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.

Weekly Photo Challenge – Texture

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Mama Cormier

….when I saw this challenge I knew I had to participate

Weekly Photo Challenge – texture

Walking along the beach last week I was also inspired by the textures of the sand and rocks.

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 Odd Ball Photo Challenge – Week 23

Posted on August 6, 2014 by Mama Cormier

….walking along our beach this year one will see new signs that have been posted by the powers that be

Someone thought it would be funny to build a mini lifeguard stand next to one of them.

For more odd ball photos check out Cee’s site here.

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.

New Flower (July 30, 2014) – White and Pink Lily

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New Flower (July 26, 2014) – Blanket Flower

Posted on July 26, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…..also known as Indian Blanket, Firewheel and gaillardia pulchella

Weekly Photo Challenge – Summer Lovin

Posted on July 26, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…..I love summer and everything it brings but I especially love the beach at my cottage

Summer Lovin is this week’s WordPress’ Weekly Photo Challenge.

New Flower (July 25, 2014) – Pink Lily

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Cottage Life (July 24th, 2014) – Waaboos Lane

Posted on July 24, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…..waaboos is Ojibway for rabbit

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned that my cottage is situated on a First Nations’ reserve. The island is one of the largest islands on Georgian Bay and is approximately the size of Bermuda.

Over the years we’ve seen very little wildlife and I’ve often said that we have more wildlife here in the city of Toronto. In the last couple of years bears have moved to the island and we’ve had some issues with Fishers but for the most part one would be hard pressed to see animals other than squirrels and chipmunks. One other animal that I saw when I first started coming to the island were rabbits.

When the roads that lead to the beach and our cottages were named I thought that the name of our road was very appropriate because I had seen a rabbit there once. Waaboos is Ojibway for rabbit. This summer we’ve seen a Jack rabbit that is not the least bit shy and frequently comes up to the deck. Recently he was sitting by the side of the road and didn’t jump away as I moved closer to take a picture.