Michael Hyatt is one of a number of bloggers I follow for inspiration. His perfect moment post is a message I welcome, no matter how often I hear it. I had one of those moments as I came upstairs this evening to check on the oranges I was cooking. The whole kitchen smelled of Spanish sunshine. I bought the oranges at the Saint John Market, not because I couldn't find them in Ontario, but because I saw them and knew instantly that if I didn't get them there, there would be no 2008 marmalade from my kitchen. And now there is. And yes, Uncle Roy, one jar has your name on it!

Posted by lynda at 08:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The two-week work marathon in Saint John is over and I fly and drive back home starting this morning. It was the most intensely demanding piece of work I have done in a long while, but also one of the most intellectually satisfying -- boy you don't get to say that very often about a job! I was part of a team sitting around a conference table day after day thinking out loud about how to do things within a certain domain, then coming up with an accurate process description that people could use. The work isn't over, and I'll continue with the team for several weeks, but I doubt that we'll approach the great synergy we had in that room. But that was the point of going at it for these two weeks, to give us all a running start.

Posted by lynda at 08:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I get two truffles each evening as part of the turn-down service in the hotel and I'm finding it a struggle to eat them all. I really make an effort to keep up, but usually I've just returned from a restaurant meal, which is more substantial than an at-home dinner. There they are, demanding not to be wasted. Tomorrow is my last day here on this trip and it has been very successful, but intense, with full long days spent in the office and little energy left in the evenings to do much more than collapse in front of the TV and nibble the chocolate. I made serious, but flawed, efforts to knit for several nights, then gave up entirely and unravelled several rows of a challenging sock to start from scratch. I'm ten rows into the sock redux and so far, so good. A bonus last night was a good view of the lunar eclipse from the hotel window. With some luck within the next 48 hours, I'll be back home.

Posted by lynda at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today I had the good fortune to be driven along the coast west from Saint John by a colleague. She had lived in the area some time ago and was glad to show me the less travelled roads through fishing towns and villages and tell me some of their stories. Many of the details she knew from serving on a volunteer fire and rescue crew, everything from how to get really fresh scallops to how to distinguish fishermen's houses from packing plant workers'. We spent the whole day going through places with delicious names like Musquash and Chance Harbour (see picture). We found the province's best yarn shop in Blacks Harbour (tipped off by a local knitter, of course). The brutal cold (-16, plus windchill to -28) was tempered by sunshine so we could pop out of the car for pictures and a quick walk around at our lunch stop, St Andrews by the Sea. I came home loaded with yarn and a much better feel for this end of maritime New Brunswick.

Posted by lynda at 06:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I meant to post much more often from Saint John, but the days have been very full -- after all I am here on an urgent assignment for a client -- and the evenings are spent mostly recovering from the days. i survived the first week and I'm looking forward to finally seeing a bit of the area tomorrow. A colleague has offered to drive me out of town to see some sights. I have seen nothing so far because the hotel and office are connected and the weather has been ugly. After storms and floods earlier in the week, we are still on a boil water advisory. That doesn't have a lot of impact on me, as the hotel is lavish with bottled water, but ice is in short supply. So I console myself in a plush upgraded room with scotch and truffles (sigh).

Posted by lynda at 10:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm in Toronto this week, packing up the condo, which becomes someone else's at the end of the month. Bob has more attachment to it than I as it was his first owned home, but I have appreciated it for several city visits in the past year. Nonetheless, it's time to let go. My daughter left things behind here, and even my mother left one or two items; each has the signature of the owner. My mum's frozen Fig Newtons and Portuguese tea towel are as distinctive as my daughter's CD holder decorated with her bulldog's puppy pix. And I left the green bottles, that is, I was an accomplice to them being here. I collected them just because they were a pretty green and looked good in my old kitchen atop a white shelf against a pale blue wall. They came into my house filled with wine, gin, salad dressing, whatever. I saved any bottle that was an interesting shape, any colour, as long as it was green, until I got enough to make an interesting cluster. When we renovated the kitchen, the dozen bottles found a new home in the condo kitchen. I looked up at them on top of the kitchen cupboards here and remembered the old kitchen, the renovation, the jokes we made about collecting worthless things. And I packed them.

Posted by lynda at 12:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I was all set to drive to Toronto tomorrow when I realized I would miss my belly dancing class Monday night. So I changed plans and will go Tuesday instead. Still lots of time to cover the commitments I have in the big city, as long as the weather is kind. This will be probably the last lengthy visit, since I will be packing up the condo, sold as of the end of this month. Future visits can be done, but might be shorter, depending on where I am staying. I am quite content to view Toronto as an occasional tourist, now that we are getting very settled here in Owen Sound.

Posted by lynda at 07:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)