there and back again…

We went on a trip to the Bruce Penin­su­la over the Labour Day long week­end. I would love to show you the hun­dreds of pic­tures I took but that might be a bit bor­ing… so I brought back for you high­lights of the trip, which deserves a haiku (or three :D)!

 

Sun­ny, mossy trails

 

with mush­rooms along the way

 

and tales of stone caves.

 

Wise words to ponder

 

as the creek led us to find

 

where the water falls.

 

Water clear as glass

 

beneath it, the past stood still

as the riv­er flows.

 

 

 

 :D

I like writ­ing haiku’s, even though I’m not very good at it. It’s like peo­ple break­ing into songs when they’re excit­ed. I break into haiku’s!

And I real­ly want­ed to bring back for you the sound of the creek, which we fol­lowed to find Indi­an Falls. Felt like I could sit on a rock in the mid­dle of the creek and lis­tened to it for hours and not be tired of it. 

If you mouse over the pho­tos and click on the hyper­linked words you can read more about the places where the pho­tos were taken.

It was over­all a real­ly cool trip! I did­n’t expect to hike the Bruce Trail (I’m not a very active per­son), but I end­ed up doing a bit of that while get­ting to the caves. 

I would love to vis­it again, maybe in a year or so, because we did­n’t have time to vis­it the Grot­to and the Flow­er­pot Island, which has a small muse­um, light sta­tion, and more caves!

Have a great week­end, every­one! :D

 

 

 

 

celebrating summer solstice

… with sum­mer flower pho­tos! :D

(sum­mer sol­stice was tech­ni­cal­ly yes­ter­day, I’m a lit­tle late, but it’s nev­er too late for a bit of haiku-writ­ing :D)

 

Ode to Sum­mer Blooms

 

Flow­ers of summer

 

Ros­es, their petals falling

 

over my sandals.

 

Rain­storms, sun showers

 

here today, gone tomorrow

 

new blooms, a new day.

 

 

 Turn a street corner

 

out­side doorsteps and small shops

blos­soms line sidewalks.

 

 

Not great haikus, but it’s fun count­ing syl­la­bles and find­ing words that fit :D Although I’m actu­al­ly rather pleased with the mid­dle one about rain­storms and sun showers.

(Some peo­ple don’t write them this way, but I under­stand haiku’s as three-line poems with 5 syl­la­bles in the first line, 7 in the sec­ond, and 5 in the third. So there are actu­al­ly three haiku’s above weav­ing between the photos.)

 

For our cor­ner of the world, the first days of sum­mer came with a heat­wave. So if it’s hot where you are, enjoy the sun and sum­mer blooms, but stay cool!

 

p.s. On a slight­ly relat­ed note, if you like poet­ry, check out my sis­ter-in-law’s blog! :D She writes on many dif­fer­ent top­ics, from reflec­tive and insight­ful to hilar­i­ous — great reads!

 

 

 

 

 

today’s awesome news!

Did I tell you that I’m a big fan of haiku’s? And my mul­ti-tal­ent­ed hus­band has recent­ly won a haiku con­test! :D

 

 

It’s a haiku con­test about type­faces (or fonts). The type­face Mike wrote about was Ketchu­pa, and the host of the con­test even made a super fun illus­tra­tion to go with it! :D I love the small illus­tra­tion for the grilled cheese and toma­to soup! 

And I’m very proud of Mr. Mike! :D

 

Send­ing you warm wish­es on a cool autumn day!

 

 

ode to snowflakes

I’m trav­el­ling up north this week­end. I imag­ine there will be more snow than we have here in the city. Which remind­ed me that I made these shrink plas­tic snowflakes dur­ing Christ­mas hol­i­day, with tuto­r­i­al from The Long Thread.

I first tried using the tem­plate full-size. I was imag­in­ing a dime-sized pen­dant, but it turned out a lot big­ger than what I want­ed, as you can see with my hand there (I had to remind myself that shrink plas­tic may seem mag­i­cal but it’s not so mag­i­cal that the snowflake would shrink from 4 inch to 1/2 inch).

