37 things I'm really glad exist

1. cherry blossoms in bloom
2. creme brulee
3. earl grey tea with hot milk and honey
4. running squirrels
5. kitteny cats
6. art nouveau
7. handmade quilts
8. realy great grated parm on fresh pasta
9. feather duvets
10. feather pillows
11. craft fairs
12. tables outside
13. dewey rain
14. email
15. kisses
16. butter chicken
17. helium balloons in bunches
18. postcards
19. warm days with a cool breeze blowing through them
20. the blues in a dark club
21. downhills on the bike through unknown neighborhoods
22. mashed potatoes, piled in a mountain, butter inside and covered in gravy
23. "real" hot chocolate
24. Michael Oscar Rowan Trainor
25. Tomy's "Nohohon Zoku"
26. flannel bedsheets on cold days
27. antique embroidery hoops
28. my Pentax Digital
29. The Vancouver Car Co-Op
30. Spring and Fall
31. fresh croissants with jam and cream
32. road trips in the country
33. my family
34. Scotland
35. train trips
36. spiders that eat the bugs
37. fresh tulips and spray roses

blue eyes

blue eyes, originally uploaded by jill y.

best birthday present ever

my adorable boyfriend tricked me into thinking that the studio he works for might want to use some of my prints in an upcoming production. He wanted me to burn a few images on a disc for him- high resolution. Sure, I can do that. I didn't think much of it.

Yesterday for my birthday- he gave me a bundle of postcards, complete with the spot for the stamp and the address and all of that- OF ONE OF MY PHOTOS. Not just any photo though- the one that I took sitting next to him in a cafe minutes before we first met. (He also talked the cafe where we met into selling them!!)

SO PERFECT A BIRTHDAY PRESENT!!

happy birthday to me

Today is my birthday .

Don't forget to tun out your lights at 8 pm wherever you are for Earth Hour. But why not just turn out your lights for the day.

and then I found this funny video...

almost a year ago I walked long a street in Paris

then and now

then and now, originally uploaded by el_rebelde.

not my photo..click on it to see more from the photographer.

plum blossoms in Tokyo

plum blossom 1, originally uploaded by jill y.

children's secrets

As someones child, I would like to assume they are curious to know of all the "bad" things I have done. I would like to assume that they are innately curious of all the high jinx I could get into. They maybe pretended to "trust" me, but deep down, I think they are dying to know the secret lives of their child. Sensing this, I have often opted to spare my mother the gut wrenching anxiety she must have felt for all those nights I was out beyond curfew as truth be told, I was at a diner eating fries with mayonnaise with a bunch of up to no good punks.

So recently, I confessed a few things I've done. I didn't think too much about it, but when she recently commented, "So where was the secret fort??" I wondered why she didn't want to know more about these other things I could cross off my list as done...

31. hitchhike
33. travel with musicians
68. swim naked in the ocean at night
90. make a complete and utter fool of myself
92. forgive my parents
100. get arrested

But no- it's the secret fort I built with a bunch of no good punks. So here it is...

There was one house with green siding, a gently sloping lawn, by best friend next door and nothing but a ravine, a farmer's field and the rest of Alberta across the street and behind the neighbours house (see map and see that across the highway is seriously developed housing now). It probably wasn't so secret, but at the time, it sure felt like if you crossed the street went behind the house and a little bit further you drop off the edge of adult land.

One summer a bunch of older kids made off with the farmer's hay bales (from across Baseline Road) and built tunnels and little rooms. We were small bundles of legs and arms. We didn't need a whole lot of room. I maybe more accurately, didn't "make" a secret fort, as much as I was aware of a secret fort and played in it. I climbed trees in this wild growth of magical childhood fantasy and played pirates. We pretended we would find hidden treasure, and we would watch for invading tribes from afar. You know the drill.

Once, it rained heavily and flooded the ravine. A couple of kids made a raft- or at least that is what I seem to remember. I distinctly remember crawling along a fallen tree log that was arched over the water. It's a sheer madness that no one got hit running across the highway that separated this wilderness from the farmer's field, that we never got caught stealing hay and that no one got seriously hurt or drowned in that murky water that one summer.

The whole thing is a bit of a weird memory- half submerged in memory and the other half gurgling for air in fantasy. Did I really crawl on my hands and knees through the yellow, musty, poky straw bale tunnel or did I imagine it.

Either way- it was a secret and it was a fort.


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100 things crossed off, 1-100

Doing these lists of thing to do before I die is not as easy as it would seem. So, I started reading all the other lists I could find and noticed quite a number of things on other people's lists that I have done. I thought- that's pretty neat. I've done some cool things and I think it's worth celebrating all the things you have accomplished- big, small, fanciful or boring..And this list was considerably easier...In no random order- the incomplete list-100 things I have done

Both lists was an extraordinary personal review of the "books on my shelf"- meaning the ideas I have in my head on what i thought my life would be like, what I hope for it and what I just wish for despite the odds- no, I really don't hope to ride a giraffe one day- but darn it- it would be fantastic.

