Change of Scenery

Well I've decided to change my soapbox from a blog to a tumblr, so you can find me and what I'm up to by clicking here!

I am going to try my best to post pictures while Greg and I are in Europe on Tumblr (free wi-fi permitting), so if you are interested in keeping an eye on our adventures be sure to check in on it from time to time.

Taking A Break

You might have noticed an extended lull in my blog posting, things have been busy and I just haven't been keen on posting things online.

I am going to take a little break and see if there is another, more suitable platform for what I'd like to share.

I will keep you posted.

On the East River

On a stroll along the East River yesterday I spotted a cormorant hanging out on the dock. Take a close look:

Getting to Gardening

Hopefully the last of the frost warnings will let us keep all of these growing plants outside.

I made a little shelf to keep some herbs on:

Guiding Fun!

Props for tomorrow's Spark and Brownie Advancement Ceremony. I love an excuse to craft!

Free Compost Week

I picked up 2 free bags of compost this morning from Pictou County Solid Waste. Thank you waste management, they will do nicely in our budding veggie garden.

Camping Cooking

This weekend I attended a training camp for Guide Leaders. I learned lots and lots of useful things about taking a group of kids camping. One of my favorite things was learning about all of the ways you can cook food using coals, tin foil and cans. It's impressive!

I took pictures of a few methods, but there were certainly others:

Coals + dutch oven = baked bread

Egg carton stoves - we cooked tin foil wrapped desserts over these. I had chocolate stuffed bananas!

And a coffee can stove; perfect I've been told for pancakes, eggs, bacon and in this case, quesadillas!

A turkey was also cooked using a trash can and coals and a ham was cooked in a dutch oven using coals. We baked three cakes using 'box stoves' and made a giant pot of soup using coals.

I've learned a ton!

Spring Clean Up: Garden Edition

I spent some time on the weekend to clean up the garden and pull some weeds. It's looking pretty orderly now:

I still have a hard time determining a weed from a plant that should be in the garden, so I'm working on it and will learn as they come up!

Frisbee Fun!

Spent some time on the weekend learning the ins and outs of coaching ultimate frisbee - it was great (and now my quads are killing me in the best way!)

Our lunch was catered by The Stone Soup Cafe and there was a bit of soup left at the end of the day. So of course this happened:

Gallery Opening in New Glasgow

Last weekend Greg and I checked out an art gallery opening at a great space in New Glasgow, The Celtic Circle:

It's a beautiful spot, I'm sure I've blogged about it before. It was previously a church now it's a multi-purpose spot:

Conference Conference!

The last couple of days I spent some time in Bridgewater chaperoning a great group of grade 10 students at an International Baccalaureate (IB) Conference. It was one of the most organized conferences I've ever attended and it was put on by grade 11 students - I was impressed!

The conference was held at Park View Education Centre, which as far as I can tell is an amazing school. Everywhere you go there is student art work hanging from or directly painted on the wall (or ceiling). Even the chemistry lab is fully decked out in creativity.

 A little fuzzy, but this classroom is attempting to recreate the periodic table on the ceiling with each ceiling tile dedicated to an element - AMAZING, RIGHT?!

There were lots of other great things in this school, including a very inviting library!

Oh, and here is a picture of me, teaching physics courtesy of a talented student:

Om Nom Noms

Greg whipped up this delicious pizza earlier in the week. It was too good not to share: caramelized onions, sun dried tomatoes, goat cheese feta and artichoke hearts. Yummy!

Bluenose 2013

I've giving it a go once again, for this year's Bluenose Marathon I'm going to try my hand one more time at the half marathon. The run is only in 35 more days - eek!

I've recently bought a new pair of kicks and I'm doing my best to break them in, time will only tell if they and my feet will be a good duo for the race.

In the meantime I'll share a picture, they are very, very light. In the middle between a traditional running shoe and a minimal shoe:

Musical Times

Last weekend I was in a musical, Sweet Charity, and it was my first musical experience.

I was a chorus member and I had a wonderful time, in addition to being in the background in a few scenes I had a couple of lines as a "young man" and a panhandler. I didn't seem to get a snap of my panhandler get-up, it was in the vein of old timey Salvation Army (or so I'm told).

It really looked like a played a crazy young man judging by the picture on the left, and yes, that is a glue on mustache that I'm sporting. Amazing, I know. I also played a hippy:

The whole experience was great, from start to finish and I met a lot of great people that I hope I will get the chance to work with again next year!

Moncton Airport Art

A few weeks ago I was in the Moncton Airport and was greeted by this awesome piece of art. I believe it was called "The Cleaner" and it has Mi'kmaq roots.

Joel Plaskett

Last night the Joel Plaskett Emergency played a lovely (as per usual) set at the Olympic Hall. We were pretty far back in the crowd but it sounded great - the view was less than awesome but that didn't stop the amount of singing along and dancing that I did.

