Project 365: It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

There may not be much snow on the ground, but it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in the 365 project!

We had such a busy day on Saturday that a single photo just wasn’t enough to cover it. First we went to Hillcrest Tree Farm to choose and cut down a Christmas tree. Then Simon and Beloved rode the Beaver Scout float in the Manotick Santa Claus parade while the other boys and I watched. Then we headed home to decorate our full, fat, lovely tree, and finally, not represented in this collage, we celebrated Beloved’s 40th birthday. Phew, that’s a lot of activity for one Saturday!!

344:365 Christmas adventure day

(Funny, in one of their odder choices, Getty Images invited the collage for license, and while I’m tickled, I can’t imagine what purpose anyone except me could possibly have for it!)

This one was also invited by Getty the same day I posted it. Okay, I admit, I can see this one as a Christmas card. 😉 (And it’s a damn good thing he’s so cute, too, because I took this the day after Willie jumped up on the kitchen counter and knocked my camera off the counter and on to the tile floor. Lucky for him, the only damage seems to be that the protective cover over the LCD screen snapped. Yikes!)

347:365 I'm dreaming of a mousey Christmas

And more Christmas cheer! Did you know that the real Santa hangs out at the Home Hardware store in Manotick? Who would have guessed it! Seriously, he’ll be there again next Sunday December 18 and it’s worth the trip out there to see the kindest, sweetest, most twinkly-eyed Santa ever — and the free hot chocolate bar with sprinkles was a big hit, too!

345:365 Santa visit

(Lucas is looking a little wan in the picture because he’s only just barely overcoming his shyness with strangers. Santa was awesome at putting him at ease!)

This is how I captioned the following shot when I posted it on Flickr: “It’s 5:45 pm, it’s dark, I have a hundred things I’m supposed to be doing, not limited to laundry, making dinner, making lunches, reviewing homework, and sweeping up dog hair, and I don’t have a picture of the day. I look at the lasagne baking in the oven. Nope, that won’t do it. I look at the two kids watching TV. Nope, that won’t do it. I wander around to find the pets, hoping they’re doing something adorable. Nope, nada. I scan my memory, wondering if I have anything sitting in Lightroom that I can pass off as today’s picture. Nope, nothing.

Then, from the other room, the dulcet tones of my oldest plucking out Jingle Bells on the guitar. That will do it!”

348:365 Guitar player

This one might look a little familiar — I took nearly this very shot back at the beginning of the 365 project last December. Sue me, it’s been a chore finding photogenic somethings I haven’t snapped to death, especially with only a couple of hours of flat cloudy grey daylight each day!

349:365 It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It was tough choosing just one picture from our sneak-peek tour of the new Ikea, but the colourful towels finally won out in the end. And funny, the morning after I posted this, the Ikea merchandiser who set up this display sent me a note on Twitter saying she liked my picture. The internet really does make a small world even smaller!

346:365 Ikea sneak peek (6 of 10)

Yesterday I went out on my lunch break with my Lensbaby affixed to my camera, specifically looking to shoot a Christmassy kind of shot down in the Market but the light was grey and flat, and nothing looked particularly festive. I’d taken a couple of half-hearted shots, but nothing was too interesting, and I was just about to give up when these fat, white snowflakes started to drift down. It was *exactly* what I had in mind!

350:365 Snowy day in the Market

And here’s a fun bit of news related not to this 365 project but the one I shot in 2009. I sold my first photo to a magazine this week!! Ottawa Magazine was looking for pictures of the old change huts for skaters on the Rideau Canal (I’m guessing to contrast them to the new fancy ones that the NCC installed this year) and they bought this picture to run on the back interior page of their winter issue!! How fun is that?

294:365 Waiting for Winterlude

My first paid print credit. Woot! And one of my pictures may (or may not) be used in a Mazda commercial in the new year. I’ll keep you posted!

Zoom zoom zoom!!

New Ottawa Ikea Sneak Peek!

It was a dark and stormy night in Ottawa, but it was dry and bright with brilliant colours inside the new Ikea during the special media sneak peek last night! ZOMG, what an awesome, enormous store!!

