Postcards from the Mothership View RSS

In which DaniGirl becomes the Curious Crone 22 Dec 2024 4:14 AM (3 months ago)

After 20 (!!) years of blogging here at Postcards from the Mothership, it was time for a change. If you’re looking for me, now I’m telling stories over at the Curious Crone.

The kids are (mostly) grown and their stories are (mostly) their own. But I’ve found a new place to tell stories about who I am now, and what’s piquing my curiosity. There are a lot of crafty ideas, some rambly musings, and talk about my unexpected new niche as a professional tarot card reader – no, really!

Come on over and check out my new passion project, the Curious Crone. You can follow me on Instagram, too: @Curious.Crone.

See you there!

Ottawa paddling adventures: Travelling through the Rideau Canal locks in a canoe 16 Jun 2021 5:26 AM (3 years ago)

Looking for an easy Ottawa summer adventure? Try locking through one of the beautiful and historic Rideau Canal locks in a kayak or canoe! We tried it recently for the first time, and I had no idea it was so accessible and easy.

On a sunny June morning, we set out to paddle around Burritts Rapids, just south of the southern boundary of Ottawa. I had been there a few days before, exploring with my kayak on my own, and was lucky enough in my timing to have a front-row seat to see the Parks Canada staff operating the 1899 swing bridge to let through some big boats.

On my first visit, I poked around by the lockstation (and even took shelter there from a short but vigourous downpour under a leafy tree) but decided instead to paddle downstream toward the southern tip of the island. The main channel here was actually a dry flood channel or snie at one point that was flooded by Colonel By’s engineers to create a navigable channel past the eponymous rapids on the other side of the island that comprise the original flow of the Rideau River.

Beloved and I paddled downstream toward the lock station and portaged through to the north part of the channel, bypassing the lock. Although our canoe is pretty heavy, we had no trouble half carrying it and half dragging it down the grassy slope of the portage. We had a little more trouble when we got to the footbridge at the end of the portage – it’s so narrow we couldn’t even get through with the canoe tipped on its side – we had to lift it up and over the railings.

We explored the north channel, hoping to make it up to the weir near the far western end, but the eponymous rapids and super low water levels this year stopped our progress just under the bridge onto the island. (We’re not very facile with the canoe yet, but learning!) We considered ending our trip at the tinest beach ever at the petite Henry Street Park and walking over to get the car, or doing battle with the footbridge again to portage back up to the main channel, but in the end we decided to try something I’ve always dreamed of doing: we locked through the lock just like a big boat!

Locking through is easy. You can state your intention by waiting alongside the blue-painted dock and giving three solid whistle blasts, or calling the lock station. Since I had to pay for a day pass, I walked up to the lock station while Beloved waited with the canoe. It was less than $15 for a day pass for our 16′ canoe. You can read more about fees and passes on the Parks Canada website. I had been hesitant to ask the Parks staff to operate the lock for just me up until now, but they were friendly and accommodating.

After many years of watching the Parks Canada staff crank open the lock doors, it was fun to watch it from the perspective of the water waiting to enter. I was amused that they only opened one of the big grey lock doors for us to pass through.

We paddled into the lock and over to the side where the big black drop cables are attached to the wall. The staff hadn’t given us any specific instructions, but I knew from reading the locking through information on the Parks website that we were supposed to loop a strap or a rope through the cables to keep us moored to the side as the water level increased – holding the cable with your hand or tying firmly to it is discouraged.

I’d expected it to be turbulent as the water entered the lock to raise the level, but it was relatively calm, smooth and quicker than I expected. I think it took about 15 minutes for the lock to fill and lift us about 17 m. Burritts Rapids is a single lock, but some of the lockstations have two, three, four or even eight locks to move up or down.

We watched as the Parks staff moved into place to begin turning the big metal crank that operates the lock doors, and again they opened only one door. They waved us forward and we paddled out, moving up the lock much more conveniently and comfortably than the awkward portage down! We slipped through the big doors, feeling very much like a proper big boat, and they cranked the doors closed behind us.

I can’t wait to take the kids through more of the locks later this summer. What a perfect daytrip for families – and there are 24 lock stations from Kingston to Ottawa to explore. That will keep us busy for a while! And one day, maybe we’ll do the very big and very cool adventure of paddling the length of the canal, camping at the lock stations as we go.

Have you paddled through a lock on the Rideau Canal? I’d love to hear your experience.

Adventures in Kayaking: Kemptville Creek 22 May 2021 4:40 AM (3 years ago)

On a muggy May day that felt more like August, I explored Kemptville Creek for the first time. I started at Anniversary park, having heard they have a special kayak launch attached to the small boat dock there. It was quite cool and made getting into the kayak and launching a simple affair, once I realized I’d have to use my hands to lift and push myself off and not just wiggle my way forward like I usually do from a beach launch.

Kemptville Creek is a lovely paddle with calm waters and a lot of variety on the shoreline. Heading upstream (left from Anniversary Park, or south) you have tidy waterfront homes on one side and reedy marsh on the other. The frogs were singing loudly as I set out, and among the water lilies just starting to grow on the surface, some sort of splashy fish thrashed about. I saw lots of shore birds, turtles, and a swimming mammal that was too quick for me to catch a good look but was likely a mink or otter.

If you don’t have access to a canoe or kayak of your own, you can rent one from Drifter’s Outdoors (Facebook link) right on the creek, on the bank opposite from Anniversary Park.

You can go about 2.5 km until you come to the bridge over Prescott Street. It’s quite neat to see the downtown area of Kemptville suddenly appear as you’re paddling along. (I have a deep love of small town “downtowns”.) At the bridge where Prescott St passes the river, the water suddenly becomes quite shallow and even in this year of lower spring water, the current was too vigorous for me to bother fighting it to explore further upstream.

Turning right/north/downstream from Anniversary Park, it’s about 5 km to where Kemptville Creek opens into the Rideau River, across from the Rideau River Provincial Park. (Did you know that Kemptville Creek was once known as the South Branch of the Rideau River?) As you paddle north from Anniversary Park, you’ll see a beautiful diversity of trees in Ferguson’s Forest on the western bank. I’ll bet this area is spectacular in the autumn season and I’ll be sure to check it out.

I really enjoyed this area and will definitely be exploring it more. Are you familiar with this area? Any stories or tips to share?

Kayaking in Ottawa: Cranberry and Stevens Creeks at Kars 21 Apr 2021 6:57 AM (3 years ago)

I spent most of the summer of 2020 kayaking around the Rideau with a few side adventures and writing blog posts in my head about my adventures, but never quite got around to posting them. I figured I’d probably do it through the winter, waiting for kayaking season to begin again. Apparently I didn’t do that either, because here we are with an early start to the kayaking season and I’m back on the water again. Maybe I’ll do a better job of blogging my kayaking adventures through the summer than I did my kicksled adventures this winter?

With all the paddling researching I did last year in my inaugural year of kayaking, I completely missed the fact that there is a lovely creek perfect for exploring just 15 minutes from the house. There are two boat launch spots in Kars, at the far southern boundary of the sprawling city of Ottawa. One is on the Rideau River itself, and the one I’ve been using is behind the Kars Recreation Centre on Stevens Creek. There’s a small dock, and free parking.

