Forgive me. I’ve been meaning to write.
I’ve been working full time for about a month now doing what I love to do — web design — and I got to thinking it’s probably time to make my blog the main interest, rather than my design portfolio. (Speaking of which, I really ought to update it!) I had intended to make an entrance page where one can choose one’s direction, but couldn’t settle on a design. If I do put my blog at the forefront, I’ll certainly have to write more, won’t I? and take more pictures! I have all these ideas that generally make little snippets.
Sunshine, filtered through deciduous trees or white clouds.
A box of 20 small mangoes carried home. Four down, sixteen to go.
Handfuls of gleaming sun-warmed salmonberries fresh from the bush.
A bowl of cool salmonberries swimming in creamy, sweetened goat’s milk.
Pure, raw vegetables and fruit in a feast fit for full bellies and a clean kitchen thereafter.
A cool breeze to relieve hot skin.
The scent of lemons, cilantro and garlic, with the knowledge they’ll soon be consumed with zest.
A friend with whom to share delectable delights.
Fresh air, nostalgic scents and wild noises in a sanctuary of trees.
A remembering of past times in which we felt this way.
The knowledge that we can do it again soon.
They creep in through a gap in the doorframe. They swiftly inch their way across the carpet, picking up whatever small bits of dust and dirt they might encounter. Some have been known to make it all the way across the room, only to perish; others make it only part of the way. The morning after a heavy rainshower, there may be five or six scattered around the room. If they’re lucky, one or two may survive the night.
When I was a child walking home from school one day, I sang to myself, “Don’t step on the wormiiiees…” la dee da. I recalled it again walking home one recent evening when I could barely tell the difference between worms and bits of sticks on the black asphalt, surrounded by grass on either side, its wet surface gleaming occasionally under the white soccer field lights nearby. “Don’t step on the wormies.” I tried my best not to while I wondered whether the person a distance ahead of me was thinking the same thing.
Continue reading Worm graveyard: death by carpet »
Recycling men
5 o’ clock
5 o’ clock
two weeks in a row
the second week you somehow skip
three houses in a row
the next week my gate to the street is snowed shut
then next morning you come so early
that I am outta luck.
I’m stuck.
I’m stuck at home, watching the snow gracefully plummet from the sky and build up outside my window. I’m stuck at home unable to attend my class today. It’s about blogging, so as you can probably imagine, I wanted to be there.
I’m stuck at home, alone (for now), humming “I just don’t know what to do with myself. Just don’t know what to do with myself.” (The White Stripes version).
The buses that normally run by my house were getting stuck on the hill, so they were rerouted to a street at least 8 blocks away. As my class is in the afternoon (right now, actually), the buses are every half hour so that increases the risk. I also was not keen on either walking 8 blocks in the snow, or trying to see if I could catch another bus to take me that direction. A connection? Unlikely. What about getting home? Who knows what could happen. There was no snow yesterday, but because of high winds it took me over 2 hours to get home. What should have been a 5-minutes-or-less ride on a stretch of Fraser Hwy took 30 minutes(!!!) because of a power outage at 148 St. Four-way stops only work efficiently with small amounts of traffic. It was after 5:00 and that spot is normally hectic that time of night. There was a police car there with flashing lights. I’d seen more of those yesterday than any day, ever as there were incidents everywhere. Emergency showed up Monday evening at Science World, yesterday downtown and (police only) at Surrey Central, plus dotted here and there. Delays on the skytrain, delays downtown, delays in Surrey topped off by a lost glove, which fortunately showed up at lost & found today. Not that I can retrieve it, because I’m stuck. It’s just going to have to live there until Monday morning. Poor thing. I hope no one stepped on it.
Continue reading Snow Day »
Wishing everyone a joyful season and happy holidays! Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
I thought you might enjoy this animation I made for Christmas 2002. I edited it just now to slow it down a bit. (Flash player required.)
Last night we finally got a tree — just a little one, about 5 feet, and just the right size for the small number of decorations we have. I’ll take a few photos tonight now that the camera is charged up again. At last, the living room feels merry. Just adding a string of LEDs around the window (thanks, Mom and Dad!) — and now it’s actually around the window instead of dangling halfway across the wall to reach the outlet 🙂 — made a big difference. Adding the tree with presents underneath really makes it sparkle, and makes ME smile every time I walk into the room. I managed to clean the living room quite nicely, then messed it up again wrapping presents! On the other hand, the kitchen is clean at last, with a beautiful holly-print table runner, some candles and my mother’s angel chimes in the middle. My Santa mug and more candles decorate the stove. (We have a small kitchen with no window, so the stove ledge acts as a windowsill.)
Continue reading Happy Holidays »
I just turned on the TV, which was left on HGTV (the Canadian version), and an American show called “I Want That!” was on. I’m dismayed. Consumer culture and cheesy shopping network style aside, some of the “nifty” new products it was showcasing are troubling.
