Tuesday, April 28, 2009

15 Mins Break, or should I say 8 Mins?

From Hollysarah, of course :)

8 Things I Am Looking Forward To:
-Going to Italy!!
-Seeing Anna this summer
-Seeing Heather this summer
-Painting (and finishing) the kitchen
-Warm weather!
-Finishing my blanket
-Watching LOST this week :)
-Wearing dresses

8 Things I Did Yesterday:
-Worked
-Went to the Mongolie Grill for lunch
-Ate Reese's Pieces
-Bought a 1950s sideboard from someone off Kijiji!
-Cleaned said sideboard
-Kissed Dan
-Received my journaling date tags from Etsy; marveled at how tiny they were!
-Went to bed early (before 10!)

8 Things I Wish I Could do:
-Sew
-Knit
-Speak Italian, German, Gaelic, Croatian...and so on
-Take chances
-Get pregnant
-Take art and/or photography classes
-Apply make-up and do my hair
-Cook

8 Shows I Watch:
-LOST!!!!!!!!!!
*The rest will be random shows that I watch on the computer from time to time...
-Sex and the City
-The Sopranos
-South Park (yeah, I know, eww)
-30 Rock
-The Office
-Trailer Park Boys
-Clone High

8 Favorite Fruits:
-Clementines
-Apples (currently Fuji)
-Cranberries (dried)
-Pineapples
-Pomegranates
-Pears
-Grapes
-eek, I can't think of another!

8 Places I’d Like to Travel To:
-Italy (soon!)
-Scotland
-Ireland
-Croatia (soon!)
-Chile
-New Zealand
-Greece
-Somewhere tropical in the South Pacific

8 Places I’ve Lived:
-Sussex, NB, CANADA
-Sackville, NB, CANADA
-Fredericton, NB, CANADA
-Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, SPAIN
-Halifax, NS, CANADA
*That's it, I hope to move back to Sussex, and that'll be it!


Real post coming soooon :)
Happy Wednesday, I'm heading out into the sun!

Friday, April 24, 2009

The most anticipated weekend of the year...



...because it's finally, finally going to be warm!! Like, really warm, summer temperatures even!! I can't wait, I have been patiently waiting for the warm weather to come our way, and so far we have only been teased with little semi-warm, semi-sunny days that were decent if you wore a sweater and stayed out of the wind, but they are calling for gorgeous days all weekend and I can't wait! No more socks on the pavement for me!!

I'm hoping this weekend will be filled with painting my toenails, wearing a cute summer top/dress I got at VV on Monday, planting some sweet basil and chives, hanging my clothes out on the clothesline to dry, BBQ-ing and making potato salad, drinking an iced coffee or two, sitting in the sun while reading, maybe (hopefully) getting a start on a tan, walking to the corner store to get Slushies with Dan and going for a drive along the coast to take some pics. Does that sound perfect? I think it does.

I have been ignoring my little blog lately and I feel bad, I really enjoy blogging but at the moment, there's not a whole lot to talk about! Life is just cruising along the way it does, nothing too exciting going on I must say. I've been scrapping a little, mostly just working on getting the first batch of 365s pics done for my mini. I'm up to Day 100, so I still have about 260 days (but only about another 120 shots) left to print and do. It's ending up being quite thick, I think I'm going to have to go out and buy some extra large bookrings, these little ones just won't do! I love how it's coming out so far, even the bare bones without any embellishments. For now it's just paper and pics, but I plan on adding some words and embellishments once the pages are created. Here's a little pic of how it looks.



I also had some fun the other night attempting to create my own transparent overlays, à la Hambly. I just took a sheet of transparency, my Sharpie and some ruled paper and made a grid of dots. It worked out ok, but I really enjoyed the idea of making my own, so I'll definitely be making more and using them on my pages and in this mini. Although I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to resist buying some yummy sheets for much longer.


Here's my latest card for the 52Q. It's so negative, but I decided to include it anyway because that was what popped into my head when I read the question "what is the truth?". I want the answers to these questions to be honest, even if they don't always paint me in the greatest light. Keepin' it real, yo!

So I've decided that my biggest resolution for this summer will be to WEAR MORE DRESSES. I love the look of dresses but I always find them so hard to wear...the special underwear/no bra situation, proper shoes that go with it, the hair, to me it all just seems like it has to be a big production, but I'm determined to spend more than 5 mins on myself in the morning and sport some pretty summer frocks, kind of like these from Bluebirdvintage (such a gorgeous store!)

Lovely.

And, for some more eye candy goodness, some of my Flickr Favs as of late. Same themes as always...girls (pregnant ones too), couples, dogs and landscapes. The stuff of my dreams.

