Christmas Stockings!

For those of you who have read my blog, you know that I love to knit Christmas Stockings and every year, I look for new people to knit stockings for. Last year, I offered to make stockings and a few people contacted me about my offering. Now you can see the stockings that I created this year and a little story about each one.

Stocking # 1

 This first stocking that I knit was started in July during my volunteer shifts at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival. It took me a while to figure out what design to do on this stocking as I was asked by a friend from high school to knit this for her mother-in-law to be. After my many questions, I chose this yarn that I bought at Baad Anna's on Hastings street in Vancouver and a bit of yarn from my mother's stash and started the design of a candle.

It felt right to me that Joie should have some light in her stocking along with a traditional look in colour and design which is why I chose the candle. This was the first stocking that I knit this year and the last one to be delivered on December 23rd. Just in time. The friend who asked me to knit it and her partner were absolutely delighted and said it was perfect. I spent 5 hours visiting with them when I delivered the stocking and thoroughly enjoyed my time. What gifts we can bring each other.

 This is stocking number 2 that I started knitting on my way to the Western Canadian Oireachtas, which is the Western Canadian Regional Championships of Irish Dance for my daughter. I was actually half way through stocking number 5, but ran out of yarn and had to re-do it causing this one to become stocking number 2. This is for a little girl who lives in Victoria who has amazing parents that I am blessed to know.

I originally met Bliss Prema years ago in another incarnation. We have seen each other through many changes and I am grateful for each and every moment that I have had with her. If you have any interest in personal growth, spirituality and following your dreams, look up her name online and see her latest offerings to the world. She is a gifted woman and her husband Seamus form Ireland is a beautiful man. I look forward to knitting a stocking this year for their next child. Thank you for giving me the gift of knitting Uisce's.

This stocking is for Leslie, my daughter's Irish Dance Teacher for about 11 or more years. This is my version of the logo for Scoil Rince de Danaan (Leslie's Irish Dance school) and it took several musings in my mind to figure out what I was going to do for an incredibly intricate design. This was the last stocking that I started even though it was not the last one to get finished.

This one came about in August when I asked Leslie's Daughter Beca if she thought that Leslie would like a handknit Christmas Stocking from me and Beca replied emphatically yes and that all of their stockings had disappeared and they (Leslie and her two daughters, Meredie and Beca) didn't have any. As soon as Beca said that I knew I would be knitting three and the process of design started.

I design each stocking and sometime I draw out the graphs or I go on Ravelry to find a design that works for what I want. On Leslie's I was trying to figure out how to transition from the dark blue to the lighter blue and my daughter, Boedicea, made her first graph for me to use on her teacher's stocking. She created the graph for the swirls and that is her design.

This is the stocking for Meredie and her name is on it in red even though it is hard to see as the red and green were both quite dark. By the time we got to the De Danaan Feis the first weekend of December, I still had 2 1/2 stockings to knit that needed to be finished by December 17th. So I knit all weekend while volunteering at the Feis. This one I had folded over and safety pinned together so that the name was not visible as Meredie, Beca and Leslie were all at the Feis, and Beca knew that I was knitting a stocking for Leslie, but did not know about the ones for herself and Meredie.

Meredie is a musician and I had to make sure that this one was musically correct, and it is. I knit this one in one weekend and alot of knitting was done during the Beoga concert. They were impressed with my ability to knit musical notes. Silent night is the song on this stocking and Meredie was delighted when she saw it.

This is Beca's stocking and I did have a bit of a struggle at first with this one. I was not sure what to knit for Beca. She does hair and make up and all sorts of things for all the Irish Dancers at De Danaan. I feel like I have know her forever, but I think it is only since she was a teenager.

I wanted to knit something for her that had some classic elegance with an Irish flavour but was not too fussy. I started working on this Aran style stocking and realized that a take off on Belleek china was where I was headed with this one. I crocheted the little shamrocks to put inside the cable Christmas tree.

I normally knit the names in, but I wanted to do Beca's in a more scrollwork pattern and so I crocheted the gold yarn to be able to sew it on the stocking. This method also made it easier to knit at the De Danaan Feis as there was no name to identify the recipient of this stocking.


These were the stockings that I knit this year and I hope to knit many more next year. I have already got three orders for next year and will be starting on them soon.

If someone special to you deserves a handknit Christmas stocking, contact me.

Knitting stockings is something that brings me immense pleasure and I really look forward to making more.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. May your house be full of humour, your heart full of love and your belly full of good food and may your New Year bring you all you need!

Janet

12/12/12 - My Mother Robin's 68th Birthday.

We have all been told about this most auspicious day and many have planned events to celebrate or prepare for the disaster to come, depending on whether you are a pessimist or an optimist.

Nothing has prepared me for this day and I have entered into it with much else on my mind. 2012 has been quite the year and much has happened in my life. One year ago, my mother Robin was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and she is now at a stage where there are many things that confuse her. Her level of cognition is such now that she will remember certain things and hang on to those things tightly because nothing else is making sense to her.

