Category: Good things

Starlings Take Flight

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Rachael Ashe: Holga

This is my favorite shot taken on my Portland trip. I love watching birds take flight.

I keep meaning to write about the good summer I have been having but so far I haven’t been able to find the time. Here are a few good things:
1. Slowly transforming my apartment into a more inspiring space just by changing the art around on the walls and adding more.
2. Fun dinners with various friends on various days.
3. A cycling trip to Agassiz a few weekends ago with the lovely Mann family.
4. Moving to a new work space, and liking it much better than the old one.
5. Feeling inspired again and beginning to plan and prepare to submit work for shows in the fall.
6. Having too many good things to actually mention in the short amount of time I’ve taken to write this.

Five good things

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Silhouetted tree

1. Getting my apartment sorted out after too many days of living in the mess created by repairs in part of the space.
2. Starting to read The World Without Us.
3. Having my hair cut shorter, but not yet as short as before.
4. Keeping up with my goal to write letters to send home every two weeks.
5. Dancing together around the living room to the lovely sounds of Beirut.

Somewhere on the way to somewhere else

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Somewhere on the way to somewhere else

Taken with a pinhole camera.

Ten good things:
1. Taking the whole weekend off.
2. Unexpected invitations to a very yummy brunch with nice people.
3. A whole three days of glorious sunshine.
4. Finally buying my very own copy of “The Iron Giant”.
5. A mini road trip out of town with the help of a loner car from Ariane.
6. Watching osprey, ducks, and hummingbirds fly.
7. Seeing garter (or is it garder?) snakes in the wild for the first time in ages. (My sister had one as a pet when we were kids.)
8. The weather being warm enough to take out my parasol, wear flip flops, and eat popsicles.
9. Shopping with Mandy in unexpected places.
10. Shooting what I hope will turn out to be a kick ass roll of film.

Meeting other makers

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As the crow(s) fly

On Sunday I went to meet up on Main Street with a small group of Vancouver-based etsy makers and sellers. The whole thing was arranged by the lovely Rita Leung, who went to great lengths to let many people know about the meeting using etsy’s very limited contact system. (You can only send emails one at a time, like with flickr mail.) There were ten of us altogether and most people brought along items they’d made to show and share. It was a very inspiring event for me.

Please check out their shops:
http://laurabucci.etsy.com
http://terrain.etsy.com
http://t0fugurl.etsy.com
http://tomokotahara.etsy.com
http://thebeautifulproject.etsy.com
http://k8kre8s.etsy.com
http://smeeta.etsy.com
http://mintage.etsy.com
http://ebbandflo.etsy.com

And last but not least, there is my own shop full of photo prints of holga shots and heat transfer prints on metal.

It looks like a divine intervention

It looks like a divine intervention
The heatwave from earlier this week has cooled to a more bearable temperature today, for which I am very glad. I am sitting beside a window here and there is a cool breeze blowing, keeping things cool and fresh. The sky is overcast and it actually looks like it might rain. I’m sure the plants could use it.

For the last week and a half I’ve been looking after my landlord’s garden while they’ve been away. It’s been a nice experience to do this, but I am amazed at how time consuming it can be just to water things. Since it’s been so very hot I’ve been out there every evening giving the plants, flowers, and veggies out back, as much water as I can. They don’t have a sprinkler so it means I have to stand there sprinkling everything by hand. I feel like I know the garden so much better now, and I am glad to contribute to the survival of this lovely green space that surrounds my home and gives me so much enjoyment.

Soul and the other

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The lovers
Five lovely moments from the week:
1) Walking alone through the deserted back streets of my neighbourhood as a light snow was falling. The silence and peace of the evening was stunningly beautiful.
2) A wonderfully productive day of working on my art.
3) Lying on the floor in front of a fire as conversations went on around me.
4) A delicious dinner with a friend at a restaurant I love, and the long varied conversation afterwards.
5) The anticipation of reading through the small pile of books I picked up at the library earlier this week.

