…..celebrating Earth for Earth Day
WPC – Earth
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Category Archives: walking
Thursday Doors – April 20, 2017
……thanks to Norm for hosting Thursday Doors
Walking through the James St. North neighbourhood in Hamilton.
Easter With the Family
This year we celebrated our Easter Sunday on Saturday. Our daughter and son-in-law in Hamilton invited us over for an Easter dinner of lamb ragu. We invited my niece who is working in Toronto and our oldest daughter and my daughter-in-law drove to our house, where we all jammed into one car and made the 40 minute drive to Hamilton. 
The day started out very rainy but in the afternoon the sun came out and we experienced an early summer day. We spent a good deal of time outside without jackets and went for a nice walk to the park down the street. My niece had never been to G’s place and she enjoyed hearing stories of being pregnant and she saw first hand what it can be like raising a toddler. She’s due to have her first child in August.
Our granddaughter is always a little shy around new people and even her grandparents who she hasn’t seen too much of this winter because of illness on both sides. It didn’t take long though before she warmed up to her cousin, once removed and they engaged in a game of peek-a-boo in the backyard.
For Easter this year I bought Winnie a garden set because she likes to help her father clean and plant flowers in the the garden bed. I knew she’d love the watering can because she loves anything to do with water. When I showed her how it worked she let out a shriek of joy and came running to her Oma. For the next hour or so she kept busy watering the garden and herself.
After spending some time in the garden and walking to the park we enjoyed a very nice dinner. Our son-in-law made the pasta from scratch and the ragu had cooked most of the day. We were in charge of dessert so my husband called up one of his favourite clients who works in an Italian bakery and asked her for advice on what dessert we should bring for an Easter dinner.
She quickly recommended a pastiera, a south Italian Easter tradition. It’s a wheat and ricotta pie flavoured with orange blossom water and adorned with a lattice top. Yum!
Today I’ll be spending time with a friend whose partner went into the hospital yesterday. He’ll be there for a few days as the doctors try to figure out what kind of treatment he will need.
I hope everyone had an enjoyable Sunday. Lucky me, I get one more day off tomorrow. Time to get the snow tires off the car.
Sunday Morning Walk
….an exceptionally beautiful day
I knew that I would be indoors for most of the day trying to clean-up the two rooms upstairs so I went out for my walk early today. Frances and I headed out towards Col. Sam Smith Park. It was a glorious morning and the runners, dog walkers, nature photographers and cyclists were out early as well. With my iPhone in hand I took as many photos as Frances would allow.
Another Bitter Cold Day
….but lovely enough for taking photos
My husband has been suffering all week with a miserable cold and sinus infection, so when the dog barked non-stop to go outside and no one moved from their cozy chair in front of the TV I knew that I would be the designated dog walker for the day.
If I had to go outside I might as well take my camera and make the best of it. I bundled up, knowing that the temperature had plummeted to well below freezing and I tucked my camera inside my coat.
Now taking photos with a dog at the end of a leash is not easy but I did manage to take a few interesting shots close to home. I’m still experimenting with my macro lens and sometimes it’s very hit or miss but with a digital camera it really doesn’t matter. There’s no waiting for film to be developed and you can see immediately if the shot worked or not. In the photos below it’s difficult to see but I started tracking a couple of geese but as I got closer they flew down to the water.
Later in the day I had to pick up a library book so I drove and left the dog at home. I decided to park the car by Sam Smith Park after getting my book in hopes of getting a few more shots. The lake side was ice free but on the pond there was a thin sheet of ice across most of the pond. 
After an hour or so of hunting around for interesting shots my fingers started to freeze. This is the one downside of taking photos on such a cold day. Wearing mittens is impractical and my leather gloves are fine when I’m moving a lot but they don’t do a very good job of keeping the cold out when you’re standing around, fiddling with dials on your camera. Keeping the camera inside my coat helped preserve the battery somewhat. Batteries don’t like the cold either.
Do you have any tips for taking photos on freezing cold days? I’d love to hear about them.
Playing With the Camera and Getting my Steps In
….losing the lens cap and having to retrace my steps helped my reach my walking goal
Despite having the special attachment on my lens cap that fastens itself to the camera body I still managed to lose it. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your perspective, I didn’t notice that the cap was missing until I was almost all the way home. I started to retrace my steps but since I was close to the house I decided to pick up Frances and take her for her walk. At least this way I was multi-tasking and hopefully I could get in enough steps to make her happy and find my lens cap.
Luckily I did find the cap close to a park bench where I had taken a moment to try to figure out why my camera wasn’t working. I guess I was so excited when I was able to shoot some more photos that I didn’t notice that the cap was no longer attached to the camera body.
