Misc Ramblings – Page 51 – a hippie with a minivan

Blizzard….

Another blizzard hit over the weekend….

Not only did it hit… but it pounded and drowned us….

Just to get an idea…. here is a pic I took last week… (monday I think)

Look outside… just a few inches… nothing more… (that is Sparky btw 😉 )

Then yesterday…. this is what it looked like when I was coming home from shopping…

and here is the back yard this morning…

Yes… it is up to Simon’s neck…. I think he is contemplating how he is going to shovel it all…

ummm…. where is the pool?

The snow that we got this year is nearing or has attained the Record… So far we have gotten about 3.5 m of snow… seeing that I measure 1.5m that is A LOT of snow….

My new sewing area!

My sewing area was pretty small for the work that I was doing… so I decided that I needed to revamp it a bit…

So I have been keeping my eye on tables on Kijiji and looking for other ways to organize…. Then yesterday I went to Zellers to pick up a few things and saw a demo Table on sale… it had a few scratches but for 200$ off and only 50$ it was worth it… So I got it into the van… did the grocery shopping and then went to the hardware store and picked up a peg board (or half of one) and then got home and went to work….

Here is before…

and now….

and I even have a place for my music!

newish theme…

With the boys growing the graphic that I had before was getting a bit outdated…. so…. I thought I would revamp the theme of the blog a bit…

I have a few changes that I would like to make still and I think I would like a new plugin or two that I have seen on other blogs but for now at least it looks a bit better…

For those who have blogs and WP… what are your favourite plugins?

oh…. cool…

On the way to and from the pulp and paper museum I saw something that not only caught my eye but made my heart skip a beat…

“Musée des Religions du Monde” (Museum of World religions)

I am so excited to check that place out… I have a feeling that the kids are too young to enjoy it and if they are with me I might not be able to look at the things I want to look at, so I might head out there alone so I can really look at things…

I can’t believe that I had no idea that it existed though…. I am so glad that I saw it!

pulp and paper…

Yesterday we left early in the morning to go to a pulp and paper museum in Trois-Rivieres, a city about half way between Montreal and Quebec city…

Having to wake Xavier and coax him out of bed reminded me how much I am happy to not have to do that on a regular basis…

We got there at just before 10am and not long after we started the day… We were the only people there so the kids were able to run around and talk and we didn’t feel like the group was bothering anyone… so the first thing was a small “play” with a guy that talked about being a lumberjack and how life was for them a couple hundred years ago…

Then we learned how they make Paper, why there was pulp and paper mills in that location and how the machines used to work and still work in paper production…

After that was the really fun part… learning how to make paper and then actually making it!

First soak and rip up pieces of paper (recyled)

then blend with water….

Then strain on a frame with screen… then press… take screen off… decorate and then iron to start drying and let it dry afterwards… here are Colin’s and Xavier’s… and we are sure to make more here at home….

Lunch and another activity or two later and we were on the way back home and all three boys fell asleep in the car… It was really interesting and I think that when the kids are older I would love to go back and see it again so that they understand more of what they were hearing…

Here is the link for the place