Sylvia's Simple Shots

It's the first Sunday of Advent.  I placed my advent wreath on the pine secretary this year as furniture shifted when the sofa was removed from the living room.

I added pine cones in the cylinders this year with a small bird perching on a branch in the front.

The first candle is lit which is the candle of HOPE. 

The first candle harkens us back to Isaiah’s foretelling of the birth of Christ and all of the promises God gave us in the Old Testament that would be fulfilled by the birth of Jesus.

I had police cars all over the block this evening.  I was not able to discover till Monday what had happened.  There were many crusiers and officers on the main road which had been closed to traffic. 

Turns out that police were called when a man armed with a knife was approaching people on the street. A confrontation occurred and a police officer discharged his weapon, killing the man. An ASIRT investigation continued into the early morning hours. A TV crew from one of the local news station was on the scene for a while. 

That is totally scary!

We had a bit of snow fall overnight.  There has been very little snow fall this fall.

With the temperature hovering near freezing it disappeared by weeks end.

The Paris Bookseller by Kerry Maher is the book I finished this week.  It is a novel based on a real woman named Sylvia Beach from the USA. When a young woman opens her shop - Shakespeare and Company in 1919 on a quiet Paris street in 1919, she has no idea that she and her book store will change the course of literature itself. 

Her bookstore becomes the hub for English book readers and writers.  Famous writers spend time in her little shop and she becomes friends with many.  James Joyce, the Irish writer is one of these.  When his book Ulysses is banned she takes a great risk and publishes it under the the auspices of Shakespeare and Company.  

She was very loyal to Joyce and went over and beyond to get his book published but the writer was not appreciative. He could not pay his rent, had marital strife, and health issues which consumed him.  Eventually, he did repay the debts owed and the money due her from books sales with a short thank you note. It was a very interesting book.

It was the time of year again to deal with a low pressure tire warning on the car.

It was much less stressful this year knowing what I had learned last year.  I headed off to the service station, put my money in the machine and topped all the tires to 35 psi.

At least it was not -20C like last year.

All is well!

I discovered these cookies this week. I do love ginger and they deliver a great taste.  I am not a fan of a gingersnap and after talking to my sister it was suggested that there may not be any molasses in these.  I believe that is the difference.

It makes a nice end to a meal and they can be in the house and I will not eat the whole box in a sitting.  That is what I need,

Loving them.

They were on sale as well so that is a bonus.

We had our opening of the Christmas Store on Saturday.

We had good attendance.  I met and spoke to quite a few folks from our group. 

I believe several folks left with bags in hand so that is a good thing.

I enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate which was very good along with some beautiful short bread cookies.  There was a nice variety of flavors of hot chocolate and tea and some other holiday goodies.

It was a very good time.

Sylvia Simple Shots

These days with my living room window facing east I get a very short time that the sun hits northern end of the patio door.  

This is a shot trying to take advantage of the last rays of sunlight on the table before it disappeared.

It was shot for a challenge of light and dark on Flickr.

I love how the glass shot some light into the dark just above the flame.  A reminder that a single candle flame can banish the dark.  

Continue to have hope against dark circumstances.  The light will return in full measure of time and things will be brighter and happier.

The Welcome Committe of Butternut Creek by Jane Myers Perrine was a light read.  A new pastor Adam Jordan arrives in town with his few possessions in his small car.  Miss Birdie and her friend Mercedes are the welcome committee who are there to show him the ropes about the parish and how things are run.  Of course, they have been at this church for years and it's more like this is how we have always done it so that should continue. He is a bachelor so they decide he needs a wife.

Sam Peterson has recently moved into his late aunt's house in town. He is veteran who lost his leg in Afghanistan and is struggling to find his place now he is not in active service. Sam wants to be left alone. Willow is a physical therapist who works at the hospital and leaves nearby. She is divorced and her two boys came to play in Sam's yard unaware that someone new had moved in. 

Birdie, Sam and Willow have to make adjustments in their lives to make the changes which will make them happy instead of staying stuck in their comfort zones.  It all works out in the end.

I have been using essential oils for a long time.  My favorite is Bergamot and Grapefruit which I bought as a body butter and a bottle of oil years ago at a craft sale. It was great.

During COVID I started using Lavender oil to help me naturally relax and get to sleep.

Of course, I chose to make some passive essential oil diffusers recently.

My sister gifted me a wool felt tree ornament for adding scent to my artificial tree so I needed Spruce essential oil.  I took a trip to the health food store and purchased a small bottle. It will last a long time. I bought some empty bottles as well so that I can mix up some bergamot and grapefruit diluted which I use during my morning exercise routine.

I found the book above at the Thrift store. I gather it came in a kit with essential oils. 

I found the book very helpful and very thorough ranging from how is essential oil produced, categories of oil, grades of oils, and which oils can be used to help with health issues.

I felt it was a very worthwhile and the price was not crazy high.

I had this low tire pressure warning message show up on my car a while back and it threw me for a loop.  I had the puncture of a tire in May so I think I was hypersensitive about the issue.  I really had no idea what was going on. My last car did not have sensors and I did not have this issue with the original tires from this car. 

