Sunday Afternoon

While out for a walk this afternoon I came across this amazing frost and moisture in a window at the Post Office...such a beautiful day for February, sun shining, 1 degree, losts of people on the streets!

I have included a couple of pics of Tom in his new hat purchased yesterday at the antique market...a place we never go but ended up there for a few minutes, Tom the mega shopper picked up the hat...it is called the Buffalonian made for the Kleinhans Co of Buffalo. We think it was made in the 40's and is in perfect condition...as Tom say "no bullet holes " ...he even spent a few minutes this morning steaming and shaping it.

Sometimes A Girl Just Has to Shop

Yesterday I headed downtown Stratford to pick up a card and ended up browsing and actually loving everthing I looked at! A few of these items are for me and a few are to be given away. The orange item is one of those long flowing vests...I never wear this colour, black is my usual but I am thinking I need a little colour...hope I can pull this off. Underneath is a chocolate 3/4 sleeve pima cotton Tshirt I picked up half price...great find. In the same shop on impulse I picked up the very pretty headband, now this is not an item I would usually buy but I fell in love with it and it is hand made in Nova Scotia! Bonus!!!  The buttons I just could not resist...mostly to give. The Big Bear Hug is a book for a very special girl who I will be saying a goodbye to soon...hugs are one of her favourite things next to chocolate.  There is a roll of Tibetan prayer flags which I will be giving away. The Lisa See novel Shanghai Girls is for me...my reward in between volumes of Proust. At the  moment I am on page 376 of Swann's Way.

Often when I shop with a purpose I find nothing but sometimes it all just works!

a meditation

What a great day yesterday with our son Aaron visiting. Spent a few hours just relaxing, snacking and watching some Olympics.

  Aaron and I then set out for a walk along the river in the old grove here in Stratford , if you go to the right you end up in the cemetary. It was the perfect day for a walk like that. The day was cool and gray, the crows joined us with lots of chatter. Aaron mentioned that Grampa (my Dad) has some relatives buried in this cemetary and asked if I had ever found any of the graves. No sooner had he mentioned it I looked up and saw one with the name Nat Fowler, who I was sure was a relative, took a few pics, went to Balzac's one of Stratford's great coffee places.

In the evening we watched a Japanese film called Departures. What a beautiful movie. This is a must see, beautiful pace, filming and story, full of grace, respect and honour. This film won an Academy Award for best foreign language film and also 10 Japan Academy Award prizes. Much of this film is about preparing the deceased for burial and entrance into the next life. Thanks to my dear friend Lori who is the most knowledgable peson I know with regard to film among other things...she passed the DVD to us.

As I was heading up to bed after the movie Aaron asked if I had had a nice day. I assured him that I had...he then said "It has been a meditation on death". I had not thought of it in that way but it certainly was with our walk in the cemetary, finding relatives then watching this magnificent film!

I must mention that chef Tom cooked up a great pasta dinner!

www.departures-themovie.com/

Desire

I absolutely love these boots, have been lusting after them for a few years but...I am not getting any younger and I keep thinking I am too old for these, although once I am even older and eccentric perhaps I could  pull it off. I remember my daughter wearing Docs as a teenager. I thought they were pretty cool but only for her generation. Strange how now I would LOVE a pair. I would probably go for the shorter length because...can you imagine trying to lace into the tall ones even though they would go great with leggings and a long sweater.

A girl can dream about any boot she wishes as she slips into her comfy Clarkes!

Postcrossing

My nephew Jesse emailed me yesterday to tell about a site he had just discovered, his words were "this is an Aunt Karen thing".  He is right. I have joined postcrossing.

 What you do is register and then you will be given a name and address to send a postcard to. In return your name and address will be given so someone somewhere who will send a post card to you. I know I really don't need to be adding this to my to do list but I just cannot resist.

