Misc Ramblings – a hippie with a minivan

Update post…

I have not written in such a long time.

Not because there is nothing to say but because my posts seem to build up more and more until I don’t know what to say first and then simply ignore the whole thing. Yeah, I am like that at times. So I thought I would do an update post and go through everything…

We Shine:
An amazing unschooling conference for seasoned unschoolers that takes place in the Catskills in NY. It takes place just before school is let out, so we have the camping grounds to ourselves and we become a unschooling community.
The kids are free and the relationships are deep. There is sharing, there are hugs, there is support, there are laughs and good food and amazing company, dancing and swimming, games and walks full of contemplation, and renewed energy for a lifestyle that is little supported in everyday life.

Simply put… it is an ideal family which I am honoured to be part of.

Here are the kids all packed and ready to go…

I love my 2008 Dodge Caravan with the Swivel N’ Go Feature!

and here is the amazing shining unschooling family!

While we were at Shine I found out that my grandmother’s cancer had returned and was not becoming generalized. It was a shock but then again, we knew that it might happen. We thought we were going to lose her in June because she had a tumor that was blocking her intestine but she is a fighter and though the doctors had said that it was nearly impossible, with Chemo, the tumour shrunk enough to give her a few more month of life. She headed home in July and my mom has been taking care of her since. She has ups and downs but she is not ready to let go yet.

Here are some pictures that I have taken over the summer with her…

With the kids…
Haven’t they grown!!

With Simon and I

Colin and her have a special connection. He was helping her down the hall at the hospital.

My beautiful grandmother…
She is doing Chemo, terminal phase, in palliative care, 90 years old and still looks FABULOUS!

In other news… I have been needle felting and spinning, keeping up with my Etsy shop, doing craft fairs and trying to get my name out there slowly. This summer was pretty relaxed with the craft fair scene but I am going to be quite busy into the fall and Winter season. I also have a fair tomorrow that seemed to pop up unexpectedly. It is definitely not going as fast as I would want but I guess it will just take time…

As for the bus… I will make that into another post!

New Blog Look!

As you may see there are some changes on my blog. Some are visual changes…. actually there are many are visual changes, but the biggest change is in the back-end.

Three installations of WordPress have now become one. Main page, Blog and Bus. All without changing each address.

It will be easier to keep up, more inviting for me to write, and it will hopefully be more user-friendly to explore and see everything that I have to offer.
I have to say, I am loving the look of it.

One of the main reasons that I had originally set things up the way I had been logistics since my blog has always been at /blog which in turn would have severed many of my links or made things harder to change if I would have changed the folder or address. There are still some kinks to work out with a few broken links and images but everything is slowly being taken care of when I find the issues. I have updated my feed also and hopefully everything is working on that end also.

The other issue was that I wanted to keep myself open to the potential of advertising on my bus page if I wanted to go that way without ever have ads on my Blog. It has always been important for me to have an ad free blog but I think that I will be able to work things out so that any advertizing would only be on the bus pages leaving the rest ad free. I can always work something out later if it came to that, but I love being able to post on my blog and my bus page at the same time, but have only the bus posts on the bus page.

I would love to have your opinion of the look and how things work, and if you find any little problems please tell me!!

Second Craft Fair…

I had my second craft fair this weekend and wow, what a difference! This fair (Old Skool Crafts) was much bigger than the other though it was not that big according to some of the vendors that I talked to. I really do think that for the crowd, my needle felts stood out. I didn’t stop for a minute. There were always people at the table and they stayed and talked and many bought. I was so busy that I barely was able to stop and talk to friends that came to see me and it was impossible to get even a small conversation in.

Colin came and spend the day with me on Saturday. He was a great help to get things brought in and set up in the morning and then he found a friend and spent the day mostly with her. When he wasn’t with her he was at my side reading, snacking or just watching. When I went to the bathroom at one point I came back and saw that not only was he keeping an eye on the table but he was actually showing people at the table how needle felting works. It was a really good day for both of us and it was fun having a mom/son day like that.

On Sunday the whole family came and spent the day which was also great. The kids got used to being in the hall and found new friends, went out for lunch and tried the homemade treats at the little café. This was in a church basement and they were selling these large portions of baked goods for .75. The kids all got one in the morning and then in the afternoon, one by one they came and got a bit of money for another.

At one point I was talking with someone at my table and Willa came up to me and kept on asking me to look. She was holding a piece of cake in a plate with a napkin and looked so proud. I said “Oh Lucky you, go sit down and eat it”… so she did.

Then Simon came to see me. “Did you give her money for the cake?” he asked…
“um no?… I thought you did”…
then he said… “She had a bit of money in her pocket… I think some is missing and she said she paid for it”
He then took a dollar and went to the counter. She had indeed went to the counter on her own, gave .20 and got a piece of cake. The ladies refused for us to pay the difference…
When he got back to her… she said her catch phrase….. “I Told You” in her sing-song voice.

I think that moment was the highlight of my day 🙂

So here is a little tally….

The pieces most talked about and which brought people to the table.

Definitely my Cat, the Mushroom House and Cthulhu. I was on the corner of an isle and the Mushroom house was on the top of the display I had and it really brought people to my table. My cat was another that caught the eye, even though he was right in the middle of my table. There were even some that saw his bum from browsing the tables behind me and came to see him.

