To Belabor A Point

Those are my new winter boots - Boggs - good to -30 Celcius, waterproof and breathable (thank you very much for that part). It seems I am forever on the quest for the perfect winter boot. I'll let you know how these pan out. And my snow pants. Life is better in the north with snow pants. No, I'm not five years old, but I wear them always when walking the dogs, always at a certain temperature no matter what I'm doing and it makes a huge difference.

I'm surprised that I felt so caught off guard with winter now here. After being lulled into a fall sense of global warming with the ridiculously fine November we had, this first storm really knocked me for a loop. Enough to call my snow removal company TWICE yesterday and act like the kind of consumer I loathed when I used to work retail.

But the Queen of Arts left me a message a couple of days ago which made me feel a little less alone in this blustery time. Basically she said she didn't intend to waste any more time letting something she had no control over get her down. She's rolling with it. I'm going to try harder to have that kind of attitude. Today I am grateful I don't have to go farther than walking the dogs. With the windchill it is -17 ( about 0 Fahrenheit). After 28 centimetres of snow (about a foot), then a smattering of rain and high winds, the deep freeze has moved in. I've noticed a pattern the last three winters that goes like this:

1) heavy snow fall
2) rain and high winds
3) sudden deep freeze

all within a 24 hour span. That, my friend, is winter in the north in the 21st century.

Over It

December 9 and I'm over it. Our first storm, which turned out to be less than predicted, but still of storm caliber. Despite all the excitement around me, I just can't muster up any pleasure for the white stuff. I deeply envy all those who either never have to see a flake or who have limited exposure to them. I was doing OK with the dark until this morning. At 7:00 a.m. the street lights were still on and with the incoming weather, the sky looked like it was filled with locusts. I do wish I could feel like this:


but I don't. I hate shovelling it. I hate driving in it. I hate scraping the car windows multiple times a day. I hate the cold feet and the hat hair. I hate the amount of time it takes to get dressed to get us out the door. I hate not seeing green, living things for months on end. Yeah, I'm over it.

Wordless Wednesday, by special request

Q46

*e*'s Q46 - What makes you glow?


I made this pretty quickly, without even thinking about it very much. Ink, masks, marker.

A Kennedy Moment

Twenty years ago today I had what I call a Kennedy moment. When an event so monumental happens, whether it is personal or global, and you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when you heard about it. Twenty years ago the worst school homicides were committed right here in my city at the Ecole Polytechnique, pre-dating Columbine and with more "victims". Thirteen dead in Columbine, fifteen if you count the two perpetrators. Fourteen dead in Montreal, fifteen if you count the one who held the gun. We seem to only want to count the lives of the innocent. Twenty years ago today a man entered the school and chose his victims, all women, all studying engineering. His motive was his disdain for women, having been heavily influenced by his father who had a record of abuse towards his wife. It is incomprehensible to me that another human being would gather arms and intentionally take the life of another. The planning, the, literal, executing. But it does happen, the statistics are there. And the fear and pain are there. I don't think we are doing enough to prevent this kind of massacre from happening again. Kids still find guns and use them against one another. Kids who should be busy growing up slowly, learning the value and reverence for life and for their own lives. Is it enough to teach one child at a time as we raise the successive generations? Is there any other way?

Globetrotting Monkey

I saw this Sole Monkey over at the Blue Chair Diary and it didn't take me long to join in the fun. Would you accept this monkey into your home for 10 days, take some photos as he joins in your life and blog about it? Silly? Maybe, but to me it represents the contact we make in the blogging world, some human contact versus cyber contact, not that there's anything wrong with cyber contact, some of my best friends have come from cyberspace. If you want to join in the fun, take in Sole Monkey then pass him on (I can see the various descriptions on the customs declarations already...) but sign up quickly as it's only open until December 9 and on December 10 he starts the journey.

Friday Haiku

Four a.m. full moon
Sleep! Sleep! Sleep! I cry, I beg
But to no avail

Here a Chick, There a Chick

She beat me to the posting board, the Queen of Arts, she did. I was so excited for days before she came. We've been blogging buddies for any number of months, probably since last spring but when we sat down together it was like we were spirit sisters. We talked so much and so fast about everything, jumping from subject to subject, trying to learn it all in the few short hours we had to spend. All those things we choose to not blog about and that don't carry so well in emails either. Our visions and dreams, our stumbling blocks and our beliefs that everything is going to work out just fine. She is originally from my neck of the woods and lucky for me she still visits family here quite often which means other trips will be down the pike before I know it. She's a special soul, you can tell when you look in her eyes and she looks back. We laughed and nodded a lot in agreement - oh yes, me too. If I could choose one word to describe the Queen, it would be Authentic. It was a gift to sit and break muffins with her, and naturally we left a rock behind! Thanks for sharing those parts of yourself with me Kim, they are safe in my heart.

For many reasons this is a poor photo but I love our expressions - my favorite of the ones I took of the two Kims this week.


And the rock, again the quality is poor, the light was difficult to work with but it has an ethereal quality at the same time.

The End and the Beginning

When I woke this morning the snow was falling lightly. Have I mentioned how grateful I am to have had a snow-free November? Well, almost. I accept that it's November 30 and that the snow will fall. There wasn't even that much, enough to make a couple of snow balls or leave behind a few footprints.

