#8) BAM!

While you’re reading this post, please have ‘Eye of the Tiger’ playing in your head. I did it!!! 365 days of photos have been taken! This has been a pretty big week for crossing things off my list what with Velma and now this. I must admit, this was an extremely fun challenge (especially once friends got behind the undertaking). There were lots of pictures of my wonderful and super handsome fellow (this is only a sampling):

I seem to have taken an unreasonable number of the sunset/pretty skies: 

Of course there were lots of my favourite little critters (only some featuring alcohol): 

Finally, there were a bunch of mini-themes that were found throughout, including my puppy, my ring, and my feet! Unfortunately whenever I took pictures of my feet, I always thought of that Lost in Translation quote “I tried taking pictures, but they were so mediocre. I guess every girl goes through a photography phase. You know, horses... taking pictures of your feet.”  Oh well. 

I think my favourite thing about taking the pictures though was capturing an entire year of seasons. Looking back through pictures I’d taken the month before always reminded me that whatever season it was wouldn’t be forever. Yay, all done!

#1) Sewing Robot-Style

Hey, hey, hey, guess what I did this weekend? Crossed #1 off my list! My (future) mother-in-law was up for the weekend and she taught me how to use the sewing machine I got for my birthday. 

At first, when she was threading everything and trying to explain what a bobbin was, I basically decided I was never ever going to use this contraption. Once I saw how quickly I could sew on it though, and all the neat stitches it could do, I fell a little bit in love.

Today I went out to grab some fabric to make a pillow for my craft room. I decided I couldn’t really cross #1 off until I’d done the whole threading/bobbin thing on my own so very hesitantly I undid everything from yesterday and set it up with some pink thread. I was as surprised as anyone when it worked!  

It’s not perfect, some lines are still a little crooked, but I’m honestly in awe of how well this guy turned out. I’m just overwhelmed with all the awesome things I’m going to be able to make SOOO quickly now! 

I’ll always love sewing by hand but this machine (whom I have named Velma) is possibly one of my new best-friends (who sometimes I wish to smash). Oh, and for anyone curious, Velma is a Kenmore Sensor Sew 70, and she came with this amazing greeting:

300th Picture

I realize I haven’t crossed much off my list lately but I have reached a milestone in completing #8. Yesterday I took my 300th picture! I can’t believe I only have 75 to go. On the topic of my list, I’m still trying to decide whether I should get the pink streak in my hair before or after the wedding…any thoughts?

Finally

Guess what? SPRING HAPPENED! It was late this year but we finally have spring flowers and I don’t need to always have a coat on. It’s awesome! I have to suck it all up now before inevitably next week it’s 28 degrees and I refuse to leave my air-conditioned home.

Grey Winter

We’ve had a very mild grey winter so far this year. I’m not complaining at all, it’s just this weather hasn’t led to the wintery wonderland pictures I was expecting to be taking around now. There is something very romantic about grey rainy days though. They always remind me of my favourite poem by Robert Frost My November Guest. Except that it’s December…

#6) Shoot a Gun

Before I post about completing this particular item on my list, I want to make my views on the subject of guns and gun ownership clear in light of the tragedy in the US this past week. I do not own any guns. I don’t believe I ever will and I would NEVER have them in my house – I simply wouldn’t feel safe with weapons in my home nor am I interested in the great responsibility that gun ownership entails. Despite my personal feelings about gun ownership, I think after this horrific event at least as much attention needs to be paid to ensuring easily accessible mental health services for those who need them as is given to reforming gun control in the United States.

This past Saturday my friend Josh took Becca, Matt, and I to his gun club – The Wellington Street Sportsmen’s Club – for a trap shooting event. One of the members was nice enough to bring two youth guns so that Becca and I could participate (the normal sized ones are for GIANTS, or normal sized humans…whatever). I couldn’t believe how much fun I had.

I managed to hit 6 of the clay discs (not nearly as impressive as my fiancé’s 14) which amazed me as I was sure I wouldn’t hit a single one. The Club members who helped us were so kind and professional and made a very intimidating task seem completely doable.