It’s laid out on two levels – if you walk the maze through both levels, you’ve traversed an impressive 1.3 km! At the entrance, there’s a giant sort of foyer area with a huge kiddie play area along one wall and an escalator up to the showrooms. There are 55 inspirational room settings, and three full living areas (ie complete condo/apartment layouts with bedrooms, living room, kitchen and bathroom), and 29 (!!) kitchens set up. Here’s @MrsLouLou and @missfish standing in my dream kitchen. *covet*

Ikea sneak peek (1 of 10)

(I figure it’s a year, maybe two, before we find ourselves sitting at one of the dozen or so lovely little consultation areas near the kitchen inspiration section. One of our cupboard doors fell off last week, and other is wobbly. And really? The faux painted brick backsplash from the 70s has got to go! Once the furnace replacement is paid off, the kitchen reno project is next on the list, and I am giddy to get started. I can’t imagine starting a kitchen reno anywhere BUT Ikea!)

Everything about this new Ikea is bigger, better and brighter than the old store. There are more parking spaces (1200, half of them covered), more shopping carts (600), more seats in the restaurant (640), more space (from 113K to 427K sq ft), and more stuff: from 4500 products to 9500 products. There were 12 beds laid out in the old Ikea; there are 31 in the new one! As the manager of the bedroom furniture area said, “That’s a lot of beds to make each morning!”

Ikea sneak peek (3 of 10)

The new store has a lot of stuff that the old store simply couldn’t make room for. They have a fabric section, for example. (The carpet section in the new store is the size of the entire textiles section in the old store.) The fabrics are laid out on the back wall here:

Ikea sneak peek (5 of 10)

The whole store is epic, rather jaw-dropping in its proportions. Store manager Isabelle Auclair explained that the new Ottawa Ikea is now more in line with some of the other stores, with the inspiration rooms laid out across the upper floor and the “Marketplace” with the smaller, non-flat-packed items spread out through the lower floor. I could have spend days (and dollars!) just wandering about the kitchen and bath sections. Oooo, pretty colours!!

346:365 Ikea sneak peek (6 of 10)

I think if you went through my house and rounded up all the empty picture frames, you’d find more than a dozen. Maybe even two dozen. I have this weird compulsion to buy them, and then I get all non-committal and have difficulty deciding what to put in them or where to hang them. Still, this frame section made me positively drool with covetousness.

Ikea sneak peek (8 of 10)

Did you hear they are expecting 13,500 visitors the first day? Not in the first week, or month. The first DAY alone. Yikes! So I’m guessing you’ll wont see the checkouts looking quite so empty for some months to come!

Ikea sneak peek (9 of 10)

But, there’s an impressive 36 cash lanes, and they’ve hired an extra 100 or so “co-workers”, adding about 50 per cent to their staff for the new store. Here’s another neat fact from the press kit: more than 45 per cent of the co-workers at the Ottawa store have been there more than 10 years. And you could really see the pride of the managers showing off their setions last night — it was a really neat insight into a company I’ve always been curious about.

There are a few more pictures on Flickr, and more information about the grand opening festivities on the Ottawa Indoor Beautification Facebook page. 🙂 I’m grateful to Ikea for the chance to have a sneak peek and Ikea is sponsoring the blog this month, but as always all opinions are entirely my own.

The night got a little hectic for me when I realized that my iPhone was not, in fact, in my coat pocket where I thought I left it. I had a few very unhappy minutes when we went out to the car and found it also not there, and I was sick with the idea that I’d lost it. We made one last quick stop at the Starbucks where Beloved and I had met before the preview — and someone had found it and turned it in to the baristas there.

So thank you, Ikea Ottawa, for the amazing preview to your new store. I will be spending many, many hours there in the months and years to come. And thank you, kind Starbucks patron, for finding and turning in my lost iPhone. Together, you made a dark and stormy night bright and warm.

Project 365: In which she once AGAIN miscounts to 365

There’s no cohesive theme to the 365 project this week. In fact, I’ve been bending the rules near to breaking — only 20 days left!

Speaking of days left, remember last time I did this, and ended up with 366 pictures in my 365 project cuz I couldn’t count to 365? So I know I started this project on December 23 this year, and I know I haven’t missed any days, and yet somehow I am due to end on December 24 — that’s 367 days. Gah! Clearly, the hardest part of a 365 project is counting to 365.