 My first post card is going to Suzannaa in the Netherlands. On her profile she mentioned loving art,books etc, so today I went in search of a great postcard to send to her.; I ended up buying two, one is a Georgia O'Keeffe and the other is called Joy with a quote by Shakespeare "I wish you all the joy that you can wish". I have decided to send the Joy to Suzannaa because we can all use a little joy in our lives.


http://www.postcrossing.com/

On Time

Often I feel that I just do not have enough time...time to do all the things I would like to do...that includes time to just be.

Last night I was reading from a book I own called

The Creative License by Danny Gregory

I flipped to a page on clearing your mind. He talks of the modern stuff that clutters our minds such as billions of web pages, thousands of new products, 500 cable channels, hundreds of new movies each year, thousands of DVD's, cell phones, emails, news, marketing and useless mind candy. He suggests disengaging from all of the media that there is calling it an:

electron fast

This includes:

No TV (I do not do this anyway although it is on my to do list)
Stay off the internet (oops, here I am)
Ignore email
Do not read the paper, magazines or books (except his)


He goes on to suggest that this will free up a great deal of time to become more aware of what surrounds you and just " be" and of course this will lead to creativity.

I love this but not sure I can fully follow his advise. I will try to reduce time spent on the above but not sure I can give them up totally although I like the idea and would like to be more present and creative.

A quote he used:

"If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, the eternal life belongs to those who live in the present"

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Such a beautiful quote and the fact that my son Aaron is studying Wittgenstein makes it even more special to me.

This is Fashion!

I cannot help but spend too much time exploring the photo site called Flickr. I have a link to my flickr photos in the sidebar, this will take you to the Flickr site.  Today I came across some amazing pics from archives in The Hague over the last 100 years. This one made me sigh...so beautiful!

A Birthday

Gabrielle

yummy cakes

Madeline

Yesterday was Tom's birthday so we picked up Aaron in Waterloo and headed into Toronto to spend some time with Jenny and family. What a great family day, hanging out at the Strakers...Jenny, Steve, 4 kids a dog and a cat! Well actually the oldest grandaughter Melaina was off to work, she was missed. Gabrielle grandaughter number 2 was with us for the day but then off to a movie with her BF, the rest of us headed out to dinner at The Green Eggplant in the beach. Lovely food, great bustling atmosphere then back to Jenny's for coffee and yummy cake. As we were getting ready to head back to Stratford...Aaron commented that he really didn't want to leave...he said "there is so much life in this house".  Oh how true...what is better than a happy family!

Unfortunately I didn't get as many pics as I would have liked but will next time.

Of note the dog Holden  says Yumm Yumm for his treats, the cat Pink, who is actually black High Fives for his treats. Now I know what Jenny does with her spare time!

another journal page

I often have a problem falling asleep and when I do I tend read but there are times when I just love to cut and paste. I love all things paper, found objects, stamps, etc...I also keep 2 journals going at all times one is all text the other as above is anything goes!

journal page

my wish list ... oh I know dream on...but look at that hair!!!! I love simple tailored cotton pj's,  I am constantly in search of the perfect white cotton shirt and jeans that make me look....mmm 21 well how about 35..even that would be great or just the perfect fitting jean would do...all shallow I know but I am a girl!

on reading Proust

In Search of Lost Time

For Christmas I received the first 3 volumes of In Search Of Lost Time along with a readers guide...this from my son Aaron. I am not sure if he has great faith in me or thinks I need a challenge. So here I am on page 112 of Swann's Way and am starting to love it. Already I am making margin notes which I only occasionally do with a novel. Funny things are happening with this book. While I was reading a few days ago I picked up another book I own called defining moments in Books to see what may be mentioned on Proust. What I found was a key passage from Swann's Way "No sooner had the warm liquid and the crumbs with it, touched my palate"...etc. I then continued to read from Swann's way and 2 pages later came to the exact paragraph. Now in a book of 606 pages what are the chances of that!