I made an appointment with the car company who installed the tires in June and I told they could not look at the car for 4 days. I checked the tires every day and I did not have a flat tire. So what gives?  I learned from a you tube video that this can happen when the weather changes. After talking to a couple of my siblings they have manual resets once they have checked the air pressure in their tires.  You tube recommended checking all 4 tires and the spare if it has a sensor, filling to the recommended tire pressure documented on the inside of your drivers door and it should just clear the message. I check with my dealership when it opened Monday morning and this was confirmed. So, armed with knowledge I was able to resolve the warning. I called the tire place back on Monday and cancelled my appoint. I am disappointed that they did not make this suggestion on Friday instead of just saying we can see you on Tuesday. What a waste of my time but I guess they had suggested that I leave the car for the whole day. They could do just what I did in five minutes and charge me a couple hundred dollars.  That would have been 5 days of my time without feeling safe in my vehicle. Yeah, Youtube!

While I was waiting and worrying about my car I made myself useful and cleared another round of card stock, designer paper and embellishments from my craft space. 

I had an IKEA Trofast Kids Wardrobe which I used store mostly 12x12 paper.  It was really too deep of smaller stuff.  With the goal of getting all the craft stuff to live in the craft room I pulled most of the 12x12 designer paper from my drawer storage and then decided to could keep that much 12x12 card stock from the shelving unit.  The rest had to go. 

I decided the shelving unit had to go as well because it was not conducive to paper storage and too big for my to handle and I needed to clear stuff from the craft room. This was it.

My sister picked up the shelf and the boxes of paper and craft supplies which will be used in her daycare. A win win I say.

F is for Fugitive by Sue Grafton is a book I finished recently.

Another bit of time spent with Kinsey Millhone.  She is hired by Bailey Fowler's father to find out who really killed Jean Timberlake 17 years ago.  The murder his son was convicted of and the soon have he escaped from prison and has been on the lamb since then.

The murder took place in Floral Beach, a town a distance from Kinsey regular area of operation.  She travels and takes a room offer by the father who owns the hotel.  It is a small community, people are wary of a stranger asking questions, some people have moved away. There are a lot of dysfunctional family dynamics going on in this family. There's a mother who seems to be troubled with many health problems, the father has a few too, the sister had ended up being care giver for her parents as well as the hotel.

It was a great read with an interesting conclusion.

The couch was taken away on Sunday. I need to clear the living room and dining room with the goal of replacing the carpet with a hard surface flooring.   With the couch gone there is more room in the living room and less big stuff to manage when it comes time replace the flooring.

Of course the clearing in the craft room was also important for this upcoming project.

All the little steps will lead to the final outcome. As usual it takes longer than one anticipates. Just keep moving forward and I will get there.

Recent Snapshots

It was glorious on my walk this morning.  The weather was great and some folks were headed back to work.

This is a nice plant taken at the Legislative Grounds this morning.   It sat in most shade from this large tree.  The blooms are darker in shade but a few are highlighted with a bit of sun.  My research leads me to believe it is Salvia Nemorosa.

The out of focus pebble concrete makes a nice neutral background.




It was Canada's 150 birthday on Saturday.  There was much to take in for the milestone celebration.  I found this small flag in the community garden on my walk that day.

This was a nice find where kids had been drawing in the parking lot with side walk chalk.  A heart, a kite and flowers were great subjects.

The peonies are fabulous this year. I have been able to get quite a few good photos for my calendar next year.

I love the large blooms. They strike me as soft and gentle.  There have been several colors.

I love this image in that it is moody with the dark background with the pale bloom in the center.  Having a bud is a bonus.

The House Sparrows were feeding at the feeder this morning.  This is the male of the species and of course would not cooperate to have his photo taken on the feeder.  Down to the ground to get the seeds which have been ejected from the feeder.

I managed to get his eye in focus but his beak is moving.  There were quite a few around the feeder this morning with interruptions as folks were headed out of the apartment building on a regular basis.

I should have been out earlier.

I just snapped this light on the back end of a car parked on the street the other day. 

I love yellow and the circle of the light sunk into the cowl for protection looked kind of cool.

This was an art piece that was installed on the weekend.  I first saw it on the weekend but decided to revisit under better weather conditions. 

To my amazement there are photos in some of the cirlces.

This is one of 5 art pieces commissioned for the Canada 150 celebration.

Transect is a glass and stainless steel structure, in the shape of a sphere, punctuated by blue circular glass panels featuring photographs of animal tracks, native plants and times in Alberta’s history.

There is a bit more information here.

Now that I know there are others I will have to direct my feet in that direction on coming mornings.

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Through  my Lens 101 hosted by Mersad

Card Club - Jalopy

This is the first card for Card Club today.  I cut some blue decorative paper with my Creative Memories is wavy cutter and then cut a colored layer leaving a small border.  This layer is glued to the card front on the right hand side. I cut the Jalopy with a Tim Holtz mover & shaper in black card stock.  The die cut is then mounted to the card front with 3D foam tape.  I color printed the greeting then punched it out with the Stampin Up Modern Label punch.  Then I punched another from black card stock.  The black one was cut in half lengthwise.  These halves are glued to the back of the greeting offset. This greeting is glued to the card front with 3D foam tape. I placed it horizontal over the curve of the blue piece.


I provided green, yellow, and orange solid layers in the kits I prepared for this class.

Card Club - October - Vintage Vehicles

I started wanting to do embossed metal.  I applied foil tape to card stock and brayered it down.  I then cut it to card sized pieces and embossed them with folders.  I wanted gears but could not find it so I used this one which is Timepiece by Couture Creations. I wrapped a piece of grosgrain ribbon around the layer and taped the ends to the back.  I then glued this layer to the card front.  I then used a push pin to make 3 holes for the brads.  I inserted screw head brads in brush silver in the holes and press apart the prongs on the inside of the card.  Great card for a guy. 

For the kits is used the Circles by Cuttlebug for the car and Diamond Plate for the pick up trucks.