I am quite sure that she will remember that it is her birthday which is interesting in itself as I never really remember her liking her birthday that much. But I was thinking about what my daughter and I could do to wish her a happy birthday and let her know that we remembered which is rather ironic knowing that we are not far off her not remembering us. If we talk to her on the phone, she will often forget that we called and if we go see her, there is nothing to remind her we were there, so we sang Happy Birthday to her and made sure it went on the answering machine so that my mum Christine can play it to her every time she says,  "Why didn't Janet call for my birthday? " or "Did Boedicea wish me a Happy Birthday?"

I have spent 2012 watching my mother Robin disappear at an alarming rate, piece by piece of her reality, her personality and her memories leaving her faster than any of the rest of us can keep up with. I can see for myself and for many others that yes, this day is causing a great shift in our world and yet the shift is within, not dissimilar to what happens with Alzheimer's. A shift inside each person I know has been occurring this year changing how they perceive the outside world and what they expect to get from within and what they expect to get from outside of themselves.

What I can see in having been around Alzheimer's for the last year is that those of us who will fare well are those who see the positive in each and every change that we have been lucky enough to be part of. That is right, I see it as lucky to be going through changes in my life and I am grateful for all those around me supporting my dreams. I know that my mom Robin is in a place where she is fearful of what will come and the truth is that Alzheimer's is fatal. The anxiety shows up and she becomes miserable. At the same time, I can see that when she is in a place of peace, she has almost a delighted look on her face.

So on December 12, 2012 my mother Robin turns 68 and even though the woman I grew up with has disappeared, there is a replacement that physically resembles her and I wish her the happiest of birthdays and most of all I wish her internal peace a gift I think we all could use. I will focus on Grace.

Happy 12/12/12. Make your life your own.

March 2012 Northern California coast

at mine and Christine's Wedding

Janet 

Workshops!

I still love workshops and teaching people how to bake. I also love spending time in the kitchen. Recently we had the cookies workshop and this weekend on Saturday, there will be the tourtière workshop.

cookie dough ready to be rolled up.

cookies cooling

And after!!

Cookie dough rolls ready for the freezer

Then an evening of Shortbread and the final workshop of the season will be Stollen on Sunday December 16th.

During the cookies workshop we made three different cookies and baked a few of them and good fun was had by all. There was plenty to take home and to eat as well.

I have enough cookie dough for the holiday season and now I can make something else. Check out the Spelt Bakers website for more information on my latest workshops!

Pies make me happy!

I love pies! When the bakery was open, I would hand roll the pastry for hundreds of pies and make the fillings. One of my favourites is cherry pie, but not just any cherry pie, I want a great big sweet dough that tastes almost like a biscuit and melts in your mouth and inside I want Montmorency cherries that are so sour that you don't want them fresh. They are best in a pie with lots of organic cane sugar and a little bit of corn starch just to make them perfect when they are cool enough served with some Devonshire clotted cream.

But that is not the only pie I love! There is the sweet creamy filling of a pumpkin pie with traditional english spices made for Thanksgiving served after a huge Turkey and just before days of clubhouse sandwiches, turkey soup, turkey casserole and every other turkey leftover idea you can find in books and online. 

Then there is the delicious tarte au citron that Melanie gave me the recipe for. I have to say that there is nothing quite like a french lemon pie and a lemon meringue pie is NOTHING like it! Lemon meringue pie was not one of those pies that I craved when I went wheat free (in 1985) and I was okay not eating them, but the tarte au citron is so full of flavour and not too sweet and it doesn't look like the cloud of the meringue slipped into lemon jello when you cut it open. 

My Dad loves the strawberry-rhubarb pies that we did at the bakery and I have always made mine the same. He always tells me that it has enough rhubarb. Not too much, and not too little like most of the ones he has tried in Canada. Again, it is not too sweet. 

Raspberry pie was one that I had never made before I met Christine. She told me about raspberry pie and I had never heard of it. It seemed so foreign to me. I had raspberry jam tarts so I am not sure what seemed so strange about it, but it was a new one for me, but, it being her favourite, I was going to make one and I wanted it to be damn good!!!

That was not the strangest pie for me to make though, The strangest pie for me to make was a very common and traditional pie. Apple pie. I discovered that I was allergic to apples when I was 17 and have not eaten one since. I don't really miss them, I'm not even sure what they really taste like. However, at the bakery people would always ask for apple pies. so eventually with Christine's help I finally started making apple pies. She would make the filling and taste it and adjust and make it absolutely perfect. I would then roll out the pastry and scoop this mass of apples and organic cane sugar and cinnamon and then cover it with another layer of my favourite sweet dough. We would put these in the oven and the smell of them was like that of a log cabin on a wintry day where you are all sitting at the table next to the fire with a warm cup of tea. Funny how I had such an image in my head with the smell of these pies that I could never eat. 

Now that the bakery is closed and I am not rolling out hundreds of pies, I am playing more with pies and one of my most recent pies was the one above in a happy face. What a delight it was to present to a friend, a smiley faced pie. I am quite sure that I will show people how to do that at my upcoming workshop on pies. A pie that makes you smile twice!

VIA Rail and Coffee

This year Christine and I took the train from Montreal to Vancouver. We wanted to go see her family in Quebec this summer and she took the train 2 weeks before me and I arrived by plane on August 15th and then we were scheduled to go back by train leaving on August 25th arriving back in Vancouver on August 29th.

