Fun Filled Fact........

Have you ever wondered what the deal was with those little paper cups for ketchup at fast food places?

Observe:

The paper ketchup cup we all know and put up with. Everyone recognizes it. Everyone has squeezed its contents onto their burgers at some point in their life.

But this mild mannered, everyday paper cup was designed to be so much more! Each of those paper ridges is supposed to be unfolded and when they are......

BAM!!!

Plate of ketchup! Now dipping onion rings is a breeze, why you could even dip your hamburger in it if you really wanted to.

Apparently this knowledge was advertised when the cups were first released, but soon the ads stopped, and so the knowledge was lost to a generation of people, but the design was never changed.

Spread the word my friends! The ketchup revolution starts with you. Free your friends and family from the chains of fast food ignorance!!

(Was that a bit too melodramatic? I can never tell.)

      

Meditation

I am smack dab in the middle of taking a Mindfulness Meditation course. So far I find it very interesting, and it shows the potential to help me in a number of ways. The tricky bit is, I keep forgetting or putting off my practice.

In this method of meditation there is what is called "formal practice" which is sitting down and focusing on the meditation, and "informal practice" which is taking a moment to be truly aware of what is happening to you in your regular day. I am doing great with informal practice, I have been finding more and more places during my day to take some deep breaths and experience the moment fully. Formal practice has been another kettle of fish entirely.

I think I need to add this to my "Get 'er Done" list. My teacher says that the most important thing is showing up to your practice. It sounds so easy doesn't it?

All Hallows' Eve

Happy Halloween to one and all!

I had set a deadline for myself to have enough of my one product on Etsy to give some trick or treaters a little taste. I did it! Allow me to celebrate, WOOT!! Who knew meeting a deadline could feel so good!

I hope everyone's night is full of spooky fun!

Magpie

Confession: I think I may be part magpie. Then again part pack rat is probably closer to the truth. If I see something that has been left behind I pick it up. Not any of the gross stuff, I haven't gone that far off the reservation! I think I have some strange idea of using all my findings in a piece of art or a craft someday. 

I found the finger puppet years ago. He currently guards my white board. Every time I look at him I hear the 'Grrr, argh' from  the end credits of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer.' He never fails to make me smile. 

Someday inspiration will strike. For now it will remain a quirky habit.......at least I hope it is just quirky and not out right crazy!

"One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."

I first read the poem Birches in grade ten english class. The last line of the poem always stuck with me. "One could do worse than be a swinger of birches." It pops into my head every time I see a birch tree, and for some reason always makes me feel peaceful and brings a smile to my face. I've started taking a new path when my dog and I go for a long walk, and I keep passing this one lone birch. I think it is beautiful; entirely bare surrounded by the riot of colour that is fall.

As I was taking the picture I decided it was high time I read through the poem again. I find it just as enthralling now as I did then.

Birches 

By Robert Frost

WHEN I see birches bend to left and right
Across the line of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them	5
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells	10
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed	15
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.	20
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—	25
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again	30
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away	35
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,	40
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches;
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood	45
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.	50
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,	55
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.	60

I must say, the last line is still my favorite.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Get 'er Done

I have to admit I am great at starting projects, but getting them finished seems to be another matter entirely. Since it is fall I am turning over a new leaf, I have decided to Get 'er Done!

I started this little beauty in spring of this year......I think. Yesterday I rolled up my sleeves and got the machine quilting done. All I have left to do is hand close the binding and it's one more thing off my to do list.


Also on my to do list is my Halloween magnets. I'm opening a shop on Etsy. I still have to figure out paypal, and the clock is ticking down to All Hallows Eve. I wish I had been a bit more organized, but inspiration and motivation struck late. However, I will finish and post my Halloween pretties before the day, and keep adding to my shop. Hopefully I'll get into the swing and timing of things sooner rather than later!
               

I love Halloween.  Every year I add a few more bits and bobs to my decoration collection. Here's a very small taste.

                 

I've been taking advantage of all the outdoor time I now get as a dog owner to collect fall leaves. I'm using some paper towels and a stack of books as a makeshift flower press so they don't shrivel up as they dry. I remember seeing a project idea in a Martha Stewart magazine. I think the leaves are dipped in some kind of wax to preserve them and then hung in the window. I'll check through my magazine backlog and see if I hung on to it. On second thought.....I have enough to get finished without starting anything new. So I'll stash the leaves until my to do list is much, much smaller.

There. Progress all ready!

A Very Good Place to Start

Why are beginnings always so hard? Then again endings are never very easy either! Its a good thing most of us spend the majority of our time somewhere in the middle.

I'm a craft loving individual, and I hope that through this blog I can share some things that are going on with me, crafting or otherwise, so I can talk out my frustrations, or successes, or absolute failures. Hopefully my experiences may help another crafter work their way through their own frustrations, or give someone inspiration to start something new.  So many of my favorite blogs have done so for me, I'm hoping to "Pay it forward."