The Ice Storm of 2013

Somebody should be selling "I survived the Ice Storm of 2013" shirts -- just about everyone I know would buy one, because just about everyone I know has suffered from the storm and has lived to tell the tale. Some have suffered a little, some a lot. The captain and I were without power for about 55 hours or so, from 2 a.m. early Sunday morning until about 9 a.m. Tuesday morning (Christmas Eve). Not fun at any time to be without power in sub-zero temperatures, but particularly hard when one is sick, as I have been (and still am). I didn't get many "icy" photographs; I was too ill to venture outside so had to settle for a few quickie shots out my living room window.

The captain's older sister didn't get her power back until 9 p.m. Christmas Day, and his brother lives in an area of east Toronto known as The Guild, or Guildwood, which has been one of the last areas to have power restored. As of now, we are not sure if they have their power back or not. Yesterday, they did not.

It has been most frustrating listening to our idiot mayor show up at press conferences and photo ops, all the while lying to everyone. He and his cronies have been talking for days now about how the power restoration was down to "one offs", while everyone here in Scarborough knew the entire Guild area was without power. That is NOT a "one off", Mr. Mayor!

I also question their claim that the city and hydro were immediately on top of this. You see, our neighbour's boyfriend works for Toronto Hydro and he wasn't called in until Monday morning, a good 30 hours or more after the power went out! Personally, I think there have been cost-cutting measures and a reluctance to rack up employee overtime that took precedence over getting the power up and running. The priority has never been service to the tax payers, all the talk from this administration has only been about saving a buck or two.

But enough on that. This is the season to be jolly, after all. The captain and I both send along our merriest of Christmas greetings to one and all, and a particularly big shout-out to all our friends and family who weathered the storm that will live long in all our memory. 2013 is certainly going out with a bang!

It's December!

I must be getting terribly old because the days, weeks and months just seem to fly by; it's hard to believe that the last month of 2013 has arrived. But indeed it has and so it's time to truly get into the festive spirit -- the holiday decorations may hit the stores in September, but I don't think of it as being Christmastime until December.

I have a vast collection of vintage Christmas images I've collected over the years, including the one above, originally a business-themed Christmas card. I'll try to share several of them here as we count down to December 25th. I love all vintage images, but the Christmas ones are so special. I hope you like them too.

It's Christmas Eve

It seems I left everything to the last minute this holiday season. Putting up the tree, decorating the house, shopping, wrapping -- all accomplished, but later in the month than I intended.

But it's Christmas Eve and everything has finally been crossed off my to-do list with one sole exception: baking shortbread cookies. That'll happen later today and it's a process I always enjoy.

So, tonight I'll be able to munch on freshly baked cookies and sip something delicious -- and take the time to sit back and relax. I wish the same for all of you ... that you'll be able to take the time to sit back and enjoy the holiday!

Although it's been said

Many times, many ways

Merry Christmas to you

The waiting game

Did you ever shoot with film? I’m betting you did. Whether your purpose was capturing vacation memories, family snapshots, or even if you had artistic intentions, I’m sure you remember the process. First step, buy the film, followed of course by shooting your photographs. Then you had to find the time to drop the film off at your choice of developer -- maybe a camera lab, maybe the local drugstore -- then you had to WAIT for your photos to be developed. No instant images spitting out of a machine, no one-hour guarantees. Certainly no computer screen to view then on! You had to wait for several days to get your pictures back, when you could finally see your images, oftentimes weeks after you’d actually taken the photographs.

I was watching a photography show on Bravo a short time ago and the photographer who was being interviewed said something that made me sit up and take notice. He commented that, when he travelled, before he switched to digital, he shot many, many rolls of film, but of course they wouldn’t be developed until he was home and, in the meantime, he had no idea how his photos turned out. And he loved that! He told the interviewer that the immediacy of digital photography actually took away a lot of his pleasure and appreciation of his images. His point seemed to be that he needed to put the experience well behind him before viewing the photographs he took. And so he started to forego the routine of rushing back to his hotel each evening, to download and view his shots. He takes all his photos, same as always, and I believe he said he downloads them onto his laptop as a backup, but now he never looks at his photographs until well after he returns home.

I gave this a lot of thought. My process, since going digital, has been exactly as he described: reviewing all my photos very soon after they were taken. But I remembered having to wait, back in the film days, and how wonderful it was to finally see what I had shot. I got to relive the experience all over again, whether it was a family party or a trip or even just a photographic walkabout, instead of seeing the photos while I was still immersed in the experience. Patience really has a big payback.

So lately, I’ve made a deliberate effort to go back through photographs I’ve shot not recently, but at least several months back, if not years. I had a look through the photographs I shot in Chicago in April, for example, pleasantly surprised by many photos I had forgotten I had taken. I saw them with fresh eyes. And then there’s the snowman, above. I shot that image when I was just fooling around with some macro photography; I took the picture about two years ago and found it recently only because I was looking through old folders of images. I sat here, looking at the snowman, and ideas just started flowing.

