Share Your World – Week 32

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…..more great questions from Cee at Share Your World

Do you prefer ketchup or mustard?

I like both but over the years I’ve grown to like mustard more than I did as a child. Now I prefer mustard on my meats and ketchup on my eggs, fries, grilled cheese and mac and cheese.

If someone made a movie of your life would it be a drama, a comedy, a romantic-comedy, action film, or science fiction?

This is a tough question. It certainly wouldn’t be an action or science fiction film. It would have to be a combination of the first three genres. The romantic comedy would be my teenage years and my relationship with my husband. The comedy portion would include the years raising my children and my years teaching children. Finally the drama would occur when dealing with the deaths of parents, friends and colleagues and the break-ups and disappointments suffered by our children and the divorces of friends and family. Luckily there is more comedy than drama in my life.

If you could be given any gift what would it be?

The gifts I would most cherish would be peace of mind and happiness.

For potlucks or parties do you cook it yourself, buy from a grocery store, or pay for catering?

This depends on the day and the time of year. If the party is on a week night and I’m working I will purchase something special from a deli or take away from a restaurant. I will cook something myself if the party is on the weekend or in the summer when I’m not working.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I am grateful for time together with my daughters and their significant others. G and her husband had dinner with us last Friday and A and her partner came by the house on Saturday and helped us clean out the garage. Cleaning the garage and taking everything to the city transfer station was a huge job and I can’t thank J and her family enough for all their hard work.

Later on Saturday G and I drove up to the cottage together and spent a couple of days enjoying each other’s company and the fantastic weather. I’m also grateful to D at the cottage for helping me dig a new outhouse hole.

This week I’m looking forward to visiting my aunt again, helping my friend A organize her basement and garage some more and seeing my friends G and L. I’m also looking forward to working on more art projects from my on-line summer camp.

It’s also our 39th wedding anniversary this Saturday and I’m looking forward to anything that my husband and I will do to celebrate.

Share Your World – Week 31

Posted on August 7, 2014 by Mama Cormier

….being at the cottage makes it difficult to keep up with some of these weekly challenges

If you had your own talk show, who would your first three guests be? (guest can be dead, alive, famous or someone you just know)

There’s always one question that stumps me or makes me hesitate as to how I will answer. This is the one. After giving this some thought I think my three guests would be John F. Kennedy, Meryl Streep and Ray Cattell (my favourite contemporary artist and my girlfriend’s father).

One of Ray’s paintings in my sister’s home.

What can you always be found with?

I always have my camera or iPhone with me.

What is the most fun thing you did in school?

It was probably in art class or home economics. I loved those two subjects in elementary school. In high school, however, the one thing that really stands out for me was our trip to Expo 67 in Montreal. I think it was a three day trip and it was probably my first experience away from home with a school group on an overnight trip.

Photo courtesy of : http://www.westland.net/expo67/aerial.jpg

What’s something you know you do differently than most people?

Writing a blog is something that I do that most of my friends and colleagues don’t do. Whenever I mention that I have a blog a lot of people are intrigued but very few of them actually try to create their own.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I’m grateful for the company that I have at my cottage. My neighbours are always so generous when it comes to sharing meals. This week my girlfriend’s adult son made me a lovely breakfast of blueberry pancakes and scrambled eggs and later in the day I invited him to my place and we shared BBQ chicken, grilled zucchini and sweet potatoes, steamed broad beans from my daughter’s garden and fresh strawberries and cheese for dessert.

Looking through the trees to my neighbour’s cottage.

Later this week I’m looking forward to spending time with a couple of friends from the city at the cottage. One daughter is coming over for dinner on Friday and on Saturday the other daughter is coming to the house with her brother-in-law to help us clean out the garage and take all the garbage to the city dump.

For more Share Your World posts check out Cee’s site.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – Metal or Season of Autumn

Posted on August 7, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…..if you’d like to participate in Cee’s challenge check her blog here

Wrought iron gate

Art made with metal

Mini pumpkins

Metal table top

Share Your World – Week 30

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Mama Cormier

List 2 things you have to be happy about.

