All posts filed under: Life Adventures

‘Waiting’ Entertainment.

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What do you take to do when you know that you will have to wait for a while?  Do you check all of your social media?  Read the online newspaper? Read a real newspaper?  Read a book or a magazine?  Draw? Colour in? File your nails? Stare at people? Listen to music or a podcast? This morning I had to catch the Metro train and then a bus to get to an appointment where I would most likely be waiting.  Entertainment would be needed. My phone will do for a few minutes, but my social media life is not that exciting and I am not about to watch a webinar or TV show on the bus.  So, I check my phone then delve back into my bag for a ‘Werthers Original’ and something to read. I like a paperback so that I can read it standing in the bus station as well as sitting on said bus.  I am reading ‘The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend’ by Katarina Bivald at the minute which is a …

Weekly Photos 5/52

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I feel like I have done nothing so far this week except walk to the shops and the dentist.  Oh wait, that’s because that is pretty  much what I have done!  Why is there always something you need for dinner which the cupboard does not contain, off to ‘Trader Joes’ I go. I went to the dentist this morning in the whirling snow to get a crown put on, well the temporary, I have another appointment to put the real thing on, yay. It has been swirling snow all day but none of it has stayed on the ground. This first photo is a lovely sunset earlier this week which I snapped while we were out metal detecting.  No treasure this week I am afraid.  Still looking for the chest! Over the weekend the skateboards were pulled out and my youngest was zipping about on his wheels, I spotted this circle of lichen on a tree.  Pretty cool. Shadows at the end of the day in hazy sun are the best. Yesterday’s Tinkersketch was ‘repetition’ …

‘I Like’ Friday. The natural grey edition.

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I decided to grow out my grey a couple of years ago, inspired by a good friend of mine who has the most gorgeous grey hair.  I was pushed to bite the bullet when some online friends decided they were going to embark on the same ship.  We pushed off and ditched the dye. I wrote a post when I started my journey here and I updated as I sailed along and I landed on grey hair island happy as a clam. Even though growing out hideous roots is an aesthetically painful process, best bet is to avoid mirrors and heaven forbid, no photos!  There is one photo of me at a friend’s party and my hair looks just awful, but I was almost half way by that time, so I  looked away and carried on. As my hair grew, the red dye (what was I thinking) faded too, so the contrast became less.  I still wasn’t prepared for the final colour though.  What I wasn’t prepared for was how much I loved it.  My fabulous …

Snow Day!

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We got woken at 5.35am by a phone call from the school district to say that all of the district schools were closed today.  Snow Day!  We really didn’t get that much snow, so I am not sure why we had the day off, but I heard no complaints in my house. First job was to clear the drive and sidewalk, then off to explore! I took my camera into the garden to see what I could see. A shallow layer of snow was on everything from seed pods to the old Radio Flyer wagon.  

Drawing Fish and Planting Seeds

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For the whole month of January I am drawing a fish everyday,  as you do! They are all going on the same page so that by the 31st I will have a page of fishy fish to maybe use as a coloring sheet or just a lovely page of different fish.  Half way through the project, I am starting to get a full page.  I can’t wait until I am squeezing them in! Then in February I am going to do the same thing, but with a different object.  I am thinking of drawing a house every day in February, so that I will end up with a very long street or a little village by February 29th. The weather this week has gone perfectly bonkers.  In the mornings we have had frost and icy puddles and today’s temperature has risen to nearly 70 degrees fahrenheit!  Spring-like.  Don’t pull out the shorts just yet because it is supposed to drop down to 18 degrees by Sunday with the threat of snow. So, while the air …

Weekly Photos 53/52

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We have never visited this park before and it looks like we might have to wait a while before we see it when it is dry.  It is both fascinating and macabre to see floods in action close up. Powder Valley park and trail was not under water, so we had a wander along the trails there. I liked the colours and movement of the creek bed here. On New Year’s Day we went to Rockwoods Reservation and walked ‘The trail through the trees’.  These icicles looked like lots of discarded plastic bags from a distance. Lots of rocky faces to be spotted in these rocks at Rockwoods Reservation. How on earth does ice form like this?  There were a few similar formations under a tree, no more ice or frost anywhere around.  It was paper thin, delicate and beautiful. End of the hike, end of the day. I hope you had a great start to 2016!  Happy New Year!

Weekly Photos 51/52.

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A week to Christmas!  Oh my.  Are you all ready?  I pretty much am, presents are almost wrapped and food is bought. 1. I made some balm for Christmas presents and it smells divine.  Just the right amount of citrus and calming clary sage.  I might need to make some for me! 2. I visited my friend’s new lovely salon this week. 3 and 4. Time to make gingerbread houses!  The kids make them every year and I am so pleased that at 11 and 14 years, they still want to make these sweet masterpieces.  One was made with graham crackers and the other one was made the traditional method with cut out gingerbread cookies which we made the day before. Fun! 5. I picked up this smashing bag at a flea market on Sunday, it is a 1950’s Olson Travel hand luggage bag and it is in great shape. Hurrah for bargains and gingerbread houses!  Have a lovely week and happy Monday x

Finding Silver Linings in the Pouring Rain when your Umbrella is about to Blow away and your Legs are Wet.

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Do you look for the silver linings, or do they find you, or do you just stumble over them in the rain? I found some lovely silver linings yesterday in the rain and clouds. I walked to catch the train amid a slight drizzle and wondered at the fact that I was supposed to be in a raging thunderstorm as predicted by the ever optimistic weather app on my phone, I was not even in need of my umbrella’s help in this rain. As I sat on the train making sure no eye contact was made, I wondered why I didn’t bring a book or at least headphones to listen to a podcast. I find myself in this situation a lot and I still can’t get my brain to remember to bring ‘entertainment’ for my child sized attention span, I need something to do, I am not a sitter and relaxer, I am a listener or a reader or a note writer.  Unfortunately my head is not in agreement and refuses to remind me to …

Plugged + Unplugged

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Plugged and unplugged, words which have added new meanings to their definition in recent years.  Gone are the days when only an electrical item was plugged in or unplugged.  Now music is unplugged, art is unplugged, ears are plugged and of course our topic for today, social media is most definitely plugged and makes us all feel as if we are also plugged in.  Fingers on the pulse, don’t miss a thing, fear of missing out (I am not young enough to say FOMO…), keeping up with the plugged in Joneses.  We all like to know what is happening, but do we really need to know every microcosm of information available to us? Neighbours used to chat over the garden fence or at the butchers about last night’s TV or what Mrs So and So is up to, now we seem to want to actively create our own gossip.  We put it out there, of our own accord and we put our family gossip out too.  Posts on Facebook, endless photos which used to be …

One + Four = Life. Weekly Photos 41/52.

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1. I picked up this feather in my garden this week and decided to have a go at painting it in watercolours.  I thought I might use this tube of white paint, but I was very wrong.  I bent and ripped it in half thinking I might get a squeeze of paint from it, but alas it is all dried up. 2. Look at this fabulous mushroom!  We were out exploring in the woods and my youngest called me to see a ‘photo’ mushroom (he is trained well!!).  A photo mushroom indeed, this is a beauty.  It feels almost spiney, not soft at all and apparently they are edible.  Would you eat it?  Pop it in a stir fry? Pasta? I am not sure I would eat it, what if it really isn’t edible, that would be a big mistake.  I was happy to admire it and snap a photo to share.  I almost forgot to tell you what it is called.  ‘Hericium erinaceus’, otherwise known as lion’s mane mushroom, pom pom mushroom, bearded tooth …