Tag Archives: Toronto

Spending Family Day With the Dogs

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….and my daughter and son-in-law

Today was another sunny but cold day in Toronto and it is Family Day. It is an official holiday in Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. As the name implies it is a day to celebrate families.

Yesterday my husband and I went to the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) with out oldest daughter, A and her partner, J and saw the show, The Great Upheaval: Masterpieces from the Guggenheim Collection, 1910 – 1918. I loved it. It’s not a huge show but it featured some amazing artists from the past, such as, Picasso, Kandinsky, Matisse, Chagall, Franz Marc, Kupka and Miro. There must have been at least 30 different artists whose works were on display. It was fascinating to see how this era of new technologies ( film, photography, planes, telephones, electricity, etc.) and the presence of World War I affected the art world. If you’re in Toronto the show goes till March 6, 2014. Unfortunately cameras were not allowed at this show so I don’t have any original photos to show you. The Great Upheaval.

After seeing the show we browsed through some of the other galleries at the AGO, where you are allowed to take photographs. Here are a few highlights of our morning.

Today, my husband, Frances and I arranged to meet our youngest daughter and her husband and Lucy at High Park. We took both dogs to the off leash area. We’ve had so much snow that all the paths are packed solid with snow and ice. Luckily K brought his cleats for his boots and our walk was relatively uneventful, falling that is. We did see a few people wipe out but no serious injuries happened.

Frances and Lucy had a great time, running and wrestling with each other. We got a good walk, as well, probably close to 4k. The humans got tired just watching those two dogs darting back and forth.

After looking at all this snow it’s hard to imagine that another storm is approaching us tonight and we’re expecting another 10 cm to fall. Sigh!

Cheers! Hope everyone had a great Family Day!

Walking for the First Time in Months

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….all the conditions were perfect this morning

Sunny, clear sidewalks and roads, very little wind and temperatures above -10 degrees celsius. I didn’t even wear my down parka but a hat and mittens were still necessary. 

It felt like ‘old times’ with my husband and I taking Frances for a walk. There’s still a lot of snow in the park and on peoples properties but walkways have been cleared and there are lots of packed down paths in the park. Frances loved running back and forth on the rugby pitch and exploring the creek (luckily it’s completely frozen over). We stopped to get a coffee but the Tim Horton’s on the campus grounds was closed for reading week. 

We decided to take a bit of detour and go to Rabba to pick up a few items for breakfast at home. Good decision. We made a pot of coffee and cooked up some eggs and sausages and served them on a wrap with tomato and avocado slices. Delicious!

A great start to a beautiful day. By the way our walk covered 4 kilometres.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Juxtaposition

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This classic old building “The Flat Iron Building” in downtown Toronto was the focus of this shot but one can’t help but see the modern skyscrapers that hover behind it.

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This is a quirky coffee shop in Queen St. West. Part of the decor includes a wall of art with old classroom desks used as tables and a hobby horse for added measure.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/photo-challenge-juxtaposition/

From Zero to Hero – Day 7

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Today’s assignment: create and upload a simple header, or test out a few different backgrounds.

 

Todays post is going to be short. I’m constantly changing my header and I just recently put the present header in place so I’m not changing my header today. I’m just not feeling it. A while back I discovered that I could change my background and I went from a solid colour to a bin of yellow peppers to what I have now which is a piece of my artwork. Not everything you’ll try will work. Simple and bold seems to work best. Anything with a lot of detail just gets lost behind your text box.

Today’s Job

Today I spent a lot of time in the kitchen cleaning  and  putting away the things that tend to get left out on the counter. I also swept up all the pine needles from the Christmas tree that the garbage truck finally picked up today. One box of ornaments has been packed up and the Christmas stockings have all been removed from the living room. It’s a slow process but I’ll do a little bit everyday until it’s done. Hopefully the last of the decorations will be safely packed away by the end of the weekend.

Update on the heating problem at school:

The library was nice and warm today but the custodian did say that it was pretty cold in the morning when he arrived. His solution was to turn off all the fans and that did the trick. The fans seemed to be pulling in the cold air from the outside. The kindergarten rooms now have heat but two of the portables were still without heat early this morning. One of the classes spent half the day in the library again but by the afternoon the problem was fixed.

I was outside for a short spell this morning and I walked through the halls during first recess but my goal to move has been seriously hampered by the weather. The temperatures, however, have been getting warmer everyday so hopefully tomorrow I can resume my walking routine without any fear of getting frostbite.

Till tomorrow, cheers!

From Zero to Hero – Day 2 – “What’s in a name?”

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…..the challenge is to change the name of the blog

The name Mama Cormier has been with me for a long time. My daughter first used it when she was coming up with a user name for my email account. It’s a name that has just stuck with me all these years. Are there advantages to changing it at this time?  I guess my biggest concern is confusing those who already follow me. I have considered using Mama Cormier with an added phrase but nothing grabs me. On the other hand, I have expanded the tag line that follows the name. It used to be ….memories and so much more and now it reads….my journey to a healthy life, making new memories and so much more. 