I’m happy that I’m as healthy as I am. I look at friends who are my age and younger and I appreciate how much I’m still able to do and want to do. I know that a lot of it is your state of mind. I don’t allow myself to think of myself as old.

The other thing that I’m happy about is my desire and drive to try new things, especially when it comes to creating art. I’m currently enrolled in another on-line art class where I’ll be learning at least six new art techniques.

List at least 2 things in nature do you find most beautiful.

In nature I love to look at and touch bark. I’m drawn to the texture and the interesting lines in tree bark. The other thing that I find beautiful is moving water. I love the thunderous roar of a waterfall, the foaming and crashing caps of waves and the sweet sounds and ripples of a babbling brook.

Show us a 2 of your favorites photographs. Explain why they are your favorite. If you are not a photographer (serious or otherwise), think of a two favorite scenes in your life and tell us about them.

I love the morning light and the reflection of the fall colours on the lake.

The photo below of me and my husband was taken by our son in Ireland. We are both happy, healthy and fit enough to make this climb at Howth.

I love taking photos of animals. This guy let me get up close and personal.

Another photo taken by someone else (my cousin who was visiting from Germany) captured a rare moment of the two of us spending time together on the beach.

List 2 of your best personality traits.

I think my two best personality traits are my empathy and caring nature towards others and my spontaneity and willingness to try new things.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I’m grateful that my aunt is still with us even if she is still in the hospital. She seems happier and somewhat better than she was three weeks ago. Her prognosis isn’t necessarily good but she is more accepting of her situation and makes the best of visits. We’ve had some great conversations the last two times I went to see her.

I’m looking forward to getting going on the assignments from this week’s ‘Summer Camp’ art classes. Lesson five was posted today and I haven’t started one. I’m also looking forward to seeing the Caribbean Festival parade tomorrow. It’ll be the first one I’ve ever attended.

For more Share Your World posts check out Cee’s Photography at: Share Your World – Week 30

Painting on Cedar Shim

Posted on July 30, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…..painting birch trees on a piece of carpenter’s shim

I’ve recently taken an on-line course called Paint Your Garden where most of the projects were done on birch plywood. I loved using this surface for painting. While at at the cottage I noticed that we had a lot of shim left over from a recent building project so I chose a piece and primed it with Gesso.

I’ve always loved birch trees and since I’m surrounded by them I decided to use the forest as my garden for this project.

Acrylic paint on 8 x 18 inch cedar shim.

Close-up of tree on the right.

Close-up of the base of one of the trees.

To finish this project I’m planning on drilling two small holes at the top and adding wire to hang.

One Word Photo Challenge – Rainbow

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Mama Cormier

This week’s one word photo challenge is rainbow. Anything that reminds us of rainbows or rainbow colours is worthy of posting. For more information on how to participate in the challenge check out Jennifer Wells’ blog: http://jennifernicholewells.com/2014/07/15/one-word-photo-challenge-rainbow/http://jennifernicholewells.com/2014/07/15/one-word-photo-challenge-rainbow/

Student art

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge-Circles-Curves

Posted on July 10, 2014 by Mama Cormier

….at first I didn’t think I had any circle or curve photos to share

For more fun photos check out Cee’s site at http://ceenphotography.com/2014/07/08/cees-fun-foto-challenge-circles-and-curves/

Painting Your Garden

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…..I’ve just completed another on-line painting course hosted by Carla Sonheim and taught by Diane Culhane

I loved this class. It was the first time I painted on wood and the first time I used the palette of paint from one assignment as my canvas for the next assignment. There were six lessons in all with 3 large assignments all using different techniques or a combination of techniques from one week to the next.

The process involved putting gesso on the board to prep it for painting and then creating a garden scene inspired from your memory, magazine pictures, other artists or from your own garden. Most of my inspiration came from my imagination. The idea is not to create realistic flowers (but you can if you want) but to use a variety of techniques to create a more whimsical garden. It’s almost more like folk art. I loved doing this and am looking forward to creating more gardens. Maybe in future paintings I will include some buildings and maybe I’ll scratch in some fun characters coming out from behind the flowers.

