Lucky Girl

look what I got in the mail today from an Edible swap I hosted on Swapbot!



Popcorn balls with nuts and candy in them (Jr and I have both had one), a mini loaf of banana bread (I had a bite, it's fantastic!), chocolate mint altoids (you know I am going to use the tin to make something else after), packaged teas, a mix of a favourite tea blend I can't wait to try, a tea infuser AND fabric. Ooh de lolly!

I went to Coney Island Candy to select my goodies for my partner and I'll post what I got there once it's received, but I had a lot of fun picking it all out.

Super Mom

My friend K has started a new site where she is posting easy kid crafts, recipes, reviews of children's books and articles. Appropriately called The Super Mom: Redefining the term Super Mom. And because I am a smartass I use her new title to send her personal advice requests:

Dear Super Mom,

how do I get poop stains out of towels?

Blackbird

You can read why she chose the term Super Mom here.

Painting with Gelatin

Jr really liked this activity- mix a bit of flavoured gelatin (Jello or any brand) with water to make chunky, smelly paint. You can add a lot of water to make a thin watercolour type paint or add a little to have a thicker paint. The paintings smell when they are dry and you can even scratch them to have your own scratch and sniff painting.

Best Books I've Recently Read

I haven't been posting what I've been reading, as all of my reading can now be viewed over at Good Reads, but I've recently read a few novels that deserve further attention and recommendation. Here are the best books I've recently read- all are highly recommended.

Flight by Sherman Alexie




From Sherman Alexie's site:

Sherman Alexie’s first novel in ten years is the hilarious and tragic portrait of an orphaned Indian boy who travels back and forth through time in a violent search for his true identity.

Sherman Alexie is one of our most gifted and accomplished storytellers and a treasured writer of huge national stature. His first novel since Indian Killer is a powerful, fast, and timely story of a troubled foster teenager—a boy who is not a “legal” Indian because he was never claimed by his father—who learns the true meaning of terror.

The journey for this young hero begins as he’s about to commit a massive act of violence. At the moment of decision, he finds himself shot back through time and resurfaced in the body of an FBI agent during the civil rights era. Here he will be forced to see just why “Hell is Red River, Idaho, in the 1970s.” Red River is only the first stop in a shocking sojourn through moments of violence in American history. He will continue traveling back to inhabit the body of an Indian child during the battle at Little Bighorn and then ride with an Indian tracker in the nineteenth century before materializing as an airline pilot jetting through the skies today. During these frantic trips through time, his refrain grows: “Who’s to judge?” and “I don’t understand humans.” When finally, blessedly, our young warrior comes to rest again in his own contemporary body, he is mightily transformed by all he’s seen.

This is Sherman Alexie at his most brilliant—making us laugh while he’s breaking our hearts. Time Out has said that “Alexie, like his characters, is on a modern-day vision quest,” and this has never been clearer than in Flight, where he seeks nothing less than an understanding of why human beings hate. Simultaneously wrenching and deeply humorous, wholly contemporary yet steeped in American history, Flight is irrepressible, fearless, and groundbreaking Alexie.

Kindred by Octavia E Butler



summary from enotes:

On her twenty-sixth birthday, Dana, the protagonist of Kindred, is overcome by nausea and finds herself on the bank of a river. When she sees a young boy drowning in the river, she jumps in and saves him. She is shocked when the boy's father points a gun at her head; it is clear that he is suspicious of Dana, a young black woman. Suddenly, she finds herself back in her living room. Although she was by the river for minutes, she has been away from home for only a few seconds.

Traumatized by the event, she calms down and begins to recover her wits. Suddenly she finds herself next to the same boy, named Rufus, in a burning bedroom. As she saves him again, Dana realizes that Rufus is calling her when his life is in danger. She discovers that the year is 1815, and although he is a white, Southern slave-owner, he is the future father of the first woman listed in her family records—Hagar Weylin. The woman listed as Hagar's mother, Alice Greenwood, is a free black child and Rufus' friend. Dana realizes that she has just saved the life of her ancestor.


The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

from an amazon review:

At the beginning of the novel Meena is in London, an old woman who has lived a tumultuous life. At the urging of her abolitionist sponsors, she is asked to pen her story which would be used as evidence depicting the cruelty and inhumanity of the slave trade. Meena, an intelligent, educated woman, authors her autobiography via vivid flashbacks through time. She writes, "Let me begin with a caveat to any and all who find these pages. Do not trust large bodies of water, and do not cross them. If you, dear reader, have an African hue and find yourself led toward water with vanishing shores, seize your freedom by any means necessary." She continues and details her life as a young child in an African village, her capture and Middle Passage crossing, enslavement while in America, relocation to Nova Scotia, return to Africa (Freetown, Sierra Leone), and partnering with abolitionists in England.

You can read the first 50 pages of The Book of Negroes below:

Browse Inside this book Get this for your site

Best Children's Books



Oh, how we love Melanie Watt! Her Scaredy Squirrel series is clever and humourous, with wonderful illustrations. Scaredy worries about everything and makes several escape/emergency plans and never forgets that if all else fails, he can play dead. In each book Scaredy ends up having more fun than he ever imagined and even relaxing a little.


Jr loved them so much he requested a Scaredy picture for his latest t-shirt and searched through all of his Scaredy books until he selected just what image he wanted- Scaredy being frightened by a "killer" (albeit very friendly looking) bee.



