Sunday, September 30, 2007

Why I love autumn...

Look what's happening to our Virginia Creeper on the back of our house! I didn't even know it would do that.


And look what's happening to the tree across the street! It's one of my favourite trees in the neighbourhood. I just may have to document its progress..


Friday, September 28, 2007

Wine show


So last night we had the extreme pleasure of checking out the LCBO Vintages wine show "Wine 101." Wha? Wine show on a Thursday? Is that allowed? Thankfully yes. We spent the evening eating amazing cheese (Stilton and Port, oh my heart) and drinking our way through some amazing wines. I feel in love with a Californian Pinot Noir, an amazing Sauvignon Blanc and got almost knocked over by a big fat Bordeaux that was too much for me. I sucked back some good ol'Chianti cuz you can just never go wrong and was pleasantly surprised by an amazing organic and an outstanding Australian Shiraz (Woodcutters I think?). All in all, despite making me miss the first part of "The Office" premiere, it was an outstanding night. Marc is an actual aficianado whereas I merely tag along for the ride and say things like "Yummy." Although pal/cousin-in-law Randy did pass along some overheard wine snobbery "Hmmmm, this is extremely well-balanced" which we used frequently throughout the evening. Wine aside, I was also blown away by the amazing footwear sported by pals Jocelyne and Sylvia who hit up MooShoes while in NYC. I now covet Sylvia's adorable Bridget mary-janes that look like this:


And Jocelyne rocked the Solar maryjane with the fancy kalso reverse heel technology that now has me completely fascinated. They looked like this:


Great wine, company AND fun shoes? I almost don't even need the weekend! That said, we still have a weekend o'fun to come with Gommfest 2007 on Saturday thanks to the superb planning of Miss Gomm. Full report to come on Sunday. AND my new J Crew red dress came in the mail today! Everything's coming up Tara!

Happy Birthday to the Urse!!


We send out our massive birthday wishes to the lovely Lisa on her birthday!! She claims to be celebrating her birthday by finally partaking of these "cocktails" everyone keeps talking about. We wish her the greatest success with her endeavour! We'll see you later and help you along in that quest!
Happy Birthday Lisa -- everyone's favourite party guest!

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Oh Darling....

So premiere week hobbled along last night in its now expected lame way. Aside from the returning shows, so far almost all of the new shows are more or less terrible. Note I said "almost." I'd seen previews for "Dirty, Sexy, Money" and thought it looked halfway decent if only for Peter Krause who I loved in "Six Feet Under." Well it premiered last night and I gotta say it is by far the best new show of the season that I've seen. It's trashy and cleverly written and pretty darn funny to boot. And it's on ABC -- go figure! It's not unlike watching an episode of "Dynasty" with all it's hair pulling and fist fights and primetime hoochie factor. I hope it's actually a good show and I'm not just blinded by the onslaught of crap the networks keep dishing out. I so wanted "Bionic Woman" to be great cuz all women my age secretly grew up wanting to be Lindsay Wagner but alas, it too was lame. Potential guilty pleasure squashed. I'm quite happy to swap it out for DSM though. Even Marc liked it and from the King of TV Hate-land that's saying something...

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Holding on to a hero....

The verdict on last night's "Heroes" premiere? The rest of the season better darn well pick up cuz that was one boring season premiere. But I have faith in you Heroes. Faith that you will make Monday nights fun again....

Sofa frenzy...


This sofa has been whipping the design blogs into a frenzy and I feel I must add my two cents. The reason that some of my favourite blogs, Oh Happy Day and Abbey Goes Design Scouting are talking about it is because it is the greatest sofa invention since the invention of the sofa!! This whole thing started with Abbey cuz it's her sofa and everyone fell in love as if like dominoes. I think I would trade my favourite pair of shoes to have this Hutton sofa in my living room. And it comes in many colours!! Wha???? A couch this great comes in many colours of lovely do no wrong velvet???? My heart....my heart.....

Monday, September 24, 2007

First Home Fever



Cowgirl sends out bucket of congrats to Kailige and LB for finally finding their first house!!!! The feeling was getting dangerously close to despair that they would never find a place but they did and it's just adorable! All retro and cute ready for gardens and cool furniture. We can't wait to be houseguests! Other people buying houses makes me just as excited as when we got ours. It was over a year ago but hearing they got theirs today brought it all rushing back. Three cheers for being a grown up! Let the lawn mowing begin!!

