Custom Orders!

Hi everyone. I have been so busy knitting new hats and completing orders. Thanks so much for taking part in the coupon sale I offered in October!

I'll be posting more hats over the next few days, but I wanted to talk a bit about custom knits.

I love custom knits, it allows me to be creative and figure out a way to make you happy. I especially love it when people who don't know me, or what I am capable of knitting, email me and say... "Can you knit me ..." I usually say, "Yes I can!"

I just finished knitting a pair of custom hats for a new mom of darling twin girls! She said, "Can you make me hats that look like cats?", and I said "Yes I can!" What fun.

I love how the hats turned out and thought I would feature them here before the big focus turns to Christmas. I had big visions of Mary being cut and paste into 1 image, so she looked like twins. That didn't end up working out, but I love the photos we managed to get.

These hats would have been great for Halloween, but they'll be cute all winter too. The brown version shows what the hat would look like without earflaps, but I added earflaps and ties to both help them stay put and keep the girls ears warm.

These hats are available for purchase right now on the etsy site: melissabearknits.etsy.com

The Christmas season has meant a flurry of baking activities at our house....

This year we decided to, whenever possible, make baked goods for Christmas gifts. You might think this is cheaper than buying gifts, but when you decide to make chocolate truffles with the best chocolate around, it definitely isn't!

We had a lot of fun still, truffles are not as difficult as you might imagine, just a little time consuming... the truffles? they turned out great! We may even go into business!

Here are some photos of Alain decorating the tree... For some reason there aren't any good ones of me... Oh well...




































He doesn't look so bad once he's been all dressed up! (I meant the tree, not Alain!)

The Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

Alain and I purchased our Christmas Tree from IKEA this year. They have a good deal going on - with the $20 purchase of a tree, you get a $20 coupon to use at IKEA. In addition, the tree is sold by the Lions Club and IKEA donates a seedling to be replanted within Ontario.

We thought we were doing a good deed and couldn't lose. Well, we hadn't really counted on the sad little Christmas tree we brought home.

It was all wrapped up at the lot, so we had no idea what we were getting... He's a little lopsided on the right and quite bare at the back... As you can undoubtably see...


























We did our best to groom him, but he's still a little pathetic...

More photos of him all dressed up soon!

The House...

Okay.... so things are finally pretty settled around here.. and we finally had a chance to take some photos from around the house so everyone can see where I'm living.

The Dining Room...














The Library/ Sitting Room...













The Kitchen...



















The Guest Bedroom / Melissa's Office...


















Alain's Office...















The Master Bedroom...


























The Basement / TV Room...

My Christmas Wreath

Alain and I have really gotten into the Christmas spirit, and, since it is unlikely that someone will steal it off our door (as they would have at the apartment), this year I decided to make my own wreath.






















We hung it on the door with Lee Valley's very handy magnetic hanger knob which will hold up to 3 lbs (seen below). The hanger knob is $9.50 and available at www.leevalley.ca

The Old Apartment...




















Friday night was the last time I will really be at my old apartment. We spent a couple hours repainting the bedroom, cleaning up and packing the last few things into the car to bring to Alain's. I am thankful that I won't have to ride in that dang slow elevator anymore, and even thought I absolutely love living here with Alain, I have to admit I was a little sad to see the whole place empty...



Here is the best sad face I could muster for the camera...


















and here is the last carload full of my stuff, to be crammed SOMEWHERE into Alain's house. We're really happy the whole move is over. I have to drop my keys off tomorrow, and that'll be it.















I'll post some photos of Alain's (and my) house as soon as we get all my stuff settled...

As some of you might know, Alain's house is quite a zoo! We have 4 cats (Pumpkin, Zulu, Sam and Nina) and a dog (Kelly). We love them to bits and have a lot of fun with them, but, there's always trouble when you leave the bedroom door open!


This is what tends to happen.....
















Yep, that's right... In less than 5 minutes you're totally swarmed with furry friends just dying for a snuggle. Sounds cute, sounds fun, well, try getting a good nap in when you can't move a muscle without disrupting someone. There are only 3 pets in this photograph, Pumpkin is generally still in hiding and Nina must have been off on an adventure.

Ah, life at the zoo....

Pumpkin Carving!

Alain and I carved pumpkins this year to put out on the front porch.
I think they both turned out great, although very different.
I hadn't carved a pumpkin in probably 10 years (or more) but we both had a great time.
We even went to the pumpkin patch to pick out our own pumpkins (no grocery store pumpkins for us!).

We're really trying to learn more about where our food comes from, so whenever possible we like to go right to the source. It's generally a whole lot cheaper than the grocery store, and its fun too. I don't think people are very aware of where their food comes from anymore, which is really sad to me.

I know its been a seriously long time since my last post.. Not too much has been going on to be honest... I moved, well, I'm still moving, so that has been busy, plus I'm crazy with school trying to finish my thesis in the next two weeks. I'll try to do better so keep checking back.

Walkley Rd Trail

Over the (beautiful) long weekend Alain and I decided to take Kelly out for a walk. Originally, we had planned to go back to Mer Bleu (the bog) but the trail was just too wet. We tried to stick it out through the muck but when my feet got wet and Kelly lay down in a foot deep puddle, we turned back.
Instead we ended up at a trail at the end of Walkley Rd in an area that used to be a landfill site. Now the site is pretty much just a huge mound of grass and bushes, only smelly occasionally. It turned out to be a great place to set Kelly free and she had a ball tearing around through the tall grass. I caught this great action shot of her (ears-a-flappin') running towards me. She has become really good at hide and seek and I happen to be her favourite person to find.














The last photograph is in the car, I believe before we headed home, Kelly was obviously played out and looking just plain adorable resting her head on the car seat. I am SOOO addicted to her.

So this is what stress feels like...

My newly developed case of insomnia means that I am up half the night tossing and turning. I guess, after all this time, I am starting to feel the stress of writing a thesis. Actually, the middle of the night isn't so bad for thesis writing - I've done 4 pages already tonight, and its only 4:48!

I think that the stress of the thesis might not be so bad if it weren't coupled with my impending move. As some of you may or may not know (although there has been no official announcement I suppose), I'm moving in with Alain and while I couldn't be happier about that, the transition period has been more than a little stressful.

It's been too much, and although I wasn't planning to move for another month or so, to try to bring some balance back into my life (and perhaps even regularly scheduled meals!) we moved up the date and I'll be there as of Friday (even if most of my stuff won't). We'll do some last minute set up stuff over the course of the weekend, and will bring Pumpkin over early next week (stay tuned for how her transition goes... I know every one is more worried about her than me! haha).

Between now and then (depending on my crazy sleep schedule) I will try to update with more posts from Thanksgiving weekend and beyond.. Sorry people, things have been just too busy for words.