What the water gave her.
I had to indulge in a little "Frida" moment. He questions me.
"You are taking your camera in the bath?" he asks.
"Yes. It isn't what you think."
"In that case be careful, you wouldn't want to drop it in there. You know how much that cost!!" he replies, grinning.
Well for art's sake, I was willing to risk it.
xo
I'm learning my camera this week. The shot above was taken this morning in my bedroom. I shoot mainly in manual and aperture-priority but now I am learning shutter-priority and it is fun! I'm zipping around the house taking test-shots of things with different shutter speeds and various white balances. I really want to know what I'm doing when I get to Jordan, and seeing as the technical functions of my camera aren't my forte-I am studying hard. I'm more of a point and shoot kind of gal, in aperture-priority mode. I will be on this trip with people that swamp me in technical knowledge and gear, so I'll be "the little engine that could" hanging on for dear life! Wish me luck I only have a few months to really know what I'm doing.
I have some link love today;
Gallery Thirty One, a twenty-photo essay about the Day of the Dead festival in Mexico.
This ornament would make a startlingly beautiful addition to any festive tree!
We are heading out to get a turkey today, and all the trimmings (so they are as fresh as can be) for tomorrows little gathering at our house for Thanksgiving. I'm no Martha, but I want to make it a pretty presentation.
How many times have you judged, without trying to see both sides of the story? Or bought into a single story of a person or place? There is danger in a single story.
One of my best friends lives here. What a hip city! I have her, her husband & daughter on my "must visit" list. Her and I try to talk on the phone a few times a week, it is our time to vent & laugh. You can read a little more about her here.
Happily reading the following:
Digital Rebel XTi/400D Digital Field Guide
Paulo Coelho's BRIDA
Paulo Coelho's THE DEVIL AND MISS PRYM
100 Love Sonnets by Pablo Neruda
Here is a snippet of one (that fits beautifully with Day of the Dead celebrations):
XCII
My love, if I die and you don't die,
my love, if you die and I do not,
let us not give pain more territory:
there is no expanse like the one we lived.
Dust in the wheat, sand in the sands
of time, the wandering water, the lazy wind
carried us like sailing grain.
We might not have found each other within time.
This prairie in which we find ourselves,
oh small infinity! we give back.
But love, this love has not ended,
and just as it had no birth
it has no death, it is like a long river,
it only changes lands and lips.
(Yes, there are 100 like that in this book. Such delicious words!)
Last but certainly not least...I'm topping off my list with Frommer's Los Angeles 2009.
***
Have a love infused week. Stay true to who you are; bow down to no one...forgive yourself mistakes you've made and pledge to learn from them. Embrace new opportunity. Carve out a new niche for yourself. Study something new...the brain thrives when you feed it new information, so give it a good old fashioned work-out. Sleep well, eat well, and take brisk walks. Remember how important your contribution is, don't diminish yourself with pity, or self doubt.
xoxo
I am hoping to accomplish the following this week:
Maybe I'll go to the lake, and get an ice cream cone before the weather gets too cold...oh and I'll shop for sweaters and boots. Yes. I love fall. OH!!! A recipe. This is so inspired by the lovely chef Christina over at Soul Aperture. I just couldn't resist it, and am telling you it is a major must in place of mashed potatoes. So yummy! So, fall!!!
xox
I am making a white bean chili, with chicken. It smells of coriander and garlic in here. Shhh, don't say anything, it's for my sister-in-law who broke her leg. Oh yes, the soccer star that she is went in full-kick and snapped one of her twigs. So since she is laid up, I thought I'd nip over there tonight with this small yet clean-eating meal.
The photo above depicts a my little ones dinner...mac and cheese. Tonight I ate an avocado mixed with a tin of thai chili tuna. She doesn't like that! So hence her choice. Hey, I support her choices. She eats a lot of fruit. :)
This week I was surprised by two of my favourite blogging friends, Vanessa & Tara. Both sweet ladies sent me gorgeous packages to open full of surprises. Thank you ladies!!!
Tara is in London this week, the lucky gal. An email today informed me that there are still a couple of spots available for people to join us in Jordan. Why not sign up for this trip of a lifetime? Go check out the website here to read all about it. I mean really, a week in Jordan with some blog friends...what could be sweeter?
I love the saying...Friday's dream on Saturday told, always comes true no matter how old. Have you heard that before? Whenever I had a weird dream on a Friday, my mother would put her finger to her lips and whisper, "Shhh, don't tell me. Then it can't come true." Well last night I had a doozy! But I won't share it. Just know that it was weird. I dream a lot lately. Lots on my mind I suppose.