I highly encourage you to write your lists. Scratch things off and add more when they come around. There were alot of things I wanted to put on my list but I just wasn't ready to. Be gentle with yourself, but write the list.

Good luck..

1. visit Japan
2. live in Scotland
3. live on a boat
4. road trip to New Orleans
5. have a Corona in Mexico
6. skydive
7. have croissants in Paris
8. Visit the Victor Horta house in Brussels
9. Visit the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam
10. sleep on a train
11. Go to Ground Zero
12. see the leaning tower of Pisa before it falls down
13. own something from Tiffany's
14. learn to accept that I have to eat my greens, take my omegas, get regular exercise and water and occasionally get a medical lift to pull up from mild depression and anxiety. No you can't be happy and immobile on potato chips- get over it, Jill
15. Go to the Red Light District
16. Meet a Harijuko girl
17. talk to someone famous
18. visit the Grand Canyon
19. see the inside of Janis Joplin's house in Larkspur, California
20. ride a camel down the beaches in Morocco
21. travel through Europe
22. visit Prague
23. look out from the top of the Empire State Building
24. Go to the top of the Rock
25. visit Alcatraz
26. sell a photograph
27. help someone with their groceries
28. ride by bike to work every day for a week
29. make my own ginger ale
30. go fast on the Autobahn
31. hitchhike
32. accept an invitation from a stranger
33. travel with musicians
34. build a secret fort in the woods
35. give $20 to a panhandler
36. send a postcard to a stranger
37. get paid to travel
38. hike up the Grouse Grind
39. ride a scooter in Rome
40. take a long distance taxi cab ride
41. travel across Canada
42. get a very large tattoo
43. buy someone a gift for no reason
44. be in a parade
45. have a quote printed in a newspaper
46. take a tour of a brewery
47. take a large group of people out to dinner and pay the bill
48. visit Pompeii
49. Go to the Louvre, the Prado, Musee de Orsay, MET, and the Uffizi Galleries
50. have a job I'm really great at
51. Climb the towers of the Notre Dame
52. quit smoking
53. buy a tree for my mother
54. change my last name
55. go to the circus
56. go to a rodeo
57. drive a tractor
58. visit the Roman baths in Bath
59. take a TGV train ride
60. see a bull fight
61. see kittens being born
62. ice skate on a pond
63. walk across a suspension bridge
64. go sailing in the Mediterranean
65. cross shibuya intersection in Tokyo
66. grow something from a seed
67. eat octopus
68. swim naked in the ocean at night
69. visit the Hampton's
70. do a cleanse
71. go horseback riding
72. drive through Scotland to the isle of Skye with my mother and her mother
73. make it through my 20's
74. live in a historical area
75. see the Northern Lights
76. plant strawberries
77. pick berries and make pies
78. see salmon spawning
79. learn to crochet
80. start and keep a blog
81. write a poem
82. shave my head
83. buy art
84. apologize to someone I have hurt
85. take a road trip with my mother
86. quit a job
87. dance publicly alone
88. visit a nude beach
89. write a fan letter and get a response
90. make a complete and utter fool of myself
91. ride a roller coaster that goes upside down
92. forgive my parents
93. sing a great song in front of an audience
94. see Old Faithful
95. learn to drive
96. drive route 66 (partly)
97. visit the San Diego Zoo
98. have a long term relationship
99. ride a cable car in San Francisco
100. get arrested

100 things to do before I go, 1-100

One of the blogs I look at regularly is written by a very clever and funny San Franciscan woman named Maggie Mason.

She recently prompted her readers to write the list of things to do in one's life.

After doing it in a series of lists 25 things long.. I finally completed the arduaous task and found my list. This was somewhat harder than I thought it would be.

I also did the list of 100 things crossed off. That was easier. Why was that?

Remember.. in no particular order of importance..

