Happy First Birthday Asher

For all the stress of having an only marginally housebroken Yorkie running our lives, I have to admit that he more than makes up for it with all the joy he brings.


To celebrate his birthday it was time for a nice haircut. Asher has only been to the groomer once and it was a disaster. The groomer was terrified of this little bundle of energy and I couldn't blame her. I vowed that I was going to learn how to do it myself. It would save me some time and money, save him the stress of going to the groomer, and give me the satisfaction of caring for him myself. Piece of cake, right? Unfortunately it is not as easy as I expected it would be. For one thing I've had a bit of a challenge finding pictures of exactly what a puppy cut looks like and advice on how to do it at home.

I'd been experimenting with trimming his coat for the last several months but he was beginning to look pretty unkempt. Today for the first time, he was able to calmly submit to letting me cut his hair, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. And one of the great things about having a little dog is that I can easily put him on the counter any time I want to give his cut a touch up.

I sure wish I had taken a before picture. He was a mess!



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The Singer's Quilting Bee

My sister in law believes that if you make your desires known to the universe you will get what you need, and I figure it's worth a try, so here goes:

I want to sing! And I want you to sing with me. I have a vision of an informal group that gets together regularly to make music. We'll read through choral works, Bach cantatas, operas and whatever else strikes our fancy.

What do I need for this to work? Trained musicians, both men and women, who love to sight read and will make time to get together (preferably on a week day) in my home in midtown Toronto. Know anyone who might be interested?

I'm putting on a pot of coffee and keeping my fingers crossed.

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Finding the Parrots in Every Day Life

My husband and I once went on a disastrous vacation. We didn't do the research, didn't set our expectations and ended up disappointed. Even though the weather was beautiful and we enjoyed each other's company the resort and its' location weren't what we were hoping for. There was no lush vegetation, and no sign of the bird sanctuary we had been promised by the travel brochure.

We found the humour in the situation and told ourselves that we were probably just a few steps from a tropical paradise. On the next street over there would be so many gorgeous birds that parrots would be landing on our shoulder. We would plan our vacation better the next time around. For now we just had to relax and enjoy our time together.

When we moved into our home we were able to sum up the years and years of dreaming about it and our deep satisfaction at finally finding our dream home by telling each other that we had found the parrots. Conversely, when something we had planned does not turn out to our satisfaction we commiserate with each other that we missed the parrots.

This image has come to have deep resonance in our lives. We've learnt that the parrots are there, if we could just find them. Sometimes we need to prepare a little better, to look a little bit longer, to trust our instincts. Most importantly it takes work. It takes work to find the parrots, and it takes work to make the best of a bad situation when you've just ended up on the wrong street.


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Sometimes a book comes along that takes over my imagination and makes it even harder than usual for me to get any work done. A Discovery of Witches: A Novel is such a book. If you love libraries, scientists, academics and suspense, I can heartily recommend this gentle romance.

A Mystery Wrapped in An Enigma

My morning just gets better and better. Yesterday morning I had the thrill of hearing the finale of Brahms Second Symphony as I drove to meet my running crew for our 6am run. I can only trust that the uninhibited way in which I turned up the volume, boogied, bellowed and conducted as I drove the last few blocks was not caught by any candid camera. The joy was compounded when I pulled up a youtube clip for the kids to enjoy when I got home.

When I hear this music I am not just overwhelmed by its sheer exuberance and the little surprises which Brahms seems to throw in every few bars. I am also taken back to my Grade 13 music appreciation class. We had the privilege of studying the score in detail with our teacher Mr. Lehman. It was my first real introduction to the pleasures of symphonic music, score study, and music analysis. A second memory is the delight that Tom Allen injected into his introduction of this music back when he had a morning show on the (what I would refer to as) dearly departed CBC. He envisioned classical music listening car and truck drivers across the country blaring on their horns at the moment late in the fourth movement of the symphony when the trombones finally get to play. Magical!

