A little word for 2015

Hello! I feel the need to introduce myself because it's been so long... (blows dust off keyboard)... I guess it's not too surprising that with a wee babe on the scene now, I haven't been able to keep up with blogging. How naive I was to think that I would have more time while on maternity leave! Oh, this humble pie is delicious!

Well, let's start the year off fresh! Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a lovely and restful holiday filled with laughter and good times, and perhaps some quiet time curled up in a cozy nook with your favourite book and a cup of tea.

Welcome, twenty-fifteen! Twenty-fourteen sure was an epic year, and I am so excited for all to come this year. I do love this time of year for that hope-filled feeling of starting fresh; reflecting on the past year, and thinking about what you want to manifest in the months ahead. To that end, I have picked one little word. As Ali describes, it's a word to focus on, mediate on, and reflect upon as you go about your daily life. The word I've chosen is pause. Pause to take the time; make the time to really notice. Pause to recognize all the wonderful little things, and to feel gratitude. Pause to listen, instead of speak. Pause to really gather my thoughts before jumping to a conclusion. Pausing before rushing straight into the next task.

With life zooming as it does at lightning speed (how is Fletcher almost 5 months old already?!), I want to stay grounded and present in the hereness — soak up every morsel of every day — frequently take a little pause to appreciate and savour each moment.

What's your word?

Elevated veggie patch and garden goodness

I have been meaning to post a garden update for some time, and since this baby shows no sign of arriving (currently 3 days overdue), I now have opportunity to do so!

After such a positive start to the seedlings we began indoors in April, most of them seemed to grow too tall, too fast, and became weak and scraggly, flopping over into dead, or... mostly-dead status. Some of them survived being transplanted, but most of our success is from direct-seeding into these beautiful elevated gardens that Mark built in late spring. The structures are made from cedar, and the outer "wabi-sabi" boards were scrounged from around our neighbourhood on garbage night. Hooray for upcycling and saving things from landfill!

He built them for a number of reasons: to make weeding easier, avoid bunny problems (not that we've really had a problem there), and hopefully alleviate our previous earwig problems (so far, so good)! Unfortunately they haven't stopped our biggest enemy: the squirrel. A perennial problem, this year they're just being malicious and contemptibly obnoxious — rather than an occasional bite out of a zucchini or cucumber, they're going straight to the stalk to take the plant down at it's source. And they seemed truly offended by our potato plants — those were completely and ruthlessly destroyed. And they stole our first (and so far only) tiny watermelon fruit! Jerks! So we've had to cover the gardens with netting, which makes harvesting and weeding tricky, and if the plants grow through the netting, it makes for a rather tangled mess... but at least our veggies don't get eaten.

I've been enjoying picking my daily greens: kale and lettuce salads with fresh dill and/or basil; kale for crackers; kale for smoothies... I find as long as you put in a frozen banana, a bit of maple syrup, an apple, or an orange for sweetness, you can get a lot of greens in a smoothie and still have it be quite palatable. And I generally prefer smoothies over juicing so I get all the fibre and none of the waste/cleanup. Some favourite combos of late:

• kale, cucumber, basil, orange, lime, frozen banana, chia seed, hemp seed, turmeric, cayenne pepper
• kale, celery, carrot, apple, orange, lime, basil, mint, chia seed, hemp seed, ginger

And our grapes are going to be very prolific this year! Last year was the first time since Mark planted them four years earlier that we had any grapes, and we were thrilled to get the four bunches we did. This year there are too many bunches to count! Once they start to ripen and entice the birds, we'll have to net these too — though I do think we'll have enough to share this year!

Mark's mad carpentry skills strike again! :)

Dill, basil, kale, peas, YUM!

Look how many bunches of grapes! So exciting!

I find this intrepid bunch hilarious!

A year ago today: we came home

Exactly one year ago today, Mark and I arrived home after our epic backpacking adventure around Asia. So happy to be home and to have had such an amazing time away, we were filled with hopes and plans for the future. And now, a year later, my Etsy shop is a reality, I've been teaching yoga for a year, and we're expecting a baby in less than two months. My gosh, what a difference a year makes. Life is so good.

Then: wearing our possessions on our backs and having daily adventures.

Now: a new adventure is about to begin!

Festival of tulips

This year marks the 61st annual Tulip Festival in Ottawa. A festival that was established in 1953, after Canada granted safe haven to the Dutch Royal Family during the German Occupation of the Netherlands during the second World War. In thanks, tulips have been given to Canada every year since.

The National Capital Commission (NCC) plants lush, dense gardens of tulips all over the city, but the largest display is in Commissioner's Park, beside Dow's Lake, where nearly 300,000 tulips are in bloom! It is a stunning effect, and people visit from all over the world to come and see them.

