Día de los Muertos

It's fitting that I should finally get around to doing this week's Blogstalking assignment on the Day of the Dead. This is not the oldest picture of me I have ever seen, but it is the oldest picture of me (in which I am clothed - my parents were big on the naked baby pictures) that I have:



This picture is of me and my paternal grandparents at my baptism - sometime in the early 70's. Let's just leave it there. My Gram is still alive and kicking, but my Grandpa died when I was scarcely 6 years old and I wish I remembered him better than I do. He was never a strong or healthy man in my lifetime and most of what I know of him comes second hand. I do know that he was a sweet and considerate man who would sit in the kitchen and watch the birds at the birdfeeder outside the window.

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And continuing on the grandparent tangent, my friend Carrie (of yesterday's Halloween costume fame) gave me a bag of wool that had belonged to her grandmother today. This batch is nine skeins of Melrose Classic Sport Yarn (acrylic, 50g, 150 yards) - it's very pretty and reminds me a lot of some Mexican Wave yarn I used to have:



This is Wendy Fancy Cotton - but I couldn't find a match for it anywhere online:



My father-in-law (the phantom gardener) has struck again. Earlier this week he came by and not only seeded the bare patches (with sand, soil, seed, and fertilizer) in our backyard, but also planted some bushes along the side of my house:



There are azaleas, rhododendrons, and mountain laurels here - all in shades of red and purple. But that is not all... this beauty was waiting for me in the back:



It may not look like much now, but if you recall back in May when I was taking pictures of all my father-in-law's lovely flowers, I had said that his Ben Morrison azalea was my favourite of all the ones he has. So what does he do? He goes and buys me one of my own! I can't wait until next spring so that I can see it in bloom. And yes, I have been watering them... and the seeded areas in the backyard. Andrew and I are such gardening/yardwork newbies - I am sure my father-in-law just wants to pull his hair out sometimes...