kindergarten

So today was Michael's first day of kindergarten.  We started out with a lot of tears, which is quite unusual for him and he said he just didn't want to go.  It was sad, but I knew he'd love it.  So first - here is the morning pre-kindergarten shot.

I know - that's the photo of a happy kid. I totally laughed - this was the best I could get out of him this morning.

And then.... we get to kindergarten and Michael arrives.  He finds his place and starts colouring and - hooray! And off he goes - on the road to greatness!

Ok - so then after school we celebrated with a tour of the creek and here are our photos...

Yep - somebody loved kindergarten.

"Mom, can I tell you about kindergarten?" (We are walking in the creek.)

Sure, how were things.

"Well mom, we talked about the Fab Five."

So the Beatles was your first lesson - totally should have home schooled you... don't say that out loud.. - what's the Fab Five (please don't say beatles, please don't say beatles)

"The Fab Five are be quiet, eyes on the teacher, hands in your lap, raise your hand for questions and apple crunch."

Right... good apple crunch, babe, what is that?

"Mom (gives me the 'sheesh' face) it's like this..." and he proceeds to sit on the grass cross legged

Oh - you have to sit cross legged.

"Mom, that's what I said."

Right - totally right - I was just hearing things.

The hero of our story - firing rocks into the creek - it was awesome fun!

A giant leaf and that he insisted I photograph.

Me and my kindergartener :) he's sooo cute!

This is no photoshop job - we were walking tonight and found this rock.

No kidding.  

No - I do not have a stub arm.. or a weird boob :)

I totally love this photo though

beautiful sunset

A painted sky in Quesnel...  (this is actually a very large photograph, so if you click on it - it will expand)

Today was a long day.  I need to figure out how to be far more productive at work.
Too distracted.

Oh well - all good - I'm alive - I can still take photos - what else do you need?

Night my loves - xo

a drive

Being the nice person that I am (kind of) I said I'd drop off dog food in Nazko (only 110 km west) for my parents tonight - there return from the island is delayed due to poor weather and the dogs were running out of food - so tonight Michael and I drove out to drop off stuff... on the left is the 50 lb bag... and what's that.. a locked fence... wicked!

Lovely sweet peas

Me with the sweet peas... I know - I'm a dork

Garden runner

Road side grass (colours not tampered with)

(The abstract version of the above)

Me stuffing tomatoes in my shirt (really) as payment for the dog food being dropped off

You guessed it, a bear

A smelly road side llama - seriously this beast was standing on the side of the road

I was a good 12 feet away and we could smell it - totally gagged

And that 's' shaped thing is a snake - I actually turned around to see if it was still alive because I thought I'd show it to Michael if it was... turns out I ran the damned thing over... but apparently the animal gods wanted to play with me tonight because about 40 minutes after this photo a bird committed suicide on my windshield - I'm not kidding - the thing swooped down into the car - madness

Our Cariboo safari ended with four bear, four deer (one stupid one that also was thinking about being a hood ornament), two bunnies, a llama, a snake and a beautiful sunset.

xxoo my loves

jam-a-lam-a-ding dong

Strawberries getting all excited about their journey to becoming jam

Ready for the pot...

Yummy apricots - truth - I don't really like apricots... 

but I made it anyway and was pleasantly surprised.

Molten lava that is jam... totally burned myself... but only once

So take that jam... 

Strawberry jam in all sizes

 

Apricot jam - just love the bright colour

A bunch of happy jam jars

one more post between batches

I picked up a new photography book and while the photography is quite stunning - largely - I came to a page that made me smile...  for my long time readers they may recognize this shot - while this definitely isn't mine - it took me back to it.

From 2006 (yes, this is my photo)

Hundreds of seeds in a package - lost - 

until the hand of a gardener helped us 

and there we bound our love together again - 

another life time for us to spend as one - soul mates

maybe one day it will be one of my photos in National Geographic - back to jamming :) xo

pardon...