Christine next to the train

We talked all through the start of her trip until she got into Ontario where there appears to be no internet and wireless access. However, she did tell me a few things about the train ride and one thing she warned me about was the coffee.

On the train going through Ontario

Not many people drink coffee the way I do. I take a dark french roast, I grind it fresh and then put it in my stovetop espresso maker. It makes about 4 shots of espresso and then I warm up the cup and add organic cane sugar and coffee cream to get it just the right colour. I remember asking Rick at Continental coffee (Commercial Drive and 2nd in Vancouver, BC) if I should try a lighter roast and he said, "Janet, if you like your coffee burnt, just have it burnt." So, I have stuck to the Dark French roast and never looked back.

I also travel with my stovetop espresso maker. If I could I would knit it a little waterproof travel bag, but knitting and waterproof don't go together. At Christine's parents there was a coffee grinder, so that was not an issue, but on the train, there is just hot water and no stove for me to put my coffee maker on and the coffee that is available on the train is not bad, it is just not, well, the kind of coffee that will kick your butt in the morning and sending you running down the halls ready to take on the world, like mine is. So, we needed a solution. There was no way I was going to survive 4 mornings with a gentle reminder that coffee was a distinct possibility somewhere in the world. I need my "woohoo, good morning, time for a ride" cup of coffee. Full of flavour attitude and the distinct possibility that scotch is the only "stronger" flavoured drink you can find. That is my kind of coffee.

So, we decided to try the Starbucks coffee in the little envelopes. I got a Dark French and a Mocha version and Christine got the Columbian. We were so impressed. It may not be quite like at home, but that was a damn good cup of coffee with a beautiful fresh flavour. It wasn't until the last day on the train that I realized that this Starbucks coffee was called VIA.

I am easily amused and this discovery totally amused me. So I had to take this picture and I will say if you like a good strong cup of coffee and you are planning a cross Canada train ride, grab some VIA for your VIA rail vacation. Both the train ride and the coffee were fantastic and they go together!!!

Bye bye old mac

Some days are just like that. where you have to say good bye to an old friend who has helped you along the way and been there for you through thick and thin. They've helped you when you were down and when life was good.

They have held you together and even given you information you did not want to know.

That is how it is for me today. Today my very first Macbook that was bought in 2007, finally quit. She was a good one though, she quit just after backing up a whole bunch of information somewhere on a cloud in the middle of the ocean and it is time for me to get a canoe and paddle out there and get it.

Off I go on a whole new adventure with a new macbook pro and a canoe. I am still a little bit lost with the whole clouds in the middle of the ocean thing. It really isn't like it use to be.

As many of you may know,  I love to knit. I have been knitting since I was 8 years old when I use to take the MacDonald bus up to my Grannies house from Carnarvon Elementary school up to 33rd and then walk to her house every Wednesday afternoon for at least a month. Knitting is something that has been done by the women and some of the men in my family for generations. Both my mother and father learned how to knit.

However, I also like to do minor house repairs and one of the things that I learned through doing house repairs is that often times, for both cleaning and maintaining, a knitting needle is extremely useful.

I have used my knitting needles for caulking a tub. I find it works better than most products on the market and I ALWAYS have a knitting needle that is not hard to find.

Today I cleaned out the lint screen from the dryer and that hard to reach spot that stops the lint screen from sitting properly in the dryer.

I have also been known to use knitting needles to make a row in the garden for carrot, beet and lettuce seeds.

They are great for untying knots, just wiggle the needle right in there and you can untie almost any knot.

The larger ones are handy for making a small hole a bit bigger in drywall.

Knitting needles are an incredibly versatile tool and between them and my swiss army knife, I can do just about anything...

I just hope that there are now some knitting needles that I can take on the plane, maybe bamboo ones?

Life, life, life. It seems that we all have our own ideas of what life is and what life should be and then life happens.

Yes, you can direct your life and yet at the same time, those around you are also directing their lives and sometimes the direction that they take is in direct conflict to the direction you took. That is when things can collide.

Sometimes things happen that weren't really what you were looking for and all of a sudden you are faced with a set of circumstances that you did not want.

We have so much information about how we can create the life we want. We have the Law of Attraction that tells us that we attract whatever we think about. We have our own ability to create whatever we want out of life by not allowing fear to stop us. We have positive thought.

We also have circumstances that occur even if we are not thinking about them. Why? Who knows. Some call it destiny, some call it coincidence, some call it an anomaly.

Sometimes I feel like we are spending so much time thinking about how we want our life to be that we forget how to get up and do things. Sometimes I also think that we have forgotten how to enjoy the little things. So today, I will knit a baby sweater for someone special who is scheduled to enter our lives in the coming year, knowing that who they are and who they will become has nothing to do with me and everything to do with me. We never know how much of an impact we have on those around us, but if we behave as if it could be huge, we might just be a little nicer, to ourselves and those around us.

More and more bread. Yes, I love bread and I love making bread. I have been playing with all of the different options of how I can make bread and my latest is ciabatta burger buns. Stay tuned for photos and the recipe!

SPELT HOT CROSS BUNS!!!

