I have had this really, really ugly shade-less lamp for a few years which had a piece of very pretty green glass in it, but I never bothered to take the time to take the glass out. Today I took off all the ugly shiny brass and am now using the fun glass with the circle pattern as a hurricane lantern to keep Bea out of the candles.



I also begged some crab apples from the neighbours and bottled 14 jars of jelly tonight. Such sweaty, labour intensive work, and I must have accidentally put my thumb into the boiling water five times while moving the jars. I can't imagine having to do it with a hundred times the produce to actually feed your family, like my grandmother did.

I'm feeling mentally inspired by some of the recent works of Olga on Craftster. I find furniture refinishing to be so intimidating. Also, if anyone had ever told me they had refinished a beautiful buffet in black, white, and yellow, I would have thought they were out of their tree, but look how pretty that first project is! I wish I had the vision to see a project like that in my mind before it was done, but I feel I'm destined to mimic rather than truly create.

Since we're on a crafty theme, here is the shirt I stencilled for brantastic for her birthday. For reasons which I feel will be impossible to describe, we invented a fake band called Girl and the Orbisons, so I made a fake band t-shirt. It took forever to cut that stencil, but I was super happy with the way it turned out.



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My dad today, gesturing at a new building going up near Penhorn Mall:

"We should sell the house and buy one of those condos right there... look how close it is to Sears."

(Pause)

"We could WALK TO SEARS!"

In other My Dad news, he spent an hour and a half on the phone the other night voting for his favourite Canadian Idol. When I found this utterly hilarious, his only comment was, "It's the finals! Where's your spirit?" He cajoled my visiting aunt into calling with her cell phone and voting for Mitch, as well. At 9:59, he shouted agitatedly at my mother and aunt, who were busy chatting and laughing. "Get READY! The lines are almost open!" The clock turned to 10:00, and Dad frantically dialed the phone number and listened for a ring tone.

"I don't hear anything." (Shakes, then peers at the device in his hand.)

"THIS ISN'T THE PHONE!" (Throws down remote control, grabs actual phone and starts dialing.)

Seriously, that happened. My dad dialed the remote control.

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Halifax Harbour at Dusk, August 2008