Moi

A couple of times recently, people have tagged me to list various things about myself (7 things, 10 secrets, etc.) but I always seem to forget, or have more pressing things to write about!

So today, since I'm busy prepping for my final presentation at my course tomorrow night, and have a hair appointment after work, I thought I'd post a quick list of 10 things you may (or may not) know about me!

10 Things About Me

1. I'm an only child. This has never bothered me unless I think about my parents dying and being alone. Then it really bothers me. Still, I do not think this is sufficient reason to get married and have children. That would be the wrong reason, to me.

2. I have a master's degree in chemical engineering - specializing in polymers (plastics) and petrochemicals. I know a lot about making plastic and gasoline and other stuff like that.

3. I lived in Paris for a year. I loved every minute of it. I ate a croissant or pain au chocolat every day but didn't gain a pound (I walked it off! I was a starving student!).

4. I love to read, mostly fiction, but I will read anything available (cereal boxes, shampoo bottles, etc).

5. Black turtlenecks have always been my signature clothing item. Unless it is summer, when I wear all white and beige. Think "Out of Africa". haha.

6. My favorite time-waster-website is www.icanhascheezburger.com because it is exceptionally funny and it involves cats. I read it every day.

7. I love rain. I have loved it since I was a child and my room had a sloped ceiling and I loved to lay under it on my bed and listen to the rain. It is still one of my favorite things ever.

8. I am a night owl. It doesn't help that I need to take sedatives to help control my headches and manage my sleep, so waking up is always hard. Don't schedule anything before 8am...

9. If I could live anywhere, it would be Canada's west coast (Vancouver, Victoria). I am a die-hard Canadian. And did I mention, I love grey wet weather?

10. If I could have any job, I'd like to be a photo editor, or write book reviews. Or decorate or make pottery for a living. I have A LOT of interests and I can't settle on just one. This is my fatal flaw.

Ok, so that seems like more than 10 things, but you get the drift. Back soon with more Christmas...

xo, Terri

While the Cat's Away...

David went to his Mom's house this weekend, so I decided to do some shopping.I bought a darling 42" reproduction pine tree at a lovely store in Okotoks (a sweet town south of Calgary) called All Through the House. The lady even delivered the tree to my house last evening since I wanted one in a box and she only had the store model. Luckily, she lives right near us, so when she came home from work, she brought me a brand-new tree from her garage! The tree cost $42, which was way more than I expected to spend, but I'd spent all of Saturday searching high and low and couldn't find a quality-looking tree in the size I wanted. So I spent last evening trimming the new wee tree, which sits atop my kitchen counter. I wish I'd bought more lights (I had a 50-light set)! I added lime-green cloth garland (with the wire, which I'd never used before but love!). I wanted to add more garland, but only had 3 packages that I need to keep for the big tree. I used mini-ornaments that I had already had (Zellers, my new favorite Christmas supplier, thanks to Linda!), including a few mercury-glass balls (from Chintz & Co). The mercury-glass balls kind of look like mini disco balls to me (see left-most ornament in photo below...). I also added a little birdie in a nest, who looks very content!I didn't have any tree toppers, so I used this little pony ornament, which I paper-clipped to the tree.

David will be very surprised when he gets home. He gets to have his BIG tree with the multi-coloured lights in the living room, and I have my very own kitchen-counter tree with the colours I wanted! I wanted to buy more ornaments (icicles and stars, like in the photo of my dream tree below) but decided to stick with what I already own!

Happy Holidays!

Not My Tree

As I mentioned, David and I have had a minor ongoing debate about Christmas tree lights for a couple of weeks. I had actually bought a set of white lights and had finally coaxed him to let me use them (albeit begrudgingly), or so I thought.