Judging by this picture it really doesn't look like anyone is on stage, but I promise there were!

Musical Fun!

I'm participating in the musical Sweet Charity, but on by the Pictou Rotary Club. To my surprise and delight a song from the musical was featured in the latest episode of Bunheads (yes, another of my tv guilty pleasures).



If our version there might not be AS much leg, but this catchy tune is featured not once, but TWICE!

Bunny Tracks

I spied bunny tracks on a hike a few weeks ago, this is apparently a well traveled path:

Birthday!

It must have slipped my mind to actually post these pictures, I had them all ready the day after we celebrated Erika's birthday...but I must have been preoccupied.

A few weekend ago we surprised a friend on her birthday, it turns out however that those in attendance were not so skilled at throwing surprise parties. So it was a bit of an awkward SURPRISE initially, but it all worked out. There were party hats and noise makers involved, so of course it worked out!

Baily, the dog, was holding the birthday balloon...unbeknown to her:

Greg and I coloured matched, by accident of course:

Welcoming

Another Halifax find, a rather lack luster welcome to Scotia Square - I'm not sure if a walk past a port a pottie and a container/garbage bin is the best way to get people into the mall:

Halifax Finds

Last weekend Greg and I went to Halifax to watch the AUS Men's 6 Basketball final. While I'm not always clear on the rules of basketball I learned a lot and watched some excellent athletes.

On the way to the Metro Centre one evening I stumbled across this:

I hope this person has been reunited with their most favoritest jacket!

February Hike

Putting yesterday's  BEAUTIFUL weather to good use, Greg and I took a stroll at Caribou Provincial Park.

Much of the Northumberland Straight was frozen and we took advantage of it to hike further than our last attempt when the incoming tide forced us to turn around.

We started our hike by spotting an eagle, not something I'd expect to find around the beach:

Neat beach finds:

I found a large piece of driftwood, the obvious choices were to (left) be Gandalf and (right) use it as a staff, Donatello style:

Gandalf Source, Donatello Source

More beach finds, BOTH sides to this shell:

Looks like we are somewhere other than Pictou:

An awesome ice formation and another shell:

Excellent Cover

Greg had a musical surprise for me last week, I hope you enjoy it as much as I have been:

Mardi Gras, Pictou County Style

After being postponed a week due to weather we were finally able to celebrate Mardi Gras in Pictou County! It was held at The Palace, above the Stone Soup Cafe (who catered the event) and was a super fun time.

Greg was decked out in the finest mish mash of Frenchy's attire and I was a bit more modest just wearing lots of purple and a mask. While I didn't make the mask I'm wearing (below) I learned that having a mask on a stick is challenging and it's best to go with a mask on a string. Thankfully our friends came prepared with extra masks:

Snazzy friends (top), we made up a game: who can get three strings of beads on their bottle the quickest (bottom) - endless creativity at this table:

Headbanging in his grandmother's wig, really just showing how well it stays on. I was impressed:

There was a band, so there was lots of dancing, the food was amazing and we paraded around the room showing off our costumes. A colourful and very fun night!

Temporary Classroom

For the last few weeks and at least a bit longer I've been filling in for a high school biology teacher, really a dream job. Here's a peak at "my" classroom:

Valentine's Day

While this Valentine wasn't from a student, but rather a Brownie (I'm a Brownie/Guide leader) it is still my first teacher oriented Valentine, hooray!

Snow Weekend!

Last weekend was awesomely jam packed with snow! Greg and I cleared a bunch of snow from the driveway (adding to the large mound created by the plow) and of course had to play in it afterwards - it was great!

We also went for a snowshoe in Trenton Park, very similar to our last hike but this time it was with a big group of friends. This was lovely for the company and also for the large amount of people to take turns breaking the very, very heavy snow trail. I feel the "Calories" burned listed below is no where close to the actual amount, unfortunately the Garmin doesn't have a snowshoe function, so it just picked up walking on normal ground at a very slow pace:

A break was definitely needed, we all flopped in the snow and struggled to get up - good o'l snowshoes!

Saturday Night Educational Fun!

Part of our snow stuck evening last night; expanding our vocabularies. Jen, who was also playing, is an absolute Scrabble pro...we quickly learned a lot. The second round was a much closer score, well close-ish:

Storm Day Snowshoe!

A good use of a snow day last Monday, snowshoeing in Trenton Park. We followed a trail made by two people for a little while then made our own path in the pretty deep, fluffy snow:

Mardi Gras Preparations

This evening I had a few lovely friends over and we created colourful masks for a Mardi Gras party we're going to this weekend.

Beautiful things came from such humble (and boring) beginnings:

I have a feeling they will look even better on - stay posted!