Happy Halloween

I've more or less abandoned  this poor blog. If only I had the time to revitalize it. Oh well Here is a pic of my darlin daughter and her costume that she made herself to be one of her most favourite things ever.

She fashioned the wings from wire coat hangers and coloured duct tape.

And she made the horns from tinfoil and wrapped them in duct tape.
And the tail was made with duct tape.
And the claws on the dollar store red gloves, made with duct tape.

The wings needed a little reinforcing with a metal curtain rod, covered in duct tape.

She adapted a dollar store mask to accommodate her glasses and added snout and lower jaw with bristol board that she cut, coloured and decorated.

And voila, the fiercest looking dragon in the land.

I'm so proud of her and the great job she did.
Happy Halloween!

Snowy Day Creativity

I am missing this blogging thing.

Especially since discovering Pinterest. So many cool ideas out there.
I have cool ideas too. I want to share them. I want to spend time creating and taking pics and "pinning" my own great ideas.
I look at these prolific "pinners" and wonder...

how they do it?

How does one make the time to make and do so many wonderful things; sew, cook, bake, craft, and then pin thousands of items to dozens of boards and blog about it all? And of course they are all mothers to at least four kids as well. Where do these super humans come from????

I am not super human and I seem to have inherited the lazy gene. But still, I do have the desire to create, it's just at a snail's pace that I do so.

I have been thinking lately of starting a new blog.
One to blog solely about my work in kindergarten.
About the learning centres and the adventure I am on to implement play based early learning through an inquiry stance in my classroom.
I may get around to starting that blog, but chances are...
I won't.

Today, I have some unexplained burst of creative energy and am bursting with ideas.
This hasn't happened in some while and yet, I am skeptical about the likely hood of this "burst" sticking around for long.

Of my long and ever growing list of things I want to do (work-wise), I have recently completed one; to make a felt board.
And since I have made a felt board, I now want to make some more felt board stories.
I have mostly felt shapes and flowers and pumpkins and apples and such, but not many real stories for the purpose of re-telling.
We have recently been reading and retelling Goldilocks and the Three Bears and so I decided to make the pieces for this story.
I am not done yet, but today I got a good start by making the bears.

It did take me a while.
First, I researched bear patterns online, google images and pinetrest pages to find the style of bear I would like to utilize.
I considered buying (via Etsy) this one that I found by Jean at The Artful Parent, until I discovered that it was no longer for sale.
And so, I used the image as my "pattern"  after which to fashion my own bears. 
I then spent considerable time drawing (and erasing) the bears, attempting to get the sizing just right. Then I cut them out and traced them onto the felt that I had bought last week.
Next, cut  the bear shapes out of the felt.
Searched the entire house for the googly eyes that I know I bought a couple of weeks ago.
Finally found them in a pile of things in the Spare Oom/Office/Craft Room.
Found some fabric samples to make the clothes out of. Made and cut out the bear's clothes.
Hot glued it all together.
And my finished product...

The rest should be easy from here.  Some bowls of porridge, a few chairs and beds. 

Oh and Goldilocks, of course.

Sesame Ginger Salad Rolls

Going out tonight and taking these tasty little appetizers...

Sesame ginger dressing over romaine lettuce, sweet onion, carrot, red pepper, celery, cucumber, avocado and pear all wrapped up in rice paper.  The cilantro I used just for garnish and it is not inside the rolls as some people just don't like it.  If you do like it you can stick a sprig into your wrap, all depends on how you roll!!

Some Before and Afters

The house has kind of got away from me while I was off all summer long and now it is October and I need to get it back!!

I did a huge desk tidy a couple of weeks ago.

Before

After

 

And then a couple of weeks later it started to get out of control yet again:

 

Ugghhh

 

Much better (although grainy photo quality, flash not working)

 

And that isn't even the half of it. Here was the mess of my dining room table:

 



Before

After

 

Ok, that's it for now, will post a few more before/after shots later.



Shiny Sink Makes Me Smile!!

Okay, this for all the Flybabies out there!
THIS, makes me smile.
Thank you to ALL my cheerleaders (you know who you are!!)
That is all.

Hiatus Terminated

I've been busy.

A wee bit overwhelmed.

But in a good way.

I have a new job.

I am two weeks in.

Trying to fit everything

Into each week

Like a strategically packed suitcase

The new early mornings.

The learning and the planning

The meals and the laundry

The love and the laughter.

The singing and the Practice

The board meetings and swimming lessons

The Dancing in the Rain

Summer Solstice Commitments to Practice

Happy Summer Solstice to all!!
Wednesday seems to be my blogging day now, thanks to Jamie Ridler. 

I may yet again reach a day when my posts consist of more than simply answering Jamie's Wishcasting Wednesday query. 

But for now, this is it.  I have many ideas brewing, it just seems to be pinning down the time to tackle them!

Today, the question is, "What do you wish for this summer?"

Although I will be working part-time throughout the summer, there are many things I wish to accomplish.

Mainly because the end of this summer marks the end of much of my free time.
I will be starting a full-time job in September!!  I am very excited about this new opportunity.
I am also trying not to panic at said loss of free time.

So, I believe the most important thing for me to do is to become more efficient with my time and I plan on doing this over the summer by creating some schedules, menu plans and routines to ease the transition for myself and my family.

I also have two weekdays off each week this summer and so I plan to make the most of those by spending precious time with my little girl, doing the things that she wants to be doing. 

This I know, will consist of much time
~swimming in the river
~a trip to Canada's Wonderland
~the Toronto Science Centre
~and the ROM 

Fortunately, these are things that I am totally into doing as well.
Especially the many days we will spend at the river :-)

Blogger friend Christine Reed who writes Girl On Fire and Monkey Brains  prompted me today as well, with this question:

"We are in the new moon (June's moon is the Strawberry moon) AND at the Summer Solstice. Seems like an auspicious time to commit to a new practice of growth and exploration. ♥ ♥ ♥ What practice do you need in your life?"

The answer to this question is simple, although not new.

Music.

Again and again and again.
I keep needing to pull myself back to what I love.


Blogger friend Pauline at journal illustrations reminded me today that:

"Habit is about baby steps"
And she is right.  That's why I'm starting small.  I'm committing to starting out with:

10 minutes each morning of guitar/singing practice
(Why do I forget again and again how joyful this makes me?)

Also, reconnecting with my morning pages practice as that always encourages me to practice my passions.  However, I'm going to be an "Artist's Way" Rebel and only do 10 minutes (gasp!)

And one more habit is to move this body, through 10 minutes of walking or yoga which provides me with the energy necessary to fulfill my main practice of growth and exploration.  Which of course is:

finding Joy through Music!

Time to renew my vows to "Commit".  It is still, afterall, my word of the year!  Oh how quickly I forget!!

What do you wish for this summer?