It's My Birthday

It's my birthday on July 1st. Canada Day. I have always loved having my birthday the same day as a national celebration and holiday.

Today, I was walking Meeko and thought I am going to be 48 tomorrow. It took me a few more steps to do the mental correction. No, I am going to be 58. Kind of hilarious that I lost a decade but nice that I am feeling younger than I am.

When I initially launched my internet life, I hid my age like a closely guarded secret. I felt like everyone was younger than me. That was especially the vibe, although perhaps not factual, on Etsy. I worried that people wouldn't like or value me as much if they knew how old I was.

I have made many wonderful friends over the past few years of all sorts of ages. We have connected because of mutual interests and values: a sense of humour, art, gardens, music, nature, pets, food, family, life.

Over time, I have realized that creativity is not age-related. It just is. And really, if you're counting, maybe having a few more years under your creative belt is a good thing.

Plus, the age we are is not really relevant every-day conversation, unless you are under five. The people who spend time reminding others that they are younger are not talking about achievements or values. We don't choose when we are born. That's done for us. We're all on a timeline, just at different places. It's better to spend time appreciating connections, celebrating creativity and being who we are.

The photo above was taken three years ago. I found it in my files when I was looking for photos for my new website this past month. I didn't choose it because I wanted to look three years younger. The pickings are slim when you are as camera shy as I am (!) and I just love that it captures a sweet moment between me and Meeko.

To celebrate my birthday and Canada Day, I am offering a 20% discount in my (Shopify) shop www.trowelandpaintbrush.com  on July 1st. Use the coupon BDAY2015. It expires at midnight (EST) at the end of the day on July 1st.

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Happy Birthday, Meeko!

Birthday boy in the house!  Five years old today!

Thanks, my friend, for the daily walks, constant companionship, cuddles and your endearing eccentricities. You make every day better.

I did the portrait of him a couple of years ago. I need to paint him again sometime soon.

The photo above was taken on the day he became part of our family. The photo below was taken on this morning's birthday walk in the forest.

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Summer Pleasures

It has always seemed to me that summer really starts sometime around July 1st. Maybe because it's Canada Day on July 1st (that's Canada's birthday--147 years young!) and a public holiday in most places in Canada. It's also my birthday today! By this time of year, the school year feels far behind the girls. The garden is lush and the weather is hot and humid.

Some summer pleasures that I am thankful for today:

♥●•٠·˙ I love being able to walk out the front door and pick a huge number of beautiful serviceberries from one of our shrubs. They are at their peak right now. Meeko accompanied me while I was picking and got the occasional berry (he loves them!) for his companionship. Look at those beauties! For those of you who haven't tried a serviceberry, they look very much like a blueberry but are redder in tone and slightly sweeter in taste. We have several serviceberry bushes and trees in our yard and share the harvest with the birds.

♥●•٠·˙ Last night, Emma and Chloé had tickets to see a live version of the satirical radio show Welcome to Night Vale. My husband and I drove them downtown and decided to have a pre-birthday dinner together while we waited for them. We had a restaurant in mind but it was full so we walked a few minutes and ended up in an area called 'The Village'. Several blocks of the main road are reserved as a pedestrian mall in the summer. It is lined with terraces and decorated with garlands of pink balls (les boules roses). So beautiful. It is a diverse, lively, colourful neighbourhood of Montreal. We live in the suburbs and don't get downtown enough. It made my heart happy to be there.

The pink ball garlands or 'boules roses' kind of remind me of serviceberries. 

♥●•٠·˙ I received some lovely, thoughtful gifts from my family today--many of them from fellow Etsy shop owners. Some of the purchases are still in transit so I will be enjoying an extended birthday when I check the mailbox each day in the next week.

♥●•٠·˙ I am thankful that we have a pool in the backyard. Did you know that Quebec has more pools per capita than almost anywhere else in North America? Odd when you consider how short our summers are. But when the temperature is 32 degrees C (89.6 F) with a humidex of 42 C (107.6 F) like it is today, it is a very nice thing to have. Meeko also is thankful for our pool. He is an avid swimmer. (This is a video of him swimming in my in-laws' pool this past weekend.)

♥●•٠·˙I am thankful that there is a delicious looking chocolate layer cake waiting for me on the kitchen counter that was made by Emma. We will eat it after my birthday dinner which will be cooked by my husband Jocelyn.

I hope that, wherever you are, you are enjoying time with friends, family as well as the pleasures of the season.

Here's a watercolour I did of a serviceberry branch last year. I have it available as a print here.

Birthday Cake

This past Sunday, it was Emma's 19th birthday. This was the cake I made for her. I have made this sour cream chocolate cake for special occasions for the past 30 years or so. It has been kitchen tested over and over again.

