Crafty presents

Later this week it is my wedding anniversary. I much prefer giving and receiving homemade presents, be it baked goods, preserves, hand made cards or whatever. It just shows you put that much more effort into making something specifically for that person, rather than just going and buying a gift certificate to the mall or something along those lines (although I am rather fond of bookstore gift certificates).

I think my hon is going to make me a nice dinner, which I am completely happy with. I have just finished making his/our presents, which is matching necklaces. I've made them from sodalite beads, which is a lovely blue and white stone,

interspersed with small sterling silver beads.

I saw leaves electroplated with silver, and ordered some, but they were not what I anticipated. They kind of felt like something pressed in tin foil. They looked and felt cheap.

So after much looking around, found some really nice silver oak leaves and got those. Bonus is that our wedding bands are stylized silver oak leaves!

Way nicer, huh? So a bit of work later, and the finished project:

What do you think? Pretty swank, huh?

It's a rainy day off for me, so now I'm off to bake a cake. If the recipe turns out, I'll post that too.

Grrr and Awwww!

So the Grrr! part is this: yesterday while doing laundry, someone in our building stole it right out of the machine! And no, it wasn't a misunderstanding, our bags were still on top, just the machine was empty. I mean, who steals laundry? So my hon talks to the super on duty and tells him about it; apparently this is an ongoing problem and there have been complaints from quite a few people but nothing is being done about it. He comes back to our apartment, tells me (and I don't believe him at first, cause really, who steals laundry?), we write up a posting to put in the laundry room and on the elevators. The super on duty comes up to talk to us some more, we show him the letter and tell him where we're putting it, he's all fine with that, wishes us luck. Not half an hour later, the regular super (his wife actually) comes up and berates us for putting up the letter in the elevator and that we can't write something like that, because people will be upset and see it as threatening, and basically sucks to be you but since I really don't like you I'll give you crap. What a joke!

Ok, so in order to not make this a rant and to see life in a more happy happy way, the Awww! part is this: if you live in the Kitchener/Waterloo area and have ever driven up Victoria towards Breslau, you may or may not have noticed on your right hand side a big ass nest sitting on top of a pole. It is an Osprey nest. They mate for life and usually come back to the same nesting site every year. This year, before they started building their nest, someone was thinking and put up a camera that looks down on the nest, so that we amateur naturalists can have a look at the pair and their babies. It's so awesome! So far 2 eggs have hatched with one more to go. The site also has links to other bird cams from around the world so that you can watch nature close up and personal. The link to the site should be included. http://www.ustream.tv/channel/birds-of-breslau

Sidebar: I love watching nature documentaries, but only the beautiful happy parts. When the music starts to get dramatic, I start talking to the TV, "Run, run poor bunny!" or whatever is going on. I know it's part of nature, doesn't mean I want to see it. I don't know how those film people can stand by and see poor baby turtles struggling to make it to the sea be picked off by hungry birds or whatever. I'd so be chasing those birds away!

So, some Grrr and Awww, because that's mostly what's involved in day to day life.

Ah, Brave New World!

Hmm, kind of hard to know where to start, especially with a cat on my lap licking my arm furiously in order to get my attention.

Someone told me I should do a blog, as I always give them lots of information on things that are happening around the area, neat things to be aware of and anything else they might be interested in. I must confess, I am a definite information junkie! My first love was the library and my love has grown to include the internet which is a vast library accessed by my keyboard (when my cat allows).


I think I must also have some ADD in me as new shiny things grab my attention quickly until the next newer shinier thing grabs it. Needless to say I have a diverse range of interests (and way too many bookmarks).

So this blog will be about whatever has captured my imagination at the time, or whatever I'm doing/thinking about at the time. Problem with my brain is, it just doesn't shut up!