Celebrating George Munro Day

Today Dalhousie is closed and Neil is at home because of George Monro.

Who, you ask? George Monro was a wealthy New York person with Nova Scotia roots who contributed a great deal of money to the University. In his honor the university closes on his day... OK, now I've done some reading George Munro was actually really, really cool. He was a publisher who published "women's" fiction in the 1880s and his authors included the Bronte sisters. He made fiction cheap and accessible to people.


Hence, on Monro day Neil is still in his pajamas (almost noon) and I got to leave the house with Judi and Naomi and go back to the wool store in the Hydrostone. I bought some gorgeous hand-dyed wool, silk, and nylon yarn from Fleece Artist to make a shawl for myself. It's very rich reds, browns, and greens ... for a visual treat and knitting drool visit their website. The pattern I got is the first image on this page. Both are Halifax companies!
Talking of knitting, here is my mitten ... since this picture was taken I have moved to the body of the mitten, above the thumb. Neil is making himself a mega-scarf... in blue and white.









This week has been a bit traumatic. The photo below was taken the day I nearly gave the kids frost-bite. It was sunny and felt warm so I took the kids (bundled up, I thought) in the wagon to a local playground. By the time we got there, both kids were crying from the cold. They had on regular shoes and trousers and not snowboots and snow trousers- I learned from my experience. We stayed in the rest of the day and watched Blue's Clues ... yeah.


Chloe and James also started swimming lessons this week. After begging all last week for lessons, all this week Chloe has protested she didn't want lessons. Ultimately, the lessons went OK but it is very wearsome to deal with such
flip-flopping.

The joys of motherhood- I am sitting listening to James pitch a screaming fit because he wants marshmallows. One of those moments where you knew buying such a nutritious bomb would backfire, but you wanted to keep peace in the store. I wish we weren't living in a basement flat at this moment! Ah! Crisis solved- a nice, cute, and healthy pear has been substituted and peace reigns (at least temporarily)!!