The first try did­n’t go very smooth­ly. A cou­ple of the arm­s broke off as I was cut­ting, and I only had clear shrink plas­tic rather than frost­ed shrink plas­tic, so I had to sand it. The sand­pa­per I used was grey, and I made the mis­take of sand­ing it after it was cut, so the grey sandy par­ti­cles got stuck all along the edges, leav­ing the snowflake with a film of grey…

But I still like it. It reminds me of snow in the city, on the road and side­walk, turn­ing all grey and slushy as the cars go by and peo­ple tread­ing through. I’m going to find a long chain to wear it around in the city :D

As for the small snowflake that I want­ed… Learn­ing the lessons from the first attempt, I shrunk the tem­plate by 50%, sand­ed the plas­tic before cut­ting it, and was extra, extra care­ful and slow when cut­ting the plas­tic. And final­ly I watched it curl and shrink in the hot oven… and sud­den­ly I have a snowflake the size of a dime :D

It’s exact­ly what I’ve pic­tured in my mind. And none of the arms broke off. I’m quite hap­py with it.

If I could write poems, I would write an ode to snowflakes. They are breath­tak­ing­ly intri­cate and beau­ti­ful and each is per­fect in its own way, yet they’re here one moment and melt­ed to a mere drop of water the next. I’m sure that it’s a detail pur­pose­ful­ly made and woven into our every­day life to intrigue and inspire us.

But I don’t real­ly write poems. The best I can do is some fee­ble attempts at haiku (although I quite enjoy it :D). But I do enjoy read­ing poems very much. And I’m hap­py that my sis­ter-in-law, who is a very tal­ent­ed writer, has start­ed a new poet­ry and writ­ing blog, so now I have a con­stant sup­ply of poems to read :D

So, trav­el­ling, snowflakes, and poet­ry. I thought I would sum it all up with this poem I read on Lil Fish Stu­dio. I was very moved by it when I read it, because recent­ly I’ve found myself in the same place, trav­el­ling along and then com­ing upon a forked road, try­ing to make the best deci­sion, try­ing to find the best way to use all the gifts I have been giv­en, and feel­ing rather help­less wal­low­ing in my own indecisiveness.

Two roads diverged in a yel­low wood,
And sor­ry I could not trav­el both
And be one trav­el­er, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the oth­er, as just as fair,
And hav­ing per­haps the bet­ter claim,
Because it was grassy and want­ed wear;
Though as for that the pass­ing there
Had worn them real­ly about the same.
And both that morn­ing equal­ly lay
In leaves no step had trod­den black.
Oh, I kept the first for anoth­er day!
Yet know­ing how way leads on to way,
I doubt­ed if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Some­where ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less trav­eled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Robert Frost, 1915

 

(The poem itself has noth­ing to do with snowflakes, but note the author’s name!)

So, see you in a few days! I’m bring­ing Zumi with me to the north and hope to bring back some nice pho­tos. Thank you for vis­it­ing and have a won­der­ful weekend!

the travelling Zumi

While trav­el­ling south for Christ­mas, I took some pic­tures with the Zumi. They had a lot more snow this year than we do in Toronto.

And now, it’s time, for a haiku:

Silent­ly it lays

 

Glit­ter­ing, swirling, it drifts

 

across miles between.

***

And along the way, love­ly frost­ed trees as well!

 

 

 

And this is our jour­ney back into the city — bumper-to-bumper on the high­way! And no snow, just rain. Wel­come to the city, it said.

 

But rain did not damp­en our hol­i­day spir­its and we had a great time trav­el­ling nonetheless :)

May the new year brings great adven­tures and new inspi­ra­tions! Best wish­es for 2011!

weekend in flying colours

It was Thanks­giv­ing week­end and we left the city to vis­it fam­i­lies. We also vis­it­ed the chip trucks by the water and a coun­try fair in a near­by town, and I took some pho­tos with the Zumi. I’m rather pleased with how old-fash­ioned the pic­tures look, espe­cial­ly the ones at the coun­try fair. I also took a lot of tree pic­tures as we drove home, and of course a sun­set pic­ture from our west-fac­ing bal­cony :) The colours are just amazing.

