After much coercion Moose agreed to have his picture taken in our "garden".
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Our little garden
Here are a few pics of our little garden that I planted a few weeks ago! Due to the wooded area directly behind our building, we only get a few hours of direct sunlight a day (provided its not being wonderfully west coast - gray and pissing rain) so we have to jam our few pots of flowers and cute Japanese maple into the corner of the deck that gets the most sunlight. I'm really pleased with how pretty they've turned out! The colours of the stock flowers are so vibrant, the violas are soft and pretty and the lavender is starting to bloom.
After much coercion Moose agreed to have his picture taken in our "garden".
After much coercion Moose agreed to have his picture taken in our "garden".
Friday, June 4, 2010
Under foot beauties
I came across these two beauties today on Overstock.com
I would love love love to have this Sage Green Peacock wool area rug for my living room, provided the colours were true to the way my screen displays them!
And if I had a cream/neutral coloured themed family room or bedroom, I think this Gensis wool area rug would add a nice punch of pattern without overwhelming the room.
PS - the formatting of these pics is driving me nuts! Why do you vex me photobucket???!!!
I would love love love to have this Sage Green Peacock wool area rug for my living room, provided the colours were true to the way my screen displays them!
And if I had a cream/neutral coloured themed family room or bedroom, I think this Gensis wool area rug would add a nice punch of pattern without overwhelming the room.
PS - the formatting of these pics is driving me nuts! Why do you vex me photobucket???!!!
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Yes, I'm lazy but I wanted to share this article...
And I promise to provide a 'real' post soon. I swear. Cross my heart.
Although this article on the lost of art of handwriting is a few days old and it's likely illegal to copy and paste someone else's work into a blog post, I thought I'd share it as it's a sentiment that I completely agree and identify with (minus judging people). I do recognize the irony of posting an article on handwriting on a blog, but nonetheless, I too am sad that handwriting appears to be going by the wayside. I still love receiving letters and cards in the mail and going to the mailbox is still something I look forward to everyday - as a kid receiving a letter or card was the absolutely highlight of my week.
Anyways, having read India Knight's piece, I am now going to make a more concerted effort to send friends and family hand written letters and cards - it's a nice friendly way to stay in touch and selfishly, it'll be a good way to practice my handwriting :)
Here's the article without further adieu:
From The Sunday Times May 23, 2010 (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/india_knight/article7133889.ece)
The kiss of death for romance
by India Knight
I judge people by their handwriting, which isn’t an especially nice thing to do but can’t really be helped: it’s one of those tiny snap judgments you make almost subconsciously, like the ones about shoes or ties.
If people’s handwriting is terrible — “thick people’s handwriting”, as I uncharmingly call it in my head — they can slide down a notch or six in my estimation; they risk a complete cull if they are older than 14 and dot their “i”s with fat circles (I’m a bit sniffy about fat, round letters generally). This isn’t remotely fair, but there you go; snap judgments seldom are.
Imagine my horror, then, on discovering that I now have thick people’s handwriting myself. I’m writing a book at the moment and last week something struck me as I was sitting in a cafe. I was without a laptop but I did have a (paper) notebook on me, so I started writing by hand.
First two pages of A4: no problem. Third page: thick people’s handwriting with knobs on — I might as well have been using my toes. My hand ached almost immediately; two more pages and my fingers had practically gone into spasm. Worse, when I got home, I could make out only one word out of 10 in the last few pages. I felt as if I was trying to decipher a doctor’s prescription, except the scrawl was my own.
Like everyone of my generation, and the generations before mine, I used to write reams without thinking twice about it. School essays went on for pages and pages without any discernible loss of calligraphic ability. University essays were practically books; you’d rub or shake out your hand every 5,000 words and just carry on. Novelists wrote in longhand — in fact, I know a couple who still do. Everybody wrote all the time — notes, letters, postcards, instructions, essays, schoolwork, billets doux.