1. open a cheese shop
2. open a hostel
3. ride a giraffe
4. go on an African safari
5. Scuba Dive someplace tropical
6. have a public exhibit of my photographs
7. sew a wrap around apron dress in navy linen
8. hand embroider bed sheets
9. hand embroider a matching duvet
10. travel through Japan
11. go to a yoga class in India
12. learn to ride a motorcycle
13. spend a night in the room Janis Joplin died in
14. plant a vegetable garden and eat from the harvest
15. finish my art history degree
16. pay someone's rent for the month
17. give someone a job
18. save someone from jumping
19. do a back flip
20. spend a year without ordering in
21. live in a house with a front porch and a screen door
22. have more than 1 cat at one time
23. learn a specific occupation
24. spend the night in the Chelsea Hotel
25. take a train trip across Canada
26. visit the Pyramids
27. bungee jump
28. knit a pair of socks and wear them
29. design my own web page, top to bottom, code and all
30. swim with sharks
31. invest in stocks independently
32. go to Holland during tulip season
33. let a backpacker stay overnight
34. produce a line of t shirts
35. participate as a vendor at a craft fair
36. make my own jam
37. spend a weekend without talking
38. invent something
39. volunteer my time
40. become an aunt
41. ride a bike long distance
42. tandem skydive with free fall
43. go on a retreat
44. own my own apartment
45. inspire someone
46. cook a stranger a meal and deliver it
47. have an 88th birthday
48. drink 6-8 glasses of water everyday for a month
49. sleep in an igloo
50. publish a photography book
51. spray paint something large and inspirational in a public place.
52. dig up a time capsule
53. find my best friend from when I was 5- Tanya Barter
54. visit Cuba before it's too late
55. have a ponytail
56. hide Easter eggs someplace
57. see a ghost
58. make my own cheese
59. ride a donkey to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
60. mail a secret to Post Secret
61. send more postcards to strangers through PostcardX
62. go camping alone
63. loose 30 pounds
64. visit Chicago and see the Oprah show
65. ride my bike to work every day for 1 month
66. cross the equator
67. stop eating meat
68. take a flight in a hot air balloon
69. take a mud bath in one of those "spas"
70. live outside of Canada for a year
71. make a living from home
72. spend a significant amount of money on a piece of art
73. make soap at home and give it as gifts
74. make all my Christmas gifts one year
75. sleep on the beach
76. Do a degree in Communications
77. give birth
78. eat 100 miles from my house
79. stop getting tattooed
80. find the perfect pair of jeans
81. swing from a rope over a lake in the summer
82. cliff jump
83. turn all my craft supplies into finished projects
84. do a large scale art installation in a public place in the middle of the night
85. See the Art Nouveau in Nancy, France
86. Visit Greece
87. drink my nut smoothies every day for a month
88. dance more
89. spend money all willy-nilly on clothes, just because I want them
90. fit into the dresses in my closet that i can't get rid of because they are too beautiful
91. open a flower shop and call it "this bud's for you."
92. learn to drive a scooter
93. own a Vespa
94. sit in a natural mineral pool
95. visit a hammam in Morocco
96. be independantly wealthy
97. plant tulips in random places
98. loose my fears
99. forget my insecurities
100. find bliss

a budding romance

SPRING has sprung. It's officially my favorite time of the year. Spring is everything the name implies:

verb ( past sprang |spra ng |or sprung |sprə ng |; past part. sprung)
1 [ intrans. ] move or jump suddenly or rapidly upward or forward : I sprang out of bed. move rapidly or suddenly from a constrained position by or as if by the action of a spring.

Yes, Spring puts a spring in my stride, a lightness underfoot and refreshed joy in my heart..and thanks to my mom (who else) I am spring born so it YAY for ARIES!!!

Tokyo- no words can express the sprawl of 30 million people

According to Wikipedia, "The Greater Tokyo Area, centered on Tokyo but also including Chiba, Kanagawa, and Saitama, is the most populous metropolitan area in the world with a population of over 35 million people. It has been the world's most populous urban area since between 1965 and 1970, and despite Japan's overall declining population, is still growing."

japanese pop star??

Snapped this on Takeshita street in Harajuko, Tokyo. He seemed very please to be photographed.

I feel sad I didn't see this character when I was in Tokyo

Some great shots of Shibuya intersection though..

an early birthday present

A recent trip down to Portland Oregon resulted in a bit of shopping. I saw these lovely and intriguing felt wool bags- "built by hand in Portland, Oregon, of recycled wool felt". The wool was recycled from scraps left from the garment industry and reworked into roomy and cozy handbags. The wool felt showing bits of different colors-flecks of blue and red, green everything. Almost looks like bunched up newspaper if you squinted- but smoother.

I saw the bags in a few shops and for some reason decided against it- rationalizing that I already had too many bags. I left Portland and found myself pining for a wool handbag.

I tracked them down and phoned them up to found they had only 2 left so I snatched up their satchels. One for me and one for my good friend Sonia.

Queen Bee Creations
1847 E. Burnside St. #103
Portland, OR 97214

doppleganger

dead ringer –noun Slang. a person or thing that closely resembles another

the daily catch?

the daily catch?, originally uploaded by jill y.

sprung

The crocus' seem to have popped up in the middle of the night. There are suddenly little gangs of purple and yellow topped figures, stalking in groups on the outskirts of trees. Trouble makers in disguise- daring the tulips to a silent duel of color.

a tiny universe of music

a tiny universe of music, originally uploaded by jill y.

My favorite photo of my entire trip to Tokyo