The other book by Melanie Watt we have read was Augustine. Sweet Augustine is moving from the South Pole to the North Pole and is scared. She finds refuge in and makes friends through her artwork. Augustine's artwork also introduces children to a number of famous artworks. Her story is much quieter than Scaredy but Jr also became very attached to this little penguin.



Scaredy and Augustine spreads from kids can press.

Weeds Season 5

is back on Monday, June 8th



this promo is brought to you by Wolverine, the best movie I have ever seen. Much better than all those indie flicks about feelings.

Fabric LOVE at The Fabric Worm

I want the entire stock over at The Fabric Worm.

Amy Schimler's Forest Friends



Bot Camp by Michael Miller



Lecien My Folklore Spice



Some of the stacks are just begging to be made into quilts. Sigh.. if I didn't already have quilts coming out of my ears!



More owls, these ones by Alexander Henry.



Heather Ross' Mendocino. So pretty..



A selection of blues with a rocket theme.



I am having a hard time deciding what to get! Jr also digs the Bot Camp so we'll start there and see what else I can't resist.

Chapter 3

In which our heroine discovers it is a lot harder to pull a 42 lb preschooler in a bike trailer than it is to haul one's self on a bicycle.

oof.

Check out this cool slideshow on a nearly car-free neighbourhood in Germany. I love the concept. Car-free isn't that radical or new, but I like how for this one there is access to cars if you walk to the garage and also a car-sharing program, so if you did want to go on a holiday or visit family you still have access to a vehicle. If there was a community like this in our city, I would be very interested. I wonder what the winters in Germany are like though, the 6 months of winter here make car-free more difficult, though of course it can be done.

Happy Mother's Day

I Love

Riding my bike. DH and DS had my bike fixed up for me as a "surprise" from Jr and I have been getting so much use out of it. I know I can file this one under Duh, but a bike is so much speedier than walking! I had forgotten how much. I love that it's a kind of transport that is so relatively inexpensive (therefore very accessible), healthy for your body, good for the environment, relaxing and fun. I am in love with my bike. I'm considering a trail-a-bike for Jr. It's expensive, but we'd save lots of it back from not paying as much gas and maintenance on the car by driving less and I can probably resell it when he's biking independently.

I also love my new sandals from MEC. Comfortable and sturdy enough for my long jaunts.

Cocoa Camino's Chili & Spice Hot Chocolate. Seriously spicy. Yum.



Old cemeteries. I love the history and seeing the different kinds of artwork. I once found an old tombstone in Scotland with an hourglass, skull and scarab on it from the 17th century. I am going to drop in on some of the local tours here this summer.



Photo by flickr user corriegirl

Edmonton Cemetery Tour $5/person
Enjoy a guided tour of Edmonton’s first and
oldest cemetery, located on 118th Street
and 107th Avenue. This site contains the
City’s oldest and most architecturally diverse
monuments, and many of the City’s original
settlers and founders are buried here. Dress
for the weather, and wear comfortable walking
shoes. Insect repellent is recommended. Pre-
register or drop in.

324049 July 8 (WED) 7 – 8:30 pm
324050 July 22 (WED) 7 – 8:30 pm
324051 July 29 (WED) 7 – 8:30 pm
324052 Aug 5 (WED) 7 – 8:30 pm
324053 Aug 19 (WED) 7 – 8:30 pm

Beechmount Cemetery $5/person
Established in 1914, Beechmount Cemetery
was the first cemetery started by the City of
Edmonton rather than by a private company.
With its tree-lined roadways, impressive salute
to veterans and many monuments representing
a variety of languages and religious
backgrounds, this cemetery provides a strong
sense of Edmonton’s multicultural community.
Located at 12420-104 Street. Dress for the
weather, wear comfortable walking shoes, and
bring insect repellent.
324054 July 14 (TUE) 7 – 8:30 pm
324055 Aug 11 (TUE) 7 – 8:30 pm

Mt. Pleasant Cemetery
$5/person
Enjoy a tour of this hill-top graveyard. Offering
a commanding view of the southside and
downtown, Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, located at
5420-106 Street, contains many prominent
members of the town of Strathcona and
helps tell the story of this turn-of-the-century
boomtown. Dress for the weather, and wear
comfortable walking shoes. Insect repellent is
recommended. Pre-register or drop in.
324056 July 16 (THU) 7 – 8:30 pm
324057 July 30 (THU) 7 – 8:30 pm
324058 Aug 13 (THU) 7 – 8:30 pm
324059 Aug 20 (THU) 7 – 8:30 pm

I love that it's finally Spring. I've been outside so much, walking and riding my bike. This morning we were at John Janzen and it was nice to explore the trails and pond without all the snow. We also saw across the river valley trail that Fort Edmonton is getting ready for the season. We watched workers move a streetcar from a flatbed truck onto the streetcar tracks with a crane and Jr was excited to see the Fort's train station.

River Valley, May 2009

Walking past the Muttart, it should be open again in June.



Dirt path near Cloverdale. Very pretty trail but too close to the riverbank in some areas for kids.



The river not looking as yucky as it usually does.



Up by Forest Heights- it was weird to look over the river and see the Muttart in the distance, knowing I had just walked by there in what seemed like not too long ago.