On an unseasonably mild April morning, I set out by myself. It was warm enough to be without a jacket but early enough that I saw just one lonely mosquito, and though the Rideau River is still dangerously cold, the small shallow creek was warm enough that I didn’t need any special cold water gear. (If you’re new to paddling early in the spring, be sure to read up on cold water safety.)

The first kilometer or so of the river is bordered by reeds, and when the sun is out there are dozens of turtles basking on the fallen logs. When you come up to Roger Stevens Drive, you’ll see a gas station on the right (wouldn’t it be awesome if you could paddle through to the takeout window?) and on the left is a small tributary that early in the season you can follow for another kilometer or so. It’s only a few inches deep and wide enough for one kayak at a time to pass in most spots, but it was fun to explore.

You’ll pass under a bridge that is Roger Stevens Drive and then see Stevens Creek Farm on the right. On the morning I kayaked, curious horses watched me paddle by with interest. The creek becomes much more scenic as it winds through farm land and past large trees overhanging the banks. Just after passing under a second bridge that is Second Line, I encountered some rocky rapids that signaled a good spot to turn around. I’d made it approximately four kilometres from the launch.

I loved this entire stretch and it reminded me of a smaller version of the Jock River near Richmond. It’s an easy paddle through placid, shallow water with lots of turtles, a mink or otter (it moved too quickly for me to be able to tell which), ducks and geese and many red wing blackbirds. Altogether I paddled nearly 9 km, including poking around at the mouth of the Rideau River and down a tributary for a stretch. A wonderful paddle that I can’t wait to revisit!

A few days later, I launched from the same spot at the Kars Rec Centre but instead went out into the Rideau River by turning left from the launch and paddled upstream for nearly 1.5 km to get to the mouth of Cranberry Creek. It was a lot less scenic than Stevens Creek, comprising mostly reeds and duck blinds. The duck blinds were a bit of a surprise to me – I forget we live on the edge of the urban/rural boundary sometimes. It actually took seeing a few before I realized what I was looking at, and I wouldn’t paddle here around the autumn duck hunt season.

This creek wasn’t as scenic as Stevens Creek, and it was so shallow that I kept touching the bottom with my paddle in places. After about three kilometres from the mouth of the creek, it narrowed down so much that the water was becoming stagnant and I figured I’d followed it as far as I could without risk of getting stuck. It’s quite pretty coming up to the bridge for Rideau Valley Drive – probably the prettiest part of the creek.

These are two great little tributaries that were safe and easy paddles, good for exploring early in the year while waiting for the larger rivers and lakes to warm up. I’m guessing they get quite choked with lily-pads and other weeds later in the summer, so spring is probably the sweet spot for them. I’m not sure I’d bother going back to Cranberry Creek, but Stevens Creek is now at the top of my list for favourite local places to launch, along with the Jock at Steeple Hill Crescent and the Manotick boat launch. With luck and patience, I’ll write about those another day!

Do you have a favourite place to paddle early in the season in Ottawa? I would love to hear about it!

Winter adventure: kicksledding in Ottawa 20 Feb 2021 10:27 AM (4 years ago)

About five years ago, I was taking my in-laws on a tour of the Rideau Canal. We watched a pair of skaters zoom by us, pushing some sort of wood contraptions on skis. I was immediately fascinated, and later that evening my father-in-law and I perused various sources with plans to build your own kick sled. Nothing ever came of it, but I never forgot my curiousity, and it was sparked (that’s a pun, by the way) all over again when a friend posted that she had received a kicksled for Christmas and she posted a link to the site in Quebec from which it had been ordered. I had to wait about two weeks for them to come back in stock (coming as they do on a boat from Finland) and another week for my new toy to make its way from the vendor to me.

Last May, I impulsively bought a kayak, slightly worrying that I might try it once or twice and that it would then take up space in the garage forever. It turned out to be my favourite toy ever, and I kayaked happily two and three times a week from May through November. Turns out the same mojo was at play with the kicksled. I was a little concerned buying one without ever having tried it, but from the moment I stepped on to it, I was in love.

So what’s a kick sled, or maybe it’s kicksled, or as they’re called in their native Scandinavian countries, a spark? (See, that’s the pun I made earlier!) It’s the love child of a scooter and cross-country skis, and looks a lot like a dog sled in search of a dog – in fact, you can buy dog harnesses should you wish to skijorn. You stand on one long runner and kick with the other leg a few times, then glide and shift. It’s a terrific workout, and a lot less intimidating than cross-country skis. If the sled is going too fast, or the hill is steep, or you’re worn out and need a break, just step off and walk. What’s interesting is that I have weak knees and complainy ankles and hips, and although I walk at least 30 minutes each day, any more than that and my knees and hips tend to ache. However, I can easily kicksled for 6 or 8 km with nary an issue.

kicksled mini video

This pandemic winter has been, by sheer chance, a great one to learn to kicksled. The trails are often compacted as soon as the snow stops falling. (Ideal conditions for a kicksled are hard packed to icy snow, or a very fine powder. Deep powder slows it down, as does even the tinest bit of road salt or sand.) I tend to go out very early in the morning to miss the crowds, but the kicksled is easily manoueverable to share the trail. Unfortunately, like kayaks and other personal watercraft were in summer 2020, they’re also very hard to come by. There aren’t a lot of kicksled vendors around – buying online from Quebec seemed to be my only option.

So two or three times a week for the three weeks or so that I’ve had it, I’ve been out exploring the amazing wonderland that is Ottawa’s winter trail network. There’s a dearth of information on kicksledding in Ottawa, so I thought I’d share that as I find it, too. People are fascinated by the spark – I’ve yet to go out that I haven’t been stopped at least once, sometimes three or four times, by curious folk who want to know what it is and where to get one. I’m beginning to think I could fund the college educations of all three kids just by dragging a few extra sparks behind me when I go out and selling them to curious onlookers. At the very least, I should probably be getting a commission from goslide.ca for the number of people I send their way. (Not an affiliate link yet, but if you’re from GoSlide, let’s talk! :D) The brand of kicksled I have is the ESLA, made using traditional methods in Finland for generations.

If you’d like to know more, this site has a great deal of information about kick sled history. Kicksleds are very common in Norway, Finland and Sweden, where they are used like we use bicycles – to run errands, to explore, to get out of the house. They’re creeping into North American pop culture, where the Netflix series Home for Christmas featured a woman zipping about on her kicksled, and the movie Kicksled Choir was recently nominated for an Oscar.

So hey, between posting about my summer kayak adventures and winter kicksled adventures, there may be life in this old blog yet! If there’s enough interest, I was thinking about setting up an Ottawa Kicksled group on Facebook or Reddit to share info, trails, resources, etc. If you’re interested, let me know your preferred platform and I’ll set it up. Edited to add: Winter is coming, and I finally did set up that Ottawa Kicksled group on Facebook. All are welcome!

