コスモス (cosmos)

i love. love. love. cosmos. they are simple, but so pretty. they also bloom nicely into the beginning of fall as well. i love walking around with duke and just taking all the cosmos flowers in. can't wait to grow some of my own.

happy end of september - it just flew by, didn't it?

totally violated

in the span of about 17 hours, between duke's 1am pee break and after his evening walk i came home to find my sunflower heads missing and empty sunflower seeds at the scene of the crime!

some creature had a feast and then proceeded to steal both heads full of sunflower seeds from my backyard. i wouldn't be so upset if i wasn't planning on planting all of the seeds at the abandoned school yard that duke and i play at. grrrr. i feel so violated.

speaking of feeling violated, stephen harper is on track to being voted as prime minister again and if he wins a majority government i'll feel like i've been violated by my fellow canadians (although according this article, harper runs his minority government like a majority).

how can a person who attends more galas than 'ordinary working people' himself, use 'rich gala(s) all subsidized by taxpayers' as a reason for cutting arts funding? meanwhile, isn't he using taxpayers' money to sue the liberals?

fall is in the air! the mornings have a definite chill now and the sun is setting earlier.

sadly the colder weather (and actually air conditioning as well) makes my wrists, especially the right one, achey. with all the computery stuff i do, i'm surprised i don't have full on carpal tunnel, but hopefully by keeping my wrists warm with my new wrist worms and doing wrist exercises, i won't have to deal with any sharp pains of advanced carpal tunnel.

my wristwarmers were handmade and sent here from sweden by my blog crush sandra juto, author of smosch.com.

hold my hand on take-off

today is my four-year anniversary of arriving in london. i love this photo as somehow it brings together my past with my present. we are sitting on the pebble beach of brighton in the summer. C, my old chum from high school, has come to the u.k. on business, but is free for the weekend. she plays battery-operated toy drums found at a second-hand shop -- i'm not sure if P -- our brighton host -- is enjoying the melody! and lovely D watches on...

things i still have from four years ago:

• my mobile / cell phone
  
• some conservative work clothes -- i don't know why, but i've always hung onto these boring blouses and smart trousers, thinking one day i might have to go back to an office job that won't allow jeans.
  
• my lomo (although it did need to go to the hospital once for some minor surgery)
  
• my ibook
  
• my passport (with all the various u.k. visas since my first arrival)
  
• hyedie's card that she illustrated for me, with "good luck bianca!", still pinned to my bulletin board
  
• amy's mixed cd's she used to make for me -- i still listen to them, though on my ipod now

i looked up a post i wrote a few days after landing in london -- my first time in the u.k., and without a job, friends or family (and curiously and unexpectedly now, after four years, i'm still here, and am lucky to have all three). it was written under the same title as this post today (an aimee mann lyric):

i feel extraordinary admiration for those who have moved "cold" to a new place -- any new place, within canada, or beyond. the more i do things associated with home -- messaging, blogging, listening to music -- the more i miss it. i feel like an addict who suddenly had their booze or cigarettes or favourite binge food taken away -- but i know that if i can make it through the first month, i can make it through the rest of the year, and beyond.

the willingness of strangers to lend me a hand amazes me, and the support from you at home gives me courage.

a summer walk with duke

taken on a summer walk with duke in the evening.

when i saw a stargazer lily so close to the ground, i thought it would make such a nice photo to have duke sit next to it. the minute i pulled the camera out he started to howl! i think it's pretty obvious what he was trying say....he can be so impatient sometimes.

renegade in spirit

the mother of all craft fairs are the renegade craft fairs in chicago and brooklyn, and guess what? i'm going to be there!

... well, correction. i will be there in spirit because my cards will be at the chicago fair!

the lovely and heartbreakingly sweet janice, whom i had the pleasure of meeting earlier this year, is going to be at the fair. she will be showcasing crafty and cute products that she sells on her online store at the fair. and this includes my cards. i'm so honoured.

if you are in the windy city in two weeks, won't you stop by her booth, say hello and possibly bring her a yummy donut?

ode to bianca

when i saw this serendipitously composed sink, i had to take a shot of it because it reminded me of a lovely photo bianca took way back when. even the (kinda) shallow depth of field lends itself to the 'lomo' look.

bianca's photo is part of a really nice flash photo album she created about summer in our home town. won't you take a look?

happy september!