Wednesday, December 31, 2014

New Year's Eve: Of course, science fiction double feature in the back row



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New years Eve: aftermath



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New year's eve: followed by Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows :)



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new years eve: followed by pizza and wings at Me 'n' Eds



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new year's eve: celebrating the wee guys first double double



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new year's eve: in full flow



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new year's eve: family



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new years eve: the only way to celebrate



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wordless wednesday: what? another lazy morning in bed, says the daily pussy



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Thursday, December 25, 2014

#christmasasithappens : tradition with a new whovian



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#christmasasithappens : #drwho Christmas special :)



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#christmasasithappens : the robot in the house, from @cageybee



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#christmasasithappens : the sad reality of the festive season without a functioning dishwasher



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#christmasasithappens : we made it! Turkey lunch



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#christmasasithappens : spt25dec14 - the Christmas edition with funny hats



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#christmasasithappens : let the feasting commence #nocrackers



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#christmasasithappens : where's mine? - the daily pussy (oops!)



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#christmasasithappens : breakfast happens



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#christmasasithappens : the daily pussy, with vibrating mouse



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#christmasasithappens : ninjabot wins!



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#christmasasithappens : the Einstein energy bar is a stocking winner



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#christmasasithappens : unwrapping an adenovirus



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Christmas starts here



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Tuesday, December 23, 2014

2014



My year in pics, well some of it.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

sunday scribbles - the published week in review

this has been keeping me busy this week ... wonder what it will be next week?

Not a huge amount of action here.
And not because I spent the whole week moving house - it was just a quiet week for getting pieces published, but sometimes it's like that.

Happy reading!

Saturday, December 20, 2014

up next?



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Friday, December 19, 2014

Moved in at last. First night meal.



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Thursday, December 18, 2014

spt 18dec14: almost over, almost begun


A new chapter begins as an old chapter ends.
New house.
New neighbourhood - already the neighbours have been over to say hi! Something I've never experienced in Canada so far.
Good omens? I think so.
The tree outside my front door, I can see it from my new studio, is covers in lichen, moss and ferns.
Auspicious.
Rosemary growing in the back yard.
For remembrance - memory of life going well.
Out with the old, in with the new.
Making a move.
Moving on with life feels good.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

wordless wednesday: lichen, moss, trees on my (new) doorstep :)


Tuesday, December 16, 2014

24 hours of home ownership :)



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Sunday, December 14, 2014

sunday scribbles: my week in text

cranberries - seasonal! right? and draining to the left apparently

So these are what published in the last seven days ... alliteration, my name not in vain, some ghosting, and mobile bicycle repair man!

Happy reading!

Friday, December 12, 2014

friday forte: follow that Santa



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Thursday, December 11, 2014

SPT 11dec14: and so it begins again



Packing to move yet again. I'm not thrilled but I shouldn't grumble. We're moving to our own house, our own new home and we haven't been destitute all this while. Homelessnesslessness in fact, of you remember. It's not like we're couch surfing from one charity to the next, wearing out friends until we latch onto the next one.. We're going home. But I'm still allowed to be a bit done with the whole thing, and I'm not looking forward to the bathroom that needs renovating ... or the unpacking ... #firstworld problems

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

wordless wednesday: post performance beans



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Tuesday, December 09, 2014

keep looking for the sun ...

sunshine over Port Moody, even though there's a storm gathering

It's up there somewhere.
Keep thinking it's there, even if it's not visible.
Keep the faith.
I know I can get through the next couple of weeks - if I keep this faith in myself, I'll get through. I've got the reverse almost of mid-October but with fewer boxes and less of a rush.
But it's still there.
Oh my! I am not looking forward to moving again, even if it's into my own house.

Monday, December 08, 2014

midlife monday: labyrinthing in the rain #portmoody



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Sunday, December 07, 2014

sunday scribbles: wot I rote this week

Ms. Grumpy herself

This week has been a bit quiet since NaBloPoMo finished and I had one tricky piece of #scicomms to deliver. I find that when I am working on something out of the norm -longer, different subject matter, a little less formulaic - it takes up a huge space in my head.


  • My piece on Moody Ales for The V3H published this week. I've stopped writing the weekly event posts but hope to continue contributing business reviews in 2015. They are much more fun than listing event after event, and dealing with snarky comments from event organisers who don't seem to realise how valuable getting free coverage actually is. Hint: don't piss off your local event writer - your event won't be mentioned in future.
  • A part on primary research on lymph node metastasis and gastric cancer got published on the proteomics blog.
  • I got my first whoops! you got something wrong! notification for my honeybee post - worker bees take three weeks from birth to emergence to be fully functional, not the three days I wrote! Embarrassing but a good lesson to learn. Thanks to the eagle-eyed reader on Google + for gently correcting that one. Now I'm just waiting for my corrections and edits to be made in the post.
  • ... and my 12 days of Christmas series has started for the Blackberry Artists Christmas marketplace over on that blog. Fun reads! 

