Around town

I try to walk every day at lunch (when I can manage to not have a meeting of course), I took my camera along today. These odd sculptures (I have no idea who made them or what they're called) are behind the National Arts Centre, facing the canal, and they're MUCH bigger than they look in the picture, each is quite a bit taller than I am.

PS - The gorgeous building in the background is the Chateau Laurier

Bud - part 3

I'm so excited! My parents planted this lilac as my birthday gift in the Spring of 2003, it's never bloomed before (because it was just a baby lilac) but this year it has real flower buds! Not a lot of them, but a few, and obviously purple. I can't wait until they open (now how do I keep the babes from picking them?)

**It**

Just for Jennifer - scary clown (complete with demon eyes). Bwahahaha!

I didn't plan it this way

Well, due to one sick preschooler with bad (good?) aim, I spent the day at home. So, the only picture I can show for today is of one of the Thinking of You cards I made for Christine's challenge at ACP. It's very loosly based on this card, but obviously nowhere near as textured and layered (think of it as the Walmart knock-off of an Armani). Was quite fun to pull Cool Cat out of the drawer though, haven't played with that set in forever :)

The beautiful unknown

This lovely lady is perched in a garden near the kids' school. I drive by her(?) twice a day every day and yet I have no idea who (what?) she's a statue of. I *think* she's outside of a Vietnamese Cultural Centre, but I'm not really sure since the signs aren't in English. Frankly the building she watches over looks for all the world like a Chinese restaurant (hence my nearly endless cravings for Kung Pao chicken) but since the parking lot is almost always empty I don't think it could be a restaurant. Anyway, whatever it is, and whatever she is, she always makes me smile.

Blue skies

Smiling at me... nothin' but blue skies do I see...

I got you babe

We love our parents, our grandparents, our friends, but is there any relationship as special and yet as fraught with emotion as the sibling relationship? Yes, they fight like crazy nearly every single day, yet equally as often I'll find them playing together, helping each other, or snuggled up together, protecting each other in the dark. My own brother and I were close like this when we were small, but time and distance changed that (it's hard to maintain that kind of closeness when you live on different continents). I hope my babes remain best buds forever.

This bud - part 2

There's a wee bit of frost damage from the unexpected dump of late season snow, but all in all it survived quite well. My wee lilac bush.

Swing time

A park near our house (perhaps 2km? A little less?) features these incredible weird swings. The kids LOVE them, Katie calls them 'DVD swings'. They could perhaps use a fresh coat of paint (couldn't we all after our long winter slumber?).

Reflective pools

A fast thaw generally means at least minor flooding.

Who photographs the photographers?

It was glorious here today, sunny, 20C, everything April should be. We went to the beach, and while I took many picture of the babes, the birds and the water I was also fascinated by this other photographer on the beach (and not only because he was kind of cute). It's always interesting to me to see what other people see as picture-worthy. Seagulls, aka 'shit-hawks', the arch enemy of sunbathers and picnickers, and yet this fellow evidently thought they were interesting enough to set up his tripod and snap who knows how many shots.

Yeah, I had to look through my own camera. And frankly, I still don't see it.

A blur

It's a terrible picture, and yet it is just SO fitting... this is everything that little boys are, a blur.

Blizzard

My little girl loves kit kats and loves ice cream so when Dairy Queen introduced the kitkat blizzard as the blizzard of the month for April I knew we had to go!

(For the record this is actually a cherry cheesequake blizzard, favoured by James).

Leavin' on a jet plane

There are few places on the planet more boring than an airport, especially at 5:00am

Obsession, Part II

OK this'll be the last picture of snow... I promise ;) April freakin' 16th people!!!

Thankfully Jonah was dressed for the weather ;) He loves to chose his own clothing in the morning, he always refers to it as chosing his own 'dress' (as in 'get dressed'), today it was slightly more accurate than usual. And yes, I did let him go to school like this (except with cargo pants underneath). He's gotta be his own person!

