back in the saddle

holy hannah! are we done yet?!

so... seriously now. i'm getting tired. today was supposed to be one of my many planned uber-productive days but no dice - it never really happened. not sure why. (well, i'm sure why - it's because i felt the urge to get this laptop thing wrapped up once and for all and i wanted to visit best buy onemoretime just to make sure that i got the one that's the absolute right one for me).

holy indecisive, batman.

i'm looking at a super cool one who's screen rotates around and turns into a tablet. i'm not going to geek out here with the deets, but trust me when i say that it's fantastic. we'll see. after that, we did some driving around and errands, and now it's most definitely too late to pull out my awesome prismacolour pencils (mishmish gift) and tabletop easel (ditto) and get rockin.

off i go.

363 days to go til next christmas

stuffed to the brim twice over now, i'm in the process of digesting and squeezing myself back into my jeans.

great christmas. big love to all my family and friends. thanks for the gifts, the love, the food & memories.

what new memories have you made?

it's that time again

i've been buying like crazy on etsy - i dont know whether it's the time of year or the fantastic items that i've been coming across lately - or a combination of both - but it's darn near impossible to swing by there for a quick visit to leave some feedback without stumbling across something else that i absolutely need to buy.

today's purchase: susyjack's deluxe 2009 wall calendar. mm. it's my second year of getting these calendars.. i love how vibrant they are, yet not overwhelming. i hang them in my office wall, three months at a time, as a way to brighten up the dull beige of the cubicle - they're among one of the most frequently complimented items that i have in there.

i can't wait for the 2009 round!

all holed up with plenty to do

how stinkin cute are these felted magnets and letters from MiChiMa?! They're quite possibly my new favourite things.

today: last day of work before the university closes down for the holidays and i'm on vacation for 3 weeks! awesomeness abounds. i'll be holed up in my house, scratching that creative itch for the next lil bit. it's gonna be creative output city; just you wait and see. we're expecting a snowstorm extraordinaire tomorrow (they're talkin 27cm of snow.. which is about 14", give or take...) so i've got full intentions to spend the entire day inside; while everyone else is at work, i'll be cleaning and then creating and then quite possibly having a nap.

what a fantastic start to a vacation!

hello finish line!

holy delivery, postman!

i've a sneaky suspicion that the post office might have been holding a bunch of my incoming purchases hostage and has decided to deliver them to me all in one giant batch.

{sweet - at least they're delivering them to me, right?}

i'm suuuuper happy that i've received all but one of the gifts that i've ordered online. everything looks spectacular and just the way i'd expected it to. i'm almost done my shopping - just three more presents to go! i'm really excited for a few gifts in particular to get to their recipients this year.. i love it when i know i've got something that's a combination of meaningful and awesome at the same time - too bad i can't share what it is here. yet.

what are you most excited to give this year?

photo via alan chao

food for thought

hm. from last month's new york times. what do you think?

Slow Blogging is a rejection of immediacy. It is an affirmation that not all things worth reading are written quickly.

This approach is a deliberate smack at the popular group blogs like Huffington Post, the Daily Beast, Valleywag and boingboing, which can crank out as many as 50 items a day. On those sites, readers flood in and advertisers sign on. Spin and snark abound. Earnest descriptions of the first frost of the season are nowhere to be found.

In between the slow bloggers and the rapid-fire ones, there is a vast middle, hundreds of thousands of writers who are not trying to attract advertising or buzz but do want to reach like-minded colleagues and friends. These people have been the bedrock of the genre since its start, yet recently there has been a sea change in their output: They are increasingly turning to slow blogging, in practice if not in name.

“I’m definitely noticing a drop-off in posting — I’m talking about among the more visible bloggers, the ones with 100 to 200 readers or more,” said Danah Boyd, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies popular culture and technology. “I think that those people who were writing long, thought-out posts are continuing, but those who were writing, ‘Hey, check this out’ posts are going to other forums. It’s a dynamic shift.”

Technology is partly to blame. Two years ago, if a writer wanted to share a link or a video with friends or tell them about an upcoming event, he or she would post the information on a blog. Now it’s much faster to type 140 characters in a Twitter update (also known as a tweet), share pictures on Flickr, or use the news feed on Facebook. By comparison, a traditional blogging program like WordPress can feel downright glacial.

la vie en bleu

{some of my most recent flickr faves... it appears that i've been on a bit of a blue kick.}

updates:
laptop - still the victim of an amnesiac hissy fit.
christmas shopping - almost done. just a few more things to go.
stockings - not done in the least.
creativity - peaking. it seems that the fact that my laptop is busted means that i have no other choice but to get a-creatin'. sweet.

how was your weekend?

