painting

Toleware

Toleware (from Wikipedia)

In the collectibles and antique industry, toleware refers to kitchen-related objects created from metal, typically tin or thin steel, and are often in decorative styles such as Arts and Crafts and Pennsylvania Dutch. Decorative painting on these items is common but not necessary. This style of decorative art spread from Europe (where it was referred to as Japanning) to the United States in the 18th century, and was popular in US kitchens in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The term is derived from the French name for tole painting, tôle peinte.

Image via Everyday Beauty: A Tole Tale .

Are you Afraid of the City?

I read an email list for Pagans in small towns. This is something I wrote for a discussion about agoraphobia, the fear of open spaces and large crowds, etc. The talk turned to the dangers of crowds and cities. I always get annoyed about misplaced attitudes about cities. I guess you can’t really take the city out of the girl, even when she moves far out into the small town/ rural city kind of area.

Large cities and large crowds are not that big a deal. Maybe some of you are giving yourself a phobia or hang ups. I live in a small city, Barrie, in Ontario. It is funny to me to hear people talk about Toronto (the city I grew up in) as if it were some big, bad place of sin and evil. Where everyone is in danger of being attacked at any moment. I’ve had people tell me all kinds of stuff they think about Toronto, how they will never go there… Then, I will be in a small town and people will tell me how dangerous it is to live here, in Barrie. There are too many people, it’s too big, there are street people and drunks coming out of the bar on main street…. Well, ironically, I’ve seen drunks coming out of bars in any town that has a bar. We had a car stolen once, in a small town – never in the city.

People build themselves up to be afraid. They sound weird to me. I still go downtown to Toronto and have a good walk around. It is not a big deal, I’ve never had a problem. I live in Barrie, I take the bus even! I walk right by the homeless street people. I’m not stupid and all Miss Sunshine about it, but I’m not living in terror either.

I’m not meaning to offend anyone. But, it sounds like you are painting yourself into a corner. People are about the same in a city or a small town. It’s more about how you see things versus where you are. We tend to find what we are looking for.

Like Catching Goldfish in a Rain Barrel

raingrrl

It’s a rainy day. So I am getting out for a walk and some pictures, somewhere. I haven’t decided yet. I’m still having my mostly cold coffee right now and watching whatever comes on TV. One channel is all kids shows and the other is all entertainment news, so far. Hard to decide which is sillier.

I am so tired this morning. I only slept about an hour yet I can’t get to sleep when I try going back to bed. Too much in my mind with this moving and packing and wondering what I am going to do until the end of July when we can move to Barrie. I’m going to have over a month of living out of the garage at Alliston.

Not literally. But, keeping mostly everything in there is not going to be nice. It stinks in there. Why do garages stink? It’s not just a garbage stink. There is a fungus, mildew stink too. I used to leave the garage doors open for hours to see if it made any difference. It didn’t. I think they build that smell right into the garage when you get your new house.

It would be ok but that smell sinks into everything. You can’t get it out of your clothes or your books once they have been infected.

I downloaded a couple of software programs to try to sort out my digital photos. None of them worked that well. Each only shows a few photos at a time. Hard to file them and check for doubles if you can only see four at a time. I never did find where the second program filed my photos. I still have the originals. It’s just a little mystery to find the sorted out ones now. I spent a lot of time I should have been packing on procrastinating with those pictures. Seems I should at least have something to show for all my wasted time.

My brother is coming this afternoon. I’m not sure what he is working on today. Likely painting and he said he was going to turn off the water. Likely he is going to spaz a bit cause I don’t have more packed up and I didn’t shuffle a bunch of boxes on the bus from the grocery store. He offered to bring some today though so maybe he won’t bug me about that. I really did not want to struggle with empty boxes on the bus, waiting for the bus in the rain mostly each day this week anyway. Soggy boxes are not the best for packing.

If I get going out there soon, in the lovely rain, I should be back in time to finally be worn out enough to sleep a bit, in theory. It’s funny how you can feel your brain and body are tired and yet you can not sleep. It’s not insomnia, just too much stressing out about stuff.

I’m kind of looking forward to the rain. I do like it. Not those really blasting days but today is a gentle rain, kind of nice. Great for taking pictures, as long as your camera doesn’t get too soggy.

Creative Fat Grrls on LockerGnome

beachdivas


A bold (risky) step for Creative Fat Grrls everywhere.

Note: It’s so new I haven’t even done more than login and make a first post. I am likely to change the theme and see if I can do something about that huge Google ad taking up most of the real estate on the top of the blog.

Would really like comments, optimistic only. You pessimistic fat-bashing types can piss off. 😛 Don’t make me sit on you.

“When we lose twenty pounds we may be losing the best twenty pounds that we have! We may be losing the pounds that contain our genius, our humanity, our love and honesty”–Woody Allen

“If I had been around when Rubens was painting, I would have been revered as a fabulous model. Kate Moss? Well, she would have been the paintbrush.” –Dawn French

I don’t want to bash skinny grrls but that was pretty funny.

The art above came from DiVaVaVoom

Faboo gifts and apparel for the forgotten woman. Amy’s saucy, voluptuous diva designs prove that beauty comes in all sizes, not just a size 5.

Have a look at the calendars .

Amy Flynn is a professional illustrator who has been designing greeting cards, childrens’ books and the like for far too long. After painting one too many little skinny women for her clients, she created “DiVaVaVoom” for her friends both big and small.

Grandma’s House

What happens at Grandma’s stays at Grandma’s.

Pretty good T-shirt slogan. It was over there on the CafePress banner. I’d buy that one. Most of the others haven’t been that interesting (to me).

I have not moved because:

1- There is an outside leak which has caused water damage which has yet to be repaired and the apartment is now musty, from the water damage.

2- The man who has already been paid to do the work of fixing up the inside water damage as well as painting the apartment has not bothered to show up. Though he makes endless promises.

Haven’t I already said all of this?

3- My nephew doesn’t want me to move, leave him. I’m trying not to let that keep me here but it is making it less easy to move and who really loves to move in the first place.

4- I don’t want to make this moving thing a long drawn out event. I am using my Mother’s car to transport most of my stuff and gas is pretty pricey here. So I want to do it all in one shot, as best as I can do it in one shot. Coming back and hauling things down there on the Greyhound bus and then the TTC is just not hugely appealing.

5- The last two are smaller things, the first two are the main things.

6- That’s about it. Go read some other blog now. I don’t mind.