DO You Think He IS HOT!!!! American IDOl, Steven Tyler and Blogging Ettiquette..

Until he became a judge on American Idol, I had barely noticed Steven Tyler.  But wow, I think he's gorgeous.  I think on IDOL, he is sweet and charming and kind, and encouraging and has a great SMILE and I love his crazy hair and feathered braids, beads, flashy shirts, chains, belts.....the whole thing.  IS it just me because I am turning 50, or does anyone else think he's hot stuff?

And How about IDOL.  Do you watch?  Do you have a favourite?  I love the show.  I like raw talent, although it doesn't take long for them to be IDOL-Ized and lose their freshness.  So at the risk of upsetting the Apple Cart, here are my takes on the current top 11.  Feel free to chime in here.

Scotty - Although I think this guy does the "country" thing well, to me it lacks authenticity.  I feel like he is play acting at being a Country Singer.  Are you a Singer or an Actor SCOTTY ??He needs to- _ _ _ _ or get off the pot.

Pia -Perfect in every way.  The judges love her. She's gorgeous and sings beautifully.  I want to see her be vulnerable NOT PERFECT.  Wear jeans and you hair in a pony and dance Girl, dance.

Paul. LOVED Paul on the first few weeks, but he deflated this week and last.  I like the way he moves, so maybe he needs to put down the guitar and get tangled up in his dance and song again.

James I think this guy has talent, is very entertaining and would be good as a warm up act for a bigger band, but I am getting a bit ticked with his ego. Steven said something people didn't really get this week about "overstaying his welcome" and I think he was referring to the endless bows and kisses and bows he takes after he thinks he does really well for himself. Be HUMBLE Boy.

Jacob Lovely voice....moving....is he a front man or a back up singer?

Naima  The lovely fluctuating Naima seems to be trying too hard to be something that she either is or isn't.  She looks fab with her African inspired outfits she wears to rehearsal, then she dons some garb with the Jamaican flag and pushes Elton to be Reggae and she seems to lose her Authenticity.  I like her.  I want to see the real her.

Lauren Not sure if she has made an impact yet...

Hailey She fun and REAL and sexy and uber talented.  Yes I would pay money to see her perform in a club.

Stephano BEAUTIFUL VOICE.  I want to see him in Musicals not IDOL.

Thia  So young and fresh...not going to win, but has many years to hone her craft.  I thought she was great last night.

Casey  I think I needed saving after the drama of his save last week.  At first I thought he was different and interesting and true to himself. I Liked HIM.  But over the weeks, I am not digging him anymore.  And that drama over the judges saving him, seemed way over the TOP.  Did you think he was going to vomit.????  Was that all real?

And now for something completely different.  Susan from oldgreymare has an interesting post today on Blogger etiquette with respect to bumping your blog up the ladder on the blog roll.  I completely agree with her and think it bad manners to do so.  You can read what Suzan had to say HERE

Painting by Sherri Ward.

Come For Dinner

Yesterday my new dining room table arrived.  I managed to sell the old one and finally found exactly what I wanted for the dining room.  This one came from Pottery Barn.....not a usual source for me as I much prefer vintage, however, I couldn't find one the right length and width and with an apron that would accommodate my mums wheelchair.  Plus, I am fed up with place mats and tablecloths.  I wanted good hearty wood so you can work at it and plonk a beer down if you want.

I also had to contend with the wood on my cabinet which is a little orange, so the table had to relate to it well.  I think they are getting along fine.  This table has 2 leaves which are not in the photo.  I can easily seat 12 with the leaves in.

I mentioned before that I have made some furniture mistakes in my own house and these 2 upholstered dining chairs were one of them.  Wonderfully comfortable to sit in, they seem to eat up the space when placed at the table ends.  I have placed then rather unconventionally on the one side. They can be moved for larger parties.

                                           I can now sit here and do some work quite comfortably.

So if any of my blogging friends are in the neighborhood, I can have you for dinner!



La Sardine

We travelled to Montreal for the weekend to visit the Boy Child and his Fiance.  The guys took in a hockey game and my future DIL and I scarfed down the most delicious take away curries that I always like to get when we there there.  We ate nann bread and looked though wedding books, while I gave my 2 cents on what she should wear.  She asked how I was going to wear my hair......wild and wooley is how I usually go....