But he really wasn't happy, and I began to feel like a total meanie for making him go along with my (gorgeous, tasteful, elegant) decorating scheme. He seems to feel that since he grew up with coloured lights (as did I), they are the only proper lights for a Christmas tree. In fact, he claims that he "hates" white lights and "always has". Well, I love white lights and "always have" , but I guess that is irrelevant since he has voiced his decorating opinion.

You see, I do most of the decorating and David never complains, so when he finally has an opinion, I am supposed to listen. But really, why does he have more right than me to an opinion? And why does he only seem to have one when it is different from mine?

Anyway, David does hate pretension and being fancy-pants and I understand that. He seems to have developed a long-standing association of white lights with arrogant snooty types. I don't understand the venom, I really don't, but I think David feels like he is cheating on his family values if he does something that might be perceived as pretentious. And I think there is a little bit of "this is how my mother did it" so it must be right.

I was conflicted because I've been buying these lovely, coherent white and green and silver things for around the house and would have liked these colours to be dominant on the tree (along with our small and disparate collection of ornaments - in all colours, red and gold included!). I had not voiced that to David, and had only talked about the white lights, which I thought would soften all the visual noise and help bring all the weird bits together.

Well, this all changed when David came home the other night with some Christmas balls he bought at his favorite discount store. They are ORANGE and BLUE!

They are very pretty, happy Christmas balls and as soon as I saw them, my heart melted. Orange and blue would not have been my first choice, considering my issues with colours other than green and white and silver (an idea hatched because of those damned pink rugs and apple green walls of mine!!)....

So at that moment, I decided to throw in the towel. His little ornaments were pretty and kitschy and happy. And I am too uptight. That Hermes orange was a wonderful cheery colour. So, to heck with it! Let's have a tree with multi-coloured balls and weird ornaments and blue and orange balls and coloured lights and it will look just like every other Canadian non-fancy-pants household!

In a way, I'm relieved because now we can just hang up whatever ornaments we feel like - Snoopy, Star Wars, mice in baskets, cats on skates. And we can use those lovely vintage ornaments we bought a while ago...just like these ones (but with a Christmas theme).

Photo courtesy of Room Service Home

Maybe eventually, after 20 years of marriage, we will figure out when to take a stand and when to not bother. I still want my dream tree. But I want more for him to be happy.

Tree of Dreams & The White Light Debate, Etc.

I really like this idea for a Christmas tree. I can't find many great Christmas tree pictures online, and this is the only tree I've seen, other than in magazines, that is really simple and pure and pretty and to my tastes...this season. This tree looks slightly too bare, so I would add a few more ornaments, but it's the right idea. And it fits with my green and white and silver colour scheme! Hurray!

And yes, this tree has white lights. In my last post, I broached the subject of white versus coloured lights and seem to have struck a nerve. Then, sweet Melissa at The Inspired Room wrote a very observant and inspiring post about coloured light options (wow!) to which one of her readers noted the "snob" appeal of white lights. And other people write that they are tired of white and are using colours again! Apparently now that white lights are everywhere, everyone has contempt for them! Boring old white lights. What drudgery! Hmmm. And apparently, children and men don't like them either! So there. Take that, Oppressive White Lights!

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Well, just for clarification, I wanted to say that I STILL want white lights for my tree simply because I think they are elegant. Period. I am not a snob. And I don't care if now I'm uncool because I'm not suddenly rejecting the trend that a few years ago everyone was eager to follow. It's like the Gucci handbag. First the rich folks had it, then the common folks got it, and now everyone hates it because everyone has it. The same phenomenon happens when anything becomes ubiquitous, which can almost happen overnight with the bloody internet and a Costco membership.

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Which reminds me. I was reading an article the other day in which the writer was ashamed to say that she was reading "Eat Pray Love" because everyone else is reading it. And who wants to be like everyone else? Well, how ridiculous. If they sell it at Costco and you are shopping there, chances are you are so uncool it doesn't matter anyway, so just read the darn book and enjoy yourself.

