For the Love of BLOGGING

I have just had one of those weeks where Mr Murphy (of the insidious Murphy's Law) set himself up in my life, made himself comfortable, and refused to leave.  What could go wrong went wrong.  It was a bumpy Back to School, a lot of which was probably me missing my old network of moms, and the rest being the Calgary bussing system!  I also dug into switching my blog over to wordpress, which I have been putting off doing.  However, this Saturday is BlogPodium, Canada's only design and lifestyle blogger conference, so I wanted to be able to have my new site all ready.

Well, as you can imagine, this has not been a simple process.  Those of you that follow me on Twitter were bombarded with every post I have ever posted as I imported them from Blogger not once, but twice (so sorry about that!).  I had everything in a place I was feeling pretty good about, until I made a coding snafu that essentially deleted the URL wickedandweird.com from the internet altogether.

AAAAAHHHH!!!!

With some help from the nice folks at BlueHost, I got it back, but minus all the changes I had spent the week doing.  Sigh.  At least doing them the second time is a bit faster, but I don't think I'll be doing much else this week.

That and trying to organize my itinerary for the week I am in Toronto to see all my friends is driving me nuts and making me feel blue.  There just isn't time to see everyone I love in such a short time!

Toronto Skyline by Aeryn Lynne

My impending visit back to where I didn't want to leave has me feeling pretty conflicted too - I am nervous about my reaction, how I'll feel to be wandering around a city that isn't mine anymore.  But I am so excited to see the friends I thought I wouldn't get to see for long while - it is going to be a fun, fabulous whirlwind of a week.  I am sure I will come back inspired with all kinds of ideas for my blog and for making this new place my own.  After all, I have everything I need: my boys (all three of them).  Everything else is just icing on the cake. :)

Berndnaut Smilde - Cloud Maker

I have heard the expression "you make your own sunshine" before, but never actually seen someone create their own weather phenomenon - of any kind.  That is until I came across Berndnaut Smilde, who uses water spray bottles, smoke machines, and humidity control to create actual clouds in empty spaces.  The clouds float around long enough to be photographed, then disappear, and the resulting photographs are striking.  Smilde's photograph Nimbus D'Aspremont (below) will be involved in the show Red Sky at Night at the Mercer Union in Toronto from mid-June to the end of July - I hope to catch it before I leave for Alberta!

Found on Booooooom.

A Visit to the AGO

Last week, the boys and I and their Baba went to see the Picasso show at the AGO.  Will was really keen to go, as one of his favourite books is Picasso and Minou.  We had lots of fun trying to find the faces and guitars in his cubist works, and Will insisted I buy this postcard, because it was "hilarious Mom.  For Real." He even brought it to school the next day.

Here are some more photos of our outing, including some fun times had in the family learning centre and a short shopping excursion in Chinatown.  It is shocking how seldom I take advantage of living in this amazing urban metropolis!  I here-by pledge to go downtown more often (especially when armed with a visiting grandparent/wrangler).

Check out my little coolio in the shades.  I swear I did not tell him to pose this way...

The Almighty OPRAH

On Monday afternoon/night, thanks to the ridiculous generosity of my friends Lisa and Mike (you guys ROCK!!) I found myself basking in the presence of the one-and-only Oprah Winfrey.  The 5-hour line-up also included Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Iyanla Vanzant, and Bishop T.D. Jakes.  I have never been to a revival meeting, but I am pretty sure they wouldn't feel much different.  There were a lot of AMEN!!!s, whooping and hollering, women shaking and crying, and at one pont we all stood and held hands, raising them up with a mighty yell.  It was AWESOME!

Never mind that we got in line at 3pm and got to our seats at 5:10 (the event was supposed to start at 4).  At least it was one of the warm days and the rain held off, although the wind was fierce!  Never mind that by the time we got there we sat in the back of the 9,000-people audience, squinting to see the stage, let alone the people on it. Never mind that the hotdog we scarfed down while waiting in line was the only food I had until I got to Union Station at 11pm (and had a nasty breakfast wrap).  Never mind that because of the crowd-control, the speakers' times were shrunk to 30 minutes each instead of an hour.  The fact that these people could generate such a powerful vibration in a huge warehouse of a space spoke to their gifts as speakers, and the resonance of their words.  Iyanla in particular was really fantastic, her enthusiasm completely contagious.

