…. haven’t seen this much snow in almost 2 years
View from the backyard
View from the front door, early this morning.
…..sporting his new winter hat, busily shovelling the snow.
Snow in TO
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Category Archives: Photography
A Few New Art Pieces to Share
….before I send them home with the kids
In grades 4 and 5 we’ve been studying positive and negative space. We started with a Japanese art form called notan where you cut away a positive image and flip it so that the negative space becomes the mirror image and part of the design. I posted some of the students’ creations in an earlier post.
In the next class we studied winter trees and how the branches create Y shapes. On black paper the students had to draw a tree shape using white pencil or oil pastel and then extend the branches onto to a sheet of white paper and fill in the branches with black. This creates an interesting black and white, positive and negative image. The idea came from
http://en.paperblog.com/positive-negative-scratch-tree-335521/
It’s always a challenge to find something that can be started and finished in one art class, especially before Christmas. Field trips, science presentations and assemblies often cut into someone’s art period. When I found this project using ornaments as the focus of the lesson I was excited. It held the students’ interest and most of them finished it in the one class.
In this lesson the students learned how to create reflection of light using watercolour and how to paint, on wet on wet and blend analagous colours to create depth. I think the students in my grade 3/4 class did a great job.
The idea for this project came from http://www.artsonia.com/museum/art.asp?id=16233632&exhibit=465172&gallery=y
A Lot of Walking Today
….. 3 hours on the picket line, 50 minutes on the elliptical machine and 2k to dinner and back
I tossed and turned in bed last night and had weird dreams about being accosted on the picket line by an angry parent.
None of it happened of course, in fact, the day was surprisingly civil and we were met with a lot of positive support. For those of you who are unaware of what I’m talking about, let me explain. In Ontario today, 30 000 teachers walked off the job for a one day legal strike to protest Bill 115. In a nutshell, this bill has taken away our right to negotiate a new contract with our employer, the school board, and gives the government the power to determine our wages, benefits and working conditions without consultation or discussion. The minister would disagree with this statement but she has predetermined the conditions of these so called negotiations.
This strike is NOT about money. We have said that we are willing to take a pay freeze. It is about losing our democratic rights and the erosion of The Human Rights Code and our Labour Relations laws. If you want to take the time to read the following letter, it explains it much better than I can.
A Letter by a Member of Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario
The media has said over and over again that teachers do not have the support of the public. After today I’m not so sure. Only one car in three hours gave us the thumbs down while dozens more honked in support. We had so many neighbours and parents come by with coffee, tea, water, soup and treats that our little cart was overflowing with the generosity and kindness of the ‘public’.
More food arrived after this picture was taken.
Even on the radio today, the media was extra tough on the Minister of Education by being more persistent in demanding that she answer their questions instead of side stepping the issues with pre-scripted statements that didn’t deal with the issue at hand. They are starting to put some of the blame for this mess into her court and are demanding that she take some responsibility for it.
I went to the gym today after walking for three hours, to work off the one Timbit, three homemade cookies and the 1/2 cup of hot chocolate I ingested. It doesn’t sound like much but when you haven’t eaten these things in a long time it seems like a huge indulgence. The scale shows that my weight is holding steady at a 32 to 34 pound loss.
We decided to go out for dinner tonight because neither of us felt like cooking. We walked to our favourite Indian restaurant and ordered and shared two vegetarian dishes, a plate of rice and an appetizer of chicken kabobs, nicely grilled and seasoned with lime juice. We had water as our beverage. We took the leftovers home and will probably add some of the sauce from the saag paneer to our eggs in the morning and one of us can probably have a light lunch from what’s left over. We walked home briskly after dinner to add about 2 more kilometres to my walking total for the day.
I have another appointment at the gym tomorrow for my last free personal training session and I also have an appointment for one more acupuncture treatment to see if it can alleviate my occasional bouts of dizziness. I’ll share my experience in a future a post.
Cheers!
An Old Fashion Christmas Market
….. Toronto hosted a great Christmas Market at the Distillery
The Christmas Market at night. Photo courtesy of http://storage.canoe.ca/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/suns-prod-images/1297349897629_ORIGINAL.jpg?quality=80&size=650x
One of my fondest memories of Christmas occurred when I was 11 years old. My father had a good year in real estate and decided to take the family on a three week vacation to Germany over the Christmas holidays to reconnect with family and friends that we hadn’t seen in almost 10 years.
My mother’s side of the family lived close to Frankfurt and we were treated to an evening at the Christmas Market in Frankfurt. It was magical. I remember that it was cold and there was a light covering of snow on the ground. I was in awe of the lights, sounds and smells. The entire event was hosted outside with vendors selling their wares from small wooden stalls. The treat that I savoured the most that evening was a small pink, green, or white confection made from coconut and sugar. To this day I can still taste the wonderful sweetness of those Kokosflocken. I’ve never been able to replicate those exact candies but I have sought them out, especially this time of year. I think I’ve come close to finding them but it’s never been the same.