Pretty

My favourite photography subject.

She has very sensitive eyes so I try not to use flash in photographing her, however set up this morning in front of what is usually a bright window (faces East) I got nothing but gloomy shadows and had to resort to fill flash to see her pretty features.

Which is to say that I'm still obsessing about our constant rain/snow and total lack of sunshine...

Food for thought

Is there anything better than a buffet dinner?

Comfort Zone

I received this mug as a gift for my 14th birthday - 14th!!! Can you believe that? It's been battered a bit but it's still my favourite mug, and it still holds my morning tea more mornings than not...

Obsess much?

I only took one picture all day Thursday - of the snow of course, because like most Canadians I'm obsessed with the weather!

This bud's for you

Well the weather people may be calling for more snow, but my lilac knows it's supposed to be Spring...

Sweet dreams are made of this...

Who am I to disagree?

My two older kids were good sleepers right from infancy, the wee one however didn't sleep through the night until after his second birthday and even now, on the cusp of 4, is up in the night at least once a week (and most weeks it's more like 2-3 times). I really think that some people are just born to be poor sleepers, people who have brains that turn on - loud - the minute they wake up (even if it's the briefest of awakenings), people who have trouble shutting off those brains at night, people who suffer insomnia on and off their entire lives.

Let's just say I understand how he feels.

Picture for April 9

I spent pretty much all of holiday Monday mucking around the house and scrapping. Here's one of two little tear bear tags I made, photographed with the macro setting and using the flash.

He's got the little bitty eggie in his hands

Whether you celebrate Easter in worship or in chocolate I hope this day finds you wrapped in the love of family and friends.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign...

Someone was having a little tantrum yesterday...
It's says 'No, only Katie' and was taped to her bedroom door. I can't imagine what life is going to be like when she hits her teenaged years...

Easter on the farm

This weekend the Experimental Farm (and associated Agriculture Museum) is putting on a bunch of happy Easter, happy Spring crap for the kids. I'm not much of a farm girl but the babes adore animals so off we went today to see baby bunnies, baby chicks, baby lambs and goats and baby pigs (and OMG do pigs stink!!!) There was even an Easter egg hunt, a rather brave-slash-stupid thing to do with a bunch of toddlers/preschoolers in a barn full of brown-but-not-chocolate balls. Anyway the babes had a blast, and I enjoyed the company of these beautiful horses.

So this is Springtime?

Mother Nature (evil hosebag that she is) thought it'd be a lark to dump more snow on us (and the mean old weatherpeople are predicting even more of the white stuff this weekend!). Just when I'd allowed myself to start dreaming of capris and flip flops...

The only thing better than coffee is...

Free coffee! My hopeless addiction to Tim Horton's coffee has earned me 3 free cups of coffee and 4 free doughnuts. Alas, I have yet to win the plasma TV or car... but maybe next cup!

I saw you (and him) walking in the rain...

Oh come on, I'm not the only one who randomly quotes Oran Juice Jones songs!

Disposable Society

Does anyone ever have watches repaired anymore? Really, do we ever have ANYTHING repaired anymore (apart from cars, and if they were just a little cheaper we'd probably throw those out too).

I pass by this place every day with its shabby awning, peeling paint and perpetually locked doors, and I wonder how watch repair stores, knife sharpeners, vacuum repair shops and other such places manage to stay in business in our throw-away society.

In praise of all things sticky

There are few things more typically representative of the part of Canada in which I live than maple syrup. We made our annual pilgrimage to a maple sugar bush (cabane a sucre) an hour east of the city to gorge ourselves senseless on all things pig and maple, in the typical French Canadian tradition.



Like most functioning maple syrup farms, the vast majority of the sap here is collected via plastic tubing (much more efficient than manually checking and collecting from buckets) but they do still tap and hang pails from some trees. And despite the difference in the way the sap is collected the syrup itself is virtually unchanged from what our ancestors would have enjoyed more than 400 years ago.