Cape Breton 2011

Time for a little bit of back tracking!  Back in early/mid May I got to head up to Cape Breton for a camping weekend with Matt and our friends Matt and Mel (gonna call him M2 – too confusing to have two Matts!).  Not gonna lie, I felt a little left out, my name doesn’t start with a M, and I have smaller feet than the other three (they all have the same foot size!).  That said, M2 and Mel are two of my favorite people to hand out with, so it made the weekend seem even more promising 🙂

If I remember correctly, Mel was the only one of us who had never been to Cape Breton before.  M2 and I both spent our time growing up in Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, so we’re both used to tenting it.  Matt grew up spending TONS of time doing outdoor things and is a great source of info/fire building skills 😛  Mel, she was learning from us in the camping department.

We had a really rainy and rather chilly weekend…okay, by the time we crawled into our tents and sleeping bags I was shivering rather uncontrollably on Friday night.  It was so wet and rainy that Matt wasn’t able to get a fire going (which is saying a lot).  I didn’t complain about the cold, not once, but Matt noticed pretty quickly that I was crazy cold.  Apparently I should have mentioned it!  Who knew?

On the Saturday we all slept in, as it was still rather damp (read still raining) and therefore we were in no rush to get out there.  We finally stumbled out of our tents, made lunch and hopped in the car to check out the famous Cabot Trail.  I’d seen it several years ago with Lis, and again last year with Sarah and Sarah G, but I was quite excited to see it again.  It is amazing after all.  We spent the afternoon driving it, getting out, taking pictures and commenting about the beauty.  Never gets old.  That night Matt built a roaring and warm fire, which we all gladly spent our time around.  As a result, I wasn’t shivering come bed time 🙂

Sunday wasn’t all that exciting.  We got up, made breakfast, tore down the tents/camp site, loaded the car and headed back out on the road.  We did take a wrong turn somewhere and ended up taking a quick cable ferry ride, but hey, it just added to the adventure.  I don’t remember the rest of the trip home, as apparently the weekend tired me out.  I slept…yep, slept, you read that right.  I guess there really is a first for everything!

We’ve had some talk of doing another trip in the fall, but when there would be time for that is another question.  Matt and I managed to have almost all of our weekends booked up (see Fundy and the upcoming Kayak obtaining posts) and now the next weekend that were BOTH in town isn’t until mid October!  Maybe it will have to be another spring trip.

Five Minute Fridays – Growing

I’m sorry, last week I missed the Five Minute Friday on Joy.  I don’t know why or how, but it happened so you’ll just have to make do with me going straight through to Growing.  Oh yeah, and in keeping with my new tradition, Five Minute Friday is happening on Sunday!

Once again, a recapping of the rules as laid out by Lisa-Jo of The Gypsy Mama.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Go a little overboard encouraging the writer who linked up before you.

Ready, set, write!

Fall isn’t really the time of year that I tend to think about growing, though I guess even now everything and everyone still is.  I know as a person I’m always growing, always changing, always learning.  I see it in my Guides, every week they come up with something new, they challenge themselves and they challenge me.  I see it in my co-workers as they embrace the challenges that life throws their way, and I see it in my friends as their worlds are constantly changing, evolving and growing.

Even outside, where it seems like every thing is getting ready to hunker down and prepare for yet another cold Canadian Winter things are growing.  The squirrels and chipmunks are eating and growing their stores of food, the bears are filling their bellies and at the same growing their fat stores.  The plants are putting out one last push before they drop their leaves and settle in.

Inside my little apartment my cats are growing thicker fur and slowing down – that said, they sure aren’t slowing enough to save me my sanity!  They are growing in age and kitty cat wisdom.  By the time the snow melts they will both be a year older and growing that much closer to leaving their wonder years and heading to their mid-age years. 

STOP

Rainy Day Beauty

Today is a rainy day.  The sky is grey, the grass is slick, and the harbour is foggy.  It’s a day to stay inside with a cup of tea (or hot lemon water as the case may be), a good book and a crackling fire.  It’s a day for cats to curl up close by and to purr contentedly – granted, mine are both nowhere near me!  It’s the kind of day that makes you long for balmy Summer evenings, or even cool crisp, yet sunny Winter days.  None of this middle of the road, neither hot nor cold, miserable no good weather.

It’s also the kind of day where you get to see things like this:

And if you look a little closer, and you’re feeling at least a little brave, something like this:

Let’s be honest, I have no issues with Spiders, so I was able to get in even closer yet, where I got to privilege of capturing this:

Rain drops may have been falling on my head, but they were clinging to this little guy for dear life!  As amazing as spiders are on a normal day, there is something almost magical about spiders, and their nets, when there are drops of water weighing them down.

Lets end with one more look at the amazing patterns and strength you can find in nature, or this case, my own back yard!

I love our Earth and all the creatures that inhabit it!

Life just got a little brighter

Every now and then some how I come across something that both amazes me and bring hope.  Whenever this happens, I find I really want to share it, to spread the joy.  The following video is one such thing.  Just imagine, a way for millions, possibly even billions, of people to have light in their home and to still be able to afford books, education for their children and to live.  I can only imagine the hope and the joy such a thing would bring.  And that it is as simple as it really is, that just amazes me. 

Here, watch and see what I mean;

Five Minute Friday: in real life

Week three of attempting this Five Minute Friday thing, and I’m still not managing to do it on a Friday.  Does anyone think it would an issue if I renamed this 60 seconds (times 5) Sundays?  I guess that is a bit of a mouthful.  I’ll stick with Five Minute Fridays and hope that one day I actually manage to do this on a Friday!

Once again, here are the rules:

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.

2. Link back here and invite others to join in.

3.

Go a little overboard encouraging the writer who linked up before you.

In Real Life

I know there are people who don’t like to live “in real life.” They pretend they are someone they aren’t, they live in an online world, they never show the real them.  That’s not me!  I love real life, even though sometimes it’s very messy, and a little scary.

I love that real life is things like laundry hanging on the line, phones ringing during dinner or movies (even when I hate that it interrupts).  I love that real life is people, in all their glory and all their misery.  Real life is just that, it’s real. 

The messiness of real life is, yes a mess.  It’s chaotic, it’s strange, it’s different for every person out there, but when my real life crosses someone elses life, especially their real life, it’s something special.  We get to know not only this other person, their fears, hopes, dreams, secrets, desires, ect, but also we learn more about ours. 

In real life is where I always want to live, not in a fake world.  don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my time on the computer, meeting up with people through blogs, facebook, twitter and all the other social media out there.  But I have no desire to ever input myself into a computer or machine.  I hope that never happens. 

After all, In Real Life is where we have always ment to be, and hopefully we will always continue to be.

STOP.