Dappled Air

Looking through my pictures I took during November, I realized that the one with the bicycle in the snow was perfect for December. Wallpaper with Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1900 x 1200 pixels Wallpaper without Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1900 x 1200 pixels

Now that I have been blogging for a few months, I am starting to figure out how to make it a more effective blog that attracts readers. I have found a few blogs that offer helpful info and added them to my RSS feed. Here are a few helpful articles: CopyBlogger: "the ultimate blogger writing guide" DailyBlogTips: "write your title carefully and after the post" CopyBlogger: "10 ways to avoid writing insecurity"

What a difference 5 days make. Saturdays snow did not stay around for a very long time. The last few days saw temperatures that were hovering around almost 10° C and the snow just faded away. I am not complaining, it is now easy to walk around the lake again as the snow turned to ice making walking dangerous. So I just had to take another picture of my backyard to record the difference.

Well, there is now no more doubt, winter has arrived. On Thursday we had about 2 inches of snow and everything just had a 'sugar coating' of snow. The storm came from the North and all the North sides of the trees had a line of snow on them. Then yesterday morning we woke up to a foot (25 cm) of snow. It didn't matter that is was Saturday morning, we had our work cut out. On top of it the city had plowed the street narrow, that meant we had an extra 6 feet to clear on the street that was 2 feet high. It took hubby and me an hour and a half to shovel out or drive way. All I can say that we got our daily work out and the opportunity to take some more pictures to share.

Image via Wikipedia I am finally catching up on my accumulated emails. One of them was from hubby with a link to this NY Times recipe for ' Sweet Potato Stir Fry '. He must have really thought it was yummy to send me the link. Well, I got the hint and I have to say I was impressed, so now I will have to go and buy some sweet potatoes to try it out. After searching for some more recipes by Mark Bittman and discovering his food blog I am sold and I have added the blog to my RSS feeds. The recipes are simple and healthy and you don't need a ton of gadgets to cook with. I really liked the article about Bittman's kitchen (link is below). Also with Chanuka just around the corner, changing the sweet potato stir fry recipe to make a latke (pancake) appeals to me. Will have to give this also a try. I will have to go and look through all the videos and check out the various recipes. One that caught my attention was the 'chestnut shrimp stir fry'. Growing up in Switzerla...

I am so proud to see that my son's company, Enomaly, is the startup of the week. I hope that in some small way I also had something to do with it. When the twins were 10 years old, (1987) they wanted a Nintendo for Christmas and I said no, and bought a Tandy computer instead. That computer didn't even have a hard drive, but 2 5¼" floppy drives. I explained that with a computer they could play games and so much more. I think my reasoning panned out. Related articles Elastic Vapour Blog entry Reuven's Biography

Yesterday I came across a link to this cool YouTube video of one guy singing a capella "Star Wars". I love science fiction and especially the "Star Wars" movies. So when I saw this video I thought this is just brilliant. "Star Wars" - an a cappella tribute to John Williams

Yes, it is this time of the year again and money is tight. So how about making your own gifts? My youngest daughter just voiced this sentiment and I suggested that she bake some cookies as gifts. Well, no sooner had I thought about it when I came across this article at "Get Rich Slowly" will a list of 34 ideas for home-made gifts. Being a crafty person, I have also accumulated a few ideas of my own for handmade gifts . I try to stick with simple and fun projects and sometimes integrate some recycling into them. Like this pair of little angels below

Yesterday morning in my inbox was an email from a European ecard company with the idea of sending a greeting card for the First Name Day of the person. At first I was puzzled, but then looking at the email I realized that today's names are: Albert, Leopold, Ilona, Helena, Arthur . So my next step was to do some research and figure this out. According to the My Name Day website This is an old European tradition. Every day of the year is someone's Name Day. People all across Europe have been celebrating their first names for centuries in the same way you celebrate your birthday. Here are a couple of links to websites that offer a list of names and the dates they are associated with. http://www.mynameday.com/findyourname.html http://www.happynameday.com/query.htm The following links are in German, but a name is name and maybe it might even give some prospective parents some name ideas they had never considered. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Namenstage http://www.katho...

