Expect a Miracle

Do you remember when you were young, and you would go to the dentist, and at the end of your appointment, you could pick a "toy" - some small trinket, to take with you - for behaving at the dentist? I remember that I would usually pick a "gem stone" adjustable ring - and if I was lucky - the "gem stone" would stay in place long enough to go to school and show off your loot.
One of my favorite parts of my Friday yoga practice, is that at the end - we get these fabulous "yoga" party favors - I guess for good behavoir - that you open up and find a quote of the day. Each Friday that I attend, I take my quote and staple it to the verticle blinds that hang in my office. This is one of the great things that I like about my Friday practice. Today it was particularily difficult to get to yoga - I actually got in the car, started the car, turned the car off, got out of the car - and had to make myself get back into the car - to go to yoga. AND, none of my "gang" showed. But, it was exactly the right choice, and I was proud of myself for actually going - and I did not watch the clock the whole time - and I did a fabulous "eagle pose" and I learn a partridge pose (couldn't find an example) which was beyond amazing - and my quote today: "all things are possible once you make them so" - Johann Von Goethe

First Snow

Last night, a cold front went through and we had our first snow of the season. Not enough that we had to shovel snow, but enough to surprise my late blooming flowers.

Even more surprising, was that all the snow and most of the cold was gone by 4:00 this afternoon. Such is fall and winter, in my next of the woods.

Basic Grey

I was busy knitting a pair of socks for Ken - in basic grey. And I was doing really good - with the whole boring grey thing - until suddenly at the end - there was this moment where I decided that the basic grey - needed some life - and if I added it to the toe - well - it would still look basic grey - in a shoe. So sock one is complete. Sometimes sock two is much harder - being a complete repeat of sock one - so in a month or two - there may be yet one more photo - of the complete pair.

NOT an Artist's Date

Tonight, I should have been at "David Hickey's Crystal Journey". "Experience the pulsating sound vibrations from David Hickey's 20-plus quartz bowls. When David adds his Paiste gongs and chakra chimes, the room comes even more alive with energy. Each person's listening experience is unique..."

Instead, I found myself at the local community center - playing bingo.

I knew this might happen, because my bingo "partner", Erika, had hinted that maybe she would be available to go to bingo - an event that happens a few times a year. This is usually something that happens when neither of us can think of anything else to do. When Erika was in school, we used to have to volunteer ALL THE TIME at Bingo's - as a fund raising event - and we always said we should be playing instead of working - and now, occasionally we do.

I justify this event, by explaining that the monies raised from the community bingo - supports the local arena and other activities for kids in the community - so my gambling is for a good cause. And besides, where else can you go and not drink alcohol, and come home smelling like you smoked a full pack of cigarettes?

I tried to "sell" my friend Alice on the concept that bingo could be an Artist's date - but she was not biting. Her vote was for my bingo "partner" to join me at the crystal journey.

But I ask you - can you clear $20 CAD on a crystal journey?

Perspective

Tonight was the first session of my second English as a Second Language Conversation Club. It is very inspiring and daunting - to see 19 people who want to learn english so much, they are at the library for 2 hours in the evening - playing games and practising using english - with the likes of me. It makes me really think about what it takes - to leave home - far behind you - and come to a strange land - where the food tastes different - and you don't know the language - and you don't have your family close by - and everyday is a struggle. Could I do it? Would I be as successful as these individuals? That would be a real test.

City Garden, Country Garden

Today, I harvested my city garden. I also shared (if sharing means - threw the seeds in the ground - and than showed up to harvest) in a community garden (with Anita, Heather and Agnes) - in Olds. The "country" garden was planted at the end of April - the "city" garden was planted about a week later. The "country" garden was harvested September 15th - the "city" garden - today. The veggies on top - Country - the veggies below - City.

The biggest difference between the two gardens - the country garden is planted in a community garden at Olds Agricultural College. I am thinking they know just a little bit more about soil composition than I do.

However, this weekend 3 cubic yards of sand - is being delivered - and I hope to be showing off the city garden next year.

Learning to leave IKEA behind

My decorating "style" if what I do in putting furniture together - in a room - can be described as "style" - would be "bargain" IKEA. It resembles the type of furnishings that you might find in any university dorm room - and to be honest - some of the furniture that I do use - may have come from that era.

So - I have had this spot - in the foyer of the house - that I have invisioned having a "chest" where I can put photos on top - and as an added bonus - shove junk on the shelves - if I hear someone coming up to visit! I have been wanting to "do" framed photos on something since I "learned" about it on Oprah. (I am guessing that is where I learned about it). And this concept was cemented for me - at Anita's house on Thanksgiving - where I admired many framed photos on many different flat surfaces.

The hunt for the right "dresser" at the right price point - cheap - has been long and exhaustive - and what I feel is the perfect piece - came home with me last night.

