still here…

… and still levitating!

Levitate-stretch

 

It’s been anoth­er long stretch of time since I’ve writ­ten. Have been real­ly busy with read­ing and assign­ments. But one’s got to stretch between pages (it actu­al­ly helped with the stiff­ness in the legs after sit­ting for hours).

I’m actu­al­ly work­ing real­ly slow­ly on a cro­chet pat­tern that I want to share. I’ve been read­ing so much and try­ing to wrap my head around dif­fer­ent things that my brain hurts. But cro­chet­ing helps. So does the new Plants vs Zom­bies :D (brrrraaaainnnsssss.….) I’m run­ning off to to either one of those things right after I’m fin­ished writ­ing here…

So I hope to share the pat­tern with you soon! 

And I hope you have an excel­lent start to the week!

 

happy mid-autumn festival! :D

It’s been a while since I last wrote, I’m feel­ing quite sad about it. But the real­i­ty is that the new school year comes with so much work that I bare­ly have time to do any­thing else.

But today is Mid Autumn Fes­ti­val. I thought I should take some time to cel­e­brate. So with a hot cup of tea sit­ting on the table beside my note­book, I made a drawing.

mid autumn

Because of class sched­ule I’m not able to go home for a fam­i­ly gath­er­ing today. But as I was draw­ing I thought about how part of the tra­di­tion of the Mid-Autumn Fes­ti­val reminds us that (at least how I under­stand it) even if we can’t phys­i­cal­ly be togeth­er with our loved ones, we know that on this day, when the moon is the fullest and bright­est, we are all gaz­ing at and appre­ci­at­ing the same moon as our loved ones over the moun­tains and across the seas. 

And so as I was draw­ing I was think­ing about my fam­i­ly and loved ones gaz­ing at the same moon. And I thought about the bio­lu­mi­nes­cent mush­rooms that we saw at an exhib­it in Chica­go. I don’t think bio­lu­mi­nes­cent mush­rooms usu­al­ly need moon­light to glow, but in my draw­ing I was kind of imag­in­ing a rela­tion­ship between the mush­rooms and the moon, where the moon gives the mush­rooms the light ener­gy so that they, too, can glow and shine. And I’m remind­ed of this passage:

We love because He first loved us.
1 John 4:19

 

Wish­ing you a splen­did, blessed fall sea­son of harvest.

 

 

this week’s awesome finds

Fried hon­ey bananas — such sim­ple ingre­di­ents, and they look so good! Recipe by Rachel Schultz. 

 

Pol­ka dots with corks. I love the sub­tle tex­tures that the corks make. From Maria João.

 

So grumpy, and soooo adorable! Grumpy octo­pus cof­fee cup sleeve pat­tern by Twinkie Chan.

 

:D Cat shoes!! How-to found on Kit­ten­hood (fit­ting­ly so).

 

Cutest knit­ted bun­ny ever! Free Rav­el­ry down­load by design­er Sara Eliz­a­beth Kell­ner.

 

Ok, now all these cute ani­mal pat­terns are mak­ing me want to learn to knit with tiny nee­dles in the round, which I cur­rent­ly suck at. But look at the whole gang of them! With scarves!! Spot­ted on Rav­el­ry, by design­er Bar­bara Prime.

 

Also from Rav­el­ry, an absolute­ly gor­geous lace col­lar by design­er Melody Maria Fulone. I might have post­ed this in anoth­er awe­some finds post before, but I fol­low Melody’s blog and saw the pho­to again and thought I MUST shar­ing it. This will make any plain old shirt fit­ting for fan­cy tea par­ties :D

 

And final­ly, ohmy­good­ness, A SUSHI ROLL PENCIL CASE!!! (I know all-caps get overused but I’m very care­ful about all-cap use and know that when I use all-caps, I’m scream­ing like a fan girl on the inside). So grate­ful for the pat­tern shared on Green, Broke & Liv­ing in Kits!

 

Have an awe­some­ly inspired crafty week! :D

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

one more day

School starts this week but I don’t have class­es on Mon­days. So that gives me one more day with no school assign­ments burn­ing in the back of my mind. One more day of writ­ing in this blog before I’m knee-deep in paper-writing.

:S

This is where I’m remind­ed of some­thing my broth­er-in-law (who is one of the smartest peo­ple I know) said once, which has stuck with me ever since, “yes I’m busy, but I’m doing what I want to be doing so I’m hap­py to be doing it.” (or some­thing along that line. I know I’ve got­ten the gist of it but I would­n’t count on my own mem­o­ry to quote any­one ver­ba­tim. This is why I’m so bad at retelling jokes. Any­way, I digress.)

I’m tru­ly thank­ful for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to go to school, learn­ing what I want to learn. It is tru­ly a priv­i­lege. I need to rest in the joy of that.

But before we head for­ward, I want to show you (it is long over­due!) pic­tures from our final sum­mer trip to Rock Glen Con­ser­va­tion Area. It is extra spe­cial because it’s near Mike’s home­town and that’s where his grand­par­ents would take their kids, and lat­er, grand­kids, on day trips.

It has a water­falls! :D

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Isn’t it beau­ti­ful? :D

We then crossed a very pic­turesque bridge…

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… and fol­lowed a very, very long stair­case into the woods…

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… arriv­ing at the riv­er bank. 

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I can lis­ten to the bub­bling water all day.

Rock Glen is famous for its abun­dance of fos­sil spec­i­mens. It did­n’t take very long for us to find a bra­chio­pod.

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We also spot­ted quite a few of these spot­ted, the fuzzi­est cater­pil­lars. I told it to hur­ry into a bush before a bird saw it.

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And here we are, back to the city. Last night we walked passed a shrub with these sweet pink flow­ers. Sum­mer’s last blooms.

Photo 2013-09-08

 

But it does­n’t mean that the fun is over. I’m count­ing down to Mid Autumn Fes­ti­val when the moon is bright and full.

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Wish­ing you an ener­gized and inspired fall season!

 

weekend quick sew

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I inher­it­ed a bit of pale yel­low eye­let fab­ric from my mom, but it was­n’t quite enough to make a whole square top, so I made a sort of colour block top :D

The sleeves were stick­ing out too much off my shoul­ders so I sewed some elas­tic on it.

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Have a great week everyone!