little cardigan

I finally finished it up and sewed on the wooden buttons. Now to wrap it up and mail it off to my cousin who will be a mom very soon! It was a very simple pattern, which I found for free here (through Ravelry).

more hellebores

I have had a hardcore gardening weekend. The weather was great, and it felt wonderful to get so much done - planting seeds, moving perennials, adding manure to the beds, building trellises... I also made a trip to Plant World, to get some supplies, where I happened upon several gorgeous Hellebore varieties. I wasn't planning to get more of these until maybe next year, but they seduced me. Plus, they were on sale, so how could I resist them? There are three: The top two are different colours of the same double petalled variety; a greenish yellow and a dusty greenish pink (2 pics of the pink one), both with subtle little speckling; and the last one is a different variety with spiky edged leaves whose nodding flowers will appear more white as they open. 

This year I was supposed to take it easy with the garden, since I should really be spending most of my time painting, but I haven't been able to stick to my aim of keeping things low-maintenance. I just enjoy it so much that I can't keep myself from following whims and trying new things. In the Spring, especially, I feel a passion and excitement for gardening that I haven't felt about much else all winter. I just have to find a way to be more efficient with my time. Maybe I can add a few extra hours to the day or days to the week? ha ha. Wouldn't that be nice. 

I have managed to develop yet another new plant obsession (in addition to this Hellebore infatuation), which will definitely make more work for myself, but I just couldn't put off indulging it until next year. So... more about that soon. 

more from yesterday

The best thing about yesterday was seeing my friend Stephen Appleby-Barr's exhibition at Nicholas Metivier Gallery. It was the last day for the show and I'm so glad I made it. It was amazing! I even bumped in to Stephen on the street after, and he gave me these exhibition cards from his secret stash.

I also bought some buttons for my baby sweater (which is aaaalmost finished). I had trouble choosing, so I got a few options. Hopefully in the next couple of days I will finish it up and post some photos here. I have to finish soon, because the baby is nearly due! The other thing I bought that I planned to photograph to show you was a pair of pink jeans. I've been dreaming about pink jeans for a long time now, and found a great dusty rose pair at Urban Outfitters. However, I chickened out of modeling them for you all. Maybe another day...

busy day

Today was a beautiful day, and full of activity. We took advantage of the weather (sunny and mild) to do a LOT of pruning in the backyard. I also ventured out on my bike to do a bunch of things (more about that when the sun rises so I can take some decent photos in the house). I brought home the best roti in the world for dinner, and now I'm editing some new mineral photos that I took last night. I plan to start a new painting of one of these tomorrow. It feels good to be productive. Maybe I can manage to pry myself out of bed before 10 in the morning (yeah, right) so I can get even MORE done tomorrow.

hellebore

I went to the Canada Blooms garden show last weekend (thanks to my fantastic neighbour and gardening buddy Sandy, who volunteers every year and gets me a free ticket!) and bought myself a Hellebore plant(aka Lenten Rose or Christmas Rose). I have been in love with these plants for years and am so happy to finally have one. I was going to plant it outside right away, but we just had a big dump of snow (booo), so it will have to wait. Until the show melts, my new Hellebore will live in a pot by the kitchen window. Anyways, it's kind of a shame to stick such a beautiful plant in the back of the yard, when it will only be blooming when it is too cold to spend much time out there. I'm happy to have an excuse to keep it inside for a while where I can really enjoy it. I can see myself getting completely obsessed with Hellebores. There are many incredible variations.

signs of life

I did some cleaning up in the garden today. 

Things are starting to sprout up through the detritus, even impaling whole leaves. 

This makes me feel hopeful.

Marcasite

A new work in progress.

meteorology, 1846

from here

icebergs, 1894

from here

winter survival

A few things helping me get through February this year:

A new stack of Scandinavian/Nordic mysteries and Wallander on DVD - so good! 

I have ventured away from Sweden and on to Iceland and Norway. I'm savouring the last Wallander book now.

I haven't started the Jo Nesbo yet, but I've finished the three Icelandic mysteries by Indridason, and they were great.

Tulips from my valentine.

Beautiful old type drawer to display some of my collections (birthday present from my honey). 

Filling this up with tiny things will occupy me for a while.

Mail from far away friends.

Knitting my first baby sweater (for a cousin's forthcoming little one).

I've also been re-watching Veronica Mars, one of my favourite shows ever. So addictive! 

What has been helping you to survive this winter?

birthday #30

Yesterday was my 30th birthday. I took the day off work, slept in, got my hair trimmed (professionally for the first time in over a year - yikes!), bought some yarn and started a new knitting project (more about that later, hopefully), and went out for an amazing dinner with Andrew at Atlantic. It was a perfect day. My parents had these flowers delivered for me - so sweet! And my Dad sent me this photo on facebook. I think I was about 5 years old? Notice the rad tent trailer in the background. I love it! It is mini-me! It's funny how I seem to look more like my young-child-self now than I did at any other time in my teenagehood/adulthood. I guess it's the hair.

I feel pretty good about being 30. I don't really see why people make such a fuss about this number. I guess I'm pretty lucky to feel happy about where I'm at in my life right now.

first collection

This is my first rock collection. Well, not counting things I picked up off the ground. I've been looking for it for ages, and finally found it hidden in our cluttered apartment. I brought it for show-and-tell in kindergarten, and while it was sitting on the counter at the back of the classroom, waiting for show-and-tell time, some kid covered up my name with blue marker. So mean! He vandalized my rock collection! I was so upset. But I wrote my name again on the lid with some stars and hearts. And my mom wrote my name on the underside of the lid and on the bottom of the box with my address. It was clearly a precious possession. I'm not sure about the math equations on the back. I can't imagine that I would have written those there, since it was such a special object to me, so maybe someone else did that too? Curious. Anyways, I'm so happy I found it! It is definitely my most treasured childhood artifact.