So not a techie!!

First of all, I really want to thank The Graphics Fairy for her lovely background and header.  Unfortunately, even with her great instructions, I wasnt able to centre (Canadian spelling) my header, and once I typed the title, I couldnt adjust the size of the font (SIGH!), so although the instructions were very straight forward, I'm just technologically backward!!!  I'm still not sure I like the new header picture with the new background...maybe I'll just leave it for a few days and then tweak it a bit!

What do you think?  Tweak?

Doctor Who Love

Oh yeah, you heard me right, its Doctor Who LOVE! I dont know what it is about DW I love so much!  My little brother would make me watch it when we were kids, and I resented him, the show, and all their  cheesy sets.  I hated all their 'costumed aliens' but I also hated the 'costumed aliens' on Star Trek, so its not like I was being selective in my sci fi dislike.  As I got older and the years passed, I forgot all about the good Doctor.
One day I met and married the LOML and he was born and raised in London.  His favourite show growing up was also DW, so when about 7 years ago (forgive me all you real Whovians for not knowing exactly when it was recreated...) they restarted the program, we were hooked.  I am a sucker for English accents I guess...
My 8 year old daughter clenches the throw pillows to her face in fear but insists she can handle it!  My 9 and 10 year old boys have lively debates about the story lines, and my 27 year old daughter (screen writer by trade) sings its praises constantly.
I've been trying to figure out why its so wildly popular with our family (and all of England, Canada and I think many Americans are discovering it...).  Not only are the newer Doctors extremely charming and charismatic, their companians are unlike American counterparts in TV shows.

Christopher Eccleston, was a charming and serious Doctor.  David Tennant replaced him, and while he was extremely charming, I just couldnt get past his extremely good looking face, voice, personality, glasses, suits, coats and high cut chucks.  He got a bit melodramatic when he was regenerating and he knew he was dying (although they dont really die, but sometimes they change their body, its complicated...) he was going to leave the show.  All actors are allowed to have some fun, and David had fun with it!  I mean a 900 year old time lord who thinks he's dying and goes and visits all the people who meant something to him (over the last 3 years) has a right to be sad, and revel in his sadness.  In fact, David convinced me that he was the one and only Doctor.  I was sure his replacement (Matt Smith) could never be The Doctor!  He was just a funny/awkward looking kid!  OMG was I wrong!  Even in his regeneration from David to Matt, he did it with the perfect humour and sweetness that made me believe in him!  All his 'timey wimey' sweetness and innocence (kind of) is just endearing enough to make you believe in time lords and tardises.

While most of his companions have been attractive women, they have not been perfect Barbies.  Rose, while blonde and cute, was shortish with buck teeth.  She also had the most perfect mother!  Actress Jackie Tyler was incredibly adorable as the kinda crass, maybe slightly white trash brit.  All blonde teased hair and bold makeup.  She was so much fun!  Martha was...Ok she was kinda perfect and I'm not saying anything else about it.  Donna was so perfect to me, a sassy opinionated real woman.  Catherine Tate, WE ALL LOVED YOU AS DONNA.  Now we have Amy, while extremely cute and sassy, she is married to Rory.

As if Matt Smith wasnt adorable enough, now they have Alex Kingston in the cast.  While I usually dont like Alex Kingston (sorry, dont like curly haired women ...  I have a huge mass of curly hair myself, so its okay for me to say that), she is just so good at her job!

The reason for this long rant about Doctor Who?  It was memorial day in the USA last weekend, and BBC America didnt show the scheduled Doctor Who!  And while I love Canada, we are just too dependent on our Souther neighbour for our programing!!  I missed my DOCTOR WHO last week and I'm bitter bitter bitter!  To squeeze a lemon on my bitterness, I'm going to NJ for a wedding next Saturday, so I wont be able to catch the episode I missed last week because I'll be 'having fun' at my cousins wedding!  I just know I'm going to be so bitchy that night...

WHY AM I SO SICK...

I'm so jealous/envious of my American junkin sisters!

I'm sure I've said this before, but I am so jealous of you American 'junkin queens', 'upcyclers', 'vintage vixens', whatever you call yourselves!  While I haven't been posting quite so much recently, I've still been avidly following my favourite talented bloggerettes!  I'm not going to list all of them, cause you all know who you are!  There are so many talented people out there! I check out the UK blogs for extremely adorable crafts, crochet, patterns, and kitchy/homey (homely as the Brits say) kitchen decor (England is the home of Cath Kidston afterall!).  Australian blogs have a refined country/prairie esthetic, but the American ladies really know how to flea!  The deals you guys have!  Also, you guys dont know how lucky you are, we just dont have as much cool old thrift stuff!  I want to get down on my knees and cry when I see some of the adorable vintage valentines, marble busts, old furniture with good bones dying to get a face lift you ladies find!  I'm ready to throw my universal health care in the trash and move south!  ONLY KIDDIN' hee hee.  I LOVE (adore, lurv, cannotlivewithout) my health care!  I'll have to settle on overpriced craigslist items.

Ok, if you live in Canada, you may have seen these posters in your local CANADA WIDE CAMERA SHOP (which shall not be named).  These posters/and matching tv commercials which aired last summer were shot in my home!  That is actually my daughters bedroom and the granny square bedspread on the bed I crocheted!!!  Sorry, but I couldnt help bragging!

Gnomes mean SUMMER!!!!

LOVE IS...Gnomes coming out of my garage!!!

A Queen in the making...

God save the Queen and any traces of my remaining sanity...Please?