I think I was prepared to be treated like a silly little girl but they made me feel tremendously capable and celebrated right alongside me when I hit my first disc (they even gave me the empty shell to keep as a souvenir!).

So do I think I’ll ever own a gun? No, but I wouldn’t hesitate for one moment to go back for an event like this at a professional facility. Crossing this one off my list will always be tinged with sadness because of everything that happened last week but I also think it helped me to realize that the whole debate around gun control is not black and white and that an entire society’s culture must change to prevent tragedies like the one in Newtown Connecticut from occurring in the future.

#24) Go to the Ballet

This activity on my list infuriated my mother. She pointed out numerous times that I HAD been to the ballet, on more than one occasion, as a child. Real ballet, like Royal Winnipeg Ballet productions, not just amateur local shows. I decided that those didn’t count because I hadn’t been as an adult so last weekend I fixed that.

As a gift for Mommy’s upcoming birthday, my sister and I purchased tickets for Mommy and I to go see the National Ballet of Canada’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in Toronto.

I would have loved to have Sara there too but unfortunately she lives out in Saskatoon and is busy being a Doctor so it would have been difficult. Instead we went with my friend Becca and her Mom. The ballet was lovely. The sets were amazing and the Cheshire cat had to be one of the most remarkable things I’ve ever seen on a stage.

I was a little bit disappointed in Alice’s purple dress (we all know is should be blue!) but it was still a gorgeous production. It feels extremely glamorous to go see a ballet in the evening in a big city like Toronto. Just 26 items left and my list is done!

#14) Walked on the glass floor at the CN Tower

Yesterday I found myself in Toronto due to winning an award at work. I was given a free day after the awards dinner (which I’ll be blogging about later, because it was in a castle, and I climbed the castle tower, at night, alone) so I decided to explore the city a little bit. Since my best-friend Becca lives in Toronto, I gave her a call and we set out to cross-off number 14 on my list, to WALK ON THE GLASS FLOOR AT THE CN TOWER!

I started off feeling pretty darn confident. As depicted in the below image, I could almost reach where I would be standing on the glass floor. No problemo! Unfortunately I then had to go up in the elevator. To start off, I think I should state I’m not scared of heights; however, I am scared of dying and I believed a number of times that this might occur during our trip up in the shaking glass floored elevator. It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done and I refused to look the whole way up despite being called a chicken by two smarmy Australian fellows – who were in sweatpants on a Wednesday at 10am might I add.

Once we got to the top I was surprisingly fine, though my legs were still jelly-ish. The views across the city and lake were magnificent and I’m pretty sure I could see the curvature of the earth (though Becca says I couldn’t).

I was starting to think walking on the glass floor would be simple but then we got there. You’d think that seeing children crawling across the glass floor, or adults stomping on it, would make me realize it was perfectly safe. Nope. As a rational human, walking on something which looks down on the below image goes against every instinct evolution has ensured I possess in order to survive.

I honestly thought there was no way I could do it. Luckily, a very nice German tourist saw that I was shaking like a leaf and said she’d hold my hand if I came out so Becca could take my picture. I lasted just long enough for the picture to be snapped before I leapt back to the safety of the opaque carpeted floor (hence the blurriness).

Once it was done I felt like superman! Becca was awesome the whole time. She hates heights and still came with me to photo-document the entire journey. Oh yeah, at the end I high-fived a bear in the gift shop, even he was impressed with my bravery!

Picture Round-Up

As those of you who follow me on Pinterest and Twitter know, Number Eight on my list is chugging along nicely. So far I’ve taken 42 days’ worth of pictures (some more inspired than others) and it’s been a lot of fun! This project has led to daily afternoon walks with co-workers, arguments with friends about which should be the photo for the day, and some 11:45pm panic moments in bed when I realise I need to go shoot something quick!

Fall is my favourite time of year and it’s been wonderful to capture some of my much-loved colours and scenes of the season through this project. Just 323 photos to go! Happy Friday everyone.

Pink Pirate Octopus

Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day! I’ve been sticking to my goal of taking one picture a day for 365 days and it’s been really fun! Today for example, I was sitting at my desk trying to decide what I should take a picture of when someone popped up from the desk beside me and Arrrrhhh’d at me. Inspiration found. I whipped up a mini-pirate hat for my handy cubicle octopus and voila: Picture #13!

