Been a While

~:.Hello My Friends.:~
It's been a while eh? Since my last post.
Since my last post, I have successfully moved from Edmonton, AB to Ottawa.
Jeremie has found work and I am apartment hunting! I'm pretty excited about that, and am very much looking forward to my own place again.

I had a lovely birthday since.
I received stationary from my brother and his fiancee, a vintage paper-doll catalogue from my sister and her husband, my favourite Lilac-scented perfume from my parents, and "The Green Bible" from my darling husband.
To top it all off, we went skating on the world's longest skating rink - The Rideau Canal. It was freezing and windy, but we happily sat at a picnic table in -13 degree weather eating Beaver tails and Poutine like the good Canadians we are!

In other news, I am desperately trying to grow out my hair.
My husband loves long hair, but since dating me, I have never had longer than mid-neck length.
The reason being that growing out my hair drives me crazy, and I always end up just chopping it off again!
So I got a perm to help me through that 'shaggy' stage.

I like it, and Jeremie likes it.

Hopefully it'll keep me from cutting my hair short again.

I know this is a short, little post! But I will try to update more regularly soon!

God Bless,

Jenny

Snowy Saturday

What a snowy wonderland I woke up to this morning! It's not much, and since we are in the last few weeks of November, we're expecting much, much more.

Sadly there isn't enough out there to make a snowman, but probably enough to make a decent snowball or two.

It's a lovely sunny day, and maybe Jeremie and I will go out for a walk, but first there is the ever insistent packing that has to be done.

Yesterday while doing some Christmas shopping, I came across this stationary. Now, anyone who knows me, knows that I have a serious problem with stationary. I love it! And this beauty was opened allowing me to feel the paper and envelopes.

Because I have such a wonderful husband, he didn't mind me taking this stationary home - as long as I used it to write Christmas letters!

I told him that wouldn't be a problem.

The blue reminds me very much of Wedgwood blue, though the photo's don't do the colour justice. It's embossed with silver and has a beautiful pattern on the inside of the envelopes.

Today will be mostly a home day, doing lots of packing and probably some letter writing. ;)
We are meeting up with friends later for dinner and games, but that will be a whole different post tomorrow.

- Jenny

New Look

I have a bright and shiny new look. I thought it may be time to change it up again so I did some digging and came up with this!

I like it and I think it suits me. :)

I have been doing more packing and more preparing, that counter at the top of my blog is a good reminder of how few days (yay!) that I have left here in Alberta. It's motivation to keep me going and to have my eyes on the prize.

I came home from work yesterday to find the entire craft room packed and my crafting table taken apart and all the screws and nuts in a neatly labeled bag: "kitchen table."

My husband is absolutely wonderful - especially considering he took very well the fact that I had recently visited Value Village and got some new winter clothing. In my defense though, I did get him a rather spiffy, looking button-down that he quite likes.

I have been journaling more and have re-claimed my desk from the clutter that had been slowly taking over. It took me a while, mostly because of all the papers that had to be filed and put away properly, but I did it.

It's amazing how one area of organization can calm your whole demeanor - I find when my home is cluttered and messy, it makes me anxious and crabby. Like my mother I need a clean house to be able to relax.

Although don't assume that I can't have my couch-potato days! That can still come easily enough.

Church was good today - it's so ironic that as soon as Jeremie and I are packing to move we then find a church we both really like. It's called North Pointe Community Church; its quite large but the Pastor is very good.

The last two weeks he's been talking about 2012. The supposed "end times" that the media has been harping about. The sermons aren't about the end times though - he's more pulling it back to the Mayan calender and how even in the earliest history of mankind, we have been able to 'count on the stars' - and how God is a God of order and reliability.

And next week! I'm so EXCITED! Kim Phuc will be coming to speak - if you haven't heard of her, she's the young girl in the famous photograph.

Wikipedia Article: "Phan Thị Kim Phúc, O.Ont (born 1963) is a Vietnamese-Canadian best known as the child subject of a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph taken during the Vietnam War on June 8 1972. The iconic photo taken in Trang Bang by AP photographer Nick Ut shows her at about age nine running naked on the street after being severely burned on her back by a South Vietnamese napalm attack."

