Things to Remember Part II of So Many May 27, 2012

The way you turn your head to nestle in more snugly against me while your eyelids droop and flutter. How perfectly you fit in the crook of my arm and how the weight of your small body comforts and calms me. How you twitch and wiggle as sleep overtakes you, and how lovely your tiny little snores are to listen to.

How you smile with your whole face and laugh with your whole body. How much joy is packed into such a wee space. How much noise can come out of one little person.

How overwhelmed I get with emotion when I pause to think about the depths of my love for you.

Breath… April 19, 2012

Well, we’re here. It’s been an rough couple of days, full of temper tantrums (Tiny and parents), boxes, newspaper, sleep deprivation, and finally relief. This is a beautiful house, and we’re looking forward to filling it with fantastic memories. I’m writing this in a breakfast nook slash play space, next to a lovely warm wood stove that is pumping out heat. I’m listening to the hockey game in the background while Mr. and his friend have a beer on the patio, and I know that there is enough distance between the speakers and the bedroom that Tiny won’t wake up when someone scores a goal. That? That is priceless.

Much love to all and pictures to follow!

Surprise! Or: The New Man in my Life… June 11, 2011

So I’m pretty sure it’s been a year since my last post; those who did check in here every now and then have surely forgotten about me by now. But I have a good reason. Okay, no I really don’t, but please forgive me anyway. You see, I have a new man in my life!

Oh I kept the other man; we just made a new one! I was going to say something about basic math, but as I was typing, I remembered how bad I was at it. So, for the record, 1+1 does NOT equal 3!

Anyway. I finally decided to approach this space again because I don’t have an excuse not to and because I’m embarrassed that I’ve let it slide this long. Plus, what better place to show off pics of Tiny. You know, besides Facebook and Twitter.

So stay tuned! Once I figure out how to work my camera again, I’ll be on it!

I smell a rat… May 26, 2010

So – funny story…sort of.

The other night, after a labour intensive day at mom’s place, I fell asleep on the couch and woke up around 2 am, let the dog out for a pee, and then went to bed. I’m laying there, almost asleep, and I hear this weird skittering noise, and then, chewing. And more chewing. Also, clunking and banging. So I think, huh. Maybe that’s that skunk I keep thinking I smell. Or maybe it’s a raccoon. Maybe they’re climbing around in the pipes in the crawl space (are there pipes in a crawl space?).

So I get up and go into the corner of the kitchen where the noise is coming from, and gingerly open a cupboard. Nothing. Okay, good. Next cupboard. Still nothing. Super. The noise stops momentarily, and I go back to bed, thinking I’ve scared it off. Then, the sounds of chewing. As though the little bugger is eating my floor joists. And I lay there, thinking, great. Whatever is down there is going to come up through the floor and attack me while I sleep!

So I get up again, and, with the help of the little brown dog (who really isn’t any help, just mostly a chicken sh*!) proceed to stomp around the kitchen, buck naked and barefoot, for a good 5 minutes, trying to scare this thing off. I stop. Silence. Victorious, I go back to bed. Chewing noises re-commence almost immediately. I am frightened but mostly mad by this point, so I get out of bed again, and proceed to slap the floor with the palms of my hands, encouraging the dog to bark as much as possible (and possibly barking a bit myself…), and then. Silence. Once more to bed. Again. Chewing.

I am seriously pissed at this point, and it is now 3 am. I get out of bed, fetch a frying pan, and set to hammering the kitchen floor. (I’m pretty sure the neighbors heard, as the house is small and I can usually hear the tv when I’m outside…) Finally, after a break, I hear nothing, and the silence continues for long enough for me to go to sleep. I’m sure I’ve scared it off for good, whatever it is, and the next night, I retire to bed, confident in a full night’s sleep.

However, for the past 4 nights – always around 2:30-3 am, the story is the same and results in me stomping around the kitchen for a good 5-10 minutes, though I’ve finally taken to putting on a housecoat, just in case the neighbors come over to see what’s up. The dog has started trembling at the merest hint of a noise, and last night, she spent at least 15 minutes after the episode shivering on the bed and licking her chops nervously. (Mind you, that could also be because of her penchant for drinking the salt water when we go the beach, which often results in ‘doggie trots’. Which, as you probably understand, is a story best left untold.)

I can tell you now with a hint of expertise, that $250 is a good price for an exterminator, that many things are actually very funny when a person is sleep deprived, and that coffee is a wonderful thing. Let’s hope that my new pal Adrian from Apex will be able to ‘fix’ things tomorrow.

Much love to all!

PS. You’ll notice there are no pictures; you don’t want to see any of the results of this story – the protagonist or the antagonist.