Ottawa family fun: Day trip to Brockville 4 Sep 2020 7:55 AM (4 years ago)

Itâ€s been a weird summer, hasn’t it? Thanks to COVID, we didnâ€t do half as many little day trips and family adventures as we usually do, though I am grateful that my pre-teen and teenagers are generally willing to still come along for the occasional day trip. We love small towns and have been to Perth, Almonte, Carleton Place, Prescott, Kemptville, Carp — and somehow, we have up until this summer completely overlooked Brockville. Please allow me to share our rave review of our simple but wonderful day trip to Brockville.

We started with fish and chips from Donâ€s take-out window. Weâ€ve been looking for good fish and chips in or near Ottawa for years, and this is easily the best weâ€ve had since the Black Dog Café closed their take-out window. We took ours a block or so to Hardy Park and sat on benches on the boardwalk, enjoying the river view but not the bees. So! Many! Bees! Definitely worth both the trek and the bee sting on Belovedâ€s hand, though.

After that, we wandered over to the Aquatarium for our scheduled tour. I was really impressed with the way they managed everything with respect to COVID. We really havenâ€t gone out much at all since the pandemic started, and though I was a little twitchy at first being led around in a small group with three other families, the guide was clearly cognizant of social distancing and did a great job of managing the group, and a cleaner trailed behind us wiping surfaces as we passed. Our guide Alex also added a lot of value with her stories and narration. We had a Groupon, so if you can snag one it makes the admission even more reasonable.

We loved (LOVED!) the otters, and the beaver (Justin Beaver, natch) and other sea creatures were quite cool, too. Four of us have been playing Animal Crossing rather obsessively this summer, so we were amused to see so many of the critters from the game live in the Aquatarium: welks, sea stars, urchins, sea snails, turtles, sturgeon, pike, and blue gills. If your kids (or you!) love Animal Crossing, it’s worth it for the otters alone!

Our tour took maybe 75 or 90 minutes, and I genuinely enjoyed all of it. However, the real hit of the afternoon was the Brockville Railway Tunnel. Itâ€s only a block or so walk from the Aquatrium (which itself is only a block from Donâ€s fish and chips and two blocks from the park – everything is so convenient!) to Canadaâ€s oldest railway tunnel (constructed between 1854 and 1860), which has been converted to a fun tourist attraction. As you walk the 525m tunnel, light shows play around you. My snap-and-insta-loving teen was in selfie heaven, and we took a few shots that will make great cover art when the band drops our first album. I really did not expect them (or me) to be as entertained as we were, and itâ€s completely free.

Being on the St Lawrence seaway, Brockville is also just a lovely little town. We finished our visit with ice cream on the boardwalk and another little wander along the water. We didnâ€t even have time to visit the shops of the quaint downtown that reminds of me of the many villages of my southern Ontario childhood. Weâ€ll visit those when we go back, because we all agreed that Brockville is a new family-favourite day trip destination.

Adventures in kayaking: Manotick’s back channel 21 Jun 2020 5:01 AM (4 years ago)

In the decade we’ve lived here, I’ve harboured a not-so-secret covetousness of other people’s boats. Many Ottawa folks don’t know that half of the village of Manotick is on an island in the Rideau River called Long Island, and weâ€re only a couple hundred meters from water to both the east and west of our place. I love water and have always been drawn to it, and living on the island, I look at the river almost every single day. I walk along it, sit on the dock and dangle my toes in it, and just sit contentedly to look at it. But finally, this spring, I realized a long-term dream for my own boat: I got a simple little kayak. I have to admit, I was a little worried that I might like the *idea* of kayaking a lot more than I liked actual kayaking. But, it turns out I love it even more than I ever expected I would.

Having finally acquired a boat, I needed to figure out a way to get it to the water, and it seemed silly to drive such a short distance. So I also invested in a little wheely cart to go along with my kayak so I could walk to put it in the water. In theory, itâ€s wonderful: I can put in at one spot, wheels tied to the back of the kayak, and get out wherever I like, and drag the kayak back home behind me. However, the first few outings were a little less than ideal until I figured out the trick of not having the wheels collapse and divest themselves of the kayak every couple hundred steps. One of these days Iâ€ll post a video to show how I finally figured it out, because nothing I found online seemed to help. I’ve got the hang of it now, but it certainly took longer to get the knack of the wheely cart than it did paddling the kayak!

My friend Yvonne snapped this photo of me taking my kayak for a walk after we went paddling together one morning.

I thought it would be fun to share some of the things I discovered poking about the neighbourhood with my kayak, as from the looks of the waterways lately more than 50% of the population has ALSO decided that this, the year of the COVID, is indeed the ideal year to get a kayak / SUP / canoe. I spent a while googling information on whether you could paddle the back channel and didn’t find much, so this one is for a future kayaker wondering the same thing!

As I mentioned, Long Island splits the Rideau River into the main channel to the east of Manotick and whatâ€s known as the back channel to the west of the island. Coming from the south, you can go part way up the west channel (moving toward Ottawa) until you get to the weir at Watsonâ€s Mill. This is a lovely area known as Mahogany Bay, and theyâ€ve just installed a public dock thatâ€s perfect for personal watercraft and swimming up a bit from the Mill.

After the weir, the back channel continues on parallel to Rideau Valley Drive for a bit, where the weir near the Long Island Locks also dumps into it. It then continues on past Nichollâ€s Island and joins back up with the main channel at the base of the Long Island Locks.

I knew the back channel was shallow in spots, but I also know that a kayak doesnâ€t need a lot of depth, so one sunny Saturday morning in early summer I set off from the “Duck Lot” launch kitty-corner from the base of the Mill. It was shallow and I could see an impressive number of huge boulders in the clear water but I got a ways down before I actually managed to wedge myself on one. Perhaps a more agile kayaker could have avoided them, but I had anticipated something like this might happen and just stepped out of the kayak to drag it for a bit of a hike through the knee-deep water and around the worst of the rocks. The water became deep again and it was pleasant paddling on the slow-moving water, and very peaceful save for the sounds of traffic on the road on the other side of the trees. I was surprised that many of the homes were completely obscured from the waterfront by trees, as most of the lots on the main channel are fully exposed to the banks.

I encountered a few more shallow spots, what might have even been Class I rapids, and got stuck again, but was able to wiggle myself off the boulder. But mostly, it was a very pleasant paddle. There’s a bit more wildlife in the quiet back channel than in the main channel, and I saw several turtles sunning themselves. Unfortunately, thereâ€s really nowhere to get off the river except down near the dog park, on the far side of the bridge that turns from Maclean to Barnsdale, and itâ€s quite rocky there. When the water is a little higher, Iâ€d like to continue on down past the north end of Long Island and around Nichollâ€s Island. As it was, I went for the partial circumnavigation and pulled my kayak out, hauled it across the dog park on my wheely cart, and put back in on the main channel side, to the delight of several dogs taking a dip. One cute little French bulldog tried to hop right into the kayak with me as I pushed off. Pro tip: the water access at the dog park is quite crowded with wet doggos on a sunny Saturday morning!

