It's Spring!!! Whoopie!!

Ah Spring!! The sky is blue, the grass is turning green, the birds have
returned from their winter vacations, green shoots are appearing in
the garden, the crocuses are in bloom and...er... The weatherman is
calling for snow and below zero temperatures for the next four days.
Frak!!!!


And now for my weekly, blurry shot of my current cross stitch project. I
know you've all been waiting with baited breath. We now have another
half a house, featuring a staircase in front that was quite fiddlie to do.
I'm going to start back stitching this bit after I've done my blog entry.


On Monday my friend Charmaine came for lunch and a long overdue
visit. We haven't seen each other since long before Christmas, so there
was lots of news and stuff to catch up on. And we exchanged Christmas
presents. Talk about extending the season. We are both readers, so it
was logical that I would give Charm a couple of the books that I knew
she'd want for her collection. In return she gave me a couple of her
favourite cook books. Charm loves to cook, and is fantastic at it. Meals
at her place are a treat and something to anticipate. We have enjoyed
many recipes from this series of books and every time we go there I
browse through them and we discuss them. Now I have two of my own
to read and experiment with. I'm not the worlds best cook by any means
but the recipes in these books are not majorly difficult, there are many
gorgeous pictures to enjoy and drool over, and the author has a great
sense of humour. I highly recommend them. The two that Charm gave
me are pictured above.

This week off of work has been both relaxing and enjoyable. I've been
doing a lot of stitching and a lot of computer browsing and blog reading.
My mom was here for a visit yesterday and we went to my neighbour's
across the street to join her and her three young daughters for a tea
party. Lot's of fun.

Today DH and I did a run to a used bookstore in Milton to drop off four
boxes of books that I'd weeded out of my collection last month. I've
never done this before so wasn't sure how it would work. Apparently, at
this store at least, you drop off the books and the owner goes through
them and checks her currant inventory via her computer. If she doesn't
already have copy's of your books on her shelves she'll take them off
your hands and give you back a certain dollar value to use in her store.
The books that she already has on site she returns to you and you look
for somewhere else to get rid of them. She'd sorted about half the lot
before we left the store and so we took back about two thirds of a box
of books that she already had. These we took to a re-cycling depot here
in Georgetown called Waste Wise, which took the books off of our hands
and will sell for a few dollars.

The used bookstore owner just called to say that she was giving us back
two boxes of books, and was giving me a store credit of $65.00 for the
rest. Wow. Sounds good doesn't it? Trouble is that I'm a book snob. I
prefer my books (both paperback and hardcover) to be in pristine
condition. No yellowed pages, no frayed covers, no cracked spines and
no tea stains, or whatever. And I prefer hardcovers over paperback.
Wandering through the store I didn't see anything that I wanted to add
to my library which passed my stiff criteria. I could blow $65.00 at the
regular bookstore without blinking twice, but I doubt that I'll bother
going back to the used bookstore and taking her up on her offer. As long
as someone else gets some enjoyment out of the books that I probably
would never have read that's fine by me.

DH and I have been watching Firefly on DVD, which I got a year ago.
He's watched the entire series before but I haven't and I must say that
it is wonderful. What an imagination Joss Whedon has, and a great
sense of humour too. What a shame that the series never made it on
tv. Great cast, great writing and something completely different from
what's on tv today. We're Buffy and Angel fans here too.



And finally, a gratuitous shot of Rupert checking out my stash cupboard.