When Emma was a baby, she had a severe egg allergy. Because I couldn't include eggs in recipes, her first cakes were quite flat. I think I cried when I made her cake for her first birthday. So silly of me, but it didn't match in my head what my first cake for my little girl would be. By the time she was three, she was no longer allergic (it is one of the rare food allergies that children can grow out of) and I was able to make traditional birthday cakes for her.

What can I say? I am a birthday cake person. If I don't have a traditional layer cake, I don't feel like I've had my birthday.

I can't remember how many times I've made this cake for family occasions but the splattered state of my recipe cards tell a tale.

For those who love a dense, moist, not-too-sweet chocolate cake, here is the recipe:

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Set oven at 350 degrees F

3 1-ounce squares of unsweetened chocolate
2 1/4 cups sifted cake flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter or margarine
2 1/4 cups light brown sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup sour cream
1 cup boiling water

Melt chocolate in a small bowl over hot water (or carefully in the microwave). Cool. Grease and flour two 9" round cake pans or line them with parchment paper. Sift flour, baking soda and salt into a bowl or on wax paper. Beat the butter until it is soft in a large bowl. (I use my KitchenAid mixer.) Add the brown sugar and eggs. Beat at high speed until light and fluffy--about five minutes. Beat in vanilla and the cooled, melted chocolate. Stir in the dry ingredients alternately with the sour cream (about a third at a time, ending with the sour cream). Incorporate well after each addition and mix until batter is smooth. This next part breaks your heart a little bit as you will see your lovely thick mixture become quite thin but, trust me, it works. Stir in the cup of boiling water and mix carefully. Pour into the cake pans and bake for 35 minutes.

Chocolate Fudge Icing

4 1-ounce squares of unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup butter
1 pound of icing/confectioners' sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 to 3/4 cups milk

Combine the chocolate and butter in a heavy saucepan over low heat (or heat carefully in a microwave). Remove and let cool. Combine the icing sugar, milk and vanilla in a medium size bowl. Stir until smooth. (I use my KitchenAid mixer on low speed.) Add the chocolate mixture and mix well. Let it sit for a while and it will thicken. If you are in a hurry, you can put the bowl in the refrigerator and check it every now and then to see if it is thick enough to spread.

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We also went through a few years of making Nigella Lawson's Buttermilk Birthday Cake (from 'How to Be a Domestic Goddess')--also a winner. My recipe book falls open to that page. Do you have a favourite recipe for birthday cakes?

Summertime and the living is...busy

In the summer, things always change for me. My teenage daughters are in the house all day and I find myself easily distracted. I haven't painted very much the past few weeks as family life takes precedence. I'll have to figure out how to sneak in some painting time when the house is quiet (maybe when they sleep in each morning? :)

I always feel stress at the beginning of the summer as I feel my daily routine being tugged away from me. There are so many things I meant to do before the summer started and, well, here it is.

I celebrated my birthday on July 1st. Emma made me a fabulous beach-themed cake. I've always felt lucky to have my birthday on Canada Day. Canada is 146 years old now. I am younger.

Other activities from the past few weeks: sleepovers, visits from friends, an early birthday party for Chloé who turns 14 on July 7th, dips in the pool with Meeko who loves to swim, house cleaning, garden weeding (they're still winning), and Ikea furniture making (an art storage cabinet for me, a bookcase for Emma and some CD shelves for the basement).

Guess who wishes Emma had made a cake for his birthday?

I find the burden of my Etsy treasury teams hard at this time of year.  That's been complicated by all of the recent format changes Etsy has made that have gummed up traditional ways we've all made our treasuries. Some of my teams have reduced their quotas for the summer and that has helped me step back a little. Less time at the computer is a good thing. I don't think many people enjoy change all that much, but I think it's our resistance to it that creates the most problems. Maybe it's good that all of these changes happened just as the summer began. It gives us time to consider what's important and adjust. I know that it would be better if I spent more time making art and less time worrying about what Etsy is doing or not doing.

Last night we all went to a fabulous concert in downtown Montreal that was part of the Jazz Festival. I like how a concert transports you from your ordinary life. Camera Obscura from Glasgow Scotland was the opening act. I'm just getting to know them. I was searching for the words to describe them and Emma said 'indie pop with a retro twist'. Sounds good to me. I enjoyed them. The main act was She & Him (Zooey Deschanel and Matt Ward). We have all of their albums here. It's rare that all four of us can agree on one group. The concert was fabulous. Zooey packs a very big voice into her small frame and it was fun to see her play piano and ukelele. I liked when Matt and Zooey sang together. Their voices combine beautifully and you could see that they enjoy each other. The backup singers were amazing too and I read after the concert that they are the daughters of Tom Chapin and the nieces of the late Harry Chapin. I can remember listening to Harry Chapin 8-track tapes (there's an age indicator) in the car when we were on summer vacation when I was young.