We Meet Again


Oh red dress from J Crew, I knew we would be together one day. So when the dollar closed at par the other day and I went to the J Crew website only to see that you were half price and that the only remaining size was my size and the only remaining colour was your gorgeous red, I knew that the day had come. Please hurry to my doorstep. I'm buying new white tights in preparation for that day and when you get here I'll introduce you to my new brown boots I bought a few weeks ago. And then I'll introduce you to my brown Fluevog flats. You guys are gonna be best friends I just know it!

and so it begins...

Jim and Pam????? Will the cheerleader save the world???? How will Earl get out of jail???? So many questions with answers that can only be found in the depths fall premiere week. A week I'm embarrassingly excitied for. Honestly though, I really am only interested in what will happen with Jim and Pam, televison's greatest couple in the history of time. The rest is just gravy. That is until Weeds starts up again in October. Oh Mary Louise Parker, if only we could meet that way we could be best, best friends....

But seriously, the future of Jim and Pam is literally keeping me up at night. That and how I can get Jim to be my own secret boyfriend.

America's Next Top Tara

What???? Another season of America's Next Top Model started and I had no idea???? And I call myself a fan???? Whatever! so I missed the first episode and am now sadly behind on my ninth season gossip. I missed every re-airing of the first episode as well. If it wasn't for my friend Tara, I wouldn't even know it was on as I have seen a total of 0.00 ads for it.

so let's take a guess based on a quick trip to the website to check out the mugs of the fresh meat. Based on absolutely nothing at all, I predict Kimberly will win. She's got that street kid high fashion model look about her. Maybe it's the heavy lidded eyes...I'm not sure. That is a remarkably horrible outfit though.

I'm too old for movies....

So I have made it through yet another Cinefest. I'll admit, there were times that I thought the end would never come. I didn't get to see all the movies I blogged about in the beginning but I made a valiant effort. The stand-out favourite film still remains Run, Fat Boy, Run. I'm a sucker for British humour so no other film really stood a chance. The lowpoint of the festival had to be The Walker starring Woody Harrelson -- a film I was actually pretty jazzed about seeing because generally I'm a Woody Harrelson fan as well as Kristin Scott Thomas. It was mega-lame. This was my film review I gave at breakfast this morning that my boss insisted I blog about: It was a political thriller lacking both the thrilling and the politics. To be fair, we had thrown a party for the festival the following evening and didn't get home until 4am and then was up at 8am so the supreme level of exhaustion could have been a factor in movie enjoyment. That being said, it was still a lame movie no matter how tired you might be. Please don't ever see it because that is 2 hours of your life you will never get back. That same day we also got to catch the documentary My Kid Could Paint That which is the story about 4 year old Marla Olmstead who paints expressionist paintings that sell for upwards of $15,000 each. It was a pretty interesting story about childhood fame and scandal and the true definition of child prodigy. The jury is still out on whether or not this little girl is actually responsible for these paintings. I, for one, want to think she did them cuz I refuse to believe parents can be that scheming.

And that brought the festival to a close for me. As I mentioned earlier, we host a huge invite-only party the Saturday night for all the industry folks in town for the festival. This party is a heck of a lot of fun and is held in a pretty ridiculous place and we have to hire security to not only make sure nobody crashes the party but also to ensure that nobody dies. And that's all I say. This party results in tons o'schmoozing, plenty o'laughs, piles o'dancing and also a high number of embarrassing ticket requests. I personally never want to be any place that badly. Some do. On a sidenote -- dancing on slag is hard. Just ask my calves about their Sunday morning. They weren't happy.

I'm never more tired than I am the last Sunday of Cinefest and this year was no exception. I was so tired, I couldn't even accept an offer of free dinner at my parents' place. There was only one possible ending to last night. Deluxe Chicken On A Bun, clean pajamas, big blanket, Simpsons premiere, Family Guy premiere, bed. See you next year.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

I love joy-see...

