winter

Saturday afternoon

windy & calm

more calm before Friday's snowstorm

15-20 cms of snow and high winds equals windchill and drifting snow. It's a blue sky cold and blustery day today and everything is covered with a thick layer of snow.

they sicken of the calm,
who know the storm

Dorothy Parker

white

the harbour still as glass one very springlike day this week

This early morning it's very snowy and every thing is white

fooin' around

love is ... No.1 - gouache & ink

just foolin' around with typography and one of my favourite quotes from a tres articulate guy.
You Rock Kahlil !

more brand new

christmas lights strung in a tree along our daily walk around this little village

quiet & still, thinking & breathing, pondering & wondering ... hey ! it's another brand new day

we must have reasons for speech
but we need none for silence

proverb

and more Canadian goodness - Jully Black

snug

sunset over the harbour

Howling wind, rain and very mild temperatures this early morning. Melting, dripping, racing water. The branches sway and the clouds all rush though the brightening sky outside my office window. Bubbles and scent, soft boiled eggs and toast, a fire glowing, purring cats and snoozing dogs. We're all snug and cozy in this old brick house this brand new Tuesday morning.

worry is rust upon the blade

Henry Ward Hughes

spirits

the cowboy and the zoomin' beautiful brown hound Miss Bess

Zoom, zoom ... zoomin'.

Yesterday, a beautiful crisp, cold sunshiney afternoon, I decided to introduce the cowboy and Bess to the golfcourse. Miss D and PB (Piper Belle) stayed home for two reasons - 1. the snow is too deep for Winnie and her arthritic 11 year old knees and 2. Miss Bess who's now 7 months old (the dog equivalent of the terrible twos) has become too rough with the sisters when's she's off leash and out and about in the wide open spaces. It was gorgeous as usual, it's an absolutely heavenly place to walk with dogs and the spirits of both Jake & Emma Jane Louise (Em) were there yesterday, walking along with us.

blog of the week - check out the much loved nephew's (and my own personal genius bar) blog as he spends a semester studying (and touring around) Malaysia and surrounding area.

sunshine & valentine's

Miss Winnie Dixon in a big patch of yesterday's sunshine

The beautiful (and huge) wool remnant crazy quilt is from the cowboy's childhood. A quilt that his mother made long ago and perfect to tuck in under watching our movies* each winter's evening.

The sun is just up and beginning to pour it's gorgeous golden orange early morning light upon everything and it's looking like another spectacular sunny, blue sky day. The sisters and I walked very early this morning, under the stars, the air crisp and cold - as good as that second cup of coffee in making you feel awake and alive. We have a regular route we follow that begins along the harbour on a path in the snow maintained by dog walkers, the only ones crazy enough to walk where the wind blowing in over the ice is almost always sharp and cold. It's a treat for the girls because of the immense olfactory sensations hiking on a trail used daily by other canines so I bundle up in my fleece and down and stand and look at the stars or the brightening sky as they both pause each morning to gather all the details of those who've come before us.

Then around 3:30 or 4:00 in the afternoon we do it all over again, lately in bright sunshine under the bluest winter sky followed by an abbreviated version just before bedtime.

My friend Rachel from across the pond, most excellent cat mother of Miss Millie with the Black Nose (truest love and betrothed of Oliver) pondered in the comment section here yesterday What's going on in the basement now ? Thorough and tres meticulous (sighing) are tattooed somewhere on his body ... the cowboy's been insulating the foundation of the beautiful clean and dry basement (with the help of Oliver who's given up his design job here at the TTD preferring to hang out with a guy). The cowboy made a shelf (sill) for the one and only very sunny basement window - a place so the cat's can sit and bask as cats so love to do. He (the Prince oATG**) has been dropping hints about my upcoming Valentine's Day gift. He's been planning and scheming a way to dismantle the money guzzling and potentially unsafe propane hot water heater (in the dead of winter) that's currently hooked up to/with my oil fired boiler (in affect heating the water in this old brick house twice). I catch him often shaking his head in wonder and tsk tsking under his breath. When he's finished with our basement it will be dry, clean, warm and super duper efficient. Sigh. We (les Gang and I) could not ask for a more perfect Valentine.