(click here for the creds)

Ok, I'm outta here, hopefully I'll be back after the weekend to post some pics of me and hubs enjoying the sunshine before it disappears again.

Does anyone ele have any summer-y plans for this weekend?

Au revoir.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Yes, I'm 26 and still enjoy doing forwards and surveys.


As seen on Holly's blog

1. I love making lists. I've even made a list of lists I needed to make!
2. I check Perez like 5 times a day at work :S
3. I can go from being super confident to super self conscious in a matter of minutes.
4. I like to act like I'm productive all the time but really I'm quite lazy.
5. I judge people, sometimes pretty harshly (but mostly always just in my head.)
6. The thing I hate most about my body these days is my growing "wattle".
7. I have crafty/creative dreams but I doubt I'll ever be brave enough to go for them because I don't think I'm good enough.

Dan's gone for the night. This means time for me to clean up a bit, maybe move some furniture, go to Value Village for some thrifting (and dropping off some stuff to give away), and probably watching Lars and the Real Girl for the 2nd time in less than a week, ha!

Happy Saturday everyone!
G.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Non-Easter Easter Weekend


My hand looks ridiculous in this picture, so short and fat. And now looking at it, I remembered that I had meant to go back to the graveyard where I took this pic to collect a bunch of these pine cones in a bag to bring home. Darn. Oh well, it's more of a Fall thing anyway.

So, yeah, Easter weekend. We did absolutely nothing Eastery, not that I mind too too much. We went to a Neil Young concert on Good Friday and ate at a restaurant, then Saturday we headed to Sussex for a few days, where we ate wings and ribs, sewed, baked, went for walks and watched outside as it SNOWED like crazy for 2 days!! (Luckily it didn't stay, but still, no spring activities for us!) It was still nice though, I so enjoy being home, it's getting harder and harder to leave now because I know I'm getting closer and closer to moving back there...anyway, it was a nice Easter-that-wasn't-Easter weekend.

The main thing I did while home was get started on my blanket, and surprisingly I got the entire top finished! My mom, my grand mama and I worked on it pretty constantly for 2 days, and because there were the 3 of us working on it, it went pretty quickly (also, I had cut and ironed the squares the last time I was home so they were all ready to go.) I wasn't sure how hard it was going to be but it ended up being really easy and fun, I think I may have caught a sewing bug!

So basically I cut out about 180-6 inch squares, and sewed them all together into chains of 12 squares long, then sewed the chains together. There were 16 rows in the end, so the blanket is 12 squares by 16 squares, which is approximately the size of a twin sized flat sheet. I made it that size because I was able to buy a pink sheet at Value Village for 3$ instead of buying material for the bottom, something my mom told me to do 'cause it's a great way to save some money! In all the whole thing only cost 65$, which was 50$ for the material for the top (Anna Maria Horner fabric from Etsy), 3$ for the sheet for the bottom, 5$ for the thread, and 8$ for the batting.

Here are a few shots of us all working on it. Basically my mom and I sewed, and my grand mama ironed and pinned, it worked out great, and I love that we all worked on it together.

(My secret wish is that this blanket will one day belong to my possible future daughter, so it'll be even more special that her mom, grand mother and great grand mother created it together. I'm planning on embroidering our initials and the year on one of the patches. I also have future plans to create a similar blanket but in blues and greens for any possible future sons. Kinda sad, but I guess I'm optimistic at this point...in the meantime though I'm going to use the blanket myself, it's too pretty not to!)

And here's a shot of the finished top (not a great pic, but you can see all the different patterns, I love the look of it, it really reminds me of some of the old blankets I have here that my great grandmother created, the patchwork, simple blankets made from fabric scraps, I love it.)

The next time I go home (probably not 'til May or June) we will sew the top part onto the bottom sheet with the batting in between and create a border by folding the sheet up around on top, it's the easiest way to do it, maybe on my next blanket I'll attempt a separate border with a different coloured material, but for now this will work. It'll be heavy enough for Spring and Fall probably, I'll be keeping it at the foot of our bed, or on the couch to keep warm at night. J'adore!!

So, yeah, I love sewing now :) As soon as this one is done and I have some spare pennies I'll probably start the blue and green version (probably with similar Anna Maria Horner fabrics), and I also have another, tinier one in mind that I want to create for another possible future baby (they are all for future babies, they sound like they'll be half robot or something!) Anyway, Heather told me that I can use her sewing machine since she left it at home, so soon I'll have one here to use, so expect to see more projects from me soon!

