Yay, you can really feel Autumn in the air these days. I've always loved Fall, despite the craziness of "Back to School" and even, in some ways, because of it. As a Autumn child, with a birthday in October, I'm sure that's one of the reasons I was conditioned from early years to look forward to this time of year, too, but the fondness with Fall has stuck with me through time.

The gorgeous scenery and the colourful leaves is one of the things I like best about Autumn. It's just a great time of year to be an amateur photographer. I always love poring over the "leaf tours" that show up in the newspaper at this time of year, showing the best driving routes for seeing Autumn leaves. John laughs at me for looking forward to "leaf trips", but that's something I can remember doing right from childhood, too.

And the weather is cool (not cold) and crisp, which I really appreciate, too.

For a teacher, Autumn is always a time for a fresh start. New students, new parents, new grade (sometimes) and the best time to try new strategies and routines in the classroom. It's really, really busy, but there's a sense of freshness to it all, too.

Thanksgiving is in early October and is a great time for a long weekend, a visit home and a chance to check out some of those Autumn leaves. And this year we'll also celebrate my parents' 50th Anniversary on that weekend, too!

Many filkcons I've attended happened in the Fall. OVFF. FilkContinental. ConChord. And at this time of year I have wonderful memories of them all.

QUESTION:

What are your favorite things about Autumn?

There was a bug on my wall last night that I swear was the size of a Buick. At least in my hyper-sensitive, ten o'clock at night, looking at the thing in the shadows, on the fourth night alone in the house 'cause John is away on a business trip (which he gets back from this morning- yay) perspective that's how big it was. In all honesty I never got close enough to really tell and I didn't want to turn the lights on full to see it more clearly or startle it, but it was bigger than my thumb and undulating with some kind of legs and that was more than enough to freak me out. So I cringed under it and up the stairs and stayed there the rest of the night. Of course, when I steeled myself to go downstairs this morning to get ready to head to work it was nowhere to be seen, which, of course, in its own way is worse.

Brrr, I really, really don't like large bugs. Deb laughs at me. She says I'd survive at a northern cottage about 25 minutes. Recalling some of the photos she's posted in the past I don't doubt her.

QUESTION- Are you afraid of bugs? Are there some you're more afraid of then others? How do you deal with them when you find them in your house? Battle them yourself? Get someone else to do it? Send your cat in to finish off the critter? Do you release them back into the great outdoors or send them to oblivion?

I'm not sure if this post is going to make me feel better or worse about the multi-legged guy hidin' in my house... :)

Well, last time I wrote I talked about the new Spring "fauna" in our yard (raccoons and squirrels), so today I'm going to talk about the new Spring "flora".

We found and bought our townhouse in November and moved in in January, so I knew it would be an adventure when Spring arrived and the snow melted to see what, if anything, would spring up in my gardens. I want to observe what grows in the next few weeks before making any plans for the gardening I'm going to do for this year.

I'm starting to wander through some gardening centres, just for ideas at this point, and when I'm on my exercise walks I've been taking close looks at people's gardens. I'm very jealous of the lovely Spring crocuses, tulips, daffodils, etc. that I see, as I don't seem to have anything like that cropping up in my mystery gardens. I will take care of that this year, though. I gather to have early Spring flowers you have to plant the bulbs in October, so I will do that next October.

Nothing at all seems to be growing in my front door garden patch as of now. There's a vine going up the side of the brick wall behind it that is covered with new leaves, so that's good (though I have no idea what it is- it might be easier to identify once the leaves are full-sprung). The front door garden is pretty much completely in the shade and two people have recommended to me now that impatiens (sp?) grow well in that environment. I saw some gorgeous deep fuchia impatiens in the "Home Depot" garden centre, so that's an idea. Anyone know of other flowers that grow well in mostly shaded environments? I'm also best suited to plants that are practically idiot-proof- at least 'til I know my gardens better!

There -are- plants starting to spring up in my backyard...

( Herbs, vines and weird shrivelled white things. Photos beyond.Collapse )

John got back last night from his first trip to New York City. He was sent there by one of the companies he works for to record a conference in Times Square. So you can imagine how the two of us felt when we woke up to headlines this morning about an explosion in Times Square and the subways being shut down, etc.. I'm glad to read no one was hurt, but I'm also very glad John's home and not down in the middle of that.

