soeurs du jour

Spread the Love Thursday

On Sunday we called Barry's sister and invited ourselves for dinner Monday night.   That's the best thing about family, "Hello, we're coming!"   We hadn't seen B&G in a little while and a visit was in order.    It felt like the first evening of summer, we sat in their new gazebo and dined outside.  

As always the food was amazing.  I've linked here to the appetizer.  Roasted Fig, Raddichio & Pine Nut cocktail.   Make it the next time you have guests, or even just for yourself.  It was wonderful.

At some point in the evening, B brought out her camera and said, "I have a picture to show you! It's like one of your Love Thursday photos".   Once I saw it, I asked her to send it to me.

B found this heart in her own back garden and this is her first contribution to Love Thursday.

  We warned her that once she starts, she won't be able to stop.

 It is one of those things that you think about all week long!    

So thanks for the photo and the recipe, B!

HLT everyone!

(Love Thursday is hosted by the new-puppy lovin' Mom, Karen over at Chookooloonks.)

xo

Kath

all in a day

sometimes i accomplish nothing.  sometimes i don't look at the internet.

and so i missed the pet parade co-hosted by elk.

here's my charley story.

my new cottage juice glasses.  25 cents each.

the baby chair someone was asking about.

vintage meets apple.  

music rules.

university is over and youngest son is home. 

laundry is jammin up my schedule.

my daughter, after seeing youngest son's dorm room, 

advised "wash everything."

shout out to sarah and dave 

for moving him from his dorm to next year's house.

special requests are being accepted, 

meatballs are simmering.

the eating is CONSTANT.  

de mommy is happy, 

for now.

xo margie

chairs chairs everywheres

I have a new obsession, a subject obsession, subsession?  obsessject? object?  No, that won't work, object is already taken, but I am very busy lately taking pictures of chairs.  I had an idea that I might like to do a series of photos to print and hang in our bathroom.  You know, a place that you sit down, but not on a chair!

 

This lovely turquoise wicker rocker would certainly look great on Mabel's porch, of course the funny part of that statement is that my middle name is Mabel and maybe it would look good on my porch too, if only I had a porch.

Then there's the set of three chairs that I've developed in a dark and weird kind of way.

I loved this red chair hanging from a sturdy peg.

Which I antiqued using Lightroom.

But I think these two were my favourite, because it reminded me of our header, and my sister, who would never sit in such an uncomfortable chair for very long especially beside a wagon wheel posing as a gate in front of an antique store, but I imagined that if we had them around a kitchen table at a cottage or on a screened in porch with a pot of coffee or bottle of wine to drink that they would be quite comfortable while we sat and talked and laughed together.

xo

Kath

closing in on a macro monday

i love macro monday, thank you lisa,

 because everything is a subject.  

so i headed out to the kitchen to take some shots.  

woo hoo.  

oh oh.

look at the creepy white dusty chemically stuff on these tomatoes.

and what about these strawberries?

so to start monday off on the right foot, here's my advice to you kids:

next time you want to pop one of these puppies in your mouth

as you're putting away the groceries, don't.

wash it first.

that white stuff could be the chemical 

that's making it hard for us to lose that extra ten pounds.

xo margie

To the Dump

Today was one of those good days.   I woke up early and talked to margie on the phone for a bit and then went back to bed and slept.  After my extra nap, restful and indulgent, we had errands to run and I headed out to the car first.   I couldn't believe my eyes when I stepped out the back door and looked at our maple tree.   I swear, these were not visible yesterday and they don't even look like maple leaves.   I got so excited.   Overnight, everything had changed, my daffodils were blooming and my tulips have buds, ready to burst open.

We went to the dump to finally discard the old carpeting.  The dump is a really rusty place.

 

I discovered a weird tree with a combo of old and new.

Wow.  It's been really windy all day.   There's a terrible thunderstorm happening right now that has just blown in and the lights just flickered. 

I didn't lose all of my post because I'm learning to save as I go but I think I better sign off.

I'll gather up some candles and a flashlight and curl up with a blanket in the living room to watch the show.   Maybe I'll grab one of my photography books and read about shooting lightning.

see ya!

xo Kath

with hope

 

we are thrilled to hear that the shutter sisters 

picture hope dream assignment has won the $50,000.00 grand prize.  

"Shutter Sisters, take this win straight into your heart, because it is yours. The way you find life and hope and beauty and truth through that lens every day matters--every bit as much as the stories we will find from women around the world who love and live the way you do--with all their hearts, one tiny incredible moment at a time."

Sometimes it seems the only news is the bad news, the sad news and the scary news.   To hear this happy news of a prize well deserved and hard earned should give us all a little more hope in our hearts and minds.  What an amazing bunch we all are.

congratulations!

have a great weekend.  

margie and kath

On pets ....