I urge you…….go back through your old shots. I guarantee you’ll have forgotten many of them and viewing them will be a real pleasure. I’m also betting that you have likely learned digital techniques that you didn’t know when you took the pictures, techniques you can now apply to those shots. Have fun exploring and I hope you find some gems hidden away on your hard drive.

For the Christmas she will remember

Sometimes, I find something online that just stops me in my tracks.

I set aside some time this morning to look through the photographs and images recently uploaded to Flickr by my "contacts" -- friends, family, and others whose images I always admire. One of my contacts is What Makes the Pie Shops Tick? who always has wonderful vintage finds.

I was delighted to discover that he was sharing pages from a 1964 Frederick's of Hollywood holiday catalogue, the image above being one of them. How cool is that? You can see these pages, including the cover, in his Frederick's set and I urge you to have a peek; I just know it'll make you smile. And perhaps be a little envious of the waistlines. Did women really look like this in the 1960s?

Merry Christmas

Hope your day was everything you wanted it to be, and more. Merry Christmas, everyone!

My favourite Christmas photograph

Our son (Rob, or Robbie as he was known when he was little) was just 17 months old when I took that photograph you see above, back when I still shot film, using my old Minolta SLR. No fancy buttons, no automatic anything.

I mean the picture on the right...obviously.

That Christmas photo remains, to this day, my favourite holiday picture.

O Christmas Tree

You see that Christmas ornament, with Snoopy? If it was twisted the other way 'round, you'd see "1978" on it. Yup, that's the Christmas tree ornament the captain and I bought right after we were married, in honour of our first Christmas together. We've bought one every year since; the ornament for 2009 is one we purchased at the Kennedy Space Center during our wonderful family vacation back in June.

Over at The Poetic Eye, today's photo prompt is "The Heart's Light". This made me think of the lights on our Christmas tree, of how they make me feel warm and comfortable. How the brightly lit tree is a symbol that marks our family Christmas as the years go marching on.

Our Christmas tree is finally up, lit, and decorated. We have a real tree this year, our first deviation from artificial in several years. I love the smell. This tree, while fairly tall, is much slimmer than our artifical. Miss Tippi thinks the lights, particularly our snowman lights (pictured below), are toys and she can't understand why she can't play with them. Poor girl. I hope Santa brings her something special!

I took several photographs after the tree went up; the five you see here are some of my favourites. They all light up my heart.

Anything Can Be

listen to the mustn'ts, child,

listen to the don'ts.

listen to the shouldn'ts,

the impossibles, the won'ts.

listen to the never haves,

then listen close to me.

anything can happen, child,

anything can be.
*shel silverstein*

(posted for Art Creations Friday)

The light of memory

A little something that I hope brings a smile to your face. As I was blog-hopping this evening, I visited The Poetic Eye, L.K. Ludwig's wonderful blog. She is doing a "photo prompt" starting today and running for 19 days, all the way to January 1st. While I can't promise to post each and every day, this is a challenge I want to tackle and I hope to accomplish every one, even if I don't post every day.

The prompt for December 14th is "the light of memory" and when I read that, I immediately went to the Christmas photographs I took two years ago, opened up photoshop, looked at some of my textures (choosing this one), and ended up with what you see here. Yes, that is Bumble, the abominable snowman from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. He is a tradition in our home and tops our tree every year...as you can see, he is reaching to put on the star. I am always happy to see him and I hope you are too.

Mediterranean beauty

This week's challenge image from Art Creations Friday is titled "Mediterranean Beauty" and that she is.....a lovely portrait.

I decided to keep it simple and seasonal and created the holiday card you see here. The photoshopping really was quite minimal: some cropping, some colour play, a festive clipping mask (bought from the Designer Digitals site) and finally some text, using the Algerian font.

As always, please click on the image to see it full-sized.

A Christmas "Hi!"

Yesterday was what I call a GREAT day. I met Leslie and Irene at the Extra-Ordinary Jolly Christmas Sale and proceeded to do major damage to the contents of my wallet. All for a good cause of course: Christmas shopping! (Okay, some of what I bought was for me.......)

I thought about photographing some of the goodies I purchased and doing a little show-and-tell here on my blog, except I don't want to give away any gift secrets, so I shall have to stay quiet on that front. But I really enjoyed seeing Carmi and Susan and all the others with their wonderful wares and it was so hard to choose what to buy!