I'll leave you now. I have some pictures to hang, and I'm going to finish off the chili.
Have a wonderful weekend..I'm happy that tomorrow is Sunday, because Sunday always brings the greatest treasures. ox
Last week there was a tap at the door. There stood my neighbour, M, with her super lovely daughter A holding her tiny tot lovelies (two of them to be exact, dimples a-shining!)- holding a plate with four glimmering, sweet warm-from-the-oven, streusel topped wild blueberry home-baked muffins.
I gasped! M was returning plates from a tiny batch of samosas I had delivered to their door one night...and in her opposite hand, the muffins.
I ate two. Yes, there are four, count that FOUR people in my family. Cough...
Julian ate one.
One sat.
And sat.
Til the evening!
Taunting me each time I walked into the kitchen. There, on the table. On M's designer white plate. The wild blueberry gorgeousness, with sweet streusel topping...beaming at me like an angel. "Eat me," it beckoned.
"No," replied my hips, calmly.
Sneering, the muffin taunts, "Well, that cup of tea is pretty boring without ME."
Turning, holding back a tear, I whispered silently yet firmly, "Evil muffin, you who are so tasty and caloric, be gone! You are left for one of the children or both of them to split so stop teasing me it will get you nowhere!!!"
Looking rather forlorn and disgruntled, the muffin stopped. It sat for a few more hours. Each time it spied me it raised a sweet eyebrow of hopefulness. Hmmpph.
Later, I returned to the kitchen to see a plate of crumbs. Ah, someone had succumbed, but not me. I couldn't help my schadenfreude. {I was secretly happy that muffin bit the dust.} That delicious, home-baked wild blueberry streusel- topped EVIL thing.
When M returns home from her weekend I shall return her plate. Between us, she'll never know how those muffins came to their end. ;D
Sit.
Put those tired legs up. Close your eyes, and breathe in deeply.
Now if your feet are up, concentrate on relaxing each muscle from your great toes to your hips. Breathe again.
Shrug those shoulders a few times, loosen the dust from your joints and set your tensions free. Allow them escape out a nearby window, and bid them farewell.
Okay I've done that now too. We are on even playing fields of relaxation you and I. So here is what's on my mind;
I remember this morning's Facebook interaction, with a high school friend...a discussion (much deep thought was put into this) about the evening's dinner. He and his lovely wife (also a high school friend) were entertaining friends this evening (also high school friends of mine) and he was fretting somewhat in his laid-back way about doing "greek fingerling potatoes" or "citrus shrimp". I think he settled on both. Steaks too. :)
I settle into my deep stretch. I remember a sweet lady who is now a client at the spa but prior to that she was my neighbour and now she is I believe a full-fledged friend. She was in this morning, discussing the ups and the downs of life with me. A one hour pedicure took an hour and 45. That is normal for me. I get lost in the discussion, the therapy of it all. We walk away from the interaction healed. Our friendship deepened.
Should we make tea? Meet you back here in four minutes.
Okay mine is Earl Grey, splosh of milk and one cube of sugar. My favourite. Which reminds me of last winter's trip into NYC, and my beautiful and funny friend Tara from Paris gifts me a box of the most delicious Earl Grey tea in the known world. She is probably the one person I email consistently. I value her. So much so. I look so forward to travelling to Jordan this spring and seeing her again. She is true blue.
Speaking of NYC, the above chair was photographed this past summer in this lovely lady's apartment. Please send her and her *new* New York Times writer husband a mental message of love and happiness, for today was their wedding day and they are now man and wife. This little chair in the West Village likely sits empty tonight, wondering how the festivities went.
Do you like this song? It makes me cry. Well lumpy anyways. Ever get lumpy? I do-I'm a blubbering fool. Movies, songs, you name it. Commercials! Please, I'm a sap. But when some good old fashioned rocking out is required, I call on these lovelies. Help I'm Alive does the trick. As does Gimme Sympathy. :)
I'm going to sit for awhile here, I'm reading a new book...and my eyelids are getting heavy. The reading will sweep me away to a state of sleep-readiness. Yes there were other things that needed doing, but I'm glad we chose to sit a spell tonight. See you soon. xoxo
This girl loves dune grass.
The soft swaying hush in early evening's light, a chorus of lush green blades beautifully serenading each wavelength of dipping golden sun. The wind sweeps through in her ritualistic dance, swirling and twirling with each long arched blade as though it were a long lost lover home from sea. Then I laugh to myself as I make up these stories that personify dune grass and wind, and the crescent moon hangs up there just chuckling silently to herself, because she knows my stories are real. I'm only fooling myself that they are made up. The surface of this hurtling planet lulls me to sleep soon with her tides and her whispering grasses. The winds dance over crickets wings and the song of insects bursts into the twilight to rise up and eventually join the stars all sparkly and wild.
