Don't Feed the Bad Wolf

I love this story so much, I needed to re-post.

An elderly Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life… He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me, it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf is evil—he is fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, competition, superiority, and ego. The other is good—he is joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.” They thought about it for a minute, and then one child asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win, Grandfather?” The Elder simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Pumped Up Kicks

This song makes me yearn for warm weather. And it is so catchy, especially the whistling bit. Which is ironic given the meaning behind the song...

Reason number #230

Rowan keeps me young. I have always been a strong advocate of humour and silliness and just letting kids be kids. I figure they'll have more than enough time to be adults real soon. Kids say what they mean and they call it like they see it. They live in the moment. They are curious. They question things. They push boundaries. They let their imaginations run wild. They do cartwheels. Their eyes twinkle. They giggle.

It is my opinion that the lucky ones in life never lose sight in the importance of all these things. But most do. I do. Fortunately, I have a three year old that acts as my trigger. He constantly reminds me of the benefits of living a simple life. At times, he can be the best kind of therapy. One that doesn't cost 250 dollars a pop. Amazing, isn't it? A three year old has a better pulse on the keys to happiness then I do. Maybe I should rephrase. Rowan has the key and opens the door. I have the key, but I choose not to open the door. Because of fear. Rowan has no fear.

But it all makes so much sense. Somehow as you progress through life many things get rationalized and explained away. And we become so good at justifying it to ourselves. We have created our own box. We have boxed ourselves in to a place where it is not OK to say what we mean or talk about how we feel for fear of how other people will perceive us. We look forward to the tomorrows. We think how much happier we will be on a vacation next month, or how happy we will be when we find a better job next year...Constantly waiting. In limbo.

It's been a rough week. Rough weeks always lead me to re-thinking, re-evaluating and revising the choices I have made. How to be happy. How to be free. Surprisingly enough, it is in my roughest hours that I just take a seat beside my child, and watch. I go along for the ride. I watch his eyes twinkle. I watch him giggle. I watch him live in the moment. And this makes me content. It comforts me. It awakens a desire for change.

So we built a snowman...

You are in desperate need of Chanel

I know the lines in this movie by heart. Meryl Streep is absolutely amazing. And the clothes. I die.

Stanley Tucci is hilarious. "You do know that cellulite is one of the main ingredients in corn chowder?"

King of Limbs

Radiohead's new album dropped on Friday. I like what I am hearing thus far. Reminds me of the "Kid A" days. Thom Yorke is such a creative genius and seeing him getting his groove on in the Lotus Flower video makes me very, very happy. New album equals new tour dates. I wouldn't miss it for the world. I'll be waiting for you in Toronto, Thom!

The digital copy is available for download here. They also have what they are calling a "Newspaper" album, which includes the album on vinyl, and some other cool items like artwork. You have to check out this video. Genius.

Scrapbooking Schtuff - Take Five

I decided that I needed to take a photo and do a layout that contained the details of this post. It is just something that I want to remember. And if it doesn't get written down, I'm likely to forget it ever happened. I forget things that I did last week....

The last three layouts that I have done used that KI Sew Cute Calendar paper. Love.it.to.death. And that was my last piece of my favourite Studio Calico paper to date, called Woods. They'll be coming out with the same pattern in a different colour scheme with their Countryside release. The name of the paper is called Grove and I have included a picture below.




Sometimes I feel like i want to tell a story using words, as I did with the layout above. Sometimes I don't feel that words are necessary to convey the message of a layout. And this would the latter.



Making Snow Angels documents Rowan and me during our first outing in the snow. He was the cutest. He could not get up in that snowsuit after finishing his snow angel.


In other news, the folks are coming to install my new bathroom shelves today, which means that after two years my dream bathroom is finally here. I was over 8 months pregnant when we moved into our house, in which there were a ton of renovations going on....I gave birth before all the work was done, and we just decided to wait on a few things until Rowan was a little bigger, so we could live in our house in peace. Well the time has come, and I am excited to show pictures. I have been holding on to these vintage letters from Timeless Treasures for a few years now, and they have finally made it to their rightful home on the wall.

Odd behaviour

I needed to put pencil to paper, or in this case keyboard to computer screen, concerning a very odd habit Rowan has picked up lately. When I think back to the time that James and I saw it first, it makes me laugh. Because we literally stood there speechless watching Rowan. Without saying a word, we came to the same conclusion. That of "freak, freak , freak". I think I recall circus music playing in my head.

So hear it is. Rowan likes to lick his pillow. But apparently the pillow licker has rules that must not be broken. And they are that he will only lick the pillow when it is covered by a a particular blue pillow sheet and he will only lick the pillow before he goes to bed. I have tried to entice him with other pillows. Pillows with Star Wars characters on them, soft fluffy fleece pillows, I even tried throwing on the nice Italian pillow sheets (that would have won me over in a New York minute)but no dice. He wants the blue one. And he won't go to sleep until he has the blue one....When we put him to bed he puts his head on the side of the pillow and sticks his tongue out and in, out and in, until he makes a big drool spot...But it gets worse....Then he will say things like, mommy come look at my computer and point at the big puddle of drool?!!! What-is-up-with-that?!I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. But I choose laughing.

Maybe all children exhibit a wide variety of odd behaviour and I'll look back and pish posh this blog post. And if that is not the case then please just lie to me. James and I are trying to decide on a course of action. Do we take that blue pillow away and deal with the consequences of Rowan being a holy terror, or do we ride it out. Because in the grand scheme of things, it is not that big a deal. That is, until he starts obsessively licking his pillow at sleepovers when he's twelve. Do you see how that could be a problem? He gets this "quirkiness" from my side of the family....He comes by it naturally; we're all a little bit of crazy. We just have to work on Rowan turning the crazy down a notch in public.

This segways into my next topic of conversation, which is the craziness that always ensues at the monthly Studio Calico pre-sale. These kits are hot, hot, hot I tell you. I scored Lollipop and Pulled Taffy. Good enough to eat.