New Year

Good evening!

It is just about one hour until midnight and I was inspired to start up the ol' blog now that I have a camera!

I'll start out with the end of this year. All but the first of these photos were taken just yesterday in my yard and the surrounding woods.

This is Ginny and Storm. They have lived with us since November and are most fantastic.

Happy New Year all.

Technical Difficulties

Keeping a blog when one has no camera is a lot more challenging than I'd anticipated.

There have been many exciting things happening and we've gone and done lots of fun things lately. I've also been knitting and sewing a lot for myself and my new home! Wash cloths and such... heat packs and tank tops... but with no camera, it's difficult to share these... Boy can I tell you how exciting it will be when I do get a camera! Hopefully I don't have to wait too long!

Thankfully my Mom has given me a whole whack of the photos she's been taking lately of the stuff we've been doing together, so that is great! 

*All photos taken by Susanne Granneman(or at least with her camera)

Ryan and I at the farm!

 

Sister time!

My blossoming garden...

braiding my home grown garlic!

It's amazing how tall these beauties are still getting!

My finished product... but only 2 of them. The biggest have yet to be photographed!

This photo was taken the day our offer for our new house was accepted!

Right now Ryan and I are waiting on a call... Hoping to have some work today, although I have minorly hurt my back this morning getting groceries, I'm hoping this won't impede in our work day... If we get a work day!

OH in other work-related things, Ryan has started coming to the farm with me! It made me so happy that he's decided to come! But I think he realized that if he wants to help me, he's gonna need some knowledge.^_^ Yay!!!

Happy trails, everyone. Enjoy what's left of summer and then hop right into enjoying Autumn! ♥

Relief?

Well... Not quite yet.
We got the house! We're amazingly ecstatic!
But the hard part is that we get possession on September 29th.
Fun, a whole month of anxiety and research for all the updates we'd like to do. Ryan's are much larger than mine.
I'm thinking about paint and space use. We will need to buy much more furniture just to fill the house! It will be so empty with the few items we do have!
So it's hard to plan when you don't have it all or the space...
They do say waiting is the hardest part. I agree.
But now that I've had an excellent and active day, I feel much better!
My mom and I had a lovely walk this morning. Then in the afternoon, my dad invited us out for some golf! It was really great. I have sore muscles again, which feels really good, since I have been feeling a bit lazy and wimpy lately. haha!
Tomorrow is Eli's birthday. I wish I had a camera! I still haven't found one yet. On the look out if anyone has any recommendations!

Hope!

We have just this evening put an offer in on our first house. *crosses fingers*
So hoping we get it!
Wish us luck!>_< ♥

House Hunting

Ryan and I have been house hunting for the last couple weeks.
Nothing is for sure yet, and we're still looking. We have seen some fantastic homes, and some horrifying homes.
We have so far found one that we're very interested in, but we have some questions, so it's still on the maybe list while we continue looking.
Hopefully we'll have a few new homes to look at today as well.

Also, my camera died last weekend. I think the beginning of the end happened 2 weekends before when I was running across the street in Victoria and the strap of my bag, containing my camera, snapped and it crashed to the pavement. After that here was some rattling going on and eventually it just stopped turning on.
So for now, I'll have imageless posts except for the when my mom sends me photos she's taken when we hang out.
Hopefully I'll get a really nice camera this time!

Yesterday I got to spend the whole day with my sister and Mom!(though Mom was only there for a few hours).
It was nice having some Jenny and me time. We haven't had that in a while!


Part of Jen's lovely garden!


Sniffing Jen's new spices.


More of the lovely things in Jen's garden^_^


Shopping fun! I want a huge brim hat!


All photos by Mom(Susanne Granneman)

A bowl of smoke.

Our valley right now is filled with smoke coming from the wild fires on the mainland.
It reminds me of a world in a book I read, which had an atmosphere that was constantly in twilight.
I found the weird hazy orange lighting inspiring, and went camera happy in my garden.


Sunflowers in the morning haze. Taken at 8:30 this morning.

The orangey pink evening haze. Can hardly see the mountains!




Up in the very middle of the sky, it is kind of blue...


Sunflower in the evening sun. Taken at about 6pm.






And this is my new Canna Lily. I got it at the farmer's market for $5. I'm in love with it!

Sometimes when I feel the most crazy, anxious, unstable and desperate, I feel the very closest and most in tune and in love with the Earth and Everything.

What's New

Much much much new stuff has been happening in our lives...

Ryan finally got his settlement from the accident he was in when he was 13.
Upon this news he set up an appointment to get Lasik eye surgery.
We went to Victoria last weekend for it, and he now has 20/15 vision... which is even better than 20/20.
They are still healing, but he is doing well and seeing well.
Whilst in Victoria we went Ryan clothes shopping and even got him a suit(as well as other clothes)!^_^

This Monday he got his wisdom teeth out, so I have had the fantastic excuse to be Nurse Christa all week, which I love.^_^♥

Garden update!
Garlic! I harvested it! I definitely had more big ones than small ones! Gary now calls me the Garlic Queen. Hahahaha, I love it and cannot wait to have a farm!
Did a garden make over! The low bed was being eaten by the yard, so I deleted it and intend to make a second raised bed in it's place... and maybe more. We'll see.^_^





I also got a hibiscus plant, which is fantastic and blooms everyday!





