soeurs du jour

a dead mouse and dial up

that's what was waiting for us at the cottage. one dead mouse and dial up.  i want all my friends to read this post twice, no, three times would be better.  it took 10 minutes, 57 seconds to load the typepad page.  aghhhhhhhhhhhhh. that poor mouse probably died of old age waiting for the internet.   

we worked like dogs yesterday and most of today. opening weekend is a work weekend. the tarps that protect the yet to be completed sunporch needed to be taken down, dead leaves were swept, chairs were moved to the dock, the hot tub is up and waiting to be filled, a lake trout is being cleaned as we speak, crisp, clean sheets are on all the beds, the floors are washed, the fire is burning, the dead mouse is buried and hopefully his surviving family and friends have scattered.  

hurry up and get here. 

honk when you get to the landing 

and we will come over and pick you up.  

kath, one hour and twelve minutes later, 

could you upload a cottage photo for me?

please. sister.

xo margie

I got nothin'

It's Friday night.  I realized it's my turn to post and I got nothin'!  I have to run, go to bed and get to sleep because Mom has 6 garage sales, one estate sale and a garden sale circled in the local paper.   She just went to bed and said, "I'll see you at 8:00!"

But what am I gonna do?  I'm going to get some rest and see her at 8:00.   It's her last weekend visiting us, she goes home on Monday, so she can choose to do whatever the heck she wants and I'll be at the ready.

Forgive me, I'll be back in form next week with photos and stories

 but for now, my Mother is in charge.  

Kath, out.

xo

Happy Saturday

island hopping

we are going to the lake this morning.  unless you are up early, early we will have already left.  the car was packed last night, the new lamp granny bought us, the odds and sods that i have picked up over the winter, the new bedding granny bought us, the staples like sugar and spice, a book or two, our new vinyl records, and everything else.  

ahem, kath, did you notice granny bought us things for the cottage, oh yeah, i forgot, she planted your garden!!!  i would trade anything for a gardener!!!

and it's raining.  cats and charleys.

our cottage is on an island and we must cross by boat.

nah, that's not our boat.

nope, that's not our boat either.

ah, here we go.

this is our boat. 

the yellow straps, our homemade wakeboard tower. building that thing was a labour of love by the children.

a wakeboard tower runs around $750 and in fact our boat is too old to handle a new one.  this one cost around $125 and lots of blood, sweat and tears.  meanwhile, some RICH people on the lake copied it!!  so there you go.

if you are wondering why we need it, 

it gives you height for your tricks..

 

meanwhile, 

how wet do you think i will be by the time i make it to the island?  

the word you are searching for, soakers.

we will be soakers.

xo margie

Love Your Mother Thursday

I got home from work and looked at my front garden with surprise.   There they were, all the impatiens that had been patiently waiting in flats to be planted, already in the garden.

Our mother had planted the whole garden.

Remember, she's 90.  

She loves life, she loves us, she loves gardening, 

she loves to help. 

 We love her.

She took her pay though, there was but one small stem of the flower she loves 

above all left outside, the rest are in a vase beside her bed.

And then she gave me SH*T for posting that picture of her 

yesterday in my 365 album!   

"You take that down right now and I mean it." 

 She did not find it to be a flattering portrait.

I didn't take it down, but I did put up a grumpy face sign in it's place!

I'm probably still in trouble, 

but I know she loves me anyway.

Happy Love Thursday

xo

Kath

Share your Love Thursday with links over at Chookooloonks.

themes

kath wrote about going to the fair with granny. it made me think of theme parks and from there my wandering mind ended up thinking about my own themes.

is there a theme to your photography? when you sift through your photo library do you see a theme?  of course we have our photos of the children in our lives and the family event photos.  i am assuming that we still use our cameras to document our own lives!!  but is there one thing, or perhaps many, that tug at you, begging for a photo?

and if there is, why do you think that is?  

we love a little road trip and 

what's a road trip if it doesn't take your out of the city?

and out of the city is the country.  and in the country, the barns.

i have my photos of the babies and charley, i have the cottage and the island, densely wooded and populated by a variety of mushrooms just begging to be photographed. i think we all love a flower photo.  apparently i do love a barn as well.

what theme is lurking amongst your photos?  

xo margie

Fair Play

I was struck by margie's comment about colour yesterday.  She's right, the colours on her macro photos just popped. (haha first I typed pooped but then I fixed it because I don't want to be getting in trouble with the sistah ... I already dissed her coffee shop photo by telling her I liked David's better!).