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Which is not to say that I follow this advice. I will admit that I haven't read the Harry Potters nor "A Million Little Pieces" nor "Memoirs of a Geisha" or a hundred other great books simply because they were popular. In fact, I prefer to read great piles of dusty obscure novels, or long-dead authors, or do my popular-fiction reading about 10 years after the novelty has worn off. I have just read "The DaVinci Code" and would highly recommend it to the 12 of you who haven't read it yet.

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Anyway, all this to say you should do whatever the heck you like. And when it comes to Christmas trees, I don't care if I'm an elitest white light snob, or, um, a lowly commoner following the crowds. I just want white lights for my humble little tree because I happen to think they are the most beautiful, to me, right now. And for the last 37 years, I've had coloured lights. So now it is time, my friends, for a change. :)

Prelude

I'm trying, in the few shorts scraps of time I can find, to get some Christmas decorations for our house! I've even started "test driving" decorations to see how things might look and where they might go.

So far I've been buying things in $20 increments...a few balls and a wacky green tinsel tree here, some candles and a tablecloth there. Yesterday I bought a lovely white "Hotel" tablecloth at Pottery Barn (it was considerably more than $20) which I really like as it's good quality, will last forever and have regular use, and is fine but not so exquisite that I'll be afraid to use it (photos to come...)
I've also been hitting the church bazaars and picked up this cute little gold tree (star on top) for $2.50. Plus, I got a couple of wee hand-made woollen folk ornaments (oh, and a few sweets in case I don't get all my baking done!)

I don't have a lot of Christmas "stuff" accumulated since I always went *home* (to my parents' house in New Brunswick) for Christmas, where my mother has boxes full of lovely items that we sorted through each year and used to decorate. She has many inexpensive things as well as lots of finer things, but all tasteful and good quality, as much of it is older and unique and tastefully traditional. They have a cottage style house, so everything she puts up seems to look sweet! Plus, she is a firm believer in the "after" Christmas sale and has picked up many gems over the years!

Now that I'm finally doing Christmas in my own house, I can no longer get away with the single girl "wreath and mini-tree combo" as my sole contribution to the decor world.

(this rug will be replaced, even if the cat does like it)

My cat doesn't care what we do for Christmas, as long as it involves naps. But I'm feeling harried trying to decide on colour schemes and styles. I want it all to look "put together" but I also want it to be honest and real and simple. Who knew there were so many styles of ornaments - rustic, modern, traditional? Even choosing a wreath is a nightmare. I don't want a black feather one, and I don't want birch bark. Oh, and I have an issue with red (the rugs are pink, so red is a no-no) and don't want gold (the house is rather dated with brass fixtures and knobs and switchplates, which I'm desparately trying to eradicate)!

What pressure! What choices!

First, I don't want to spend a ton of money. I'd prefer to buy a few things each year (and preferably shop after Christmas this time, now that I know what I need) and get the fancier ornaments on sale! I'm not a cheapskate (au contraire), but I don't like waste. I don't want to buy a lot of things this year and decide not to use them next year. That's just how I am. I don't like wanton consumption, as much as I want my house to be lovely! And I'm not crafty enough, or have enough time on my hands, to make my own decorations, as much as I would enjoy it.

So what colour? What I buy this year needs to work in the future once I've re-decorated the room. The living/dining room is painted Green Apple, I think it's called. According to the cans in the basement, it's a Farrow & Ball colour, which would be very posh except it's much too "apple green" (a.k.a lime) for my tastes. I will change it eventually...something off-white I think...since my sofa and chair are green and they're are staying put. Right now it feels like a fruit basket with green furniture and walls. The dining room rug (inherited) is pink (see photo below)! Not my first choice but I do like it and since it's a good quality wool, it's staying! The living room rug is also pink (see cat above), but it's gotta go! It's faded and pastel-dull and I want to replace it with something lighter, perhaps a grey-beige or ivory colour, to match the future walls. So the room will eventually be ivory with green and rose (and taupe), I hope.

