May 26/12

The writing of this post was delayed a few minutes as I had to chase out a neighbour's cat in between uploading my photos and beginning to type. The obvious solution to these regular intrusions would be to close my patio door but then my three darlings would have me running daily marathons to let them in and out and in and out and for good measure, out and in.

The other day I took my first trip of the year out to a piece of property I own in the country. I like to take a look around at the changes the winter has brought on the trees and property. One of the changes this year was the death of one of my apple trees. From the amount of etching on the trunk as seen here, I suspect that the tree had been badly damaged for a long time. I spent an hour or so, walking around and taking down the dead branches, all the while assessing what I would like to get done in the next few months.

In the yard at my house, the plants are bursting into green and blooms with all of the rain and warm weather we have been having. The lilacs are just starting to open up, much to my delight!

Somewhere in between working and wrangling the mess that is my neglected yard, I have been stitching as much as possible as the August deadline looms up more quickly that I would like. The cross stitching is almost done. One more evening should finish the bottom right hand corner and then I can begin the backstitching and filling in all the little spots I somehow missed. I also need to do the stitching with the gold filament. I love the finished product of stitching with the filament but really dislike doing the stitching itself.

May 4/12

 So, I have been home for a handful of weeks now and am still processing the trip to the Dominican Republic. Half baked ideas are floating around in my head about what is going to come next. For the moment, it means attending the District Rotary Conference in June to fire up more Rotarians from this region to get involved. After having been literally in the trenches and seeing the differences the water filters we are funding are making, I am a great advocate for continuing our support. How much of a difference you ask? Well, we dispensed all of our metronidazole antibiotics in the first batey. The people were being treated for both GI infections and vaginal infections and I don't remember the breakdown, but the key was that batey did not have water filters. At the second batey, we were an hour into the clinic when I realized that we had dispensed no metronidazole so I asked if they had water filters. The answer was yes.

 One of these kids had been seen at the clinic that day. His head is liberally painted with Selsun Blue to treat the fungal infection on his head.

One of the best parts of these trips are the people I meet along the way. This is me with Fernando, my hermano Dominicano. We met last year when I was there with Rotary to see what the water program we were sponsoring was about. He goes out into the bateys to teach people about clean water and sanitation and monitors the water filters that have been placed in people's homes. A few moments before this photo was taken, he was holding up an exhausted me and letting me soak in his strength for a few minutes before we continued on with our work.

April 17/12

 An interview with the local newspaper led to this great article on my then upcoming trip to the Dominican Republic as part of a medical team. The team went to the sugar cane villages (bateys) and the La Romana prison to see patients. I was a little nervous and cleaned the house like mad before the photographer showed up.

 My friends were very generous in making donations to me. Two boxes of prescription medications were purchased and the remainder of the money was spent on all of these over the counter medications. US Customs almost seized the lot if the secondary screening agent had had his way. Fortunately for me, his supervisor was more kindly. The supervisor took one look at me and my boxes and said, "She is on a humanitarian mission; let her go". Whew!

And the end result was about 700 people were seen by the team during the week . Here one of our interpreters is explaining the medications in Creole to a family. Sometimes I felt like we were not doing much, but then I would see the smiles on the kids' faces as we handed out bandaids and the grateful thanks from their moms as they received vitamins and medications made me realize that we were making a difference.

Mar 25/12

Wow! We have had such beautiful weather this past week that I have already started some of my spring outdoor work like picking up all the garbage that has blown into the yard and inspecting my compost bins. Yes, that is plural. I have three compost bins beside my shed. My yard is chock full of flower beds and I use compost as fertilizer because of the creek that runs through the corner of property. Anyhow, the 25C of last Tuesday has been replaced by snow flurries this afternoon. As much as I am not a fan of winter, I much prefer more seasonal weather than days that are nicer than days in July.

More progress has been made on my brother's wedding gift. I would estimate that I am 1/4 of the way through the cross stitching part and I am a little anxious about whether I will get it completed in time. There have been several evenings where I have been exhausted mentally and physically after work so no stitching was done those evenings. Some times I just have maybe a half hour so I set a goal of stitching up a full length of floss (the floss is pre-cut). Sunday evenings are a good evening to stitch, especially one like tonight where it is grey and damp.

I did almost give the game away today though. As part of my mom's birthday celebrations today, my brother and I put together a roast beef dinner. My first thought was to take the piece along with me to work on it in between putting on the roast in the slow cooker and getting the vegetables ready but then I realized that my brother and his girlfriend would see what I was working on! I took a book along with me although I ended up taking a nap to recover from last night's debauchery. The meal was lovely in the end though!

Mar 13/12

The Canadian Women's and Men's curling championships have been on these past three weeks so I have been spending alot of time in front of the television. That in turn means lots of stitching! There is a faint hope that this will be completed in time for my brother's wedding in August, but the advent of warmer weather and a trip away to the Dominican Republic in a few weeks will take away from my potential stitching time.

Yes, I am off on another trip. This trip has me really excited. I will be returning to the Dominican Republic for the third time, this time on a health care mission. I will be working with a team of American and Dominican doctors to provide basic healthcare out in the sugar cane villages and in one of the prisons. My role will be, for those who don't know what I do for work, is to be the team pharmacist and to dispense the medications we are taking with us. The sugar cane cutters are Haitian so they have little or no access to the Dominican healthcare system. The doctor organizing the team has told me that these clinics are primarily a well-persons clinic as the sugar cane cutters have to be able bodied to be working in the fields and to be eligible to rent the shacks in the company villages. I have no idea what to expect in the prison, but it will be all part of the experience. One of these days I will take a real vacation like a trip to Italy or Ireland, but for now, I love what I am doing.

Feb 24/12

 Just because I had one bib left in my stash and because I love this heart pattern, I stitched it one more time using DMC 816 and adding a bit to the border to fill in the bib. One less thing in the stash and one more gift at the ready when someone else announces that they are pregnant. Decluttering has been a renewed theme in my house again so reduction of every and any pile of stuff is helpful.

My youngest brother is getting married in August. Here is the patttern/kit I decided upon for the gift for him and his fiancee. So, the wedding is August 11th, today is Feb 24th and I am wondering what the chances are that I will have this puppy stitched, framed and ready to present at the family gift opening at the rehearsal party? Methinks my fingers are going to fall off between now and then. Good thing that I adore my brother and my soon-to-be sister-in-law!

Feb 19/12

 My absolute favourite picture from my trip to Burkina Faso in January has to be this one of the elephants in the Nazinga game reserve. The morning after this photo was taken at their watering hole by the main camp, my little cousin and I were woken up to see an elephant grazing outside our window. There were many other photos and experiences, but yeah, this one is my favourite.

So in stitching news, I stitched up this bib for a Croatian friend of mine who lives in Dusseldorf, Germany. She is expecting her first baby to arrive any day now. The pattern came from a book that I have on traditional Scandinavian redwork and I used DMC 347.

After much thinking and flipping through patterns, I finally decided to stitch one of the Dimensions Wreath series for my brother and fiancee who are getting married in August. I had one of the kits in my to-do list and when I came across it the other day, there was a sense of feeling the right fit for the recipients. The threads have been separated and some stitching has begun. A fair bit should get done this week as I am parked in front of the television as much as possible to watch the Scott Tournament of Hearts, the Canadian Women's national curling championship!