And remember my chewed up compost bin? Here's what it looked like at 5:30 a.m.

Tomorrow morning the advent calendars will be started, the store bought one and the home made one. Christmas is coming and having that bit of snow made it all the more real. While we were out walking the dogs tonight Riley told me that today his teacher had told his class that their fathers are Santa Claus. Grade 1. A roomful of six-year old kids. Any takers on whether it is the place of a teacher to dispel the Santa Clause myth? I did a little talking dance around it with Riley and he decided that what the teacher really meant is that Santa Claus is everywhere and in each one of us. Have I said lately how much I love my boy?

On the subject of myth-busting, Patti Digh had a great post on her blog last week detailing a letter a mom wrote to her son when he discovered that the Tooth Fairy isn't real. Go here if you want to read it. I've saved it to pull from when that moment comes in my house. At Riley's current age, teeth are coming out left, right and center, but I'm hoping I'm not going to need it for a long, long time.

Q45

*e*'s 45th question, "What song do you have on repeat right now?" I'm assuming most people have ipods and use them, I kind of got lost in the shuffle with this type of technology. I have an mp3 player whose battery won't hold a charge and I was passed down an ipod nano (only 4 gb) that for the life of me I can't figure out how to work. I have managed to charge THAT battery but can't seem to load anything on it. That requires time and patience to which I choose to not dedicate. So the songs in my head are either from CD or what Riley is learning in music class week by week.

Friday Haiku

I am grateful for
This snow-free, mild November
Amongst other things

I'm Going Nowhere With This

Have you noticed the Human Calendar on my side bar? I love it, think it's hysterical and very, very creative. I first saw it on beth's blog and I thought it was made up of her own photos because one of the people in it looked an awful lot like her son. Then I started seeing it here, there and everywhere and I thought, "wow, beth's calendar is really getting around!" and eventually it dawned on me that it was there for the taking. Of course, maybe it is hers...I've just come full circle with that thought.

Another thing on my mind is that I think I'm the only one in my house who has the gene that requires occasional tidying up. Everyone else seems to be able to live endlessly in squalor.

And...my finches. Well, not MINE, but frequent visitors to my feeder. Thanks to Snap for confirming their identity.

Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends. This guy is giving thanks that he is still doing the turkey walk around town. But whether you eat it or not, the relevance is in the joining together of spirit and energy and gratitude. Life is good.

Decisions, Decisions

*e*'s 44th question is, "How do you make decisions?"


Maybe it's quite normal, but I am capable of making big decisions very, very quickly. And then I'll agonize over what to have for dinner. Black gesso, gold Sharpie post paint marker and collage from a handmade collage sheet.

Q43

*e*'s 43rd question - What were you doing this time last year?


This was a phrase that popped into my head when I thought about the question. I really feel as if I was getting ready for so much that has started and happened in my life. The ducks are cut from a handmade collage sheet, and I used my India ink and quill pen for the face writing for the first time. I can see the fuss other people make about this ink, it's quite delicious.

Yesterday I Was a Hero

Every other Thursday afternoon I work in the school library. Naturally, it's the time when Riley's class visits and last year I did the same duty. It has been an opportunity for me to observe him outside of our usual settings and it has been very good for me. Last year I worked with another woman, this year I am going it alone and I have been called upon to do things I hadn't before when I could relax a little and let the other woman with years of experience take care of the trickier tasks while I stuck to the mundane. Yesterday one of the grade 1 boys asked me for a book his friend had taken out previously. He didn't have the title, just a few scanty details such as it was about monsters, maybe Frankenstein and it had something 3-D in it. Often these requests for searches are phrased like, "it has a pink cover and it's about princesses", or "it's a book with scary stories". Not the most salient facts to enter into the computer's search engine. But yesterday I found that book about monsters (293 entries in the search results) and it did have a picture of Frankenstein on the cover and a sticker that said "3-D" for some things that were on the inside. I don't know who was happier, me or Matisse, the boy who had asked for it. He actually came back to the library later that day to thank me. The second class that comes through during my tour of duty is a 4th grade class and there is one boy who is, shall we say - "challenging". In fact he challenges all I say or help him with. And up until yesterday I dreaded seeing him come through the door. But yesterday he was checking out a book about origami and we got to talking about that and the beautiful paper and the kinds of things he made and I saw a whole different side to him, the side that is just another human being excited about his craft, delighting in beauty and thrilled to talk with someone who wanted to hear what he had to say and how he felt. And I did feel like a hero and it felt good.

Friday Haiku

Feeling better now
Goldenseal and ginseng too
I clobbered that cold

Wordless Wednesday

Multiple Choice

It might be this one:



or this one:



but I think it's this one:



the virus that is making me feel like crap today. I was on my way to the bus stop, headed to work this morning when I got that familiar feeling of "uh oh, I think I'm getting a cold". And it snowballed pretty quickly. As soon as the pharmacy opened I ran downstairs and bought a bottle of Cold F-X as it has worked amazingly well in the past. But only if I start taking it within minutes of when the symptoms first appear. Waiting until I got home at the end of the day and then dosing myself would have been too late. I think I have it on the run, I'll know for sure tomorrow. But I'm going with shot number 3, it's the prickly strands with that weird looking nodule on them that feel dastardly familiar.