...some randomness

Things I've been thinking about this week:

- I love art/prints that involve words.  I'm a big fan of words and an even bigger fan of a great, thought-provoking quote.  I've decided that a portion of one of the walls in my office will be filled with art with words.  I've already purchased a mini bus roll from Kal, as well as this great print from Elise (plus one other small one from her shop), and I just have to decide where I'm going to order a "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster from.  I can't wait for them to get here so they can be framed and get up on the wall above my computer.

- I'm going to see one of my best friends in a little under two weeks.  She lives in Edmonton, and I've never been.  So I'm making a list of the things I want to check out while I'm there.  This includes restaurants...they're a big deal to me now.

- I have a tentative plan to go to Minneapolis over May long weekend.  Again, I've never been there, but have wanted to go for years.  The plan is tentative right now because although I've booked the day off work to make it a four-day weekend, my travel buddy has not gotten the okay yet.  Fingers crossed on that one, because I want to see this and this.

- A vegetable steamer can change your life.  I've gone from eating total crap for dinner on lazy days, to spending five minutes chopping up vegetables and walking away for 20 minutes, only to come back to a hot, healthy, yummy meal.  Amazing.

- “Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”

 H. Jackson Brown, Jr

- I really want to buy a laptop.  I've been scoping them out for awhile now.  I don't know a ton about them though, so I need some advice before I buy.  Which means I need to find someone who knows about laptops.

- I'm loving zip.  About a week ago, I watched The Comeback, and the first two discs from season one of Big Love arrived yesterday.  I have the 3 disc deal, and I love that there's always something laying around to watch and that I never quite know which movies/tv show will be coming next from the massive list of options that I chose.

- I'm choosing to believe that when things feel like they are really hard, that means that eventually, they have to feel easier.  

- I am in awe of Tara Donovan and her art and the displays that she makes out of straws, pencils, toothpicks, and paper plates...and the fact that from a distance, you would never recognize the materials that make up the bigger piece.  There's some sort of lesson in there....

...somewhere I had never been before

Festival du Voyageur.

I'm not sure how I have lived in this city for 30 years and had never once gone to check out this amazing event.  That changed a few weeks ago though, on a Saturday night with a windchill of -39, when I bundled up like a kid going tobogganing and headed down to the festival site with a friend from work.

Oh my.

I was awestruck.  The ice sculptures.  The delicious crepes.  The music.  The history and the stories of Fort Gibraltar.  The dancing.  The friendly people.  The handmade jewelery.  The gooey sugar on a stick.  The cold temperature didn't matter for a second....okay, well maybe by hour three it got a little cold.  But the tents were warm and the dancing brought feeling back to numb toes.  And the sugar high.......well, that just fueled the dancing.

I had no idea how to roll this maple syrup/sugar/something else that I don't even know - concoction onto this popsicle stick, but the guy running the stand was very helpful, showing us how to test it to see if it was ready and then making sure we rolled up something that would actually stay on the stick.  It would have been even more helpful to know that it would melt very quickly - and make the stickiest mess ever - but I guess learning that is part of the experience.

Not surprisingly, we spent quite a bit of time in the "Sugar Shack" tent, and we managed to catch most of the set for Oh My Darling, a fantastic local female group.  They had a lot of fans there that night, and they made a couple of new ones since we both ended up buying their cd.

Needless to say, I'm going back next year.