I’m baaaack!! March 26, 2010

Finally!! The cross country drive, fun as it was at the time, now seems like it took a really long time, and apparently, the back of a 36 (oops! I mean 29) year old woman might not be able to take all that sitting!!! The first night of sleeping in the new house, after a week of hotel rooms with little to no insulation (…note to hotel neighbors: I can hear you, for crying out loud!!), was glorious!! A little short, however, considering the hubby and his friend (from Ottawa whom we picked up in Calgary for the drive through the Rockies) got up at the ungodly hour of 6 am to go skiing in Whistler!! I had promised myself that this morning, there would be sleeping…and more sleeping. However, the little brown dog had a different idea, and at 7:00 am sharp came padding into the bedroom snuffling and snorting, and asking for…what else? A walk on the BEACH!!!! (that last bit of capitalization is the only way I can show how excited the dog is about the BEACH!!!!) So…a nice long walk, a proper cup of coffee, and a couple pieces of toast later, here I am! With, I might add, a sleeping dog by my side. (How mad do you think she’d be if I woke her up??)

Anyway, considering that we’ve only been in the house officially for two days, there’s not that much stuff left to take out of boxes. Wait. Scratch that. I’ve unpacked the kitchen (of course, right?) and some/most of the bedroom, so the main house looks great. But the outbuilding, the one with the wicked studio space…there’s a lot of work left to be done in there…which I didn’t really know because when we saw it, it was filled with boxes. So…before and after photos soon to come!! In the meantime, though, I thought I’d go through the camera and see if I managed any other gems from the driver’s seat. (okay, there are a few in here that aren’t technically from the driver’s seat…)

Happy New Year!! January 5, 2010

Wow! I hope everyone had as great a holiday as I did!

Long story short, my wonderful brother and his awesome girl had a baby on Boxing Day, and I was lucky enough to be there to meet the beautiful little girl. She is absolutely perfect, and I can’t wait to witness her growing into a fantastic human being. When I saw my brother tenderly holding that little bundle of baby, I saw a side of him that I’d not had the chance to see before, and I love it! I am so proud of both of them, mama and papa, for being loving, caring, and conscientious parents. I can see that little Laura will be well taken care of and well loved. Here’s one shot to share; the rest I’m keeping for myself!

While out in Vancouver, we did some walking around on Granville Island, and I snapped a few shots in the market. I love it there – so much going on!! Even more over the Christmas holidays, and you could tell which shops were the most popular for fixin’s for dinner!

After enjoying a lively and delicious Christmas dinner at my brother’s new in-law’s house, Pat and I went up to Cypress Lookout and he waited with chilly fingers while I took some night shots of the view over Vancouver.

It was a shock to our systems to return to the snow and cold here, but we passed a very nice New Year’s Eve with family and friends, and rang in the new year quietly in Gatineau. We’ve gotten acclimatized again to the snow, and have been enjoying snowshoeing and shoveling the driveway since we got back, and are gearing up again for lots more showings on the house. Let’s hope 2010 brings a quick closing date, and good luck on a cross country move!!

Another bit of excitement; today I picked up some second hand gear from a fellow amateur photographer and friend, who has amazing talent, but sadly, no time to use the gear. So I now have a portable studio, and will be practicing as much as possible with it! I’m also taking a workshop at the end of January with another fellow amateur photographer and friend to learn and practice natural light photography techniques. I hope to improve much more before heading out to the West Coast, and depending on where we end up, will be looking for some cooperative photo studio space.

In the meantime, I plan on posting regularly and with as many photos as I can. Much love to you all, and may 2010 bring you peace, love and joy!

A Day at the Zoo November 4, 2009

Life is still a flurry ’round the homestead; putting finishing touches on the house, listing with the agent, getting enough firewood to last us till we move, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, all the while trying to figure out where we’ll be living when we finally do get to BC. It’s gotten to the point where MLS and I are on a first name basis – it’s become a favourite hobby of both of us!

So we’ve been planning, hoping, dreaming and talk-talk-talking about what we’ll do when we get there, and where we’ll live; we’ve ended up in almost every small community near the BC Coast, and we keep coming back to one spot, with a promise to visit all the other ones a number of times per year. It’s really quite funny, because I have to keep telling myself that whatever is meant to happen will happen, and if plans change, well, it’s for a reason. Every time we ‘decide’ on one course of action, new considerations pop up, and the logic changes. So, pretty much every day, I take the opportunity to be grateful for what we have at this moment, and to remind myself not to get bent out of shape about the future. We just need to get through this moment, and the next moment, and the next…

Anyway, even amid all the crazy, we’ve managed to have some fun.

A few weeks ago we went to see my favourite country band, Corb Lund and the Hurtin’ Albertans. They played the Capital Music Hall in Byward Market, and they were…awesome!!!! Here’s a youtube link to one of the songs from the new album, played for CBC Radio’s GO, and here’s another youtube link to one of the older songs, with the very talented Kurt Ciesla on the bass fiddle. A credit to Canada, they’re a great group with clever lyrics that speak to stuff that most of my friends are relatively familiar with.