A couple of weekends ago, Mom and I walked through our village's spring fair. If you want colour, a mid-way is the place to be, even on a grey rainy day.

 

Aren't they fun?  Fun and the same, exactly the same year after year after year!   One of the joys of living in a small town is predictability and a lot of ugly orange gorillas.

xo

Kath

macro monday

sometimes i think macro is my favourite.  

i think it is the colours. 

all the bees looks like tom hanks to me now.

more macro monday over by lisa.

xo margie

Lazy! Not!

We spotted this license plate a few years ago, it made me laugh, there were my initials, "Lazy KS".    But not today.  Nope.   I worked like crazy.

Mom and I went to the nursery early.  So did everyone else.

There weren't even any carts or trollies, I had to follow someone to their car to snag one.   We bought some beautiful plants and worked outside all day.

There was no lying on our backs looking at the clouds.

Now the sun is setting, I'm going to have an ice cream cone, a shower and go to bed.  In that order.

I'm beat.

Have a lazy Sunday.

xo

Kath

road trip

thursday was a road trip day for me.  i packed up my camera bag 

and headed to montreal to visit the babies.  

it would be unforgivable to show up 

without fresh bread from our bakery.

danny was in his usual good humour, ready for anything.  

he has a killer smile, 

or at least he will when his teeth come in.

david and i went on a photo walk together.  

just the two of us.

at the start of our walk we took photos of each other.

we took photos of the park, of grafitti, of signs.  

we ended up at a coffee shop at the end of his street.  

we ordered a milkshake to share, i don't know about you

but i had completely forgotten 

how SWEET a vanilla milkshake is!! 

 whoa, i couldn't finish my half.

david had fun taking photos inside the coffee shop.  

we took the same shot.

here is mine.

here is david's.

when he is all grown up and a famous photographer, 

imagine how thrilling it will be for him to tell his story, 

that he started taking photos 

with his grandmother at the age of three.  

have a nice weekend!!

xo margie

Absenteeism

I have been absent from the interweb lately.   Mom has been here a week and honestly I don't know where the time has gone.  We still haven't had a chance to sit down with the computer and see how she feels, the weather has been delightful so we've either been on the go or enjoying the great outdoors.   Good thing she's here for another ten days.

We sit in the back garden when I get home from work, share the events of our day and have a glass of wine.   The robins are busy and an endless source of entertainment.  This guy had just finished a meal of a yummy "W".  Yuck.  

I've ordered one of those big bags of mulch that they deliver to your driveway and foresee a busy weekend of making the gardens beautiful.  

The giant allium are up and are serving as my models as I practice depth of field. Good thing I'm shooting in raw because as I try to figure out how to set the camera I'm ending up with some really fantastic over and under exposures.  Lightroom fixed this one up for me.  I'm still really confused by the terminology, shallow and deep. Which is which?   I'm thinking this one is deep along with the depths of my confusion.

The more I'm learning the fewer good pictures I'm taking.  I know it means I'm taking things to  a new level, but it is frustrating.  

I may have taken a good photo to add to my assignment of a small object close up and off centre.   What do you think?  I'm accepting critique.   

How I wish I had the summer off to garden and explore photography.   The lotto was $49,000,000 last night but we didn't win.  

We may not have won the lottery but I was a winner this week.  Our office is raising money for cancer research.  We had a "bottle bonanza" fundraiser. People donated bottles of wine and they sold tickets.  The first ticket drawn got 50% of the wine, second 30% and third prize was the rest.   I won third prize and came home with five bottles of wine!

Over $300.00 was raised and it was great fun.

Oh, and weren't you surprised by the American Idol result?  Mom & I both yelled out loud.   

So that was the week, have a great Friday and a very nice weekend.  I'll see you Sunday morning if my hands aren't too stiff from mulching around.

xo

Kath

p.s Margie I miss you, we haven't talked all week!  Can you come visit in June?