Wordless Wednesday

{Virtual Coffee}

If we were meeting for coffee today you would want to keep it virtual because I have come down with yet another cold. And as weird as this is going to sound, I am blaming my mouthwash.

If we were meeting for coffee today you couldn't help but notice that November is almost out the door and on December 1, I've been told, we can start turning on our outdoor Christmas lights. The elves have been busy at work outdoors decorating

and I'll show you some shots next week of everything lit up.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you that Riley and I have been up to some more shenanigans around town

I would ask you if you are squeamish because if you are, I wouldn't tell you about our Breakfast with the Lynx event on the weekend at our Ecomuseum. We got to prepare breakfast toys for these lovely animals

and hide them in their enclosure. It took some creative thinking how to put squash and cabbage leaves together with recently deceased chicks, super worms (like mealy bugs but much, much bigger and quicker), raw fish and sausage casing. I'm not sure which the lynx liked the most, but this chick-in-a-swing was the most popular with the adults, although I had a hard time being cavalier about it myself.

And unless you are ready to call PETA on me, these animals are carnivores and because they are not able to be returned to the wild, they need to be provided for.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would show you the caribou at the ecomuseum

and ask you if you don't think she looks like she could have been Separated at Birth from my old girl.

I would tell you that after last week's teasing bit of snow, we managed to make the perfect snowball

and that I found a moth in the bathtub

which kind of freaked me out more because it is November than because there was a flying insect indoors.

And before we trotted over to Amy's Lucky Number 13, I couldn't help but show you the wooden wolf head we found while scouring for sticks down by the water.

Riley wore it on his head all the way home. It's a truly fabulous piece and it will find it's way into my work at some point. So thanks for stopping by and hopefully by next week I'll no longer be contagious.

Virtual Vermut

Saturday, Saturday where's my glass? Ah, there it is.

If we were meeting for vermut this afternoon I would laugh and say that having missed Virtual Coffee the last two weeks in a row I hope it isn't reflecting on my character that I managed to get to Virtual Vermut.

If we were meeting for vermut this afternoon I would have cobwebs in my hair and dust under my nails having spent a good part of the afternoon cleaning up Riley's corner of the art studio.

Someone call 1-800-hoarders for me, would you? At least the state of my corner can be explained by hiding Christmas presents, the work I bring home from the office and ...and...

So if we were meeting for vermut today I would say that it is the little stuff that will finish me off. Kids, especially boys, seem to have so much of the "little" things like lego and go-gos and bits of glue and stones and twigs - all of which are absolute irreplaceable treasures, the quantity of which can make me crazy.

If we were meeting for vermut I would show you the state of my foot after another night of using the "bananas" at karate.

And because it involves a foot you would laugh until the vermut came out of your nose since there is nothing quite like an injured foot to bring on the laughter. But I would have the last laugh because just about all of my Christmas shopping is done, including the stocking stuffers. All I have left are the requisite gift cards, cash and living gifts to seal up. Do you know it is now less than one month until the big day? I confess I did a lot of online shopping this year and I love coming home to packages at the door, even if they aren't for me.

If we were meeting for vermut today I would show you a picture I took from the office window on Wednesday.

And of our first snowman this season.

But I would be lying if I said I was sad to see it all melt these last two days. I did seize the moment for a big clean up in the backyard because dog poop is so much easier to see and pick up on a frozen white surface.

If I poured myself another glass I might share with you the thought that sometimes I get the feeling that some people like me far more than they should and that feeling makes me fall into a hole where I try to be who they think I am but my truth is I need to be more like myself. And I would ask you if you felt the same way. And you would probably roll your eyes and wonder out loud if I am ever going to use any of the other effects and frames on the Picnik site other than the polaroid one. Which would make me say, let's go over to Kate's at The Catalan Way and see if she has any ice as this vermut seems to be going to my head.

Virtual Vermut

Oh vermut, vermt, where have you been? If we were meeting for a vermut this afternoon I would show you this little ditty, my first attempt at using iMovie (heaven help me). I filmed it a few weeks ago then cussed my way through a few hours trying to get it into iMovie and the only reason I'm even showing it is not because of the cinematography but just because it felt like such an accomplishment to even bring it this far. I only wish I knew how I finally got it to load into iMovie.

If we were meeting for vermut this afternoon I would tell you I have mostly been absent from the blogosphere because of signs like this

which pretty much sums up what has been following me around this fall.