Oprah herself was impressive.  This woman is a PRO.  She was just the right amount of gracious - she acknowledged the effort it took people to get ready, to get themselves looking gorgeous, to make their way to Toronto, and to stand forever in line, all to see her.  It was a kind gesture, and most importantly, it felt genuine.  To watch the taping of the show, it was managed down to the second, with each speaker having a segment, questions from twitter, comments from the audience, and contributions from Skype.  Oprah was unflappable, professional but personable, making everything feel spontaneous and of-the-moment.  She joked about how tiny she must look to those of us in the back, she laughed about the height they put the chairs to minimize the difference between her and (6'8'') Tony Robbins, she ribbed those in the audience who had gotten pedicures for the occasion - "Oprah ain't never gonna see your toes girl!"

I could not stop thinking of Gran and wishing she were there with me.  How many times did she call me randomly at University and start off with "Sweetheart, I was watching Oprah..."?  

"Sweetheart, I was watching Oprah....and if you were a lesbian, you could tell me."  

"Sweetheart, I was watching Oprah...if you are doing drugs, you have to tell me."

"Lisa honey, I was watching Oprah...and I just had to call and tell you how proud I am of you."

Thanks Oprah, for prompting all those wonderful, and sometimes hilarious phone calls. xo

She was also great at distilling the sometimes heady discussions into "snackables" - small digestible summations of the conversation.  Some of my favourites were:

• Forgiveness is being able to able to give up the hope that the past could be any different.
• Until you clean the wounds of the past, you will continue to bleed into the future.
• Holding on to resentment is like holding your breath - you'll eventually suffocate.
• Don't strive for success, strive for significance and excellence, and success will follow. 
• There are 'Gallon" people and "Pint" people.  You have to adjust your expectations of someone based on their capacity (They might be giving their all).  And if you are a Gallon person, you can't have only Pint people in your life.
• Empowering your past robs power from your present.
• And my favourite: Forgiveness is a laxative for the soul.

Look for these all prettied-up in Pinterest soon. :0  Thank you again Lisa and Mike for giving me this tremendous experience.  I feel like it gets more amazing the more I think of it!  Did anyone else see the Mighty Oprah?  Did you have any A-HA moments?

Cherry Blossom Boys

The cherry blossoms are out in all their glory here in Toronto, and although it was a cold and windy morning, the boys and I decided to go have a picnic under the trees.  It was a pretty wonderful morning, one of those where I count my lucky stars I am able to spend so much time with these two little people. My camera came home stuffed to the gills!

The trees and flowers and birds were all lovely of course, but I think 70% of my photos still ended up being of these guys.  Can you be obsessed with your kids and still be a good mom? :)

The Paper Place Scrap Bag Sale

I really don't know why I am telling you this, because now I'll more people to fight off at the bins (and my elbows just aren't as sharp as they used to be), but The Paper Place is having one of their Scrap Bag sales on the weekend of February 25th-26th.  From their blog: "With beautiful papers such as Chiyogami, Katazome, Japanese tissues and decoratives, you’ll be sure to find something you love. The sale runs from 10-5 pm on Saturday, February 25 and 12-4 pm on Sunday, February 26 at our sale space, which is located around the corner from the store at 198 Walnut Avenue, Unit 2."  


I have no idea what I would do with all that paper, but it would be AMAZING, I'll tell you that much...

Toronto Tempo

Check out this very cool time lapse video of the various rhythms of life in Toronto.  Photographer Ryan Emond has found some fascinating vantage points and done an amazing job of capturing the essence of life in a big city using thousands of photographs.  His editing is fantastic and he has created a beautiful homage to the city - makes me proud to live in Toronto!