Wk 8 The 52 Week Project

This week Canada Post was kind to me for they bought forth many of the parcels giving me much pleasures!  Also my faithful assistant Sergei (aka Lovely Man) did return from big city with a bottle of white wine along the same theme...cats.  I am currently pondering the possibility of making a cravat and jacket to pass off as Meerkat statue in honor of my entrepreneur friend here.  I am sure he will treasure almost as much had his great-granddaddies Honor of Purple Claw medal which he was awarded after the Battle of Fearlessness.

I seem to be a little over catted this week because not three days after receiving these gifts, (book from luvly little Bruv in UK) and wine (from much loved significant other), than a third cat arrived in the form of Mustard a ginger Tom from the Humane Society who needed four week convalescence  after a severe UTI.  So I flit between the bottle, the book and charts recording fluid intake and outage for this week!

Make living a simple pleasure

I won't tell you a lie.  I've had a crap week.  In fact I've had some crap weeks on and off over the last few months...haven't we all?  But, and I'm ashamed to say, I let this crap weeks get to me.  I didn't share it with you, perhaps I should have and then it might not have seemed as crap as it did!  But I didn't because I vowed when I started this blog that it was never to be a platform for moaning or self pity, so I stayed away and allowed myself to be miserable in private.  Today I felt a little better, more positive and returned to blogland and facebook and was suddenly aware of just how many people I now know who post such wonderful, upbeat positive stuff everyday, and yet I'm sure in the real world they have crap going on just like me.  So what to do?  Shall I beat myself up for being such a bad person and wallowing in a little self pity for the last few days? Where will that get me?  Nowhere.  Instead how about I share with you just some of the blogs that made me feel better today?  They are written by some lovely people whom I have never actually met.  They make me feel like I want to be just like them, they inspire me, they make me think about how I want to live my life, they make me ask myself questions, they make me want to get off my butt and enjoy each moment.  So thanks to all of them for that.  

So from now on I am going to join the ranks of the positive people and please, if you catch me slipping give me a gentle kick up the butt and remind me of this post!  

Check out these lovely people too:

Kassie's Korner

Bonita Rose

Kelly Berkey Designs

Cathy Bueti

Louise Gale

Of course there are many more people in my life, and in blogland, that are far too many to mention, but these ladies in particular for one reason or another have inspired me and helped me over the last few months to keep smiling even if I haven't always felt like it.  For that I thank them all, along with my mum, Jan, Lorrie & Jackie & Jocelyn who listened, and hugged.

Happy Valentine's Day

This blog originated as a place to to share the simple pleasures in my life.  Now I'm not saying Lovely Man is simple, I need to get that in right away because when he reads this that is exactly what he would pick up on LOL!  However, today on Valentine's Day I thought it appropriate to dedicate a post to him just because.  Because, quite simply, he makes every day worthwhile just by being here by my side.  You see, without going into too much detail, he came along at a time when I had given up.  I had two failed marriages, the latter being 15 years of being told I was 'odd', that I was 'stupid', everything was 'my fault'.  I was bullied, alienated from my friends and family but I stayed because I believed I was not worthy, that I deserved to be where I was and that I should be grateful for that.

Somewhere something happened, something changed and I left.  I didn't want another relationship.  I wasn't going to even look for one, having decided that there were no good men left out there and even if there was I wouldn't find him, I gave up.

Not long after I gave up this man walked into my life.  He was no stranger, we had been friends for years.  Just friends, in truth we were probably more like acquaintances.  He bought with him humour, kindness and unconditional love.  He gave me courage to be who I really am, he taught me to believe in myself and encouraged me to follow my dreams.  He makes me laugh when I feel like crying.  He holds me close when I feel like it's all too much.  He only knows one joke and that's a bad one but he'll delight in telling it anyway!  

So today, this Valentine's Day, is dedicated to my Lovely Man, AKA David Green, I love you and thank you for just being you!