And this is how my garden looks now!



The Sun Flowers are AMAZING!



And now I'm growing Beans! Speckled Bays to be precise.



Life is good. We're not working right now due to said surgeries(they were also an excellent excuse to not have to work in such extreme heat lol).

And as a side note, my mom got me into Lady Gaga. LOL. Loving it.

Work, work, work...

It seems to me sometimes that I've gotten so used to working all the time and hardly being home... but then, everything switches up and now I'm at home, and working!?
A whole new aspect to my work life.
It's wonderful in that I get to work in some of the most amazing settings I could wish for.
We've done many jobs now out at Sproat Lake, and then going to Ahousaht was another adventure in exploring our home area.
I feel that I could be much more content working here, at home, than traveling everywhere to work.
Ryan and I were discussing that this morning. We figure that we are not going to travel back to AB for the next job, unless he's able to give us a decent raise. Because if it stays as consistently busy as it has been here, and if John keeps giving Ryan and I piece work, then it is far more beneficial for us to stay here.
*Fingers Crossed*
I also hope to be able to develop a more stable work schedule. This last week or two was kind of a test run for me working with Ryan for John.
Soon, hopefully I'll be able to arrange work at the farm on Tuesdays, work with Ryan for John the rest of the week, and hopefully Saturday and Sunday off.
If that works... otherwise, if it slows down a bit, (because right now it's a major boom, I don't think it will last super long) then I can probably count on random days off during the week.

I'd enjoy some stability, but that may be asking too much in a trade like this... and with the organizational skills of others whom I rely on for work.

I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever get to start up that second garden bed in the back yard, which is now a thriving weed habitat.... Even the herbs are getting covered over!
Hopefully the time will come, and at least now, I'm not worried about having the money, because we've been working so much.

What I really really want is to make that second bed another raised bed! It's so much easier to keep the lawn from intruding when there is a barrier.
I need a gardening fix! I've missed two farm days in a row! But at least I am feeling better, and can now be the caregiver for Ryan who is still feeling terrible.

Hoping the rest of this week goes smoothly, and looking forward to visiting Mom's friend's 2 litters of new baby kittens and Felice's 18th birthday and moving away send off this Saturday! I'll likely be taking photos!^_~
Wishing all a fantastic rest of week!
Christa♥

Ahousaht

Ryan and I have been in Ahousaht for the last week.
A very interesting adventure... mainly spent working.
We didn't get to do very much exploring and we both caught a cold or flu or something, so I'll leave this short, with a few photos I took from the harbour just as we were about to leave.


The way home...


The "light house" and some shipwrecks.


The older part of the reserve with some amazing clouds.


The res...


Vera's Guest House, where we stayed.

Learning

I wrote my last post on a really weird day, that had begun terribly... and ended in celebration.

I was trying so hard to get over the stupid things of the day that were holding me down. So I still cleaned up my house, and started an amazing dinner, and then, I got my Learner's!

So now that I look back at it, it doesn't seem real, because I was still working so hard to make it a good day, even though I felt terrible. Very odd combination for me... but I am now really proud of myself for overcoming the shittiness of the day to have a really successful and productive day.

And about that learner's test that I'd been putting off for the last 2 or 3 years.... Everyone told me it was hard, the questions were confusing, etc, etc.... Well I just have to say, that was probably one of the easiest tests I've ever taken! I got 91%! I could have laughed I was so relieved.

And I actually have to thank Ryan for pushing me to do that on a really crappy day, because it ended up being exactly what I needed. And I'm so glad it's finally done.
On my walk back from taking my test, I stopped at the BC liquor store for a small bottle of Gin for myself, and cranberry juice to go with, which hilariously enough was a first for me as well.
I have never gone to a liquor store by myself to buy something just for myself.

I like growing up. It isn't always fun, but at least it's rewarding.


Mama's kitty, Zelda.

Oh, the drama.....

This is in no way how I wanted to start a new blog that was hopefully going to be based on creativity and beauty.
But, I need to express some of this. I'm frustrated, anxious, confused.
This is not at all what I expected when we were coming home again. This is by far more stressful than work in the prairies.
When we came home first, we were so hopeful, and things seemed to be working to our advantage. We found work with Troy Brown pretty much right away. We did a job for him, and all seemed ridiculously positive and things seemed to be going well. I had hope that we wouldn't have to return to the prairies to work.
But since then, Troy has not called us. Not at all.
So then, Ryan has been working for John again. Which has always been an unorganized, and stressful ordeal. Also, Ryan is having a fair bit of pain from his wisdom teeth coming in, and we now may have to pay to get them removed... To put it another way. Ryan is pretty damn grumpy right now because he's in pain and work is not smooth.
So we also have money stress.
Not only because of the dental work, but also because we are paying over $6000 to the government for late taxes, and Ryan is the only one working.
I would be working with him if we were working for Troy. But as I was never hired by John, I am not working.
We talked about me coming to work with him, but that created a huge amount of anxiety in me. Every time he works for John, he's extremely stressed out.
This has been really hard for me to adjust to. I've become this working woman, and though I love living at home and taking care of our home, it doesn't feel fair.
But I also don't feel like me getting some minimum wage job is going to help.
So once again I feel stuck, just not in the same way as I did before.

I feel the need for guidance. I feel so lost right now.