My weekend was a mixture of good and bad. It was a very busy and social couple of days, but underneath it all I was feeling quite upset (but not depressed). An unresolved situation was back on my mind after weeks of feeling like I’d moved on, and I realized it was time to deal with it properly in order to find closure. And I did.

(Sorry internet, you don’t get to hear more about it than that, unless we talk in person.)

Ten Great things from the weekend/week…
1) Meeting Chris for dinner and conversation on Friday evening. She is back in Vancouver after a year long absence in the UK.
2) Hanging out at Kai’s place on Saturday morning for our semi-regular creative projects session. I started making origami Christmas decorations for my apartment.
3) Getting Bill and I back to the aquarium to use our memberships almost eight months after we bought them. (When my sister was here!!!)
4) The unexpected gift of beautiful weather on a Sunday that was supposed to be stormy.
5) Walking with Zoe along the seawall and through the Arbutus Corridor on Sunday, enjoying the sunshine and fresh air.
6) Finally hearing the sultry tones of Stefanie’s voice coming over the line from Germany, after months of trying to coordinate a phone call between us. I wish we could’ve talked for hours.
7) Laughing and crying on the phone with Kathy.
8) Walking along the Main Street strip with Kirsti on Saturday evening, after checking out the Petri Dish one year anniversary event.
9) Deciding to reach out and having my gesture openly and willingly accepted. It was a relief to my overwrought emotional state on Monday.
10) Making the most of the brief bits of sunshine on Sunday by taking pictures with my holga.

Prayer position

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Kristi

Ten good things from this week:
1) Booking a getaway to somewhere I’ve been wanting to go for a long time. I’m very excited.
2) Seeing all the colourful leaves on the trees as we drove to and from the ferry on the island last weekend.
3) Catching up with Simone and Jacquie over dessert at Sweet Obsessions.
4) Wandering around at lunchtime with Christopher, freezing our behinds off as we searched for a hotdog vendor to feed us. The delicious Japadog was our reward.
5) Listening to the heavy rainfall outside my window as I lay in bed reading a good book.
6) Calling Hendrik at home and the humour of neither of us recognizing the other’s voice. The funniest part about it was that we’d talked as recently as that morning.
7) Going through my stuff and selecting all the photos, papers, and random bits and bobs I may use in the workshop I’m taking this evening.
8) Finding in my closet a brand new shirt I’d forgotten I had recently purchased, and wearing it with pleasure.
9) Fighting my Wednesday afternoon lethargy, with a long walk, a workout and then a twenty minute nap.
10) Enjoying (what seemed like) a bottomless bowl of thai yellow curry for dinner with Mandy.

Tamed orchid

Orchid

From Free Will Astrology –

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Most flowers depend on pollinators to reproduce. Birds and insects brush up against a flower’s male parts, picking up pollen that they leave on the female parts of the next flower they visit. But nature has created an anomaly that doesn’t play by these rules. A wild orchid known as *Holcoglossum amesianum* fecundates itself. Its male bits actually move, carrying out a complicated maneuver to reach around and down to deposit pollen directly into its female portions. This orchid is your power symbol, Leo. I hope it encourages you to learn more about self-fertilization–to increase your mastery of the underappreciated art of inspiring and teaching and taking care of yourself. Halloween costume suggestion: a hermaphrodite carrying a wild orchid.

The best part about this horoscope is that I AM currently learning to “increase my mastery of the underappreciated art of inspiring and teaching and taking care” of myself. Sometimes Rob Brezsny is scary.

Five good things from this week:
1) Finding inspiration in the window of a random store on Broadway for a future photo shoot with Christopher. This time I get to be the model and he’ll be the photographer. The new idea made us both laugh very hard.
2) Freshly baked brownies baked and given to me by Jamie. He says that chocolate has healing properties, and after eating most of them today, I now think it’s true.
3) Standing on the Cypress lookout with Hendrik and enjoying the breath-taking view of the Lower Mainland buried in a sea of fog.
4) Coming to a very important realization, with Mandy’s help, that has put my mind more at ease about the resolution of an unhappy situation.
5) A long, but wonderful, conversation with Travis about the state of the world, relationships, and all points in between.