Ok so I have to tell you all about my favourite Cinefest meeting so far. At what is normally a fairly stuffy industry party I was introduced to this producer from New Jersey who was here at the festival with his short film starring Furio from The Sopranos. The rest of the night consisted of me trying not to do spit takes with my wine cuz this guy was so.......freaking.....hilarious. Every second word out of his mouth was a swear and never in my life have I found that so charming. He's got a feature film he wants to shoot up here and in the process of schmoozing him we got the chair of our board invited to hang out with him in New York (or Tampa) to try and get this film made. Talk about your living breathing Sopranos character hanging out in downtown Sudbury. Now, granted this guy was way too old for me and not really the type of older gentleman I would consider to be the "silver fox" type but I was so smitten with him due to his accent alone and his gut-busting foul sense of humour. I fully admit I'm a sucker for an accented gentleman but never would a South Jersey accent be on the list. Maybe it was the gold jewelery or the knit turtleneck. I'm not sure. But god love him, PJ from Jersey was the stand out favourite meeting of the week for me and I sure hope we can convince him to bring his film up here. Below is a re-telling of my favourite PJ conversation of the night. Please keep in mind the following PJ comments are in fact delivered with an ear to ear full mouth smile:

*as he hands me his card he notices that I am not putting in in my pocket or my purse**
PJ: "What the F** are you doing? You're carrying cards around, where's your goddamn purse?"
Tara: 'This is going to sound really girl but I don't have a purse to match this dress so all I brought with me was what I could fit in my coat like my housekeys and some lipgloss."
PJ: "Jeezuz Christ, well maybe tomorrow (*we had a morning session to go to*) you can remember to find a F*** pocketbook to match your F** outfit so you don't have to carry your stuff around like a goddamn homeless person."
Tara: **hand over mouth to prevent aforementioned red wine spit take**

God Bless PJ from Jersey.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

How bout them......sportsguys?

For all my blog visitors of the male persuasion, finally some news for you! LB, the husband to lovely A-line Skirter/cousin Kaili, has succumbed to the pressure and started a blog of his own. It's about all thing sports so I understand very little about what is being discussed over there. But it's LB and he's a writer and he's cool and tall so we'll visit anyway!! You can find all things LB here. Welcome to the blogiverse you old so and so!

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Playing the west wind...


Something else that I learned while watching Lust, Caution the other night -- I must finally learn to properly play Mahjong and I absolutely must have one of those gorgeous Mahjong sets. I feel as though I've been obsessed with Majong forever and have been forced to only enjoy the awful Mahjong rip-off that comes on most computers. And I love that awful rip-off game!! And it feels so wrong!! Lust, Caution has some spellbinding Mahjong sequences and I don't know how much of that is the game itself or the stunning cinematography of Ang Lee. I'm afraid that it's going to be terribly hard to play but I still so desperately covet a Mahjong set of my very own. I can see myself being like I was when I was a little kid playing with my grandpa's cribbage board -- I had no idea how to play but it was just so nice to look at I couldn't help but take all the pieces out to look at them.

I know almost nothing about the game except that a set can run you about $200 and they are as much a decorative piece as much as they are a game board. Am I ready to make that kind of commitment to a game I don't even know how to play?? I so desperately want to be cuz I so desperately want of those amazing sets of my very own!

If only I knew 3 more people who shared my obsession....

Reigning Champion of the week...


Yes so far it absolutely has to be "Run, Fat Boy, Run." British comedy at its finest with some good old dick and fart jokes thrown in for good measure. This screening was only the second time it has screened in North America despite being number 1 at the UK box office this past weekend -- how do you like them apples? Directed by David Schwimmer, this film is by far the best thing he's ever done and probably ever will do. As you can tell, I'm not in the Schwimmer fan club. It's got a bit of a predictable ending which in this case, I'm totally okay with due primarily to Simon Pegg's "aw shucks I'm a nervous British guy down on his luck" routine. The only thing really hiindering this movie is Thandie Newton who is incredibly beautiful and, at the same time, incredibly annoying. Helping this movie besides Simon Pegg's awesomeness, is the impossibly adorable British boy playing his son. He's so cute it made my womb hurt a bit and the little boy British accent didn't help that at all. I wanted to have ten of him all to myself. Also helping this movie is the impeccably put together soundtrack. 95 minutes of fine British humour accompanied by David Bowie, Kaiser Chiefs, Toots & the Maytals, Teenage Fanclub and even some Bing Crosby.