So, while you can in theory paddle the back channel from the Mill to the dog park (formally known as David Bartlett Park) I’d suggest you choose a day when the river levels in the channel are high.

I’ll have another post with places you can put your kayak in and out from the main channel in another post. Any other locals care to weigh in with tips for personal watercraft around Manotick?

In which she shares her secret passion – for tarot cards! 26 Apr 2020 8:34 AM (4 years ago)

How have you been faring during these days of pandemic lockdown, friends? We’ve been very lucky in that we’ve had the means and ability to hunker down and wait things out, and after seven weeks, the fear is no longer as pervasive as it was the first little while.

Being home and pulled from our usual routines has left me with a lot of unexpected time on my hands. I might have used that time and excess energy for domestic chores (okay, probably not that), or honing my photography skills, or even blogging. In fact, what I have been doing is dedicating several hours most days to my latest obsession: tarot cards.

You didn’t see that one coming, did you? I certainly didn’t. I’d never held a tarot deck before I bought one for myself on a whim, and never had a reading done. I knew of the cards, and had a vague understanding that they were something like a fortune-telling parlour trick. What I didn’t realize is that what they are is in fact that elusive manual to life that I’ve been searching for all these years, a road map to better understanding of myself, my relationships, and the world around me. No, really! Hang on and let me explain.

Have you ever done one of those tests that help you understand your personality type? There are workplace ones with colours, and of course the Myers-Briggs personality types. There are zillions of online quizzes to find out “how employable are you?” or “what’s your life purpose?” or “where will you find your soulmate?” We can’t resist these types of assessments because as humans we seek meaning – some of us more than others. I’ve always been a seeker, looking for order in the chaos and meaning in the randomness of human existence. I think that’s why I was so instantly and obsessively drawn to tarot cards. I see in them the universality of human experience and more importantly, where I fit in to the great cosmic puzzle.

There’s a fun quote in Good Omens about how you can’t see London when you’re in Trafalgar Square, a much more fun interpretation of not being able to see the forest for the trees. The tarot cards use archetypes, the languages of symbols and numbers and colours, and simple illustrations of the wide spectrum of human experience to give us that wide-angle perspective so we CAN see London, as well as Trafalgar Square, and maybe even most of England, too.

Leaving the existential angsty bits behind, what does one actually DO with tarot cards? I use them for mindfulness, for personal insight, and to get in touch with my intuitive inner voice. I do NOT use them for fortune telling. Over the last little while I’ve come to see tarot cards as a powerful and useful tool, but I do not believe they can predict the future. I think they can help us understand ourselves better, our motivations and behaviours and blind spots. I think they can help us understand those around us, too – colleagues, spouses, kids, and friends, in the same way that knowing your colleague may be a “yellow” when it comes to problem solving and communicating, but you are a firm “blue” and you need to find a way to overcome those differences to work together. Tarot gives us insight into the things that make us human, and therefore helps us better connect to other humans, and to ourselves.

When I found out back in 2010 or so that I’m an ENFP in the MBTI, it rocked my world. I literally titled my blog post talking about it “This explains everything!” Knowing my Myers-Briggs personality type gave me a fundamental understanding of my behaviours, motivations and ways of interacting with the world. It truly changed my understanding of myself. Almost instantly with tarot, I felt the same sort of light bulb moment of clarity. And when I started getting deeper into the tarot, I felt like I did when I launched the blog 15 years ago: “this is crazy, my friends and family are never going to understand this weird behaviour, but this is something I must, absolutely must, do.”

One unexpected gift from the tarot has been mindfulness. Each day I draw a card and think about how the energy of that card has or might manifest itself in my day. The result of this has been a few quiet moments when I ask myself a question we almost never ask, but I think we really should: what did today mean? How often do we pause to think about what happened in a day, what went well and maybe not so well, and how we might do better the next day? Wasn’t it Socrates who said that the unexamined life is not worth living? These tiny moments of mindfulness are to me the equivalent of a gratitude journal, giving the seeker in me a chance to take that step back and breathe and take a look at that bigger picture.

I’m sure most people who have held a tarot deck haven’t become instantly obsessed, and many of my friends have talked about digging their deck out of storage as they listened to me rave about my new passion. Rather than indulging in a passing curiousity, I’ve gone all-in on my tarot passion. First I launched an Instagram account to journal the card of the day (and let me tell you, that felt an awful lot like the Project 365 photo-a-day whim that culminated in me being a professional photographer!) And when that wasn’t enough, I created a blog and website about learning tarot, too. You guys, I’m not kidding: o-b-s-e-s-s-e-d. Not wanting to pester my friends too much peddling my readings, I started doing free readings on a tarot site and quickly racked up more than 25 readings with an average rating of 4.7/5 stars. So now I offer those on my website too. It’s called Rideau River Tarot, inspired by the river that I see every single day as flows around the island we live on here, but also because water is the element of tarot linked to emotion and intuition, and because curtains are an important symbol in tarot and Rideau means curtain. Mystical and practical, which is more or less how I’m approaching tarot. And Tristan drew the tarot suit icons for my blog header!

Sort of crazy, right? But it feels so right, like when I started out on my bloggy journey all those years ago, or the Project 365 photo journey. I only wish I’d discovered tarot earlier in the game – but at least I’ve had an excess of time on my hands during our pandemic life pause to fully indulge my new passion. I’ve been reading books and listening to podcasts, doing research and of course playing with the cards. I’ve written blog posts about books and resources for learning, about MBTI and tarot, and about ways you can use tarot cards that aren’t divination, including as creative writing prompts, for mindfulness, and even to help you generate random encounters and characters for your D&D adventure. I’ve got SO MANY ideas! And one of these days, I’d like to start offering lessons and workshops, something I found surprisingly lacking here in Ottawa.

After months of debating whether and when I should come out with my quiet obsession, I’m here to share it with you. So, what do you think? Are you already someone who enjoys using tarot cards? Are you interested in learning more about tarot? Do you have any tarot resources to share? Do you think I’ve lost the plot entirely? It’s okay if you do. People thought I was crazy with the silly blog thing a decade and a half ago, when blogs were solely for tech geeks and lovesick 14 year old girls. I have this feeling that tarot is the next yoga, about to move from fringe to mainstream culture, and I am here for that.

My fandoms blanket: nine squares in! 2 Mar 2020 3:32 PM (5 years ago)

I mentioned a few posts back about discovering a passion for knitting about six months ago. Itâ€s hard to believe that itâ€s only been six months – I feel like Iâ€ve had knitting needles and yarn flying through my fingers for years now. In between all the mittens and hats and socks and other projects Iâ€ve been doing, Iâ€ve been working diligently on my Geek Square blanket. Iâ€ve got nine squares done, and I figure Iâ€m aiming for a blanket thatâ€s 6×4 squares, or 24 squares in total.

Theyâ€re in the order I knitted them, from first at the bottom right to most recent at the top left: an aperture (from a video game called Portal, but I chose it for the association with my other passion, the camera); Hitchhikerâ€s Guide to the Galaxy (“Donâ€t Panic!” was almost the tagline for this blog); 20-sided die from Dungeons & Dragons; Batman (for Beloved, my comic book guy); the Deathly Hallows from Harry Potter; the Hyrulean Shield from Zelda; Mario Kart; the logo from my favourite D&D playcast Critical Role; and the dragon ampersand from Dungeons & Dragons.

