Can you guess which one of these items came home with me?
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Christie 2012
Another perfect day for an outdoor antique market. Okay, it was a little on the hot side, temperature-wise but I do so love summer and it is such a short season for us Canadians that I really can't complain. It was hazy or slightly cloudy for most of the day, which really made a difference in the comfort level.
Can you guess which one of these items came home with me?
Okay, I'll give you a hint - it wasn't the buffalo head but possibly only because I didn't see it first. I was amazed that the woman who did buy it couldn't have been younger than 80 years old. I hope I have the verve to buy a buffalo head when I'm that age. And that I will find a young man kind enough to carry it to my car for me and pose for a photo for a stranger.
Can you guess which one of these items came home with me?
Friday, May 25, 2012
A Funny Thing Happened...
Okay, I wasn't on the way to the Forum but I did see a Roman gladiator on the way to work this morning. I smiled, thinking I'd be seeing the real thing at the Colosseum (or Coliseum) in Rome in just a few weeks' time, then didn't give it another thought for the rest of what turned out to be "one of those days where you barely have time to scarf down a sandwich in the the middle of the afternoon from the cafe downstairs because you're too freaking busy to break for lunch". (not my favourite kind of day, let me tell you).
But then, as I was driving home, there were dozens, perhaps hundreds of people in various types of costume. Most of them in their early 20's, of all sizes, colours and manner of costume. I couldn't quite figure out the theme, until I realized it must be anime.
Sure enough, there is a convention going on this weekend near where I work. I had no idea!
I managed to snap a few photos while traffic was crawling along:
If I were going to attend, I'd probably wear something with a cape too. Even if it is 35 degrees C (aka 95F) outside today!
But then, as I was driving home, there were dozens, perhaps hundreds of people in various types of costume. Most of them in their early 20's, of all sizes, colours and manner of costume. I couldn't quite figure out the theme, until I realized it must be anime.
Sure enough, there is a convention going on this weekend near where I work. I had no idea!
I managed to snap a few photos while traffic was crawling along:
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| Note: it wasn't raining. |
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| These 3 were posing while several people took their picture. Check out the reflection in the window. |
Thursday, May 24, 2012
More May Meeting Fun
Here are the rest of the pages from our May Journal Junkies gathering, held last week at Bizzy B:
Diana used wrapping paper featuring a character called Doris for her page:
Chloe drew this image of a clown - I love the colours! (I believe she said she used gel pens)
Marilyn's pages were made using some of the humourous buttons she has collected over the years:
My favourite is "bad spelers of the world untie!" It makes me laugh every time I see it. :)
Diana used wrapping paper featuring a character called Doris for her page:
Chloe drew this image of a clown - I love the colours! (I believe she said she used gel pens)
Marilyn's pages were made using some of the humourous buttons she has collected over the years:
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
A Humourous May Theme
Here are photos of some of the pages made by my fellow Journal Junkies members, taken at last week's meeting. As you may recall, the theme for May was "comics/humour".
This was Louise's page, based on a picture that always makes her laugh to remember the fun time associated with it.
Colleen made this adorably humourous page:
Bette did two spreads. In the first one, she showed a vintage shoe advertisement offering shoes for a mere $1.77 a pair on the left side, as compared to the prices of certain shoes today, as shown on the right.
In her 2nd spread, she featured a number of funny quotes and suggested we pick one:
Diana used wrapping paper featuring a character called Doris for her page:
Tune in tomorrow for part two of this post to see the journal pages made by Chloe, Marilyn and Joanne.
This was Louise's page, based on a picture that always makes her laugh to remember the fun time associated with it.
Colleen made this adorably humourous page:
Bette did two spreads. In the first one, she showed a vintage shoe advertisement offering shoes for a mere $1.77 a pair on the left side, as compared to the prices of certain shoes today, as shown on the right.
In her 2nd spread, she featured a number of funny quotes and suggested we pick one:
Diana used wrapping paper featuring a character called Doris for her page:
Tune in tomorrow for part two of this post to see the journal pages made by Chloe, Marilyn and Joanne.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
A New Ledger
My ledger obsession continues with this phenomenal find from a quick visit to Value Village at lunch time today.
