My camera broke!

As I'm sure the faithful reader can well imagine, this is a pretty big deal.

So I was taking a picture of the empty green corduroy chair for my last post (the chair's still empty, by the way!) when the camera slipped out of my hand. I didn't drop it though - I saved it before it hit the floor. Phew.

Only I guess I didn't save it after all! I kinda caught it by the zoom lens and apparently it broke. Bah! I'm hoping I'll be able to get an exchange or something on it..... I've only had it for like 5 months!

It'll still take pictures, though. So all is not lost, for the time being at least.


That said, I got a new plant last night!!

Neat, huh? SuperStore jobby. The little tag that came stuck in the soil just says "Dracaena Collection" - I'd say it's a Red Edged Dracaena, from what I've looked up online. I just think it's the bees knees. Not sure where it'll end up permanently, yet.... for now it's sitting on the tv stand next to the window.

I'm really getting into houseplants. They add a lot to the place. Smelanie: blossoming horticulturist. Who'da thunk!

Now if I can just manage to keep the things alive, we'll be all set.

A return to peace.

Maybe the faithful reader remembers me having reported a rare sight a couple of weeks ago: to my surprise, the cat left his station at the green corduroy chair for a few hours one afternoon, opting instead to perch on the window sill. Could this signal a turning of the tides, I wondered?

As you can see, the green corduroy chair is empty. It's been empty for the past two days! This is definitely an encouraging development - a final return to peace in our household. I hope it lasts.
Aww. Seems he's taken up residence at the foot of the bed. And he's more than welcome to set up camp there all he likes. There will be no cat fights between the two of us over the foot of the bed, let me tell you. Have at 'er, buddy. It's all yours.

So it's looking like we've reached the end of an epoch. A return to peace. Ahhhhhhhh. Bruce, you'd best keep your ass outta that green corduroy chair........ I call dibs!!!

Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific.

The other day I got thinking about "Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific" shampoo. I just love the name of it. I love the logo and the colours too. I remember receiving a bottle once when I was a kid for Christmas or my birthday or some other special occasion, from a friend. I wish I could remember what it actually smells like. While one would assume "terrific" - this simply leaves too much to the imagination. There are all kinds of smells that one could rightly describe as "terrific", so that's really no help whatsoever.

As I am wont to do when I get thinking about this or that, I ended up doing a search on Google. Apparently "Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific" shampoo is only available now in the Philippines. Bah. Since I don't really see any trips to the Philippines in my immediate future, it seems I'm left to keep on wishing I could remember what it smells like. Now I could order a bottle of it online from Ebay, it looks like, if only I was willing to pay more in shipping costs than for the actual shampoo itself! I am not curious enough. Screw that.

So I live in Canada and not the Philippines. Oh well. We have plenty of terrific smelling smelly products of our own to appreciate and enjoy.

Calgon's Mmmmm! Bath & Body products. I can't really imagine "Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific" shampoo smelling quite as terrific as this. I have 3 of their body mists - Orange Pop, Marshmallow, and Vanilla Swirl. I love these scents... they're just delicious. Almost good enough to eat!

"DO NOT EAT". Gotta know you're dealing with a pretty remarkable body mist when it's got a warning like that printed on the label. How exactly one would go about eating a bottle of perfume, however, is beyond me.

And thus concludes this little ode to my absolute favorite smelly product line. Calgon's Mmmmm! Don't you feel oh so much better now knowing what smells Smel loves best? Next time you're in Shopper's Drug Mart, take a sniff. Mmmmm!

"Oh, WOW!"

The magazine editor I've been writing for this past while is interested in my story idea about the Hopewell Rocks. So that's what I'll be working on in a couple weeks time. I've never actually seen them myself before, so yesterday Bruce and I took a drive down.

There I stood, in total awe, furiously snapping pictures of the first couple of rocks we came across. I thought that was it... I thought that was the whole show. And boy was I wrong. We rounded a little bend.

"Oh, WOW!" I involuntarily exclaimed at the top of my lungs. What an awesome sight. All kinds of towering giant flowerpots littered along the shoreline, posing there just for me. I aimed my trusty camera, and promptly flew into 'er.

So long story short, I ended up with a friggin butt load of pictures. Are you surprised?

We had such a great time. I love the Hopewell Rocks. They're pretty special. And oh so photogenic, too!

Speaking of books....

Check it out!

That's right. A whole crap load of books for a phenomenal 13 bucks. And not just any books. Good books. Books I've read and loved and want to read again. Books I've never read and have always wanted to. And even a few I've never even heard of before. What the hell? They were like 25 cents!