Spelt Hot Cross Buns Recipe

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups of milk (rice, soy, hemp, almond, cow, goat, etc.)
1/4 cup vegetable oil (of your choice)
1/4 cup cane sugar
1 teaspoon salt
5 cups white spelt flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon instant yeast
1 1/4 cups currants or raisins pre-soaked in hot water for 5 minutes before adding to mixer - 1/2 added before mixing, the other 1/2 added half way through

Apricot jelly or jam to cover

Method: Use kitchen aid mixer.

Place ingredients in mixer in order listed - except for 1/2 the dried fruit and the apricot jelly or jam.

Mix on low speed (#2 on kitchen aid) for 5 minutes, add remainder of raisins, then mix on next speed up (#4 on kitchen aid) for 5 minutes. The dough should be well mixed and away from the sides of the bowl.

Remove the hook and let rest in the mixer bowl for 15 minutes, then take it out onto a lightly floured counter top and divide into 12 even balls.

Place balls on a cookie sheet with parchment paper on it, lightly brush with oil and cover with saran wrap to maintain moistness during proofing.

Proof for 1 1/2 hours.


Before baking, draw the cross on top of the buns:

Cross ingredients:
3 tablespoon of white spelt flour
2 tablespoon of cold water.
Mix well together into a paste with no lumps.

Put it in a pastry bag with a little hole and draw cross on the top of the buns, be careful not to flatten the dough on top; be gentle.

Then bake on middle rack in pre-heated oven at 350∘for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile lightly heat up apricot jelly or jam with a bit of hot water on low heat, for glaze on hot cross buns. After the buns are baked, brush each bun with glaze and let sit for 10 minutes.
Happy Easter!!

Granddaughter...

I just had a whirlwind trip down to Northern California to visit my beautiful granddaughter, my son and daughter-in-law. Christine came up with an idea for a great gift for Lilja that was just perfect - A little baking kit with a mini muffin tin, tiny tulip cups for muffins like we used to have at the bakery and cookie cutters, mini cupcake papers and a little tool kit with rolling pin, whisk, wooden spoon and spatula.

On Thursday morning we left and drove to Portland, Friday morning we got up and drove to Fortuna in Northern California driving through incredible Vancouver like rain. Driving past the big trucks is always hard in the rain, but on the I5 were these massive three trailer long trucks. Passing one of those in a torrential downpour certainly takes some skill and effort. They spew alot of water out their sides and visibility becomes incredibly difficult. Then we arrived there and had dinner and time to open the gifts. She was so excited every time she pulled something out of the bag, she would open her eyes wide and make a noise of delight and her Mama, Britta said that she loved to help cook and bake. Christine, back in Vancouver was on skype and Lilja sat in her booster chair so that Christine could watch and see the whole thing on computer. She was so happy and excited. How lucky we are to hold such delight in small things.

The next day was time to bake with Nan (That's me) and Lilja and I made some little tiny blueberry muffins for everyone to share for breakfast. Lilja has to be the best two year old egg whisker I have ever met. There were adults who worked at the bakery who couldn't whisk an egg as well as Lilja. Britta told me that she loves whisking eggs and now she has the perfect size whisk and bowl just for her. I was impressed and she even helped me fold the dry mix into the wet and then add blueberries. We put them in the little cups and then into the oven.

Out they came and Lilja still in her pajamas sat down in her chair for breakfast. I have to say the highlight of my trip was making muffins with my granddaughter and it was well worth the 2 day drive and 2 days back with only 2 days to visit. Next time I will aim for a little more time down there. In the meantime we will continue to skype and hopefully they will come here soon.

Taxes!!

I love doing taxes! There are alot of people who think I have lost my mind when I say such things, but it's the truth. I filed my first taxes on my own in 1986. I like the forms, the simplicity of the numbers going where they are supposed to and I love the tax laws. I love knowing what you can and can't claim. Learning the changes that happen each year, including what can and can't be claimed. I even love working with the accounting firm Morrow Co. and passing completed financial statements onto them for some of my clients to have their taxes done by an accountant.

I have done both full service bookkeeping, payroll and personal and small business tax returns since the early 90's. I remember when I was a single parent with two small kids, I would help other parents do their taxes.

I am now available to help people with their taxes. Please feel free to contact me if you or someone you know needs their taxes done. thespeltbaker@gmail.com

I look forward to this season and helping those who do not want to do this on their own.

Baking Day.

The life of a spelt baker did not come about because I hate to bake, it is because I love to bake and today was baking day.

I made four different types of cookies all with organic Spelt flour of course.

Double Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Seed Butter, Almond Butter and a new creation - Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. I am pretty sure that I ended up making over a hundred cookies, but only baked 48 for taking to a friends house and having some at home. The rest I scooped out and froze the dough in balls. Cookies for later.

I love sharing cookies so much that I am going to share my newest cookie recipe with you today.

Here it is:

Spelt Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup of butter or Earth Balance
1/2 cup almond butter
1/2 cup organic cane sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg - well beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cup white spelt flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips

Soften butter/Earth Balance and cream.

Then add sugars, vanilla and the egg.

Whisk until creamed.

Add dry ingredients

Mix until smooth and fully blended.

Scoop onto tray using a small ice cream scoop. Press with fork.

Bake at 350 degrees for 9 to 12 minutes.