I felt kind of bad that I’ve been neglect­ing my pink point-and-shoot since Zumi arrived, so I’ve been reas­sur­ing it that I still like it very much because it takes great indoor pic­tures and pic­tures of peo­ple, and it lets me see what I’m tak­ing a pic­ture of, which real­ly helps with com­po­si­tion. Here are some proud prod­ucts of the pink cam­era over the weekend.

And now, a haiku:

The week­end flew by
and now we are home again
full of thanksgivings.

Hap­py Tues­day! :D

 

 

 

Tourist for a day, with haiku’s.

A cou­ple of days ago I trav­elled to a part of the city that I don’t vis­it very often to hang out with a friend.

Look! Rice noo­dle rolls,
hand rolled and sprin­kled with shrimps.
Peanut sauce drizzles!

Hel­lo there, koi fish.
Swim­ming amongst the pennies
in the neon lights.

Oh, what love­ly street!
Side­walks lined with sum­mer blooms
and not a raincloud!

“When in doubt,” she says,
over tea and maple fudge,
“pinkie out, my friend.”

Beam­ing white flowers,
unfazed by hot sun, standing
head high and chin up.

Not as brave, we two!
Sought refuge in cool lounge
and choco­late bloom.

For my beloved,
a deli­cious souvenir -
green tea KitKat bar!

Jour­ney home melted
green tea sug­ary wafer.
Tasty nonetheless!

Cheers! :D

A week in haiku

Mush­rooms found in plant!
Library pin now bookmarks
a dis­mayed snowbear.

Peanut but­ter joy!
Ancient tur­tle swim­ming by
fes­tive bibimbap.

Shad­ows in sunrise
Spon­ta­neous cake-making
aboard east­bound train.

Noth­ing brilliant,
but friends, it is rather fun.
Hap­py Saturday!

Adventure in dough

Recent­ly I was giv­en a cook­ie mold with love­ly teapots in it…

… it even came with a book­let with cook­ie, salt dough and beeswax recipes… (and a pig on the cov­er, eat­ing watermelon!)

So, today I decid­ed to test out the cook­ie mold with the salt dough recipe from the booklet…

1. I mixed some cin­na­mon into the dough to give it some colour and tex­ture. Then I pressed it into the mold with the heel of my hand (as per the book­let’s instruction).

2. Dough, pressed.

3. Dough came off the mold pret­ty eas­i­ly. I cut them apart with the back of a but­ter knife.

4. I then placed them on a sil­i­con bak­ing sheet to make sure that they would­n’t stick. They were going to be tree orna­ments so I cut a small slit at the top of each with the tip of a but­ter knife for ribbon.

5. Bak­ing… at low temp. for a long, long time. (about 2 hrs. Prob­a­bly not the smartest thing to do in a small apart­ment in the mid­dle of sum­mer, but lin­ger­ing aro­ma of cin­na­mon was nice.)

6. And the moment of truth! This is the one that turned out the best, I think. I was dis­ap­point­ed that the salt in the dough seemed to have risen to the sur­face dur­ing the bak­ing process, and so now we can’t see the cin­na­mon :( I should have remem­bered this from pre­vi­ous dough craft attempts!

Sure­ly there is a way to pre­vent this salty crust from form­ing? Hmm… need to find out. But I’m going to paint this batch of orna­ments, and will keep you post­ed about how it goes!

I still have half a batch of dough left (my hand got a bit sore from press­ing dough into mold), so I think I might make some owls, like this one I made years ago…

And now, a haiku to sum­ma­rize today’s adventure:

Flour, water, salt

Where did the cin­na­mon go?

Great fun nonetheless.

From the garden: A haiku

Fiery bloom standing

Fire petals beaming

Gold­en trum­pets a‑swaying

with songs of crickets.

****************************

This is actu­al­ly my first haiku attempt. We were watch­ing Veg­gie Tales: Sumo of the Opera today and I felt very inspired.

Tomor­row I’m going to take a men­tal health day aka craft day :D My plan is to slight­ly alter a shirt and try out a cook­ie mold. So, more about crafts tomorrow!

Wish­ing you a fab­u­lous week ahead!