I am pretty damn happy.

Bruce's mom told us about this huge used book sale that goes on for a few days every May..... and I'm really glad she did. It started yesterday evening so Bruce and I took a drive over. Holy shit! Books, books, and more books. And lots and lots of people. But we braved the crowd anyway. We simply couldn't help ourselves, especially when we saw the prices!

So we ended up with-

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
The Stories Behind the Words, Expressions and Cliches We Use
The Portable Nietzsche
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
The Mountain and the Valley by Ernest Buckler
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The African Queen by C.S. Forester
The Stone Angel by Margaret Lawrence
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Billions and Billions by Carl Sagan
Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Windy Poplars

Quite a haul, eh? I went back again this morning and got 4 more!

Emily of New Moon
Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

Yup. So I'm good for reading material for a little while I'd say...... HA! You'd think I'm some kind of a crazed avid reader, eh? Nope, not quite. I've been reading about a book a month or so. I'd actually like to be reading a little more. So I've decided to buck up and start keeping track of the books I read. The observant observer may have already observed the list on the right hand side of this blog below "Archives". Whenever I finish a book I'll add it to the list. It'll be neat to look back on someday. Maybe it'll motivate me to read more, too.

So there. The friggin mother load. We're all pretty excited about it. Even the cat got into it.

Hey, it ripped him away from the green corduroy chair for a while. You know it's gotta be good!

This one's for you, Mom.

I just got off the phone with my mother. At one point during our conversation I asked her what she had for lunch today. I'm nosy like that. Then I told her what I had for lunch, too. I knew she would want to know.

"A pita pizza", I reported.

"What, no picture?" she joked, an obvious reference to this blog.

"Nope, no picture", I giggled back.

We talked for a little while longer, oh, about this and that.

Then after our conversation was over it hit me. I had once, in fact, made a particularly delicious looking pita pizza... and yup. Took a picture of it! Some things just need to be documented. See, you never know when it might come in handy someday.

So here you go, Mom.


Looks yummy, eh? Today's was delish! :)

Move over, multigrain rolls....

There's a new loaf in town, 'cause I'm feelin good.
Get a smile, get a song, for the neighborhood
Things are great when you stand on your own two feet
and this loaf's here to say
with some luck and love life's gonna be
so sweeeeeeeeeet!

Yes, that's right. The multigrain rolls I blogged about back in April are old news now. I've moved forward. Last week I discovered something I had never even given a chance before...

Sobeys' Multigrain loaf.

Doesn't that look hearty? Mmm. It's loaded full of flax seeds and sunflower seeds and other indiscernible seedy type things and... I just really enjoy it.

And you read right. Sobeys. Now we don't usually do our grocery shopping there, so this may well end up posing a problem in time. We just happened to take a run in one evening last week to pick up a couple of things. Multigrain bread wasn't on the list but they had a table piled high just inside the doors and they looked way too good to leave there.

I actually bought 3 multigrain rolls the next day when we took our weekly trip into the Superstore. And they're still in the freezer, untouched. I've been eating the bread. It's really good!

So it seems this new bread has ushered in a new generation of great tuna sandwiches around here. Remember the sucker I blogged about back in March?

Yup, that's the one. Those haven't been around for quite a few weeks. I was using the rolls instead of bread for a while, but the sandwiches have really evolved now. They're pretty different. I had one today for lunch. Here it is.


There are changes you can't see here, too. I've been making my tuna sandwiches with green onion instead of white. I haven't been putting green pepper in them either. Everything else is the same as before. And boy are they somethin' else.

So this is where I'm at with tuna sandwiches lately. I thought the faithful reader deserved an update. Incidentally, I still have some tuna salad left over in the fridge for lunch tomorrow. Yum! Tuna salad tastes way better the next day, doesn't it? Surely someone out there will agree.

And oh yes, to finish up. The lyrics at the beginning of this post are from the theme to Alice, in case they rang any bells. With "loaf" replacing "girl", of course. Remember Alice?

AKA One Of The Greatest Shows To Ever Air. "Mel's Diner". I always liked the sounds of that!!

I love books.

How does one go about switching one's brain
from science for kids to one's blog?
It's a tough one you see, it's quite hard to explain
the way one is left in a fog.

Making it simple! one spends one's whole day
for children to read in Grade One.
And now for a blog and one's lost for a way
to write as if reader's aren't stunned!