Goodness knows John had enough to deal with yesterday. Toronto got socked by a major snow storm and it threw the airports into chaos. He was supposed to be on a 2:30pm flight from New York City and didn't end up getting on a flight to Toronto until 9:30pm. I know frequent flyers learn to deal with this kind of stuff, but as someone who doesn't fly much John wasn't impressed with having to sit in the New York City airport from noon to 9:30.

It was fun to hear John talk about his first impressions of New York City, though. He made me laugh. He said he found the whole experience rather surreal and it often felt like he was on a movie set :). He said he was surprised to see that the hustle bustle of Times Square, the language and reactions of New Yorkers, -was- much like he had seen it in the movies all his life. He commented the city was like a walking cliche. When I commented that native New Yorkers might not like that observation very much he glibly said, "Then they shouldn't act so much like... New Yorkers." :) Being that I've never been to New York City I really don't have any comment on such observations. But I'm betting a lot of you do :).

QUESTION: Have you ever lived in New York City? Do you find New Yorkers distinctive from anywhere else in the States? What do you think of how movies portray New Yorkers? Have you ever visited New York City? What was your first impression of the city?

I really, really want to get my chance to visit New York City someday, but for now John has added his magnets of New York City and Times Sqaure to our fridge along with my magnets of London, Frankfurt, Hamburg, San Francisco, etc..

For the last week or two I've been following a series of drabbles rabidsamfan has been writing in her journal based on the Sherlock Holmes books. RSF writes beautiful and thought-provoking scenes and my fingers have been itching to pick up my Sherlock Holmes paperbacks again and fall back into that world. It's kind of a crazy week right now, but I found fifteen minutes last night to pull "A Study In Scarlet" off the shelf and it was comforting and fun to see how quickly I got lost in old London again. Looking forward to March Break and the finishing up of report cards so I can read without guilt :).

I don't tend to read a lot of mystery novels, it's not a natural genre for me to pick up. As in so many things in my life, my love of Sherlock Holmes started with "Star Trek" :). I had fallen hard for "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" and discovered director Nicholas Meyer had also written a Sherlock Holmes novel called "The Seven-Percent Solution". I had never read any Sherlock Holmes, but I borrowed the book from the university library, enjoyed it a lot, and became instantly intrigued with the character of Holmes. It was time to dive full-force into the canon text. Over the next several weeks I read every original Holmes story I could find and fell in love.

When I travelled to London for the first time in 2000 to be the guest of honour with Urban Tapestry at the British filkcon I knew one of the places I had to go was 221B Baker Street in London. Had to go there- it had to be. My English friends were too blase to care to go to Baker Street, so I headed out there with fellow Canadian filker Dave Clement. I had never travelled on the Tube before and was pretty scared we'd get lost, but the Baker Street tube stop is pretty distinctive. All the tiles had profiles of Sherlock Holmes on them, there was a huge Holmes statue right outside the station and there was tour guide dressed like Holmes just waiting to give directions to wide-eyed Doyle tourists like us :). (see photos beyond the cut)

We headed straight to 221B Baker Street, which is now a London bank. The corner of the bank is all glass, though, and has a Victorian display in the window. Further down Baker Street you find the Sherlock Holmes Museum with its recreations of Holmes' and Watson's study and scenes from the assorted stories. And then we headed to the gift shop where I bought a t-shirt, which is still one of my favorites to this day, plus some bookmarks, and Dave bought a mystery game. A truly excellent day!

QUESTION: Are you a fan of the original Sherlock Holmes stories? When did you first read them? What is your favorite cinema/TV version of the Sherlock Holmes stories? Do you have a favorite book or movie or fanfic not by Doyle, but inspired by the Sherlock Holmes?

Yay, I'm so looking forward to reading the series again.

( Photos of my adventure with Dave Clement on Baker Street.Collapse )

The Welcome Wagon came to our house yesterday and talked to John since I was off at school. Now, I've heard of "welcome wagons" before, but never really knew if they existed or if they existed only in certain places, though this is the first time we've been welcomed by one. Of course, this is our first owned house.

The woman representing the Richmond Hill "welcome wagon" worked for Century 21 real estate and, whoa, they certainly had a very organized package for people they were welcoming to the community. John told me she introduced herself and pretty much invited herself in, taking off her shoes and continuing to talk as John stood rather non-plussed in the hallway and wished I was there :). So he invited her in to sit down in the living room and she went through a ton of stuff she was leaving to orient us to our new community. She, of course, didn't know until late in the conversation that we were essentially moved about a dozen blocks from our last home.