Montreal to me is about the architecture and the food.  We stayed in the Old Port at Hotel Place D'armes. which had reclaimed brick walls and gorgeous bath products and excellent service. I inisted on breakfast at Le Cartet because I love boiled eggs for breakfast and my latte in a bowl.  They also have the most amazing array of French products to purchase.  I bought this can of choclolate sardines because they were just so lovely....I just don't really want to eat them.

Thay also have the largest assortment of chocolate bars I have ever seen.  I bought these pink and white mini bars because of the wrappers alone.

And some lovely tubs of seasalt.....

And because I miss a real market in my own town, we went to the Atwater Market.

The French know food alright....everything was so beautifully laid out and garnished.  I love market food.

Bakery.

The hotel lounge for our comlimentary drinks.......

And we tried the restraurant Steak et Frites for just that.  Ontario should have BYOB.  It makes eating out so much more affordable.......and even more affordable is eyeing a large platter of pastries at the table/party next to us and being offered their handmade "puffs" for our desert.  And just to be even cheekier....we asked the waiter for a takeaway bag for the desert that we didn't even get from the restaurant....the one that T mooched for us.  The puff, as we discovered, is a Portugeuse light batter all puffed and glazed with slightly lemony icing.  Delicious.  Montrealers are very kind and accomodating. 

Lovely seeing the kids.........................................................I've missed them.

The Puff.............................................

A Birthday Packet

We seem to have a lot of celebrations in the Spring.  On Friday night we have a party to go to for our friend Barry's birthday.  Another gift to wrap.  Still boycotting gift wrap, so I had to get creative on this one.  Now Barry is an Irish bloke, so I themed his wrapping around the Celtic Cross. 

With mostly Christmas and Girly wrapping in my recycling, I had to make do with what was lying around.  Given that he is a Fashionista, always smartly dressed, I bought him a couple of pairs of gorgeous man socks.  Don't you love when a man exposes a peek of fabulous socks?

1. Take a good sturdy paper bag from the bookstore or similar.  2. Cut off it's bottom.  3. Fill it with paper Bits from the shredder. 4. Punch a line of holes with your 3 hole punch. 5. Stamp it with a rubber stamp and ink  6. Add your gift and tie it up.  SEE NO TAPE.

I laced  it up like a corset Jean Paul Gaultier style,  with a nice ribbon.  I added a Gift tag with a Celtic Cross.  ET Voila!.  A pack of Guinness and new socks.  What more could an Irish Dude wish for on his birthday?



Friday Photo Challenge - our lovable, gorgeous pets.

 The photo challenge for this Friday was PETS.  Because so many of us have gorgeous animals we love and adore and love to show off.  This is my cat Hannah in her Superman Cape Bandanna.

And because I love pictures with blurry motion, I had to throw this one in.  She wasn't co-operating today on the photo front....she was watching America's Next Top Model last night and decided to be the diva today.

Next week, the challenge is to photograph a

DOOR.

Any door.  Preferably an interesting door or a boring door photographed in an interesting way

Leave your linky below.

Pay it Forward Winners

I picked at random the winners for my Pay it Forward giveaway.  Each person will receive a small handmade gift from me.  I appologise in advance to Grouchy as the gift may be a bit girly.....

A Table Saga..............

We hung the Chandelier and I love it.  I will do a post of the dining room makeover but I am waiting for a table and a blackboard before it is done. I spotted a table in Pottery Barn recently.  I went home to think about it.  I then saw that it went on sale while browsing the web. I called my local store where I had originally seen the table.  This is how the conversation went from their end.

• I am sorry we don't carry that table
• Oh, we do carry it, but it is not on sale
• It will take 2 weeks
• It is on back order for 6 weeks
• It is 10% off
• We have one on the floor in the scratch and dent
• We can't find the leaves
• It is an additional 20% off
• We found the leaves
• Because it has a scratch it is now 30% off

So the table I couldn't have because they didn't carry it that wasn't on sale was a whopping 40% off and it is coming next Tuesday. 

What Colour is Your Day?

When I was in Grade School, I had a teacher who would look over the class or out over the playground and announce "It's a Blue Day today" or "It's definitely a Red Day today".  How he explained that is, on certain days, a colour stands out more from all the other colours.  It could be more kids were wearing red once day, but more likely, it was the light, the cloud coverage, the time of day. 

Yesterday was a Blue Day.  Turquoise Blue and Tiffany Blue and all the vibrant sea glass shades, seemed to be prominent.  Maybe it was the sunshine after days of grey.

