CMC: Tree cutting

This is part of my Christmas Memory Challenge, a goal I set for myself to recall 25 things I love about Christmas. You can also check out Shannon's memories here.

I was very lucky growing up because my dad's property was surrounded by a forest. I grew up thinking it was normal to climb trees in the back yard, make daisy chains in a field, watch deer walk past your window, and have donkey for a lawn mower. While I realise now this wasn't the 'normal' childhood most people had, it was pretty awesome. It also meant that come Christmas time, we'd hike into the forest and cut down our own tree.

My dad would scout for trees while he walked around the property so that come cutting day we knew exactly where to go. My dad, my brothers and I would get the chainsaw and flashlights and head out around dusk. It was a big deal when I was finally old enough to use the chainsaw myself! Once we returned to the house with our tree we'd take off any branches which didn't look right and do a final trim on the bottom with the hand saw.

The next step was to get the tree up in the living room. Normally, this is a simple task except by dad didn't have a tree stand for the first 15 years of my life. We'd place the tree in an ice cream bucket, cram rocks around the base of it, and then use fishing wire and a staple gun to attach it to the walls and the ceiling. That's right, ceiling.

We'd then enjoy a hot beverage before we commenced with the tree decorations. When we were young, that meant hot chocolate. As we got older, we usually put something a little strong in our cups!

Once us kids moved out, we stopped cutting down our own tree. While there is some ease in just showing up, paying some money, and walking out with a perfect tree, I miss the excitement and adventure (and alcohol) of getting our own tree by hand.

Crafting Up Some Sci-Fi

I'm interrupting my Ireland posts for a brief moment to talk about awesome friends, family and crafts.

A few months ago, THR and her boy went to Seattle for a weekend. While there, they attended the BSG exhibit at the EMP. More importantly, she bought me two BSG posters (and a Firefly sticker which I still haven't decided how to display) because she's an awesome friend.

I instantly knew where I wanted to put them in my apartment; the wall in my hallway is decorated with postcard copies of modern art in cheap frames. It's one of those displays that I put up because empty walls bug me but I've wanted to change it for a while.

My stepdad made up square backings because I didn't want to actually frame them and as of yesterday, my hallway now looks like this:

Now the only sci-fi show missing from my walls is Doctor Who. Yeah, I'll get on that soon!

A big thank you to THR for the posters, thank you to my stepdad for making the backings, and a big thank you to me for hanging them BSG for being awesome.

As for those cheap, ugly, gold frames? You might be seeing them in a future craft project.

Back to Reality

I made it home safe and sound yesterday. My cats took to waking my up through out the night to show how happy they were. I love them, but I'd love them more if they didn't think drooling in my ear while purring was a sign of affection.

Overall, the trip was wonderful. We capped it off with a night out with two uncles in a couple of pubs in the Wicklow Mountains. It should be noted that our habit of drinking the night before an early morning start is not one I would suggest following... yet I still tend to do it.

I spent most of this morning waiting for my stepmom's much slower camera to upload all the pictures onto my laptop only to have the battery die before I was done. The spare battery is back home. Boo-urns. At least I still got a few shots from it before that happened so here's a few photos to whet your appetite.

O'Connell Roundtower, Glasnevin Cemetery

Victorian Wing, Kilmainhaim Gaol

Pint of Guinness in the Gravity Bar, Guinness Storehouse

Antrim Coast Rd.

Gravestone, Donegal Town

The rain stops long enough for us to see the Giant's Causeway. I'm very excited by that.

Heading to the Bogside for the murals, Derry.

Traditional Peat Fire at the hostel in Donegal

Stopping for a drink on the Literary Pub Crawl.

I'll be doing a couple of actual recaps soon but first, I'm off to my mom's this afternoon to avail of her free laundry facilities say hello and let her know I missed her.

Important Update

I know you will all be relieved to hear that www.ctv.ca is in fact airing multiple seasons of Canada's Worst Handyman. (And I'm sure they'll do the same with Canada's Worst Driver, there were just more episodes in the first season, 8 instead of 6, so they haven't gotten to season two yet.) I know that had all of you very worried. And by 'you', I meant 'me'.

One upside to watching CWH (as well as a few crafty blogs added to my reader, thank you THR) is that I'm looking at a couple of handy-type jobs that I've been meaning to handle for a while and actually feeling inspired to tackle them. It's nothing big like 'renovate a condemned building' (although that would be a great place to play with power tools) but I have my great-step-grandma's* still working 1920's singer sewing machine. If my camera was working, I'd unfold the table and take a picture but I'm missing the USB cord to upload photos (*cough*Darthstillhasit*cough*) so instead:

[source]

Sadly, great-step-grandpa (who I never met) decided to varnish it in the 1960's with something that I don't think was meant for wood (perhaps he should have been on CWH). Now its peeling and catching on the fabric rendering the machine almost useless for its intended purpose. I have stared at it in the corner of my apartment for roughly three years thinking 'some day'.

Well, I've been inspired. At some point this summer, I'll borrow some power tools and remove the sewing machine (because it adds a lot of weight to the table), strip and stain the table, reattach the machine, and then possibly sew something simple because the machine is old and has issues when you do anything other than straight lines in a simple stitch. I'll use my mom's machine for my bigger projects.

As for those bigger projects... I'm sewing shit this summer! Before you think this is some misguided attempt at being crafty which was inspired by a TV show, I've been humming and hawing about it for a while. In one of her many teaching careers, my mom was a Home Ec teacher so I've been sewing on and off for a number of years. I even made a few outfits in my younger days (with appropriately-hideous-only-a-12-year-old-would-pick-it-out fabric... ah, the 80's/early 90's) so I know what I'm doing.