1. light blue stairwell, 2. Memories of Morocco, 3. north beach, 4. Blue Shutters, Hanoi, Vietnam, 5. Garden of Yves Saint Laurent, Marrakech, Morocco, 6. Summer Lovers :: Oia, Santorini, Greece, 7. Tangier, Morocco, 8. Morocco, 9. Morocco - Pensando in blu!, 10. Hellenic blue... locked and sealed, 11. blue..., 12. oh so blue, 13. dandelion blue, 14. My Blue Eyes, 15. The Light Blue Pencil, 16. Orange & Blue with N95, 17. Greek blue, 18. Blue Christmas!, 19. blue on concrete, 20. green & blue, 21. dandy drop, 22. Bury your pride and say goodbye, 23. Heaven, 24. Blue ice cave at the Jostedalsbreen glacier, 25. purple sea snails

crapola.

my laptop seems to be rebelling against me again. first it was freaking out and had amnesia, now it wont boot up. i've been doing some investigating on the nerd forums and i think i know what's wrong with it, but it's gonna require a reformat and reinstall - and after that, i have to hope it's not a hardware problem otherwise my anticipated laptop purchase may come sooner than i was originally planning it.

does anyone have any recommendations?

my only stipulation are that it's gotta have good processing power so that i can run photoshop and a few other programs at once, it's gotta be fairly affordable (i'm talkin under $1000 cdn), and portable, since the current one is kind of heavy. finally, i'm not looking for a mac. (sorry, mac people. nothing personal - just that they're outside my price range and all of my existing software is meant for windows.)

i've been really eyeing the dell inspiron mini 12 or more recently, an hp one that i met in best buy... i currently have an acer and am incredibly dissatisfied with it; i started having problems with it two months after the warrantee was up. so... what do you have? do you like it? would you buy that brand again?

{in the meanwhile, posting is gonna be more sporadic. i'm going to try to keep to as much of a regular schedule as possible, but can't guarantee every day posts until i can figure out my computer situation.}

a little ray of sunshine, though...

mike had his first sale at his etsy shop today! woohoo for him!

over to you, lloyd...

reporting updates from the toronto OOAK show...

too-cute bags by becky caulford of the honeybea design hive (those oversized buttons are what drew me in!) the bags are super soft and such high quality, i'd highly recommend it to someone who's looking for a new one!

i was thisclose to buying some work by award-winning potter Marie-Joël Tréma, but because of all the money i've spent on kal barteski's art this month i figured i couldn't budget it. but seriously, keep an eye out for her stuff - it's absolutely gorgeous and i need it on my walls.

{it's kind of difficult to tell from her gallery, but her pieces are individually crafted ceramic tiles with various textures, patterns and colours, mounted on a thick polished wood frame.)

finally, the above photos are pieces from gisele theriault of the barber's daughter. what gorgeous, gorgeous work. i love it.

almost as good as christmas. almost.

it's finally here. today - it's my visit to the toronto one of a kind show. am taking the afternoon off work to get there early before the weekend crowds. cannot wait to see all of the incredible talent and creations that abound. i've been preparing for months now. shopping takes stamina... and i'm up for the challenge.

six hours of unbridled OOAK. what better kick off to a weekend?

where the sidewalk ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes - we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark; and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

- Shel Silverstein

photo by mjmatt

merry merry!

holy hannah, i can't believe it's almost thursday!

some merry and bright ideas for christmas:

handmade gift card boxes by heather bailey
super-cute monogrammed gift tags from martha stewart
a hanging wall organizer by lotta jansdotter at living creatively
oreo truffles in an origami gift box - how perfect for a coworker?
customizeable & printable chocolate bar wrappers from rachael ray {ok, so it's not technically a gift, but it's just so cool!}
shel silverstein books. any of 'em.
cookie mix in a jar {check out the photo up there. seriously. how can you say no?}

has anyone started their shopping yet? i feel terribly, terribly behind on mine.

road trippin kinda weekend

my little car clocked a few kilometres this weekend on our latest road trip; saturday, we headed down to the niagara wine region for a tasting and tour at hillebrand estates winery, a walk around the falls, and a drive through the countryside.

on sunday, we decided to head up north to my late great aunt and uncle's farm, the stables of which have been recently converted into a super cute antiques shop by their two sons. before fleeing back down south from our first winter storm, i managed to convince everyone that a stop at the mariposa market in orillia was in order. as luck would have it, we had unwittingly stumbled upon their customer appreciation day and were the proud recipients of all of their free samples of baking and mulled apple cider. mm.

toasty, full and tired from all the fresh air, we headed back home for a roast beef dinner and weathered the storm with a great bottle of wine.

fantastique. what'd you get up to?