Other than that, not too much is new. I won the latest Creative Type Challenge with this layout, which is crazy, I've never won a scrap Challenge in my life, though I've played plenty of times. So that was a fun surprise :) I totally wanted to play the last Scrapmojo Challenge (imaginary friends) but today was the last day and alas, no scrapping has been done lately. I'm hoping to get back to work on my 365 mini and maybe do a few more 52Qs this week, Dan is going to a co worker's cabin on Saturday for the night so I should have plenty of time for scrapping on Saturday night (and Saturday day I'm hoping to maybe start a few potted herbs to keep indoors until it gets nicer out...and also do some more Spring cleaning. Yea, domestic me!)

Has anyone else been feeling domestic lately? Maybe with gardening or Spring cleaning?

Here's to more sunshine, pretty fabrics and positive attitudes!

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Umm, it's Wednesday.

Ever have one of those days when all you feel like you can do is complain? And you hate yourself for it? Yeah, well, I'm having one of those spells. I just get that way sometimes, not sure why, but all I know is that last night I had to avoid speaking to Dan because I knew that anything I was going to say was just going to be negative or depressing or lame, because that's all there was in my head. So I didn't talk, didn't do anything. And I went to bed at 10 just to get the day over with. Lame is right.

I think it's partially the weather. It's been gray and cloudy and rainy here for 4 or 5 days straight, no real sunshine or nice days to speak of, so that gets to you eventually.

Pluie = ennui.

But I'm going to try and cheer up today, the sun is now out, so I'm not going to let negative/jealous thoughts come into my head regarding babies, not going to let the weather wear me out again, not going to let boredom overcome me.

Today I will try.

On that note, I'll move on to happier things, like the Happy Mail I got this week from a few sweet ladies!! First, the lovely Dani sent me this cute little package of goodies and it was such a surprise! I had won the book on her blog a little while ago, but I certainly wasn't expecting to get scrap goodies too! I love the little glitter letter stickers and brads, and the feathers card she made is gorgeous, it's so cool to see something in real life that you see online, it's not always what you expect! And she also gave me a bottle of Stickles, which is awesome, it's always been something I've wanted to use but never had the courage to, so therefore never bought. But now I can try it out, can't wait! Thanks chicky! :)

Also, one of my besties, Anna, sent me this amazing scarf for my birthday! I had had it in my Etsy Favs for months, she sneakily went in and picked it out for me! I love her to death. Kiss kiss!

Earlier this week I created this rather happy looking layout, using some new K&Co papers I got at Michael's last week...I bought a box (that's right, a box!) of 150 papers from K&Co, and the thing is, I love them all!! I bought them for my 365 mini book I'm creating at the moment, but I still have a ton of paper left over, so you'll be seeing lots of papers like these in the next few months.


Sometimes you have a vision of how a layout should look in your head, and from time to time it actually turns out how you imagined it. This is one of those layouts (which for me are few and far between.) I love how it's simple but bright and clustered and cool. Yea me.

Tonight I'm going to continue working on my 365 album, which basically consists of 100 sheets of 5.5X7.5 paper, 200 mini pics, some bookrings, calendar tags, cardboard for the covers, Dymo labels, and a pen. I'm making it really simple, putting 2 pics per page, in order of the 365 sequence, dated and numbered with the label, and journaled on the back about anything significant (or not significant) about the picture. I'm going to get some calendar tags from Etsy (something like these) most likely and make tabs for each month. I basically just wanted to keep all my 365 shots together without simply putting them in a photo album ('cause I mean, scrappers never do that, right?!) So yeah, I'm quite excited about it, even though it's taking quite a long time (it'll be weeks before I'm done), but it's something to work on in between layouts.

I'm also working on another mongoid project, this time revolving around creating some sort of book with 2 years worth of emails (we're taking between 500-1000 emails) between me and Heather all compilated together, but that's a whole other story, the prep work alone for that book will take months probably! But again, I'm excited at my aspirations :)

This weekend we are heading home for Easter, I'm quite excited because:

a) I get to see my Grand Mama

b) We get to go to my parent's camp for the first time this year, which means lots of outdoor time and walks and photos

c) I get to start sewing my blanket!

d) It's a 4 day weekend

So yes, lots of things to be happy about, no need to be a Gloomy Guss, right? Right.

Before I go, here's another picture of that darned kitten of ours, Shimi, who overwhelms us with her cuteness sometimes (I mean seriously, she sleeps in a basket and plays fetch with her "p'tite balle bleue", how can you not love her?!)

So, if I'm not back on before the long weekend, happy Easter everyone, I hope the weather is nice, family is near, the relaxing is much and the chocolate is in abundane!

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Pretty...


Sometimes you just want to look at pretty things, and think of pretty things, and dream of pretty things, because they can take you away from the monotony of life (and the grayness of the skies and ground) and bring some small pleasure to your mind and soul. Whatever is beautiful to you, enjoy it.

