the perfect dress for twirling

cautionary corn tale

minutes after this photo was taken my heart exploded into a universe of love and contentment and we walked back to the barn full of family and friends on a carpet of the newly born stars.

sunshine slippers

maybe steph loved sunsets first and i saw her do it and wanted to copy her like all the ways she puts outfits together and piles her hair on her head and talks about clever books i haven't heard of.

sometimes i think it's like your my big sister. sometimes i think it's like i'm yours.

i can see the sun rise perfectly from our living room window. i can almost hear it as it creeps steadily up over the lip of the edge of my world. it's always such a deeper orange just then. it's always not quite so round.

blurry and melted and reluctant to get out bed, we share that in common as i watch it make its effort in my bare feet, wishing i had the power to give us both the day off.

the best part about winter around this joint is the annual buffy marathon. this is its third year running and we still toast with champagne at all the important parts and there's lots of important parts so there's lots of champagne. it's a simple mathematical equation.

we keep track of things like which characters kill how many vampires and which demons kill how many people and last year we kept track of how many times giles gets hit in the head so we switch up the categories but the fun stays the same.

i know i'm in love with vampires and demons and things from the netherworlds but this show is the best. it's funny and smart and light and deeply sad. like a good book it's the depth and the sincerity of the characters that pulls you through. often you forget about the fantasy stuff cause the truths are so truthful and well thought out.

and buffy, well, we all have a little slayer inside us. and a bad boot collection from the 90's that we'd rather forget.

sweet sweet saturday morn

stuff and things

on the way home i noticed a sign in the coffee time window that said 'soup and ciabatta club' and i thought it would nice to be a member.

we are moving the mantle to it's spot after three days on a plastic drop sheet where it's spent its time drying and getting used to its surroundings. we painted it a colour called 'canadian grey' so it looks like a moody sky with a hint of spring.

mmm spring.

today i took a walk at lunch and thought it seemed brighter than it has in some time but then the wind blew and my hood came off and i remembered it was winter still and i'd just have to keep on being patient.

our little tree is doing well so that's a nice reminder of growth and renewal and what plants naturally do when it isn't minus ten. you're actually supposed to prune it like a bonsai but i kinda like how it looks au naturel. also i don't want to poo poo it's creative growth style so early on its life.

steph sent me a book in the mail, a real goodie. she's a real goodie.

jeremy put up a new shelf in the kitchen to hold our cookbooks cause now they're up above the cupboard and the only way to reach them is to drag a chair into the kitchen or invite inspector gadget over for dinner but he just never knows when it's time to go.

sometimes i feel like i can't stop looking at our wedding photos. like i want to print them all out and scatter them everywhere and go about our daily business surrounded by images of our wedding. and honeymoon. and life.

this weekend i'm going to make homemade granola cause i hear it's pretty simple and amazingly tasty but mostly cause i like thinking about waking jeremy up on saturday morning, with the smell of baked oats and honey.

who wrote the book of loveso every night this week i've been working on making a coffee table book of our wedding photos. we made one last year of our trip to costa rica and they turn out really nice and you just download the software and lay out each page however you fancy and you can take tons of time with it or they can lay it all for you and i chose the former so i could re-create the little story that was our wedding day.

it arrives in 9-12 business days and i can't wait to look at it right after i wash my hands and put on my fine china handling gloves.

come over and look too! we can all dress up in our same outfits.

yesterday i saw batman coming out of the subway.

he wasn't right away recognizable but when he started to sprint up the subway stairs in front of me and his trench coat billowed out behind him like a cape, i couldn't be fooled.

i wonder where he holds his day job. and if he eats in the lunchroom with his work colleagues. and if sometimes he can't help but use his utility belt gadgets to retrieve his print jobs.

sweetie smells of sawdust

jeremy made us a fireplace mantle!! from this freehand design he made up in his head!!

