CATS LET NOTHING DARKEN THEIR ROAR - January

January, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

I have too many calendars. I do. But when I saw this one last year I had to have it. It's a Scandinavian typography calendar. Each month has a different phrase that spells out the month's name. I love it.

As a little challenge, to get me drawing more, I've decided to draw the phrase each month...

As you can see it's Jan 31st so this one took a while.. the idea and drawing didn't take too long to put together once I decided that the bunnies would not be pink. It is early for cherry blossoms, in fact it's snowing right now, but I am reminded of the Christmas card Mary got for me. She found some cards that brownies were selling at a Christmas bazaar... the outside said merry christmas and inside it said Spring is bound to come!.... so great!

Hikes...

Dune grass - Radar Beach, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

The best thing, besides seeing my family, about being back in BC is the access to the outdoors. The thing I miss about living in Vancouver is that you can hop on a city bus and be in the woods in 30 minutes. The green space in Toronto and the east is quite different from BC. I find myself missing the mountains and rain forest quite a bit when I am in Toronto.

Top of Radar.. looking towards Tofino, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Part of the time I was back for Christmas my good friend Karen was in town as well. Karen is like me, grew up in Tofino and moved away for school, she now lives in London and works for the World Health Organization (I am amazed sometimes at the talent and accomplishments of my friends). One of the days before Christmas we decided to hike down to Radar Beach. The hike is a bit different from normal ones as you drive up to the top of Radar and hike down( and then hike back up). Radar Hill is so named because it was a lookout for invading armies from Asia during the war. Most of the grand views of the Pacific have grown over with trees (Radar Hill is now part of Pacific Rim National Park) but the view towards Tofino is still lovely I think. It turned out to be the perfect day to hike down... It started raining boxing day.

Radar Beach, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Christmas, New Years and Resolutions

Incense burner, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

I'm not a person who's big into making resolutions.. mostly because I have a hard time keeping them. But as always I thought I'd try. so here is it, my resolution for 2010... 52 blog entries.. that is one for every week in the year. Note that I did not say 1 every week... though that, ultimately will be the aim. so 23 days into the new year I am starting... sounds about right.

As a note this little dude is a German incense burner that my mom got on our family trip to the Maritimes. You put a little cone of incense in the body and he "smokes", though this picture it kinda looks like his souls is escaping! The first time we did this we let the whole cone burn down and the house stunk! the next time we restricted mom to a short time .. and cracked a window.

more fall colours outside my door

as promised here are more photos

sunday morning in the fall

sunday mornings are often often filled with pancakes for brunch. patrick whips them up for us around lunch time. this morning i made an apple breakfast cake. quite simple and tasty - it is based roughly on this recipe from d*sponge - theirs is still about summer fruit while i used fall-friendly apples and pears. i used more fruit 3 or 3 1/2 cups (theirs called for 2 cups of berries) and added pumpkin pie spice. it took a little more time to bake. oh and i would suggest sour cream or some yogurt with this - yum!

we are solidly into autumn here - the sweaters (rather than light summer cardigans ... they don't really count as sweaters) are out - these are the lighter pullovers and cozy cardigans ... not the massive ones .... hmm seems i have many classes of sweaters, but in my defense i do live north of 60: Fall arrives at the end of August; i scrape frost off the windshield most mornings now but thats OK - i don't need a coat yet!

here are a couple shots from my apartment patio. i'm going for a little hike this afternoon so may bring my camera as there are some lovely reds out right now too.

Let's go to the EX!

Let's go to the EX!, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Oh my goodness it's the CNE!
this seems more important to me because... I had never been! I know.. but the idea seemed pretty exciting..
It kinda wasn't.. a lot of carnie games and rides and bright flashing lights.. and people.. a lot of people.
But the experience of going was worth it... and there was a lot of food...horribly amazing food!
JD (flatmate) and I headed out with the express purpose of eating terrible food.. I had heard the rumour of deep fried oreos and we both were curious...
I only wish I had gotten a picture of our first food item.. chocolate covered bacon.. that was amazing.. possibly because bacon is amazing... we followed that up with a deep fried Mars bar (kinda disappointing) and deep fried Oreos (mega good) really it was a tie between the bacon and the oreos for best food of the night... mmmmn I can feel my ateries clogging as I remember...
Yum Yum

CNE.. home of greasy food... take 3, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Tomatoes!

Tomatoes!, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

I grew these.
It's my first time growing tomatoes and I think I did ok. some of the plants now have a fungal or mold infection on their leaves.. i think because it's been a really wet summer. Other than that I've gotten quite a few lovely cherry tomatoes from my 3 little plants. Ya!