Now nobody does — not even someone like me, who spends all day writing for a living. The only things I handwrite, I realised last week, are shopping lists, birthday cards and my signature on the odd cheque. Everything else is typed. (The other weird thing is that I can’t organise my thoughts properly on paper any more. They make sense only if I can see them before me on a computer screen. I’m sure it means some important hand-eye part of my brain is slowly atrophying.) I love technology more than most but this is really a pitiful state of affairs. A love email — or a love text — is never going to be the same as a pen-and-paper love letter of the kind you carry around with you until it disintegrates. The letter you’ve always wanted to write to your dying father loses something by being delivered via Outlook with a cheerful “ping!”; the diary you keep electronically will never have the emotional heft of the bulging, tattered five-year version you had as a teenager; an ecard isn’t the same as a Valentine.
It isn’t just the sadness of all of the above that concerns me (which it does — it’s a loss of the poetic, a loss of romance on a vast scale). It’s also the fact that we’re forgetting how to write — how to hold a pen and form aesthetically pleasing letters.
Does this matter? Well, yes: if you believe — I do — that beauty brings little darts of pleasure into your day, that a beautifully addressed envelope gladdens the heart. Then, yes, it matters a lot.
You pick your font carefully when you type, or you may even pay some absurd company a fortune to come up with a logo and typeface for you, so it seems mad not to apply the same care to your handwriting. (This is particularly noticeable when you get a typed letter on beautifully designed, letterheaded notepaper — everything made just so, to convey a particular impression — and find, three-quarters of the way down the page, that the sender signs his name like a monkey.) I’m constantly having a go at my older children about their handwriting, which actually makes me feel ashamed on their behalf. They, in turn, are constantly pointing out that nobody “needs” handwriting any more — not when you can type your homework and email it in.
Of course, even that’s going to change: by the time they’re at university, nobody will type by pushing keys — the exertion! — any more. We’ll all be gently stroking our touchpads, and presumably human beings will eventually end up with tiny withered hands that have giant, splayed, spatula-like fingertips.
A survey of 1,188 British schoolchildren aged 7-14, by the charity World Vision, found last week that one-fifth had never received a handwritten letter and one-tenth had never written a letter themselves. In the previous week alone, almost half of the children questioned had either sent or received an email or a message on a social networking site.
This is better than nothing — it’s communication, after all — and although some of the messages or emails will have been in phonetic text-speak, at least the social networking sites are full of voluble grammar Nazis. And I like the fact that children can type — if I were boss of the world, all children would be taught to touch-type at the age of five.
They would also be taught how to write properly, with care and attention given to letter formation, and encouraged to send letters and cards. It’s nice to email your granny — but how much better to send her something you sat down and wrote thoughtfully, rather than dashed off in 30 seconds; something that caused you to find a stamp and meant you bothered to walk to the post box.
Writing is magical when you think about it: you can communicate anything you like just by drawing a sequence of little loops and squiggles, and anyone who honestly believes that the loops and squiggles don’t have a ton more charm than Times New Roman has a section of their brain missing. Handwriting a letter is usually an act of love, which no one could ever say about typing.
Although this article on the lost of art of handwriting is a few days old and it's likely illegal to copy and paste someone else's work into a blog post, I thought I'd share it as it's a sentiment that I completely agree and identify with (minus judging people). I do recognize the irony of posting an article on handwriting on a blog, but nonetheless, I too am sad that handwriting appears to be going by the wayside. I still love receiving letters and cards in the mail and going to the mailbox is still something I look forward to everyday - as a kid receiving a letter or card was the absolutely highlight of my week.
Anyways, having read India Knight's piece, I am now going to make a more concerted effort to send friends and family hand written letters and cards - it's a nice friendly way to stay in touch and selfishly, it'll be a good way to practice my handwriting :)
Here's the article without further adieu:
From The Sunday Times May 23, 2010 (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/india_knight/article7133889.ece)
The kiss of death for romance
by India Knight
I judge people by their handwriting, which isn’t an especially nice thing to do but can’t really be helped: it’s one of those tiny snap judgments you make almost subconsciously, like the ones about shoes or ties.
If people’s handwriting is terrible — “thick people’s handwriting”, as I uncharmingly call it in my head — they can slide down a notch or six in my estimation; they risk a complete cull if they are older than 14 and dot their “i”s with fat circles (I’m a bit sniffy about fat, round letters generally). This isn’t remotely fair, but there you go; snap judgments seldom are.
