…..thanks to Becca Givens for hosting Sunday Trees
Now that trees in the neighbour are blooming like crazy I actually had to choose one photo over another. This tree looks beautiful but the smell from the blossoms is nauseating. After some investigation I believe this tree is called the Callery pear tree. If anyone thinks it’s something else I would appreciate knowing.
Cee’s Odd Ball Photo Challenge 2015 – Week 23
……an impromptu visit to the museum earlier this week furnished me with some very odd ball photos for Cee’s Odd Ball Photo Challenge
The nice thing about having a membership to the museum or the art gallery is that you can walk in at anytime and spend as much or as little time as you want and not worry about getting your money’s worth. Last Monday after my husband’s procedure at a downtown hospital we met our oldest daughter and enjoyed a nice lunch with her and then proceeded to walk to the museum to see if there were any new exhibits. We checked out an exhibit of Mexican textiles and then discovered a floor with African and South American masks, tools, sculptures, paintings and other artefacts. The blue woman sculpture and the specialty designed coffins from Ghana, I thought, made excellent photo subjects for this week’s odd ball challenge.
A south Asian sculpture using teak and indigo to represent the region.
Coffins in Ghana are specifically designed to honour the deceased’s past while alive.
The owner of this coffin may have been a car dealer or used a car to earn his living.
This coffin was designed for a fisherman. My husband said that his coffin would be a guitar case.
……thanks to Jennifer Nicole Wells for this week’s photo challenge – dry
…..Cee has changed up the format for this week’s post
Instead of four questions, Cee has asked us to choose topics and list at least four items for each topic. Here are my choices:
Favorite Songs
Favorite flowers or plants: Gerbera Daisy, Sunflowers, Tulips, Gladiolas,
Favorites types of tea
Favorite types of animals: dogs, elephants, snow leopards, zebras
List of favorite blogs
Stuff that makes you laugh: silly jokes, funny movies, my husband, absurd answers that kids write on tests
Movies to cheer you up
Favorite actors/actresses
Good restaurants to eat at
Best desserts: anything with fruit and whipped cream, creme brule, real Black Forest cake, ice-cream
My broken birthday cake. It didn’t travel well on my husband’s bike.
Games to play with friends
Fun things for a rainy day: playing board games, reading, painting, talking on the telephone, baking, 
Books I want to read
Things I want to have in my home (paintings, hot tubs, book cases, big screen tv etc)
Places worth shopping
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 I was able to organize the activities for Monday’s Forest of Reading Celebration. On the weekend I made my samples for the hand made journals, shopped for the gift bags and purchased some books for the students that had done an outstanding job with our reading challenge. I’m thankful for all the help from two of my colleagues, M and B who stayed late on Friday and helped me set up the supplies for the workshop. A special thanks to R for running the drama workshop and my boss, M for purchasing the pizza lunch for all our reading experts and the 40 students who qualified for our special day.
One final thanks goes to the parents and the school council for making this program possible with their generous contribution. Without their financial support we wouldn’t have been able to purchase the books for the program and hire the author who came to speak to the boys and girls on Monday.
This week I’m looking forward to our Jump Rope for Heart activity on Friday and to the Fun Fair on Saturday. This year the goal was to sell at least 400 wristbands before this Saturday. If that happened I agreed to go into the dunk tank. The children have been taunting me for weeks that I was going down into the tank but I replied that unless they sold those wristbands that wasn’t going to happen. Today they met the goal. My principal is over the moon that it’s going to be me this year and not her going into the tank. Stay tuned. I’ll keep you posted as to how I survive the ordeal.
I leave you with a few images from last week. On Saturday my husband and I took a trip to the Junction to check out the first day of the weekly Farmers’ Market. I looked up and photographed some of the interesting facades of the older buildings in the neighbourhood and we checked out a few interesting stores and of course stopped for coffee.
….this week’s WP photo challenge involves motion
My photos for this challenge include Lucy running towards us, a swan stretching his wings, a ride in mid-air at the CNE, a wind surfer, a young boy skipping a stone while his father fishes and seagulls scrambling for bits of food.
…some of my favourite black and white geometric photos have appeared here more than once so it was time to create some new ones
My all time favourite geometric photos are those of the new addition of the ROM here in Toronto but I’ve used them before and didn’t feel right about using them again. For those who may not have seen them, here are some thumb-nail shots.
So Cee’s Geometric Challenge drove me to walk around in my neighbourhood and look for interesting shots of geometric shapes. I live in an older neighbourhood of Toronto and many homes are being renovated. A number of people have opted for a modern geometric style of architecture. People either love it or hate it.
Back in March, my friend D and I went to the new Aga Khan Museum here in the east end of Toronto. Persian art features some beautiful geometric designs.
….some of my followers have complained that I don’t post enough about my daily endeavours
Well, truth be told, only one person has complained, so this is for her.