This morning as I was going through my RSS feeds I came across this link at Whipup.net to the Princess and the Monkey blog with this huge list of sewing tutorials. Wow, this is so cool. With the holidays coming up, there is a great chance that something will be just perfect to make for somebody on the gift list. Giving a homemade gift, especially in this tough economic time, is just so special. Each gift is imbued with the love that created it. Also with the arrival of my first grandchild just around the corner, I will probably find something special to make for his arrival. The list is broken down into the following groups: Hand Bags Tote Bags Wristlets & Wallets Crafty Bags Baby Stuff For In Your Bag For Your Sewing/Crafting Supplies Around the House Others Quilts & Manchester Kids Stuff Softies Softies - Food Ornaments Kids Clothing Clothing Aprons Embroidery Sewing How-Tos

Cleaning up my emails I came across one I sent myself in September with a link to the website YourWebsiteValue.com. I thought it was a cute website and had planned to write about it some time, well, it got buried, but today I decided it was worth checking again. Here are the results of my searches for my own websites: Dappled Air - my blog's value is a paltry $60 Marlies' Creative Universe - my main website I have since 1997, now has a value of $9'599 My son's company website Enomaly had a value of $887 in September, but that has now jumped to $15'133 and has the potential value of $76'028 My son's personal website has a value $2'639 with a potential value of $45,624 There is even a Firefox plugin that will show the value of the website you are visiting.

I just came across a link to this powerful segment from MSNBC by Keith Olberman. It is plea to think about rights and how we can deny one segment of the population a right that we enjoy. It does not matter if it is gay marriage or as in the past white people marrying black people or even further back black people marrying black people. Ultimately it boils down to the golden rule: do unto others a you would have them do unto you.

Growing up in Switzerland I had never heard of Remembrance Day. Yes, Switzerland is a neutral country, but during both wars there were soldiers guarding the borders and my dad was one of the soldiers in active duty. In our cutlery drawer was a silver coffee spoon that said Soldier's Christmas 1940 and it was my dad's. The other connotation of November 11 for me is the beginning of the Carnival season in Europe. It starts at 11:11 am on the November 11. So my first November 11 in Canada, I was introduced the concept of Remembrance Day and to my surprise it uses the same times and dates the carnival season. I took this picture yesterday morning on my walk. I know it is not of poppies, but the red maple leaves still on that one tiny tree are my interpretation of Remembrance Day in Canada. I gathered some of the information above at Wikipedia.org

I happen to have the privilege to be married to a guy who is fantastic at helping me and others understand their dreams. He does not interpret the dream for you, but relives it with you and then asks questions, so that in the end you end up interpreting your own dream. Please check out his website . But back to the YouTube videos by Dr. Judith Orloff, the one below is called Listen to your Dreams and here is the link to the one about The Art of Remembering & Interpreting your Dreams .

This past week has just flown by. Everything was hectic and I just had a hard time getting to my blog. Then tonight I came across a YouTube video by Dr. Judith Orloff . A long, long time I go I bought her book 'Second Sight' and really enjoyed it. Then I promptly forgot about it until tonight. I really enjoy her short videos and tips. The one that caught my attention tonight was about dieting and with the holidays just around the corner I think a lot of us can relate to it. Also check out my favorite YouTube videos

I wonder how many mothers are doing what my youngest daughter and I do quite frequently, we go shopping together by phone. My daughter goes to universtity in Toronto and I live in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Since she has added my phone number to her 5 most called numbers, she does not incur long- distance charges any longer. So I keep on getting phone calls from whatever she happens to be doing at the moment. Her favorite time to call is when she is grocery shopping. She walks up and down the isles and tells me what she is looking for and asks me if she's getting a good deal or not. I enjoy our time together and feel much more invovled in her life than I would be without those phone calls. I really would like to know if other children do the same or if it is more unusual. I am looking forward to your comments.

Lake Banook looking North -> The sun was out and it looked beautiful, but a strong North wind and temperatures around 4°C did not stop us from going for a long walk around Lake Banook checking out what the city was doing. The city is putting in a new sewer line and lowering the water level of the lake. We dressed warmly and had a great walk and I was able to take some lovely pictures. The city blocked off the connection between Lake Banook and MicMac Lake and were lowering the water levels in Lake Banook at the Western end with 4 powerful diesel pumps. They sure look impressive. I took some great pictures on our walk around the lake. View all the picture I took here .

I love to collect quotes. I don't quite remember when it started, but I have hundreds of them. At first the little pieces of paper just floated around and when I was looking for inspiration I first had to go and find those papers. Then one day I decided to start a section on my main website only with quotes . I decided that I would put 50 quotes on a page and then keep on adding. Well, this morning I found I had another 100 quotes floating around that needed to be added to the website. To my surprise I realized that I have now 16 pages with 50 quotes each. Wow, that is 800 quotes. Just writing down those quotes on the page was like meditation and very inspiring. I also make fontplays . Fontplays are pictures with quotes to show off a particular font. This way I can combine my love of taking photos with my love of fonts and quotes. I sell these pictures as postcards . Here are a few examples: "Happiness cannot be travelled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is th...

This morning when I looked at my desktop with the new wallpaper, I realized that in my hurry to make the wallpaper I had copied October's calendar and forgot to adjust the days to 30 for November. I have fixed the error and all the calendars now show November correctly. I guess my error is not so bad as the one I found one day on my car windshield after an oil change. There it said February 30 was the next time I needed an oil change.