I was changing my profile pic on Facebook today and I found this picture that I had taken last summer, and I thought "wow, that's pretty." Sometimes when you take sooo many pictures, you tend to forget about a few, but it's always kind of special when you re-discover them and appreciate them all over again. It's not perfect, but it's pretty.


Spring Favs-Flowers, originally uploaded by Genevieve_vev.

These are nearly perfect, though. Like I said, it's still pretty gray and gross here (we got some more snow yesterday-yuck), though the sun is poking out today, so I'm fantasizing about days filled with [warm] sunshine, soft breezes and flowers all around. I'm really craving some gardening right now, I have grand plans for my pots and yard this year (as always), so I've definitely got flowers on the brain.

Until I can get my hands dirty though, I am playing with flower papers. I fell in love with this sheet of MM Noteworthy paper, and I knew right away which photo I wanted to use with it, the prettiest one I had :) I ended up going pretty simple with the layout because I didn't want to take away from the pic or the paper, so I printed off a bit of journaling, added some flowers and c'est tout. Kind of regretting my decision with the stars, they might come off eventually, I'm such a sucker for white space though, I need to fill it!

I've also been scouting out some more prints on Etsy (I'm getting to be a print addict!), and I'm choosing lots of "pretty" things there too!

Pretty from here

Cutey pretty from here

Office-worthy pretty here

So pretty from here

Magical pretty from here

Sigh. If only I could have them all (and if only I could have a sweet baby for all these adorable prints!) I find a lot of them are cute, but more cute for a kid's room, they don't quite go with what I have going on now, so I hesitate buying them...but still, they are pretty. Double sigh.

[Non-pretty topic below...]

I found this post through Ali's blog yesterday, and I think that the author (I don't know her-or of her) is expressing something that most of us bloggers/online folks feel sometimes, the disconnect between our real life communities and our ties to the online communities we have become part of. I am always saying to myself that I need to be online less, engage more, experience life, but it's a struggle when you feel like your online ties are almost as (or equally as) important as your real-life ones. Especially in the beginning when you are just getting to "know" people and are making friends/connections, like me, who has only been blogging and part of a little community for about a year. There are also expectations that we put on ourselves to always be showing, always be entertaining, always be revealing online, that if we stop there will be disappointment, both from others and ourselves...admit it, wouldn't we all be kind of disappointed if Rachel stopped blogging? Or Kara? We can't expect these women to go on forever though, and scaling back our expectations and hunger for them to do so bit by bit may be the answer. Sadly, and I am guilty of this too, we may also wonder if without our online word would there be enough to fill our lives, would we be enough?

I know that for myself, I really enjoy blogging, it passes the time, keeps my mind sharp, and records thoughts and feelings and events and moments that I would otherwise forget and not record at all, since I'm not a traditional journaler (I hate writing by hand, I'm completely out of practice, something I also want to improve on...) I also really enjoying reading other people's blogs and being online on some of my fav sites, I love seeing the commonalities between us all, I love learning new things, being incredibly inspired-nowhere do I become more inspired than online!-and, well, living vicariously through other individuals (hello Elsie...) And, worst of all, sometimes I come online to mentally veg out (hello Perez...) Because of all this, and despite the positives of being online (because there are many), I feel like I'm missing out on real moments with my friends, family, community and myself because I'm here, typing out other "significant" (read: NOT REALLY) moments or looking at other "significant" (read: NOT REALLY) things. I could be volunteering, learning a new skill, spending time with friends, making new friends, developing in my crafts/art/photography, or a million other things that are more tangible, fulfilling, truly inspiring and real than all the online time in the world.

It's the struggle of "growing up online", living online as much as living offline. It's become an expectation instead of a pass-time, people will wonder what's wrong with you if you don't have Facebook, or don't Twitter, or whatever the next cool online communication-thingy is. And we fall into it, completely. No one can be accused of this more than me. I'm always into the next thing, wanting to be part of it, and slowly losing my outside world because of it. It's a lack of self-discipline, but it's also feeling like there's nothing else, no choice. I also face the additional struggle that I am in front of a computer for 8 hours a day with full access to the internet, it's always right there, luring me in from my gray cubicle walls and my wonderful/awful job, so staying offline in moments like these is nearly impossible. Drastic measures may need to be taken to eliminate this temptation, but I'm afraid of taking those steps, of being offline...sadly, it's being afraid of the unknown.

The Internet is a great great thing, I dare say one of the greatest inventions of my generation, but, like so many good things, too much of it, ironically, can lead to emptiness.

Not sure why I felt the need to get that all out, like I said, the blog post (and subsequent articles) really made me think. What will come of it, I don' t know, but I hope that I start taking more steps to ENGAGE myself in my life.

....

I think I just found my word for 2009.

ENGAGE.

How do you feel about being online? Are you online too much?

Have a great rest of the week!