After 2 super downer movies that made me feel like 2 big cups of sad were poured into my heart, it was highly therapeutic to listen to some good old jokes using terms like 'scrotal zone.' That's just plain good comedy

Update...

I'll apologize now for my posting laziness this week. Things are busy and I'm finding it hard to blog whilst still being charming and interesting. To update you on the festival so far: we are 2 parties and 2 films into the thick of it. Opening night party on Saturday and a gala presentation on Sunday. We opted out of the party last night due to crazy traffic and tiredness issues.

Films so far include Shake Hands With the Devil and Lust,Caution. Shake Hands With the Devil is one of those movies that makes you wonder why you don't do more. Not necessarily doing more where global crisis is concerned either. Just more period. Everyone knows General Dallaire was a hero in Rwanda and I can honestly say I don't know how he managed to do it. To live in that kind of mindset and to feel nothing but helpless and alone, I can't say I blame him for his mental state after it all. This is such an important film for people to see for a million reasons.

Lust,Caution is Ang Lee's new film and it's all you'd expect from him. It's breathtaking to watch. Wartime Shanghai never looked so good. It's gorgeous, sad, sexy, dirty and loooooooong. I still recommend it but my butt was disagreeing with me around hour 2.15. Perhaps better suited for sofa watching provided you have a big enough television to do the cinematography justice.

Tonight is Run, Fat Boy, Run -- thank god for a comedy finally. Lord knows following those 2 films I need a good laugh.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Stockpiling...

So as mentioned earlier, Cinfest week is a super busy one. That means little to no time between work and the theatre to make something proper and grown up to eat for dinner. So what ends up happening throughout the week is that you end up grabbing something awful that fits in your purse (like a KitKat bar) or you spend a small fortune on movie theatre food. Not very appealing options. So today I am spending the day making various things to help sustain me thoughout the week so that by the end of it all I might only be tired and not malnourished. On the menu for today: banana flax bread, sweet and sour chicken thighs and rice and spinach lasagna. All things that can either be heated up and eaten in a matter of minutes or fit in my purse for secret consumption during the movie. I also purchased a number of eat and go things to help me steer clear of the KitKat grab, like granola bars and sesame snacks. It's got to be better than living on cocktail party hors d'oeuvres for 7 days.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

300



118 minutes of pure eye candy. And that's okay.

busted...

Marc has threatened to cancel my gym membership if I don't start going again. He claims it is throwing money away every month. This leaves me with only two options:

1. Start going to the gym again.
2. Find a way around his crazy logic.

So Fresh...

fThanks to their charming commercials and repeated recommendations from trustworthy blogs (a-lineskirt included), I went all the way to the other end of the city to check out the Joe Fresh clothes in person. FIrst things first, it's super wierd shopping for clothes in a grocery store especially when the clothes are next to the frozen foods. Other than that, I must say that I was pretty impressed. The clothes are super cute and trendy and crazy cheap. Would I want to buy my whole fall wardrobe from them? Absolutely not. The clothes are not nearly well made enough to outfit yourself entirely. It's pretty clear why the clothes are priced that way. But while I steered clear of the pants and dresses due to the poor construction I did fair pretty well when it came to stuff that it's hard to screw up, like great layering shirts. I also managed to score an adorable brown corduroy skirt and this trapeze sweater in burgundy.


I also snatched up this adorable felted bag in olive green as my new tote bag/purse for work.


Add my off-white v-neck longsleeve shirt and I managed to get an entire outfit (minus shoes) for less than $100. I'd say that's a great way to inject some new fall trends into your wardrobe. Especially when so much of the fall looks this year area cashmere, tweed and wool -- not cheap fabrics.

Overall, I'd give it a thumbs up. It's not all very well made but it's still good due to the cuteness of the collection.