Friday, December 05, 2014

friday forte: almost nailed it - saving the sanity



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Wednesday, December 03, 2014

wordless wednesday: sunny side up



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Monday, December 01, 2014

midlife monday: seeking pleasures



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Sunday, November 30, 2014

NaBloPoMo to the end - and here's inktober

#inktober
you name it, I inked it! #inktober
This month I have NaBloPoMo'd - last month I inktobered.
Both have been awesome creative projects - October's switched up my creative juices and got me through the stress of moving; this month's got me back in touch with my inner bloggess. OK some posts have been pictures only, but I've posted every single day.
What will I do for December? Any suggestions?

Saturday, November 29, 2014

sunday scribbles, on saturday

a writing assignment from last week, still to be published
A day early, but here goes.

Friday, November 28, 2014

friday forte: sally forth

artist, and oneself as artist - installation at SFU Woodwards building downtown - lots to think about
Living life with forte, with gusto - from yesterday's slightly pointed post, let's move on to how I plan to move on. I find that my housemates' motivationless inertia really saps my energy as I'm not really too great at staying still in one place satisfied.
Maybe it's a skill I should cultivate, but I'm also damn sure I don't want to miss out any more on all the living I still feel I have inside me.
So rather than look back with regret on all the movies, concerts, friends, events and so on that I have missed out on, through the inevitable waiting that comes from being a wife and a mother, I should seize the day myself and get on with simply getting on.
I've already established that some of the things I value about life are not shared by my housemates. So if I choose to pursue them, I'm not depriving them of a cherished experience though I'm sure they'll miss my ever-present concierge and scheduling services.
I really don't want to wait any longer to get on with life.

Thursday, November 27, 2014

spt 27nov14: ding dong the witch is very much alive and kicking

these toes were made for tapping in frustration
So easy to fit in with the wicked witch persona these days, especially as the mum in the house.
Move the books!
Tidy your room!
Take out the recycling!
Don't forget to x, y, z and then back to abc again ..."

and so on.
Picking Domestic Project Manager for myself was not something on my list way back in those "heady" days of new relationship bliss.
But it happened anyway.

Why does it take oversight and a bucketful of nagging to get anything done around here, I wondered to myself.
How do I motivate my housemates into picking up some slack? into thinking domestically so we can all benefit?

Motivation is key to most human endeavour - it gives the goal, spurs us on, makes achieving something pleasurable ... at least, that's what I thought. But I could not pin it down for mr ebb or the Wee Guy. What makes them do something, anything?
I thought, deep and long.

Well ... it isn't pleasure at getting a task completed.
It isn't the pride in doing something or improving.
It has very little to do with other people.
It's nothing to do with the thrill of new experiences.

Both of them are lucky souls - quite happy to exist in the moment, despite surroundings, mess, hunger, the potential for improvement, another's displeasure, inconvenience ... seemingly unmotivated until some hidden urge is tapped. In some ways, I'm quite envious but I'm also fed up with being the Domestic Project Manager. And I couldn't cope with living in squalor or never going anywhere.

And then I remembered - the only thing that will get these two off their butts and into action is a serious threat to their own personal comfort.

For example, the Wee Guy will clean his room if threatened with the contents leaving the house in a garbage bag.
An electronics ban (prolonged) brings out compliance.
mr ebb only made efforts to deal with some fairly reasonable requests when I threatened to leave him home alone with the Wee Guy for a month, when I refused to play Mirena-roulette at the end of its reliable lifespan (woohoo Dr. Pollock!) and yes, when I mentioned the D word.
Yes, that.

So OK, I've used up all my motivational angles.
What next?
Should I just accept that it just matters to me, and get the hell on with my life regardless?

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

wordless wednesday: shadowbush, the leaf raker


Tuesday, November 25, 2014

temp garden - a photo essay: getting ready to move on




















This amazing garden is mine for only a few more weeks. And then I'll be getting another but permanent plot to call my own.

The garden I have right now stretches down from the front of the house, round the side over a plush velvet lawn of moss and grass, down flagged pathways to the labyrinth and garage at the back lane.


There's a hug fir tree at the edge by the lane. We're keeping our car there right now - after storms, if I want to drive the car, I need to spend several minutes brushing needles off the windscreen.

Two squirrels fight over the garage roof and up the fir tree, disturbing the magnificent blue jay and the crow.

Two fruit trees press up against the verandah outside the kitchen windows. Covered in moss, they are playgrounds for the tiny chickadees as they hunt for bugs.

And you know about the labyrinth.

The fuschia bent to the frost, but these might be winter blooms about to burst.

I'm not sure if the tree near the front door is dead or not. Are those catalpa pods, or is it the fruit of the vine rambling, strangling up its trunk? I should take a stroll past the house in the spring to find out more.

I will miss this garden when we leave. Though it's essentially dormant right now, it has been a beautiful space to explore. I shall miss this place.
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