I always head to the office supply section first and today, this ledger was the first thing I saw. I literally snatched it off the shelf, quickly checked the inside pages and the price (only $1.99!!!!) and then clutched it to my bosom and did not put it down again. I think the guy beside me might have wanted to look at it but once I had it in my hot little hands, I wasn't going to let it go!
I asked Yonhee to pose with the book (while Joy coached her from nearby) so you could get an idea of the size - it measures a whopping 17 by 13.5 inches, and is a half inch thick!!
As you can see, the liner page from the inside from cover has been ripped out (the inside back cover is intact) but it doesn't look like any of the ledger pages (all of which are blank) are missing. I think it looks kind of cool the way it is.
I also picked up a Rolodex and an accordion file, each for 99 cents.
For a grand total of $4.49 (the tax man got his share too), I consider it a major SCORE!
I always head to the office supply section first and today, this ledger was the first thing I saw. I literally snatched it off the shelf, quickly checked the inside pages and the price (only $1.99!!!!) and then clutched it to my bosom and did not put it down again. I think the guy beside me might have wanted to look at it but once I had it in my hot little hands, I wasn't going to let it go!
I asked Yonhee to pose with the book (while Joy coached her from nearby) so you could get an idea of the size - it measures a whopping 17 by 13.5 inches, and is a half inch thick!!
As you can see, the liner page from the inside from cover has been ripped out (the inside back cover is intact) but it doesn't look like any of the ledger pages (all of which are blank) are missing. I think it looks kind of cool the way it is.
I also picked up a Rolodex and an accordion file, each for 99 cents.
For a grand total of $4.49 (the tax man got his share too), I consider it a major SCORE!
Monday, May 21, 2012
A Wild Long Weekend
What a great long weekend it was! The weather could not have been more perfect - blue skies, no clouds, hot weather.
Lots of wildlife sightings:
I saw a hawk on my drive up to the cottage Saturday afternoon:
There were geese in front of our place when I arrived.
They came back later with the family.
Big excitement to see a snapping turtle on the road when I drove into town for groceries in the afternoon. Got out of my car to take photos and with the help of a local gentleman, made sure it crossed safely and was on its way to the river and not into someone's garage!
(sighting duly reported to the Toronto Zoo's Turtle Tally when I got back to my computer today).
Alas, I didn't see the moose that my friend Jane had seen earlier that morning but I will keep looking!
Friends hosted a margarita party on Saturday - you want to talk "wild life", look no further!
And just to put the icing on the cake, we were lucky enough to get just a peek of the solar eclipse yesterday, as the sun was setting:
But of course, once the sun dropped below that tree line five minutes later, the show was over. Until the fireworks started later in the evening!
All in all, it was one great weekend to start the summer off just right!
Lots of wildlife sightings:
I saw a hawk on my drive up to the cottage Saturday afternoon:
There were geese in front of our place when I arrived.
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| Can you see the goose? |
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| Turns out there were more than one. |
They came back later with the family.
 |
| "Hello world, here's a song that we're singing..." |
Big excitement to see a snapping turtle on the road when I drove into town for groceries in the afternoon. Got out of my car to take photos and with the help of a local gentleman, made sure it crossed safely and was on its way to the river and not into someone's garage!
(sighting duly reported to the Toronto Zoo's Turtle Tally when I got back to my computer today).
Alas, I didn't see the moose that my friend Jane had seen earlier that morning but I will keep looking!
Friends hosted a margarita party on Saturday - you want to talk "wild life", look no further!
And just to put the icing on the cake, we were lucky enough to get just a peek of the solar eclipse yesterday, as the sun was setting:
But of course, once the sun dropped below that tree line five minutes later, the show was over. Until the fireworks started later in the evening!
All in all, it was one great weekend to start the summer off just right!
Friday, May 18, 2012
A Summer Blogging Decision
Welcome to my 1,318th published blog post!