You want photos and info on me making jam... thanks for asking - coming up this evening :)

Strawberry finished and now back to trying to make apricot... first time - I'm sure it will be fine.

xo

september

So I'm struggling. I have little interest in spilling my guts online or in any other fashion.  I'm sad, but I'm carrying on even if I feel like I'm going to trip or lose my balance and be crushed underneath the weight of it all.  And so - because this blog was supposed to be about photos - I'm just going to post some photos  because at least I can still do that... I'm imagining that I'll have a lot more photos going forward...  my love to you - xo -

Sunset on the Lost Highway

One of my many many stops along the way

I must have stopped every hour just to take a break

It was really too nice to be in the car yesterday

I actually slept at a pull out - crazy

My favourite rock - located just outside of Clinton BC

The funniest town now in BC... ok it is more because I've

made a joke about it... think of.. you can't spell Calgary without Gary

Beautiful, tiny Makena

Michael - living it up with a cupcake

He is so funny - he eats most of the icing and then says to 

me can you take the icing off, it is gross and then gobbled the

rest of the cake part up - said he needed to eat the gross stuff first

At first I thought he was kidding, but he really meant it

Yummy tomatoes

A conversation immediately following this post:

"Mom - what are we doing today?

Don't know... pretty sure it will include coffee, why?

"Well I think we should go to Vancouver."

Right... I'm listening

"I just want to go and have lunch there"

Insert me trying to explain how far away it is... but in the back of my head I'm actually thinking about it because I'm mental 

"Well I want to go to - " long pause - then he starts getting mad at himself for not remembering where he wants to go... 

"Dairy Queen - nooooo - dang"

I start listing options

"no, no, no, no"

Yep - travelling for food - maybe I'm destined to be a food writer and travel the world taking photos - maybe he and I could have some kind of website with a kids rating and a grown up rating... 

blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, stop

Good morning my loves.
I'm taking a break from blogging for the weekend. I'm pretty much a mess right now and before I run away I just wanted to explain that I am taking a break from life and hope to be back on Monday with some photos and feeling better.
xo my loves, a thousand kisses - this too will pass, A

Garage sale vino

No word of a lie - this weekend we checked out a couple of garage sales and this lady was out drinking a glass of red wine and selling her stuff - she was shout-y and loud and so I totally had to take her photo and blog about it - I guess power to her... get busy living :)

xo

more photos...

As we packed our cute little Kyle for his giant adventure to Haidi Gwaii today (pants, gonch, socks, Harry Potter) we got out one of our small cameras.  I hadn't downloaded it in ages (ages = 18 months) and found some fun shots.  Here is a sampling for your viewing pleasure:

Ok, this first photo is for Paula.  I know how much she totally loves this shirt!

And yes, he has finally grown out it. (taken by Michael)

So here is Michael - apparently they were partying it up in these shots - there are a couple of Kyle too where it looked like they were daring each other to make the best party face (taken by Kyle)

Michael pushing Kyle around... (taken by my mom, grandma)

Ahhhhh - so cute 

(taken by Kyle)

Good old me, posing on the river front trail - this is one of the oldest shots on the camera - comes from last spring... it surprises me to say today that I'm actually 'fitter' now then I was then but at the time - totally thought I was in great shape... see we learn things about ourselves every day :)

And since I showed you my hooters I figured I'd better show you this too!  

Ok - love you guys - thanks for reading all the posts!

Off to work out - got a goal dress I'm headed for and since I can wear my goal hoodie - I finally see that I'm making progress :)

xo 

early again... well then i guess it's time to bake... sheesh

Ok - so I may have made this up a bit... I had something to work from but tried out my Chef Michael Smith skills to see how things would go...

Yummy fruity goodness with a dash of chocolate muffins 
(world's longest title - my apologies)


2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
2 1/2 cups raspberries
1 cup of saskatoons (I happened to have some frozen that me and Kyle picked)
3/4 cup water
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips (semi-sweet/milk chocolate you decide)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly grease your muffin tins.