#10 - Début

Guess what I start tonight? French Schoooooooool! Every Wednesday night for the foreseeable future I will be tucked in a classroom for 3 hours becoming more brilliant (ok, maybe not more brilliant, but at least more fluent in French). I’m very lucky that I work at a nice place that’s willing to pay for all the school I want because it turns out French is an expensive language to acquire. Hopefully by the time I hit 30...shudder...I will have fulfilled number 10 on my list. With the below pencil case how can I not be the coolest kid in College? Or dorkiest, whatever, YAY SCHOOL!

#8 - Part Two

NOOooOoo! After two short days of adhering to #8 I’ve already missed a day! Here’s what happened: Yesterday at work I was thinking “hey, I need to go take a picture for today” and then I remembered that friends were coming over to our place for dinner and that I should wait to take a picture then.  After a couple of bottles of wine, a delicious boyfriend prepared dinner, and some exciting episodes of SHARK WRANGLERS (which by the way is my new favorite show, I think I’m in love with Brett) I had forgotten all about the picture and didn’t remember until about 4am this morning. Oh well…back to the beginning. Picture #1:

Oh, also, I made this pig and I think it’s haunted. Happy Friday everyone!

#8 – Part One

September is always a time for fresh starts. New school year, new weather, just plain new! With that in mind I’ve decided to start #8 on my list, taking a picture everyday for one year. I’m not going to post all the pictures on here because it would be overwhelming (and maybe a bit tedious for you guys) but I do plan to tweet/pinterest them and then maybe post some of the more awesome ones. I’m hoping by blogging my start it will keep me accountable. Without further ado: a very rainy, dreary picture #1, just 364 to go!

#13 - Manicure/Pedicure

I had an absolutely awesome weekend with my friends and I even managed to cross something of my list (granted it was one of the easier ones). My sweetheart is off exploring Europe and I'm missing him hideously so to cheer me up on Saturday Becca and I went to Ruby Nails and I got my first ever manicure/pedicure. Um, it was kind of awesome.

We got to sit in massage chairs and pick out colours from like 100 different nail polishes and now my nails look so pretty! I don’t want to become one of those girls who has her nails done every week but I will certainly be back again. It's amazing what a night with some girlfriends can do to improve your mood. What an excellent start to my list, I hope the rest are just as fun!

A Simple List

I am 27 years old. I’ve realized there are quite a few things I’d like to do before I turn 30 and I have therefore assembled a very scientific list. It’s not a “before I die” kind of list, it’s more of a “before I think a lot of these are bad/silly ideas I better do them” kind of a list. I'm going to do my best to record the results of each of these activities on this blog, interspersed with crafty goodness of course, and I hope you’ll all follow along!

Some are a lot easier than others (I think I can get a pedicure before I buy a house...) but they're all things I've always wanted to do, or haven't done since becoming a grown-up. Without further ado, here is my list of 29 things to accomplish whilst still in my 20s (in no particular order):

#1) learn how to use a sewing machine (Sun Sept 1st 2013)

#2) sky-dive

#3) buy a house

#4) go to Scotland

#5) write a children’s book

#6) shoot a gun (Sat Dec 15th 2012)

#7) learn to drive a standard

#8) take a picture every day for 1 year (Thur Sept 5th 2013)

#9) make an etsy sale to a stranger

#10) learn French (Début)

#11) run a 5km race

#12) grow a vegetable garden

#13) get a manicure/pedicure (Sat May 26th 2012)

#14) walk on the glass floor at the CN tower (Wed Nov 14th 2012)

#15) sing karaoke

#16) ice-skate backwards

#17) hold a snake

#18) have my fortune told

#19) ride on the back of a motorcycle

#20) get a pink or blue streak in my hair

#21) drive a boat

#22) go to a Canadiens game

#23) make my own preserves

#24) go to the ballet (Sat Nov 10th 2012)

#25) try yoga

#26) floss every single day for 1 month

#27) learn to “turn the heel” in socks

#28) bake bread from scratch

#29) swim in a lake at night