I like having an eclectic blog where I can write about whatever comes my way. Maybe my readership would increase if I had a main focus but that’s not who I am. My life is eclectic. I have eclectic taste in music, art, design, clothing, and furniture. I like to try new things and explore different places.

Day 2 – Walking

Today I decided to try walking again. This time the sun was shining and the winds had disappeared. It was still very cold, -20 celsius but the lake had calmed down and the waves moved slowly like molasses with thin crusts of ice floating on the surface.

The lake hardly ever freezes because of its immense size so when you see ice on the lake you know it’s cold out there. The city skyline came back into view today and only wisps of fog settled close to the surface of the water.

The three of us dressed warmly for today’s hike (Frances always wears the same fur coat) but the salt and the frigid temperatures were too much for our little dog. We headed back home after a very short walk to the park at the end of the street.

I recently purchased special booties for the dog but she didn’t want any part of them when I tried to put them on her today. Oh well, too bad, so sad, I went for the walk on my own. I was already dressed and I wasn’t the least bit cold today. I walked all the way to Col. Sam Smith Park and proceeded to the lookout by the yacht club.

It was eerily quiet today. There were very few people out walking and there were stretches where I didn’t see a soul. In the last couple of weeks there have been sightings of coyotes in the area and my mind started to think about the possibility of meeting up with one or two of them along the walk. What would I do? I took some comfort in the fact that I had my cell phone with me and if need be I could always call 911 if I got into some kind of trouble.

As I got closer to the point I finally ran into another walker and his dog. I told him how glad I was to see him and he told me that he had seen the coyotes a couple of times in the last two days. He assured me that if I made some noise that they would probably stay away from me. I remember my friend D, telling me that I should sing if I was ever in the woods alone and that would keep away any wildlife.

After I said good-bye to the dog walker, I headed back towards the college and I started to hum and sign O Canada. If anybody heard me they probably thought I was a bit off my rocker. photo 3-2 photo 2-4 photo 1-4

Closer to the campus there is a great new figure 8 outdoor skating facility and lo and behold other people were also out today enjoying a skate on the ice. I watched for a few minutes while I took some photos and then realized that my morning coffee was pressing against my bladder and that I needed to quickly find a washroom. This is the down-side of going for long walks at my age but luckily there was a Tim Horton’s close by on the campus.

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After using the facilities I purchased a medium coffee to warm my insides and keep my hands warm. Actually the down mittens that I was wearing were so warm that I had to take them off periodically because my hands started to sweat. For awhile the coffee cup kept them warm but in -20 degree weather the coffee didn’t stay warm for long.

When I got home I tracked the distance on Google Maps and discovered that I had walked a total distance of 5.15k. Not bad considering the conditions but I have to admit that I really enjoyed being out in the sun today.

Day Two – Job

I’ve written down numerous jobs that I want to tackle this month. One of them is fixing a lamp that I painted years ago. The electrical hardware had come loose and the shade wobbled back and forth. I wasn’t sure why it did that or how to fix it so I took it to an electrical lighting store today.

The clerk kindly unscrewed the parts and informed me that the thread on the one part had become stripped and needed to be replaced. I could leave it with them and wait three weeks for it to be fixed or I could purchase the part and do it myself. I chose the latter option but they didn’t have the part in stock. I bought a new shade from them and then drove to the closest  Canadian Tire and found the part there.

When I got home tonight I was going to fix the lamp right after supper but when I sat down to check my emails I discovered that I had forgotten about a get together with friends tonight. I had started supper already and my husband told me not to worry about him and go and enjoy myself. I made sure that everything for dinner was well underway and I quickly got ready to go out.

I didn’t get home till after 11:00 so I didn’t finish the lamp and I wasn’t even sure I’d get to writing this post but here I am about to finish it. Tomorrow is another day. The lamp should only take a few minutes to fix and I can think about the next project I want to start. I decided when I started this challenge that the jobs that I chose to work on didn’t have to be finished in one day. Some of them may take several days to complete.

Well I’m going to add a few photos and then off to bed. Oh my, it’s almost 2:00 in the morning. Good night!

Cheers!

 

Ice Storm in Toronto

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…..for days we’ve been hearing about the arrival of this ice storm

Yesterday I was hesitant to venture out of the house because of the ‘ice storm’. Well, yesterday, in the city we really only experienced rain, especially down by the lake. In the end I decided to venture out as long as it was raining water and not ice. I had my hair cut, went to the eye doctor to have my eye exam, did a little shopping to take advantage of some coupons and gift certificates that were about to expire and went to our friends, D and D, for dinner.

Early this morning, at 4:00 a.m., our dog Frances insisted that she needed to go outside. Ughhh! The temperature had dropped and the ice started to form on the trees. At 7:00, she woke me again to go outside so I decided to take some pictures. It was still dark so most of them didn’t turn out but you can see some of the ice on the yew and the ornamental cabbage is nice and frosty.

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Later this morning our daughter, A, stepped into her backyard and took the following pictures:

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All morning the news has been nothing but ‘ice storm’, ‘ice storm’, and more ‘ice storm’. My father lives east of Toronto in Oshawa and he was without power overnight and my friend L, who lives 15 minutes north of me has been without power since 3:00 a.m.. There are so many trees and power lines down that some experts are calculating that some areas may not get power back for 72 hours. That means Christmas morning without lights, heat, television, computers and anything that runs on electricity. So far 450 000 homes are without power. Oh, boy!

I guess I should worry about my tree in the backyard that is dying. Fingers crossed. Not much I can do about it now. I think I’ll just hunker down and wrap some Christmas gifts.

First Big Snowfall of the Season

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…..the cold and blowing winds and treacherous driving conditions has kept us in most of the day

Early this morning I woke to a light dusting of snow on the ground and once again I thought the weatherman had gotten it wrong. For several days the weather station had been forecasting the season’s first big snow storm, starting Friday night. Later in the morning, however, the snow started to come down heavily and the winds picked up. We had to drive to a friends house to pick up my purse that I had left behind the night before and there was no way that my husband wanted to stop for tea or make a side trip to a store to do a little shopping. The driving was difficult and the radio was reporting on a 50 car pile-up on the highway.

Tonight I took a few shots from the front door.P1030881 The snow seemed to be slowing down and our dog, Frances, was whining to go outside, despite the fact that my husband had taken her out 15 minutes earlier. I put on my parka, mittens and boots, grabbed my camera, put on her leash and braved the elements.P1030880

It was evident, early on, that Frances wanted more than a quick pee. She pulled and jumped into the deep snow and headed for the park. Seeing that I was warmly dressed, I obliged her and trudged through the snow laden sidewalks towards the park. There have been some sitings of coyotes in the neighbourhood (yes, we have coyotes in Toronto) so I wasn’t comfortable letting her off the leash. She was having so much fun that we continued our walk for several blocks before heading home. It looks like we’re not quite finished with the snow as it came down even heavier during our walk.

I did manage to take a few more pictures…..not an easy task with one hand on a leash and a very playful dog on the end of it.P1030888

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I love these lights. If I ever see the owners I'll have to ask them where they got them.

I love these lights. If I ever see the owners I’ll have to ask them where they got them.

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Basketball All Day Long

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…..starting at 7:45 and ending at 2:15

The girls all arrived on time for our last practice before the tournament today.

Practice was grim. Everything we taught the girls seemed to go out the window this morning. The adults in the crowd just shook their heads.

After our 30 minute warm-up, the girls put on their numbered jerseys, grabbed their coats, snacks, water and lunches and boarded one of two cars that transported them to our destination.

The school that hosted the tournament only had one gym which also doubles as the school lunchroom. Ten games, back to back, were scheduled for the day with 45 minutes off for lunch. We knew we were in trouble when our first game was delayed by 40 minutes. Luckily for us it didn’t affect the outcome of the game. The girls looked good and played well. They won with a score of 28 to 8.

We then had to sit out and watch two games before our next match. The delay with the first game threw the schedule off considerably so when it was our turn to play again the school lunch hour was about to begin and all the teams had to go to the library and wait until the lunch hour was over. Unfortunately that meant we had to play two games back to back with no break in-between.

We looked at rearranging the schedule but nothing worked so we agreed to shorten each half to 10 minutes and follow the schedule as it was originally set up. Our next game was against the school that we knew would give us our biggest challenge. It started out okay but as soon as the other team started to pull ahead the girls fell apart and we lost by a considerable margin.

Luckily the next two games went in our favour. In the end we finished close to the time that was originally scheduled and we won three out of our four games. We had to leave before the other teams finished playing but I’m pretty sure we came in second place. Not bad after the sorry practice we had in the morning.

No one was sure how many teams move on to the semi-finals but if it is only the first place team then we’re done for the season. I should know by tomorrow or on Monday at the latest.

The one good thing about coaching girls is that if they lose they always see the bright side. They didn’t focus on the one game they lost, rather they were proud of the three that they won. They were so eager that they were prepared to come to another practice tomorrow morning without even knowing if they move on or not. I needed a break so I begged them not to come tomorrow morning.

Thanks to the parents for their support and my fellow coaches for coming out to all the morning practices. One of my colleagues helped me with the coaching and two student teachers volunteered their time. It was great having so much help and input from these wonderful people. A special thanks to Mr. S who accompanied us to the game today and gave the girls a lot of moral support and great advice during the games. I loved his running commentary throughout the matches. He kept me smiling all day long.

Cheers!