ENJOY!!!!

Alzheimer's

What a word and what emotions we have attached to it. Dementia is another one. A process that is difficult to understand and yet when presented to us we run in fear and in horror. When we are faced with someone we know and love being diagnosed with these, there can be a sense of relief and a sense of despair. The relief comes from knowing why our loved one has been unable to be there in ways that we expect them to. Our despair is knowing that this is not temporary and that the prognosis is not good. This can also be said about Cancer but we can still communicate with someone who is terminally ill with Cancer. This becomes less possible with Dementia.

Having a conversation today about just this subject my sister said that someone with Alzheimer's may not remember where they bought the shoes they are wearing, what city they were in, the cost, the person who went with them, or whether or not the sales person was male or female. There will however be a feeling that they have about those shoes. Do they feel good in those shoes, do they like the colour, do they have a positive association with those shoes. That feeling could come from many different places and probably part of it is how they felt with the people around them.

I immediately thought what an amazing gift that this illness can give us to stop a moment and look at the person in front of us and actually just be with them for a moment. Yes, we are lucky that we can remember where we live, what time we need to get to the coffee shop. Where our bank is. Which way the switch gets turned on the stove to turn it off or on. And how hard it is for us to see anyone, especially someone we love not remember those things or to try so hard to remember those things that they become distressed. Decision making becomes difficult when you don't have all the information and with Dementia, you don't no matter how hard you try. But all of those abilities may have robbed many of us from an ability that it appears Dementia does not take away and that is to feel the energy flow from one person to another. To feel the presence of someone caring about you and being with you in this moment. That moment may never be described by the person with Dementia, but the imprint of how they felt seems to remain.

One of my grandparents who suffered from Dementia always called my daughter - her great granddaughter - the nice little girl in the yellow dress. She did not know her name, she did not know that she was her great granddaughter. She knew how she felt whenever she saw her and she associated it with the yellow dress she wore once. What was inside her head I will never know. The functioning of her brain is in my mind for the scientists to try and figure out. How can I use what I have learned to not only help myself, others and those who suffer from Dementia. I will pass this message along. If you find yourself answering the same question four times and getting impatient, stop, breathe and recognize that how YOU feel is going to impact how the person you are with feels. Know that the only impact you have on this persons life, because you cannot give them their mind and their memory back is how they feel about what they are doing right now. It is in fact about being present, but not present in your mind, present in your energy. Feeling a connection as opposed to making one. Making a connection is all about using words to connect to someone. Feeling a connection is about feeling the energy from one person to the other.

This is my lesson for today. Thank you.

What being a parent means to me.

I had my first child when I was 18 years old, 3 months and 1 day before my 19th birthday. I had no doubt at the time that it was a lifetime commitment and was not one that I took on without realizing the all encompassing role that I would have for the rest of my life. I have now been a mother for well over half my life. I am also now a grandmother.

First and foremost, as a Mother, I am protector, caregiver, confidante, provider, guardian, teacher, prophet, leader, friend, guide, champion, motivator, messenger, nurturer, safety-net, the stability in my children's lives, a constant.

I am going to breakdown each one of those words to describe what it means to me.

Protector - If my child is in a place where he or she could be harmed physically, spiritually or emotionally, it is my job to intervene. An example is (physically) that when a child does not have his papers submitted for his green card, it was my job to tell him to get his ass in gear and get it done. Spiritually - when someone is directing angry energy towards my child, I intervene both with talking and protective energy to keep her safe. Emotionally - when my son was being teased for being gay in elementary school, I intervened and made it stop.

Caregiver - to make sure that they are taken care of - fed, clothed, housed. meeting their basic needs.

Confidante - being there to hear them when they have something that they are having a hard time with. Listening to them and sharing what wisdom I have to help them through the struggle they are having.

Provider - to be able to provide a safe refuge for them to come home to. Have good food, a safe home and all of the schooling that I can possibly afford to give them, everything they need. This includes extra curricular activities like dance, music lessons, film programs, art, sports etc.

Guardian - It is my job to protect them where they need it. When one of my children asked me why I was still making decisions for him when he was 15, I told him it was because it was still my responsibility to override a decision he made if I deemed it to be unsafe for him. That role remains intact until the child turns 19.

Teacher - to provide them with enough knowledge and skills to be able to be all of this to themselves and to their own children. This is ongoing and is a responsibility that I believe I have until the day I die. As they get older, they are also able to teach me. This goes from one way to reciprocal with their growth and age.

Prophet - when children are young, in my mind a parent is their to help them believe that they can be and do anything. Very few parents are able to help children realize their dreams and children have dreams that change. It is my job to show them the brightness of their lives to come. This is, in my mind, especially important as a parent can squash a child's dreams more effectively than anyone else. This is not only done by telling kids that they cannot do something, but also by putting to much pressure on a child or by not listening to what the child wants. As parents, we are the almighty and as children grow they question the almighty to learn their own power.

Leader - It is my job to lead them in the right direction with intuition, discernment and knowledge as my guide.

Friend - This one is important. Not every child has a parent as a best friend, however, it is important to be a friend to them and teach them what it is to be a friend. My mother taught me this and I hope that I have successfully taught my children. Exploring and defining what friendship means to them can only happen if they have had a friend and their first friend will be there parent(s).