Without meaning to - we have ended up with a Southeast Asia theme happening in the front entryway - and this I feel - works with the other pieces. I strategically took this photo - so that you can appreciate the teak bench from Bali - that is a feature - on the other side of the foyer. There was no good way to incorporate the silk from Thailand - that hangs on the east wall - of the second story of the foyer.

Having successfully found the chest/dresser - now it is off to get photos - and a move on to the next project - replacing the IKEA lighting from university - in the livingroom - with something just a tad more sophisticated.

Oh yeah - and after looking at the photo above - I have noticed two things. The "table" that was in this corner - was a very basic IKEA piece - that is in the bottom right corner of the photo - and my rugs need to match better! It is a work in progress.

Democratic Right

Today was the civic election. Local politics is sometimes hard to get involved in - and the campaign runs on a short schedule - and it is easy to be ambivalent to the process - the ole incumbents are going to get in anyway. I did manage to caste my vote today and to drag two other housemates along to the polls with me. I like to make my vote count - and for me - in today's election - that means making sure that the incumbent does not get elected on a landslide that I contributed to. So in this case - my vote was caste to do my part to make sure the incumbents don't have as big of a landslide.... as they may have been expecting - at least by the power of one.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving. The rest of Canada celebrated it last weekend, on the offical holiday date. We celebrated it this weekend with the family - because we were off sailing for the long weekend. The food - was as always - outstanding. The photo is of one of the desserts - Pavlova - that Heather whipped up. There was turkey of course, and lots of vegetables and salads and stuffing - all the trimmings - it was fabulous. We held the event at Anita and Gordon's new house - in Red Deer - and it is a beautiful, warm feeling home - I think we may be having some more family celebrations here. (At least that is my vote). And as an extra special treat - to the family Thanksgiving celebration - Jill flew out to spend it with us! Happy Thanksgiving.

Farmers' Market

On Saturday - when I have nothing else planned, I like to wonder through the Calgary Farmer's Market . This is somewhat of a ritual for Erika and me. The main part of the ritual, is that we each only have $20 cash - to spend. This way - each of your purchases - are more important - you think about what you really want to buy - and you would be quite amazed at just how far you can make your $20 go. Today - it was actually hard to get all of our money spent. I think we may have been to the market - one too many times - recently. We were able to purchase quite a bit - with our pooled monies - and will be having a very organic/fresh dinner on Sunday - all from the Farmer's Market.

Artist's Date - 2

The concept of an Artist's Date is quite simple. From Julia Cameron's book, The Artist Way, "An artist date is a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative conscousness, your inner artist. In it's primary form, the Artist's Date is an excursion, a play date...." One of the rules, is that you do it alone. Simple - right. One a week.

For me - it is not easy. It is not that I don't have the time. It is perhaps that dilemma of "doing it right". Hence - a small current goal - to actually commit to an Artist's Date a week.

And that is how I find myself on a Friday afternoon - without a planned Artist's Date.

So I raid the local paper for Swerve Magazine, and find an event - very close by - "Bounty" - Fourth annual fall show and sale by the New Craft Collective - at Carpenter's Union Hall, Kensington.

I make it to the show - and there are lovely things - it is a small group of artists - about 6 - I study their work - one booth - is some fabulous fabric clutches - where the material on the outside is not the same as the material on the inside - quite lovely. Not me. Some ceramics, some prints, some jewelery - lots of jewelery - lots of clothes - that I wish I was cool enough and young enough to wear - and ummmm - my Artist's Date has now lasted about 15 minutes.

But hey, I still need to take some pictures - to spice up the blog - so I cross the street - feel very strange taking pictures of a building - (must learn to get over that) - than I keep walking - more picture taking - more is better - right - and than I see this cool looking store - and one of the mannequins in the window - is wearing mittens with little cherries on it - unfortunately - cherries will be a re-occuring theme - get used to it.

My observation skills - increase - so that I realize there is a cherry scarf, and a cherry hat - and I think - while I am getting comfortable with taking pictures - I will just go into the store - and take a picture of the hat in the store. And it I go - and the hat leaves the store in my possession - and after dropping a riduculous amount of money on the hat - I warn the sales lady - that I will indeed be outside taking pictures of the mannequin - that started my downfall.

Not so sure how Artist's Dates are going to work out - on my pocketbook!

Roche Harbor

We made it back safely from sailing - quite remarkable, given we were 5 full size adults traveling 12 hours in a 4 runner - not to mention that the winds do blow - in October. We managed to tour to three new harbours - two in the US - we may have our border crossing down - much better than in the past.

I was not a good picture taker on this trip - I am absolutely going to have to get better at that - as the blog progresses - thank goodness for Erika and her camera and her need to have photos for Facebook.