Yesterday, my husband and I braved the cold and grey weather and made our way to the Distillery District in Toronto where Lowe’s was hosting this years Christmas Market. It was as magical as the one I remembered as a child. There were bier gardens, mulled wine stands and vendors selling everything from old fashion European ornaments, traditional German and Dutch Christmas baking to whimsical winter hats and mittens and children’s books. Of course Santa was on hand to have pictures taken with the kids and there were guest choirs singing classic Christmas songs. And if that wasn’t enough at the far end of the market there were rides for the whole family to enjoy.
After walking around for about an hour it started to rain and it came down hard. We quickly made our way to The Mill Street Brew Pub and stood in line with a mass of people who were also trying to escape the wet weather. We managed to put our name on the waiting list to be seated and to our surprise we were paged after only waiting for about 10 minutes, if that.
K and I enjoyed a lovely lunch together in the warmth of this very popular restaurant and we watched the rain come down from the window next to our table. It rained off and on all day but it didn’t stop the crowds from wandering around the market. My friend L, was there much later and it was still crowded after 5:00. I look forward to going again next year. Maybe I’ll go in the evening so I can enjoy the lights. The only other thing that would have made it perfect would have been a light dusting of snow and a bag of pink and green kokosflocken.
One happy husband, after a warm, healthy meal.
Spreading a Little Joy
….I decided to save my rant for another day
One of my new followers inspired me to write about events that bring me joy or in her words ‘what delights’ me. Earlier today I started writing about political issues that I feel passionate about but after my delightful afternoon with my husband I decided to put that piece on hold and share with you some of the happier events that I’ve attended in the last two weeks.
My youngest daughter has been working with a friend to promote their blogs and businesses. Earlier in the year I wrote about the stamp making workshop that they hosted. This time around they created a workshop around creative Christmas wrapping and featured numerous ideas for creating your own ties, tags, embellishments and paper. As always they were highly organized and personable and offered their eager clients all the materials they would need to experiment with. My daughter also made some delicious shortbread to serve with a variety of teas.
The group enjoyed the evening so much that the owners of the art store where the event was held allowed us to stay an extra half hour to finish our projects. Some of the things people made were package toppers, tags, bows, tree ornaments and stamped paper. Unfortunately the battery in my camera gave out and I didn’t get any pictures of the finished projects.
The next day my book club had their annual Christmas dinner. Since the book we were discussing was Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts and was set in Berlin, we decided on a German theme. I was in charge of dessert so I brought a tray of German stollen and other festive cookies and chocolates. I posted a review of the book earlier in the year. In the Garden of Beasts: A Book Review On average the group gave the book a rating of 4 out of 5, much higher than what we gave his last book, Devil in the White City.
A week later another group of friends got together for another annual Christmas dinner. We lovingly call ourselves the “Over the Hilltop’ gang because we worked together at Hilltop Middle School over 15 years ago and continue to meet three or four times a year. My friend L hosted the party and cooked the entire dinner. What a lovely gift. Again the food was amazing, the company warm and joyous and presents were exchanged.
The Sunday before this last dinner my husband and I treated our daughter, A, and her partner to a day of wine touring and dinner. We managed to visit 6 wineries, each unique in its own way. The winery that intrigued me most was the one called Organized Crime. The owner explained to us that years ago in the area there were two orders of Mennonites, a traditional ‘old’ order and a more modern order. The traditional order didn’t like that the other order played music during their services so in the dark of night they got in their buggies and stole the organ from the modern church. Hence the name ‘Organ’ized Crime.
The day before the wine tour I found myself at a fantastic craft show in the city. The crafters were all local and predominately young, although there were a few people there closer to my age. The crafts were original and beautifully made and displayed. The show was held in the Great Hall and in two other stores, all in the same block on Queen St. W.. I spent hours browsing and buying.
Today K and I attended the Toronto Christmas Market but I think I will save this experience for tomorrow’s post. Till then, cheers!
Weekly Photo Challenge – Delicate
delicate |ˈdelikit| adjective
1 very fine in texture or structure; of intricate workmanship or quality:
2 easily broken or damaged; fragile;
3 requiring sensitive or careful handling:nouna delicate fabric or garment made of such fabric
.delicately adverb ,delicateness noun
The Next Best Thing to Being ‘Freshly Pressed’….
…..being ‘reblogged’ by someone with a huge following
I’ve only started blogging in mid April of this year. It was never a goal to reach thousands of readers (or so I thought). I just wanted to share memories, ideas, photos and recipes with family and friends and I wanted a public forum that would help keep me honest and motivated on my weight loss journey.