Guide - Like the light in the dark. When a child is feeling at their worst, the parent guides them through whatever issue they are going through, giving them tools to manage. This is also linked to Teacher and we use that role to teach them how to be their own guide.

Champion - to believe in them, to egg them on to be the best they can be, to constantly tell them how good they are at whatever they do and to guide them to be even better.

Motivator - to kick their asses when they think they can't go on. To help them get tools to get past each struggle they have. Teach them that success is a good thing and that they not only deserve it, but should always strive towards it. Teach them that they are the only ones to hold themselves back and a parent's job is to not allow them to do that.

Messenger - To be able to give them the messages they need to hear in spiritual matters, guiding them to find and nurture their own spirituality. Allowing the messages to come to them and showing them where they might find them when they cannot find them on their own. Allowing them the time and space to shun spirituality and continue giving them the message that they are whole and complete the way they are.

Nurturer - This is more ethereal than anything else and may be hard for me to describe. To water them as necessary, feed them when they are hungry and to let them have quiet time when they need it, allowing them the chance to grow, just like flowers in a garden. To nurture is not to hover over and watch their every move, but to allow them the space and time to grow giving them all the tools they need to do that and allowing them to do it on their own as and when they should, while always being in the background watching to see if a storm is coming and taking what you need to protect them at that moment.

Safety-net - being there to catch them when they fall.

The stability in my children's lives/a constant - These two are essentially the same thing and it has to do with unconditional love. Unconditional love is not about unconditional acceptance. I will not accept boundaries being crossed, but I can still love the person. It means that no matter what they will always be close family. Part of that inner circle that you expect to spend the rest of your life with in one way or another. When their world is falling apart and they feel that they have nowhere to turn and nothing to stand on you are there, loving them. You have made a commitment to continue to parent them which encompasses all of the above until the day you (or they) die.

That is what being a parent means to me.

Pay it forward!

There is this thing on facebook about paying it forward. In the year 2011, I posted it on my facebook page and only one person responded. She did not get something handmade. We still haven't managed to get together for coffee.

I have decided to make a slight modification to my pay it forward program.

As many of you may have figured out from my previous writing, I love to knit Christmas stockings. They are a tradition in my family and it brings me great pleasure to be able to knit a personalized stocking for someone. What I have realized is that there are a few crucial parts for me. I do not feel right knitting a stocking with no name. There must be a name knitted into it. I want each stocking to be a different design and to reflect something about the person who will get it.

I know it is early, still being January, however, I have always started my Christmas preparations in January, except for the food. For that info, you will have to wait until later in the year.

So here is my "pay it forward" proposal. If there is someone special in your life whom you think would love a handknit stocking, please let me know. I will knit a stocking for them to have for next Christmas, in colours meant for them, with their name and a design that would be right for them. I would be happy to talk about it. In exchange, if there is something that you have or do that would be good for me, please offer what you can. It takes me about 2 weeks to knit a stocking when I am taking my time. It is probably more than 12 hours of work. Each stocking I have knit has been unique in many different ways. My favourite yarn store is Baad Anna's on Hastings Street. They have fabulous yarns for stockings. I have all the needles I need and all I need now is someone to knit the stocking for.

First Snow Spa Day!

I woke up this morning with a wicked headache. For those of you who don't know, I have had migraines through much of my life and have controlled them through the foods that I eat and don't eat. That is one of the reasons why I stopped eating wheat.

So in my dazed state of mind, Christine told me that it was all white outside and I didn't quite understand. After a couple of tylenol and a nice dark cup of coffee, I was able to see the snow on the ground. It looked pretty and I was starting to feel better but knew I needed to take care of myself today.

The headache started yesterday and hung on tight. I also got a phone call from my daughter in law who was on her way up to Canada with my son and granddaughter to visit. Bad news, they had some stuff stolen from their car including my son's green card. A green card not only allows him to work in the U.S. but also allows him to re-enter when he comes to Canada to visit. It was Friday morning and there were many things they needed to do, starting with contacting bank and credit cards to shut down all cards that were there and also the police to file a report. Then on to the Green Card. They have electronic tracking devices in them now, however, there is also a shield and it needs to be taken out of it's little case to have the device work. It takes three months to replace and even though there is the possibility that they could get a government letter stating that he has one and that he is allowed to re-enter the U.S., this Monday is Martin Luther King Day and the government offices are closed until Tuesday, which means coming up Tuesday or Wednesday and they are supposed to leave Friday morning. My headache had a little bit of heartache to go with it. I love spending time with my granddaughter, son and daughter in law. The last time I saw them was March 2011.

Definitely a good day to take care of myself. Christine told me to take a bath and I have this lovely "seaweed bath" from Calixica Spa located on Granville Island. So after making a couple of loaves of French bread, smudging and cleaning the house including our guest room. Chatting on the phone with my son and family, it was time to run a nice hot bath, I used the facial mask that I also got from Calixica, , and grabbed a big glass of water and got into the steaming hot seaweed bath in our new spa bathroom. I love to go to the Spa, I enjoy having a manicure/pedicure with my daughter Boedicea. For someone who has worked in the food industry, this became a luxury as it is for many others, a luxury of being able to just be still for a moment.