Cinefest

So tonight marks the start of the Cinefest International Film Festival here in Sudbury. For me, that means busy days between the theatre and the office, late nights, a couple of parties some being stuffy some being fun, sore bums from spending way too much time in movie theatres and sore feet from spending way too much time standing around at the parties afterwards and piles of schmoozing. I know, I shouldn't complain. It could be a heck of a lot worse. Lord knows I'm not digging ditches here. But is actually way more tiring than it sounds. For those of you who've never been, I highly recommend checking it out if you're ever in the neighbourhood. It's Canada's 4th largest film festival after all. The lineup looks good this year too. Here are some movies I'm jazzed about seeing:

Shake Hands With the Devil: the movie based on General Dallaire's book.
Lust, Caution: Ang Lee's new film. I hear it's dirty and most likely beautifully shot.
Run, Fat Boy, Run: Yes it's directed by David Schwimmer but it's a British film and has both Simon Pegg and Hank Azaria in it.
The Boss of it All: it's a Danish film about a guy who has to produce the boss he's been making up for years.
My Kid Could Paint That: the story of Marla Olmstead, the 4 year old whose paintings are compared to the great expressionists.
The Stone Angel: because I love Ellen Burstyn
The Walker: because I love Kristen Scott Thomas and Willem Dafoe
Wierdsville: Allan Moyle's new film
Anything from the Denys Arcand tribute
Les Chansons D'Amour: a story about Paris' well-off youth and relationships and all that girly stuff.
The Golden Door (Nuovomondo): an Italian film about a Sicilian family that moves to America in search of success.
Just Like Home: (Hjemve): A Danish film about a group of people trying to keep their small town together.
La Vie en Rose A French film about the life of Edith Piaf.
Netherbeast Incorporated: Dave Foley -- need I say more?

Other than that, there's also some great documentaries, short film series and films from Northern Ontario artists that will help fill out the rest of my week.

I'm busting out my larger purse and stuffing it with granola bars, PB&J sandwiches etc that way I don't have to eat movie theatre food for a week.

Wish me (and my bum) luck!

It's official...


So last night was a night of take-out and stay-in movies. yay lazy Fridays! Anyway one of the movies we rented was Factory Girl -- the story of Edie Sedgwick and Andy Warhol and that whole Factory scene of the 1960's. I gotta say, I liked it a lot. Fantastic use of lighting and colours and all the recreations of the vignettes from Warhol's movies were brilliantly done. I'm generally not a huge Sienna Miller fan-- she takes her top off way too much and the girl needs to eat something. That being said, she did a fantastic job playing Edie and I am officially fascinated. I don't really know much more than your standard Edie Sedgwick stuff and now I must know it all. She was the first person to be famous for really nothing more than being fabulous and interesting and it seemed to be justified. Take that Hilton sisters! I love the hair, the makeup, the clothes, the giant earrings ,the shirts and leotards, the tragedy of her story, all of it. Consider me now on the hunt for the perfect Edie Sedgwick biography to read.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Yay! She's not perfect!


Eva Mendes you call yourself a Hollywood starlet?? You've got fingernails like a carpenter!

sweet jebus...


Oh Courtney, what on earth happened to you? Remember when you used to be awesome? Sylvia, she should be your idol no longer. This photo might be the final nail. And just what is holding her pants up????

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Uh oh...



I want to marry this dress.

Attention Students

Please make note: If you are reading this and you are a student and you are leaving for class relatively soon, do me a favour and look at your pants. If they are, in fact, not pants but flannel pajama bottoms, please do everyone and yourself a favour and go immediately to your closet, pull out actual for-real pants and put them on. When did it become okay to leave the house in your pajamas? And not “maybe pass for loungewear” kind of pajamas. I’m talking baby blue flannel with the lemon yellow duckies on them, or those red ones with the reindeers on them left over from Christmas that you’re still wearing. That wardrobe choice is never the one you should make when deciding what to wear to school or the grocery store or anywhere else. Nobody says you have to wear an Armani suit to class but please, for the love of my eyes in the morning, just grab a pair of jeans. Especially girl in front of me on my walk to work yesterday -- that was an especially unpleasant example of why this fashion choice looks good on nobody. The super cute sensitive boy in your British Lit class will never buy you a latte if you’re wearing pajama bottoms.

That’s why the world has pants stores!!

More Goodities...