I might get it done some time this year – but, probably not.

As I mentioned, I stumbled across the geek-a-long blanket project when I was literally days into my new knitting habit. I didnâ€t know that double-knitting was considered challenging, so I followed a few tutorials and figured it out pretty quickly. Generally, a double-knitted square will have one set of colours on one side and the inverse on the other side, as you knit and purl double strands, throwing one colour to one side with a knit stitch and the other to the opposite side with a purl stitch. For the d20 square, I needed to figure out how to do “extreme” double knitting, where the two sides are different. So I did. For the first few squares, Iâ€d count up the number of stitches in each colour and write them all out longhand as a road map for myself, but now I can follow along fairly easily with just a printout of the pattern and a ruler.

You might note that there are more D&D squares than anything else, in no small part because after a 30 year hiatus the game has become a big part of my life again – thereâ€s definitely a post or three about THAT in the near future! It was the d20 pattern that led me to the Geek-a-long blanket in the first place, via Google Image search. Theyâ€ve been doing a knit-a-long blanket for the last several years, which is why they have such a great bank of patterns covering all sorts of geeky goodness, and I just found out that this yearâ€s theme is ENTIRELY Dungeons & Dragons related – talk about serendipity!

For the Deathly Hallows (the triangle and circle pattern, from Harry Potter) and the Critical Role logo (the CR with a sword) I designed my own pattern using a website called Chart-Minder. The next one in my queue is also one I designed myself; can you tell what it is? Iâ€ll probably start this square some time this week.

Iâ€ve got a loose idea of where Iâ€m going with the rest of the squares. Iâ€ll be covering Star Wars in the next square, and Iâ€ve got ideas for the Princess Bride, Pac Man, Pokemon, Minecraft, and a few other family fandoms. Iâ€ve even got a spreadsheet with potential squares, what colours Iâ€d need and what yarns I have in my stash. Weâ€ll have to see what new D&D ideas appear and take those into account, too!

The only part that really concerns me is the joining of the squares. First, itâ€s going to be hella task just in and of itself. And some of those cast ons and cast offs are so tight Iâ€m not sure Iâ€ll be able to get a crochet hook in there, whatever method of joining the squares I use. Iâ€ll be coming back to you guys for advice before I take on that task, I think. Iâ€m not even sure what colour to use to join them all up; I think black is the likeliest choice.

I figure if I’m six months and nine squares into the project, at least I’m invested enough to keep working on it. Next stop, Millennium Falcon!

Views of a Village: A new art exhibit at a new cafe in Manotick! 19 Feb 2020 10:47 AM (5 years ago)

I have been a fan of Ottawa’s Andrew King for a long time. He’s a talented painter with a delightful whimsical streak, but he also loves Ottawa’s quirky side as much – if not more! – than I do. His Twitter feed and Ottawa Rewind blog (and book!) are a constant source of delight. I was aware that he’d moved to Manotick a few years back, and it’s clear he loves living here as much as I do.

Earlier this week, I literally gasped in amazement when I saw some of his latest paintings on Twitter: he’s been doing a wonderful series of some of Manotick’s most iconic buildings, but in a way I’ve never before seen them captured. Here’s a few of them:

Are they not exquisite? They fill my heart with joy looking at them. I love how they’re iconic Manotick and yet utterly unique. I especially love this one because he’s sought out and captured the former home and studio of Group of Seven artist A.Y. Jackson. Did you know he used to live in Manotick? One of my favourite parks for family photos is named for him!

We are, in fact, on an island here, but I’m pretty sure I’ve walked just about everywhere you can on the island without finding a lighthouse. This reminds me of my other happy place, PEI, though, so I’m okay with it.

Extraordinary, right? I was so taken with them that I reached out and introduced myself (we’ve been following each other on Twitter for years, but never had reason to make contact) and asked if I could share some of the images on the blog. Andrew, who used to live in Westboro, moved to Manotick three years ago. He told me that for him, over time Westboro had lost the small-town neighbourhood vibe that he had loved to infill, traffic noise and corporate greed. In Manotick, he found what I’ve loved for the 10+ years we’ve lived here: a close-knit community where everyone smiles and says hello.

When I asked him about the inspiration for these paintings, he said, “Being a late 1800s mill town, [Manotick] has done a remarkable job of preserving that original character, which I wanted to capture in my paintings. That is this show, Views Of A Village, a place I know proudly call home and hope to for a long time. The historic buildings inspire me as does the laid back river lifestyle that the town is built on. With all these great elements it provides me with a relaxing and inspiring painting environment at my home studio…and if itâ€s good enough for Group Of Seven artist AY Jackson to build his studio, then I guess I picked a good spot!”

My camera and I agree wholeheartedly.

Even more delightfully, he’s exhibiting his work at Manotick’s newest cozy spot to gather, the wonderful new Cafe 692 on Manotick Main Street. Here’s some bonus art with all the details you need if you want to come see the paintings in person:

If you can’t make it for the opening on Thursday, Andrew assures me that the art will be on display for a few weeks at least.

If you go:
Views of a Village at the 692 Café
5546 Manotick Main St
Opens February 20, 7 to 9 pm

“Checkmate, nihilism!” 11 Feb 2020 4:14 AM (5 years ago)

I turned 50 back in August, and for my birthday I asked for some supplies to re-learn how to knit. I wanted to take up knitting for a handful of reasons, but mostly it was to have something other than mindlessly surfing screens in my downtime, and because I have always been a maker.

I had originally learned how to knit when I was a kid; there was a lady in our neighbourhood named Trudy who taught me, when I was about 10. The 70s and 80s were a different time – I donâ€t know how I met Trudy, a single woman with no kids, or how I ended up friends with her, but I have clear memories of going to her house, alone, and her teaching me to knit. The only knit item I remember ever finishing was a long red and white scarf for my high school boyfriend. I have carried with me for years a bag of yarn and scraps were supposed to be a blanket in the late 80s or early 90s, but that was the last time Iâ€d knit, aside from teaching Tristan how to do basic garter stitch a few years ago.

So, I asked for a set of double-pointed needles and some acrylic yarn to try to make a fingerless glove pattern Iâ€d seen on Ravelry. Iâ€d never used DPNs before, but thatâ€s what Google is for. (How did we ever learn things before Google?) Then I googled long-tail cast on, and M1L and M1R and how to pick up stitches, and pretty much every other thing in that pattern except the basic knit stitch that I knew. I even made a test glove before I used the “good” acrylic, which turned out to be a horrible stiff yarn that vacillated randomly in thickness and I hated by the end of the first glove.

