ideas

this year seems to be bringing with it new ideas.

this one's been brewing for a bit. stewing.

mmm, stew. 

I've been able to give away some worms to some people, helping them to get set up to do their own vermicomposting. Very exciting! I also harvested my first bin and a half of castings. lovely lovely dirt.

Dirt that I have no real use for.. because this year I had to admit that I'm the worst gardener ever. 

BUT. worms... worms I'm good with. They like it when they get ignored. neglected.

SO. I'd been playing around with the idea of doing something this coming summer with wormy things. starter kits possibly. (which means I have to start feeding those wormies so they muliply) and worm tea bags. tied up with raffia. people will buy anything tied up with raffia. even shit in a bag.

it's true.

and, I've become a little addicted to these slippers that I've been making- I made 7 pairs for Christmas gifts, and it's kind of all consuming now. soooo, maybe I could be selling them too. I'd only want to (only be able to) do the market every other weekend.. so it wouldn't be too crazy. Maybe I can share a booth with a friend. who knows.

mostly I'm in idea stages.

name ideas?

current favourites include :: worms and warm, wormns, dirty feet, growing toes

got any to add?

eye spy

Guess what I found today?

My camera.

Guess what else I found today (in my cupboard)?

Locally grown popcorn.

Guess what I took pictures of?

Nothing... I was too excited to eat it.

for the next 60 seconds..

A little break from Festival de-briefing... Not because I'm done.. but because other life is happening along the way.

Growing up, I don't think I got a Walkman until I was like... 16? And even then, it was a cheap jobby that I didn't trust outside the house. (Note:: I'd used Walkmans, in the truck or car when we went on family vacations- but it was never my own)

I think (and smartly so) my parents didn't buy them for us so my sister and I wouldn't kill ourselves on our bikes or walking around town. Heck- I could barely wear a helmet on my bike/rollerblades- I couldn't hear the traffic over the sound of the wind on the plastic. I think I have some sort of hearing impairment. 

Eventually I got a job, finished university and bought one of those fancy pants non-skip c.d.Walkmans... I think I went out for a bike ride with it once before it was stolen....

All this to say... I bought myself an ipod shuffle the other day. 

And suddenly, I'm in a musical.

No really... it's like having a sound track to your life... walking down the street- each song transforms the scenery, gives it a mood. 

I'd just finished my run (more on that later) and had finished my cool-down, but still had three blocks to get home... the music made me feel like I was in a movie- I had to keep looking around, enjoying the cinematography... yeah.. I'm a dork.

But that's really what it felt like.

The run... I haven't run in about two weeks (that whole festival thing), so I decided to take it easy. I also decided to give the C25K thing a try. JMack was telling me about this podcast he and GI had been using, going from Couch to 5Km in 9 weeks... I LOVE IT. Week one is a little too easy (but I'm doing it anyway- only, I'm doing it one and a half times... so is that C to 7.5k?) It has you do a 5 min warm up, then 8 sets of 60 second runs with 90 walks between, then a 5 min cool down... 

Mostly I love that there's music that I can run to... (cause.. you ever tried to run to Neil Young? yeah... no...) AND I love that the guy who's made these things, has put some thought into it... or maybe I've over thought the whole thing.... At the third run there's a song that comes on with the lyrics being something like "leave me alone, I don't want to call you" a great break up song... also it's what I'm saying to my body... Then, after the half-way mark.. this fantastic, empowering beat- like you've just defeated the evil... like you've just discovered truth... like... well, it just makes you feel good.

losing my identity

If you live in the Tannery area, and they tear down the tannery... where do you live?


I woke up the other morning to the house shaking a little... I didn't think much of it as the train tracks are quite close, if you are in the front room when a freight passes, you can hear the windows shaking in their panes If you are sitting close enough you can watch the glass shake around. (yeah, I imagine those are pretty weather tight ;) There's even a slight shudder to the house when two pass at the same time. When I stepped out the front door at 7, the air smelt heavy like skunk... which was strange because that was the morning of the minus 33 wind chill... if I were a skunk, I'd still be in bed- skunks don't have day jobs. It was strange until I took the first corner behind my house and saw the dust flying and settling, flying and settling. The large red brick house at the main entrance to the Tannery was flattened. a heap of red brinks and some machinery sorting left over bits if metal and wood stood beside an archway made of cement that had at one time connected the house (office?) to the rest of the buildings, remained.
The Tannery was a photographer's (or maybe any artist's) dream.... old window panes catching light, rusting cogs and wheels, wooden roofs at strange angles, little bits of shadow and surprises. I'll miss it. That same morning an old door had been left open, you could see silhouetted and framed by morning sunlight an old pulley and chains from the ceiling... I really need to start carrying a camera.

A plug

So, fantastic news this week at work, we're getting a pay increase! We're still not at "industry standards" but we're moving up a little at a time.
"What will I do with my Retro pay?" has been the question of the day for many.. and I'm flip flopping back and forth on my decision.... it's not a tonne of money... a little over $500 before taxes, AND it's nearly income tax time... well, it IS income tax time, but I'm still waiting on three little pieces of paper *le sigh*...
I need a new mattress for my bed... sometime soon. Not desperately soon, no springs are stabbing me in the back yet, but it's an old one, laying on a sheet of chipboard in the frame of my bed. So I've been doing some pricing here and there over the past year....
Saturday I found myself in "Heavenly Dreams" It's the place beside CDCI West, it used to have some other name, but in the past year it's changed, the owner there now is Scott Keller.
I like local, so I will be buying from him. Not just because he's local, but because he bothered to put the time and energy into a sale that he may not have even profited from. He even encouraged me to check around for other prices.
So, I go in, and Scott comes up to me and asks how he might help, I mention that I'm just starting to price things out and I'm not really sure what it is that I'm looking for. Scott then takes thirty minutes of his time to explain a whole PILE about mattresses. (pun may or may not be intended). I came in knowing very little... and I've spent time in and out of stores all over... and left with a grasp on what I need to know to make an informed purchase. All the while Scott kept in mind that I likely wouldn't be buying from him, and helped me to figure out how to make the comparisons between brands and even how to compare same brands between different shops. He took the time to answer even my obscure questions..
Did you know that there's a brand of mattresses that has parts produced locally?
Anyway, I know this reads like a cheesy advertisement... but well... it is. Your regularly scheduled blogger will be back later.
Go check them out.