Something else I found interesting was in a description of M. Legrandin  an engineeer who is also  a writer...this passage... He was one of that class of men who, apart from a scientific career in which they may well have proved brilliantly successful, have acquired an entirely diffenent kind of culture, literary or artistic, for which their professional specialisation has no use but by which their conversation profits. More lettered than many men of letters.....endowed of greater "facility" than many painters, they imagine that the life they are obliged to lead is not for which they are really fitted, and they bring to their regular occupations either an indifference tinged with fantasy, or a sustained and haughty application, scornful, bitter and conscientious.

That I found amazing in the sense that so many people throughout life are living a life that is not truly who they are...just a thought!

Well on with my mission....volume one of seven!

Our Christmas Project

 In the Doorway Between Day and Night

This year Tom and I decided to put together a book of his poetry and my photos to give as a gift to family and special friends. I must admit that Tom did most of the work. He used the Blurb website and spent many many hours on this project. All I did was take the pics. Together we tried to find some connection between the photos and poems, some obvious some not so much. We used the photo above as our cover pic.

In all it was our pleasure to give 13 books as gifts.

Follow the link blow to view the book.

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1109607

playing with colour

I was wondering if my blog was too dark so started to play a little with the colour, this is brighter but not sure I like it..

The Nest

Our son Aaron has been with us for a month and today he has left to continue his path. He will only be about 40 minutes away which will be nice and a big change since he has lived away from us for about 10 years, spending time on both the east and west coasts as well as in Ottawa. Most recently he has lived in Victoria BC while attending U Vic. He has made the decision to transfer to Waterloo.

Yesterday we started helping him move some things into a little "nest" in Kitchener. Today he and his father have left Stratford to deposit him in this new place. My thoughts are mixed. It was fun having Aaron with us, but of course it threw off our routines completely but perhaps that is not a bad thing. In some ways it will be nice to have my space back. I will miss him though. It feels good to have him close. While at this space he has rented I was disturbed by how cold it was. Now it was the coldest day of winter so far, it took me about 8 hours to get the chill out of my bones. I have sent him off with an electric blanket if only to make myself feel better.

Once a mom always a mom...does not matter how old our chidren are...we continue to hold them close.

Good luck to my amazing son!

Happy New Year

Brought in New Years Day with Tom and Aaron and a walk in the snow here in Stratford. It is a perfect snowy day to start 2010. I love New Years Day! I love putting up my new calendars! There is a little sadness in putting Christmas away but kind of a cleansing as well...other than that will spend the day relaxing, reading...a few pages left in The Bishops Man, and watching movies and the snow falling gently outside my window.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

Now I am ready, all is done! Hurray! Off to bed for a good night sleep then up early, pack the car and head to Port Hope to my parents house...for a Christmas Celebration this will last about 3 days with family and friends. I will be tired but happy.

Yesterday enjoyed a lovely lunch at Woolfy's with my good friend Lori, a little bubbly, delicious food overlooking the snowy fields near St Mary's.

This afternoon I enjoyed some time with a very special young girl. We sat by her Christmas Tree while she had her snack, I gave her a Christmas gift, then we sat and enjoyed a few special Christmas music boxes that she loves. Just sharing with her and seeing her beautiful smile reminds what is most important in life.

Merry Christmas!

Ave Maria

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXJanwtkxgI

I love this...so beautiful and peaceful

On Christmas

Why do I seem to have so much trouble with this time of year? It seems I have a love/hate relationship with it, although perhaps hate is a little strong. I always want things to be perfect in every way. I want everyone to happy and relaxed, myself included. The relaxed part is quite fleeting for me, just snippets here and there. Mostly my mind travels in crazy non productive circles.

I have made many changes over the years to simplify, very few social engagements, no work party's etc. Maybe a lunch or 2 with those most important to me. The rest is family time.