A Cthulhu fan can always be spotted when they saw Cthulhu first. He was also a hit among some of the vendors also and even starred in a few pics and travelled around the room a couple of times.

What I thought would sell better but didn’t at this fair…

My earrings and my cards. I really wish they would have done better but I think it was just not the right crowd for them.

What did really well… Ornaments were the biggest hit. Especially the 5-15$ range ones though a couple higher priced ones went also, especially the baby penguins.

A couple of my bigger pieces and animals have also made their way out. My brown bear, my first pig, one of my foxes, my hedgehogs, the polar bear I made recently and I think the hardest to let go of and the biggest piece that I have sold to date is my mushroom girl. It had a little twinge in my heart when she got picked but it was also a great feeling and I know that she will be loved.

In the last week or so my orders on Etsy have also picked up. With the craft fair and the Etsy orders it feels like this has really started. That my creations not only mean something to me but to others and with this I am contibulting not only to the family financially but I am also putting money towards our bus and future.

Whisper and Misty

Losing our two cats so close together was very emotional and there was an emptiness to the house that could not be ignored. It felt like a very quick decision, and slightly like a betrayal to the memory of our two that were being missed, to bring two kittens in our home right away. But I do not regret it doing so in the least. They needed us, as much as we needed them. They were living about 15min away under a balcony in the country near a busy road and with the temperatures getting colder and the environment in which they were living , I am not sure if they would have survived.

They have now been with us for over a week and they have been a welcome distraction and we have been enjoying getting to know them for their own personalities, though it is hard at times to not compare them to the two that we have lost.

When they arrived, both kittens had runny noses and runny eyes. Now… they are healthy and happy.

Misty was very shy at first and stayed in the carrier but she was not scared of us and welcomed us picking her up and cuddling her. She is a real lap cat who will stay on your lap for hours. Whisper on the other hand was all too ready to play and explore. For being out in the wild, they were very social and had nothing to fear from us humans.

They were both very hungry… Whisper would eat quickly and just gulp all of his food down and then he would go to Misty’s bowl. We quickly understood why he was much bigger and stronger than she was. She was likely not getting enough to eat. It took a day or two of us needed to watch when they ate so that she got her fair share but after a few full bellies and meals that kept on coming, Whisper became less ravenous and started to leave his plate when he was full. The first times that he did that, Misty went to his bowl to finish his food as to make a point.

The great thing about sibling cats is that they always have a friend. I could not have imagined separating these two. They compliment each other perfectly…

Misty would sleep in her carrier and would stay there most of the day, but for a couple of days she would come out for an hour or two to sleep in the sun. She didn’t want to play but that didn’t stop her brother.

But all was forgiven…

I kept them in the bathroom with their litter and food in the night for about a week. For the last few days however, we have been letting them loose in the night and they quickly discovered the warmth of comfort of our beds and will come and cuddle us in the night. Whisper actually likes to be under the blankets.

Misty rarely goes in her carrier anymore and instead has been choosing to either sleep near us in little spots that keep her a bit hidden… like in Wilhelmina’s toy bin among the stuffed animals.
She has also started to play a bit more but I have a feeling that she will be a very laid back cat even as she grows. She has grown in the last week and has a full round tummy now but even though she is the same height standing up as her brother she much shorter in length and is smaller than her brother. She rarely purrs and when she does it is just a very slight sound. You can pick her up and put her down on your lap or move her to another spot and she will just fall asleep and stay there for hours.

Whisper feels like he has doubled in the last week and he loves to climb and explore. He is in a constant state of motion. He carries things around in his mouth and is always ready to play and attack his sister (who is now fighting back with more strength). He purrs before you even touch him and it rumbles through his body loudly. He loves to cuddle his sister though and looks for her when she is hiding. He makes a little sound in delight when he finds her and then starts to purr and then goes in to cuddle.

Misty and Whisper

It is truly a joy to have them in our lives now and though we miss our Sparky and Nala, we are enjoying knowing these two new little creatures.

I'm leaving tomorrow…

To go get our bus!

Everything is in place, insurance is in hand, train ticket is bought and I am leaving Montreal tomorrow evening for Bathurst, NB and will be arriving there on Thursday morning. I am getting picked up at the train station and we will immediately get the transfer done and then the bus will officially be ours. After that, I *just* have to drive the nearly 900KM back home with it!

I am so excited and scared at the same time. I mean, we have been wanting this for so long and now the time is here. Now comes the reality or the work involved making it into a livable space. So many ideas and so many things to learn. Flooring, carpentry, designing, plumbing, electricity. Lots of searching for good deals etc…

The flood of feelings are overwhelming and it actually makes me feel a bit sick to my stomach… but it is so exciting at the same time.

We are going to try to make the bus as self-sufficient as we can while trying to keep the cost as low as we can which I think will be a bit hard when you look at the prices of solar panels and a compostable toilet etc. How I wish I had bought some things before when I saw them in local ads but the dream seemed so unattainable still I didn’t jump at the opportunities. If you want to help us out though, we have bus fund and any money donated will go right into the bus and into our dreams.

Wish me luck and check out my Instagram if you have it as I will be posting updates to there 🙂