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Crocs ..... lining issue

I love these winter Crocs.  They are warm and waterproof * and  have good traction and the lining does wash well and  I could  pick all the grass pieces off if they needed to look - well,  de-grassed.

The problem is that I cannot get the lining to hook back over those buttons.  I have tried many times using fingers and sheer force and different angles and today I tried using a small spoon as a button hook.

No luck.  Thing is, the lining tends to come out of the shoes when I take them off and then, of course, has to be put back in.  Frustrating.  

Did a google and found people with the same situation but no offered solutions that I could find.  Suggestions?

*  they are not up to puddle splashing or heavy rain or beach combing:  pixie puddlers are needed for these.

Daffs today

I wonder if I was willing to simply sit and watch -  would I see them opening.  It has only been twenty-four hours since they were all curled up.

Their fragrance is elusive but so distinct.

 

Shadow walls

Walls that inspire shadow art change with the season and with the day, of course, and it is this dual  transience that is part of the charm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The artist at ......  play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Add audio.  "Snip, snip .... snip."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A bit of dialogue could turn into a script and the play evolves;  intermission at a sudden cloud ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Lights, camera,  action."

 

Birds and blossoms

Misjudged the timing and the branches of willows and forsythia I brought in a week or so before Solstice are just now showing leaf and bloom.  

Yesterday the first daffodils appeared in a local store and today I saw more.  Yipeeee!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will continue to buy them furled in order to watch the unfolding into trumpets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forsythia look as if they are dripping sun;  and how fascinating that the blooms announce the leaves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a willow catkin and it escaped my attention until it was this big!  There is a day or so in spring when the willow trees will suddenly have a mist of green on their otherwise bare branches - crowning leaves -  and I look forward to this fleeting moment so pay extra attention.  Perhaps the mist of newborn leaves did make it for Solstice on this indoor'ed branch!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Again, in tribute to good ol' Nature, I post this haiku

Morning welcome on my table

Spears tipped by yellow

Trumpet open.  I greet each, 

My lips daffodil'd.  

(from SIMPLY HAIKU)

 

Haiku ; triad

1)   Awareness

Strolling curious

Through the habitats of life;

Self as last frontier.

 

2)   Attraction

Thinking and feeling - 

The tools of vibration for

Allowing alignment .

 

3)   Acceptance

We know all about

Bad things, but we sure suck at

Welcoming the good.

 

 

Wallflowers

These felt like a gift from the garden in December so I cut two stems and brought them indoors.  Hopefully they will open fully but the fragrance is already present.  I used to say that wallflowers "smelled like candy" but it suddenly occurred to me that candy doesn't smell - at least it is not greatly known for its scent.  Hmmmm.   Maybe it is the incredible sweetness of the wallflowers that has brought about that simile.   The vibrant colours are so pleasing and the lushness and abundance of the leaves.  And I like the incongruity of the name - wallflower;  no waiting on the sidelines for attention here!

Bushtits at breakfast

'Bacon and eggs' bird style.

Solstice : winter ; Victoria BC

Shortest day, longest night, of the year.

How fantastic.  How dramatic.  

Six months from now  the day will be the longest, the night the shortest and that is wonderfully fantastic too,  but the drama of the winter solstice is in the indoor/outdoor aspects.

We have been moving more and more  indoors because of the increasing cold, the decreasing light.

Now that has changed as the light begins to increase and the weather will gradually warm.  

It will be some time for a noticeable difference but as of today there is a shift.  A change of rhythm.  Nature has moved, if only by a minute, and we, part of nature, respond on some deep level to the return of the light.  To  a moving toward the lessening barrier between indoors and outdoors.  A cause for celebration.  Happy Solstice!  A natural New Year.

 

Forks ..... sporks ...... runcible spoons ....

....  the adventure of the two-pronged fork from yesterday's post continues!  A comment on that post (and thanks for the information!) led to googling "sporks".  Wow!  There is an entire site devoted to sporks.  There are hundreds of images of sporks.  That they are also called runcible spoons led to Edward Lear and his delightful  The Owl and the Pussycat poem.  I learned all about patents for sporks.  And -  to my amazement -  I discovered that the spoon/fork I bought in a nifty Queen Street West store in Toronto on a visit a few years ago is a spork:  lots of images of it.  

But -  is what I now have a spork?

I did use it at dinner last night.  It is certainly a different experience from the usual fork.  The two tines narrow the area considerably and this does cause more of a focus, physically and mentally;  there is much less of a scoop capacity and I think trying to eat soup with it would last for one or two spoonsful and that would be that.  (Spell check is tsk-tsking over spoonsful and would likely prefer spoonfuls - yep - but somewhere I read that the former is more correct and I have been using that since).

It does pierce food nicely but then holds it on the end which is a bit unusual, if you see what I mean.  Something to do with the degree of the angle from the point.  

Here they are together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a comparison of the tips.  

I am in a runcible mind about them.

Two-pronged fork ; why? Thrift store find.

I've never seen forks quite like these before.  The fact that they came in a set of four makes me think they are for dining and not condiments.  However a google did not come up with anything even close.  On the back it says  stainless steel empire.

Any ideas?

I very much like the look of them and they are going to be tried out at dinner.  

I wonder what the knife and spoon in this design would look like.