Continue reading HGTV gets a taste of the shopping network »
Wednesday afternoon, we got up rather late. I don’t know why, but I’ve been sleeping 10 – 12 hours/night, and I’ll be feeling it later when I start having to sleep 4 hours/night to get my grad project done. At any rate, we didn’t get up until 1pm on Wednesday. I went to the bathroom, and shortly thereafter the lights dimmed a bit. Once, twice… off… then on… then off, and they would not come on again until 5:00 the next morning. It was an exciting day. My guilt for having slept in pretty much disappeared when I realised that a) there was nothing I could do about it now, and b) had I actually gotten up when I was supposed to, I might have lost tons of work by the computer shutting down. So I consider myself lucky.
Our living room and fish tanks decked out with candles.
Photo taken by my boyfriend.
It’s been raining sideways in the Lower Mainland. That day we left before it got dark, with the intent of driving as far as we needed to in order to find a place with power. It was an exciting prospect, but I suggested we see if our local commercial area had power, and it did. After all, the roads were a mess with long lines of traffic and tree bits all over the place. We found a dollar store and somehow managed to spend $18! With extra candles and more matches, we went to dinner at Ricky’s around 4:30. Fortunately for us, too. Everyone started piling in in greater numbers after 5:00, to that bright oasis in the darkness. It continued to rain, and even when the rain died down, the wind continued to smack into the city. Over 200,000 homes were without power. We lost ours for 16 hours, and I think other neighbourhoods fared worse.
Continue reading Thank you, BC Hydro! »
Happy Halloween, everybody!
This is my first Halloween without the decorating and door-answering I did at home. I just realised I miss the “rigging the door” thing I used to do, where I’d tape one end of a thread to the door, loop the thread through (and I perfected the method) a pipe cleaner attached to the ceiling, and onto my Einstein Ghost (tissue with feather on its head), that had a penny or two inside to weigh it down. So every time you’d open the door, down would come a ghost! Too bad it wasn’t bigger… hmm… maybe in the future 🙂
And maybe next year I won’t be so busy and I can go back to mom & dad’s for the spookfest… but the last couple years have been so quiet! Now that I no longer live there, and children in the family have their own neighbourhoods to haunt, it’s time to move on. However… I still carved a jack-o-latern!
I realised when I held it up to the windowsill before carving that the windowsill is much, much bigger than I had remembered. So I could have gotten a much bigger pumpkin… oh well. I guess it was all I could really carry, anyway! Plus it will be quite enough to make pumpkin bread. Yum. (I got an organic pie pumpkin, so it’s non-toxic.)
I can smell it burning from the tea candle… smells kind of nice, actually!
when i started running out of apple-scented Palmolive dish soap (whatever happened to Joy and Dawn, anyway?), i decided i wanted biodegradable soap for my next purchase. apparently Sunlight makes a biodegradable soap now, but that it’s still kind of nasty. i didn’t see many choices in scents so i grabbed the cheaper, plain apple Sunlight in the frosted plastic bottle. my other half was anxious to get going. leaving that aisle something else caught my eye… biodegradable tangerine dream. that’s what i was looking for! turns out it was cheaper than the regular Sunlight, too (not that i have anything against them. their Sunlight bar is amazing against laundry stains).
i eagerly tried the dish soap tonight, and liked the smell so much that i actually washed the dishes after dinner (not that there was much to do, but i never feel like doing anything after dinner). it works very well, and i feel good using it. plus it smells great. and yes, IT WORKS! it’s about $3 at Safeway for 740 mls. there are other scents as well.
it’s made by VIP Soap Products Ltd. based in Mission, BC. unfortunately their website has some technical/coding issues that make it impossible to see some of the content, and the coding itself is too convoluted to read very well in source. i’m also not sure when they last updated it as it says (c) 2003. however, i think they’ve got a great business ethic and are making a valuable contribution to environmental sustainability.
does anyone know someone who works for them who might put me in touch with someone? i sent them an email in the hopes that someone will reply and take me up on my offer of redesigning their website with the intent to boost their sales and internet profile. if your customers can’t view your product list, it’s harder to sell it. plus with accessibility and usability standards being so important, and having a fast-loading, cross-browser compatible website so key to user friendliness, they could greatly benefit from an update that follows their branding and ethics.
this isn’t my first foray into environmental health. take a look at my website about organic produce, o: organic produce. yes, Safeway stole the name. …just kidding. (O Olive Oil LLC, on the other hand, is suing about the label’s look.) i’m proud of them for catching on with the healthy trend. and the coupon. oh, and, the President’s Choice organic label just looks so good i could eat the cardboard box when i’m done with the food!
mmm, peanut butter chocolate chip. image from President’s Choice website
Safeway’s new product line. image from treehugger