This is day two - Roche Harbor - San Juan Islands. Fabulous tourist destination - great donuts - beautiful dock - really a great new destination. Also stayed at Point Roberts - where we mastered our border crossing techniques.

Given the close quarters for the weekend - we all came home - still speaking to each other - not a small feat.

Gone Sailing....

We are heading out today - to Vancouver - to go sailing for Canadian Thanksgiving. We - is an incredible "truck-load" of family - 5 in total - driving 12 hours - starting at 6:00pm - ish tonight - to get to Vancouver for tomorrow morning - so that we can get as much sailing in - as possible. Fingers crossed that the weather is good sailing weather. Should be back with lots of photos. Anchors aweigh.

Artist's Date - 1

Yesterday, was the start of Artist's Dates - and I went to an EFT "borrowing benefits" workshop. For anyone who wants to understand more about EFT - I suggest the wikipedia article on Emotional Freedom Technique. I found the session extremely interesting and was very impressed with the practitioner who ran the sessions. As an Artist's Date - here's hoping that I can maintain this calibre for my weekly dates.

Today's photo - for yesterday's Artist's Date - I toyed with taking a photo of the ski jumps at COP - since the EFT session was taking place out by COP - and that would be so clever.

Instead you have a view of the City - from Edworthy Park - from my morning walk with Alice - and Sadie - I'm looking east at the downtown skyline - and the sky - looks chinook like - if only I wasn't facing east.

Yoga Practice

So - my first dilemma today is - a picture every post? I want a picture with every post - and I don't want to be intrusive - with the people I am around - perfect strangers and friends and family - perhaps they don't want to be a part of my web journey.

And than there is the whole carrying the camera everywhere thing - so that I get a new pic every day (another reason to practise by blog - before the official blog start date.)

So - today I went to the local yoga studio - and did a 45 minute Ashtanga yoga class. I have been doing an awesome yoga practise - at a local dance studio on Friday's and I really like Glenda's style - she is very intuitive about where her students are at - and it is a gentle - wonderful practise.

Today - was a more intense 45 minutes - of course - yoga is non-competitive - and this class was at the end of the day - and I poured my heart and soul - and "issues" into the class - and wow - does it feel like my monies worth.

One of the key differences in the two yoga classes - this class - is with heat - so the benefit is that you can really move your stretch to new levels. The down side is how slippery my hands and feet get on my little plastic yoga mat.

This was to be this week's Artist Date but - wait for tomorrow.

And the plan is growing - I think the picture issue - will be a picture a day - and in the meantime, while I remember to bring my camera along wherever I go - you are enjoying a slightly uneven shot of building mosiacs from NYC - taken on tour with Les and Wils.

Room With a View

The master bedroom in our house - has a beautiful sunroom off of it. It is a wonderful retreat - very private - very personal. It makes the master bedroom feel so much bigger. And on days like today - when the view outside the window is such a wonderful fall vision - it is even more of a treat.

Sunflowers

Sunday night - Monday morning - there was a killing frost - when I got up at 7:00-ish - it was -3 Celsius. That did in - for the most part - what had been a pretty good garden - as my gardens go. I had successfully harvested: peas, carrots, zucchini, potatoes - and apparently - a bumber crop of sunflowers. While most of the garden is looking completely finished by the frost - the sunflowers were almost in their haydays. There are tons of new baby sunflowers - this big guy - and all sorts of broken sunflowers with brand new flowers. Quite the glorious site - I need to get some of the new flowers into the house - to see if I can extend the season.

Socks

I knit socks. Only socks. With only one pattern. This pattern - in the picture - or this pattern -

http://www.patonsyarns.com/product.php?LGC=kroysocks - only. I joined a sock club - to push the limits - and I get wool - beautiful wool - delivered to my home - with very complicated sock making patterns - and yet - this is what I do - the same pattern. Perhaps - some day - I will attempt another pattern - but for right now - this pair of socks is on its way to Wils - the best Global Marketing Dude - EVER. Enjoy.

Photo Contest

This summer I hiked with the Skyline Hikers in Sunset Pass. We hiked from a base camp - walked in on a Monday to camp - walked out on a Friday - this picture was taken on the Friday - as we were getting ready to leave. Today, I entered it into a photo contest - for the hikers - curious if it will win - I think it is one of the better photos I have ever taken. Most of the week of hiking was rainy weather - so - of course - it was clear and fabulous on the last day.

Why Blog?

I have been playing with having a blog for the better part of a year. The concept began a la dooce - where I might discuss very inappropriate topics. With some sound coaching, I have moved on from that concept and have instead landed on a more virtous (read boring) concept. With my birthday fast approaching - and a new concept of capturing the upcoming year in photo - with the odd word or two - I need to figure this out. So is launched halflife50.