Since moving to Stratford in 2001 we head back to Port Hope each Christmas to my parents home. My mom having MS is confined to a wheel chair, travelling is getting harder for them. So off to Port Hope we go, have extended family and friends over Christmas Eve, usually eat too much, maybe a little more wine is consumed than usual and stay up too late. But it is so much fun. I just need to be organized to bring food, drink etc. Our son Aaron is with us and will be with us for the holidays. Our daughter Jenny, her husband Steve and 4 children, Melaina, Gabrielle, Isaac and Madeline will be coming to Port Hope Christmas Day and also bringing along Gloria, Steves mom who always spends holidays with us. Each Christmas night we visit dear friends north of Port hope, only for an hour two which ends up lasting till 2am! I love all of this once it happens and feel so lucky to have these special people in my life.

On that note I must continue my preparations knowing it will all come together.

on the patio winter has arrived

It is winter in Stratford...snowing and blowing for 3 days! Today I am at home catching up on some housekeeping and just had to venture out into the snow and wind to take this pic! Perhaps it is a good time to think about a Christmas Tree.

Dinner

Tonight we had the most delicious Tom Yum Soup for dinner prepared by our son Aaron who is with us for the month of Dec. He is transferring from U Vic to the the University of Waterloo, getting organized, looking for accommodation in Waterloo etc. While in Waterloo yesterday we stopped at the Asian grocery store so that Aaron could pick up ingredients for this lovely soup. Fresh noodles, bok choy, tofu, bean sprouts, Tom Yum soup base, ABC soy sauce, hot sauce, the ABC was the absolute best dipping sauce for spring rolls!

Thanks Aaron for a great dinner...who knew...I have a son that cooks!

Everybody's Fine

Movies

I love love movies, all different types provided that they make make me feel...sad, happy, greatful, as long as there is emotion involved.

I especally like to go to Waterloo to the Princess or Princess Twin theatres, they show lots of interesting independant films, docs, foreign etc.

Today along with our son Aaron who has returned from Victoria BC we went to see

Everybody's Fine starring Robert De Niro

...what a great film...loved it. It is not a Christmas comedy as the trailer suggests but a very real movie about a family...you cannot help but care about every single person in this film. Robert De Niro plays the recently widowed father of 4 grown children, who are living in various parts the US...they are busy and have no time to visit so he sets off to visit each one of them. Robert De Niro was outstanding in this role. Very moving...great acting, good story...but be warned bring your kleenex. I am sure there was not a dry eye in the theatre..including the males accompaning me.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Recently I had the joy of reading this marvelous book The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery I enjoyed this novel from the first word to the last. You cannot help but love the protagonists in this book, Rene a 54 year old concierge in a small affluent Paris apartment building and Paloma a 12 year old girl who plans to commit suicide on her 13th birthday. This is a very readable philosophical book. In fact the author Muriel Barbery is a French Philosophy professor and novelist who says that she learned more from literature than from her "long boring course of studies in philosophy".

Treat yourself or a book lover you know to this great read!

The Checkout Girl

Recently I read The Checkout Girl by Susan Zettell.

I started following Susan's blog in a round about way. Susan lives on the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia where my son lived for about a year and a half. He lived in a few places on the Cabot Trail one of which was a yurt. After moving to BC he was searching online to see if the lady who owned the yurt had a blog. What he did find was Susan's blog which pictured the yurt that he stayed in. The point I am getting at is I was perusing the blog, came across a reference to My Daughter in the Water by Louden Wainwright III. I commented on Susan's post, she kindly replied. We have found quite a few things in common. I am a reader and Susan is an author. Therefore I suggested that my good friend Lori purchase Susan's book for the St Mary's Library and lucky me I was the first reader of that copy.

Within the first few pages I was laughing in the middle of the night in my hotel room. Lots of early 70's stuff in this book so it is a bit of nostalgia for me. There are some interesting characters and situations, sex, drugs, abortion, hockey, skating, an autistic child, murder, growing up and finding oneself. The book contains humour and insight into life in a mid size industrial city. The setting is in a fictional town called Varnum with a resemblance to Kitchener which is about 40 minutes from where I live in Stratford, I could appreciate some of the local colour.