By the way, we have a new console table coming from Ethan Allen this week, which will replace the dresser (near the green armchair in the living room) in this photo...

(this rug stays)

So with all this present and future colour, I can't use red!! It will clash! Too primary! So RED IS OUT, even if it is Christmas and I am sorry to say that. Luckily every damned thing at Pottery Barn is red this year. No more shopping there for me!

So I decided on this apple green and white as my colours, with silver accents. I'm using regular and pearl white balls and taupe-y pink/pearl/oyster coloured things too because they work with the rug.

Now comes the problem of a tree. David and I both have small collections of disparate ornaments, ranging from hokey cartoons to an elegant cloth ornament from England to traditional vintage Santas. To pull it all together, I want a tree with white lights and very little else besides pearly-white and silver balls and some apple green ribbon maybe, which will make a nice backdrop. I've even bought white ribbon to thread on several of the varied ornaments to try to "bring it together". Now the problem...David wants coloured lights for the tree! You know...red, green, blue, yellow, pink! ARGH! He really wants them. This is his contribution, he says! But this won't do. It will be garrish and visually jarring, and as much as I love him and respect the trashier aspects of Christmas, it could be ugly. The room is already busy and vaguely sugar-sweet. And what about my posh new green and white/pearl/pink stuff?

Whatever shall I do? I worry about this daily. Important office-thinking is being replaced by frightful daydreams about blinking blue and red lights on my tree.

Please advise. Tell me it will be okay. Make it better.

My Life Down Here in Freezing Hell (not a Christmas post)

As much as I pride myself on having a lovely (and tidy!) home, I've decided to post some photos that reveal the nightmare that is my current life. Today (and several days in the past few weeks) I've spent the entire day in the basement, where it is cold and dark and virtually windowless. The reason....I am a student again. I have papers to write, research to do, and...um...I am so busy at the office that I don't have time to do my homework there. Darn.


As I mentioned, I'm taking a management course, which has me hitting the books...hard. I often take evening classes, but they're usually fun stuff like photography, pottery or creative writing. I try to avoid professional development (ugh) but once a year or so, I drag myself to a formal class. This one, however, has an insane workload, with about 8h reading per week and mid-terms and essays and the dreaded...group assignment. My team of 5 has to submit a paper in less than 2 weeks and I seem to be the one with all the initiative.
So I spent the entire day in the freezing cold basement next to the freezer (I swear it's 12°C down here, or approx 55°F) since my upstairs OFFICE does not yet exist. Well, that isn't entirely true - the room has been painted since June (a gorgeous Pottery Barn blue) and the curtains and rod are bought (and are still sitting on the chair 5 months later).

But I'm still hacking in the basement on my ANCIENT computer, which is just how we dumped everything the day we moved in 11 months ago. The PLAN was to buy a new iMac and get the office upstairs all organized in time for some summer photography. Well, as you can see, I haven't bought my iMac. In fact, the computer in the photos is 7 years old. Note the hideous old mouse without a rollerball (my favorite invention ever!!!)...not having a roller ball drives me mad, but a new cool mouse won't work because I can't install the right drivers!. I had to bring my laptop home from the office so I could use my drafting software to make a flowchart. I did my drafting on the laptop and then hooked it up to the internet and emailed it to myself so I could open it on my old clunker PC (which I re-connected to the internet so I could open the email) so that I could insert it into my document and use the BIG keyboard (typing on the laptop all day makes my shoulders ache). How technologically advanced, switching cables from one machine to the other all day! Most people have a wireless network. I have a sea of cables and one jack in the whole house with internet on it.

So I decided to show you the chaos instead of pretty Christmas pictures like everyone is posting. I know after reading this no one will ever come back and read my blog. Oh well, it was nice knowing you. I don't have time for you anyway. Clearly.