There are more distractions ahead: family visits here, a trip to Lake Muskoka to visit my parents and a trip oceanside in Maine. For my part, I'll try to keep going with the summer flow.

Happy 4th of July to all of my friends in the United States! I was born in Manitoba but spent my first year in Cleveland, Ohio! I came very close to being a dual citizen! 

Family Portraits

One morning this past week, I found a little stack of pictures beside my computer. The night before Emma had doodled portraits of us all. I love them so much. I asked her permission to post them here and told her I planned to frame them. With a few lines, she has really caught our essence. (I am 'Mama' for those of you less familiar with our family.) These are by my 17-year-old daughter who says she's not artistic.

Of course, there is one family member missing so I will include my recent watercolour portrait of him. On Saturday, Meeko celebrated his birthday. He is three years old and it is hard to remember when he wasn't with us. He has stolen our hearts.

As of tomorrow, the household will be back to its normal routine. Chloé finished her school break last Monday. Emma is back to school tomorrow. I hope to paint a little and get some new prints into my shop. There is a ton of snow predicted for this week. Oh boy. Meeko will be happy about that. So studio time and snowy walks are on the agenda for the week ahead.

Painting Time

There has been so much going on lately that it's been hard to find painting time. The solution the past few mornings has been to make a cup of coffee and go up to my studio first thing while still in my pajamas.  It has been working quite well as Jocelyn is long gone to work by that time and Emma and Chloé sleep in during the summer. The past few mornings I have left Meeko sleeping in his crate downstairs. But today, he stirred as I walked by his crate and I got brave and brought him up to the loft to sit with me. He was a little fidgety at first until I put my foot down right beside him (note his paw in turn touching my foot).  He was very good and slept for about an hour and a half there. I couldn't have done this before without him gnawing on the furniture legs or consuming my watercolour paper.

Emma made the comment recently that she thinks Meeko and I are co-dependent. I think she might be right. I am already missing him, just thinking about leaving him with the dog-sitter while we are away.

I'm glad that I have been getting some painting time the past few mornings as I am working on a commissioned painting that will be hand-delivered (not by me) to France later this month.  Here is a little peek at it in progress.  It is about halfway done at this point:  lots of detail, colour and contrast still to be added but the basic structure is there and I'm starting to 'feel' the place.  It was a surprise initially when I received the photos as I didn't expect to see the palm trees. It has been interesting to paint a more tropical garden than I would normally.

When out of my studio, I am getting us ready for our family trip to New York and Chloé for her first overnight summer camp (which happens almost immediately upon our return).  We also have to leave the house relatively neat as my brother and his family will be using our place as a stopover on their drive out to PEI. I said that it is a family trip to New York, but it is more than that.  I am going to meet my sweet friend Lucile for the first time. She will be visiting New York from Paris with her two children. Cannot wait!

Thanks to everyone for the lovely birthday wishes. I didn't have a chance to leave individual replies the way I normally do but I appreciated each and every comment.  I had a great day. Emma made my cake and it was delicious!  She used Nigella Lawson's Buttermilk Birthday Cake recipe from How to be a Domestic Goddess (an excellent, very tasty cake that we have made many times here).  I'm not sure how much I'll be blogging in the next week. I'll see and so will you! :)

Happy 4th of July to everyone in the U.S.!

It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To

A full and emotional weekend. Emma had her high school graduation ceremony and prom yesterday. I am so proud of the person she is. I have always stressed to my girls that what is important is inside and not just outside, but will you let me tell you how very beautiful she was yesterday?

Did I cry at her ceremony? I cried before it even started when I tried to say a few words to her as she left to join her fellow students.

Today was also special. For those of you who visit my blog from elsewhere, today is Canada's birthday.  And it also happens to be my birthday although I feel like a youngster compared to her at 145.

The photo at the top shows the birthday gifts I received in the mail from my sister Nancy and her family. What a collection of beautiful things from people I love and admire: gorgeous earrings made by Nancy that I am wearing right now, napkins and a dish made by Bookhou and sticky notes featuring the beautiful paintings of Geninne. I'll admit it. I cried when I opened the gift.

