55 YEARS AGO, TODAY, WE TIED THE KNOT...

 Yes, today is our 55th Wedding Anniversary. Time seems to go by fast when we keep busy. It doesn't seem like 55 years since we got married. It was a memorable event although, not a grandiose one...  The day before the wedding I remember the huge snowstorm on February 25, 1966. My mom, my sister in law and myself had just gotten our hair done at the hair salon, George had picked the liquor, the wedding cake, and the flowers and we were on our way to bring the liquor and the wedding cake to the Church Hall in the next town for the wedding reception the next day, but we couldn't even enter the driveway as it was all snowed in so we headed home.  

 The wind increased and there were sudden whiteouts where we couldn't see the road ahead. Even if we would have accurate weather forecasts in those days I doubt we would have paid much attention to it anyway. lol...  A good thing the traffic wasn't as heavy in those days as it is now. 

George was driving the brand new Red Dodge Charger.   I sat in the front holding the wedding cake on my lap, Mom was in the back with my sister-in-law who was holding the wedding bouquet when all of a sudden, we were in a whiteout and the car came to an abrupt stop.  The car rammed into an abandoned white car on the road. Someone has abandoned his white car smack right in our lane without any flashing lights or any lights on for that matter and took off on foot. It so happened that this guy had no insurance on his car and had no driver's license.

On impact, my face went into the cake top, some of the flowers were broken but miraculously no one was hurt. 

We all got out of the car, with the snow flying, and went to a house nearby to call the police. The grill in the front was damaged but George managed to get the car home safely but by then it was night. The snow had melted on our hair and it didn't look like we just come from the hair salon... My brother in law, fixed the cake, the bouquet was also fixed, we managed to put rollers in our hair, and the next morning, George was up at the wee hours of the morning to plow the lane up to the highway. The train underpass was blocked with snowdrifts but was cleared in time to make it to the church on time.

Because of the storm, the photographer canceled out and George's younger brother took some wedding photos of the event. The photos were developed in slides. 

The wedding reception was changed from the church hall to the farmhouse. The homestead is a large three-story house and was built by Senator Glasier with two large rooms divided by large accordion doors like you see in a hotel conference room and was perfect for a large crowd to dance. Someone must have called all the guests to inform them of the change of venue because there was a large crowd of family friends present and everyone had a whopping of a good time. There was lots of food, good dancing music and lots of wedding gifts and lots of booze also. People danced until the wee hours of the morning a great time was had by all.

Throughout all this, I was totally relaxed and not once got frazzled. All I wanted was to get married. The rest didn't even matter to me but I must give credit to all those who made this event possible with such speed. My father-in-law loved to have people in his house and I know that he enjoyed having this party in his home very much.

A few days later, a good friend of my husband lends us his big black car because ours was at the repair shop so we could drive to Florida for our honeymoon. We drove to Montreal for George's best friend's wedding and then we drove to Florida.  In those good old days, we didn't need a passport to go to the US and you could come and go as you pleased. I miss this freedom we once had and took for granted.

This evening George and I celebrated in a very small way. I ordered some takeout fish and chips and ate in our dining room instead of going out. 

Stay safe and well, thanks for the visit, and thanks for the comments.

Hugs, Julia

PERSEVERANCE FINALLY PAYS OFF

 I was inspired to pick up my crochet hook after my last blog post about a young boy named Jonah who is a prodigy at crocheting. 

I found this lovely crochet pattern for a baby blanket on the internet but there were no written instructions.  The creator of this pattern kept saying to look at the captions for directions to everyone who was asking for a written pattern... but the captions were as confusing as the video and it was no help to me. It looked easy enough until I tried to crochet it myself.  I wasn't the only one who found the tutorial difficult to follow as the lady talked too much and worked too fast for a beginner like me but she does amazing work. Take it from me, rug hooking is much easier.

The front posts stitches make up the diamond pattern. The yarn is white but because of the lighting, it looks more like a cream color which I would have liked but had to use white in case I would run out of yarn so it would be easy to match.

I tried so many times to make sense of it and kept getting in trouble by forgetting to pick up a front post stitch that would screw up the whole work and had to unravel two rows repeatedly. I wasn't advancing very fast but I was determined that I would not give up on this pattern.  I was especially having trouble on each end of the rows. 

Every day I thought, surely, I'll be able to have something to show for on my blog but  I had to unravel it again and again. I knew the pattern well enough but kept making silly mistakes when my mind wandered in the repetitious process. 

Now, I finally have gotten a handle on it and I still make mindless mistakes but I catch them much sooner and I'm finally making progress with hardly any unraveling.

Like many of you, I'm waiting for spring to arrive. Only 26 days till glorious spring. Hang in there and stay positive and don't forget to give thanks for what you got. It could be taken away with the blink of an eye. 

Thanks for visiting and leaving a comment even though you don't crochet.

Hugs, Julia