Long before I finished the fingerless gloves, that I had by that point fallen out of love with but was determined to finish anyway, I discovered a project that made my heart sing: the Geek-along blanket. It was a series of double-knit squares that you could knit and join into your own blanket. There were squares for D&D, for Terry Pratchett, for Star Wars and Star Trek and Harry Potter. There were Zelda squares and Pac Man squares and even a Douglas Adams square. Oh yes, this was a project I had to try. So I learned to double-knit, and then when I found a pattern with a d20 from Dungeons and Dragons with a natural 20 on one side and a natural 1 on the other side of the square, I learned to double-knit while throwing different patterns to either side, also called extreme double knitting. Iâ€ve got eight squares done so far, aiming for 24, but other projects keep getting in the way!

Like thrummed mittens – Iâ€ve made two sets of those, plus some thrummed slippers for Granny for Christmas. I went on a hat-making spree and made slouchy beanies for my brother for his birthday, and for Beloved and Simon for Christmas. I designed (!) and made a Link (from Zelda) hat for Tristan. And I finally finished those first fingerless gloves. Though I didnâ€t love them, Lucas did, and he wore them all through the autumn until it was too cold for fingerless gloves. And I chose a new pattern and made a nicer set for myself in fancy Malabrigo yarn. Oh, and I made a Baby Yoda, as one does.

But! The thing that I most wanted to try and most feared was socks. I looked at pattern after pattern. I was intimidated by the heel flap, by picking up those stitches. Eventually, I settled on a pattern that seemed both tried and true and straightforward, and I set off to make socks.

Back in the fall, I came across this quote about knitting on Reddit, via Tumblr:

“The thing about knitting is that it’s much harder to fear the existential futility of all your actions while you’re doing it. Like okay, sure, sometimes it’s hard to believe you’ve made any positive impact on the world. But it’s pretty easy to believe you’ve made a sock. Look at it. There it is. Put it on, now you’re foot’s warm.

Checkmate, nihilism!”

Checkmate nihilism indeed. I not only made a sock, I made TWO SOCKS. Take that, second sock syndrome!

So Iâ€m, um, sort of obsessed with knitting now. Iâ€m currently in the middle of a simple little hat to practice stranded colourwork, because why not? And I have 16 blanket squares left to make, and then (**weeps**) join. And Iâ€ve stashed the yarn to make at least four more pairs of socks. And several hats. And I bought the pattern for a Cowichan sweater that I opened when I downloaded it, took one look at, and said, “oh crap, I am not ready for this yet. Not even close.”

But, maybe next week?

In which they grew up while you weren’t looking 8 Feb 2020 3:53 AM (5 years ago)

In my last post, I mentioned that if I chose to go ahead with blogging (which Iâ€ve clearly decided to do!) there would be less emphasis on the kids and their stories. And then donâ€t they just go ahead and have a week full of amazing and exciting milestones that I pretty much just have to share?

Tristan is finishing his last year of high school and has had his eye for the last year or so on a program at Carleton University called Interactive Media Design. Itâ€s a very cool program thatâ€s a perfect marriage of two things Tristan loves: art and technology. Itâ€s basically the design side of video game production, with a strong foundation in the computer science behind it, and in the end a graduate will have both a degree from Carleton University and a diploma from Algonquin College. Itâ€s a prestigious program, though, and they only accept 50 of the 500 or more applicants they receive each year. In addition to passing Grade 12 functions, which was a nail-biter for a while, heâ€s had to prepare a portfolio that will be weighed equally with his grades in his application. Heâ€s just about to submit the portfolio – cross your fingers and toes! But, while he was busy doing that, he also applied to two other programs at Carleton for his plan B and plan C alternatives, and to our delight, received early acceptance this week to both of them! So it looks like weâ€ll have a Carleton university student in the house as of September, one way or the other.

Not to be outdone by his older brother, Simon turned 16 on Saturday and by lunchtime on the day he turned 16 he had his newly minted beginnerâ€s driverâ€s licence in his hand. (Yiiiiiiiiikes!) After a few careful loops around the empty parking lot of government office, he has taken to the roads like a duckling to water.

Lucas doesn’t have anything quite so exciting on his plate, but he did turn 12 this week, and is finishing his last year of elementary school before going to middle school in the fall when Tristan goes off to university.

So in the span of a few short days, we have one child (or not-so-much-a-child) with two early acceptances to university, one baby turning 12, and one with his driverâ€s licence!! Itâ€s been a proud week in parenting, and theyâ€ve come a long way since the sweet little babies they were when I started the blog – which, by the way, happens to be exactly 15 years ago this week.

So, I guess I’m back!

Bloggy thoughts: Should I stay or should I go? 24 Jan 2020 6:48 AM (5 years ago)

Itâ€s been about six months since I published a blog post, and in the year before that I only posted a handful of times. Iâ€ve been wondering: is it time to shutter the blog? The kids are too old for me to write about them now; their stories are their own to tell. I used to summarize the theme of the blog as “raising a family in Ottawa” but I feel like the lionâ€s share of that work is done. And while photos have sustained the blog for the last few years, I donâ€t feel like I have enough to say about taking them anymore, at least not enough to keep the blog interesting and relevant.

So, is there value in me blogging any more? Thereâ€s a cost to consider. Itâ€s not overly expensive to host the blog, and I host my photography site off the same domain, so that’s not going anywhere. More problematically, itâ€s been a while since I updated the look and especially the functionality. Google tells me itâ€s not particularly mobile friendly. I canâ€t even remember half the ways I hacked the code over the years and my eyes glaze over every time I think of making any changes to it. And now Flickr has a new model where the thousands upon thousands of images that I had hosted for free going way back to 2005 will now cost about a hundred bucks a year to keep, or else Iâ€ll have a blog riddled with broken links and lost images.

Turning 50 has been a big year for me, and I have new things that Iâ€m interested in now. Iâ€d like to blog about my new knitting addiction (make all the things!) and Iâ€ve been exploring Tarot cards. Iâ€d like to have a place to talk about the food Iâ€ve enjoyed making, the ways Iâ€m expressing my creativity through making things, and how satisfying it is to be a woman on the far side of 50 who has figured out so many of the very same things I whined about when blog and I were both younger and less sure of ourselves.

I donâ€t even particularly mind that Iâ€m likely to be talking to myself. The heyday of the blog, a dozen years ago when Lucas was the Player to be Named Later and I was up to my ears and sinking in the quagmire of parenting three under six with a tribe of online friends and followers has long since passed. I donâ€t mind talking to myself – I do it all the time! I’m just not sure if I’m invested enough in the idea of continuing to do the kind of updates and maintenance that I really should do. Oh technology.

I guess Iâ€m not quite ready to say goodbye, or even see you later. Maybe Iâ€ll just putter around here for a while, without any pressure or expectations from myself, and if I decide I’m going to keep on keeping on, one day when I’m full of energy and enthusiasm I’ll look into overhauling the works. If a girl can grow and change and mature, her silly old blog can follow suit, right?

Saying goodbye to a (t)rusty old friend 18 Aug 2019 12:23 PM (5 years ago)

Almost 10 years ago to the day, after our Dodge Caravan went up in flames in my one and only serious car accident, we bought my ‘little blue car’, a 2009 Mazda 5. It was so long ago that one of our primary concerns was room in the cargo area for a stroller; Lucas was barely over a year old at the time, and Simon hadn’t even started JK yet.