Other new stuff we like:

New Buffalo -- Somewhere, Anywhere
Wintermitts -- The Cascadia Fault
Portico -- Progeny Blues
Mark Berube -- What the River Gave the Boat
Girl Nobody -- Balaclava Casino Heist

Plea from a girl named Tara...



I host a weekly radio show here in town and here I am blogging whilst I bring rock to the masses. As we speak, I am holding in my hot little hands-------get ready for it-----the brand new, LONG AWAITED Weakerthans record. Even without having played it yet, I love it already. Such eye-catching design, I must admit I am very much an album art judger. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve played albums on my show based solely on the clever packaging. So kudos to the Weakerthans for being sleek and yet not pompous with their design -- or at least to some gentleman named Simon Hughes who did the illustrations. I have decided to play “Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure” which I can only assume is a sequel of some kind to “A Plea from a Cat Named Virtute” from their last record “Reconstruction Site.” This is almost as exciting as last week when we played the new New Pornographers record!

Yay Kaili for getting us tickets to their show in Ottawa!! That was the best thing ever done!! Yes I’m that excited for the show! It is so worthy of a new concert-going outfit!

Now the song is playing and I love the record already-- partly because the song is sad and beautiful and partly because it’s been so painfully long between releases I almost can’t even believe it. Oh Weakerthans, promise me you’ll never do that again....

Silly or Chic?


I think I have to say silly. What on earth can you possibly carry in this except your flute, 5 Twizzlers and some of those tiny pencils you use at Mini-Put? I know it's Zac Posen but still. If you tucked that bad boy under your arm you'd for sure be that annoying woman who is constantly hitting people with her purse. And it doesn't really even look hip and cool -- she looks like a hitman ready to take out one of those poor fashion week models at any second. On top of the fact that she just looks weird to begin with. Just age woman! Enough already!

Happy Birthday Sarah!!!!!


Happy birthday to my adorable and amazing niece Sarah!! She's getting older despite how much I want her, and all 4 of them, to stay tiny little girls forever. I hope you had fun at school with all of your friends and that you didn't get any homework on your birthday! I'll be seeing you soon with your present! It's pretty darn good if I do say so myself...

happy birthday sarah!!
love auntie tara and uncle marc

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

It's how much bigger?


Dear new 160GB Ipod,

My darling, when we will finally be together? Perhaps one day when my husband isn't looking we can finally find our way to each other. I'll get rid of that 30GB that's been hanging around I promise!

Oh new Ipod, you truly are perfect in every way.

till death do us part...


  1. Kind of a strange topic switch but my husband and I have been doing a lot of talking about death and funerals lately. Neither of us is real big on the whole stuffy formal funeral ritual but in this day and age it remains more or less the norm. I am not a stuffy, formal person to begin with so the idea of my funeral being something like that just seems wrong. The idea of an open casket where all my loved ones would parade past and gawk at me and my pasty, unnatural face quite honestly makes me cringe. The last thing I want is for people to stand around in a horrifically decorated room, speaking in hushed voices, looking at me in an outfit I mostly likely hardly ever wore with the muted organ music piped in from some "Songs for the Mourning" compilation CD. And thankfully my husband feels the same.

    This past weekend the Globe and Mail did a whole story on the growing popularity of green funerals and I gotta say -- that is so up my alley. I don't have a will yet so anytime I talk about this I make sure and point out to whomever is around that if anything should suddenly happen to me, under no circumstances are the following things to happen:

    1. Do not embalm me and pump me full of unnecessary chemicals that will only succeed in killing the earth around me.
    2. Do not dress me in something I never wore or looks like I'm going to either a wedding or a job interview. If you must dress me, please pick something that is actually me. Like a pair of jeans and a band t-shirt and some sneakers.
    3. Do not put me in some overpriced, highly laquered casket made from a type of rare rainforest wood. An all natural pine box is fine. I'm even happier being shrouded in a natural fabric that will biodegrade me quickly allowing me to help trees grow and all that other hippie stuff.
    4. Do NOT have a stuffy service in a funeral home where people will be all weepy. I know I'm fantastic, but please try and have fun and celebrate my life the way I would have wanted.

