07 June 2012

soak

Yesterday, the rain whipped and stormed at the windows until 8 o'clock in the evening. It was then that I ventured outside to observe the aftermath. I took my dogs and my camera into the field for an adventure in the wet; up to and around the old forest.



When I got up to the row of caragana trees behind my house, I realized that I hadn't noticed their yellow blossoms until then. Their arms were weighed down by all the rain, but they managed to bid us a dewy "g'day."




The rain had turned the soil of the field into a mass of deep, satisfying mud. My boots made a sucking, slurping sound with every step. The dogs chased airborne sandpipers.



The canola, seeded by the farmers not a month before, were poking their tiny, leafy heads out of the soft mud; looking grateful and awake after the day's rain.




After making it well up to the forest, we stood before the silent view of the highway and the old red barn on my Uncle's farm. I walked; my dogs upset the mallards of a nearby pond.




We ventured around the curve of the forest, to the side shadowed from the sun.



The humid air was still on the dark side of the wood; the sun was hidden behind all the trees.      Ivy came over to say hello. 







 At last, we reached an open part of the forest. We ventured through a row of trees and ancient cement cylinders. My pants and dogs alike were soaked after wading through all the wet grass.





 By the time we reached home again, the cats had emerged.

03 June 2012

some words to live by

Ernest Hemingway: There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

Ayn Rand: The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.

Jake Kerouac: Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.

Edgar Allen Poe: Invisible things are the only realities.

Oscar Wilde: I think it is very healthy to spend time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person.

Eleanor Roosevelt: No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Ed Maccauley: When you are not practicing, remember, someone, somewhere else is, and when you meet him, he will win.

Shahir Zag: You don't need bigger boobs. You need to read better books.

Lorne Michaels: If you look around the room and you're the smartest person there, you're in the wrong room.

Oscar Wilde: I don't want to earn my living, I want to live.


30 May 2012

a post long overdue

In keeping with the usual course of life, intense busyness has kept me from all the things I wish I could be doing, with very few exceptions (this is why the summer is going to be full of projects!) Naturally, with so little time, I haven't spent it updating my blog. However! I have at last decided that I simply must post something; if only to maintain the idea that I am, indeed, still alive. Which led to this post: a summary of my latest goings-on for all you lovely stalker chaps out there. So this is what's gone down, I:

Got thick-rimmed hipster glasses.
near-sighted lenses, clear-green frames, almost-cateye edges 

Saw The Avengers thrice.
greater than expectations, funny, exciting; full of hot men (*totally the main reason)

Smoked a Cuban cigar.
gritty, stung the lips, tasted dark and fiery; smelled like a distinguished Orson Welles character 

Saw the U.S. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (finally!)
impressive, excellent visuals, David Fincher at his best; better than the Swedish version

Read Macbeth.
gorgeous, intense, deep; I have totally memorized Lady Macbeth's dark soliloquy

Started seriously listening to Bjรถrk, Jeff Buckley, and The Black Keys.
fantastic and strange | beautiful and soulful | exciting and talented

Gutted and rearranged my room.
long time coming, much needed, deeply satisfying

Watched three of the most depressing movies ever.
never watch: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Raging Bull, or The Wind that Shakes the Barley (unless, of course, you have a heart of steel)

Read A Room with a View by E. M. Forster.
charming, funny, lovely; a perfect picture of Italy with excellent social commentary 

Hyped Prometheus like no tomorrow (and still am!)
this next installment of the Alien series has been a long time coming --I simply cannot wait for June 8th!

Purchased a book on bread-making. 
using it is one of my main summer goals!

Signed up for Driver's Education (finally!)
because I want/need the experience and the reduced insurance pay, but mostly because I am sick and tired of depending on my parents to drive me places --this has been put off for far too long! 

Watched all of Doctor Who and The Walking Dead
oddly charming and addictive, despite cheesiness | excellent effects and cool idea (though mediocrely executed and not even close to the quality of the comics)

27 April 2012

bookie wooks

I need to whip my reading into shape. Badly. In the past month, I've hardly gotten through two books, and they were not chosen of my own accord. It is time to make a list again --and actually complete it this time. So, these are the books I have been wanting/needing to read for at least a year now. It will take me some time, but I need to get through them!

The Bible (New American Standard)
A Journey to the Center of the Earth - Jules Verne
Notes from Underground - Dostoyevsky
The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way - Bill Bryson
Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
The Bourne Identity - Robert Ludlum
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
A Room with a View - E. M. Forster
The Collapse of Evolution - Scott M. Huse
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Word Histories and Mysteries - editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries
Winnie the Pooh - A. A. Milne
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden - Hannah Green
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
Franny and Zooey - J. D. Salinger
As You Like It - Shakespeare
On Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
I Am The Messenger - Markus Zusak
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Case for a Creator - Lee Strobel
Ulysses - James Joyce
At the Mountains of Madness - H. P. Lovecraft
Beyond Good and Evil - Friedrich Nietzche
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Interview with a Vampire - Anne Rice
Bleak House - Charled Dickens
The Food of the Gods - H. G. Wells
Schindler's List - Thomas Keneally
As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
Orthodoxy - D. K. Chesterton
The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
Mutiny on the Bounty - Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall
From Hell - Alan Moore
Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson
The Snows of Kilimanjaro - Ernest Hemingway
 Watership Down - Richard Adams
Mere Christianity - C. S. Lewis
Dune - Frank Herbert
Therese Raquin -  Emile Zola
The Innocent - Ian McEwan
Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
A Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
The Reason for God - Timothy Keller
Shake Hands with the Devil - Romeo A. Dellaire
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
The First Men on the Moon - H. G. Wells

24 April 2012

a summer list

This summer has got to be as excellent as possible. I have had no freedom to do anything I want for the past several months, so I simply must make up for it in the summertime. I need to:

(July)
- go to the Art Walk on Whyte Ave
- go see The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man on the big screen
- take Lana to Shakespeare in the Park
- plan and put together a summer dress
- play Portal (on the cold days, obviously)

(August)
- have sushi with multiple people
- go see The Bourne Legacy on the big screen
- visit the zoo with friends
- bake a loaf of bread from scratch (using this book)
- hold an uproarious movie marathon
- plan and put together a satchel, pillow cases, and curtains
- visit Fort Edmonton

19 April 2012

completion !
























I am done! After two seasons of Doctor Who, the whole discography of Eurythmics and The Cure, and half a box of vanilla rooibos tea, I have finally finished my little square in Saint Albert's "Cultivate Life" Mural Mosaic. I am so glad to have scored a panel of in this project, but equally so to have completed it at last. But now it is time to move on to sewing again --an art which comes far more naturally to me.

16 April 2012

progress


this is where I have ended up
still some work to be done
but the smell of paint
and rooibos tea
is lovely.