If you are looking for a light amusing read this may be the book for you.

As an anecdote I love the fact that some of the writing of this book was done in Susan's office which was a Trillium trailer! How cool is that!

On Chocolate

Having no idea how I can possibly live without chocolate I needed to find a recipe for something sweet, chocolatey, satisfying and low fat. Is there such a thing? Thanks to my pal Lori and her great cookbook collection I baked these brownies today.

Low Fat Chocolate Brownies

2 oz semi sweet chocolate ( I used a Cote d'Or 70% cocoa bar)

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

3 tablespoons butter

2 tsp baby prune puree

1 cup sugar

1 cup flour

5 Tablespoons cocoa powder (I used Fair Trade camino)

1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

3 egg whites at room temp

Heat oven 300 degrees.lightly oil an 8 inch square baking pan.

Combine chocolate, butter and oil in a pan over low heat. Stir until chocolate and butter have melted. Stir in prune puree, remove from heat and set aside.

Sift together 1/2 cup sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in a bowl.

Whip egg whites and remaining 1/2 cup of sugar in a separate bowl until soft peaks form.

Fold half the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture, gently fold in the beaten egg whites, then add the remaining flour mixture.

Spread batter into prepared pan and bake 30 minutes. Cool before cutting.

Note: these were quite tasty and did satisfy my chocolate craving. I like my brownies chewy and nutty so next time I would bake about 4 minutes less and I would add some nuts to the batter. Since I follow a mostly veg diet it would be good for the extra protien.

The Paper Place

One of the shops I love is on Queen St W in Toronto. It is The Paper Place! Stocked with gorgeous Japanese papers and related items. When I go in there I just want to take it all home. I use the paper to make cards, tags and decorate gift wrap as well as in my journal and collage making. Sometimes I just sit and stare at it!

Self Indulgence

I have just enjoyed a great weekend in the city with my good friend Lori. We visited the Royal Ontario Museum to view The Vanity Fair Portraits 1918 - 2008. Enjoyed very much then the next day the Art Gallery of Ontario to view Edward Steichen: In High Fashion, the Condé Nast Years 1923–1937...this was wonderful! so amazingly beautiful. Definitely worth a visit if you like photography.

What I ate at FRANK in the AGO,

organic poached egg& smoked arctic char on a salad of mixed baby spinach greens & garlic fried croutons dressed with dijon vinaigrette

pear hazelnut ginger cake with honey wine sabayon sauce

fabulous!

Took tons of pics on the street...it was a glorius warm weekend!

Picked up a few things I love...
Japanese Paper
Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight 1970

watched the DVD this morning...loved it!

I coud go on and on but will post of few pics!

more serendipity

Yesterday while picking up a prescription at the pharmacy I had a chat with the most lovely pharmacist about the H1N1 injection priority clinic planned for Stratford today from 11:30 to 7:30.

She was telling me how afraid of needles she is. We discussed wait times etc. She told me she would probably go to the clinic in the evening thinking it would be less busy. I was planning to go sometime during day. We are both health care workers in the priority group. I drove by the clinic about 12:40, saw many cars in the parking lot, decided to do a few errands and come back later. I came back about 1:20 and as I was heading into the building I hear this voice saying hello. I turn and there she is Rita the pharmacist. What was so strange was that I had told her the day before that if I saw her at the clinic I would hold her hand!

We had a lovely chat in our 40 minute wait which seemed like 5 minutes. We waited together 15 minutes after the injection...she was so happy to have had someone to share the wait etc with because of her fear of needles.

Now just what were the chances that we would have shown up at the clinic at exactly the same time!!!

paper

My new paper stuff...I love paper! This is a new note pad to sit near the phone, a fabulous selection of sticky notes in various sizes and because I needed to balance the pic I added my beaded magnetic bracelet! That was my play for a Sunday afternoon...did a little photo editing as well which can be viewed on my flickr page.

