1916 Chev

Need I say more? ;-)

Uggggh

Enough already, we've both had our fill of winter!

And More Studies

Today I went to pick up a parcel, it was quite a heavy one, and in this parcel were more books. Last week I registered for two online courses, Native Literature in Canada and Psychology of Women, the Native lit. is going to be a lot of reading, there are 6 books as well as other reading material, and the psyc course has 3 books. This is going to be challenging but it's all a part of the big picture... getting this degree. I don't much care for online courses but this is one option which is feasible, I can fit these courses into my other studies... I hope! 

 I see now that I'm going to have to learn a new skill, time management!

Ask Your Auntie

Today there was another Ask Your Auntie session down at CBC and I was there with my trusty camera once again. I love going to this information sharing, there are some pretty deep questions asked, ones which I might be stumped to answer on the spot but the panel of 4 ladies had some fantastic answers. I even asked a question today, there's been something I've been wanting to know and I received an answer that makes sense to me.

I knew that one person was going to be in attendance at this event, a gentleman I haven't seen in a very long time, since we were kids. We hooked up on facebook so I knew what he looked like. I immediately spotted him when he showed up and went over to say hello. One of the first things he said to me was "I never realized you're so short" my response... "I forgot to grow up!" 

Indulgence

Today I went out and had a two hour pedicure, two hours of heavenly bliss!

The first thing they did was soak my feet in bubbly warm water with scented Epsom salts, soft music floated though the air and the soft flicker of candles soothed me.  

 This was followed by the usual nail cut, buffing of the feet, a foot massage then they painted my toenails. 

As my toes were drying I wondered what in the heck I did this for, nobody was going to see my feet anyways... then I remembered all of you would when I posted this for the day. ;-) 

The only thing missing right about now is a warm beach where I can wreck my new nail job in glorious sand! 

Rarely a dull moment in my world!

Designing

Today I designed a brochure, I'm very pleased with the way it turned out and so was the friend I helped out. What I really liked about this opportunity is that I got to incorporate a few of my photos into this brochure. 

I've blanked out the community program this is intended for, if it gets published I'll take another photo and post it, until then here's my draft. The way this works is the far right hand side is the front of the brochure, the middle is the back and the left hand side is what you see when you open up the brochure, on the right hand side.  Are you confused yet? I was until I printed the first rough copy!

If you're interested in reading what I chose to incorporate into these just click on the photo to enlarge it, I enlarged it twice and didn't have a problem reading it without my glasses. I love the enlarge option on computers! ;-) Any suggestions would be appreciated, it's not too late to make changes.

Now it's time to get to my own work, here it's reading week and I've barely looked at my books... oops. Does anybody want to write a 10 page essay for me? lol 

Chapters

 

I love how life is like a book with many different chapters and we get to orchestrate how these chapters are played out. As each day unfolds we start out with a brand new page which awaits the stoke of our pen, we can write gently, we can write with passion or love,  or we can write in haste and anger. I choose to write most days with gratitude, compassion, love, tolerance and understanding. Sometimes events transpire within our lives which we feel we had no control over, yet do we? We can choose how we respond in any given situation, hence still being the author of our own destiny.

Speaking of writing, I received a paper back today. I did very well in this course, my final mark is an A which translates somewhere between 95 -98 so I'm pretty darn pleased with myself.

I happened to go to the university today and one of the team of professors who was instructing this course asked if he could speak with me. Me being me I asked him if I was in trouble, he laughed and when I finished up what I was doing I went to chat with him. He gave me my paper back, told me that I received an A and he said that I shouldn't be surprised by this, I am but I'm not. I do my work and I work hard in my courses, most of them this is. Then this professor proceeded to suggest that I tighten up this paper and submit it to be published! I'm shocked, totally 100% shocked. He said that he'd help me, he would do a final edit once I tighten it up and I told him that I had to think about this.