* a few movies recently watched
Julie & Julia - fantastic !! I LOVED it !!! (could watch it again in an instant) - from the library
5 Easy Pieces - weird and strange in a very good way - from the cowboy's movie collection
Rescue Dawn - an amazing true story - from the Walmart $5. movie bin

**oATG - of All Things Good

napping

a sunshiny nap after hours of working in the basement with the cowboy

Who's previously snow white paws are now always a beigy basement colour ? Uh Huh !

Continued Q & TC this weekend, ongoing R & R (restoration and renovation) mostly by him.
He who continues on in the basement - his (and Oliver's) basement, cooking, napping, a little drawing perhaps and of course crisp walks in sunshine and a blue, blue winter sky with les girls PB and Missy D.

Q & TC

holly - oh my ...how I do love red

quiet & tres contented this early morning

more good things

good things come - ya huh ! they really do

and those good things ... they just keep on comin'

I've been up and out walking really early this morning with Missy D and Piper Belle. Just us and the snowploughs. We had a few centimetres of snow over night and a few of the regular John Deer and New Holland tractors roam the village streets like giant bugs on their way to contracted driveway clearing. Farmers making a little extra cash in the winter months. We love to stop on our early morning walks, the girls noses stuck in a snow bank breathing in evidence and interest while I stop to stare at the sky and the few stars still twinkling while I listen to the quiet. We like to peer into houses, into lit windows to see who's already up and drinking coffee or who's houses are cloaked in darkness their inhabitants still tucked into slumberland.

Early morning really is my most favourite time of the day. My power hours as MLou has so aptly coined. Anything can happen, always fresh and brand new, always full of hope and promise.

I've been having a week of urgentlessness here at the TTD - no panics, no crazy deadlines, no ASAP's which of course turns me into a non-productive slug creature who sits in front of her computer surfing, listening (and watching I confess) to episodes of The Daily Show (I heart Jon Stewart), reading blogs and generally wasting hours upon hours of time. It's not that I don't have a million zillion things that I could be doing.

That's what I love about a brand new day - it's a chance to turn this darn ship around ...

every thing

blue spruce

I will give you everything
that you've ever wanted

The DA*, my most excellent companion, my Buddha boy is hangin' out here at the TTD** (as usual) this early morning. The sky has begun turning turquoise and I'm just about to leash up
the sisters and walk around this little village as the sun begins to rise. Things are good.

Things are very good.
Merci M. Universe, merci !

DA* - design associate
TTD** - teak topped desk

safety & comfort

the harbour around 5pm one evening in late December - from les archives

MLou and I were chatting on the phone yesterday - one of our (bi-weekly) big chats and she referred to the George Elliot quote I posted here a few days ago - a quote about the feeling of safety and comfort you experience when you're being yourself (your authentic self as they would say today) and by allowing others to be who they are - we're helping them to feel safety and comfort and isn't that ultimately what we'd all wish to give to each other. Safety & comfort. Those darn life lessons they're swarmin' around us all the time ... but we can only catch them if we're paying attention.

Thought this quote bears repeating

Oh, the comfort,
the inexpressible comfort of
feeling safe with a person,

having neither to weigh thoughts
nor measure words,
but pouring them all out,
just as they are, chaff and grain together,
certain that a faithful hand
will take and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping,
and with a breath of kindness
blow the rest away.

George Elliot

Recent dinners & movies

The Big Lebowski - vermicelli & spring rolls with sausage & shrimp
Fargo - pulled BBQ pork on baguettes with coleslaw
Pulp Fiction- taco salad made with the cowboy's homemade chili

and ...it's warm enough (and still enough - no wind) to walk the sisters in the early morning without my fleece headgear (very happy sigh). I overheard a woman in the post office yesterday ask I wonder when winter's going to begin ? Hello !!

no doubt

pieces of a sunny, blue, blue sky, cold and perfectly still Sunday afternoon walk

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother

Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms

Kahlil Gilbran

Oh Kahlil you break my heart with your oh so wise words