Week 6 - The 52 Week Project

 

This weekend we celebrated our Frosty Days Carnival Weekend here in Manitouwadge!  An entire weekend of fun events which involves almost everyone in town.  We had an opening ceremony complete with youngsters skiing downhill by torchlight!  There was an ice fishing derby and BBQ on the beach/lake on Saturday. A Poker Run x country ski event, cardboard box races down the ski hill, arm wrestling competition, 80's night and an open mic/kareoke at the bar not too mention Polkeroo's birthday at the library, apparently Polkeroo is a large talking kangaroo from TV who, incidentally, is a very messy popcorn eater it appears (I had the job of vacuuming the library after he went home!)  

I have chosen the above photo to record week 6 of the 52 week project, and my life this week.  It is my friend,  Jackie, and myself skiing in the Poker Run event!  Below is a photo of the wonderful ice stage built for the opening ceremony by Dave and Brian, two very talented guys from the Ski Hill! 

Finally a short video clip of our young torch bearing skiers!

Week 5 - The 52 Week Project

Sadly I missed week four, mainly because I have either been painting or out in the snow, both of which I have written on more than one occasion here and elsewhere.  I had wanted to post something different for a change and this resulted in nothing at all!  How sad is that?  Have I become so boring that I can talk about nothing other than paint and snow?  Or perhaps I am not the creative soul I thought if I can't come up with a simply photograph reflecting SOMETHING about my week!  So, enough already.  I consider myself well and truly chastised and before another week passes without a peep from me here is my picture for week 5.  My friend in the UK has just had her second baby recently, a little boy.  This is something I am working on in my M3 class with Tam, which I intend to make a print of as a gift for Liz and baby Jake, and Scott and Alix of course!  And hopefully there will be some thing different for week six, a little idea I have provided who ever I give the camera to this week can actually manage to take a picture with it!

An Advertiser's Dream

That's what a work colleague once called me.  I was once a glossy magaholic and a side effect of that was that I bought a lot of 'stuff' based on the sometimes outrageous, but very persuasive, advertisers schpeel!  I am happy to say I am now a 'recovering magaholic" which basically means I limit myself to one magazine per month!  And this has completely cured the above side effect!  Now I am able to look an advert in the eye and walk away.  Take today for instance.  It has been snowing all day and we didn't need to go out at all so we treated it as a PJ day!  Yesterday our weekly free papers and flyers arrived so, with coffee in hand, or mug, we glanced through them.  Suddenly Lovely Man exclaimed "This can't be right!"  There in one of the supplements, Weddings 2011 promoting the forthcoming Wedding Fair, was an advert for The Canadian Lakehead Eshibition.  The advert read "Weddings, Shags and Showers - we can accommodate you"!  It must be a spelling mistake surely.  Further into same supplement an advert for Pizza Hut "Shag Hotline - leave your shag catering to us".  I mean I have noticed that over here they are extremely honest and candid in their advertising.  Indeed the ad for Buckley's cough syrup has the tag line "Tastes awful, but it works".  But to offer to accommodate the couple for the wedding and the shag, not to mention the shower, which I understand is short for baby shower! And they'll bring you a pizza too just, presumably, to keep your strength up!  Well the mind just boggled.  Upon investigation I found that over here a 'Shag party" is in fact a party held prior to the wedding by the happy couple.  Guests buy tickets to attend in order to help the couple raise money to help pay for the wedding.  Thank goodness we got that one cleared up.

All this got me super sensitive to adverts today.  This afternoon I saw one on TV for a product to cure Acne, Proactive.  The advert featured Katy Perry, singer of I Kissed A Girl, who declared, amongst other things, "I just rubbed it in and all my little bumps flattened out".  I had one of those Eureka moments!  Supposing I just got some of that.  It's on special right now and quite frankly if it makes bumps flatten out then I'm in!  Two Gallons should do the trick...goodbye bumpy thighs, big belly and boobies!  Gotta be cheaper than surgery!

Oh and the Wedding Fair thing...the back page featured an advert with the headline "An Affair to Remember".  Well that's ok then, they covered all the bases!