Imagine my horror, then, on discovering that I now have thick people’s handwriting myself. I’m writing a book at the moment and last week something struck me as I was sitting in a cafe. I was without a laptop but I did have a (paper) notebook on me, so I started writing by hand.
First two pages of A4: no problem. Third page: thick people’s handwriting with knobs on — I might as well have been using my toes. My hand ached almost immediately; two more pages and my fingers had practically gone into spasm. Worse, when I got home, I could make out only one word out of 10 in the last few pages. I felt as if I was trying to decipher a doctor’s prescription, except the scrawl was my own.
Like everyone of my generation, and the generations before mine, I used to write reams without thinking twice about it. School essays went on for pages and pages without any discernible loss of calligraphic ability. University essays were practically books; you’d rub or shake out your hand every 5,000 words and just carry on. Novelists wrote in longhand — in fact, I know a couple who still do. Everybody wrote all the time — notes, letters, postcards, instructions, essays, schoolwork, billets doux.
Now nobody does — not even someone like me, who spends all day writing for a living. The only things I handwrite, I realised last week, are shopping lists, birthday cards and my signature on the odd cheque. Everything else is typed. (The other weird thing is that I can’t organise my thoughts properly on paper any more. They make sense only if I can see them before me on a computer screen. I’m sure it means some important hand-eye part of my brain is slowly atrophying.) I love technology more than most but this is really a pitiful state of affairs. A love email — or a love text — is never going to be the same as a pen-and-paper love letter of the kind you carry around with you until it disintegrates. The letter you’ve always wanted to write to your dying father loses something by being delivered via Outlook with a cheerful “ping!”; the diary you keep electronically will never have the emotional heft of the bulging, tattered five-year version you had as a teenager; an ecard isn’t the same as a Valentine.
It isn’t just the sadness of all of the above that concerns me (which it does — it’s a loss of the poetic, a loss of romance on a vast scale). It’s also the fact that we’re forgetting how to write — how to hold a pen and form aesthetically pleasing letters.
Does this matter? Well, yes: if you believe — I do — that beauty brings little darts of pleasure into your day, that a beautifully addressed envelope gladdens the heart. Then, yes, it matters a lot.
You pick your font carefully when you type, or you may even pay some absurd company a fortune to come up with a logo and typeface for you, so it seems mad not to apply the same care to your handwriting. (This is particularly noticeable when you get a typed letter on beautifully designed, letterheaded notepaper — everything made just so, to convey a particular impression — and find, three-quarters of the way down the page, that the sender signs his name like a monkey.) I’m constantly having a go at my older children about their handwriting, which actually makes me feel ashamed on their behalf. They, in turn, are constantly pointing out that nobody “needs” handwriting any more — not when you can type your homework and email it in.
Of course, even that’s going to change: by the time they’re at university, nobody will type by pushing keys — the exertion! — any more. We’ll all be gently stroking our touchpads, and presumably human beings will eventually end up with tiny withered hands that have giant, splayed, spatula-like fingertips.
A survey of 1,188 British schoolchildren aged 7-14, by the charity World Vision, found last week that one-fifth had never received a handwritten letter and one-tenth had never written a letter themselves. In the previous week alone, almost half of the children questioned had either sent or received an email or a message on a social networking site.
This is better than nothing — it’s communication, after all — and although some of the messages or emails will have been in phonetic text-speak, at least the social networking sites are full of voluble grammar Nazis. And I like the fact that children can type — if I were boss of the world, all children would be taught to touch-type at the age of five.
They would also be taught how to write properly, with care and attention given to letter formation, and encouraged to send letters and cards. It’s nice to email your granny — but how much better to send her something you sat down and wrote thoughtfully, rather than dashed off in 30 seconds; something that caused you to find a stamp and meant you bothered to walk to the post box.
Writing is magical when you think about it: you can communicate anything you like just by drawing a sequence of little loops and squiggles, and anyone who honestly believes that the loops and squiggles don’t have a ton more charm than Times New Roman has a section of their brain missing. Handwriting a letter is usually an act of love, which no one could ever say about typing.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Happy Easter and Spring Cleaning
Happy Easter! I hope you were treated to chocolate and treats!