Frances seemed content to turn around and go back home at this point and I knew that I was going to be close to my 10 000 step goal for the day and it was still morning.
Here are a few of the shots I took yesterday. It was a beautiful sunny morning.
Happy Family Day Weekend
….in most of Canada we’re celebrating Family Day on Monday
What a wonderful way to start a long weekend with a 6k walk. The weather was perfect. Sunny and mild. A great day to take photographs. Here are a few shots that I took this morning.
Good-bye 2016
….December 31, 2016
On my morning walk with Frances I took a few shots of the neighbourhood. The grey morning reminded me of the sadness that the world experienced this year. I know a lot of people are happy to see the last of 2016.
The longer we walked I noticed that the sun was trying to shine through the clouds. I saw this as a glimmer of hope that 2017 will have it’s bright moments. From a personal point of view 2016 has been a wonderful year for our family with some ups and downs but mostly ups. I will be sharing the positive memories of 2016 later today.
Accommodations in Florence and Rome
…..in both Italian cities we used Airbnb and VRBO
Venice was the only place where we stayed in a hotel. Travelling with a baby required special needs and many homes listed on Airbnb and VRBO met the criteria for our daughter, her 9 month old daughter and for us, the grandparents.
In Florence we stayed in a lovely apartment above a garage. It was a gated property and there were no neighbours above, below or next to us. There were two bedrooms, a small living room and kitchen, a bath with a shower and an outdoor terrace. The place was air-conditioned and had all the amenities that we needed, including Wifi, a washing machine, a crib and a television.
The location was ideal as well. We were just outside the ring that surrounds the city centre which is closed off to traffic. It was about a twenty minute walk to the leather market and the farmer’s market and just beyond that were all the museums, churches and tourist attractions that Florence is famous for. We were also within walking distance to a small grocery store, numerous caffes and restaurants and a couple of parks.
More about our accommodations in Rome in a future post.
Ciao!
Share Your World 2016 – Week 17
….thanks Cee for more great questions
When writing by hand do you prefer to use a pencil or pen?
As I was writing with a pencil today, I decided that I prefer to write with a pencil. I like how it flows smoothly over the paper and doesn’t smudge like ink does.
What’s your choice: jigsaw, word, maze or numeric puzzles?
I used to love jigsaw puzzles but now my puzzle of choice is numeric. I can’t pass up a Sudoku puzzle when I see them in the newspaper or magazines.
Do you prefer long hair or short hair for yourself?
I definitely prefer medium length hair. I saw a photo taken about 10 years ago when my hair was very short and I instantly went ‘yuk’.
List five or more of your favourite blogs.
- Cee’s Photography https://ceenphotography.com/2016/04/28/cees-black-white-photo-challenge-hiding-or-camouflaged/
- Life In-between https://lifeinbetween.me/2016/04/28/the-rusty-old-bridge-in-watercolor/
- Jill’s Art Journal https://artjillkuhn.wordpress.com/2016/04/28/creative-play/
- My Guilty Pleasures https://mygulitypleasures.wordpress.com/2016/04/25/big-girl-trying-to-be-a-bit-smaller/#comment-41729
- Curious to the Max https://judithwesterfield.com/2016/04/26/frankly-freddie-parenthetically-speaking-2/
- My Life Lived Full https://mylifelivedfull.wordpress.com/2016/04/27/w-washington-dc/
- The Year of Living Non-judgementally https://annkoplow.wordpress.com/2016/04/28/day-1214-relationship-managers/
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 time spent with my daughters. On Saturday my oldest daughter and her wife came to the house to sort out some financial issues with their financial planner (my husband) and we enjoyed a wonderful lunch together. My daughter also helped me put together a dresser that I bought months ago. Earlier in the day my husband and I went for a very long walk. With the nice weather we’ve been inundated with midges so K made us coverings for our mouths and noses so we wouldn’t breathe them in. Luckily it was a bit cooler when we headed out so we didn’t have to use them very often. My neighbours were right when they said we looked like a couple of bandits.
On Sunday we drove to Hamilton and watched our son-in-law race in his first go-cart race. The baby didn’t seem to mind the noise or the smelly fumes.
After the race we were treated to a wonderful dinner of BBQ steak and grilled vegetables back at the house. My husband and I are still on our weight loss journey together and a meal like that makes it very easy to stay on program. So far I’ve lost 13 pounds and my husband is down 17.
This week I’m looking forward to do more painting. I’ve redone a couple of paintings I started two weeks ago and have started two more. I’m also looking forward to more success on the scales this week.
Mama Cormier 