soeurs du jour

Happy happy happy

Here I am,  a very happy  blogger.   

We retired the old tired laptop last night and I headed out and purchased an Imac.   

I am so happy.   I was up and running about 9 minutes from door to desk. This afternoon I transferred all my music and photos.   And then I started to play.  And I'm still playing.  And I still haven't exercised today.  I better go do that.  (8 week challenge update:   down 10 pounds and our team is 5th out of 36 - we start week four tomorrow.)

This morning was my first photography class.  Learn to Use your Digital Camera.   I learned some things but I am going to have to get used to being in a classroom situation.   It is a fairly large class with seventeen people and each of us with a different camera.  Shortly into the class I started to make notes in shorthand (secret notes so no one could read them) about the people around me.   I think I'm going to enjoy observing the other students as much as learning about my camera.  

There's the hijacker.  You know her.  She's the wannabe professional photographer who arrived late and announced that she had to leave early because she had to shoot a wedding.  She spent the entire class asking questions completely unrelated to the lesson, it got to the point where she had hijacked the class so badly it felt like she was receiving a private tutorial.   Finally another student spoke up and said that perhaps we were off topic.   I hope the instructor gets a grip on her next week. 

Then there was Gear Gal.  Oh my.  She arrived immediately after I did, staggering in loaded with bags.  Gear Gal decided to sit beside me.  She started to unpack.   Three point and shoot cameras with their manuals, her laptop, a cellphone, a mouse, two or three battery chargers, a digital recorder, a binder and three pens.    Poor Gear Gal, I don't think she is really there to learn how to use her camera, she kept asking "What kind of a camera should I buy next?"  I think she's a shopper.

And in the back corner, the chitty chatters.   The girls that would be margie and I if we were in the same class.   The ones in the back corner talking to each other.

It was fun.  

Have a great Sunday.

xo

Kath

the shopping

life at the paris road antiques seemed so idyllic.  there was a sweet house with a canadian lanai constructed of huge timbers, with an outdoor wood stove, grape vines, bird houses, adirondack chairs and, of course, a hot tub.  michelle has an antique store in her half of the huge outbuilding, and her husband, he has a garage filled with vintage tools, signs and, of course, his motorcycle. they have devoted thirteen years to this adorable homestead. they were so nice to us, even letting charley run off leash on their property.

this ceiling fixture was purchased as a birthday gift for A. 

it will hang in the bedroom at the cottage.

i was sorry that i didn't look closer at this chair with the mexican motif.  it

would have looked terrific in the cottage bathroom next to our mexican sink.

i didn't see the design until i loaded the photos onto my laptop.

Margie

I didn't buy anything, but there were things I wanted.
These red canisters would look great in my kitchen.

I could imagine bread dough rising in these bowls.

 

Even though we're not drinking coffee right now,
 I could picture this tucked into the corner of our kitchen.

 

We couldn't have stumbled upon a more perfect place to poke around,
take photos and find some treasures.
Kath

Vintage Typewriter Ribbon Tins

 

Back in the spring I shared that I have a love for vintage typewriters.  I suppose it's because I type all day and then some more when I come home at night. 

Typewriter ribbons used to be made of cloth and had black ink on the top and red on the bottom.   Do you remember?   I do, but I don't remember these gorgeous tins that the ribbons used to come in.  The one on the left I ordered from this great Etsy shop. 

The blue one was a gift.  That I paid for.   I was at one of the antique shops up the road and when I walked through the door, the lady asked me where my husband was.  She didn't even say hello and she seemed a bit anxious.   I said he was at work.  Then she got quite flustered and obviously didn't know what to do.  She blurted out, "He never picked up the tin!".    She immediately clapped her hand over her mouth.  I laughed and said, "Not to worry, how much is the tin?"  She said, "$5.00".  I asked to see it and paid her for it.   BB was in there one day, but without his wallet, he asked her to put it away and had been unable to make it back to pick it up. 

So now I have two in my collection. Is two a collection?  Or just a pair?  Oh well, it's fun to find something new to collect that doesn't break the bank and that you can still find.   Look at these. Gorgeous aren't they?

Have a great weekend.  I plan to.  It's supposed to be cool and rainy, maybe I'll spend some time in the antique stores and see if I can add to my collection.

Kath

*and the photo?  My very first with the macro lens, without  the tripod, excuse the blurriness, but no time to reshoot for you tonight, I'm off to watch the debate.  Canadian or American you ask? American of course!

. xo!

Where d'ya get those eyes?