That little blue car served us well over the years. I loved it so much that when Beloved needed a new car, we bought a 2012 Mazda 5 to make a his-and-hers matching set. Alas, after 10 years and 175,000 km, it’s time to trade it in.

It’s been about five years since our failed attempt to get the car detailed, and I can’t say I’ve been scrupulous about keeping it clean since then, aside from an occasional swipe with a vinegary paper towel or $1 worth of gas-station vacuuming. Cleaning the car out for trade-in has been like an archaeological excavation of the past 10 years of our lives. I expected the crayons, goldfish and the Starbucks stir sticks, smiled at the acorns, sea glass and installation manual for a forward-facing car seat, and laughed outright at the three (three!) lens caps and the Apple charger cord – so that’s where they went. I can’t remember the last time someone needed a baby spoon, but there was one of those, and a rainbow Pride flag, too.

I’m super excited about the new car, but I’m nostalgic about trading this one in. I’ve never owed a car this long before, and the kids have gone from babies to teenagers begging to sit in the driver’s seat. It’s been to every province east of here save Newfoundland and Labrador, and down the 401 to southern Ontario more times than I can count. It gets cranky in the deep winter mornings and won’t always open the windows when I ask, and I’ve learned not to pull out of the driveway until I’m sure the window won’t freeze-fog over on me. It never once broke down on me, though, and I’ve only had to put a post-it note in front of the pesky check-engine light a few times when I just didn’t have the spoons to deal with it. It has been our family car as our family grew up, and like the rest of us, it has a few eccentricities that we mostly overlooked because it was otherwise a good friend.

We both have a few more miles on us now!

And about that new car – holy smokes but cars have changed since the last time we were in the market. Stay tuned for the big reveal on the next-ten-years car!

The one with the radioactive sea glass 12 Aug 2019 9:03 AM (5 years ago)

Longtime readers of the blog know that weâ€ve been obsessed with sea glass for many, many years. I was first introduced to the idea when we visited Bar Harbor, way back when we were a family of four. My bloggy friend Phantom Scribbler introduced me to collecting tiny pebble-sized bits of glass as we wandered along the sea shore.

By sheer chance, our next major family vacation in 2010 brought us to a beach near Lunenberg, Nova Scotia that was so rich in sea glass that we filled our pockets to overflowing each time the tide went out, and an addiction was born.

Four of the last five years, weâ€ve scoured the beaches of Prince Edward Island, and especially the coastline near Souris, picking bits of joy out of the sand. Iâ€ve made sea glass jewellery, key chains, mobiles and even a sea glass lantern, and Iâ€m sure we have more than five kilos of it stashed in various containers around the house. By some weird fluke, though, this is the year that we found our most unusual and precious pieces.

The first was this purple coil. Purple is a rare colour for sea glass, and this crazy curl is quite unusual. In fact, we couldnâ€t help but enter it into the “best shard” competition at the Mermaidâ€s Tears sea glass festival that happened to be taking place in Souris when we were there last month. It took honourable mention, and the judge said its only drawback was that it was a relatively young piece and didnâ€t have much pitting or other signs of aging. We wonder what it could have been?

It wasnâ€t until we got home, though, that we realized the other treasure weâ€d found. Beloved was scanning through our haul with a black light flashlight and one piece glowed unmistakably: weâ€d found not one but TWO elusive pieces of radioactive sea glass, also known as UV glass, Vaseline glass or uranium glass, because it is in fact made with trace amounts of uranium. Yes, THAT uranium, the one they use to make nuclear bombs! Itâ€s not overtly visible to the naked eye, and we had no idea these were a pieces destined for my ‘favourites†jar until it glowed smartly and obviously when Beloved skimmed the black light over them.

Apparently, uranium used to be a commonly used ingredient back in the day to add certain colours to glass tableware. In doing a little research, we found out that the flourescence of UV glass is totally unrelated its radioactivity, which is actually measurable with a Geiger counter. However, since only small amounts of uranium were used during the manufacture of the glass, the amount of radioactivity in uranium glass is not considered harmful.

Isn’t it amazing how it looks completely unremarkable under normal light (left photo), but glows neon bright under the black light? Note to self, bring black light flashlight to PEI next vacation!!

From a long but fascinating delve into the science and art behind Vaseline glass: “Regardless of who did what first, we know that [uranium] itself was identified in 1789, when German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth named it after our solar systemâ€s most recently discovered planet. Back then, uranium was seen as just one more mineral to color clear silicon dioxide, the main constituent in the sand glass is made from. Chemists like Klaproth knew that cadmium turned glass yellow, cobalt made it blue, manganese produced violet shades, and certain compounds of gold went red when heated, blown, and cooled.”

So now we’ve added to our collection a small fragment of red (one tiny fragment in boxes and boxes of sea glass!), a lovely frosty marble, a bit of milk glass, quite a bit of the more rare cobalt and purple glass, and now this fun discovery. Isnâ€t that the coolest thing? We just love wandering the seaside like magpies, looking for shiny bits, and treasures like these make the search that much more fun — and addictive!

Have you collected enough to have a favourite shard of sea glass or a fun story to tell about how you found some? And now for the really hard question: WHAT should I do with it???

Ottawa Family Fun: The summer 2019 Leonardo da Vinci exhibit at the Canada Science and Tech museum 9 Aug 2019 12:01 PM (5 years ago)

Have you checked out the newly renovated and freshly amazing Canada Science and Technology Museum lately? We went last week on an adventure to celebrate my birthday, including a stop at the special Leonardo da Vinci exhibit and it. was. AWESOME!

Ottawa’s Science and Tech museum has always been one of our favourite places to while away a Sunday morning. You might remember that it closed in 2014 due to mould and structural issues, and somehow we missed getting back into our routine of regular visits after the grand re-opening in 2017. It was great to see old family favourites (Simon in particular spoke with great fondness of the famous Crazy Kitchen) and the locomotives, but the whole museum feels fresh and new and full of things to discover.

You could say Lucas flipped over it!

If youâ€re looking for something to do in the waning days of your summer vacation, I canâ€t recommend the special travelling Leonardo da Vinci exhibit highly enough. I thought I knew a lot about da Vinci – I knew he was of course the painter of some of the worldâ€s most highly regarded paintings, like the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, and I knew he dabbled in science and math. I understood that he contributed to massive leaps in the understanding of the human form, architecture and technology, and yet I never really understood the scope of his genius until we spent an hour submersed in this exhibit. Itâ€s a wonderfully modern presentation (give yourself time to sit and enjoy the multimedia SENSORY4 immersive experience) that was as fascinating for me (eager to learn but by no means knowledgeable) as it was for Beloved with his degree in fine arts, and all three kids with their very different appetites and attitudes enjoyed it as well.

Iâ€m sure weâ€re one of the last families in Ottawa to finally return to this amazing local treasure. The kids did admit that they missed the old fibre optic crawling tubes, but that the new permanent exhibits more than made up for it.

Have you been yet? What did you think?

