Pieces & Prints @ Credible Edibles Café

3 mixed media pieces @ Credible Edibles

Last week the Winter Solstice exhibit came down from the art wall at the Credible Edibles café and a few of my mixed media pieces went up to add colour until new artwork goes up for Arts Night 4.0 in March. I love how they look as a series.

For the locals, Credible Edibles is located at 78 Hinton Avenue North (corner of Armstrong and Hinton), just one block west of the Parkdale Market. It's open Monday to Friday, 11:00am to 3:00pm. I have some prints for sale there too.

I highly recommend you stay for lunch. The Senegalese peanut soup is amazing and if you're a chocolate fan make sure you get the gluten free chocolate meringue dessert! You will NOT regret it. You may even want a moment alone after the first bite...

5 Years Blogging - A Retrospective: 2008

This is the third in a series of five navel-gazing retrospective posts celebrating my five years of blogging in which I offer my top five posts for each year. Here are 2006 and 2007. Stay tuned for a celebratory giveaway on January 25th!

2008 brought two significant events: I said goodbye to my beloved apartment and moved in with D. and Cassie, and I attended Squam Art Workshops. But there was plenty of other stuff...

Purging and packing up house AGAIN and setting up a new home with a boy and his dog, camping out on our new living room floor by the light of the fireplace the weekend we got our keys. Seeing a major project completed at work. More letting go of the past, signing divorce papers. Freezing berries, playing travel Scrabble, discovering a new neighbourhood. Miscellaneous health issues throughout the year. A getaway to Quebec City. A lot of pondering and musings. A solo trip to New Hampshire for Squam Art Workshops, not knowing a soul who was going. Post-Squam exhilaration followed by a crash. New snowshoes, Solstice Relfections and an amazing Norman Rockwell-esque family Christmas spent at Mom & Dad's.

I also noticed a funny thing in my writing patterns that year. Pre-Squam I seemed to have longer, more substantial posts and less pictures. After Squam that seemed to have changed, with more focus on the visual and less on the writing. Interesting, non?

My top five:

Craving Creative Community - Oh the power of putting forth our intentions to the Universe! I had no clue what was coming...

Book Find: The Omnivore's Dilemma - I remember working hard on this post an I'm proud of how it turned out. I wanted to experiment with writing something different; it makes me want to try book reviews again.

Hostas: A Study of Shadow and Light - I really like these photos. Not only because of how they came out, but because of how they came to be. A product of pure camera play.

Transition from Squam & Words from Squam - OK another cheat with two posts in one, but they're short. And it's about Squam Art Workshops, a direct response from the Universe to my earlier post about craving creative community.

A Tale of Two Trees - A short tale about a boy and a girl and their first Christmas living together. I love living with that boy.

2009 coming up next!

On Rest and Intuition...

chocolate gooey goodness

"During periods of relaxation after concentrated intellectual activity, the intuitive mind seems to take over and can produce the sudden clarifying insights which give so much joy and delight."

~ Fritjof Capra

Relaxation and chocolate. Chocolate helps too.

5 Years Blogging - A Retrospective: 2007

This is the second in a series of five navel-gazing retrospective posts celebrating my five years of blogging in which I offer my top five posts for each year. For the first post looking back at 2006, click here. Also stay tuned for a celebratory giveaway at the end!

Having been an urbanite for a full year, 2007 didn't offer as much novelty as my first year living in the city, but it was no less full.

2007 was about a hiking, hiking and more hiking, and backcountry camping for the first time. It was about re-learning to be in a relationship and balancing that with my newly found sense of identity and independence. It was about listening to the whales under the moonlight with D. in Grand Manan, New Brunswick, and driving 12 hours to New Brunswick a few months later with Sis for a weekend of music at Mom & Dad's. It was about joining a weekly writing group, completing NaBloPoMo and dealing with what felt like the snowiest winter ever. And finally, it was about going back to work after an 11-month sabbatical, one of the biggest events to impact my energy that year.

my cozy urban balcony space

Here are my top five posts:

Sabbatical Reflections - Part I - I started feeling the strain of my impending return to work after 11 months off, but was - and still am - forever grateful for my sabbatical experience.

Grand Manan Pics Pre-fog and Post-fog - OK, I'm cheating here and including two posts in one entry, but I can't include one and not the other. Our camping trip to Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick, was downright magical. Whales below our cliff-top campsite, two full days of hiking and two bald eagle sightings. 'Nuf said.

view from our Grand Manan campsite

On Creativity... - Musings on how creativity must be part of my calling and how it made me feel alive and content. An awakening no doubt.

A Good Day - Short, sweet, powerful.

Meatpie Madness - Chronicling my first meatpie making adventure. Classic!

a tired me and a tired Cassie after a weekend of backcountry camping

Stay tuned for 2008...

A Kind of Silent Presence...

"I discovered that there is something nice about working in an office with a candle burning. It's like seeing snow falling outside the window or having a dog snoozing on the carpet beside you. It's a kind of silent presence in the room and very pleasant."

~ Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

 I knew there was something, but I love how she captured it into words. A silent presence...