Unfurling

After seeming like it wasn't going to arrive at all, spring has fully sprung here, and it is glorious. The daffodils are trumpeting, the tulips are exploding, the trees are budding, and everything else is unfurling in infinite shades of green.

Over the last week, the rhubarb has gone from just a tiny shoot to flowering!
Me thinks some rhubarb crisp is in my immediate future :)

Not sure what this plant is, but the leaves hold diamond-like beads of morning dew (or rain) all day.

We somehow completely missed harvesting our fiddleheads this year!
We blinked, and we missed it.

Forget-me-nots in the front lawn.

Hydrangea.

I love how the grape vine tendrils look like rusted metal.

Relegated to the shadows

We've lost so much snow in the last week. A couple of mild days and some rain have taken care of most of it, and relegated the dregs to those cold, shadowy spots where the sun doesn't quite reach. Or at least that's how it was until yesterday, when the temperature dropped sharply, turning the spring rain into a most unwelcome spring snow.

On Monday temperatures miraculously, gloriously soared into the mid-twenties! Windows were flung wide, laundry was hung on the line, life was good. Less than 24 hours later, we plummeted over a huge 40 degree precipice to minus 15. If we hadn't already had six months of this, this brief lapse into winter might not be so bad...

But! There are little shoots of daffodils and crocuses beginning to bravely peek above the soil. The pussy willows are popping. And I have seen a single robin. I know it's coming, but I'm finding I have to dig so very deep into the dregs of my patience to weather what I truly, truly hope is the very last of this Unending Winter...

At the beginning of April, there were a few days where it was just mild enough,
and the deck was snow-free so that Mark could start work on the harvest table.

The last of the snow before the snow came yet again.

Signs of life!

One of the few indicators I have that spring is coming.
Grow, brave little shoots, grow!

The most amazing geocaching scavenger hunt

At our 20-week ultrasound last week, Mark and I wanted to find out the gender of our baby, but keep it a surprise. We had the results written down, and we gave them to some good friends of ours, and told them they could reveal it to us, in any way they chose, at any time they chose, over the following week. (We had talked about this with them ahead of time to make sure this was something they were interested in! And they were!)

So on Monday night, as the snow began to steadily fall (because apparently this winter just will not quit), we got a text with our first clue: GPS coordinates leading us to the Arboretum, where we found the second clue, in an illuminated mason jar in the snow. They had created these ingenious lights using LED bulbs and some batteries to light up the jars bearing the clues. And each clue bore information and coordinates to the next clue. Through the forest we followed the clues to the final destination, a huge tree decorated with glow sticks, under which was a log bench with a blanket, thermos of hot apple cider, and a wrapped box. We sat down, cozied up, had some cider, and opened the box to reveal three cupcakes, which spelled out B-O-Y. We're having a boy!!

It was such a fun, meaningful, and magical treasure hunt, and we are so lucky to have such amazing friends to go to such elaborate lengths to create this moment for us!

All the clues — informative and directional!  :)

We found the third clue! (It's the illuminated jar on top of the sign.)

(Snow-covered) bench, blanket, cider, and box of cupcakes!

We're going to have a boy!

Wintery weekend in Vermont

For the long weekend, Mark and I went to Vermont with a bunch of friends for what has become an annual weekend excursion of wintery fun! You have your choice of skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, or just relaxing in the chalet by the fire or in the hot tub. And of course there's always lots of feasting and merriment.

Conditions could not have been more perfect for snowshoeing, as the area had just received several feet of fresh, beautiful powder (which made for a terrible drive down, but was great once we got there).

The first day we went to Gifford Woods State Park, and followed someone's snowshoe tracks along the campground road, but when that trail looped back toward the parking lot, we veered off into the forest following the yellow blazes on the trees. Mark had to break our path, as we were the first on the trail since the fresh snowfall. And in doing so we discovered a bizarre winter phenomenon that occurs when there's this much fresh, powdery snow. 

Because the yellow blazes on the trees were sporadic, and there had been so much fresh snow to completely obscure the previous tracks, it was difficult to know exactly where to create the path. Generally this doesn't matter when snowshoeing, as you can go wherever you want, which is one of the many things that makes it so awesome. But we discovered that when Mark stepped off the trail into fresh, undisturbed snow, it suddenly created a startling and incredibly loud 'fwhoomp!' sound as the snow in a large radius collapses, shaking the ground and the trees in the vicinity and echoing through the air, creating an event that feels not unlike a tiny earthquake. Which, when you're happily tromping through a very quiet winter forest, is rather terrifying. 

