sometimes pretty is...

June 9, 2018 Arlene Giddings

in your own backyard...
or...
maybe in your neighbor's front yard...
or the park across the street...
but
close enough to walk to...
that's my point.

on friday,
after complaining about the
yuckiness of the weather
i met up with a best friend for
treats and laughing
(so much laughing...my face hurt)
at a favorite coffee shop.

it started to pour rain
while we were there
but, by the time i got home,
the sun had come out
and the light
was
magical.

i couldn't stop myself...
i was only going to take a couple photos
but ended up being gone for over 2 hours.
it all started with the park at the end of my street...

and yeah...if you live close to me and
have lilacs...i might have been skulking around your
front yard (totally not brave enough to
skulk around someone's BACK yard...)

and then i found myself outside
Holman's Ice Cream Parlour....
and it IS the month of sundaes soooooooo.....

that sundae
was
OUT OF THIS WORLD amazing...

and then i embarrassed myself a little
but practically laying on the ground
in their gardens to take photos of the flowers
BUT I CAN'T HELP MYSELF.

and the stroll ended at the boardwalk
by the water
as the sun was going down
which is when i realized
that the sun was going down
which meant
june bugs
would be coming out
so i pretty much ran-walk the whole way home...

wordless wednesday...keeping with the winter theme...

February 14, 2018 Arlene Giddings

winter-wonder-land

February 10, 2018 Arlene Giddings

I really wanted to go on a
friday adventure
yesterday
but, sadly, was without a car.

I'll admit...I felt a little pouty about it
when I first got out of bed
and saw that the sun was shining.
I looked out my bedroom window
and could see the sun shining bright through
the ice covered trees.

Ice covered trees?

That I could see from my window?

I jammed on a pair of jeans over my leggings,
threw on some fuzzy socks and purple docs
grabbed my camera and headed out the door
down to the park at the end of my street
and no word of lie...
it was like walking into another dimension...
like something out of a fairy tale.

i am not sure why...but i seem to have developed a slightly crazed looking selfie face.

Twinkly tiny fairy lights EVERYWHERE....
as far as the eye could see
against yellow, reds and greens...
with black branch silhouettes.

I stayed there til my hands were too cold
to shoot anymore and I'm pretty sure
tears were freezing in my eyelashes...
the park was empty...
just me and my camera.
The only sound was the shutter clicking
and the crunching of my boots
through snow that has no footsteps yet.

What a great way to start my weekend.

friday adventures...

September 15, 2017 Arlene Giddings

sometimes the best adventures
catch you by surprise...
like when you get up friday morning
& pack up the car
with the camera and the diet coke
but your heart is
just not in it today...
the light's not right...it's too cloudy...
the car is making a funny noise,
you need gas but you don't feel like pumping it
and you feel like your hair is doing something weird
and then you think you will go for coffee
and bullet journal
but you sit in the parking lot
and think...you know what...
i just wanna go home and put on some pj pants
and doodle at my own desk.

so that's how i spent most of the day.

but i had plans with a friend to go for a bite to eat
and a walk so i left home a little early
and went to HMS and got 2 new leuchtturm1917
baby journals because apparently i'm an addict
(BUT THEY ARE SO CUTE)
and then met up with my friend for supper...
we ate at the silver fox
and seriously,
it was so good.
and inexpensive.
and no, there were no chicken fingers on the menu
but my new trick is to order the
chicken bacon wrap
but...without the wrap.
cause then?
well...it's just chicken fingers on a bed of lettuce with
some BACON.
sooooooo good.
oh...and a ceaser...also...soooooo good.
especially the spicy string bean.

so anyway. :)
then we walked the boardwalk
and the geese! there were so many geese.
i tried to convince my friend to
do something to make them all fly at once
so i could take a picture
but she declined all the ideas i proposed
(yelling wildly...throwing rocks)
(not AT the geese...just close...like...to make them fly...
not kill them! sheeesh)
and yes, uncle eddie...there WERE squirrels!
gangs of them. AND i forgot the stupid peanuts.

so anyway. :)
then we went for ice cream at holman's ice cream parlor
and i had the strawberry shortcake sundae
and look, i'm doing you a big favor right now.
go have that sundae.
you will totally thank me.
i mean..unless you are allergic to strawberries,
then maybe you shouldn't listen to me...
but otherwise...
you should try the sundae.

i have good intentions...really...i do...

September 7, 2017 Arlene Giddings

i love to read.
when i was a kid
i would read ANYTHING and literally EVERYTHING
i could get my hands on.

my summers were spent
upside down on the armchair
in our living room
eating apples and reading a book...
laying out in my pink panther
bathing suit on the roof of our porch,
slathered in baby oil listening to billy idol,
yelling at my brothers
and reading a book...
in a little grove of trees
in the field behind our house
eating wild strawberries
while hiding from my brothers
and reading a book...

my parents bought a set of encyclopedias
that came with a set of 10 books for kids...
i read them all.
repeatedly.
even the ones i hated.
i read my mother's borrowed copy of
vc andrews my sweet audrina
when i was about 10...probably too young to be reading about rape...
always careful to put the book back
exactly
where it was so i wouldn't get caught...
i read and re-read the same books hundreds of times...
and one summer
i even went through the good news bible
they gave us one year in the religion classes i detested
being forced to go to
looking for the parables.

i used to make my brothers walk 45 minutes
both ways
so i could go to the bookmobile.
they still say what a great babysitter i was.
:)

i loved books.
and i always had every intention of returning them...on time...
but
i just never could.

it started with the miscouche school library & progressed
to the TOSH high school library...where the librarian
once saw me come in and shouted
(shouted! in a LIBRARY no less! shouted!)
"YOU! OUT!"
and sadly, it progressed to the bookmobile,
the town library...the library in the city 45 minutes away...
so i gave up on borrowing books.
i just wasn't good at it.

but that was before e-books! and apps!
and being able to return a book with just the push of a button on my phone!
AND (wonder of all wonders)
they gave me a new library card and a fresh blank slate.
and have you seen this library?
oh my 10 year old heart nearly cried
when i saw the new library
(i didn't stop and look around the night they gave me my card though...
i was scared someone would realize who i was and
shout YOU! OUT! again)

but look at this place...

and this space age thing...
LETS YOU CHECK OUT BOOKS
without
HAVING TO TALK TO ANYONE.
and...sometimes...that works for me...
nothing against the lovely librarians
(especially after they gave me a shiny new library card)
but sometimes...i'm just not good with
"people-ing"
heh.

oh. and just for the record,
i have already returned physical books
ON TIME
(well...they were only on time because
i was able to extend the borrowing period
by pushing a button on my phone
but that's a minor detail)

look how proud i am
(OR look at what a geek/loser i am
taking a selfie of myself
returning my books...you decide...
just don't tell me which one you went with).