If you go:
Canadian Science and Technology Museum
1867 St Laurent Blvd, Ottawa, ON
Leonardo da Vinci exhibit ends September 2, 2019; additional fees apply.

In which Lucas gets his Hogwarts acceptance letter 15 Feb 2019 6:17 AM (6 years ago)

This has definitely been the year of all things Harry Potter in our lives. I’ve been reading the series to Lucas for more than a year (we’re about half way through the Half Blood Prince), and our trip to England last summer was pretty much based on cramming in as many Harry Potter references as we could manage, including a visit to the Harry Potter experience at the Warner Bros studio.

And since Lucas turned 11 years old this week, it seemed only fitting that he receive his official letter of acceptance from Hogwarts. It was surprisingly easy to make our own custom, personalized acceptance letter to the famous school of witchcraft and wizardry!

The Harry Potter wiki gave me the wording I needed. I found the Hogwarts logo on the wiki and used it for the header.

It was short and simple, so I decided to add the second page with required list of supplies and books as well. This time I used the Hogwarts crest as a watermark. The wiki even had the signatures for Professor McGonagall and the Chief Attendant of Witchcraft Provisions. Details make the illusion hold together!

I picked up a small pack of parchment-like paper at the stationery store, but you could easily print it on regular, thick paper and use a wet teabag to give it a little colour and character or even burn the edges a bit. The fonts, in case you were wondering, are Luminari for the Hogwarts header text and Copperplate Gothic Light for the body text.

The question of how to deliver it was a little bit trickier. Dangling in the fireplace seemed like a fun but potentially messy option. When I started thinking about owl post, my first inspiration was borrowing an owl stuffie from friends, and then I realized that all three boys are collectors of the Funko POP figures, and a plan was born.

A little fishing line, a bit of shiny ribbon and the chandelier helped our new Hedwig POP figure deliver the scroll tied to her ankle containing the letter from Dumbledore.

She’s a little small. In truth, she looks more like Pigwigeon than Hedwig. But, she did an excellent job delivering the letter, right at the beginning of Lucas’s birthday party. His friends noticed her before he did!

I love the look on his friends’ faces!

This was an easy and fun gift for an avid Harry Potter fan. I only wish I’d thought of it three boys ago! (And yes, I know that strictly speaking, the Hogwarts letter of acceptance doesn’t need to be delivered on one’s 11th birthday — but it was fun that we could make it work!)

If you have any questions about how we pulled this together, or suggestions that will help someone else do a better job, please don’t hesitate to comment!

Going to the dogs, photographically speaking 3 Feb 2019 5:20 AM (6 years ago)

What’s that old expression, about never working with children and dogs? Clearly, I never got that memo.

I was looking back over the last year or so of my photography clients and realized that more and more families are asking if it’s okay to bring their dogs along for a family portrait session — and the answer is a resounding YES! (Ahem, as long as they are mostly well behaved and won’t be too much of a distraction.)

How could I say no to this level of adorableness?

It, ahem, doesn’t always go as planned.

But is there any photo more sweet than a boy with his best friend?

I was even asked to be the photographer for an elopement at a local dog park. Now that’s my kind of wedding!

Lately, I’ve started working with more small businesses and entrepreneurs to showcase their business stories — but there’s still room for a little doggy love – especially in the case of this little doggy!

Whether you’re looking to capture your ENTIRE family, pets included, or show how your pup is a part of your daily work and home life, I’m happy to tell your story with your pet!

Photo fun: Make it snow! 16 Jan 2019 8:57 AM (6 years ago)

Over the Christmas break, I found myself with enough time on my hands to try a funky little photo tutorial I’d found online. (I mean, I could have done something productive like housework, but isn’t playtime what vacations are all about?)

You might remember this photo from the amazingly fun impromptu family photography session we had at Watson’s Mill in Manotick in between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. I absolutely love outdoor family portraits in the winter, especially when it’s just below (but not too far below!) freezing and overcast so the light is soft and even. The hint of tiny snowflakes in the air was just the icing on the cake. And if some drifting snow flakes are awesome, MOAR SNOWFLAKES must make it better still, right?

I followed this tutorial to add moving, drifting snow to a still photo, and while it’s far from perfect (there’s a little hitch where the video loops, and the speed is a little off) it was fun for a first try.

Fun, right? I learned a lot, since it was the first time I’ve ever used the Timeline feature in Photoshop. Let’s just say it’s convenient to have a spouse who happens to teach Photoshop at the local college on hand when I get a little lost. But I figured out myself how to resize it because apparently it’s one of WordPress’s peccadilloes that you need to upload a .gif in full size in order for it to play.

Yay me! New tricks for this old dog.

It’s possible we still have just a little bit of winter left to get through, so if you can’t wait for spring for your family photo sessions, now I know how to make the winter ones just a little bit more fun!

Photos of the day: Red hot chili peppers! 8 Jan 2019 4:07 AM (6 years ago)

If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you know that Chef Michael Smith is my food bae. I credit him for pretty much single-handedly empowering me to cook, something I’ve grown to love doing over the past few years. This year for Christmas, though, after watching the Netflix series together, Beloved gave me Samin Nosrat’s Salt Fat Acid Heat, and it is hands down the BEST cookbook I’ve ever read. It has 200 pages of food science, art and magic, woven together with humour and great stories, and then 150 pages of recipes based on the principles in the beginning of the book.

I couldn’t wait to take the recipes out for a test drive! The first one that made my mouth water was Pork Braised with Chilies. One of the ingredients was eight dried chilies. I’d never purchased dried chilies before, but was sure I’d seen then somewhere in my travels.

My first stop was the produce section of the grocery store. Don’t they keep them beside the sun-dried tomatoes in the little pouches? Nope. Mexican foods? Nada. Spices? Ethnic foods? Nope.

Thwarted, I rescheduled the menu and tried Farm Boy the next day. Farm Boy rarely disappoints, but the first person I asked for dried chilies took me to the ground spices section and the next two just shrugged apologetically. I grabbed a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce and figured I’d make due with that. We were on our way home from the Barrhaven Farm Boy when we passed the street we used to live on, and the little shopping plaza with — the Indian food shop! I bet they have dried chilies.

Hoo boy, did they ever! To my delight, I got what seemed like a lifetime supply of dried peppers for the astonishing price of $2.50. (We lived for years on the same street as Nasa Food Centre, a South Asian grocery store, but never went in. Tristan said the smell was an assault to all his senses, but it left me drooling and promising to go back!)

They were so beautiful that I had to dump the bag onto the counter and have an improptu photo shoot before I started putting some in the pot.

There were so many of them!

Do you love spicy food? ME TOO!

So, two questions. First, seriously, how do you spell the plural of chili? Is it chiles, like on Samin Nosrat’s site, or chilies? Spell check favours the latter, but also throws an error on the u in favour, so it’s not exactly reliable to me. And second — what the holy heck am I going to do with all those peppers? I used six of what must be a hundred! Ideas?

Oh yeah, and the pork braise is smelling amazing, too. If it tastes half as good as it smells, Samin may be my new kitchen BFF. I’ll keep you posted!