Wow, that seems like a lot, doesn't it? I started blogging in September of 2008. As I got into the groove, my goal was to blog every day. If you look at the stats on the right hand sidebar of this screen under the heading "Blog Archive", you will see that I have been successful at doing so for the past 2 years and only 10 posts short of 365 in 2009. Some of those blog posts were scheduled in advance but that took preparation, especially if I was going to be away for more than just a weekend. It has been good discipline for me, to write every day.
But lately I've been wondering if it is really necessary. What would happen if I didn't blog every day? Not so much from the standpoint of "would anyone notice?", as I know my faithful readers are out there (and I love you all, thank you for showing up regularly to see what I've got to say!) but more along the lines of, "would the world come to an end if I missed a day here and there?" No. "Would I personally feel bad about missing a day?" I don't think so, not any more. "Can I cut myself some slack and allow myself to skip a day here and there?" Yes.
The more I use my physical journal every day to record and capture the thoughts and images in my head means that some days, it feels like too much to have to write a blog post as well. Whatever that urge was to blog every single day seems to be occasionally absent nowadays. Not to mention that on certain days, usually the ones where I have been overstimulated on the computer all day at work and my eyes are crossed and blurry as a result, it feels more like a chore than a choice and that's not a good thing.
At the moment, my inner voice is telling me I need a rest. Sometimes, you need to take a break from doing something to see if it is something you want to continue doing. That's what a vacation is for, to spend time away from your regular routine and explore new directions and places.
So for the next little while, I'll be giving myself permission to take a little blogging vacation from time to time. For now, it will just be a day here and there, to see how that goes. Like this weekend, being the first long weekend of summer for us Canadians, I'm off to the cottage for the next 2 or 3 days to "open up", which involves a lot of heavy duty cleaning to air everything out and clean up the dust and dirt that have collected over the past several months since October when we closed it down for the year. Since we don't have access to the Internet up there and since I haven't had time to schedule any posts for the next day or two, there might be a gap in communications. I think we can handle it, don't you? Just didn't want anyone to worry if there isn't a new post each day.
It may be that when I go to Italy, I won't even take my computer (gasp!). I'm not sure about that yet, I'm still pondering that choice, it seems rather extreme but also enticing to go off the grid for two whole weeks. We'll see.
In the short term, I'll just see how it goes to let go, just a little bit, every once in a while. But please stay tuned!
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| Photo courtesy of todaymade.com |
But lately I've been wondering if it is really necessary. What would happen if I didn't blog every day? Not so much from the standpoint of "would anyone notice?", as I know my faithful readers are out there (and I love you all, thank you for showing up regularly to see what I've got to say!) but more along the lines of, "would the world come to an end if I missed a day here and there?" No. "Would I personally feel bad about missing a day?" I don't think so, not any more. "Can I cut myself some slack and allow myself to skip a day here and there?" Yes.
The more I use my physical journal every day to record and capture the thoughts and images in my head means that some days, it feels like too much to have to write a blog post as well. Whatever that urge was to blog every single day seems to be occasionally absent nowadays. Not to mention that on certain days, usually the ones where I have been overstimulated on the computer all day at work and my eyes are crossed and blurry as a result, it feels more like a chore than a choice and that's not a good thing.
At the moment, my inner voice is telling me I need a rest. Sometimes, you need to take a break from doing something to see if it is something you want to continue doing. That's what a vacation is for, to spend time away from your regular routine and explore new directions and places.
So for the next little while, I'll be giving myself permission to take a little blogging vacation from time to time. For now, it will just be a day here and there, to see how that goes. Like this weekend, being the first long weekend of summer for us Canadians, I'm off to the cottage for the next 2 or 3 days to "open up", which involves a lot of heavy duty cleaning to air everything out and clean up the dust and dirt that have collected over the past several months since October when we closed it down for the year. Since we don't have access to the Internet up there and since I haven't had time to schedule any posts for the next day or two, there might be a gap in communications. I think we can handle it, don't you? Just didn't want anyone to worry if there isn't a new post each day.
It may be that when I go to Italy, I won't even take my computer (gasp!). I'm not sure about that yet, I'm still pondering that choice, it seems rather extreme but also enticing to go off the grid for two whole weeks. We'll see.
In the short term, I'll just see how it goes to let go, just a little bit, every once in a while. But please stay tuned!
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