I've now thought about what was suggested and I'm going to go for it, what's the worst case scenario? I don't get published, my paper gets rejected... oh well if that's the worst that can happen why not? The only thing that would hold me back now is fear, and I've overcome so much fear in this past five years that I know I can do this, without a doubt in my mind I can at least submit my work. So here I go turning another page and writing like I've never written before!

Family Day

In Alberta we have a provincial day called Family Day, it's a day set aside to spend with the family. My son and his wife as well as my granddaughter were going to take in some of the events happening around the city and invited me to come along. We went down to the legislative building which was pretty cool, there was a lot to take in.

A small part of the outside of our parliament building, the upper peak I suppose is what one could call it.

There were horse drawn sleigh rides, the horses were beautiful!

Dancers indoors...

We went on a tour of the inside of the legislative building and it was amazing! I've never seen so much marble in my life.

And what's Family Day without a princess? 

It's been a fantastic day!

Grandchildren

"Grandchildren hold our hands for just a little while, but our hearts forever."

My precious granddaughter Elyssa is growing so fast, she's such a joy to spend time with and helps keep me young at heart and puts that sparkle in my eye. What more could I ask for in life? 

Buffets

For lunch today I met up with my daughter and her grandmother. We went to Bonanza, Nonna likes to go there. They have a buffet that is unbelievable and the quality of food is quite good.

In this photo is the salad bar, on the other side of this was a dessert selection that was unbelievable. They have yet another huge steam table opposite of this one where there's meats, potatoes, perogies, pasta, Chinese food, as well as a bit of seafood. The only problem with buffets is that even if I only take a taste of this and that then I end up with a plate full and that's way to much food for me. I'm going to take a dessert plate next time, or maybe not... I'd just have to make more trips back up there. The bonus is that I didn't even have to cook dinner tonight, I'm still full from lunch.

Masks

"Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within." 

~ James A. Baldwin

Easy as 1, 2, 3

For those of you who have never seen streets cleared of snow I thought I'd post a few photos of how they do it. I rarely see it, as I've mentioned our city isn't the smartest, it seems that they forget to budget for snow removal and we live in Alberta... it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that we need a budget for the removal of snow, especially when we've had as much as we did this year. 

The first thing that's done, as you might have noticed in my post yesterday, it put up the signs to warn people that they're coming. This could take hours, days, weeks... who knows but the signs go up just the same. This morning graders actually showed up. 

First the grader breaks up all of the snow and ice, they go over it quite a few times to do this. At one point there were three of them going back and forth.

After they get most of the ice and snow broken up then it's time to load it up to haul it away. 

 

They give it a few more quick runs to push the remaining mess off to the side and carry on. 

Removing this much snow is quite the process actually, it took the better part of the morning and into the afternoon to clear about two city blocks. I'm just glad that it's finally done, just in time for spring... if we ever get spring that is!

It's Still Winter

Today it was another cold day, the temperature dipped down to about -23c. I stayed home today and missed my first class. With these up and down temperatures it's no wonder I have a head cold but the good thing is this is the first time this winter I've been sick. 

I was happy when I looked out my window today, the city had put up snow removal signs so me being the optimist that I am I thought that the streets in front of my house were going to finally be cleared... but I was wrong.

This is what it looks like out my front door and this is AFTER we had a week and a half of melting!  

I can tell that spring might come yet, I've been gauging the amount of snow we've been getting by the bench on my patio, the bench which I couldn't even see a few weeks back is now visible. 

I know, not a good picture but I wasn't about to open the patio door and freeze myself out of my nice warm house!

Ahhh, tomorrow is another day, another stay home day I'm thinking.

Time

"Time is the coin of your life.  It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.  Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you."

  ~Carl Sandburg

Running on time this morning, that's always a good thing! 

This next photo amazes me...

I've been keeping an eye on these trees planted on this building for about 4 years now and they're standing the test of time. What amazes me about these trees is that they're growing...well they seem to have grown in this past 4 years. Then again maybe I'm shrinking and they only seem to be getting bigger. Nah, they're growing!

What a Day

My day started out with going to work first thing this morning, I started at 7:30am and worked until 3. I have to give myself plenty of time to go through the downtown core of Edmonton.

