Exploring the Land of the Long White Cloud

Back in June, a workmate's son turned two years old. Of course, like kids that age, he loves Thomas the Tank Engine. Because my cake-making skills are starting to be public knowledge to friends, my workmate asked if I would make the birthday cake. So here it is! It's always fun to have a new project to develop my skills with! And as much as I'd love to eat cake every week - boy the time and energy to practice without an excuse other than practice are hard to come by. There were a few things that I would have wanted to do better (like make the tunnel tall enough for the train!) but oh well, next time.

We've been keeping warm this winter thanks to another talented knitter in the family. My sister sent us these toques and scarf and we've been rocking them for weeks now. It's so lovely to be spoiled with handmade gifts! Especially ones that I have many, many hours of practice to even attempt to try (my knitting skills have amounted to two simple dish cloths thus far). So thanks again for the awesome gift and nice work on them!!

Just another lovely winter morning dog walk.

 Dustin is the first one home most days so he gets the joy of finding scenes like this... Porter decided he wanted to see what was inside of a throw pillow. And look how much his tail is wagging to say how much he enjoyed it. It coincided with the day that Lena sent a shirt for him to wear that fittingly says "Boss" on it. Without catching him in the act, there's not much discipline we can enforce so we just clean up and move on. After sewing the pillow back up, we were silly enough to put it back in the lounge (in its absence there were 3 others that he hadn't touched so we weren't entirely dumb to think he would leave it alone). This is what we found the day after its return: After removing it, another few days later another cushion fell victim to Porter's vicious teeth. So, that was it, he's lost his cushion privileges all together. It's a good thing we aren't very attached to the furniture! Hopefully he grows out of it befor...

In a week I will finish my current job. I gave my notice a few weeks ago after too many months of being unhappy with it. I realized that life is too short to put up with a job that drains your confidence and doesn't allow you to progress! It's always a scary move, leaving something secure and reliable for something else (or the unknown in this case!) but ultimately, I know I'm resilient and have always managed to find work in all of our different moves and choices. It helped that a friend found herself in a similar scenario and also decided to make a move. A little inspiration to listen to my gut and trust my skills. It's been a couple years and the role has certainly been a rollercoaster over that time. I'll sure miss the team but do hope that they end up with someone who has a new reserve of energy to get things sorted. So, I've been on the job search for a few months now, there's only been a handful that I've felt could be fulfilling at this momen...

Sure we're a little biased, but Porter is pretty much training to be a superdog. One day we'll be able to tour the world showing off his skills. He can catch treats and his squash ball and we're working on a tennis ball!

On the waterfront of our little city is this big red wand. It's a piece of kinetic art by artist Len Lye. I don't recall what it's made of but it's about 45m tall. Most days it's leaning slightly one way or another but a couple weeks ago we had a crazy bit of weather come through and I met a friend for a lunchtime walk and we ended up on the foreshore walkway. The wind wand was wanding all over the place! Neither of us had seen it bounce all around like this before - maybe because in weather like that we usually stay cozy inside! So since it was such a spectacle, I decided to record a little video. Especially because it seemed like it might just snap off and fly away and I would have had to document that if it happened.

We have quite a feast to celebrate Canada day!!!