As my mom is going camping, I'm taking over her sewing room for the weekend (and also her washer/dryer... bed sheets dried on the line = best thing ever!). I like the idea of having the house to myself while I do this. It's not that I don't want to spend time with my mom, it's because I'd want to spend time with my mom. It's too easy to get distracted by cups of tea in the backyard while we discuss travel plans.

Although I may bring my special mug with me for my solitary cups of tea.

Tea just tastes better in certain mugs.

Finally, I'm looking for ideas for paper crafts. My mom's cousin gave me two books about the history of my mom's home town and while they were fun to look through once (and I do plan on keeping any interesting parts pertaining to my family), they are now just really big books clocking in at roughly 1700 pages each.

I could attach them to either end of a weight bar...

I'm trying to empty my apartment of 'stuff' and these books take up a lot of room. Still, it's nice paper so if I can use some of it for a craft project... So far I've got 'oversized paper weight' and 'ransom note lettering' on my list of ideas. Any other suggestions are welcome.

And completely off-topic of everything I've been talking about (but really, it's me, 'off-topic' is kind of my thing), if you post a comment about Arrested Development on Facebook and you end up with 23 responses which are really just various quotes from the show then you have the best/coolest friends ever.

Just sayin'.

Also, if you've never watched Arrested Development, you really should.

*That's my stepmom's grandma for those of you playing along at home. I called her 'grandma' when she was alive as she was the only grandparent figure that lived within 12 hours of our house, but now I specify so as not to confuse everyone with my stories. I also have an oma (a family friends' mother) I tell stories about. In short, I like to adopt grandparents. If you have any going cheap let me know.

Father's Day: The Soundtrack

Although my mom also had a great influence on my current music tastes (I can directly trace my love of Gordon Lightfoot to a mother-daughter road trip to Alberta when I was 14 or 15, but don't tell her because I fought her tooth and nail to listen to anything other that GL) it was really my dad who taught me to just love music for music.

I grew up without the idea that I wouldn't listen to something simply because it was uncool but because I had listened to it once and I didn't like it. As a result, while my classmates were hip-hop or rock or country or metal fans, I was just a music fan. I listened to everything as evidenced by a mix-tape (remember those?) I made in grade 10 which had Collective Soul, House of Pain, Nat King Cole, and the Dubliners on it. I was nothing if not eclectic.

For my dad, these are songs currently on my mp3 player because he made me listen to them ;) (I was going to do a little write up about each singer/group but they all ended up sounding the same way "my dad used to put these tapes on continues loops and blast them through the house" so instead, some have comments but most don't.)

Doug and the Slugs:

I chose Who Knows How (to Make Love Stay) simply because of the

'Drunk Musicians Fund' Fundraiser at the end. Their videos always made me laugh.

Leonard Cohen: My very first non-symphony concert was Leonard Cohen's Democracy Tour.

 

Sunday morning memory: Dad was cooking a fry up in his underwear

while belting out the words to this song.

Billy Joel:

1930's music (specifically, anything from Pennies from Heaven and The Singing Detective):

Irish Folk Music (the whole lot of 'em but that's an entire post by itself):

I really wanted to find the version that is track #1 on the Dublin Millennium Songs

sung by multiple Irish artists but I couldn't so you get the Dubliners instead.

Nat King Cole:

I know I already said Irish Folk Music, but I remember both my dad and my stepdad singing this song when I was young (in particular, I remember my stepdad playing it on the guitar when we were camping):

Happy Father's Day!

Dunna Day

We had our Matoto Gala last night. I'll hold off on saying it was a rousing success until we get the final numbers but we made a profit, everyone had a lot of fun, and even half our alcohol supply accidentally locked away in the kitchen didn't damped the spirits.

You know what did dampen my spirits? The realisation that I took my camera with me and then left it in my bag at the back of the stage. I don't have a single picture of the night. Oh well. Without a working TARDIS there's really nothing I can do about that.

I had big plans for today. It was the day that I was going to get all those little jobs done. You know those jobs, the non-essential jobs you tend to ignore when life is busy. I need to pour drain cleaner down my bathroom sink. I need to actually wash out the litter box. I need to get the vacuum hose underneath the heaters. I need to give the cats' their annual bath to get rid of the excess winter fur...

...Okay, maybe I've been procrastinating on that last one because I enjoy being alive. The point is, I was going to update the layout of the blogs, I was going to respond to a couple of overdue emails, I was going to clean out my fridge, I was going to do so much!

Here's what I did.

I woke up at 6:30 after five hours of sleep. I told my cats, who had come for their morning snuggle, to f* off. I then rolled over and went back to bed.

I woke up just before 9:00, cuddled with the kitties and then actually got out of bed. I showered, dressed, and some how managed to wander down to the coffee shop in time to meet a friend before the Matoto board meeting.

I made it to the Matoto board meeting in a bus driven by a lady who obviously thought she was part of the Melbourne Formula One race going on this weekend. Here's a hint, bus lady, Victoria BC is a long way away from Victoria, Australia.

See? BIG difference!

We had a perhaps surprisingly productive board meeting given our Saturday night, then I came home and I did nothing. Not one of my catch up jobs has been crossed of the list. Save for a 25 min foray over to Subway and back because I was too lazy to cook dinner, I have sat in pretty much the same place on my couch for seven hours.

My mom calls these 'dunna days' for 'do nothing days'. You'd never get anywhere in life on nothing but dunna days, but every once and a while, it's a fantastic way to spend an afternoon.