After the three of us emptied our wallets, it was off for a yummy lunch of beet soup, pierogies and potato pancakes, followed by even more shopping, along Bloor Street West. Since my cash was gone, I had resorted to plastic. What a day! Finally the shopping ceased and Leslie kindly dropped me off at my friend Lori's home, where I was able to rescue some cookbooks she no longer wanted. Some will stay here with me, but I have a very good home in mind for the rest. And after what turned out to be a very stimulating day, the captain treated me to dinner out -- pasta and wine, not necessarily in that order.......

It really was, as I said, a great day.

I'm not going to reveal what I purchased, but I do have something to share with you, as I did in my last post. This morning, I was going through some of the wonderful Christmas images I found on Flickr -- the Vintage Christmas group in particular is a lot of fun -- and spied this fantastic retro Christmas card I recently downloaded. I cleaned it up in photoshop as best I could and decided it was perfect to share here. Click on the image to see it at full-size, then just save it to your computer. I hope you like it as much as I do!

Marilyn, with a gift for you

I have always been a Marilyn Monroe fan, so when I saw that this week's Art Creations Friday challenge image was an old publicity still, I was delighted.

I decided to keep it very simple. I hunted down her autograph online, then used a simple holiday message from a vintage Christmas card. Combining the three, along with a few stars -- fitting for a movie star, no? -- and a red border, and that was that.

And speaking of that vintage holiday message, I'd like to share it with you. Just click on the image below to see it full-sized, then save to your computer. It's a PNG file, meaning the background is transparent (even though it appears white to you here). I hope you'll be able to use it for any holiday creations you have planned this month! And if you'd like to see a few more of my free downloadables, please visit my Freebies set on Flickr!

I wish you peace

Christmas Eve has arrived; it's always been my favourite day of the year. I love to sit and look at the tree with all the bright, shiny packages underneath -- treasures still waiting to be discovered. I like Christmas Day of course, especially Christmas morning and Christmas dinner, but Christmas Eve is my personal fave. I am subdued this year, taking it all a day at a time (my progress has been two steps forward, one step back), but I love looking at the presents under our tree and plan to bake my signature shortbread cookies today.

This year, the holiday finds me searching for peace within myself -- and my friends, that is what I wish for you as well. May this holiday and the coming year bring you peace and love in your life.

Doing normal things

As I mentioned in my last post, this week was a week where I would HAVE to get into gear with regards to Christmas. And that’s what’s happened. Is it easy? No. Did I make progress this week, both with seasonal activities and my own physical and emotional wellbeing? Yes. Is my house now decorated for the holiday? Just a bit, not like normal. Are the captain and I feeling festive? No.

We put our Christmas tree up Tuesday night, and that was hard. Ever since our son was a little boy he has helped decorate the tree and even though he’s been a scrooge about it the past few years, it was odd decorating the tree without his help. He has his own tree now, although I bet his girlfriend did most of the decorating. But I already knew this Christmas the captain and I would be decorating the tree ourselves. What I wasn't prepared for was decorating without Terra underfoot. For the past 10 years we’ve had to step over Terra to do the tree -- she would always stretch out in spots where you’d have to step right over her to reach the tree. Tuesday night was difficult for me.

The shopping is thankfully about 99% complete now, with the wrapping still to come. I have always loved wrapping Christmas presents -- I always wanted one of those mall jobs where you get to wrap presents all day long -- so I’m hoping I’ll enjoy it once again.

And there was more sad news this week from our friend Sue -- she lost her Riley, suddenly and unexpectedly, two days ago. The circumstances were similar to Terra, too. In the morning, a happy and apparently healthy dog; in the evening, the news of aggressive and untreatable cancer. What a year.

I have a guardian angel now

It’s been over a week since I’ve posted. The previous days have not been easy ones -- especially today, a sad two-week anniversary -- but I’m doing my best to cope. I’ve left the house exactly twice – once to drive downtown to the pet hospital to pick up Terra and bring her home, forever, and once to the grand opening of a local bakery. My son’s girlfriend asked that I go as the bakery is owned by the parents of one of her friends, and I promised her I would attend their opening day. I thought it would be crowded and I wouldn’t have to interact with anyone, but we got there early in the day and the place was almost empty. But I survived, bought goodies and came home.

I did have one odd experience here at home, one I won’t go into but which prompted the captain to say, “Perhaps you have a guardian angel who doesn’t like to see you cry.” It gave me pause for thought and I think he's right. It's certainly a comforting thought.

I am trying to wrap my head around the fact that my sorrow doesn’t help anyone, especially me as I know I’ve suffered physically because of this. And my sorrow won’t bring Terra back. I have to learn how to combine missing her so much, which makes me sad, with all the happy memories, which make me smile -- and somehow mesh the two together and learn to live with both. It’s taking time, but I have time.

But not a lot of time for Christmas this year. There are gifts to be bought and wrapped, a tree to decorate. I have to get it done and so next week will be a whirlwind. It likely will do me good to get caught up in a whirlwind though.