That un-mistakable blue of the Ball canning jar................................................

A sea glass bead made in Ghana captures the light where it hangs from the chandelier.....................

The pretty blue on this Rosary was so vibrant in the sunshine.  A gift from Barbados, I keep this in my bathroom hanging by the window as it captures the sunshine and sends it dashing around the room.

And all around the house, amidst my clutter, the blue shone through. 

Do you ever notice that in your house or outside?. When one colour pops for you. You suddenly notice the pinks more, or the greens.?

Pay It Forward

I am following in the footsteps of Suzan Old Grey Mare and Erin of http://erin-artandgardens.blogspot.com/

and hosting my own Pay It Forward giveaway.  Out of the comments from this post, I will pick 5 random people and send each a small handmade by me gift. Pay it Forward is a simple way to brighten someone's day with a little surprise in the mail.  Good will.  A wee pick me up.

If you love this idea and it is feasible for you to do the same....you could host your own pay it forward. 

It is not necessary tohost your own in order to win, but this is more fun, the more people play. 

Day 7 - The Weekend in Pictures.....and a Super Moon

We headed North on Saturday to check the cottage and have a weekend with nothing but the big beautiful North to entertain us.  Not telly, no Internet, no phone service.  I baked pies, and Belgian waffles with maple syrup we purchased from a Mennonite man right from the back of his horse and cart on the drive up, and spent the rest of the time faffing around with my camera.  We saw a beautiful hawk on the way up, but it misjudged the wind and speed and was hit by a car in front of us. 

The sunshine on the ice was like diamonds....brilliant and blinding.

The  ice in the harbour is starting to break and to shift, creating these enormous and spectacular cracks and shapes in the ice which reflected the sky in the most magnificent way.

What looks like water on top is actually divots and pockmarks in the ice.  It is still solid.  People were walking on it.

And on the unprotected side of the Bay, the ice and snow has been carried by the wind and has piled up on the rocks.

What looks like clouds above the lake is actually ice floes that have moved down down from Manitoulin Island...They were so brilliantly white against the sky today.

And then to end our day, we were treated to a Super Moon.  13%  larger than normal, something that occurs only occasionally, it was huge on the horizon, and bright.  It illuminated the entire harbour.  Did you think people seemed a little crazier last night....when I worked in the hospital we always knew when the full moon was happening......I wonder how it was with a Super Moon.!

Twinkle and Pink

These crystals for my new/old chandelier inspired me to change my blog header today.  If you have never tried Picnik, you can make blog headers very easily with this free software.   I ordered my chandelier from Etsy and it came with each and every one of these crystals individually wrapped in a little tissue packet all taped up.  It took me an hour to unwrap them all.

My house has been feeling too dark.  I am moving away from the more urban look to a lighter, fresher, more cottagey look.  I've been selling some of my old BITS so I can buy some newer BITS.  

So, the Razmataz Man has two surprises in store for him this evening.  When he arrives home from playing hockey, I am going to have a cold beer for him to drink and a pink chandelier waiting for him to hang.   Because it's good to start the weekend with some Twinkle and Pink.  Don't you think?

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend with lots of sunshine and cheer.

Thoughts and Continued prayers for the wonderful, brave and dignified people of Japan as they head into the second weekend after this awful disaster with continued hardship and worries.

White...The Friday Photo Challenge

The Photo Challenge this week was to photograph something White.  Of course this was a wide open subject and I wanted there to be a lot of freedom on this one.  The varying shades of white are so interesting to study, and I thought it would be fun to see all the different Whites that you captured.

I chose to do a vignette of whites in the bathroom.  A textured white towel, a white candle, soap and white hyacinth.

I did discover that white gets really washed out if you use a flash, so these were done with the manual setting.  I tried to capture the depth of that engraving in the soap bar.

The one below is a bit overexposed, although I like the brightness.  I am finding that I like photos a bit overexposed.  Does anyone else find this with their own shots?

For next week, I thought we would photograph something dear to our hearts....a PET.  If you don't have a pet, perhaps you can find a cute dog out on a walk....most owners would love their pets picture taken.  But this is not just a "show off your pet" photo entry.  Try and get an interesting shot.  Pretend you are a professional photographer and you have to do a pet portrait.  Just like with human portraits, photographers are now having to think outside the box and get creative with their subjects.

I look forward to seeing all of the entries.....

Add a link to your White photo below.