These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things… March 1, 2012

I do not sing like Julie Andrews nor do we share favourite things!

I have been racking my brains to come up with a post for the last couple of days. We are dealing with a bunch of fevers and puke, so really blogging hasn’t been a top priority. That being said, I am trying to be dedicated to this, and a blog post doesn’t always have to be deep and insightful. Does it?

So here, in no particular order are 10 of my favourite things. I am not including my kiddo, hubs, or pets…well, maybe my dog, but these are other things that I love.

10) I love, love, love to travel. Preferably by ground. I hate to fly. As a teen, and a huge disappointment to my parents, I dropped out of college and backpacked across Canada. It was probably one of the defining moments in my life. I later moved to Nunavut for work, and honeymooned in Australia and Hong Kong. I would love to travel more, I want to see India, and explore China. I want to stay in a castle (Damn you Downton Abbey) and I want to see more of this world!

9)Books. I love to read. I always have. As a kid I would read several at a time, leaving them all over the house. Now I have a Kindle; I still have several on the go, but they are all in one neat package. Some of my favourite books include: Kicking Tomorrow -Daniel Richler, The Apprenticeship Of Duddy Kravitz – Mordecai Richler, The Catcher In The Rye – J.D. Salinger, The Anne Of Green Gables series – Lucy Maude Montgomery, I’m also partial to Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, and Harry Potter…

8) Gardening. I suck at it, I hate bugs, but I love the feel of soil, water, and mud. I like to be dirty. The smell of the earth just makes my day. Last summer I dug out 3 gardens in my backyard, and the summer before I dug out a huge front garden. I love the colours of flowers, they make me happy

7) I love a good storm. I like feeling deliciously scared. Watching the trees whip around in the wind like they are paper, hearing the thunder crack, and to see the lightning spear across the sky. I love the smell of the rain, and the cool air it brings on hot summer nights. I will often turn all the lights out, and sit with my window open just to experience it all without getting wet. I love me a good storm.

6) Photography. I love to capture moments in time. Happy, sad, angry. I love share in someone else’s moment. I used to develop film in a darkroom,  before the digital age. I would sit impatiently waiting to see what transpired; did I get my shot? Was it saying what I wanted it to say? I loved to screw around with filters, and washes. Now, I love my digital camera, but I really miss the darkroom and the wonders it held.

5) I said I wouldn’t say my dog, but I lied…and now you’re halfway through, you have to finish. I love my big dumb dog. Her name is Stella…yep…Stellaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. That’s her. She’s a lab/retriever/ridgeback. We adopted her at 6 weeks from a shelter. She was adorable. We soon came to discover she wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, but I didn’t care. She was my dog. She is loving, loud, and obnoxious. Just like me.

4) I love to pour over the weekly ads that show up in my mailbox on Thursday and Friday. I love to go through each one, noting the discounts, what’s new, and what I just have to have. I never really buy any of it. But I love to look. Same with Avon books. A neighbour sells it, and every two weeks she pops one in the box. I don’t wear makeup, and I don’t have time to do my nails, but I love to see what is coming into fashion. I again love colours. I just wish I had time and energy to devote to them…

3) I love the water. Lakes, oceans, streams, pools, I love them all. I love to hear the water, feel it. I love to watch it shape itself, knowing if I look away it will take on a new shape. Each ripple, wave, white cap, speak to me. I blame it on being a Pisces, but I don’t know if that’s it. I love how water is cleansing. We shower to clean, we cry to clean our souls. I love to watch things in the water, bugs, frogs, fish. I love fish. I have two goldfish, Ferris and Cameron. I can sit for hours watching them swim around their tank, it is beyond relaxing.

2) Talking. I will pretty much talk to anyone. I love people, I love to learn what makes them tick. I enjoy their stories. I often think that I like to live vicariously off of others because my life is so boring! It’s not really, but sometimes… I think I am rather approachable, usually it just takes a smile and the next thing you know I am in an in-depth conversation about politics, or child rearing, or even laundry detergent.

1) Lastly, I love soup. There is nothing that makes me feel better than a good bowl of soup. Hot, warm, home-made soup. Broth based, or cream, veggies, noodles, meat, fish…GAWD I love soup. Now, I do not ever put crackers in my soup, that would of course RUIN it! I do usually add pepper though. Soup with Pepper. If I ever had a million dollars, I would totally open a restaurant that served soup and sandwiches. That’s it. Coffee, tea, water, pop, and soup and sandwiches. A girl can dream….

Anyways, not my usual post. But these are a few of my favourite things!

Can't you taste it?!?!

No Cable? Say What? August 29, 2011

Silently Staring The Child Zombie Learns About Her World

Two months ago we decided to get rid of our cable. This was not an easy decision, and it was one that we had been talking about for well over 2 years. How ridiculous, to discuss cable for two years, but that is how long it took us to make the final decision.

Firstly, let me tell you, we did not have ‘fancy cable’ we had 63 reliable channels, there was no HD, no Digital Boxes, No TeVo, No Movie Channels, nothing that would lure our friends to our house on a Saturday night to watch the game. We don’t have a big screen, surround sound, or even comfy lazy boy recliners.  We are basic folks, with basic tv. Now we are basic folk with no tv.

Let me preface that I am a self-confessed TV junkie. I love my soap opera, I love reality tv; I haven’t seen a ‘Real Housewife’ that I didn’t love. I practically counted the days each year until the newest season of Big Brother started. I loved to just veg out after a long day and watch an hour of TV before bed.

Ok, re-read that last sentence. I loved to just veg out after a long day and watch an hour of TV before bed. An hour. Yep, that’s about it. so I was paying roughly $3.33 to watch one hour of TV a day. Now, not only did I watch very little TV, but Shaughn, he watched even less. Couple that with the fact that we only really watched about 10 of the 63 channels, and you get a big old pile of STUPID. What were we doing? Why? DUH!

Eventually I convinced Shaughn of the stupidity also, it took some doing, but we figured it out. We realised just how much our daughter watched TV, and how frightening her reaction was when we turned it off. We realised how much we both missed reading, and what we were missing by turning on the boob tube each night.

So we got rid of the cable. We do watch movies occasionally, but for the most part we read. We have a shared Kindle, and we read, read and read. It is AMAZING. We had both lost our love for books over the last few years, sad but true.

Why, as a society are we so addicted to the idiot box? For me, I know it was far easier to find something totally mindless and to zone out, rather than to spend the time and to actually use my brain to read, or to play with my girl, or to talk with Shaughn. I would sit and watch the latest shows, mostly trash. There are less and less shows with any substance, and more and more crap. How many times does Maury have to test the paternity of a single child? Does Springer need to show another Hillbilly Wedding? Really?

Why are we choosing to pollute our minds with this? And not just us, but our children too? Does Backyardigans really teach our children anything? One might say it’s teaching children to use their imaginations, but really? Wouldn’t it be far better to turn it off, and have US the parents teach our children to use their imaginations? I would be embarrassed to say that Sesame Street taught my child how to count or her ABC’s.  I’m not saying I’m a saint. Hell no. I freely admit to putting an episode of Dora on while I am trying to make an important phone call, or making dinner. The point is, it’s one episode (23 minutes of quiet) and it’s not daily.

I know this post won’t convince anyone else to give up their cable, that’s cool. Hopefully though this post will inspire you to think twice about that book that you want to read, and you’ll pick it up and actually read it, or instead of wishing you had more time to play with your child, you will turn off  the TV, and get down and dirty in the sandbox, putting both of your imaginations to good use.