For me today, the first snow day of 2012 has helped me to feel renewed energy, cleansing of my heart, body and soul. Now at the end of the day, I am sitting on the couch relaxing in front of the fire, candles lit throughout the house waiting for my pizza to be ready and spend the rest of the night with the love of my life Christine.

Full Moon Dinner!

I love food!! There is nothing quite like a delicious dinner after a day of hard work and a long bus ride across town.

That's right, a bus ride! With no Spelt mobile I am now taking the bus home from my parents after having their car on the weekend. In a lot of ways my life has become very scheduled since January 1st. All my time is set out on the schedule and it is almost like when we had the bakery and every day was accounted for.

Maybe it's a little odd to feel that I am scheduled only 9 days into the New Year, but that is how I feel and I kinda like it. I like having a schedule and knowing what my routine is and at the same time I like to shake things up and have some excitement.

One of the things that we have done is to write a weekly menu plan. Now that is ORGANIZED!!!! And completely delicious!!! Tonight, after a day taking care of administration work for my parents, an appointment with a client, some shopping and a bus ride across town, I came home to find the love of my life making a beautiful chicken fried rice with the rice I made this morning and the leftover from the roast chicken that we had last night. But that was NOT dinner, that's for tomorrow's lunch.

Dinner was one of my favourite meals and when I first went wheat free I missed it terribly. Tonight's dinner was a beautiful club house sandwich made with three pieces of my home made white Spelt bread. I like mine to have two pieces of toast buttered with tomato slices and nitrate free bacon and fresh cracked pepper. Then the middle slice is covered in mayonnaise for the next part of the sandwich with either turkey or chicken and lettuce and the third slice tops it all off. The hard part is trying to eat it.

It was well worth the difficulties of holding it together and I feel like I had the best dinner ever!

I have always found that a routine allows me to be in the present and being present and aware of what I am doing makes the food that I am lucky enough to have that much more enjoyable. So, the next time you sit down to a Club House Sandwich I hope that it brings you as much pleasure as it did for me today, the full moon of January 2012.

Enjoy!!!

All the Decorations are down!

The holidays are over, The New Year has begun and I am feeling pretty good about the holidays this year. I feel like I accomplished all the things that I wanted to do and have an even better plan for next year.

This year, on the top of my list was knitting 3 Christmas stockings. I have been knitting since I was 8 years old and I love knitting stockings. My children and I all have stockings that my mother knitted and Christine has a stocking that I knitted for her the first year we were together. She keeps asking me for the other one. She was not aware when she met me that I loved Christmas and that she would not only have a big Family Christmas, but also a Christmas stocking. We met in February and didn't talk about Christmas when we first met. When we did get closer to Christmas and I asked her what colour stocking she wanted and what design, she said red, brown and green stripes. This was the stocking I made her.



Last year I made one for my granddaughter Lilja for her first Christmas. I remember madly knitting every evening after baking over a hundred loaves of bread, rolling out pastry for fifty pies and making hundreds of cookies amongst other things just to get it into the mail in time for her to get it for Christmas morning.




The first one I made this year was for Calvin, his was Celtic Spiral work knitted in red and white with green trim, I started and finished it in early December. I always use the same pattern that my Mom bought from Mary Maxim some time in the eighties, but I change the needle size, the yarn and the design every single time. The one thing I always do is the same number of stitches and I use the graph for the letters for the names. I love that pattern.







The second one I made this year was for my daughter-in-law Britta. I had my son Erik's stocking and Lilja already had hers and now it was time for Britta to have one made by me. I chose natural fibres, bamboo, silk and Merino wool in blue and white with an edging of handmade lace that I bought in Barkerville in the early 90's. She loves natural fibres and is quite talented with fabric arts as well. This stocking had to be knitted by December 15th in order to have my daughter Boedicea take it to the States with her and give it to Britta. I started it December 8th or 9th and finished sewing it together and adding the lace the evening of December 14th. Just enough time to take a photo and give it to my Boedicea to pack on December 15th.


The final stocking that I knitted was for my daughter-in-law to be, Mandy. I always want to do something special for each person that I knit a stocking for. I want it to represent them and have something on it meaningful to them. I have to say it is a lot easier to do that with adults than children. When my son Kristoffer and Mandy got engaged in early December, we saw the ring and I found it very interesting. a green stone on a silver ring with a tree. I then went and looked at her facebook page and kept seeing pictures of trees. After a big long search for a tree pattern that would fit in 28 to 34 stitches, I found the tree of Gondor pattern and I knit Mandy's stocking in yarn that my mum had in her stash and some from my own, in a nice soft green with a brown tree and the name, heel and toe all in a nice deep red. I finsihed her stocking on December 22nd and delivered it to my son on December 23rd while out doing the last of our food shopping and some gift shopping for my parents.

That was it: December 23rd, all stockings done, all food bought, all decorations up and all gifts ready to go. I felt so good to have been able to get everything done so that I could just spend the 24th with the woman I love, cooking fabulous food for a small group of friends and family. Then Christmas dinner at my moms' the next day and it was an incredible Christmas. I was surrounded by people I love and we all had good food.