The first time it happened, we didn't know what it was, and I thought perhaps it had been a very small, (and very localized?) earthquake, or perhaps there was some blasting nearby, or maybe we had just collapsed a small bridge over a creek far beneath us under the snow. But it kept happening every now and again, and we realized what it was, and then we could actually replicate it. However every time it did happen, it made my heart skip a beat to feel the ground drop beneath me, so the next day we found a trail that had already been made, and followed their tracks. Much more relaxing!

Even though it was a bit out of the way, we came home via the Adirondacks and Lake Placid, and it was so wonderful to see those mountains again, as it's been a while since we were last there. So worth the detour to see my favourite view.

It was such a fantastic weekend, a last hurrah for winter. Now, I am officially ready for spring!

Trailblazing at Gifford Woods State Park.

Snowshoeing at Chittenden Brook campground, Green Mountain National Forest.

My favourite view. Algonguin is the highest peak in the centre, with Wright the first bump to the left
(the 3rd and 4th peaks we've hiked),  Colden on the far left, and Wall Face on the right.

Whiteface Mountain is the white peak on the middle-left. Adirondacks, New York.

Snowshoe in a bog

Conditions haven't been great this winter for snowshoeing. Most of the snow we have, fell in December. January gave us some bitter, bitter days, and a couple of warm spells, which really just led to ice. Not much accumulation to speak of. The trails have been so well-packed that you don't need snowshoes at all.

But last night we got about a foot of lovely soft snow — perfect conditions to get out for a snowshoe. And what a beautiful day it was! It's amazing how a fresh dusting of snow can create the most magical landscape. After spending a bit of time shovelling out the car this morning, we went to Mer Bleue to hike around the bog trail. I love bogs; there's something magical about being out among those old, shrivelled, scrubby trees. Even if the bog itself is entirely hidden...

Friendsgiving, local meat, and my 300th post!

Now the green conifers stand out in a sea of gold

And suddenly, it was fall. Full-on. Trees are aflame with vibrant colours, fluttering to the ground, painting trails with rusty gold. It seems that the trees were green just yesterday, with only a tinge of the colours to come, but now they're suddenly scarlet orange.

To celebrate this (sadly) brief, but oh-so-wonderful time of year, we had some good friends over for a potluck feast of epic proportions, but not before a lovely hike in Gatineau Park together to fully soak in the delicious colours and that unmistakable scent of fall — what is that? Is it the fallen leaves? The earth readying itself for its winter slumber? Anyway, it's an incredible smell, that makes you happy and content with each deep breath.

What's more glorious than walking through a sunny forest in Autumn?

And we have grapes!

Since Mark planted the seed when we moved in four years ago, our little grape plant has grown and flourished (taking over the trellis and fence entirely, and starting to encroach upon the neighbouring tomatoes... ahem...), and this year for the very first time, it produced grapes. Four little bunches of beautiful concord grapes. Perfect little orbs of divine, juicy deliciousness. It's entirely true that things grown in your own yard taste so much better, isn't it?

Happiness is: hiking

arm in arm, exploring

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early fall forest

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leaves just beginning to turn

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gentle forest streams, babbling softly

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sun-dappled light dancing on moss-covered rocks

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can't decide if it's mitten weather yet or not

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acorns, with and without their hats

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stitch-like marks etched in birch bark

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that point where I decide to tuck my pants into my socks to keep critters out (ridiculous. I know this.)

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so good to be in the forest again

Today is the day.

Tomorrow will mark exactly three months since I returned from my life-changing trip around Asia, and began making some direction shifts in my life and career. It had become clear over the course of the trip—being away from what we get immersed in; thrust into places and situations that shake you and challenge you and force you to redefine what you think you know—that life would be different when I got home.

I couldn't see myself returning to life as a graphic designer. Instead, I completed a month-long intensive training in India and became a certified yoga instructor. In addition to this, an idea started percolating in my mind about the possibility of setting up an Etsy shop. See, I have this need to create. It's not just a hobby or a pastime to draw, paint, sew, and make things. It is something I have to do. And I had so many ideas that were just aching to be made real. I finally realized, I just have to give this a try.

So for the last three months, I've been busily and happily working away, and today I am thrilled to announce that my Etsy store is now open!

MY ETSY SHOP

Head on over, have a look around, and let me know what you think! I'm eager to hear from you. And a huge thank you to all of you for your support and encouragement with this endeavour! It sure is a super feeling when you can tell that others believe in you. I can't thank you enough for that.

Japanese Teahouse

Japanese Teahouse — opens to reveal a tatami-mat room overlooking a zen garden.

Wee Hobbit House

All Pinked Out