No Disrespect Intended

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!

So a couple of months ago I was perusing a British Decor magazine (I rush to our local bookstore whenever the new stash of UK decor magazines arrive!  Its my drug of choice), I saw a celebrity home which was really quite interesting.  She had a rug of this 16P Queen stamp on her wall.  I loved it so much, and said to myself 'Hey Self, I bet you could paint that!'  After my conversation with myself, I rushed into our basement which is more like a storage facility, and pulled out a large framed canvas I had stashed.  I went to our local HD and bought my artists medium of choice in various shades of pink (latex wall paint, to be exact), and began  my descent into madness...for two months...

I started out by painting the 16P stamp painting of the queen.  Since I can never be satisfied with 'one' of anything, I wanted to paint another...but how could I complicate it further????  I know, I'll flip it and paint a gas mask on the  Ol' Girl (again, I say this with love, no disrespect to the Queen).  Let me explain, we love Dr. Who in this house, and my kids favourite episode is when an alien wearing a gas mask appears and a little boy walks around asking people 'are you my mummy?' before he kills them (or something like that).  So, what better than combining my love of the Queen (its a sad affliction I have) with my kids love of  'the doctor'.  Hence, this is how the second painting came about.  My kids ADORE this photo especially.  I cant seem to download the in progress photos of my paintings, but here they are, proudly hanging over our living room couch, in all their regal glory!

On the heels of Easter, a letter to President Obama...

Although I am a Canadian (and extremely proud to be one), I'd like to write a letter to President Obama, with a little bedtime story which he can read anytime...

Once upon a time there was a little boy with a large family.  Now this was 1914, near the village of Ourfa (in the Ottoman empire).  He was happy with his large extended family, even though they weren't wealthy, they were happy, with children and parents, and grand parents, aunts and uncles.  Freshly made meals, and playing within natures playground, made this 4 year old child feel loved and lucky.

One day, the big bad army marched into their village and gathered up all the adults who lived in his neighbourhood.  Now just to back track, the boy was Christian, and Armenian.  The Armenians refused to denounce Christianity and mesh into the Turkish culture completely.  They wanted to keep their cultural identity and their strong religious beliefs.  So when this day came with the big bad army, it changed this little boys life forever.  They took his parents, grand parents, aunts and uncles.  Where they took them, the little boy didnt know, but he never ever saw them again.  They also took him, his 2 year old sister, and his 4 older siblings, to a holding compound for children.  Here, they seperated the older siblings from the younger ones.  The boy never ever saw his older siblings again either.

He and his little 2 year old sister cried in the corner of this 'shelter'.  They waited for their parents to come and get them.  To yell at the soldiers and the big mean man in the funny hat, telling them that they made a mistake!  These were their kids and they belonged in their loving home, not in this room full of other kids.   They belonged at home with their family!  As the days went by, no one came.  No Mama, no Baba, no one.  Sometimes, Turkish couples came and took some of the younger babies, especially the baby boys.  But Mama and Baba never came.

Luckily for this little boy, one of his aunts was a famous midwife, not only in Ourfa, but in this whole area.  She didnt only work for Armenian families, but the wealthy Turkish families always called upon her to deliver their babies.  When this Auntie heard what happened in her village, she covered herself and her face with a black headscarf and went to the home of a prominant Turkish politician, whom she worked for.  She told him what had happened to her sisters children.  The man told her that, unfortunately the older children had perished...and were no longer able to be saved...  However this man did tell her where the two younger children were being held.  Auntie, still looking quite Turkish in her outfit, went to the holding area for the children.  Because Auntie worked for prominent Turkish families, she spoke Turkish extremely well, and knew all their cultural traits.  So when she got to the holding area, she marched up to the Pasha running this orphanage, and in her most indignant Turkish voice, she  told him that the soldiers had accidentally taken her children!  She had come to take them home.  Now, since she had worked for this man in the past, he was quite aware that she wasn't Turkish, but he said that he would turn a blind eye and let her go get her children.  She walked up to the boy and his sister, bent over them and opened the black face veil covering her face, to reveal to them who she was.  The boy hugged his Auntie but his little sister, didnt recognize her and cried and wouldn't go to Auntie.  Auntie tried harder and harder to convince her niece to come with her, but the more she tried, the more the child panicked and pulled away!  The kind hearted Pasha came and said she would have to leave now, because she was causing a scene and if he might be caught helping her!  So, with a heavy heart, she left her niece behind, in the Turkish holding cell, and ran off with her nephew, thanking God that she was at least able to save him.

This boy grew up in an orphanage, but when he was an adult found whatever relatives he had left, which was his Auntie and her family.  Sadly, the Turks had 'taken care of' all his siblings, and he never saw them, or his parents again.  He fought in the French Foreign Legion, got married, had children, grand children, and great grand children before he died at the age of 83 a few years ago.

Now, President Obama, this little story is a TRAGEDY.  If this only happened in his village, that too would be an atrocious TRAGEDY.  The fact that this happened to 1.5 MILLION ARMENIANS IS A GENOCIDE!  I hope that if you read this as a bedtime story, it will keep you awake tonight...maybe you will think about what your official stance on this subject is.

With respect
Grand child of above little boy

Hmmm...I dont know if I will continue this blog, or start a new one...

Hi, its been a while, and I life's been a bit hectic/stressed/crazy like its been for most of you I guess.  I'm thinking I'll start blogging again...I miss all my favourite blogs and bloggers!  I better start taking photos of my projects and finds so I can start updating again!  I just gotta find my glasses!