Sunday, December 30, 2012

Oh, December!

December has really been a weird and wacky month. It's like 2012 saved up the best (and worst) for last.

Calgary finally got a chinook yesterday - a warm wind that changes the temperature drastically. It went from -23C to -1 in the course of a day. Snowy streets turned to slush *like that*.

It has been plain cold here for most of the month. I really wanted to check out the opening celebrations of the West LRT leg, but it was very cold that day! A ten minute walk to the bus stop froze my legs and I just couldn't go on. It was a real bummer, as that day was also $1.43 admission to the zoo! Brrr!

And speaking of brrr, the flame sensor wasn't working right in our furnace. The repairmen from Fagnan's Furnace noticed that the igniter had also bubbled and was on its way out. Thank goodness we got this fixed! I had to throw comforters over the bird cages while the furnace was off. I really like Fagnan's - we get them to clean our furnace and they're always great.

Then it looked like we weren't going to have a white Christmas - but Old Man Winter didn't forget. The trouble was that the temperature dropped again to a bone chilling -25-27C. With the extra wind, it felt even colder - just running to the super mailbox seemed like an ordeal.

I had lots of good times visiting with old co-workers, friends and family too. I would show you some of these good times, but my smartphone died on December 24th! I was so bummed - I suspect the battery died - and the solutions I found online just didn't work. Poor little smartphone! I had some serious anxiety without it.

"What's the temperature?" my husband asked as we waited for the car to warm up.

"I don't know, I don't have a smartphone!" I wailed.

"What time is it?" he asked another time.

"I don't know, I don't have a smartphone!" I wailed.

And so forth. It's hard to believe how much one can depend on these little devices. Fortunately the Bell store was open on Boxing Day and now I have a sweet Samsung Galaxy 3. It's so big and fast! And everything is at my fingertips again :-)

Sunday, December 9, 2012

The ACEO Challenge

This is my first time entering the ACEO Challenge! Usually I always miss these deadlines, but I squeaked in with a wintry caribou. Voting starts December 10th; please check out all the lovely ACEOs and vote for your favourite! The caribou is snipped from semi-gloss heavyweight paper and glued to a card that has been painted with watercolours and acrylic.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Lucky loot!

"Pick up tonight?" my husband texted me.

"Nope! No class tonight."

We celebrated the end of classes by going out to a fashionable Indian restaurant called Tamarind in the northwest. The dishes are really unique and delicious.

Time for another "That's a wrap!" post. Six more credits in the bucket for my BFA. And thank goodness! My house is such a mess. The cleanest place to be is the birdcage :D I thought without studio classes that the house would be neater, but nope. Since every place seemed equally messy, I started with the coffee table where loot from British scrapbook magazines that I get from Billy's News downtown. Let's take a look...



That's a lot of loot from the past four months! Sometimes I buy two or three magazines at a time, depending on how good they are.



These glitter tubes look fun! I think last year there was even glitter watercolours.



This is pretty cool - although it's hard to see - a snowflake embossing folder for a machine like a Cuttlebug or Big Shot!



Hands down, clear rubber stamps are the most popular kind of loot. I was surprised to get some Holly Hobbie stamps in my latest haul. I had a Holly Hobbie doll as a girl.



The best for last...how super cool is this? A mini scoring board? Just the thing to tuck in my kit instead of my big ScorPal!

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Spotted at ACAD...

Birds? Butterflies? Paper airplanes? Whatever they are, I spotted them on Monday at ACAD. You never know what will turn up sometimes. Sculpture can be simple to be cool!