Dappled Air

With Valentine's Day just around the corner I was asking myself: When I look in the mirror can I really say to myself: that I love myself? Yes, it sounds so easy, but to truly mean it and feel it is a totally different story. I once read that before we can really love another person we have to love ourselves, warts and all. The reason is that once we love ourselves, loving another person is the icing on the cake. That's when I remembered Louise Hay's Book 'You Can Heal Your Life' where she talks about doing 'mirror work'. It is very simple and quite effective. Last night I created this card as a reminder. Here are some links about Louise Hay: You Can Heal Your Life - the Movie A Place for the Heart Lessons from a recovering doormat Simply Blessed Louise Hay Facebook Page

How many times have we rushed only to find that we are moving slower not faster? This morning I came across this subject when I randomly picked a page in my inspiration book called "Creative Sparks" by Jim Krause. The page I picked said this: Sometimes it's way faster to go a little slower I remember trying to catch a bus and walking really fast only to realize that all I did was tire myself and did not really move much faster. Then when I relaxed and just focused on getting there in time I moved more smoothly and even faster. What I learned is that we are our own worst enemy. Rather than blaming outside circumstances, we should be blaming ourself and instead learn to relax and just go with the flow. As I always say it's the little things that make life special, it's the icing on the cake that makes the cake special. Have a wonderful week.

Today I came across this link in my RSS feeds from the Make Use Of website. It all had to do with First and Last Names. So after some playing around with our family's names I decided that it would make a great blog post. The following info is from these two website: Family Name History Behind the Name My Maiden Name: Moser South German: topographic name for someone who lived near a peat bog, Middle High German mos, or a habitational name from a place named with this word. North German (Möser): metonymic occupational name for a vegetable grower or seller, from an agent noun based on Middle Low German mo-s ‘vegetable’ My Married Name: Cohen Jewish: from Hebrew kohen ‘priest’. Priests are traditionally regarded as members of a hereditary caste descended from Aaron, brother of Moses. See also Kaplan. My First Name: Marlies Gertrud I had a hard time finding any English info as my name is Dutch, German or Swiss Dutch sequence of Maria and Elisabeth. Means 'Star of the ocean' (La...

Today is 011110, a binary computer number day and I just discovered a post which for a fontoholic like me is right on target. This is 'the typeface personality quiz' is perfect for a font geek like me. I love collecting fonts and using them. To take the quiz: enter your first and last name and the password ' character ' and off you go answering four questions. My answers were: emotional, assertive, progressive and relaxed and my typeface is: Cooper Black Italic. What do I do with all my fonts, you might ask? Well, I combine love of collecting fonts with my love of collecting quotes and combine them into 'fontplays'. Here is a link to my latest fontplays and here to older ones like the one below.

After 8 years of listening to Hawaiian music online ( KKCR-Kaua'i & Hawaiian105 -Honolulu) I started to understand some words. Now after 10 years I decided that it was time to get a Hawaiian Dictionary. Given the fact that I live in Nova Scotia it wasn't that simple. I didn't want to buy one unseen, so I went to the local Chapters bookstore to see what they had available. That's when I found out that there were none in the store, but I could order through the instore kiosk or online. I checked what was available and ordered 3 to be sent to the store. So when I was notified yesterday that they had arrived it was time to have a look. This morning I showed up at the store with picture ID and opened the bag and looked at each dictionary to find the one that I wanted. It turned out to be quite easy. The first one was not indepth enough, the second I didn't like either, but the 3rd one was exactly what I had in mind. Now, I can start off the New Year with my Hawaiian...

My beading calendar for December 16 had the pattern for this Christmas star as earrings. I did not have the beads the pattern called for and decided to experiment with the beads I had at hand. I ended up with a 2 inch star that was very easy and simple to make.

The cold air has arrived much earlier than usual and yesterday it felt with the windchill like it was below -20°C. I decided not to venture outside, but the birds did not have that advantage. Around lunch time I was looking out my kitchen window and saw this blue jay all puffed up sitting in a pine tree trying to stay warm. I grabbed my camera and put it on full zoom which turned out to be 24x digital. Trying to find the bird at that zoom was no easy task then the next step was to stay still and not shake to take the picture. To my big surprise the picture turned out very well.