Taste of the tropics...



#3's first fresh coconut, Cuba 2011



Perspective...

Eight Lines, Porthmeor 1986, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham

Sometimes we need to see with our ears.

Understanding others' points of view requires careful listening.

Homecoming...

One more sleep, until #3 is back in our arms.

Optimism is...

...believing that I will work through this pile today.

Turquoise...

Castoffs from yesterday.

 I've been in a turquoise mood lately.

Jair Mon Pérez House in Havana

 Probably because of thinking of #3,

Havana Style, Taschen

 and the colours of Cuba. 



Must See...

Fire Down on the Labrador, 1980  David Blackwood

The Art Gallery of Ontario will be mounting a Career-Spanning Retrospective of David Blackwood's artwork from February 5th through June 12th, 2011. This is a 'must' on the 'to see' list.

Blackwood's work is technically amazing and his ability to emote the stories of Newfoundland's coast and culture is beyond compare.

Adolescence...

The View from the Bottom of the Well, Louise Bourgeois 1996

Why is it that adoloscence is riddled with

heartbreak and hardship?

I suspect that I know the answer to that question

but sometimes I still wish that I had a magic wand.

Discovery...



from Havana Style, Taschen



#3 arrives in Cuba today.

First plane ride.

First international awakening.

"Experience, travel - these are an education in themselves"

Euripides

Calm...

Achrome 1958, Piero Manzoni via the Tate Modern

We are each responsible for finding our own place of peace within our hectic world and chaotic moments.

Welcome...

Inside our back door

Nothing says 'Welcome' more than rink-related chaos.

...or perhaps that's just the perspective of the fab five rink rats at our house this weekend.

Centimetres & Centimetres of beauty fell from the sky today...

Snow, Lawren Harris

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up,

snow is exhilarating;

there is really no such thing as bad weather,

only different kinds of good weather." John Ruskin

This just arrived via post today...

Photographer, writer, publisher, and curator Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) was a visionary, far ahead of his time. Around the turn of the 20th century he founded the Photo-Secession, a progressive movement concerned with advancing the creative possibilities of photography, and by 1903 began publishing Camera Work, an avant-garde magazine devoted to voicing the ideas, both in images and words, of the Photo-Secession. Camera Work was the first photo journal whose focus was visual, rather than technical, and its illustrations were of the highest quality hand-pulled photogravure printed on Japanese tissue. This book brings together a broad selection from the journal’s 50 issues. (from the Taschen web-site)

...I can hardly wait to find some time to peak within!

(Yes, I can hear some of you laughing!

...I do find time occasionally)

Sunshine & Snow...



Lavacourt - Sunshine & Snow, Claude Monet circa 1880



...a beautiful day today.

Winter is underrated.

Cleaning house...

The first ornament to be packed away today.

"Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing." Phyllis Diller

...but I still enjoy the satisfaction of a little clean space, even if it does only last until the next set of snowy boots step through the door.

Singular clean spot inside the back door

Back to School...

Thomas Gilbard School, built 1906

While today is Epiphany and there has been much talk around our house about feasting, the Blessing of Water and polar dipping in cross-shaped holes in ice-covered lakes, the reality of today is that it marks the first day back to school for all of us in our household. And this has me pondering...

What memories of elementary years will linger in the minds of #1, 2 and 3 as they reach adulthood, parenthood and grandparenthood?

Epiphany, during my parents' in-law elementary years, meant that school had not yet begun (and even if it did, very few students attended). Growing up on the Canadian Prairie at a time when there were still many one room schoolhouses (although they were declining) and a strong agricultural tradition, school was sometimes considered secondary to reaping the harvest or other essential family demands. Bitterly cold winters meant that some students would live with their teachers through the harshest weeks or months. The rural one room schoolhouse fostered memories of learning, lunches (oh, what would be given for a honey sandwich when you were raised on a cattle farm!) and, for some, tender care in the hands and homes of their teachers.

What memories linger for you?