soeurs du jour

macro monday

this leaf was hanging by a thread in the forest.  literally.

 

visit lisa for more macro shots.

xo margie

step up

i. do. not. have. time. to. blog. 

i have kids going out the front door, the back door 

and the side door all at once.  

i have kids who have left absolutely everything, 

including the haircut and the drivers license renewal, 

to the very last minute. 

i am drowning in a sea of 

last minute shopping, 

last lunches, 

last dinners, 

last shifts at work, 

last meltdowns, 

last freak-outs, 

last vodka shots, 

last sibling fights, 

last loads of laundry and 

last special moments.  

if i come out the other end alive, shout out to me.

right now, i am stepping up.

i'm getting this sh*t done.

and then, i am having a drink.

xo margie

I love this post so much that I'm leaving it up for another day.

Have fun at University kids, margie, hang in there!!

xo

Kath

Sunday in the Park with George

Ah yes, my dahling, last evening, on a whim, we dashed off to the theatre to see Sunday in the Park with George.  

Do you know it? Stephen Sondheim wrote about the play, "I care a lot about art and the artist ... The major thing I wanted to do in the show was to enable anyone who is not an artist to understand what hard work art is."   

This musical swept me away and is now my new favourite!

In the Director's Notes in the program, Alisa Palmer writes, 

"It's about the amazing things that can happen when we pause in our work - take a breath, a sideways glance - and life suddenly appears as a blank canvas, teeming with possibilities.  It's also about the hard emotional work that goes into making ourselves available to these moments ... When we stop working, when we lay down our familiar tools of survival the impossible can happen.  In this moment of creative inspiration we can meet our greatest source of power: ourselves.  Knowing ourselves is perhaps the hardest work of art."

These words, read quickly before the lights went down, resonated deep inside of me. As soon as we arrived back home, I read them again and again.  The play was wonderful, but the words in the program are going to stay with me for a long time.   Thank you Alisa.

xo

Kath

love lemonade

this post isn't really about lemonade.

do you know that saying

"if life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

think about the people in your life; your friends, your family, your co-workers, and i bet you know at least one person who makes the best of things, almost always. i bet that person has a sunny, happy disposition just like this sunny lemon on a sunny day.

i envy those people who can live their lives with a positive attitude. you know the ones, they always see the half full glass of water, never the half empty one. i try to remind myself all the time that the lemonade maker is the lucky one.  they are never left holding a bag of lemons, ever and they always seem to have a smile on their faces as they pour you an ice cold glass of lemonade.

on this love thursday, show some love.

make lemonade for the people you love.

xo margie

In case of emergency: Pig-light

What an entirely unusual summer this has been.  So many ferocious storms.   I was shocked to see margie's pictures from yesterday.  When we talked that night I could hear the rain and wind over the phone.  I wasn't nervous because I knew she wasn't afraid and can handle herself in a storm, I was scared for Charley but convinced she was under the cottage, gone to ground like you're supposed to, sometimes dogs know best.

Are you prepared for an emergency?

We lost power as well and I found myself in the basement unprepared.   I remembered that I had a little flashlight on my desk. 

He's a silly little pig, smaller than my thumb.  His little pig nose lights up and he oinks every few seconds.   But he did his job.  He got me upstairs to another makeshift flashlight, my ipod.   I used the backlight on my Ipod screen to light my way to the candles & real flashlight.  And then the power flicked back on and my emergency was over.

I wonder if I should pay more attention to these things and assemble an emergency kit.  But would it be where I am when the lights go out?  Maybe I'll just carry my little pig in my pocket, just in case!

Today I'm remembering my Chester dog, August 26 was his birthday.  I guess he would have been 15 by now.   I still miss the silly boy.  He would have been frightened to death of the pig-light.

xo

Kath

MY summer vacation

since the soeur set the tone the other day with her summer vacation post, i feel obliged to fill you in on my week alone at the cottage.  you all know that our cottage is on an island up in the haliburton highlands, canadian cottage country at its best.  i had a wonderful week, alone, eating scrambled eggs, toasted tomato sandwiches, and cookies.  no one to cook for, just charley and me.  

i made really really good cookies.  andy and the kids were scheduled to arrive on friday, and so thursday afternoon i hit the kitchen hard.  potato salad, muffins, chicken salad.

i noticed a little rain on the kitchen window.

odd, because it had been sunny and nice.

i wasn't concerned, i have no trouble amusing myself.

i had great books, my moleskin journals, crosswords, music.

and then the skies opened up, and all hell broke loose.

lightning bounced off the lake, the wind howled, the rain poured.

charley was scared to death and ran away.  i was on the my iphone with kath who kept insisting that i stay inside and not go looking for charley.  at 9:30 p.m., i lost power.