So speaking of broken rules, this is a picture that I actually took back in October on our very photogenic trip out to Pakenham. It got lost in the shuffle, and when I stumbled on it recently, I really liked it. I also really like the Flypaper Textures I downloaded recently, and am madly in love with the intersection of the two:

337:365 Pakenham Church in autumn

Don’t you love the painterly effect? (You probably either love it or hate it. I love it!) The building is St Peter Celestine Church, consecrated in 1893. Click through the link if you like reading historical accounts of early Ottawa — something else I love madly! I’m going to have to go back out to Pakenham for more exploring soon.

The texture didn’t work out quite so well on this one. I like the subject, and loved the way the terraces lead down the hill from the Parliament Buildings to the Canal, but the day was so flat and grey that everything looks quite washed out. I tried to add a little something to the sky with a texture, and it’s better — but still not as great as the church picture.

339:365 Peace Tower on the Hill

A little closer to home, this is the photographic equivalent of low-hanging fruit. I could take this picture every single day at our house — a boy, a pencil and a blank piece of paper.

340:365 Drawing

I liked the repetition of all the chestnuts and the bit of burlap for contrast and context, but I should have slowed down and stopped down the aperture a little more to get more of the nuts in focus — but the guy in Farm Boy was giving me the stink eye for photographing his nuts, and I felt I should move along.

342:365 Ah nuts!

These ornaments are on my Mom and Dad’s Christmas tree. They make me happy. 🙂 (Other things that make me happy include Instagram and lazy iPhone photos-of-the-day!)

343:365 Snowman ornament

I picked up this baby at the end of the fall flea market season, but haven’t found the right shot to show it off quite yet. Not quite sure this is the one either, but it was the best I managed so far. This is a Brownie Super 27, an early point-and-shoot from the 1960s. I got it in its box for $5 — hard to resist a steal like that! It has two apertures, “SUNNY” (f/13.5) and “CL’DY BR’T” (f/8), and two focus zones (3 1/2 to 6 ft and beyond 6 ft), and the flash hides behind a little pop-out door. Fun, eh?

338:365 Brownie Super 27

And last but definitely not least, probably my favourite picture this week. He was “helping” me hang this giant Costco wreath when it attacked him.

341:365 Attack of the Christmas Wreath

Oh the cuteness!

Countdown to Ikea’s grand opening!!

It’s been a looooooooong wait since we first heard the news back in January of 2009 (eek, I was just starting my very first 365 project that month, seems like a hundred years ago!) that Ikea would be opening the Largest! Ikea! in Canada! right here in Ottawa. It will be 427,000 sq. ft. of inspiration, with 55 show rooms, double the product selection, and a whopping 640 (!) seats at the restaurant. It’s the size of eight football fields, people!

I’d be pretty excited about this under ordinary circumstances, but I am way over the top excited about the grand opening next week for a couple of reasons. First, Ikea has offered to be a blog sponsor for the month of December, to help spread the word about the new store. Check out the new ad in the sidebar over there on the right. —>

And then Beloved and I were invited with a bunch of other Ottawa bloggers and media types to a special preview event on Monday, just two days before the big grand opening. Stand by for giddy tweets and a blog post on that!

Ikea has been a part of my life as long as I’ve lived in Ottawa. I remember going out to the old store in Bells Corners when I first moved out here in 1988. In fact, one of the few remnants from my “practice marriage” is a pine dresser we received as a wedding present, purchased at Ikea and one of the few pieces of anything I deemed worthy of keeping when we split up in the early 1990s. There’s not a room in my house that doesn’t have Ikea *something* in it, right down to the bathrooms. Cabinets, dressers, beds, pots and pans, shelves, picture frames, plates, coat racks, toy bins, shower curtains; I can’t imagine how bare the place would be without Ikea’s influence.

It’s serendipitous that I’m writing this post about the new Ikea as I listen to the thumps and bangs of a new high-efficiency furnace being installed in the basement beneath me. No, Ikea is not (yet?) in the business of home heating, but they recently sent me an interesting press release explaining how the new store will be 40 per cent more energy efficient than the most recently built Canadian store (built back in 2004.) More from the press release:

Growing more than 360,500 square feet in size, the store will be going from Canada’s smallest to its largest. The new building will use an automation system for increased energy efficiency, and will take advantage of available technologies in lighting and water sensors, low flow plumbing, efficient light sources and highly efficient restaurant equipment. The Ottawa store will be equipped with facilities and equipment to allow the store to achieve a goal of diverting 90% of its solid waste from the landfill.