Most successful bloggers would probably tell me that I need to be more focused on one topic, (i.e. photography or weight loss or food articles or DIY projects or etc., etc..) and not dabble in so many different areas. My blog is like my life. I’m interested in a diverse range of subjects and I like trying new things. As a teacher I also like to share lessons that work well and I love supporting the arts. This includes work that my students have done, workshops that my daughter runs, art exhibitions of my 91 year old friend and photographs that my cousin and I share.
When I started to get ‘likes’ from complete strangers from all over the world and when some of these same people started to follow me I was initially nervous about putting myself out there but I met some great people in the blogosphere and I started looking forward to checking my stats and seeing who was reading my blog. I started experimenting with different styles of writing and posting more photographs. I read ten to twenty new blogs every night and tried to make comments on some that were of particular interest to me.
Over the past six months I would be delighted with three or four ‘likes’ for each post. As my readership started to increase and the number of followers reached 180, the number of ‘likes’ also increased. My best number of ‘likes’ for one post went as high as 19 but sometimes it would take several days to get there.
I’m somewhat competitive and I like a challenge. A few days ago I set a goal to write a post that would get 20 ‘likes’. When Sue Llewellyn put out her lastest challenge I had no idea how posting four photographs that were taken this summer would bring me so much attention. Not only did I reach my goal, I surpassed it. When this post was published I had received 92 ‘likes’. Wow!
I have to give a big thanks to Sue Llewellyn from A Word in Your Ear. She graciously reblogged my post, The Word a Week Photograph Challenge – Blue and the majority of my ‘likes’ came from her followers. I’ve secretly wanted to be ‘Freshly Pressed’ but this was the next best thing.
So what’s my next goal? Trying to figure out how to get some of these bloggers back to my blog would be one goal but another one is getting my number of followers up to 200. It’s time to check out 90 or so new blogs and leave a few comments. “Phew… I’d better get busy.”
Cheers and Thanks!
A Word a Week Photograph Challenge – Blue
Blue
A feeling of loneliness, despair, sadness and regret
Evokes an atmosphere of calmness, peace and restoration
A colour that signals life, freshness and newness
Cool, inviting and invigorating
A colour reserved for boys but suits everyone
Blue, with it multitude of meanings
Is the world’s favourite colour
Blue has always been a good colour on me.
Music That Brought Tears to My Eyes
…. I’m very emotional this time of year and music touches me to the core
Today L, K and I went downtown to enjoy the CBC’s Sounds of the Season concert. All day long radio shows were broadcast live with a studio audience and performances from musical guests. This year’s lineup included Nelly Furtado, Maestro Wes Williams, The Skydiggers, Rita Chiarelli, Blind Boys of Alabama, Liona Boyd and many more.
Between shows you could take part in the silent auction and bid on many wonderful packages put together by the celebrities at the CBC. All the money raised goes to the Daily Bread Food Bank. There was also an opportunity to meet your favourite CBC personalities and get their autographs and speak briefly with them. I can’t believe that I actually stood in line to do that but I have to admit that it was fun meeting the on air celebrities and putting a face to the voices we hear every day.
Dwight Drummond and Anne Marie M. from the CBC TV news
Mary Ito (left) from Fresh Air. I taught all three of Mary’s children. She’s as charming and outgoing as her picture appears.
The first show that we saw had the Skydiggers as the musical guest.
The Skydiggers
One of the numbers they sang was a cover of 2000 Miles by the Pretenders.
As soon as the lead singer started the lyrics I started to sob like a baby. I couldn’t help it. I thought of my son in Amsterdam and how he wouldn’t be spending Christmas with us this year.
I couldn’t find a cover done by the Skydiggers but I did manage to find a video with the Pretenders doing this number in the 90s. I hope you enjoy it!
Painting at 91
…. Ray Cattell
Ray with his granddaughter and daughter.
On Saturday I had the pleasure of going to Ray Cattell’s opening for his latest group of paintings at the Moore Gallery in Toronto. I’ve known Ray for over 20 years and he never ceases to amaze me with his beautiful collection of paintings. He’s been displaying his work since the 1960’s.
We were all surprised that he wanted to do one more show. Most of the paintings are smaller than what he’s produced in years past but with his recent health issues it’s not surprising. He also recently won an award at a juried art show to add to his list of numerous awards granted to him in his lifetime. Some of his work can be found in the Vatican LIbrary, Windsor Castle and in the private collections of The Prince of Wales, Queen Elizabeth and Henry Ford II.
If you’re in Toronto between Dec 1 and Dec. 22 you can catch the show at the Moore Gallery on 80 Spadina Ave. For more details you can go to the website: Moore Gallery Ltd.