i did go looking for charley but this storm was so severe that i quickly headed back into the cottage.  my neighbour pat and her daughter showed up and thank goodness charley arrived with them. eventually i climbed into bed, with the candles and my own flashlight and read my book. camp style. the howling wind was something else.

the next day, still no power, charley and i took a walk through the woods behind the cottage.

dozens of trees lay on the ground.  we had been hit by a tornado.

that is our hydro line holding up a tree.  

before long, help arrived.  the hydro helicopters,

 searching for broken power lines.

i am pretty proud of myself.  i held it together not bad, i wasn't scared. well, scared when charley was missing, that's true, and i was scared for my elusive moose.  his hoof marks were helter skelter all over the island.  it must be so terrifying for all the animals in the forest when something like this happens.  trees crashing down around them.

poor things.

i'm back home now, getting kids ready for university.

i miss the island already.

xo margie

Minor Macro Monday

It's a minor irritant, small in the scheme of things I know, 
 but this one really bugs me.

A perfectly good pencil with a broken eraser.

Got any minor irritants you'd like to blow out of proportion and show us up close?  Macro Monday is hosted by Ms. L. Chaos.

xo

Kath

Slept In!

Wow it's 10:00 and I just woke up.   The sad part is I went to bed at 9:30 last night.  Once again, I've got a cold.  One weekend away from my routine and my immune system goes all poopy on me.   Oh well, it is what it is.

Today is the "office picnic".  I've never gone before and I promised that I would go this year.  But I'm blowing it off.  It rained six times yesterday and today doesn't look like it's going to be much better.  I don't think I need to get rained on.    

Robin asked yesterday what I'm reading.    I have such a stack of books.  Recently I finished Morningside Heights by Cheryl Mendelsohn which I recommend highly.  Still Alice which margie reviewed a while back and yesterday I finished "Revolutionary Road". I loved it.   Margie suggested books by Elizabeth Berg and Penelope Lively so I have those at the ready.  And always, a stack of cook books, Anna & Michael Olson Cook at Home, Real Simple and South Beach Summer Cookbook. 

We're back to clean eating, no wheat, cow's milk, sugar, alcohol or coffee. It's a perfect time of year to eat this way, filling half my plate with vegetables is only a challenge because I can't decide which ones to choose from.  My fridge is brimming with farmer's market bounty and I'm in heaven.

This yellow rose is for Granny, who is now reading our blog daily, receiving and sending email and able to chat on messenger.   Yellow roses are her favourite and she deserves a big bouquet of them for learning how to use a computer and navigate the internet.  

xo

Kath

Quiet Saturday

Last week I woke up and this was what I saw.

This week I'm looking at this through my front window.

and this through my back

Not bad, just different, right?

We didn't make the bottle tree.   There's just not enough time when we're together.   I would love for a fairy godmother to grant a wish of long visit with margie so that we can do some of the things we dream about. 12 and 48 hour visits are just not cutting it. 

Margie did make the muffins, I copied the recipe for us, although the photos are on her camera.   This is one of those keeper recipes.

Overnight Carrot Muffins

2 c. all purpose flour
1 c rolled oats
1 c packed light brown sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 c golden raisins
2 eggs
1  c buttermilk
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1 c packed shredded carrots

In a large bowl, stir together the flour oats, brown sugar, baking soda, salt and allspice.  Add the raisins and toss to coat with the flour mixture & stir until just blended; mix wet ingredients in another bowl and then wet into dry, you know the drill; do not overmix. Cover tightly and refrigerate overnight or for up to 2 days.   Do the muffin tin thing, grease well or use muffin papers. Bake at 375 for 25 minutes.

Delicious I tell you!  Make them today and you can have fresh baked muffins with your coffee tomorrow morning.

I'm going to go drink my own coffee now and have a slice of rye toast with almond butter while I read a chapter in my book.  Then I shall start the Saturday putter, a little of this and a little of that, a trip to the farmer's market and the health food store are in order.  I will do laundry and hang it to dry on the line.    I love doing laundry in the summer.   I'm going to squeeze every minute of this weekend and make it last.  

Happy Quiet Saturday.

xo
Kath

little daddy longlegs

i have stayed up at the lake by myself.  i think it is the first time i have been truly alone for longer than a day or so in the last 35 years.  imagine.  of course i am not really alone.

i have my charley.  

and i have my daddy longlegs.

he is everywhere i go.

  i first saw him a few weeks ago hanging under a fungus.

then i saw him yesterday on another fungus on the other side of the island.

he was in the boat.

Little Daddy Longlegs played in the sun,

Climbing up the front steps just for fun.

One leg, two legs, three legs, four,

Eight legs later he was at my door.

last night i was lying in bed reading and there he was.

sitting on the bed beside me.

xo margie