Yes. That pretty well sums up what's been going on with me lately. I've been working on an article intended for readers in Grade One.... the youngest I've tried writing for yet. And when you spend all day trying to think up the simplest ways of explaining things, how then do you switch your brain back to something like a blog? Without still writing for 6-year-olds? Without unwittingly insulting the faithful reader's intelligence!?

Hm. I'm sure I'll figure it out. In the meantime, what else could be easier to write about than something you love? Which brings us to the title of this post.

I love books.

I really do. And not just the stories told inside of books. But the books themselves too. I love the book jacket. The pages and the way they feel and the way they sound when you turn them. I love old books. I love the way they smell. The way the spine creases and cracks.

Yup. I just love books. Sadly, it can be hard to make the time to sit down with one. I always try to be picking away at something, though.

Here's what I'm reading right now.



















"The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". Look at that, ain't it great? This book has been read over countless times. The cover is creased and tattered. The spine is flimsy and broken. Numerous pages have been folded down at one time or another to mark the reader's spot.

It's the first time I've read it, though. Where did I get it? Well that's the best part. Bruce brought it home for me from work. He found it in a scrap car! Luckily for me, he realizes that if there's something I love more than a good book, it's a good book once bound for the scrap heap! Ha ha!! This is actually the second book I've thoroughly enjoyed that came from there.

And it's a great book. No wonder they made it into a movie.

"A great crowd of people were standing all round the Stone Table and though the moon was shining many of them carried torches which burned with evil-looking red flames and black smoke. But such people! Ogres with monstrous teeth, and wolves, and bull-headed men; spirits of evil trees and poisonous plants; and other creatures I won't describe because if I did the grown-ups would probably not let you read this book - Cruels and Hags and Incubuses, Wraiths, Horrors, Efreets, Sprites, Orknies, Wooses, and Ettins."

It's great stuff! I would have never read this book had Bruce not brought it home last week. I'm really glad he did.

So there you go. I love books. And imagine how proud and excited I was last week when I found out my very own mother has had a novel accepted for publication! A book with my mother's name on the jacket! With her own story printed on the pages! Wow. Congrats again, Mom!

You know I love a good book out of a scrap car but I'll proudly march into Chapters to pick that one up!!! :)

Ladies and gentlemen, a truly rare sight.

The other day I walked into the living room and look at what I saw.

Could it really be? My eyes went directly to the green corduroy chair.

Empty.

Okay, well maybe the cat's in the kitchen at his water dish. Or in the litter box taking a crap. Let's not forget he frequents those areas too.

And yet I just couldn't imagine what else this shadowy figure perched on the window sill could be. Bruce wasn't even a possibility. He was at work.

The cat! Wow. A truly rare sight, since the green corduroy chair. And he stayed perched up there for a good little while too.

Could this signal a turning of the tides? Is this bitter feud plaguing our household for weeks finally headed towards an end??

Ha ha ha!! He's in the chair again tonight, so who knows. Ah well. One can only hope....

Apple head doll: done!

SO. It's Thursday. Apple Head Doll Day. And GUESS WHAT. It's done!

Hee hee hee. Isn't she cute? I'm tickled pink. I'm actually pleased with the way she turned out!

I was bound and determined to use whatever I could find around the house for this craft project. First I painted the heads of two bobby pins, and stuck them in the eye holes. Suddenly, I saw a sweet little old lady looking back at me. So then I had to make the body to match.

I wrapped some stuffing around a pipe cleaner, and stuck the head on top. The stuffing, hair and shawl all come from an old cushion my Grandma gave me when I was a kid. It got ripped a while ago - right across the front, the kind of rip you can't repair. And surprise! It's been like that for a year now and I still haven't thrown it away. It was special, and I wanted to make something out of it someday. Most of the cushion is still left so I've crammed it in the back of my craft shelf again to be used for something else at a later date.

The faithful reader has seen her dress before. Only it wasn't a dress. It was a wool sock with the bottom all ripped to shit! I'm not sure why I hadn't thrown it out yet. Just hadn't gotten around to it I guess. I certainly didn't keep it on purpose! I've got all the wool socks now my little heart could desire. With bottoms in tact! [Thanks again, Linda! :)]

Maybe you remember the "trinket box" I painted to match my Mary Poppins Plum Sauce Jar. I still have a couple of those trinket boxes left, so I used one of them as a base so she stands upright, nice and sturdy.

The cane is a twig from a bush outside. The pin holding the shawl together is another bobby pin.


Three weeks later. Done!! :)