What could top that start to the day, you ask? This morning I returned from taking the kids to school to discover an unexpected package. Did I order this book from Lark Publishing? Far from impossible that I ordered it (and forgot about it) and it just now became available. It falls so precisely into my recent areas of interest: artistic collaboration and small scale Art quilts. Or could it be that Lark Crafts singled me out as a blogger who might be interested in their publication? Also not impossible.

At any rate I will now read and enjoy this lovely book and tell you all about it later. And wait to see what new happiness awaits me tomorrow morning.

Click this link to order it from Amazon at an amazing price. Twelve by Twelve: The International Art Quilt Challenge


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The Gift of An Experience

For years now we've encouraged our family to give the kids an 'experience' instead of a toy or game when it comes to birthdays and holidays.

For their 10th birthday the twins were lucky enough to be taken to 'The Secret Garden' at The Royal Alex by their Aunt Sharon and their two young cousins. They loved it and are trying to persuade us to take them to an encore performance.

Today they were thrilled to put on their best clothes to attend 'Billy Elliot' at the Canon with their Saba and Safta. Emily has been keeping the secret from Zachary all week that they'll be watching the show from box seats!

We took them to see 'Billy Elliot' in the West End several years ago. Unfortunately, they were too young and too jet lagged to really enjoy it but they have retained vivid memories of the evening. I can't wait to hear their impressions of today's outing.

For past presents they've been taken to musicals, plays, African Lion Safari, restaurants, soccer games, movies and much more.

The experience is enriching for everyone involved. The kids get to spend quality time with relatives they usually only see as part of a group, and get to an event they might not have enjoyed otherwise, and the parents get to spend a little quality time without them. Win win for everyone.

I do sometimes wish somebody was offering me one of these life enriching 'experiences' a little more often.

Guess I'd better start dropping hints about what I'd like for my birthday.

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The Junkman's Granddaughter

I told myself I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. When people told me I was spoiled I would say that my parents weren't to blame, I spoil myself! My family's life in the nice home I grew up in started as the life of landlords of a rooming house. The big old house was divided into smaller apartments. I think my parents and my eldest brother just occupied what would eventually become our dining room. As the family's fortunes improved rooms stopped being available to boarders and were filled up by our growing family. We had taken over the whole house by the time I came along. All that was left of the boarders were my father's stories of the enormous German Shepherds (or were they St Bernards) who had shared the basement with some long ago tenant.

The luxurious nicknacks I was accustomed to having around the house were purchased at auction houses. My parents weren't presented with any family heirlooms and they didn't register for china when they got married. Still, they managed to accumulate beautiful silver and china, paintings and other treasures in their almost six decades together. My sister's piano was rescued from a fire and refurbished. Treasures that broke were mended by my dad by his seemingly inexhaustible supply of superglue. The cracked and threadbare were pressed into years of service.

The Pomegranate Guild challenged us to create an object to grace the dining table. We were required to incorporate some aspect of family history. How fortunate I am to have one of my mother's silver spoons, now tarnished and worn and coated in glue from some mysterious and long forgotten Mr. Fix It project of my dad's. As I thought about using it I decided it would make an ideal handle for a tea cosy, in honour of my granny who always made me the most delicious sweet milk tea. But a regular quilted tea cosy was too pedestrian for my purpose.

As I walked up the hill after a day of errands I realized with a shock that I had held onto the baby blanket that my grandmother had knitted for me. I had also held on to the anger and frustration that I felt about it having been shrunk in the wash after my mother gave it to my niece. "How could she have given away My Baby Blanket?" I had ranted. "How could anyone have been so careless as to shrink My Baby Blanket" I had raved.

Two and a half decades later I am delighted to think that my beloved niece was swaddled in the same blanket as I was. A blanket that was knit with love by her great grandmother in hopes that she was creating a family heirloom. I chuckle at the thought of whoever washed the poor thing and pulled it out of the dryer several sizes smaller than when it went in. I sure wouldn't have wanted to be the one to have to tell my mother in law what I'd done!

Now the spoon and the blanket will warm my tea. I will remember to hold all of these memories of family and home in my heart and remember that we all can use a little Tea and Sympathy.


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