Go outdoors as much as possible.
Smell the grass and lilac bushes.
Don't take cover when it starts to rain, you can always dry yourself out later.
Smile at people.
Challenge yourself.
Do something without expecting anything in return.
Attention Everyone: PLEASE go outside this weekend and enjoy the weather! It's earth day :)
Take part in your local clean-up, tree-planting, or even just walk around your town or city, and get inspired to do something good for the planet. I will be attempting to set up my balcony garden, growing some veggies and flowers on our little piece of concrete in the sky.
I've already started to grow organic mesculin mix, which will someday make a very tasty salad for me & Tom. I'm also nututring Jess's seedlings in my windowsills, which will turn into some lovely food & flowers as well.
Yay! Happy Earth Day!
In your ultimate dream house, what does your favorite room look like?
In my ultimate dream house, my favourite room is full of everything to excite your senses. My favourite room would be a big open family room, with a big-ass comfy sectional sofa, a HD plasma TV complete with boomin' sound system, a TON of plants, pictures of family, nature and travel on the wall. It would have a sofa table, just because i think they are the cat's meow, and I've never lived in a place big enough to warrant having one. A really nice new shiny macintosh computer would be perched atop a big, multi-use table that overlooks the sofa & media area. There would be a bottle of wine and some dark organic chocolate on the coffee table, awaiting me & Tom. And by the way, this is a Friday night...The view out the window is a lush, green backyard with a patio, bbq, and lots of flowers, plants, vegetables, and herbs..... Ok, ok enough already. I'm starting to want this room inside this house now. sigh. One day ;-)
I can't wait to go back and see it in the summer! I really want to go to Salt Spring Island and do some more exploring. Check out my British Columbia Pics on Flickr.
Who taught you how to cook?
Submitted by Donna.
Of course that would have to by My Mom! Being a kid of a single mom, i learned to cook & clean at a young age. She taught me all the basics & I lerned the rest from working in restaurants and recipes.
Thanks Ma!
In memory of my cousin, Diane MacKinnon who passed away on sunday. I'll always remember her smile, her voice, and her sunny attitude. And If memeory serves correct, i think she liked Prince. at least i remember it beign played in her family's house. Here's to you, Diane. You will be missed by all of us.
Since i haven't blogged in a long time here's an up date as to what's happened over the past couple of months.
1 - Tom and I went to NYC again in the first weekend of december. We hung out with Abby, & her crew, went to
Rockefeller Center to see the tree (It was the craziest most packed place ever) and didn't actually see the tree up close because it was just too insane. We ended up watching the Macy's Snowflake-show thingy, a dazzling display of snowflakes set to techno x-mas songs. All in all it was still pretty, and we escaped the crowds to go for a beer afterwards. We also caught a Raptors-Nicks game at MSG, we were the only ones in our section cheering for the Raptors, and the only ones who sang O Canada. The Raptors punished the Nicks, so there!
3 - While in New York, we decided on a day trip to Bethlehem, PA where our friend Marnie has a house. Whilst in the town we took some time to see the Moravian Putz. Basically, it's a really old-school diarama from the 50's that is set to a voice-over of the story of baby jesus. It was bizarre and interesting. We bought some hand-made items in their quaint gift shop and all felt better about the world.
Later on that Night, while we were drunk and laying in bed, Tom asked me to marry him! I didn't hesitate and said yes. And then i got a bit blown away at the fact that I'm going to be someone's WIFE so i couldn't get to sleep for like 3 hours. But it blew over and by the morning i was just happy :)
4 - Before all this, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was lucky to find it early but still has to go
through surgery, chemo, and radiation. She's gone through 2 bouts of Chemo already and is such a beacon of hope to me. Through it all, she's been positive, her same old jovial, loving self. That's part of the reason why the first thing I said to Tom about our marriage was that I didn't want gifts - I want people to donate money to cancer research. We both have enough "stuff", in some cases we even had 2 of the same thing after moving in together.
5 - We had a great time over Christmas seeing lots of family, and got some decent loot. We got to play Apples to Apples a couple of times and had a nice little New Year's party at our place with some friends. I made way too many Jello shooters, the remainders of which are still in my fridge.
6- My friend Rannie came over last week with his Wii and we had an awesome time. I love the Wii, I really really want one. Boxing is the best game on it, it's such a great workout. Of course i dressed up like a goof because i love to be ridiculous and make people laugh.
Our next trip will be to Beautiful British Columbia in February. I will take lots of pictures of trees, mountains and storms, see friends and family, and smell the salt air. Hopefully we will get somewhat good weather, and no crazy wind storms like they've been having there lately.
I go through obsessions once in a while. This morning I was wondering why I can't get my mind off of environmental issues. Then I remembered about a year ago I could not stop thinking about photography. Now I'm convinced I may be turning into a serial obsesser, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm just collecting lots of tidbits of ideas & inspiration, and one say they will accumulate into something good. In fact, this is what i hope is happening up there in that little 'ol cranium of mine. I hope that some day I can come up with something as cool or interesting as this community, Worldchanging. If you have a granola-girl on your christmas list, you should get her this book. (I already bought mine at their Toronto launch, so don't buy me one. I can lend it to you).
p.s. - I sent an email to my city councillor about the green-bin program for apartments, but no response thus far.
Yesterday was the very first time i had ever ventured out to the Leslie Spit.
I Met up with Ryan and we biked down there - it was surprisingly pretty close to where i live. I also noticed the allotment gardens on the way in - I may be getting my hands dirty there next summer ;)
Anywhoo, I had a great time biking and taking photos again - it's been too long since I've shot stuff.
The best part, though was making the spit-sculptures. It's like interactive community art! People started stringing old bricks onto pieces of rebar sticking out, and we just added stuff to it. Who knows if it'll stay like that for any length of time, it was still fun doing it. All the worn down bricks had so much character, I even found one that looked like ET.
Phone home, elliot. Here's one of ryans' pics of me & the spit-art.
I've been listening to the new OutKast on and off since it wa realeased earlier this month. I listened to some prewiew trakcs on iTunes and bought it immediately.. I found myself going back to this one song, Morris Brown. I've listened to it dozens of times by now. I found out later on that it's one of the singles they released.
This has happened to me more than once. This makes me wonder about how record companies decide which songs they want to play on radio, make videos for, and promote in general. Do they use a focus group? Do they just take a vote amongst execs? or do they have some sort of universal-appeal-calculator?
At this point, it's probably useless to wonder these things becuase i don't listen to radio anymore. And I know very few people who do.
