My DD stopped by today and we went for a drive out to Spanish Banks. It was very cold so we didn't walk very far. It's supposed to have snowed the past couple of days but it hasn't happened yet, at least not in the area where I live.

I feeling like getting back into my creativity and will start this evening. I was going to do some earlier but went out with my DD instead.

We had our Chirstmas party on Thursday evening and it was a lot of fun. A couple of people who live in the building play violin and, along with two friends, entertained us with some lively music. Another tenant played the saxophone and yet another sang some Russian songs. Lots of good food and conversation resulted in a very pleasant evening. This is rather a unique apartment building where we have tried to create a supportive community. When someone is sick, we help each other and we have parties. It's a little like living in little village. There are, obviously, personality conflicts and gossiping but all in all it is very positive. The newletter has helped to make people feel like they matter as well. I have noticed some people coming out of their shells after they have been mentioned in the newsletter for their gardening contributions, photography and being mentioned when they have lost a child. So many of the tenants are alone in the world so I think it helps them to feel a sense of belonging. I hope so anyway. There are lot of very lonely people in the world!

I am going to go and make a necklace for one of my DD's now.

Okay, so I haven't been posting, I have been mired in this letter-writing, trying to get the conditions in our building improved. Our week-end relief caretaker has been diagnosed with non-operable lung cancer and has quickly gone done hill. He is such a nice man, is so helpful and willing to do anything for anyone. At the beginning of September he won some gold medals for sprinting. He is such a healthy living man, taking supplements, eating healthy. Everyone is in shock. The doctor kept telling him his cough was nothing. So, we are all praying for him and hoping the radiation helps and the chemo if he has it.

Like I said in my last post, I would love for something really nice to happen. This is getting really depressing.

We have been granted a meeting with the property manager and the general manager of the company so hopefully we can get our message across to them.

After that is dealt with I am really going to focus on the positive as much as possible and get back to creating.

I am still having some problems from the spraying, hope that ends soon as well.

I will be 70 years old on the 30th of December and will give some thought to what I would like to accomplish in 2010. It's kind of nice to start the new year with a new year in my own life at the same time.

I said on Hybrid J's blog that I will have a give-away in the new year to start the year off right. Don't know what that will be yet but am going to think about it. So stay tuned!!!

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!