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Spring is missing, bark is shedding, and hockey playoffs is batsh*t crazy

Does anyone know what happened to spring in my region?

I may have jinxed it when I made some sarcastic comment about how we don’t have spring, we jump immediately from winter to summer… Meh.

Well, winter is back. Or, something like it. It’s been cool, drizzly, grey, wet, damp, stupid.

I brought my electric blanket back out and plugged it in and I use the little space heater for half an hour every night before bed. It’s been very uncomfortable lately, the cool house and the cold outdoors and the grey, damp atmosphere.

But it won’t last. I know it won’t. I’m just anxious to get the sunshine back; I already miss my bike, having only been out for a ride once so far. And I’ve hoped to be able to take my yoga fitness workouts, via Asana Rebel, outside. It’s so much more pleasant to exercise under blue skies, on the grass with the birds singing, than in the basement surrounded by Birch bark and jewelry supplies. And lego. So much lego!

Speaking of lego, you may recall I’ve been selling lego my mom has been assembling, all the outgrown toys from the kids. I’ve also started listing other toys I saw in the crawlspace when I was sorting boxes down there. People are contacting me via FB Marketplace, and about 80% of the time the sale happens.

The other 20% is a pain in the ass.

Why?

Because those people try to negotiate for hours, sometimes days at a time, over an item already reduced significantly. I mean, we’re researching our products and pricing them very generously because we are motivated sellers, but still, they come and try to haggle, taking up all my time, then they disappear without confirming an ETA and are never heard from again.

But those have been the exception, not the rule. We’ve been fortunate enough to sell quite a few items to the tune of a few hundred dollars, so that’s been great.

I gotta admit thought, it’s not my favorite activity.

Still, we’re purging stuff out of the house no one wants or needs, so it’s all good.

What else?

The Birch bark is shedding from the trees out back. Every day a new little pile of fresh Birch bark appears on the table which mom collects when she’s outside gardening. I took these pictures on a rare sunny day – see how nice that white bark looks in the sunshine under the blue sky? ❤

I have done some research into the shedding of the tree and am working on an article for the nature lovers and tree-huggers, to share some understanding of what is happening to the trees and why they shed. I’ve also looked into the customs of the contemporary natives and ancients who have used Birch bark in a variety of ways dating back hundreds of years, so stay tuned for that. Meanwhile, rest assure, the Birch trees are all healthy and thriving, and I have happy customers who purchase my Birch bark from my Etsy shop.

I’ve even made new tags to sell in my store.

short and long tags
short tags
long tags

.

Raw birch bark for crafting, art, design, decor

.

In other news, the Maple Leafs defeated the Tampa Bay Lightening Bolts, the 3-time winners of the Stanley Cup (2004, 2020, and 2021) to advance to round 2 of the NHL playoffs and the entire city of Toronto has gone crazy. 🙂 Everything is blue, even the CN Tower! Boy oh boy, it’s been a dicey few games. Hot and cold, lots of drama… but we finally broke the drought and managed to overcome that first round hump. Go Leafs Go!

The Toronto Blue Jays too are hot hot hot, winning most games! It’s been a fun time to be hooked into the sports! Baseball is such an interesting sport when you understand it, and with my kids having played for about a decade, I know a thing or two about ball games. 😀

Tonight, mom and I will watch some of the Bruins vs Panthers game because one of those teams will be playing against the Leafs during the round 2 series… I want Florida to win and not Boston. We’ll see!

Lordy lordy lordy… 🙂

And finally, don’t forget my website here will revert back to the the free blog in the next few weeks as I am no longer interested in paying Premium prices to WordPress to maintain this blog. I have exported my content into a zip file in case they erase/lose my stuff, and have already started dabbling elsewhere, so stand by for news on what my next steps will be. I’m not sure when I’m going to make any major decisions about that yet, and I’ll be traveling a bit in May, but you know me, I can never stay away long when it comes to my blogging community.

Stay tuned.

Thank you for reading, and see you in the comments.

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25 thoughts on “Spring is missing, bark is shedding, and hockey playoffs is batsh*t crazy”

    1. I just came back from a local trip north of the city where I took Tucker through a forest. There were a lot of fallen trees, including birches, so I picked up some of the bark from the trees there. Stay tuned for some pictures…

      Can’t wait to craft some more tags and other items with them!

      Thank you for expressing an interest in my shop. ♥️🇨🇦

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  3. We’ll always have that one week where it was summer in April.

    I heard that Tim Hortons is giving out free Leaf themed donuts, coffee, and hot chocolate to fans in Maple Leaf Square tonight. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of hot chocolate in May haha

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Really? That’s funny! I don’t think I’ve heard of hot chocolate in May either. 😀

      I saw a weather report NWT has had 31 degrees, and another 10 days like it are coming. Here we are in Toronto still wearing winter gear…

      Like

      Reply

  5. You know, WordPress has an option in settings to allow others to gift you a premium subscription. Not saying to do that, but I noticed it recently and thought that was interesting.

    We removed the down comforter from the bed a month ago and put it back on two weeks later. It’s been an odd spring.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. It’s under General settings:

        Accept a gift subscription
        Save settings

        Allow site visitors to gift your plan and domain renewal costs.

        Allow a site visitor to cover the full cost of your site’s WordPress.com plan. Learn more.

        Liked by 1 person

    1. I’m paying for Premium now but don’t want to anymore. It’s expiring in late May. I’ll revert back to the free blog (probably writerofwordsetc.wordpress.com or something like that) and will lose my domain (writerofwordsetc.ca), but I don’t want to pay for either anymore. I’m not sure if I want to keep blogging like this, maybe, maybe not. But I definitely won’t stop writing. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  8. Our weather has been cool and wet as well. Which, to be honest I don’t mind. When you have 20 hot flashes a day summer heat is something to be dreaded.
    Love the birch bark tags!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  10. Your weather is doing the same as ours here. I refuse to turn the heat on anymore until the fall. I’m really tired of gray and cold. I could care less about hockey but our Seattle team is down to their final game tonight to try to win their series over Colorado. I have no clue what happens next if they do win but people here are going crazy as the team is only in its 2nd year of existence so apparently this is a BIG deal…

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

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