On Friday I treated my husband to dinner. As many of you know K usually cooks most of the meals, not because he has to but simply put, because he enjoys doing it. He wasn’t feeling up to going out so I ordered in. We tried a new Thai restaurant in the neighbourhood and it was excellent. For those of you close enough to check it out, it’s called Nimman Thai Cuisine and it’s located at 2451 Lakeshore Blvd. W. It wasn’t cheap but then many things worthwhile are a little more expensive. The service was pretty fast for a Friday night. They said that it would arrive in just under an hour and the knock on the door came about 40 minutes after the order was placed. I’ve discovered that ordering and paying on-line (including the tip) is painless and very convenient.
Friday night is one of two nights that I like to watch TV. After dinner we watched The Amazing Race together. I haven’t decided who I’d like to see win this season but I definitely have a couple of teams in mind that shouldn’t win. We’ll see.
On Saturday I decided to do a little bit of shopping. First I drove to Curry’s art supply store to buy some more brushes, paint and wooden boards so I could make more textured Gesso art with watercolours. I love the process so much that I want to create more pieces using this technique. Here are the first two pieces that I made earlier in the week.
I still had some money left on my Marshall’s gift certificate from Christmas so I thought it was high time to treat myself to a couple pieces of clothes for spring. I tried on 10 items and found two tops that I really liked. Bonus! My next stop was Lowe’s. I picked up two fluorescent bulbs for the kitchen, a gasket to repair the sink and yard waste bags so that I could start cleaning up the yard. I also made a stop at Tartistry (I’ve written about it here) to pick up a couple of tarts to have with tea after dinner. I would have liked to stay longer because they had the jazz band playing again. There were a lot more people there this time. I guess the snow storm really did keep people away the first time we went there.
Saturday evening K made an amazing dinner of proscutto, pesto and mozzarella stuffed chicken breasts, pasta and fresh mixed vegetables. After dinner we went for a walk and we saw these funny faces up in the trees and one of the trees was wrapped in a blanket. I went back today to take some photos because it was getting a bit too dark on our walk.
After our walk we treated ourselves to tea and tarts and then we watched the movie Big Eyes. The movie is based on the real life of Margaret Keane and her husband Walter Keane. Margaret is the artist who created the infamous ‘Big Eyes’ paintings in the 60s but her husband convinced her to let him take credit for her work because according to him women artists couldn’t make it in the art world. He was an amazing salesman and promoter but he was also incredibly egotistical. Margaret worked around the clock producing her popular paintings while her husband took all the credit. They became incredibly rich, even though art critics hated the work. The lies and deceit wore on Margaret’s conscience. Eventually she left Walter and with the help of her daughter and friends she confessed the truth and took her husband to court.
I remember the posters of these big eyed children that were so popular in the 60s and 70s. Apparently Walter Keane was the first promoter to turn art into posters for sale. The movie was nominated for numerous awards last season and Amy Adams won the Golden Globe award for best actress.
After the movie I prepared the boards that I purchased earlier in the day with a coat of gesso. Now I just have to decide what it is I want to paint.
Today I started my day with toast made from K’s homemade batch bread that he also made yesterday. Bread is definitely my weakness, especially homemade bread. I’m glad that he froze half of it and gave some away to our daughter, G, today.
After breakfast I started getting ready for my lunch date with six friends from high school. We met at La Veranda Osteria at Royal York and Bloor. For lunch they have a prix fix menu for $15.99 which includes an appetizer and a main dish. None of us had ever been there and we weren’t disappointed. I was so caught up in the conversation that I didn’t take one photo of our reunion and we were there for 2 1/2 hours. As we were leaving we promised that we would get together again in a few months.
When I returned home I put on some gardening clothes and started to clean the yard. There are definitely signs of new growth but the seed heads and dried grasses still dominate the garden. It’ll be a few more weeks before we start to see real change.
After filling in the last yard waste bag I took a walk through the neighbourhood and noticed a lot of activity. People were out and about, enjoying the sun and the mild temperatures. It was also very evident that a lot of spring cleaning had taken place this weekend.
Of course now that the weekend is over all I can think of are the things that didn’t get done. I did get out for one more walk before dinner with the dog but I’m probably still shy about 1000 steps of my goal. Unfortunately it’s too late to do it now because it’s after 11:00 and I need to get to bed. As it is I’m not going to reach my goal of 8 hours of sleep tonight, either. Oh well, c’est la vie!
Cheers!
I was invited by Elizabeth from Tea and Paper to join the Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge “Post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or a short paragraph and each day nominate another blogger for the challenge.” Elizabeth is a fellow Canadian who lives close by but never reveals exactly where. She loves to journal, take photographs and write poetry.
Today I’d like to invite Jodi from Life in Between . Her blog is beautiful, her recipes devine and her art inspiring.
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Swans
Graceful, sleek white curves
Dominate the water’s edge
Monarchs of the lake
….this week’s WP photo challenge is to find beauty in the blur
Mama Cormier 