The package included welcoming letters from the mayor and our local Member of Provincial Parliament. There were tons of pens, magnets, writing pads, shopping lists, keychains, car first-aid kits from businesses in the area. Lots of gift certificates, too- $30 at a local restarant, $50 at a local spa, six free pastries from a local bakery, car tune-ups and oil from a local mechanic, a free home make-over from a Mary Kay representative, a free classified ad in the local newspaper, transportation maps, etc..

I didn't realize Welcome Wagons had become such commercial and effective little operations! I still think of pioneer ladies with a cherry pie saying hello to a new neighbour at the door.

QUESTION:

Do you have a "Welcome Wagon" where you live, whether formally or casually? Has a Welcome Wagon ever come to greet you when you've moved into a new house?

Used my new gas stove for the first time today to boil pasta (I'd been using the microwave and slow cooker in the new kitchen up to this point). It kinda freaked me out. You see, I've never had a gas stove before- all the rental places we've been in have always had electric stoves. I'm decidedly nervous at this point about the gas flames popping with a "poof" into existence and shooting out around the bottom of the pots that I'm standing by and stirring from. It's making me kind of skittish, though I'm sure I'll get used to it quickly. As John said tonight no doubt modern-day gas stoves have plenty of safety precautions built in.

Did a bit of reading about gas stoves tonight on-line and I gather they are actually easier on energy consumption than electric stoves. I also gather gas stoves are preferred by top chefs because you have more control over how much heat is going under each dish. I also get the impression that gas stoves, in general, are more expensive than electric stoves, but pay the difference in the long run because of the reduction in energy use.

So, a question:

Is your current stove electric or gas? Have you had a gas stove before? Do you have a preference? Those of you used to a gas stove, any safety/cooking/household tips you care to pass on?

Starting to spend more time organizing the house now than moving from the apartment. During the school week I'm just not up to the back and forth of doing the last few loads (though John still goes to the apartment every day), but the last of our stuff should be in the house by the weekend.

Yesterday I got the main bathroom organized and that was huge. We installed some roll-out shelves under the sink which is much better than the cluttered shelf I used to keep all the bathroom stuff on in my old linen cupboard. Finally put up a shower curtain and settled on a colour for towels/bathmats, etc.. The walls are gold, but there is a crimson stripe in the white tile in the shower, so I thought we'd go with crimson accessories for now. We've got green accessories for the bathroom in the basement and I haven't decided on colours for the main floor bathroom yet.

John finished building the second dresser, so my next task is to organize the clothing. I've been so used to just having all of my t-shirts, sweatshirts, track pants, etc. on an open shelving unit that it will be really nice to have enough storage space to actually put all the clothing out of sight on closet shelves and in dresser drawers.

QUESTION:

Still have to come up with some system of organization for my jewelry- necklaces, earrings, pins, bracelets, etc.. The necklaces especially seem to end up in a tangled pile. Fellow jewelry lovers, sing out to me. How do you organize your jewelry?

John's bringing my crockpot over from the apartment today and I'm going to make my first slow cooker meal in the new house :). I'm making couscous and sausage soup.

Frighteningly, we also think it's about time to make another trip to "Solutions"...

I was putting up 2008 calendars in the new house last night.

I bought one calendar at Barnes and Noble in Rochester last September. It features gorgeous photos of American State Parks. Love it and I want it to inspire me to go and hike in all those State Parks someday. It'll go in my office.

The second calendar I bought at Indigos bookstore for half-price last week. It's a calendar about "Tea". It has scenes of different types of tea in different cultures and lots of nice photos of assorted loose teas. Nifty. It's going up in my kitchen.

Just hung up a 2008 calendar poster in my classroom yesterday featuring a picture of hockey player Sidney Crosby. I got it free at Tim Hortons over the holidays. The boys in class especially love it.

What's on your 2008 calendars?

Well, I teach in a Catholic school board, so it's not too surprising that a letter like this would eventually go home with the students, especially since at least one Catholic school board in Southern Ontario has already banned the "Golden Compass" books recently. I'm pleased with how my school board has responded.

( Letter beyond and a QUESTION.Collapse )