Once I was done work I visited with a dear friend until about 3:45 giving me ample time to make it to my appointment which was about 20 minutes away... I wasn't ready for this!

What this city thinks at times is beyond me, the traffic was down to 2 lanes on one of the busiest streets in this entire city and it was approaching rush hour. They were fixing a manhole or something that I'm sure could have waited for a few hours... but nope, they made me late for this. 

I was fortunate enough to get in for an hour and a half massage, as it turned out it was for just over an hour but was it ever fantastic! I love myself for treating myself so good! :-) 

After I arrived home I was way too relaxed, if there's such a thing, and didn't even think to check my mailbox. When I checked my mail very late tonight I received this...

This every painters dream, well this painter anyways. I had purchased some Envirbrushes when I first began my renovations on this house. I went to pick up some refills the other day only to find out that they no longer sold the refills at my favorite store, Home Depot that is. I emailed the company to inquire where I could purchase more of their refills and I was informed that this company had come out with a new and improved brush, I loved the old one! I told them that and also mentioned that I do a lot of painting and was rather disappointed. They offered to send me new handles, the new refills don't fit into the old handles so there you have it, Envirobrush ROCKS! If ever you want a good brush, I highly recommend this one!

And the beat goes on..... on right and Valentine's day, I got a phone call from my guy, he's busy working, my boss bought me a card with a Timmy's gift card and some chocolates and I treated myself to the massage... does life get any better? I'm relaxed, eating chocolate and have to be up to get another day started in 4 1/2 hours... oh damn not again,  where do these hours slip way on me?

Happy Valentines Day

I'm posting a special Valentines photo not a day early but late at night so technically it's Valentines Day. 

Wishing you all a special Valentines day, and remember "“Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.” -unknown 

So my suggestion to each of you, get out there and give love some meaning, today is the first day of the rest of your life and a day without love is a day without sunshine! :-)

I have a credit on CBCs site!

I guess that having one of my photos posted on the internet by CBC would count as being published wouldn't it? It's a small photo, but I even have a credit and this is exciting for me!  I keep forgetting to mention it here... too much else on my mind these days I suppose.

Check it out if you'd like.The top left hand corner!

  http://www.cbc.ca/edmonton/community/mt/2011/02/ask-your-auntie.html

Another New Toy

I've had this iPod since December I think it was and finally I'm learning how to put songs on it. When my daughter was over she showed me how to use this. I had this iPod tucked away and darn near forgot about it until now. I didn't buy this, Herb had bought some tickets on a dream home and he won it, not the dream home... this iPod, it was one of the consolation prizes. He said that he'd never use it so I was the lucky one!

I didn't know that I could put movies, books, and music on this as well as shoot videos, this is going to be a fun new toy!

Awesome Company, Asparagus and Penne

Tonight my daughter came over to watch movies, it's so good to have her over to spend some time with. Before she got here I was trying to decide what to make us for dinner, she likes pasta so pasta it was again. I tried a new recipe, whole wheat penne with fresh asparagus, tomatoes, hot Italian sausage, fresh garlic and thyme, I also added some Romano cheese. For me not liking pasta, this wasn't too bad. I wouldn't go out of my way to make it just for me, I'd rather just have a salad but this is something mothers just do for their children, just cause we can.

Behind the scenes, something which I rarely see here, this is what my kitchen looked like...

The mess has long since been cleaned up, we have the second movie playing and sleeping beauty is fast asleep on the couch... yup, this has been a wonderful evening!

Oops

Tonight I went to view the photos I shot today to decide what I was going to post tonight. I shot a lot of photos, as I generally do, and when I went to view the photos my memory card was blank. I don't have a clue what happened but it's not a big deal. I'm not going to leave my blog tonight without a photo, that's just not how I work. So tonight I'm going to post a photo of my small camera which comes with me everywhere I go. I LOVE this camera, it takes awesome shots, it's so compact and it's easy to slip into my purse. 