Share Your World 2014 – Week 26

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Mama Cormier

….now we are truly at the half way mark into the year

Is your refrigerator, organized or a mess inside?

It depends on the day. Of course after I clean it, it’s organized and I try to keep it that way. My husband, however, does a lot of the shopping and he doesn’t always check to see what’s already in there. Consequently we have doubles and even triples of condiments and vegetables. Even if he does check he often doesn’t see what’s near the back of the fridge. So some days it looks a tad messy in there.

If you could be famous for one thing, what would it be?

If I could be famous, I’d like to be a famous artist, preferably while I’m alive.

An earlier attempt at collage.

What one thing have you not done that you really want to do?

I’d love to have my own art show. I was suppose to have a show at a community arts centre several years ago but because of politics, the group that I was working with was kicked out of the time slot that we had booked to make way for a more established group of artists who were also on the board of directors. The experience left me with a bad taste in my mouth and I haven’t booked another show since.

Where do you eat breakfast?

I try to eat my breakfast at the kitchen table. If I’m running late I’ll take my breakfast with me or stop at the local Tim Horton’s and pick up some oatmeal. Once I get to school I sit down in the staffroom to quietly enjoy my meal before my classes begin. Now that the weather is nice I sometimes eat my breakfast out on the deck both at home and at the cottage.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I’m grateful that school is out and I can now focus on my fitness and weight goals once more. Even though I have to go back in this week to tidy up some more and pack away more books I’ll be able to do it without having children around to supervise.

I’m looking forward to spending time up at the cottage. I haven’t opened up yet and finding someone to go with me this weekend was impossible (too much going on in the city). I’m also looking forward to having my hair cut and my feet pampered before I go.

For more posts about Share Your World check out Cee’s blog at: http://ceenphotography.com/2014/06/30/share-your-world-2014-week-26/

A Crazy Week

Posted on June 25, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…..so much has happened at school this week and we’ve got more to go before signing off for the summer

If anyone tells you that nothing happens in the last month of school don’t believe them. This week alone (the last week of school) we’ve had rehearsals for the grade 5 farewell, the actual farewell assembly, the book club’s all day activity event for 50 students, field trips into the community, training for next years Peace Keepers, the kindergarten play day and final printing of the report cards.

Yesterday I emceed the farewell assembly for the grade 5s in the afternoon and then spent time after school getting the materials ready for today’s Forest of Reading Extravaganza. In the morning we split up the group of 50 children into two groups and sent one group to the drama workshop and the other group stayed with me for the book making workshop. After recess the boys and girls rotated to their second activity so that everyone had an opportunity to participate in both activities. After the morning activities we served them pizza, water and Freezies and the staff that helped us all year as expert readers joined us for lunch.

When lunch was over we had Allan Stratton who is the author of Curse of the Dream Witch come to the school for an hour to read to and talk to the children about being an author. The children asked him wonderful questions without any prompting from their teachers and he skillfully kept the children engaged with his many personal anecdotes about writing and how they could become writers.

After the last recess of the day some of the children returned to their classrooms but many stayed behind to finish their handmade books. There was a fair bit of cleaning that needed to be done but the grade 5s were more interested in getting their yearbooks signed. I’d put them off all day while the activities were going on so during the last period of the day I gave in and signed most of their books.

It’s been pouring rain since I’ve left school and it hasn’t stopped for over five hours. I’m afraid that it might affect tomorrow’s play day at school and the grade 5’s excursion to the pool and the park for lunch tomorrow. I’m not sure if I’m going to that but I think that the teachers who get prep from me tomorrow were given their time today. If all goes as planned we will go swimming in the morning, go to the park for a barbecue lunch and then head over to the golf course for a round of mini putt.

After school we have our staff party at the home of our gym teacher. It is usually our last day with the students but this year we all have to return to school on Friday. I suspect that many of the students won’t show up especially since they get their report cards on Thursday. On Friday we have an assembly in the morning and in the afternoon teachers will be madly trying to straighten up their classes with their students present. It should be an interesting day.

I have a feeling that I will be going into school next week to tidy up the library. As much as the students want to help me it often ends up being more messy than when we started.

Cheers!