Our pets, we sure love them don't we?

Chester was our dog of a lifetime.  The best boy ever and he was spoiled. He had a special bed in our room, one in the tv room and one that covered the entire back seat of the car so that he had ample room while travelling in style.  He had winter boots straight from the Yukon, the kind sled dogs wear.   I used to make his dog food for him, no, not just kibble into a bowl, I made it from scratch.  His bowl was in the shape of a crown. Charley eats out of it when she comes to stay now.  

Our Chester was very talented and could, when he was young, climb the ladder of the toddler play structure at the park.  He could be, I shouldn't speak ill of my boy, but truthfully he could be dumb as a hammer too.  He couldn't catch and he couldn't fetch.  But we loved him.  Oh how we loved him.   From time to time we talk about getting another dog, but it's hard, because he was so special to us and I worry that our hearts might not love another as much as we loved that hairy spoiled goofball.

I just realized this is one of those posts where you might be getting suspicious and starting to say to yourself, "Oh I bet she's getting another dog."  And you're getting all excited.  

No, no that's not it.  I am not saying never again, because we have this feeling that someday when we least expect it our next dog is going to find us.   But not just yet.  

In the meantime, I have to remember that I do have another pet.  And I say "I", because this is not a family pet.  Whenever I mention this particular pet to Barry he says, "What?  We have a fish?" or "Fish, for dinner? Sure."  It drives me crazy because he's pulling my leg but there's a ring of truth, he's really not that attached to the fish.   And I fear, I'm not really that attached to him either.

Poor fish.   He is nameless.  

This fish has one wish.

What does fish wish for, you ask?

A name?  No.

He wishes for visitors because lately the only time I ever clean his bowl 

is when we're expecting company.   

So, he'd love you to visit.  Because, you know, it's time ....

xo

Kath

love thursday

 

i am pinch hitting for kath today.  she is busy with other things.

in our daily phone call yesterday we were complaining to each other.

whining, actually, and it was unnecessary.

we started to talk about some of the people we know 

who are really having a hard time these days.

we stopped and both said, together, 

we should not be complaining.

and it's true. 

 

remember, often things can be much worse.

so find a way today, to put on a smile.  it will help.

kath's eyes.  don't you love how they smile?

flowers for you.

love thursday, hosted by karen

and love to all of you.

xo margie

housekeeping

i have a little blog housekeeping to do today.

i have had these little houses since i was a little girl.  

originally it was a whole town of wooden 

structures, trees, barns, all kinds of things.  

these three houses are all i have left.

this has been a pretty good month for me, so far.  pooh pooh.

i won droplets from gabrielle kai photography.  

i have had it framed and it has taken a place of honour in my home.

kath and i have been lucky in the giveaway department.

kath won a bag load of great stuff from tangobaby several months ago.

this weekend the two of us were laughing it up over the phone, 

remember we live long distance, 

making fun of the adorable babies with their mr. potato head glasses,

and i said, ha, i am gonna give away a mr. potato head.

our FIRST giveaway.

now we're not blog slouches, me and the sis.  we have our readers.  hundreds of em.

two people, yes two people, entered the contest and 

only one person voted for danny as the trouble maker.

cindy i am sorry to have to tell you, you've lost. by one entry.

se'lah, woo hoo.

next time...well let's just say we are saving up 

and we are gonna give away something big,

like a pair of llamas.

because obviously you already have mr. potato heads, 

except for poor cindy.

remember to celebrate earth day in a friendly way.

xo margie

Match Game

There's a little thing that goes on here at Soeurs du Jour.   It started quite by accident and then we noticed what was happening.  We didn't even talk about it for a long time, we were just doing it.   

Have you noticed it?

We each have our 365 photo albums up there on the right.  We usually post a picture a day.  

At some point we started matching the other's photo.   If I put up a dog, Margie would put up a dog. If she put up a photo of a cow, I would find a photo of a cow or farm animal and post it. Sometimes it's just the feel or colour of the photo, but now that we've noticed what we're doing, we do it deliberately.    It can be a real challenge but it's a great exercise that forces us to go through our photo libraries and find a good photo that fits.  Sometimes I have to go take a photo to match because I don't have one.  Margie & Kath playing Match Game.

Speaking of photo libraries, how do you organize your photos?   Mine are all in Iphoto and simply loaded by date.  I can put my cursor on a picture fairly quickly just by scrolling through, I have a pretty good visual memory and know approximately where a certain photo is, but it's not really that good a system as the number of photos grows I find it is taking me longer and longer.  

I just realized that in a post about photos I don't have a photo for today but, wait, let me scroll through all my photos and find one for you.  

Okay, here:

I drive past this sign every day.  It just makes me laugh.  What the heck?  

Please interpret this for me.

Have a great day

xo

Kath