we saw one at chad and ryan's with candles underneath and it made their living room so cozy and warm so he got to work on planning and construction and now we have something to hang our stockings on next year.

it needs to be sanded and painted and candles need to be added which are all areas i can help with but look how cool!

i think we're going to paint the bottom with a light grey-blue wash so the wood grain shows through and the top we'll stain dark and you can come over for drinks and we'll all gather round the fireplace and i'll read aloud from a giant book from the olden days.

i too recently made something all by myself. it's a vacuum cleaner, a piece of pizza and pizza crumbs all made from the wrapper of a ferrero rocher!

obvious where the talent lies in this marriage. though i'm confident jeremy will find his niche one day.

how much is that doggie in the winow

we have been looking after molly since phil's been in costa rica and i gotta say, dog watching is hard work! so much walking and feeding and stick throwing! and so much shedding too! i think we vacuumed up another dog after she left.

she was sweet though. and when we took her for walks on the trail after work and it was quiet and the snow was falling and there was no one but us three, that part was nice.

she went home last night and jeremy started to miss her so i gave him this guy as a replacement isn't he cute?!

this is actually a dog i made as a kid he has three legs and red marker on his left side but i threw him in the washing machine, made him a new collar, sewed his ears back on and he's like a pup again!

so far his best trick is 'lie down'.

rock on

this rock is just down the road near the library and one day i took jeremy there on a surprise walk and was like SURPRISE, IT'S A REALLY OLD ROCK!

it moved here 10, 000 years ago by glacier which is a slow but affordable method of travel.

rocks are neat! maybe one day my bones will become part of a rock that moves somewhere nifty and people will visit and there will be a sign and in summer people will sit on me to take a load off and eat their ice cream.

your still lovely, laneway.driving by my old house was more of an emotional experience than i thought it would be. i worried it wouldn't be there or would be different looking or the trees would have lost their features that i remember so well. then we rounded the corner and jeremy pulled to the side of the road and it was like we'd driven back in time 15 years and i was home.

the sun porch on the front is no longer enclosed and the cedar shingles on the side have been painted yellow but everything else is EXACTLY the same and i found myself feeling so happy and relieved and as though the house had been waiting for me, as i had been for it.

and the trees are just as i remember.

i used to climb up the low roof side of that little green barn and sit on the top and the sharp edges would pick at my pants and the heat from the sun would warm me from underneath.

they say you can't go home again but i think that they are wrong. this place felt so familiar still, after almost two decades, it would have felt completely natural to walk in the side door. even looking at these pictures i am filled with such a strong connection to my younger self. this is the laneway i learned to ride my bike! these are the trees i hid beneath! that's my bedroom window over the front porch!

i had a wallpaper border of peach coloured rabbits. and a sill big enough to sit in and look outwards at the world.

footprints in the snow

joseph and the amazing technicolour dreambelt

this belt was in my christmas stocking and is just one more example of jer's amazing technicolour eye for gifts for me. I LOVE IT!

i love that it's woven and i love the wooden buckle and i love that it made its debut when we had lily over for pancakes.

it kept asking me for more maple syrup and i said okay but only because i didn't want to make a scene in front of our guests.

what a doozy of a year!

i started naming off things that made 2009 special the other day and before i knew it the list was ten miles long. steph fell in love with ryan and moved to red rock, lucy fell in love with the ocean and moved to vancouver, chicago fell in love with jared so he moved in with her - all in a year!

i got a new job, robynn had a new baby, vanesa started a new life.

we got married.

maybe every year is full of so many things and it's only when we stop to think about them that we realize how grand and important our lives are even in the short measure of 12 months.

sometimes i think jer and i couldn't have a better day than our wedding but then it's sunday and we're doing nothing in particular and i'm filled with such happiness it's almost as though i'd prefer the ordinary.

it's almost as though that's the stuff that's extraordinary.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! a toast to all the things you've done! they're remarkable things but then, you're remarkable.