I hope, eventually, to buy my iMac and move upstairs. I still don't have a new desk as there have been other priorities, so I'm planning to sand and re-paint the country table I'm now using (and hate!). And also install a keyboard tray. Right, like that will happen. Ikea, here I come.

I wonder....when do people find the time to be fabulous?

Oh well, at least I loved my cat today and cleaned my kitchen this morning (we had dinner guests last night, at least that was an accomplishment!) and wrote a whole 2000 words on the topic of pesticides and why they should be banned and talked to my Mom about Dad's health and talked to David's Mom about Christmas gifts for him (I gave her all my ideas) and made steel cut oats and watched an episode of "This Old House" and wrote this post. What a day...

All photos courtesy Terri's basement

...it just fitted me...

Trapped here in my cloister (i.e. my office), I stop sometimes to visit the internet. This is a window to a world where I sometimes find beautiful things, ideas, words, sounds...to admire.

I seek things that speak to my soul, that match my tastes. Such things are hard to find, as you know, but you know it when you see it. I love to find an inspiring new shop, an artist who speaks my aesthetic language, new music that murmurs memories and desires, or a blogger who masters the art of the beautifully turned phrase. I visited the Georgia O'Keefe Museum in Santa Fe a few years back. Inside, they played a short film about Georgia in which she said when she moved to Santa Fe "it just fitted me." After years of living in New York, she was finally "home". I love it when I find people and things that make me feel at home.

Papa Stour is a Scottish website I love which features independent Scottish art. I visit it regularly. I've never bought anything as it's rather expensive and what do I really need? But the soft beautiful images and pure talent, coupled with my burning desire to visit Scotland, make my heart sing!

All images courtesy Papa Stour

Mercury Glass

Since I'm so busy studying and writing essays for my environmental management course (which ends Nov.29) and working full-time, I haven't had much time to blog, to read blogs, or more importantly...to begin preparing for our first (proper) Christmas in the new house. Woe is me. I need decorating time! I need time to peruse magazines, to shop for ornaments and decorations, to fashion my house into a lovely warm inviting Christmas home (while also trying to buy as little as possible and not be too consumerist!).

This year, I've decided to buy a few very lovely things. And then supplement it next year. And the year after that and so on...at least that is the plan...

Please note of course, (and this comment is for Linda) that this doesn't mean that I can't go to Zellers (thanks for the tip!) for silver balls (20 for $4.99) or perhaps the Superstore for some cost-effective (and very stylish) supplies, just in case....

But anyway, what I did want to say is that one thing my heart desires this Christmas is...

MERCURY GLASS!

I just adore it. From what I understand, mercury glass is actually just layered silvered glass (not actually made with mercury, a toxic metal which remains liquid to a very low temperature, which is why it is used in thermometers). This silvered glass was first made in the late 1800's and was a very decorative fancy glass. I imagine that real antique mercury glass exists, but I don't think I've seen much in antique stores. Have you? Mercury glass, or its modern knock-offs (which just look like mercury glass but aren't always made the same way) has a very classic, old-fashioned, often vintage look.

Aren't these pieces lovely? I already have some of the ornaments but I also love these wee Pottery Barn trees...what do you think?

(All images Pottery Barn)

Find!

I'm an Etsy window-shopping addict, and have purchsed several drawings over the past year, mostly bird images for my wee bird collection. I love bird imagery in any form, from serious historical prints and nature art to abstract and whimsical imagery.

I just discovered the work of a lovely artist Geninne, from Mexico City, through a Domino feature. Her "Ask Believe Receive" series makes me smile with joy, and I'm thinking of getting it for myself for Christmas. I love the images, the bright rich colours, and the sweet idea behind the series, of asking (your) God for the things you want.

Check out her Etsy shop and also her delightful blog which is updated regularly- her other work is equally stunning! I have my eye on a few of her things. And with the Canadian dollar being so high, shopping for lovely U.S. goods is seriously affordable!