A Fall From the Past

Our daughter Jenny at age 3...that was 30+ years ago in Whitby Ont...she is now living in Toronto ...a stay at home mom... married with 4 children, a very cool husband and a dog named Holden. She is not only my daughter but also one of my very best friends...I am so lucky!

Found

inside a library book...is it an apology for a late book? is this a pregnancy due date?

Bye the way the book found it in is

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

by the late Jane Jacobs copyrite 1961

What My Mother Wrote

While visiting at my parents home last weekend my mother gave me a letter that she had written to her best friend. She wrote this 3 days after I was born while still in hospital. Her BF Barbara was living in BC at the time and was expecting her first child about a month later.

The letter made me laugh because of my mothers encouraging words to Barbara... I will tell you one thing that it is easy as pie to have a baby, there is nothing to it at all...just relax and bear down hard when you have a pain...you will sail through with flying colours...

Apparently I was born 16 days early...March 16...guess I should have been an April fools baby! I had idea!

Bye the way Barbara went on to give birth to 12 children, my mom stopped after 3!

Stratford Docfest

Looking forward to the the upcoming Docfest in Stratford next week October 22-25...love love anything to do with film. What a plus for Stratford to have a festival like this.



http://www.docfeststratford.ca/

Serendipity

Yesterday I picked up a book that my husband had brought home form the library a few weeks ago.

Poem A Day 366 Poems, old and new, one for each day of the year

Edited by Karen McCosker and Nicholas Albery

At random the very first page I opened was page 340, what I found was Suzanne by Leonard Cohen! Now how strange is that? Leonard is my beloved...poet...musician... an incredible human being. Of all the pages in the book that is the one I opened and it is the only poem in the book that is written by Leonard.

Today I was compelled to open the book again and came across So We'll Go No More A-Roving written by Lord Byron. Well I had no idea that Byron was the author of those words. I only know them from a selection on Leonard's Dear Heather album! I recognized them immediately and was thrilled. To think I had been enjoying Byron all along without even knowing!

Fall Crocus

as I was practicing depth of field I needed to catch these flowers at the Festival Theatre...nice on an October afternoon

Sunday Afternoon

For some reason I have not been out with my camera in the last few weeks. The weather has mostly been cool and rainy which is not the best for the camera. There was a reprieve this afternoon which I decided to take advantage of. My mission was to get a great fall pic of a lone tree...there was not one to be found so I just played. In spite of my cold hands and a little rain I had a great time!

After viewing the pics on my computer I decided to photoshop to get a black and white version of the river pic. Not sure which I like best!

Three Sisters

Last night I attend Chekhov's play Three Sisters at the Tom Patterson Theatre here in Stratford. First of all let me say I enjoyed the play, had never seen it before. Lots angst, kind of philosophical, bits of humour here and there.

I am not going into a review here but just want to record my experience.

During intermission the lady sitting next to me asked if I had read the play. I said no but I planned to read it in the near future. She then proceeded to tell me the whole rest of the story...what happened to each and every character...I was hoping she would stop...I did not want to appear rude so said nothing. I then asked her if anyone ended up happy. She proclaimed "Oh no it is Russia after all!" I did enjoy the last act even though there were no surprises...oh and this woman had an American accent!

Happy Birthday Dad

Today is my fathers 81st birthday! Last year we had a big celebration when he turned 80. This year I won't see him until Thanksgiving weekend when we will celebrate again. Sad that we live 3 hours apart but that is the way of families today.

I took this pic during a visit, when I came into the dining room he had taken his watch apart with a little knife to rewind it because the stem was missing, just sitting there so patiently in the morning light.

My Fabulous Grandchildren

One of the marvels of getting older is the timely arrival of beautiful new members of your family...Grandchildren...little people to love and nurture and who love you unconditionally. I am thankful everyday for Melaina, Gabrielle, Isaac and Madeline!