True to form, Ikea has found a fun and unique way to invite the citizens of Ottawa to join in the fun and festivities of the grand opening. I saw the truck with the “Ottawa Interior Beautification Plan” driving around earlier this week, but didn’t catch the Facebook promotion until a few days ago. Here’s what the Ikea folks are up to:

To build excitement around the opening, we are introducing the Ottawa Interior Beautification Plan which will will include:

  1. Setting up trade in locations for Ottawans to exchange their old items for beautification credits (IKEA gift cards). Locations To Be Announced.
  2. Conducting drive by beautifications, where we will drive our IKEA truck through different neighbourhoods, trading unwanted items for Beautification credits to anyone with our Beautification signs in their windows. The signs can be downloaded from the IKEA Canada Facebook page or clipped out of the December 3rd Ottawa Citizen.
  3. Giving away new IKEA items at outdoor beautification boards all over Ottawa.

You can get more information on Ikea’sOttawa Beautification Plan on their Facebook page. 🙂

I have to say, of all the things I’ve hauled home over the years, among my favourites are the plates and bowls I picked up last Christmas, navy blue with white stars and white with navy blue stars, and these multicoloured daisies I bought by the handful this summer. I have them all over the house, and you can see them in this picture.

147:365 Blue bottle

(Ha, also perched on a bistro table and matching chairs from Ikea! And the vase? Ikea, of course.)

So tell me, what’s your favourite Ikea purchase?

A conversation with Willie the Cat

It’s 5:15 am. Willie the cat is sitting on me as I huddle under the blankets and try to ignore him.

Willie: Hey. You. Get up. I’m hungry.

Me: Ugh, Willie. Go back to sleep. It’s early.

Willie: You have to get up. I heard you shifting. I know you’re awake.

Me: Willie, the alarm won’t even go off for 15 more minutes. Get off me.

Willie: You said I don’t cuddle enough. I’m cuddling.

Me: You’re not cuddling, you’re pestering. Cuddling happens when I’m awake and feel like petting you. This is not cuddling.

Willie: Feed me.

Me: Listen, you’re a nice cat. I never thought I’d like a cat as much as I like you. You’ve really grown on me in the past couple of months. But seriously, it’s a quarter after five in the morning. Go away.

Willie: If you don’t feed me, I won’t pose for any more pictures.

291:365 Yawn!

Me: I don’t care, I’ve already got half a dozen pictures of you for sale on Getty Images. I don’t need more. What I need is sleep. Please?

Willie: I’m bored. I think I’ll chase this random bit of plastic around under your bed for a while. Don’t you love that skittering noise? Oh, and don’t bother getting up to take it away from me, because I have twenty more pieces just like it stashed all over the house.

Me: Speaking of stashed, could you please stop stealing the kids’ stuffed animals? You get them all slobbery and full of dog hair when you carry them around the house.

Willie: It’s not my fault your dog is a giant shedding hair ball.

Me: Willie, please? Go play with the boys, I’m sure they’d love to be woken up by your adorableness.

Willie: It’s more fun aggravating you.

Me: Clearly. So listen, since I’m up anyway, can we talk about the Christmas tree? I’ve survived three kids’ worth of toddler years and I’ve never yet had a Christmas tree come down. And yet, I’m thinking we may have a problem this year.

Willie: What kind of problem? Lucas is old enough to know not to touch the tree.

Me: Um, yeah. It’s not Lucas, it’s you I’m worried about.

Willie: Me?

Me: Yeah. Like how you like to knock things over? And how you chase shiny things? And steal stuff? And climb things? And chew through cardboard?

Willie: I’m not getting you.

Me: Willie, we are seriously afraid to put up the Christmas tree this year. You’re a menace without a giant tree full of breakables in the middle of the living room.

Willie: You keep your breakable ornaments on a shelf.

Me: Yeah, but I was hoping this would be the year I get to actually put them on the tree, yanno?

Willie: You’ve got three rambunctious boys and you think the cat is going to be the one who brings down the tree?

Me: Okay, you can have that one. But even as toddlers, the boys didn’t climb up on the shelves and purposefully knock things off of them — something you have been known to do.

Willie: See, it doesn’t really matter where you put them. So I can perch in the tree, right?

Me: Oy. I’m going back to sleep…

Willie: Good luck with that. Don’t mind me, I’m just gonna sit here and bat books off the shelf and onto the bed until you get up and feed me.

Me: *whimper*

Edited to add: Ha! From Vanessa’s comment below – yeah, this: