Winter Waves

Friday night I officially finished off my Project Life albums!

Look at all those finished pages!! I didn't do a final count but it's close to 100, which means there are thousands of photos printed and documented within those pages. I'm working on a post to share some of my favourite pages but my spread photography needs a lot of practice. 

Saturday I started the morning off with coffee, a cinnamon roll and more work on my puzzle.

The trickiest part about the puzzle is the sheer number of Mickey Mouses, Cheshire Cats and Chip & Dales. Plus since it's a pile of trader pins everything is sort of upside down and sideways. The rest of the day Saturday I watched far too many episodes of 'Lock Up' on Netflix. I don't know why prison shows fascinate me so much, but they do. Except for Orange Is The New Black...after a few episodes of that I was thoroughly disturbed and stopped watching. The book was a good read though. Saturday night I continued with the Lock Up episodes and did some serious decluttering. I went though all of my scrapbooking stuff and got organized to start Project Life 2017. And tackled the photo boxes I had been dumping memorabilia in, anything that didn't get put into an album over the course of the year went in the trash. And the pile of ticket stubs and cards from J. also got tossed. A quick swiffer and I was ready to continue my 2017 streak of thankful thoughts and bedtime devotional reading. 

We were supposed to get a storm Saturday night and into Sunday but we ended up only getting 20-25 cm of snow instead of the predicted 40+. Everything was cleaned up by the afternoon so I headed to my grandparents to take some photos. The waves were huge from the storm and if it wasn't so bitterly cold I would have spent a lot longer on the beach. 

Just as I was starting to loose feeling in my fingers the sun started to poke out and the sky went from grey to blue.

I would have stayed longer but there was coffee and more cinnamon rolls calling me from my grandparents' house. Not to mention kitty cuddles from their cat who was very interested in my wool socks. 

Last night I watched more Lock Up (Seriously, I'm glad there's only one season because it's starting to give me crazy dreams) and got ready for the week. Which consisted of choosing my word for the week, setting up my planner and planning out some blog posts. 2017 is still a winner in my books, let's hope the trend continues!

Linking up with B Loved Boston

The Hard Times Put The Shine Into The Diamond

Towards the end of 2015 I declared that my word for 2016 would be RISE. I was all gungho to participate in Ali Edward's One Little Word prompts and spend the entire year rising. I wrote out specific ways I wanted to rise during the during and how I would incorporate the word into every aspect of my life. I wanted to focus on being more successful and more confident. Connecting with nature and rising above. That was in January. Eleven months later I'm starting to find the humour that the vast majority of the rising I did this year was not really about success... 

In the beginning the two things that kept reappearing as I searched for quotes that contained the word rise were this quote:

"Don't carry your mistakes around with you. Instead, place them under your feet and use them as stepping stones to rise above them. Never regret, if it's good it's wonderful, if it's bad it's experience." 

And the song 'Riser' by Dierks Bentley neither of which was what I was looking for, but they kept coming up over and over again. At one point Riser was playing on the radio every time I got into the car. The quote that I officially picked was "If you're going to rise you might as well shine" which my mind had interpreted as "If you're going to get up in the morning you might as well be confident, talented and noticeable." 

It's only in the past few weeks that I've started to accept that Rise did not play out the way I wanted, but the universe was trying to manage my expectations from the very beginning, I just chose to ignore them. I envisioned climbing a staircase, easy and intuitive. Instead, I built the staircase...and I will be the first to tell you that carpentry is not my strength (or of any particular interest). 

The opposite of rise is descend and although rising didn't look the way I wanted it to I don't think I did much descending this year either. 

This year rising looked like birds...

And radishes...

Not a staircase in sight. And maybe it would have been nice to know that a year ago I like to believe that there's a reason I didn't. Things aren't as intuitive or straightforward as I imagined but I chose the word rise for a reason and I'm glad that I did, even if I didn't know what I was getting myself into. 

Linking up with Alyssa's Back to Blogging Non-Challenge//One Thing About Today You Wish You Knew A Year Ago.

Peace Like A River

I don't usually blog on Saturdays but before the storm I had planned to participate in the Back to Blogging Challenge and I didn't get to do that because we didn't have power. I think it all worked out for the best though because it's been a long week and starting the weekend with some positive reflection is a good way to go so I'm starting off with What Makes You Feel Peaceful?

I've mentioned before that my grandparents live in a teeny-tiny fishing village and my grandfather's warf/boat are my favourite places in the world. Being there is the best kind of peaceful because it's not necessarily calm & quiet but it's comfortable in the routine of hard work, community and contentment. It gets extra peaceful points watching the sunrise over the ocean. 

I love being in the kitchen, turning ingredients into food is calming and there's something extra satisfying about making something delicious. Photography is a fairly recent hobby, but something I've come to love a whole lot the world seems a little kinder when viewed through a camera lens. Campfires are flat-out magical. Some of my best memories are sitting around a campfire with friends either in silence as we all watch the flames or in joyful conversation.

Camp is the opposite of peaceful in a lot of ways, but there are small windows of time when it feels like a pretty peaceful place. My favourite time used to be in the morning for about half an hour before everyone was up and about for the day, sitting in the office sipping hot coffee and getting to check in with the counsellors as they went by getting ready for the day. And another window of time at the end of the day when mostly everyone was headed to bed sneaking away for a few minutes to watch the sunset. And at the end of a session eating the first non-camp food meal of the week (often Subway, pizza or chicken strips & fries) and watching episodes of Friends or How I Met Your Mother. 

The similarities of my peacefulness are pretty obvious. I like nature and the outdoors, food and documenting it all for the future. 

The Animals Came By Twosies, Twosies, Twosies...

When I last blogged on Friday I had visions of a Monday post full of Thanksgiving weekend adventures...I spent the night at my grandparents, went for a hike with my mom and grandmother, picked cranberries for cranberry sauce. We had Thanksgiving dinner and I ate lots of pie...it was all very blogworthy. 

And then it started to rain.

And it rained some more.

And before too long the quaint little brook that runs behind my house looked like this:

And then it continued to rain.

And rain.

And rain some more. And roads started to look like this (the photo on the left was actually taken yesterday after it had finally stopped raining):

And as much as I love rain the novelty starts to wear off a little when you have a lake in your backyard and your great-aunts freezer is floating in her basement. When it finally stopped raining we got over 250 mm (that's almost 10 inches) in just under 24 hours...and it got windy. And around here when it gets windy we lose our power. Which normally isn't a big deal because we have a generator that powers the essentials (and some creature comforts i.e. television) except that in the midst of all the rain we loaned our generator to my uncle so he could continue to power the pump that was keeping his basement from being transformed into a pool. 

Late Tuesday night it stopped raining and the wind had died down enough that we got our generator back and our power came back for good shortly after supper time last night (Wednesday). So things are starting to get back to normal. We were actually really lucky, the water that came in our basement was a small puddle, there's a lot of people who have entire bottom floors full of water and lost a lot of stuff due to water damage. 

Needless to say all that blogging I was planning to do this week went out the window. On the bright side I finished two books, did some NaNoWriMo planning, and I spent lots of time using my camera. 

Linking up with Stuff & Things.

#goals

In the words of Mulan, "let's get down to business". 

October Goals:

1. Finish Project Life album for camp. 

In a quest to practice better self-care this year at camp I took more photos during sessions and then between session breaks printed photos and made spreads. It worked really well and it's something I'll almost certainly do again in the future. Inevitably, about half way through the summer I fell behind because I was spending breaks doing things. At this point I have about two weeks left of camp to finish and mostly it's adding journalling and embellishments. 

2. Get caught up with 'everyday' Project Life Album (April - September)

I knew this was going to be a problem when I first came up with the plan to do a separate camp album. In January I started my Project Life album using the monthly format but then did more of a weekly format during the summer in my camp album and didn't do anything in the album I started in January. I sort of have a game plan in mind using leftover photos from each week (I almost always printed too many) adding in a few extras and calling it a day. 

3. Organize & De-Stash Project Life/Scrapbooking/Planner supplies.

I am 100% on the Project Life bandwagon and can't imagine going back to 'traditional' scrapbooking. That means I have a lot of 12x12 papers that are just sitting around. Thanks to PLers on YouTube I got the idea to cut down some of those 12x12 papers into PL pocket sizes. I'll keep some large sheets because they come in handy for other crafty endeavours but for the most part I have no need for those big papers. Since I've enjoyed the Project Life bandwagon so much I've decided that in 2017 I'm also going to jump on the Happy Planner bandwagon! So I'd like to sort through all of my stuff and separate it into Project Life, Planner and General Crafting categories. This might be a bit of a lofty goal but we'll see what happens. 

4. Finish 2 books.

I am 75% through one I started in July about the FLDS but then put it down in favour of something a little lighter. I need to finish that one plus another one that I started and didn't finish because I got distracted re-watching How I Met Your Mother. 

5. Map out NaNoWriMo.

..2016 is the year, friends.

6. Take photos during Thanksgiving, Spark Camp & Friendsgiving.

I have lots of fun stuff planned for October this upcoming weekend is Thanksgiving and then I have a plan free weekend followed by a weekend of Spark Camp and then hopefully the next weekend a Friendsgiving weekend with H. & R.. And circling back to the getting caught up with Project Life I've learned it's much easier to stay caught up when you have photos to use! 

7. Publish Blog Posts!

I searched high and low for a 'Blogtober' link up of some sort since I missed out on Bailey Jean's Blogtember but I didn't find anything so I'm just going to make things happen on my own. It's highly unlikely (and impossible at this point) that I'll blog everyday in October but the plan is to make more of an effort and at least press the publish button a few times a week. 

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Food & Photography on Friday

This week started off strong, took a little dip and then kind of evened out. I say kind of because I felt like this week had a lot of question marks that are still question marks. I'm sort of disappointed but also don't have any super definitive answers so I'm not really sure what to think or how to feel. More on that next week, right now I'm blogging about five things that are mildly noteworthy about this week. Most of which are related to food and yet there are no photos of food. 

{one}

Elle Luna's #The100DayProject starts next week and I'm still not sure what I want to take on for the next 100 days. I already know that during those 100 days I will be going on a trip and relocating to camp so doing anything that is going to involve a lot of art supplies is not the best choice for success. Photography is definitely the route I will be taking but I need to decide on something to photograph. I've tossed around the idea of photographing all the numbers from 1-100, or a specific shape, or multiple run throughs of the alphabet. I want it to be something that requires some creative thinking but isn't too time consuming. 

{two}

I had a major Pinterest recipe disappointment this week. I tried to make "Spinach & Artichoke Stuffed Garlic Bread" and you know what I made? Soggy bread. It looked fine but the bread only got kind of crusty on the bottom and none of the cheese really melted to make a gooey, cheese thing happen when you pulled the pieces apart. It wasn't terrible, I ate it, but I should have just heated up the baguette and dipped it in the dip as you normally would. 

{three}

I have been eating pitas for lunch everyday this week. Chicken Caesar pitas with romaine, chicken, croutons. Greek inspired pitas with chicken, feta, cucumber, red onion & tzatziki. Chipotle chicken pita with chipotle mayo, chicken, cucumber, red onion and cajun chicken and cheddar cheese. I'm not exactly sure how this trend started but I'm pretty satisfied with the whole thing. 

{four}

Next week is my last full week of work at the office job. My contract ends on Wednesday of the following week and I am kind of ready to get back to a regular schedule. Albeit briefly, since camp season is approaching and camp season does not lead to any sort of regular schedule. 

{five}

It's been rainy all week and sort of damp and chilly out but all I want to do is drink iced coffee. So tasty and delicious but also impractical based on the weather outside. 

linking up here & here. 

Thankful Things on Thursday

The week was off to a strong start. Sunday was the perfect start to the week and Monday & Tuesday were solid days. Yesterday I hit a wall and the grumpiness returned in full force, I'm happy to report that today I'm feeling a little less crazy and a little more rational. I've also decided I need to have chicken strips & fries for lunch so that's probably also contributing to my inner peace. 

I've been joining the Stuff & Things link up with Joey and Kristin for a long time now so when I found out that the link up was going into retirement after today I knew I needed to link up one more time. And since I've been feeling more grumpy than not lately I decided it would be a good idea to dedicate the last Stuff & Things to stuff and things I'm thankful for amid the current chaos of my life. 

Last year before camp started I jumped on The Fringe Hours  by Jessica Turned bandwagon and had a genuine mind shift. I always thought that I needed large chunks of time to do things that I loved. And as a consequence of that thinking I rarely got to do those things. The whole point of the Fringe Hours is to find little pockets of time and use them. And now I've discovered that by being productive when I need to be, most days I can create a full hour that I can use to work on Project Life before work. I still prefer a full afternoon of scrapbooking but I am thankful for The Fringe Hours!

Even though there's snow in the forecast, it's still starting to feel like spring around here. Blue skies, trees that are starting to think about coming back to life, temperatures that don't involve a minus sign and sunshine are all things I've been feeling thankful for this week.

Best friends, group chats and Skype dates are all things I'm feeling overwhelmingly thankful for lately. 

In this moment I'm also pretty thankful it's Thursday and that there is a whole weekend ahead followed by the last full week on work before the end of my office contract and a little break between office life and camp life.  

Also linking up here for Thankful Thursday. 

Deer Weekend

The only reason I knew there was an 'important' football game on this weekend is because of all the recipes in blogland last week and a vague memory that J. had plans for Sunday. So it goes without saying this will be the only reference to football in today's post. It's 10:00 a.m. on Monday and I can honestly say I don't know who won. 

Saturday afternoon I faced off once again with the Wal-Mart photo lab in preparation to finally start my January Project Life pages. It took two tries and a little bit of frustration (but some great customer service) before I got my photos printed. Once I was done with that J. and I headed to Swiss Chalet for supper. As all true Canadians do, I have a deep love for Swiss Chalet dipping sauce. When we finished supper we went back to his house and watched a few episodes of The Curse of Oak Island. I was home by 10 and happily in my bed by 11. 

Sunday my day was a little more exciting (depending on your definition of excitement). It started with some wildlife photography practice. We happened to look out the window and notice a few deer in our back yard. So I decided I'd take my camera and see if I could get some good pictures. This would have been much more successful if the snow wasn't so crunchy, it was pretty easy to hear me coming. This gal didn't seem to mind my presence until my camera started making noise. 

For some reason my first instinct is always to 'talk' to animals, try and make friends. So I stood still for a couple minutes and engaged in an awkward staring contest while I said things like "Hello, Friends. I would like to take your picture." In retrospect I probably should have just kept quiet. I probably don't have much a future in wildlife photography. 

And then I clicked my camera one more time and they decided they did not want to be my friends and ran away. Disney has given me unrealistic expectations of forest creatures. 

Since I was already outside I decided to explore a little more. I didn't cross paths with the deer again but found some rabbit and raccoon prints in the snow. And heard a squirrel, but I couldn't seem to locate him. My adventure ended when I attempted to cross the stream and ended up sinking in the mud. We've had some weird weather around here lately. After last weekend's snowstorm it warmed up and a lot of the snow has melted. There's a blizzard headed this way tonight/tomorrow so the signs of spring will be short lived. 

Once I came inside and warmed up (the wind was still cold even if there's not much snow on the ground) I got to work crossing off some things on my to do list. I did some laundry, started working on my Project Life pages for January and sent off a volunteer application for a summer Girl Guide camp that just happens to fall during a break from camp. We got pizzas for supper and had cake for my birthday and my moms because we really didn't need multiple cakes in the span of three weeks. 

Today I'm watching the weather (keeping my fingers crossed for a snow day tomorrow), getting Valentine's Day cards in the mail and making the most of pre-storm Monday. 

Linking up here & here! 

Forward to February

My weekend started a little earlier than anticipated. There was a storm forecasted for Friday but it didn't start in time for work to be cancelled, instead 20 minutes after I arrived at work we got an e-mail saying we were closing at five. The roads were far from ideal so it was close to six by the time I got home. I had grand plans to spend the evening catching up with TV and doing some crafting. Unfortunately we lost our power at 9 p.m. Friday night and didn't get it back until Sunday afternoon. Thankfully we have a generator so we had some power, enough to run the heat, water and a few electrical outlets for most of the day. 

I spent most the weekend reading, colouring and eating storm chips. I briefly went outside Saturday to take some photos but the adventure was short lived. We had about 35 cm of snow fall on top of the snow we already had from earlier this month. It was impossible for me to take more than a few steps in the snow without sinking up to my waist. It was also very cold out and I was much happier indoors with a blanket and a book. Except that half way through the book it stopped being interesting. Now I'm halfway through though so I feel obligated to finish. Maybe it will take another turn and I'll be interested again before it ends. 

Sunday afternoon when the power did come back on I took a nice long shower and set to crossing a few things off of my to do list. None of those things were particularly strenuous...I had some things to put in my online shopping cart and leave there until I decide if I want to invest. (Is anyone reading Savor by Shauna Niequist? I'm looking for a daily devotional type book that I has daily readings and ideally I can use year after year. Suggestions welcome!) I also got all of my January Project Life photos organized and ready to print. Ideally I'll get them printed this coming weekend and then craft to my heart's content! 

The snow was the wet and heavy type, perfect for snowman making...not that I made any snowmen but I thought about it a few times. I think this weekend J. and I will try to have some sort of outdoor winter adventure, unless the temperature rises and come next week all the ice is melted and the world is covered in slush. 

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for February. I think Groundhog Day is the best 'holiday' in all the land, my mom's birthday happens in February and regardless of the commercialization aspect I happen to love Valentine's Day. Plus, it's Leap Year! And I really love Leap Years. If you haven't seen the 30 Rock episode with Leap Year William you need to make that a priority this month. And of course the Leap Year movie with Amy Adams. And it just so happens I published my first blog post in these parts in February of 2013. All things considered I think February is going to be a good month.

Sharing my weekend here. 

Tracks, Snacks and Favourite Words

I'm not sure if it's all the Christmas hustle and bustle, the weather or my shrinking to do lists and countdowns but this week went by fast! 

{one}

I'm cheating a little bit here because there are going to be multiple favourites under this heading. It seemed to me that there was a lot of good stuff in Blogland this week and after a couple of weeks of endless gift guides it was refreshing to read some good old fashion 'this is what's going on in my life' posts. These are just a few of my favourites from the week.

Stephanie's 'You Are A Blogger' post  might just be the best thing I've read in months. 

We often wait until the new year to start reflecting on changes but this week Alex compared this Christmas to Last Christmas and it was a neat way to look at things.

Rachel had some wise words to say about The War on Misery. Not everything has to be a competition.

I loved this reminder from Amy that our work matters.

{two}

Some of you might remember this post from the fall where I shared my developing love of the apple trees that grow in my yard. Well I'm continuing the love into winter because I think that these apples, still on the tree and covered with snow are just the coolest. I spent a couple of hours outside yesterday with my camera, we got a storm on Tuesday night and by the time yesterday afternoon rolled around it had stopped snowing, the temperature had risen a little and the sky was crazy blue. I realized as I happily snapped photos of the snow that it's not the snow I hate when it comes to winter. It's the cold. Yesterday it was hovering around 0 and there wasn't any wind so I was perfectly comfortable wearing my Old Navy trigger mitts (I have no idea what these are actually called, around here we call them trigger mitts, they're the mittens that have flaps to make them into fingerless gloves), lightest winter coat and was not worried about frost bite. Getting back on topic, apples covered in snow are pretty and they earned a spot on my favourites list. 

{three}

I'm not sure if I've really made it clear that I really do live in the country. After the snow there were lots of deer tracks in the snow, which were cool but deer tend to walk in a straight line, these tracks however are clearly not in a straight line. I'm pretty sure these ones were made by a furry little squirrel friend. And squirrels always make me happy. 

{four}

Avocados make me happy. First off all I love their green colour, secondly they are delicious and rounding out the top three reasons I love avocados is because they're healthy. This week my favourite way to eat avocado is creating a copy cat cajun chicken sandwich based on one I order all the time at a local restaurant. Cajun seasoned chicken breast, red onion, cheddar cheese, chipotle mayo and avocado on a ciabatta bun. I may or may not have eaten the same thing for both lunch and supper one day this week. And a honourable mention to the homemade oven fries that I've finally perfected after months of playing around with seasons and oven temperatures. 

{five}

I officially registered for Ali Edwards One Little Word class and declared my word of the year! I'll be sharing more next week about what my word is and how I'm planning to document my word through the year. I'll leave you with a hint that it starts with the letter 'R', has four letters and can be used in a lot of different contexts. 

I have a weekend jammed full of Christmas beginning with 'midnight madness' at the mall tonight with my mom to finish up the last of my shopping. Tomorrow night is J.'s Christmas dinner for work and Sunday J.'s parents are having their annual Christmas party. 

Linking up here and here.

Fall Camp Weekend

Friday afternoon I packed my bags and set off to Girl Guide camp for the weekend. First I stopped to appreciate the hilarious contrast of my camp gear and my Michael Kors purse. I am nothing if not a well rounded individual. 

There was a little hiccup  major problem Friday when we got to camp only to discover that the fly wasn't with our tent. Normally I would never go camping (especially with girls) without checking and double checking all the gear before hand. This weekend though I was just filling in with a group whose leaders couldn't go to camp. Luckily another group had an extra tent and saved us. Shortly after getting our site all set up it started to rain. And then it poured. And then there was some thunder and lightning. It was good times but the tents didn't leak and the girls did awesome. None of them were the least bit bothered by the who ordeal and continued on giggling in their tent, I'm not sure at which age girls realize that tents aren't soundproof but I do know it doesn't happen between the ages of nine and twelve. As a result of this I am now well versed in all the latest teeny bopper news. I also found myself saying, "Girls, please stop doing gymnastics in the tent. You're going to knock it down."

Thankfully the weather cleared and Saturday was a nearly perfect fall day. Sunny, bright and as long as you dressed properly being outdoors was wonderful. This camp was a little bit of learn to camp type camp. The girls learned how to choose gear,  properly pack a backpack, practiced putting up and taking down tents and a bunch of other useful and essential stuff. Added bonus, I picked up a new Ice Breaker game (that's basically equivalent to gold in my life) and not one but two super, duper awesome packing tips. 

I haven't done a whole lot of fall camping but I've determined it might just be my favourite tenting weather. The days are nice enough that you can be outside and sleeping in a tent is perfectly comfortable as long as you dress appropriately and have a sturdy enough sleeping bag. Plus, the scenery is pretty awesome. The leaves were pretty spectacular and the rainbow of dish bags also made me smile on a regular basis. 

Sunday morning we packed up and headed home. I went to J.'s and made myself presentable before we went out to eat. I should note that I showed up at J.'s in my finest camp attire sporting long johns, camp pants, tank top, long sleeved t-shirt, my high school grad hoodie and my bright red rubber boots. Accessorized with my camp toque and hair that hadn't truly been brushed since Friday afternoon. Once I looked more presentable for the world we went and ate. I happily ate a bacon cheeseburger and french fries that had some kind of magic delicious spice on them. And then drank some coffee because it was only 4 o'clock and I was ready for bed. I rallied and kept my eyes open until 9:30 but then I was more than ready to climb into bed.

Today I'm off to vote, pick up a package at the post office, get some groceries, drop off a cheque for Sparks and cross everything off of my to do list! 

Linking up with B Loved Boston

The One With Thanksgiving Weekend

For those of you who may have been confused about the title of this post, no I have not time travelled! Here in Canada-land Thanksgiving is the second Monday in October. If you're the history buff type you can read up on Canadian Thanksgiving here. 

On Thursday J.'s Mom had a knee replacement so Friday afternoon I met up with J. to visit her at the hospital. We had a little visit and then J. & I went and had lunch at Boston Pizza afterwards. When we arrived I realized that a contributing factor to choosing Boston Pizza was the Blue Jays game. I'm pretty sure I am the only person in Canada who is not at all interested/entertained by the Blue Jay's winning streak. Regardless of what was happening on the TVs we had a pretty good meal. And by meal I mean we shared the appetizer platter which is really the best. When we finished eating mass quantities of finger foods J. had to head back to work and I headed to Michael's. I was planning on using my 50% off coupon to purchase a Project Life core kit to use in 2016, but when I got there the albums were buy one get one free so I ended up getting those and using my coupon on a stamp. Next week I'll use the coupon for the core kit! I'm not sure what my plan for the two albums will be, I'm thinking that the black one with the cameras all over it will be used as a traditional photo album, a place to store all of the "extra" photos that I take/print but don't fit into Project Life albums or scrapbooks. That leaves the striped one to use as a Project 52 type album. 

Albums via Becky Higgins

Saturday I spent the day at home. I did some research on extra Crests & Challenges for Sparks and ordered activity books and post cards from Veterans' Affairs for Remembrance Day. I decided to go with a "Pumpkin Party" theme instead of a "Halloween Party" so I've been brainstorming and Pinterest-ing some fun pumpkin ideas. 

Sunday is when the real feasting started! My grandmother went all out this year and made five different kids of pies. Which is crazy, but also awesome. Lemon pie is my absolute favourite but I also like a piece of pumpkin since it's Thanksgiving and all. Prior to all the pie eating I ate my fill of stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy and homemade rolls. 

After we ate J. and I went for a walk and I snapped a few photos. Only a few though because it was starting to get chilly outside. We drove the long way home because fall leaves are pretty but the leaves are only just starting to turn. By next weekend they will be full out red, yellow and orange but this weekend there is still a lot of green. J. continued on to his parents to visit with his Mom who, thankfully, was discharged from the hospital and is continuing to recover at home. 

Monday I ventured up to our attic and got my camping gear out in preparation for this weekend. I still need to find a few more things that I am confident I own, just very unsure about where they are in my house. We had a low key turkey dinner with J.'s parents and I was home in plenty of time to crawl into bed by 10:00. 

This week I have a financial training meeting for Girl Guides on Thursday and on Friday I'm going camping for the weekend with a group of Girl Guides and Pathfinders. I'm also way behind on my October Goals so I should probably do something about that too!

Apples to Apples

I am  kind of in love with the apples growing on one of the trees in our yard. The branches seem to catch the afternoon sunlight just so and from a distance they look like the most delicious apples in the world. Of course once you get closer they don't look quite so charming but still pretty enough for a picture (or seventeen). 

Thinking back to summer, I came across this post earlier in the week. A mother's letter to her child's camp counsellor.  It's been awhile since I read something that so purely and genuinely expresses camp from a parent and camper's perspective. And I love coming across these types of things. It's hard for first year counsellors to really wrap their heads around the idea that despite their feelings of self-consciousness and self-doubt in their peer group the campers that they interact with don't see them as anything but amazing. It reminds me that it's the little things in life that our worth our admiration. 

All of this apple tree admiration and new beginnings had me thinking a lot about John 15:5 - "I am the vine. You are the branches. Those who live in me while I live in them will produce a lot of fruit. But you can't produce anything without me." That's been my food for thought (no pun intended) for this week. And it's been a good reminder to stay connected to God and everyone else in my life. And that connected involves a lot of different things - writing, texting, listening, speaking, sharing, forgiving, trusting, hoping. If we're going to make an effort to stay connected to our world and ourselves we need to be willing to put in some serious effort.

It's Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. As usual I'm thankful for all the everyday blessings - food, healthcare, family, shelter, bed, heat, electricity, wifi and a closet full of clothes for all seasons. Sunday we're having Thanksgiving with my family and Monday with J.'s so I've got a full weekend ahead. And I'm pretty thankful for all that fullness. 

Thursday Thoughts

This week has felt eternally overwhelming. I've been plugging away at my to do list all week and now I've reached a stand still, there are still things to do, but before I do anything I need people to reply to e-mails and return phone calls. Which is pretty much my least favourite thing. In 9 out of 10 situations I'm a patient person, except when it comes to other people inhibiting my productivity. Then I just feel annoyed. I'm trying not to feel that way though. So I'm taking a deep breath, putting down my planner and taking a break from hitting the refresh button on my e-mail. 

I have been having the worst nightmares for almost two weeks now. I've been so focused on getting into a really good bedtime routine and the fact it's not working is the worst. I know I need to keep plugging away with it because eventually it will make a difference. 

The fall weather around here has been beautiful, highs are still in the high teens and nights are averaging a low of five. That is pure magic, I'm not even close to ready for below freezing temperatures. Or winter driving or mountains of snow or anything else that typically happens around here from November - April.

I take a little bit of pride in being a really good gift giver. I enjoy the process of shopping for others and finding things that I know the gift receiver will love. That was before J. came along. His birthday is the beginning of November and I have no idea what to get him. He definitely doesn't need any clothes and although he loves sports he also has a lot of memorabilia. For Christmas I did the whole 12 months of dates thing, so that's out. 

Blue skies and white fluffy clouds are kind of amazing. We all know I love a good sunset but I've been missing out on blue skies and cotton candy clouds. 

I've been thinking lately about how I need to do something with my 25x25 list. I'm not sure I want to go with the obvious 30x30 and 101 in 1001 seem like too much of a challenge. I know I want to do the Project Life Project 52 next year (basically just committing to doing a spread each week for the entire year) so I'm thinking maybe coming up with a 52 in 52 list. My SMART Goal loving self loves the idea of knowing that in order to complete the challenge I need to do one thing a week. And doing one thing a week seems totally attainable. 

This week is Thanksgiving here in Canada and I'm mostly excited for stuffing. I don't really like turkey all that much but I am all about the stuffing. And mashed potatoes with gravy. And probably dessert. 

I'm linking up with Stuff & Things  today!