I received the loveliest gifts from Jocelyn, Emma and Chloé: a stack of CDs, gift cards from iTunes, a collection of Woody Allen movies, flavoured olive oils, tea, and a big surprise--an iPad. I hope I get to use it  sometimes as it has been very popular in our house today.  Jocelyn gave me the iPad accompanied by the same Hallmark card he has given me at least twice before. Pretty sweet.  All in all, a lovely weekend. Hope you all have had one too. A big Canadian birthday hug to you all. xo

Colour My Monday Green

It is a holiday weekend here in Quebec. The 24th of June is Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day. We spent part of the weekend in Trois-Rivières to celebrate the 88th birthday of my husband's mother. I took lots of photos of my brother and sister-in-law's pretty garden that I will post later this week.

Today and for the next four days, I have decided to participate in Poppytalk's Summer Colours week. I've been inspired to take part by friends Margie and Sonia. Today's colour is green and it was a real treat to wander around the garden to take photos this morning after a night of rain. 

I love June as the garden always really starts to thrive at this point in the growing season.  Our family has done a fair bit of growing in June and early July as well. We have so many birthdays packed into a five-week period. Emma's birthday is on June 1st, her cousin Erica on June 2nd, my brother-in-law Jean on June 10th, my grandmother Edie (deceased) on June 16th, my brother Bob on June 17th, my grandfather Eric (deceased) on June 21, my mother-in-law Margeurite on June 25, my sister Karen on June 30th, me on July 1st and Chloé on July 7th. Isn't that crazy?

Here's a simple yet elegant arrangement of herbs, leaves and flowers gathered during my garden walk this morning.

Birthdays, Books and Cake

Each family has its own traditions around birthdays. In our family, birthdays always involve a homemade cake, a family dinner and books.

My eldest daughter Emma is 17 today. I'm having a lot of trouble believing how fast the years have gone by, but I am so proud of the beautiful young woman she is.  She is intelligent, kind, principled, a little bit quirky and very strong-minded. I love each and every part of her.

I remember the day I found out I was pregnant with Emma. It was on the Thanksgiving weekend and that seemed entirely appropriate.  I recall how very hard it was waiting to meet her which I finally did on June 1, 1995. As a birthday bonus, Emma's cousin Erica was born the very next day.

From the look of these recipe cards, you have an idea of how many times I've made this cake. That peacock blue ink and calligraphy-style printing tells me that I copied this recipe in my early twenties, loooong before I was a mom. :)

Ever since Emma and Chloé were babies, books have been one of the gifts they have received from us on birthdays and at Christmas.  Of course, they would receive toys but there would always be books among the packages.

When Emma was about eleven or twelve, she came into my room and said 'Mama' in a serious voice to the point that I was a little worried about what she was going to say.  She said, 'Mama...I just wanted to thank you for giving me your love of reading'.  I thought my heart would burst.

This year, Emma has asked for an iPod as a gift. She has been using my old one that is not performing very well at all anymore.  A couple of weeks ago, she asked me if by requesting an iPod, would she still be receiving some books as she always looked forward to them.  I would find it very hard not to include them. Right now, I am making her cake. Later we will go to a vegetarian restaurant for dinner.  And tonight, along with a brand new iPod, Emma will receive a big stack of lovingly chosen books.

♥ Happy Birthday Emma! ♥

Happy Birthday Meeko!

Meeko is two years old today. I made a collage of photos to commemorate the occasion because there aren't enough words to describe how much I love him!

Chloé and I just took him to the pet store to choose a birthday gift. He chose a plush animal and a rope toy. He was very excited about both and ran around with them for a few minutes.  Now he is chewing on a stick. You know, the free kind that you get outdoors.  So much for shopping.

I wanted a dog forever (we always had a dog when I was growing up) but not everyone in my family felt the same way. I waited a long time for this dog. I'm happy to say that this furry, mischievous boy has won everyone's heart. (He had mine from the start.) He is smart. He is goofy. He is joyful. It's a pretty wonderful combination.

He's changed a little bit since this photo was taken but those eyes haven't.

A Birthday in Paris

I was lucky enough to spend the beginning of the summer in London and Paris on vacation with my family. 

We were in Paris on my birthday so I got to choose what we did that day.  At the top of my list was visiting le Musée de l'Orangerie where Claude Monet's beautiful waterlily paintings Les Nymphéas are installed.  I've been there before but it was still a magical experience to be wrapped by those gorgeous paintings.  The first time I visited that museum many years ago, I actually burst into tears.  It's one thing to see pictures of paintings in books, it's another to be standing right in front of them--especially beautiful paintings of such a magnificent scale.

A walk along La Seine, a visit to a tiny, lovely art supply store called Sennelier (it's been there since 1887!) to buy some paintbrushes and dinner in one of our favourite restaurants rounded out a very special day.

A lovely arrangement on the welcome desk of L'Orangerie