In a medium bowl, mix the flour, salt and baking soda.

In a large bowl, beat the sugar and the oil. Then add the fruity goodness and chocolate chips.



 


Stir in the water and vanilla until incorporated. Add flour mixture, a little at a time and stir until just incorporated. (May need slight bit more water, add by tbsp)



Fill all 12 muffin cups evenly and bake about 30 minutes (took my oven 35), until they are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle of one or two comes out cleanly.





And tonight - I'm going to post some fun photos - I downloaded a camera the kids have been using for a few months and there are some great ones :) 


have a great day - xxoo 


(update - so Kyle liked them and raved about how great they were and Michael basically said he'd rather like the floor - so... yeah... not sure how to take that - they are definitely sweet and I think the sugar could be adjusted - you could sub out some sugar, add applesauce and then reduce the water - kyle is now on his way to Haida Gwaii - lucky kid!  No tears, just see you later and Grandpa let's get this truck going, what's taking Grandma so long!)

this morning

So I totally couldn't sleep and got busy this morning...

Bananas - guess what I'm making... 

Yes - it was 6am banana bread

In the pan - ready for some love in the oven :)

And here they are - all finished - just as we needed to get going - it was perfect timing :)

Ok - here I am at 6:30am - sooo tired... me want sleepy :)

How I started my day 

Dreaming

And while this looks like rain on glass it is actually rain drops being caught in a quick shot

Spending a moment enjoying the rain - and we all know what rain means... puddles - so you know what I was doing later on this morning :) 

In the end it worked out pretty well to be up so early - my mom showed up this morning, right at 7am and invited Kyle to Queen Charlotte Island (he keeps calling it Nova Scotia) - they leave in the morning - I can only imagine what he will see and how great a time he will have - I'm jealous - I went to the island for work a few years ago (like 10+ years ago) and fell in love with the island - so beautiful - the beaches were amazing and - sigh - loved it!

 Alright my loves I'm not feeling good - whatever is wrong with me continues to be wrong... hopefully it will all pass - its only been three weeks of this now.

love to you! xo

elusive sleep

The house is completely silent, all but a ceiling fan.  Kyle scared me at about 2:30 in the morning and declared he was sleeping in my bed.... why? - no reason - I think he was sleep walking, he hasn't done that in a while.  He then took over the entire bed and I lay there unable to sleep and then I heard it.  No, not the morons breaking in, the sound of rain.  I could hear it coming towards the house.  This helped put me back to sleep since this is definitely a favourite sound (I have an hour and half of it in iTunes) and click I was back to sleep and then I woke up every hour after that, apparently, to check the time.

At 6:30 I gave up with sleep and started roaming around.  I know, what a totally boring blog post - I'm such a lamo.  (no, not a lamp - darned auto spelling)

Well hopefully have something far more interesting to share later today - this day can only get better.
xoxo - Happy Monday

sunday

What about Sunday?

Well it was a busy day - I bought a new iMac for the office and I'm pretty sure it is going to be like Christmas morning at the office tomorrow.  I went and picked up some more of my favourite tea from David's - forever nuts :) ... I know - it is a hilarious title for a tea... because really - really... you could kind of take that a couple of ways... oh wait - right there are nuts - like pecans and almonds in it.. ok.. well if you didn't know better.

And tonight... we kicked it!

Kyle rocked it on drums (which is usually my instrument choice)

Since I was kicked off drum duty I sang my lungs out - it was great! An excellent energy burner!

Michael was kind of put off by all of it and then after we rocked out two songs he jumped and played guitar! It was great! Sadly no crazy photos of me singing... sorry... I know - you are all so heart broken - lmao. 

And.. it's post secret sunday - head there for the latest postcards! 

hugs and smooches to you! have a great week ahead - I seem to be on the rebound with photo taking so watch for more this week - xo