@halyma and @wtl, a photo by Halyma on Flickr.

This year, we celebrate Samhain with some of Ottawa’s finest at the 14th Annual Charity Witches Gathering on the Saturday before Halloween.

We have been judges for many years with Auz and Marianne as our cohorts for the evenings adventures and it’s always a fun but challenging experience!

If you click on the photo, you’ll be taken to my Flickr page where there a handful of great shots from the party, which featured the theme of Day of the Dead.

And if you are one of my Flickr contacts, you will see a couple of shots from my youth which inspired by hair for Saturday!

We were actually characters from “Weird Science” from the end of the movie when the nerds were now cool. But for those who just thought we were Duran Duran, I’ll accept that too!

T/H

http://zoolegacy.bandcamp.com/album/city-light-glow
Downloaded from their website linkage!
http://thezoolegacy.com
Never heard you guys before, but Dying Song is already stuck in my head!
So while my dancing will be confined to the dance floor, I am looking forward to seeing some of my dance friends there!

Also wishing good luck to the folks in the Army Run today!

The last Dancer’s News  weekly email version of the summer just went out – but during the month of August it will be quietly informing people by existing online and being updated via the comments in the Blog Version found here.

I have 4 more client projects to finish over the next few days then when my sewing machines go in for their month long spa treatment, I start mine as well!

I am really looking forward to getting a massage from Vera Sagram, and then walking away with an order of Vera’s Belgian Waffles!

I was scanning through my blog and saw the post I had written last year around this time, and the great pics of the fun stuff I did last summer.  And I just don’t have the energy this summer to do the same.

Maybe while I am on my break, I will find the time to go through things and relive the fabulous spring and summer I have had – it’s been great.  And it’s been BUSY.

But for now, I will look forward to the break and know that I’ll be thinking of each and every one of you while I am swinging in my hammock, drinking a toast with camping buddies, or viewing the amazing vistas in the park.  Honest 😉

See ya in September – unless I get creative and bloggy in the meantime !

T/H

Well. ya see…

I, like most people, am super busy. And like many people, find  the time taken to answer a phone call during my work day can really disrupt my personal ability to focus, taking work time away while I am  potentially on a big deadline, dealing directly with a client, etc.

I also, like many people, forget things unless they are written down. So by having an email arrive with all of the details of your, very important to me, question, I can refer to it when I can focus on it and give it my full attention.  I also have lost my prize winning penmanship skills { ask me to show you the book I won in Grade 1} and cannot read my hand writing anymore.

I also may just simply be physically away from the phone and don’t want to panic rush from the facilities to try to catch the phone call.

Where does that leave you, the caller. The person who “likes” to call because for you, it’s faster than typing out an email.  Or you are away from your computer/smartphone etc. and just need a “quick” answer to your question. Well, a bit outta luck.

Sorry Dude.

You get 2 options:

1 – leave me an actual detailed message on my voicemail so that I know why I have to call you back.  That way, I can send you an email answering your important questions as soon as I can take a break from whatever kept me from answering the phone in the first place.

2- Send me an email.

Oh, and if your number comes up “private caller”, I’m call screening. So again – go with option 1 or 2.  Nothing personal, just the way I roll…

Tonight I wasn’t sure I would be able to take advantage of a last minute movie pass given to me by a client. It was for “Five Year Engagement” and although I did check with a few girlfriends to see if they wanted to come with me, all were busy, or not home.

So I headed out and decided that I would come alone. I texted my hubby to let him know and got the perfunctory, “Aw, that’s sad”. I replied, it’s fine ( and yes, I’ll pay those $.20 per text later!)

And it is fine. I used to go to movies alone all the time when I first moved to Ottawa. No need to worry about where to sit, no need to choose the snacks that are share-able( mmm coffee crisp), and generally, I enjoy my own company.

So I found a back corner, where no one behind will kick my chair, and no one will crawl over me mid movie to go out.

And bonus: the Cupcake Lounge was giving away free mini cupcakes to each person!! One per ticket- I shoulda let then give me two at the door!! But I was honest and only took my ticket from the free double pass.
Note: Maple cupcakes- very nice!

Present were a lot of young couples – in theory already engaged/ newly married. But there is a surprising number of older ( my age of early 40s and older) ladies in pairs and male/female couples. And, of course, the girl gaggles- goes without saying…

Sponsored by KissFM, Y101and CTV, so a squealing microphone begins the show!!
—
What a fun movie- just enough dark humor and absurd humor to have all bases covered! Deer sliding off the roof of a car… Not for the faint of heart!

And a priceless moment of parcour had us all rolling with laughter!

Enough spoilers- go see it- chicks and dudes will enjoy!

And if you only go to movies with a buddy, try it on your own! And tell me about it !

Today was about dreaming of holidays and taking a break and relaxing… and warm days with sunshine and great friends.  That’s all. And it’s good.

I’ve had a few people over the past few months comment to me, “I don’t know how you do everything you do.”

And I point out those things that are different in my life from theirs:

• I don’t have kids.
• I don’t go out and work for someone else from 9-5.

And then I started to realize that I also do things in cycles.  I rev up over a long period of time, adding new projects/events/directions in my multifaceted self-employed existence until I reach a peak and then I step back and ease off.

And in the next few months I will again be easing off of a few things. a little bit…

I don’t evaluate my business choices/life choices etc on any kind of regular basis.  I tend to look at things more closely when I see affects across all of the boundaries.  Usually right after a really big event where I want to take a week off but cannot because I have another big event coming up.  Or after a really busy year where many things changed and roller coaster-ed to the point where it began to get a bit much.

This week the re-evaluation of the wonderful creative  circus that is my work/business life has begun.  I can see some consolidation in the future, some shifts in focus and a little bit of letting go and moving on.  I’ll keep you posted of course!

And then all of this will trickle gently over into giving me a little bit more of that personal time I like so much!  Yeah, I strongly maintain a month off in August, but during those 11 months coming up to it , I’ll be happy to take a bit more time to recharge and enjoy the amazing things going on around me that I don’t organize 🙂

@wtl { aka Tom} and i have been going to Sunday morning brunch at Patty Boland’s for around 7 or 8 years – it’s been so long  we’ve kinda lost track.  It started as just the two of us, then gradually we let folks in on our little Sunday morning ritual.  And this weekend, in trickles of rumour and haphazard information we’ve been informed that the restaurant will no longer be open weekend mornings to serve breakfast.  We knew things had been slow this fall, and with many factors to consider, I am sure it’s the right choice business wise for them.

2 questionable choices:

1 – Why not go ahead and serve breakfast for one final weekend  on December  17th and 18th?  We knew the place would be closed on the 25th and Jan 1st anyway, so one more weekend would not have been the end of the world, would it?

2 – Why did you not tell your regulars personally in an email/ Facebook announcement/ Tweet?  We totally would have rocked the place this morning if we had known.

But hey, life goes on, and we’ll still frequent the place on Fridays and Thursdays when possible.

A look back:

Admittedly the best years were when Mike Libbos was our server.  He had it covered. Our table became the  testing ground for servers after he moved on, but we loved ya Mike!

Birthdays, homecomings, and socializing that might not have happened without the weekly knowledge that you could always join us for Sunday brunch have been part of our lives for so many years, change will take a bit of time.

So, 2012 will bring some new approaches.  We could just show up for lunch at noon. But that doesn’t have the same feel to it for me.  I guess it’s time to try something new and check out many of the other amazing brunch options Ottawa has.

T/H