This past weekend, we picked up the kiddo and took her off to Parc Omega, in Montebello, Quebec. It was a blast!! We saw so many different animals; wapiti, bison, bears, arctic foxes, wild boar (so cute!!). Visitors drive through the park and can roll down the windows and feed some of the animals carrots. Here’s a few of the pals that we made:

This fella was quite obviously starving…

This one came at a run, so he was clearly quite hungry too.

I don’t know if you can tell, but these guys had the most gigantic heads!

Of them all, I liked this guy the best. He was so enthralled with his carrot (which he was having a hard time getting through) that he didn’t mind me taking his picture…over and over and over. He also let me pet him – fur like a rabbit!! Here’s a couple of portraits of this guy (Pat named him Bob).

Here’s the punkarella with her pal.

This fella was the king of his domain. And he was beautiful. I found it rather unnerving that while we were driving past the arctic fox area, this one swung his gaze ’round to me, and just stared. Right. At. Me. I can only imagine what he was thinking: “That crazy broad with the camera hanging out the sunroof asking the driver to stopstopstop would probably be pretty tasty right around now…”.

So it’s been a good couple of weeks, and things are moving along here. We’re hoping the house will sell soon; another winter here does not appeal really, but what will be will be, so we’ll keep breathing and I’ll keep writing, and we’ll just see how it goes.

 

Long time, no see… September 8, 2009

So it’s been a few weeks, I think, since I’ve posted anything. It’s been busy here, with a capital B, and I’ve been questioning whether I’ve got anything of merit to say. I do, but unfortunately, it’s going to take me time to put my thoughts into some semblance of order. So, in the meantime, I’ll give you a quick update on life ’round the ranch. What have I been up to, you ask?? Well, plain and simple, I’ve been painting. 5 coats of ceiling paint, 2 coats in the *new walk-in closet*, 2 coats in the freshly dry-walled hallway, and 1 coat in the bathroom. Follow up with another 2 coats each on all those walls!! Fortunately for me, I ran out of paint yesterday at around 1 pm, halfway through the bathroom. So, I left everything where it was, and escaped for an awesome bike ride!! Being that it was Labour Day, I had nowhere to go (because everything was closed!) so I flipped a coin (mentally, of course) at every fork. It was nice, I must say.

Anyway, I ended up down on the market, and wandered around a bit, stopped in at Bridgehead to pick up some coffee, and stopped for some incense at the Tempol vendor. It was so nice, and the weather was just perfect! Then I got home and took puppy out for a nice long walk. Follow that with some cold hippie pizza and some Haagen-Daz, and dinner was just right!!

I wanted to share a few photos I took this weekend – I was out walking the dog on Saturday, and noticed the moon, big and round as anything, so I hopped in the car and took off to Bate Island, in the middle of the Champlain Bridge. Unfortunately, I’m still new to this photography thing, and I don’t know the settings yet, but I did my best:

While I kind of like the way the moon has rays coming off it, I kind of wish I had figured out how to get it nice and crisp and round. But, it’ll come.

These ones are from Sunday night. I had so much fun Saturday, that I thought I’d go downtown to see if I could find the sunset. So I checked the local times, and off I went!! I think next time I’ll try and go when there are more clouds in the sky (= more dramatic lighting), but I thought these turned out pretty nice for a clear September evening!

And here’s another that I particularly like – the sun beams have been manipulated a bit, but, again, until I get more practice under my belt, I think these are pretty great!

I watched the show for quite a while, and finally, as it started getting darker and darker, I took a little walk around, and looked for a few other spots to shoot from. Someone had suggested I shoot the Alexandra Bridge, so I tried a long exposure:

And of course, we can’t forget about Parliament Hill! (Note: expect more of these before we leave Ottawa…)

One other thing I wanted to share before the season’s over: I have been charmed this year by a couple types of people on bikes, and I need to give a little “shout-out” (how are we saying that these days?) to them. The first are the lovely, young, stylish women and men who are taking to their bikes wearing their office gear, ties, shoes and all. I love the look, and the obvious sentiment behind it. They have foregone the car, and are even forgetting about the bus. I love the very European feeling to them – I fully expect a baguette hanging out of a basket. The second types are the … how do I say it … the older ladies, totally geared up and ready to go!! There’s one lady I pass every morning who looks like she could kick my butt (and I’m sure she would!) without thinking twice. I think that’s awesome! I hope I get to be that kind of gal one day – and considering my complete inability to ride in a skirt without flashing God and everyone, I think I will be!

So, that’s my time for today. I promise to put some thoughts in order, and to get out and take some appropriate photos!!