I smile big and wide, because I love the lake, love the sweet light of dusk, love my family and all their foibles as they love me, with all of mine. There is sand on the floor, tracked in on tiny pink toes that kick off flip flops at any given opportunity. I sweep. Then I put my hair up knowing I'll enter the bathroom and cleanse away elements of my day that stuck to my skin like a greasy film on a clean window...the sunscreen, the banana daiquiri, the grit of the lake wind, my little girls kisses on my nose...on second thought maybe I'll leave the kisses.
I sit quietly, with the fan whirring away and the crackling fires outside the screen door popping and hissing in their orange glow. Laughter, shrill and quick echoes out from a neighbour. It's a laugh that makes you laugh too, contagious and completely funny. You need not have even heard the joke. :)
I begin once more my personification of things. The bed. Oh how she wants me to come to her. She is waiting, all puffy and soft, cool pillow wishing for the companionship of my cheek. Be right with you is my mental message to her...just finishing up this little task of remembering. Journaling the elements. The minute yet meaningful. But the dreaming awaits...the constellations are shimmering, the dark and sparkling sky vast and needing exploration.
Cherry Colas in the window at Suckers , on the Danforth
I'm off to enjoy what's left of my weekend. I'll putz about the house, make some new recipes, play with my kids. I'll stop to smell the roses. I'll clean up the yard. I'll do laundry, sleep & watch movies. Some yummy hot tea will factor in there somewhere. I'll also celebrate my nephew's birthday with family on Sunday! :)
Whatever you do, have the best weekend. Evah!
xo
A pocketful of wishes~by Gillian da Silva~(Click to enlarge)
i am;
a...
seeker
mum
lover
partner
friend
jokester
traveler
photographer
advisor
organizer
niece
kisser
daughter
cousin
blogger
writer
painter
cryer
laundress
nurse
snacker
sleeper
snuggler
blue
dreamer
encourager
inspirer
wisher
huntress
warrior
Interpreter of Maladies reader
creator
aunt
granddaughter
screamer
hugger
smiler
optimist
giggler
freckle counter
+
nightmare chaser-awayer
xo
what roles do you play?
~a post inspired by the lovely and gorgeous Tifanie, at n o d d y b o o m xo~
It's Sunday and I'm happy to be home putzing about doing what I do best. (My new bedroom windows allow the sun to tap me on the shoulder, waking me up. It's a sweet view, with the golden light coming up over the houses on the street. I'm surprised to be up so early, as last night we saw Paul Potts in concert. Not Pol Pot. LOL!!! The Nessun Dorma's were weep worthy. But truly my fave of the evening was Caruso...love that song!)
So...today I'll eat toast, drink tea, flip through my book, fret about my hair (Thursday's appointment seems so very far away!), attempt more unpacking.
I'll weed the yard, fuss over the kids, call my mum.
I'll make a dinner. (After I go to the grocery store and spend so much more money than is necessary because when I shop I'm a chef! I can go on T.V. and prepare culinary delights for the nation to envy and emulate! Taste buds will stop in their tracks! Faces will gaze upwards in praise singing...) It'll likely be a simple meal. Who am I kidding? It will likely have an avocado in there somewhere! Oh I've also been told there is far too much food being thrown away. We compost now, and well, let's just say our bin was overflowing this week! Egg shells and tea bags baby.
I'll nip out with some excuse or other with my foot to the floor (pedal to the metal baby) and gun it to some pretty location, camera in hand, hoping, wishing and praying for the right light! The right subjects! The right mood! And right when I'm about to snap the perfect photo my cell phone will ring and it will be my sweet husband asking me to pick up milk, and "How much longer do you think you'll be?"
Whatever Sunday brings you, whether you are washing your car (windex those inside windows, it makes for better night driving), making spaghetti bolognaise, watching Amelie, painting your toenails, chatting with your friend on the phone about closet organizers & the benefits of aioli sauce on a salmon burger...or just napping on the couch with the dog curled up behind your knees....do it with L O V E.
Have a lovely Sunday mon cheries!!!
p.s. Did you have to look up the post title? Perhaps you are a smarty pants and don't need to. (If so, good fa you!)
Do you know why
It is relevant
Here, now, for you to grow!
Wiser, stronger you will be
for using this in your _____ :)
? {Lousy example, true!)
edit:
I'm sorry for the comment trouble guys. It should be fixed now. :)
Recent Comments