I would tell you my day started with these three fellas largely because I was tired of looking at them sitting on the counter since October 31.

If we were meeting for vermut this afternoon I would ask you if you believe me that this is actually soap

and some bathbombs.

Aren't they stunning? And I would tell you that I finally got a shot of this mural and if you use your imagination you can see past the graffiti and imagine it back in its heyday.

Remember when smoking cigarettes used to be cool? There is another building about to go up beside this one and soon enough it will disappear from sight which is kind of sad.

If we were meeting for vermut today I would ask you if you think this looks like deer antlers

and if you would be surprised to see this rose still blooming in my neighbor's front yard.

And I would say that owls really do follow us everywhere, this one we saw in Ottawa last weekend.

If we were meeting for vermut this afternoon I would share with you my rock from yesterday

and say I hope it spoke as much to the person who found it as it did to me.

And then I would suggest swinging by Kate's place at The Catalan Way to see if she is pouring today. Her place is very Zen at the moment so we may just have to pass the bottle around.

Wordless Wednesday

{Virtual Coffee}

Can you believe it's November? And time for Virtual Coffee? Oh, I know I have been missing in action on all blogging fronts but that's just life sometimes. If we were meeting for coffee today I might fore go coffee and stick to one of these smoothies that I am still drinking even though it's now officially cold out. That is some greens+ with rice milk and flax seed oil and frozen strawberries and cranberries and despite the colour after blended, it is quite delicious.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would ask you if you minded if I showed you some celebration photos from last week since I was otherwise indisposed, like our pumpkins

and the ninja I got to accompany for two hours on the streets.

I would tell you we have had some really hard frosts lately that make everything look as if it is coated in granulated sugar

and after turning the clocks back last weekend I want an extra hour every weekend, maybe even every day.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would say that every time I go to the grocery store these last few months I seem to ring up $140 on my bill. Sometimes it is $142.16 other times it is $146.79 or $143.56 but the first two digits are always a "1" and a "4" and I would say that I challenge my government to say that the annual cost of living is at one or two or even three percent when my grocery bill and the cost at the gas pump has taken more from my pocket than ever before.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would say that we have been struggling with viruses and that I am quite frankly done with the extra time this zaps from my day.

Then I would tell you that I finally cleaned out my fridge and the oldest thing I found was a yeast package that was best before "2009".

If we were meeting for coffee today I would want to show you a real vintage ghost we found on our trick or treating route that our hostess, Amy, would adore.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would confess that I finally killed off this

it may have taken me the better part of seven years, but I finally managed to kill a spider plant. But I would be quick to qualify that after suffering under my tutelage for three years, this cactus

has now revived, but only after I gave it its last rites in the spring and planted it in the garden to live or die as it chose. Apparently it chose life and I have moved it indoors, figuring I can't do more harm to it than a Canadian winter can and this should prove that you should never engage me to take care of your houseplants for even as little as a week.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would have much to say about accompanying 2 teachers and 44 8-year old children on a field trip to the science museum. As if I needed more challenges to my patience and my inner strength, I volunteered to spend the day as such. And I would admit that I did have quite a bit of fun too. There was a giant bubble making machine where you could actually pull up a bubble around you

and this infrared camera showing the hot spots and cold spots on your body. I laughed to see that the end of my nose read "green" which means cold and, like my feet and hands, the end of my nose is really almost always cold.

But I would admit that when we finally got home, I locked myself in the bathroom and told Riley that unless it was bleeding or on fire, not to disturb me for an hour.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you about the letter Riley wrote to Santa on Saturday night. He wasn't asking for any presents but he did seem concerned that Santa wouldn't recognize the house after we moved the furniture around a bit. He also asked Santa what he could do to help him. I just sat, staring at him and then I said, "do you know how much I adore you?" and he answered, "I think it's a lot".

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you about this scouring sponge I bought. It is made out of recycled materials because, like you, I try my best to recycle, upcycle and decycle, but I can't tell which side to use for scouring because what appears to be the spongy side is hard as a rock.

And then I would let you talk to me a bit because everything I have been feeling lately has been so intense and I just know I am being split wide open and it's both scary and a relief at the same time but I just can't put it into words because really, there just aren't any.

And then I would say let's go over to Amy's Lucky Number 13 and catch up with what has been going on in her world.