She is apparently an AMAZING speaker and I cannot wait to hear her speak on forgiveness.
It's an opportunity I'm very blessed to been given.

Other than that things have been going quite well here - and I am looking forward to another productive week.

God Bless!

~ Jenny

Holy Crackers!

I cannot believe how close I am to the big moving day. It's overwhelming and I'm so excited.
We're still more than a month away from December, but when I was at the mall this afternoon, they were already playing Christmas music! Can we really be that close to Christmas already??

I walked through a few stores that I'm partial to - meaning I like their products and "look." Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie.
Both very vintage, classic clothing/decor stores.
We had to buy Jeremie some shoes - his old ones were two years old and were only $20.00 from WalMart.
So we got him some very attractive green Vans. A good company, quality wise.

It was interesting though looking through racks of clothing that I loved but not only were they overpriced ($90.00 for a cotton shirt?!?) but I couldn't help feeling guilty for wanting it, knowing that they all had their clothing produced en masse from poor countries, where they payed pennies to child workers.
Now I love clothing. Almost as much as I love books - I'm a huge clothes horse; so it can really feel like I'm torn in half.

Me: That skirt is adorable! I could get so much use out of that! . . . . . I wonder what poor child made that and how much money will be lining some company owners pocket.

It's a dilemma alright. I bought all my summer clothes from a fair-trade store this summer. But the clothing is all made from linen and lightweight. Most certainly not winter clothes.
I'll probably be going to some second-hand stores for some winter clothes soon after we move. At least it'll be reusing clothes - maybe I'll even be able to alter them.

I working on a lot of my Christmas gifts already - sadly I can't even tell you all about them because I know my family reads this and I haven't decided what is going to who yet!

Has anyone else starting their homemade Christmas gifts yet?

Well, I better be going - gotta keep workin' on those gifts.

- Jenny

Sunday Nature Treasures

Today was a beautiful fall day. Cool and sunny - perfect sweater weather. Jeremie and I decided that today would be a great day to go for a walk, so we piled into the car and drove to Sir Wilfred Laurier Park, or better known as the "dog park."
It is an off-leash dog park and on a beautiful Sunday like today, it was packed full of people with their dogs. I felt a tad out of place not having a dog following our heels, but the park is so beautiful by itself and has so many nature trails that all we had to do was break off on one of the trails and we wouldn't see a soul for a good 10 minutes or so.

Jeremie loves nature, absolutely adores it. He's very knowledgeable and found me quite a few treasures today!

On one of the secluded paths, we saw an older gentleman with a small bucket collecting these bright berries. We talked only briefly as English was not his first language, but he did tell us that these berries lowered his wife's blood pressure. Huh. I took him at his word, but would never eat the things. I had always been told that berries that look like this tend to be poisonous. Possibly they are - but I brought a little bunch home to look up and find out exactly what type of berry they are. (the reference librarian in me is dying to know.)


Jeremie also found me this birds-nest. I have no idea what type it is, only that it's probably a small bird, like a chickadee or a finch. I was hoping to find some broken shells, but they had all been cleared away.

Jeremie has a particular fondness for wasps and hornets, so when he found a giant nest (about the size of his head) in great condition, he was eager to show/tell me all about it. This photo is of a hornet's nest, it had layers upon layers of that paper type weaving (pictured behind) and it felt like the most delicate rice-paper. It is, I learned, bark fibers and hornet spit. (great)
Deep inside the nest is the comb, much like a bee's nest, but instead of honey, it's more like bedrooms for little larvae to grow. Jeremie pointed out the white 'cap' on certain parts of the comb. He told me that, that's how you could tell if a larvae had hatched from it. If there was no cap - no new hornets.

Here is a tiny little nest we found, probably belonging to Wasps'. When I asked why it was so small, Jeremie told me that either one of two scenario's probably happened:

1) The Queen died no new eggs were laid, leaving the other wasps to die out.

