Looking for work...

Looking for work is not as easy as I thought it would be.

I spend so much time checking Craigslist, Monster, and the rest that applying for the jobs has me confused about my actual skill sets. After 14 years without a break, I'm not even sure what my skills are, or whether the work I can do is what I still want to do.

In the meantime, I'm also having fun picking up ideas for creative ways to use up about 150 pounds (68 kilos) of fabric samples I've accumulated from various sources over the years. So, coffee cup sleeves, doggy jackets and gear, quilts, scarves and eco-bags are on the list of things yet to be started. Again, I spend too much time finding cool patterns on the old www that actually doing is temporarily beyond me.

I've lost 2 pant sizes in the past 6 weeks, which makes me very happy. Now I just have to figure out how to take in the hips, waistbands and legs evenly on about 20 pairs of slacks and jeans.

I've explored Google Earth. Actually found the apartment building we lived in briefly in Toronto after we arrived in Canada when I was a tyke. And the spot on the river where we used to play on those long, hot summer days. The river then was slow, with oaks, maples, reeds, ferns and cool, damp earth providing us with all the materials we needed to build little playhouses. We fished with string and sticks - never caught anything, but it was all pretend anyway. We had jars full of tadpoles, though. :)
Oh, for the good old days when 4, 5 & 6-year-olds could disappear for hours without the stay-at-home moms calling the cops.

Thinking about themes for blogs- How about a ' What people throw away' pictorial? Or crafty stuff? Recipes? Plants and flowers of the Pacific Northwest?

Anyway, I'm volunteering to help out at the Vancouver Wellness Show, an annual event held at Canada Place, see you Cooperative Automobile Network display, Feb 1, 2 or 3. Come and find out why it's more sensible to borrow a car from the co-op when you need it instead of buying a gas guzzling, insurance-eating, rapidly depreciating car.

Vancouver in Winter

Here it is...Mid-January.


Vancouver weather is more its usual gray and rainy than last winter's freeze-up and wild wind and snow storms. Occasionally a bit of blue opens up in the cloud cover, then vanishes with the next breath to be replaced with a mix of fine mist, drizzle, heavy rain, then another bit of sunny blue. Living close to the water, our weather tends to be more moderate than inland areas. We can be walking along the seawall in sunshine and in Chilliwack the wind and snow will be blasting across Highway 1, pushing cars and semis into the median ditches. In the meantime skiers atop sunny Grouse Mountain are oblivious to all but the cloud cover spread below like a a great soft blanket. The pic above was taken at noon on a recent Sunday, and yes; that's the sun poking through, not the moon.


This is also a shot from my balcony. Bare branches on the plane trees, but still providing bits of sustenance for our local finches, chickadees, the occasional woodpecker and of course, the large murders of crows that leave their rookeries early in the day and head to their alloted city neighbourhoods. At dusk they return, raucous and happy or silently, depending on the pickings. That's them in the background. It's really sad to note that many of the rookeries are vanishing under the onslaught of machines clearing space for condos and new housing developments. I wonder if the new residents will ever even think about the Goddess's evicted little garbage men and the job they do for her, cleaning up after us, getting rid of road kill, dropped fries and burgers, and worse. As long as they keep going to and fro each day, then our small piece of the planet is still somewhat healthy. If they disappear then it's time to move to the Interior!

This is a shot from Granville Island. Taken last year at the end of January. We were waiting for the water taxi to take us back to the landing just on the other side of Burrard Bridge after an hour or so of wandering aimlessly, picking up a few veggies and the obligatory landjaeger sausage from the year-round market. Cold, crisp and not a cloud in the sky.