This gorgeous photo is most definitely not mine but one I pilfered from the very beautiful blog Full House.
With this first rite of spring, I've been inspired as of late to spring clean around our apartment and started with my closet full of clothes! The following photo was taken by me - as if the quality doesn't automatically scream point-n-shoot - and is evidence of my effort! As always, I could have never completed the task with the support and supervision of my Moose! Note the stink eye he's giving me...hhhmmm...
On this particular Saturday (about 3 weekends ago), I managed to purge 12 pairs of pants, 15 tops, 4 sweaters, 1 pair of shoes, 1 pair of sandals, 1 suit and 1 purse - and of course I still have full closet! It felt good to declutter and to get the closet cleaned and organized. I then went through our outdoor/deck storage and laundry room and tidied and purged them too. Moose did his part and purged some of his toys that he never played with and donated them to the Everett animal shelter. And in the vein of tidying and reorganizing, I've done the same with my blogs-I-love column to the right - I've moved some of the less active blogs or those that have gone silent but are super resourceful to the So Helpful column.
I have a LOT of updating and recapping to do here and hope to get to it this upcoming week! Not only did is this post based on historical events but I've been extremely horrible with not posting photos from a very awesome trip in January that we took with my family and my day extrusion to Vancouver during the Olympics. So fingers crossed, I can get all the photos upload, formatted and posted this week!
This gorgeous photo is most definitely not mine but one I pilfered from the very beautiful blog Full House.
With this first rite of spring, I've been inspired as of late to spring clean around our apartment and started with my closet full of clothes! The following photo was taken by me - as if the quality doesn't automatically scream point-n-shoot - and is evidence of my effort! As always, I could have never completed the task with the support and supervision of my Moose! Note the stink eye he's giving me...hhhmmm...
On this particular Saturday (about 3 weekends ago), I managed to purge 12 pairs of pants, 15 tops, 4 sweaters, 1 pair of shoes, 1 pair of sandals, 1 suit and 1 purse - and of course I still have full closet! It felt good to declutter and to get the closet cleaned and organized. I then went through our outdoor/deck storage and laundry room and tidied and purged them too. Moose did his part and purged some of his toys that he never played with and donated them to the Everett animal shelter. And in the vein of tidying and reorganizing, I've done the same with my blogs-I-love column to the right - I've moved some of the less active blogs or those that have gone silent but are super resourceful to the So Helpful column.
I have a LOT of updating and recapping to do here and hope to get to it this upcoming week! Not only did is this post based on historical events but I've been extremely horrible with not posting photos from a very awesome trip in January that we took with my family and my day extrusion to Vancouver during the Olympics. So fingers crossed, I can get all the photos upload, formatted and posted this week!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Have you heard of Instructables?
It's a really neat DIY website where you can learn how to make almost anything you can think of! I plan on trying this Instructable recipe on the weekend - the 5 minute chocolate cake!
Heellllooooo cake!
There other project I'd like to try is this one - hack a regular pilot pen and replace the ink cartridge with a fancypants Mont Blanc rollerball refill! Instant upgrade for $12!
Happy Instructable-ing!!! :)
PS - Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Heellllooooo cake!
There other project I'd like to try is this one - hack a regular pilot pen and replace the ink cartridge with a fancypants Mont Blanc rollerball refill! Instant upgrade for $12!
Happy Instructable-ing!!! :)
PS - Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Statement of the Day
"I’m so relaxed and happy here, at this hour, that I can turn over a Marc Jacobs bag, look at the price, and not immediately vomit. It’s all so perfect. Like the world would be without all the people."
Ahahahaha! :)
This gem comes from an article in The Times (London) - see, they're not totally evil, only during major world sporting events apparently - and is about how lovely department stores can be at 9:30am, the store in this piece is Selfridges on Oxford St, London.
Ahahahaha! :)
This gem comes from an article in The Times (London) - see, they're not totally evil, only during major world sporting events apparently - and is about how lovely department stores can be at 9:30am, the store in this piece is Selfridges on Oxford St, London.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
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