    There's a new group in Canada called the Natural Burial Co-Operative. They're all about the green burial and the following is their schtick:

    A natural burial is an environmentally sustainable alternative to existing funeral practices:

    Bodies are interred within an existing forest or savannah ecosystem or within an area requiring natural rehabilitation, such as fallow farming fields.
    The body is prepared without chemical preservatives and is buried in a biodegradable casket or simple shroud.
    After burial, the gravesite is planted with native trees, grasses or shrubs. The name and details of the deceased are added to the on site memorial. Families may also choose to include biographical details, photos and stories on the Natural Burial memorial website.
    Natural burial uses a minimum of chemicals and natural resources while maintaining a strong connection with the earth for the deceased and surviving family and friends.

    In contrast, consider that each year the 22,500 conventional cemeteries in the United States bury *;

    827,060 gallons of embalming fluid, which includes formaldehyde
    30-plus million board feet of hardwoods (Caskets)
    90,272 tons of steel (Caskets)
    14,000 tons of steel (Vaults)
    2,700 tons of copper and bronze (Caskets)
    1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete (Vaults)
    You can quickly begin to see that our modern burial practices have taken us far away from natural cycle of life.



    Tell me that doesn't appeal to you. A quiet pastoral setting doing its thing for Mother Nature and you get to be a part of it instead of helping to ruin it.

    Our neighbours, Terry and Natalie, recently lost Natalie's father. Instead of all the usual funeral stuffiness, he requested a Celebration of Life. They had it in their backyard on a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon, everyone dressed casual and spent the day eating and drinking and laughing and talking about what they loved about Frank. Instead of the children standing around looking scared, uncomfortable and bored they were laughing and playing. We couldn't believe how nice it was. There were no hushed voices and uncomfortable silences -- just shared memories, laughing and being together in warm and loving surroundings. That is what it's all about.

    There's no green burial grounds around where I live, only out in B.C so I may not be able to get my eternal resting place of choice but I can at least have the celebration I want. Just because we grew up thinking that funerals were the only way to properly honour the dead doesn't mean it has to stay that way.

I lied....


I posted the wrong boot picture!! These are in fact my new boots. They are brown and yes Kelly, they do come in black. Now run to the store....

Lunchtime boots!


Everyone I'd like for you to meet my new boots. We met at lunchtime. They're Hush Puppies which means they are crazy comfy and I can wear them in the winter without falling on my face.

My boots somehow made my week better. Sigh....

It's how much bigger??

Dear new Ipod....

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Rainy Day Music

So today is rainy and cold. This fact was made abundantly clear to me on my walk to work this morning. In order to solidify the rainy day blah feeling that resulted from my walk, I spent the morning listening to the "Rainy Day Music" album by the Jayhawks. I highly recommend it. It's a very appropriately titled record -- sweet harmonies, toe tappers and ballads, fantastic songwriting -- quite perfect.

Tonight all I want to do is wallow in the continued rainyness of the evening. Marc is going out which means I will succumb to the urge to pull the down blanket up to my chin and watch bad tv whilst eating the remainder of the apple crisp we made this weekend. But it's okay. Cuz it's made of apples from our tree in the front yard which means it's organic. Tonight is one of those nights when you feel fine putting your jammies on right after dinner. If only they were feet-pajamas.....

so this is me blogging...

Indeed. After much soul searching and many consultations, the consensus has been to blog. So this is the first of hopefully many posts.

Basically those who know me know that I have an overwhelming urge to tell people about stuff I like and so desperately want people to not only like what I like, but also to equally hate the things I hate. This blog is the physical manifestation of that personality flaw. Hopefully occasionally that very thing will happen. You'll see something cool and also think it's cool and all will be right with my world. I never said it was healthy -- it's just how it is.

With regard to content, you'll probably see all sorts of stuff around these parts. Fun music, pretty dresses, cute shoes and even cuter puppies, celebrity gossip and my opinions on trashy television, songs you should be dancing to, general musings and tomfoolery and I guess whatever else turns my crank. I can't believe I just said "turns my crank."

And while we're on the subject, yes this will be a place where your long denied obsession with celebrity gossip is nothing to be embarrassed about. Also, if while your husband is in the next room you secretly switch the television to America's Next Top Model then this is also the place for you.

Wish me luck and please visit often if not compulsively.