Our day included an outing into the Gatineau Hills. It was pure gorgeousness; warm sun, white snow, blue skies. Heavenly serenity.
This was my view on the way back to the car, along the Parkway:
We followed an easy trail, marked no.5. It was good, although I was mildly annoyed at the overall lack of signage and wayfinding. (I do like to know where I’m going and how long it will take me to get there.)
Also: I only wiped out once, and the only thing that was damaged was my pride.
How was your Family Day?
I’m one lunch away from 600 lunches! I wanted to post number 599 here because it involves a salad dressing that is too good not to share. It only take a couple of minutes to make, and beats the bottled stuff by a mile. This one is great on spinach and strawberries. You can add some diced chicken to this combo to make it a stellar dinner.
Poppy seed dressing
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1 1/2 teaspoons poppy seeds
3 tablespoons cider vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
All you do is combine all of the ingredients in a large measuring cup. That’s it!
It’s Valentine’s Day, and we woke up to the sound of a squirrel desperately trying to gnaw its way out through our rafters. The bad news is that it was trapped in there for a couple of days. The good news is that it has been removed. Still alive. But I shudder to think about the damage it has wrought in there. Gah.
At this point I figure my day just HAS to get better, right?
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Over the past few years we’ve undertaken some creatively kid-friendly projects here at Casa Fishbowl. We’ve written stories about spiders, composed tandem stories on long car rides, constructed our own mini books, made stop-motion animations, we’ve and jotted down the results…. and remember Stealth Poetry? That was fun. When I think about it in hindsight I realize that all of these things are related. I never intended any of these things to be very academic but they’ve always been about literacy in a way. Sidebar: I am very proud to say that we have two fantastically creative young writers in the house now. I don’t know if all of those projects were a factor or if they just see their mum writing all the time, but this is where we are now and I couldn’t be happier.
I wanted to share a neat little project the girls and I started recently because it combines a few of my favourite things: photography, writing, and Piper.
Piper now has her own Instagram account. Yes really. You can find it right here. I know she’s not the only dog in town who is on Instagram, but that is neither here nor there. She has her own things to say.
I’m not sure where the narrative is going. So far it’s been a lot of selfies and posts about her favourite things, but I do see this as the beginning of a fun collaborative multimedia project. What does a dog think about? How can those thoughts and ideas be expressed through writing and photography? What’s for dinner?
I foresee a potentially interesting future for this project, I just hope Piper doesn’t get too big for her britches. :)