Now the decorations are down, the food is all gone and the stockings are put away for another year. Part of me is a bit sad and wondering who will I kit a stocking for next year? Maybe Christine will finally get that second one she has been asking for.

The Spelt Mobile

For the first time in my adult life I am carless. The Spelt Mobile has finally given up and been taken away. I have been driving a Chevy Astrovan since 1994 and the green Spelt Mobile was the second. The first one was blue. I was always amused at the fact that the first van was blue and that was when the colours of the bakery were green and white. The second van was green and then we changed the logo to blue, white and black.

I bought the original chevy astrovan in 1994, when I was expecting my third child and needed a larger vehicle with more seats. I remember driving it for the first time and I had always driven small cars before that. It seemed like all the other cars were so tiny when I was up in the BIG VAN. I quickly got used to it and whenever I drove a small car, I felt like I was way too close to the ground.

That first van came in very handy when I opened the bakery in 1998, being perfect for carrying trays of bread. I was thrilled to have such a versatile vehicle. Gas prices were well under $1.00/litre back then. I remember gas prices being as low as 49.9¢ per litre and everyone was freaking out when it went up to 79.9¢ per litre. I don't remember what year that was though.

After ten years of driving the first Chevy Astro van, it was time to move on. I started my search for the next Spelt Mobile and had a few criteria that must be met. I needed to be able to transport my children wherever we wanted to go. I also needed to be able to put two bread trays next to each other in the back of the van for doing deliveries.

On my search, I headed straight to Richmond Auto Mall and started looking at all the mini-vans available. I would go to a car dealer and say, "Can you please open the back of this van?" and I would take my two bread trays and try and put them in. It quickly became obvious that the trays would not fit in any of the vehicles that I wanted. I would have to get another Chevy Astrovan to meet my needs. And so the second Spelt Mobile was bought. A one year old Chevy Astrovan.

I have so many stories of the Spelt Mobile:

Driving the Coquihalla in white out snow. I couldn't see more than a few feet in front of the van and my daughter was in the seat next to me chanting, "Oh Goddesses and powers that be, please take this snow away from me." It took me 8 hours to drive from Kamloops to Hope. Then we hit a rainstorm through Abbotsford. That was a long day.

In 2008 when Christine and I went to France, a friend borrowed the Spelt Mobile and we told her before we left to not worry about people waving at her or honking their horn, etc. They were just Spelties. When we got home, some of our customers asked us who had been driving the Spelt Mobile. We laughed that people noticed and took it so seriously.

I have never had a hard time finding my car in the parking lot. The Spelt Mobile is big and has the bright How's that Spelt logo on it, I could even find it in the Metrotown Parking lot. That has to be the hardest parking lot to find a car in.

Many people have driven the spelt mobile over the years. Many road trips have been taken. Over the last several months, the Spelt Mobile has been unhappy. It is not driven as much as it was when I first got it. We stopped doing deliveries in 2008 and then when we shut down the Bakery in 2010, we barely drove it at all. After fixing it a couple of times over the last two months, it became clear that the repairs needed to keep it going were not worth the ongoing cost of running a vehicle like the Spelt Mobile. We took it to the garage (Irving Tire on Clark and 2nd) on December 22nd and they gave us a loaner car to use during the holidays. They said that they probably wouldn't be able to fix the car until the 27th due to the holidays and days off. We thought it was the fuel pump.

After Christmas on December 27th, I got the call that the damage to the Spelt Mobile was more extensive than we could have imagined. The cost of the repairs was quite high and there was no guarantee that it would fix the problem or how long until another problem would arise. After getting the information from the garage, Christine and I talked about our options and we decided to was time to let the Spelt Mobile go.

I have been bringing the Spelt Mobile to these guys for many years and have always been happy with the service from them, however, this time they went above and beyond. When I told Tom that we were not going to keep the van and we would find someone to pick it up and take it away, I requested to use the loaner to empty our personal contents from the van and take them home. Then we would come back with their loaner car. Tom told me that we could keep the car until the next morning if we needed to run some errands or get stuff done.

I told Tom and Richard from Irving Tire that I really appreciated them and everything that they had done for us and when I do have another vehicle, I will be back. Whenever I had taken the van to them, they were always clear about what needed to be done and how much it would cost. On a tight budget, this was very helpful. I had been to other garages in the past, but I was always treated well by them.

When we went into the garage to get our personal effects from the Spelt Mobile, we dropped off a bag of shortbread cookies and said Thank you. Tom said that he was glad that we made the decision we did, that he thought it wasn't worth fixing anymore. I told him that I had always felt like he was looking after my interests when it came to taking care of my car. He told me that he just wanted to treat me as if I was his sister. I smiled.

I am sad about losing the Spelt Mobile, one of the last vestiges of The Spelt Bakery and at the same time, it was time to move on. The Spelt Mobile may be gone and you will never see me driving it down the streets of Vancouver again, but the memories will always be there and as I have always done, a little bit of Spelt baking is just the right thing for me to give as a Thank you.

Thank you Tom and Richard at Irving Tire for caring for the Spelt Mobile and caring about your customers as family. Thank you Spelties for being part of our "family" . Thank you Spelt Mobile for all the good times and memories. My life would not have been the same without you.