I have been looking for a very long time for a good mascara. 

I started the process by doing what I usually do when I need to make a change, I looked carefully at all the women I spoke to and eventually asked the one with the most beautiful lashes what kind of mascara she uses.  Cover Girl Professional, so I tried that and even the waterproof leaves me with smudges under my eyes  after a few hours. 

So then I started buying and  I bought the tried and true, everybody swears by it, Maybelline in the pink and green tube and it smudges.  

Then a few others, in flashy lime green tubes, orange tubes, sleek black tubes.  I still look like a racoon by lunch time.  

Once upon a time, Margie found this little gem for our makeup bags, but I've run out and haven't found them since.

I've talked to lots of women and the consensus seems to be Clinique Mascara.  Even those who don't use it talked fondly of having had a sample and loving it. 

So my friends, help me out ... what kind of mascara should I try next?  And while we're at it, what kind of eye makeup remover do you use?

Oh and at this point, I think I'm not afraid to move towards investing more money in a tube of mascara because I've spent a lot of money trying ones that don't work.

You guys are the best!  xo 

 Kath

 

 

 

this rare notebook

several months ago A. went to beijing to attend a three week conference on climate change.  we sent him well versed on what to buy, which knock off jeans, those knock off running shoes, and of course, my new purses.  now A. is a terrific couch shopper, prop him up with that little white macbook and he can buy you filters for the hot tub, speakers for the Ipod, and he can even arrange to have new snorkeling equipment waiting at the holiday hotel, but running around beijing and shopping in chinese for me and the kids, not so good.  we had a fairly steady email conversation going on about sizes, colours, should i get this one or that one?    

then one day he sent me an email telling me that he had the most wonderful notebook for me, that i was going to love it.  now it’s true, i love a good pile of office supplies.  he attends many conferences and he will often email me that he has a great pen, or pencil, or notebook.  but this time the words he used had me on shpilkas, this rare notebook is just for you, he said.  i knew this was going to be something special. And so it was.

this rare notebook is just for you.  you will feel writing with it all the time.  twenty-five skinny pages of rather thin, not so terrific quality paper, an awful lilac colour, and the most wonderful words on the cover.  i mean really, have you ever run into a notebook this comfortable?  the problem of course, is what could I ever possibly write in this notebook.  i don’t think i will ever be able to use it.  it is too rare, too comfortable and although i will feel writing with it all the time, i know that it is only for looking, not for writing.  lately i am thinking about finishing my latest moleskin and buying one of these linkable notebooks

i am disappointed, this guy www.blackcover.net

he is obsessed with black covers, and didn't want to review my rare notebook, no black cover.    

Floating Shift - Vintage Typewriter Keys

I type for a living, I'm a secretary in a law office.   I come home from work and I often find myself back at the keyboard, laptop as entertainment.  I type fast, the last time I did a typing test my numbers were good, over 100 wpm with 99% accuracy.   I doubt that I can type that fast any more, my accuracy is now very poor, auto-correct has made me sloppy, but I think I'm still pretty fast.

At my office there are still a few typewriters kicking around.    Recently a new girl was hired.  She's young, younger than some of my sister's children.  Someone had told her to fill in part of a form using the typewriter, she had no idea how to use it.  I was a little bit horrified.  How could you not know?  Oh, right, you were born years after I started working, working with an IBM electric.  That's why I was such an accurate typist, we had to use correcting tape and sometimes when things were dire you would use a razor blade to scrape the ink off the page so you could type-over. 

Our Dad had an old manual typewriter in his office in our basement, I used to love banging away on it, the red and black ribbon was faded but it was fun to "play office", using his rubber stamps, punching away on the adding machine.   I took the "qwerty" photo at an antique store last summer, it reminded me of that typewriter. 

When you enjoy something, don't you love finding things that enhance your enjoyment, especially when you can combine more than one thing that makes you happy?

My point? I love to read, I take stacks of books out of the library and often have more than one on the go at a time.  I also love book marks.  And now, I've discovered I love the look and memory of old typewriters.

Last summer, I found this bookmark:

I love the feel of the old key. The "F" in floating is beautiful.  I had to do some research to discover what floating shift meant, it's not that important, it was just another way of creating upper case letters.

 Sometimes when I look at it, I misread it and see the words floating shit.  Which can also be meaningful some days!

Etsy and Ebay are great places to start looking for some crafty items.   For a more elegant choice, check out  Tokens & Coins.

I've just bought some cute things at Etsy.   Both typewriter related .... I'll show you when I get them.