This here is the Sony Cybershot, DSC-T90, it's a great little camera with a Carl Zeiss® Vario-Tessar® Lens (that almost sounds impressive!)  and there's only one thing I'd change about it if I could. It's a 4x optical steady shot, the steady shot is awesome but the 4x I'd change to at least a 10x optical zoom.

Wow, I was just going through what all this camera can do when I googled it and now I'm going to have to check it all out! There's something called creative painting tools that looks pretty cool, and way more to check out, things that I never had a clue this camera could do. 

I guess that if my card hadn't been wiped out I would have never shot a photo of this camera, then I wouldn't have googled it and I wouldn't have discovered what I can do with it, or will find out what I can do with this camera. I'm glad that my photos were all erased tonight! ;-)  Right, I should mention that whenever I get something new like this, I seldom read the instructions. I just get into the new toy and play hence not knowing what all my camera can do. Another life lesson learned tonight... maybe. And I've ONLY had it for just under a year now!

Crunch Time

Well now the crunch is on, in more ways than one. I have an essay due at 9am and it's now midnight, I have some serious writing to do here and quick! It's a darn good thing I thrive under pressure, actually this is when I do my best writing. I don't go back and butcher the heck out of my ideas which I've put into words. This method, if you can call it a method, has earned me some well above average marks, lets see if I can pull it off again!

I thought that I could use a sugar rush to get me through this one, so here's the second crunch!

When you're this big... they gotta call you Mr. 

Not a good thing to say after my Woman's Studies class tonight. And not a good snack but what the heck, it's Wednesday night. Yup, that's the best excuse I can come up with right now.

Such a Good Dog

Abbie is so cute, even with her haircut she's still cute. Tonight I wanted to take a few shots of her, my intention was to show you all her new haircut. Abbie looks like she lost ten pounds with no fur left, poor puppy! I was giving her a treat and when I do this I tell her to sit, this is what she does...

she sits and she waits. She'll wait for a long time until I tell her that she can go and get her treat. Even if sometimes she tries to guilt me into giving her her treat I don't allow that to work, not all the time.

When I finally tell Abbie that she can go and get her treat, she's one happy puppy! 

I love having Abbie for company, she's such a good dog and extremely well behaved.

My sister sent me a cute forward today via email and I think that while on the topic of dogs that I'll share this one here. 

Remember, if a dog was the teacher you would learn things like:
When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joy ride.
Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecasty.
Take naps.
Stretch before rising.
Run, romp, and play daily.
Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
On warm days stop to lie on your back in the grass.
On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.
* When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.
Be loyal.
Never pretend to be something you're not.
If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by, and nuzzle the person gently.
Enjoy every moment of everyday!

No Messin' Around

I haven't made much time for cooking lately but when I get the opportunity to get into my kitchen I don't mess around. I figure if I'm making a mess I might as well make a huge mess. I'm not  a fan of pasta but my niece likes it so tonight I made penne with hot Italian sausage and a meat and tomato sauce. I made enough to do for tomorrow nights dinner as well as another 5 meals which are now tucked away into the freezer. 

Now off to get another essay out of the way which I'd best start tonight, it's due on Thursday morning. Please remind me who's brilliant idea this was for me to get a degree....

Sunday In My World

I started out my day with a few plans, first I went to a meeting and passed by Grant MacEwan University. This was where I studied my first course to get me on my way to my degree.

Downtown Edmonton on a blistery winter day.  Looks can be deceiving, it was cold out today.

I passed by the Fairmont Hotel McDonald, I LOVE this old building! 

And the highlight of my day was spending a few hours with my little sweetheart who can warm my heart on the coldest of days!

Roses

"It is the memory that enables a person to gather roses in January"...

or a few dollars at the local store.

I guess it's a good thing that I have a few dollars, the memory isn't quite what it used to be, it's February isn't it? ;-)

"You can complain because roses have thorns, 

or you can rejoice because thorns have roses." 

                                              Unknown 

"One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that 

[some] of us tend to put off living. 

We are dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon - 

instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today." 

Dale Carnegie

So live, love and laugh and enjoy your Sunday!