to go to bed, goodnight~sleep well!

My friend B gave me a copy of her newly self-published book yesterday. This was a collaborative effort in that she gave me a stack of written notes and bits of paper that were about a crow she called Gilbert and I sorted all the pieces and made them into a story. This was the first time I had done anything like this, so it was an amazing experience.

B befriended Gilbert when she found him in very bad shape on the grass below her apartment where she used to live. Gilbert was a pretty old bird but she nursed him back to life by feeding him peanuts and bread and anything else he would eat. Eventually, he found a wife and he had several batches of children while B was living there. It is a very interesting story about the habits of crows and how humans can interact with them. She was careful not to tame him or his children so they were still wild and able to take care of themselves. There are also some short bits about a squirrel, some blue-jays and some turkeys that she had as pets when she lived in Sri Lanka. It was very sad when B moved and had to leave Gilbert behind. A neighbour continued to give him peanuts, so she felt a little better about leaving him.

I feel honoured to have been a part of bringing this book to life and B wrote in the front that the book would never have been written had it not been for my help. It has certainly been a great year for me creatively.

I went to see a lawyer today to make sure there was nothing in our letter that were grounds for a libel or slander suit - she said there isn't. So the letter goes off tomorrow with 45 signatures. There are only 61 apartments in the building so that is really good. Hope we get some action. It has been a long process but a very good one for me.

I want to get on now and make some Christmas presents, I have bought a couple of pendants to make necklaces for my daughters and I will probably stick some pressed flowers onto candles to give as gifts. I pressed some hydrangeas and pansies during the summer. I would like to get a couple more faerie pouches done as well.

I look forward to creating again after this busy couple of weeks.

Wow, major milestone in my recovery from being broken, I have facilitated two meetings with about thirty people and attended one with seven people and managed to get through them all and not run and hide after and stay in bed for a week. The first meeting went really well, the second was awful, I got bombarded from every side and managed to deal with things but finally closed it because it was a disaster and the third one I took control of from the start instead of sitting back and letting two people run over me. It is so strange for me to just open my mouth and let what I want to say come out. I feel like a bitch, and the strange thing is that I care only a smidgen. I spent hours writing a letter and then two people sat in the second large meeting and totally undermined me in front of the three people that we are trying to deal with. Anyway, the outcome of the second meeting was that I would change some things in the letter - even though so many people were happy with it - but when I got the letter that had the changes that one of the other people at the meeting wrote, I found that he had re-written one major section of the letter. I spent an after noon re-writing it incorporating what he wanted with what I had already written. It has been quite the process and I nearly lost it a couple of times. In some situations I have infinite patience, in others I can be quite impatient and this was one of those situations. Anyway, the letter is finished, has been given approval by the sub-committee and now I am looking for a lawyer to check it out because one of the residents we are trying to deal with has threatened to sue us. I doubt he can because we have proof of everything in the letter.

This is such a drag because, as seniors, all we want is a little peace and quiet. On the other hand, we have to stand up for our rights. It just appalls me that the owners of the building and property managers don't deal with things as they should, therefore leaving us to have to demand - in a most polite way, of course - that they deal with it. Everyone has been very supportive and relieved that the situations are being dealt with, they have also complimented me on how well I handled the meetings - even the bad one - so now it will be interesting to see how many people sign the letter. I have also had to come head to head with the caretaker a few times so it has been pretty stressful. At this point, I still feel strong.

Apart from it being a drag, I have learned a great deal and would never do the same process again - there would not be a second meeting - big mistake!

I am feeling very frustrated because after doing all this and dealing with the side-effects of the pesticide (still am), I don't feel centered enough to do any art. I have been working on my crazy quilting because I find it relaxing, but I would like to be doing some painting as well. I didn't have to do this stuff but there is a part of me that just won't sit back and let these situations continue, I guess it's the social worker in me but also that I am inherently outraged by injustice.

Jazmine is back! My daughter is working such long hours, she felt Jazmine wasn't getting enough attention -she was howling a lot so must have been feeling pretty lonely. I am happy to have her back and we are cuddling lots.

That's about it for now. I hope my next post is more about all the art I have been doing.