Or 2) The original nest was damaged. If this happens the hive will move to a new location.
Jeremie told me that he would think latter happened. This new small hive was misshaped and hastily "slapped together." He said that when they first start to build they will take more time to secure the nest and make it 'pretty.

'

We walked for a good hour and a bit. It was so much fun having Jeremie there to tell me new things and watch him forage through the dense trees and undergrowth just to get me a birds nest. What a sweetie!

It got fairly cool as soon as the sun started to set - my hands were freezing and Jeremie was staring to get cold as well, it was time to pack it in, take our little treasures home and show them to you!

But tomorrow is back to work and back to packing!

Cold but happy,

- Jenny

Feelin' Rather Good About Myself

I now have officially sorted and gotten rid of more than half the junk in my basement!! I am obscenely proud of myself, seeing as I had to root through all my precious books that had been stored away for safe keeping and decide what I would keep and what I would donate.

For some reason, all I could think of was the movie "Sophie's Choice." Deciding which books were more valuable than others hurt, but I got stronger and more decisive (or cruel) when sorting.

"I can get this at the Library."

"I hardly read this anymore."

"Yes! We can throw that one away! What?...oh, right..that's your book."

I was on a sorting, chucking, donating spree! And boy it felt gooood! I wouldn't say I'm a huge pack rat, but I do tend to hold onto a lot of books. I'm a re-reader. If I like it, the odds are I'll read it again - and working at Libraries means lots of opportunities to get my mitts on weeded books that I still want.

Of course, that being said, I had lots of books too that I "couldn't bare to get rid of." Or "Loved like crazy." Or "Wait! That's a classic and I'm sure worth something!" (yeah right.)

But I don't judge myself too harshly. I can get rid of lots of things easily, just books are difficult.

Jeremie was pretty good and only really started to shake his head a little grinning, while I explained how continuing to own this book was imperative to our future happiness.

Now that the basements done, the real challenge begins!

I have to sort through all the stuff in the rest of the house! We only have an 8x8x8.5 pod to pack this all in - so I have to be sure.

All the furniture will be flattened (excluding the couch of course), we will stack the boxes as high as we can, and are going to mark out the exact measurement of the pod in the floor of the basement with masking tape to make sure everything fits. (Great tip pop!)

The only "odd" items will be things like Jeremie's guitar and my spinning wheel, since we can't get those into a box.

Its funny going through the house, and evaluating its worth and deciding if its worth keeping or if we should leave it.

We've considered leaving the t.v., several bookcases, my desk, and even my bureau.

I really have to think of it all in tiny little steps, or I begin to get anxious and overwhelmed. So I plan out my days with 3 or 4 things to do, and I seem to be getting quite a lot done!

Lets hope it stays that way!

Still packing,

~ Jenny

Where Has Reality Gone?

I saw this ad today - and I could not believe it.
This is a read ad by Ralph Lauren and frankly, it disgusted me.
Her body has been so distorted by Photoshop that she actually looks deformed or on her death bed.

Her head is actually larger than her pelvis. Who on earth could look at this and decide that this is what a person should look like?
Sadly, I wish this were a joke but this is a real ad, and Ralph Lauren has yet to post or comment on it.
Is our perspective on what reality is so twisted that this can actually be published and put out for the public to view and accept??

It's really no wonder that we have so many girls and now boys, suffering from anorexia and bulimia. Or teens who have to have plastic surgery because of how "horrible" they look.
Its creating an entire generation of people who automatically believe that they are unattractive and of little value because the media is setting standards that are not even humanly possible!

Ugh, it fires me up so much, and makes me madder then I'm even willing to admit.
It just leaves such a horrible taste in my mouth.

Oh, and by the way - this model was later fired for being too 'fat' at 120lbs. This she told interviewers herself.

Anger and sadness thats what I feel when I think of 12 year old girls being exposed to all of this - I can't imagine what they must feel.

Full Article
Another Impossibly Skinny Ralph Lauren Model (don'cha just love seeing the model's ribcage through her shirt??)

- Jenny