fake it until you become it

Really great TED talk on body language given by social psychologist and Harvard Business School associate professor, Amy Cuddy. Our body language changes the way people perceive us, but more importantly it can change how we perceive ourselves. Very cool.

From green to yellow

There is a tree right outside K's window that is starting to gear up for winter now. Despite other trees in our neighbourhood throwing in the towel, this tree hung on for a while with it's seemingly stagnant splotchy patches of yellow. Alas, it's fighting the change no more and is finally beginning its overall transformation from green to yellow to no leaves. Crunchy leaves, here we come!

Love this season. :)

The Honourable Woman

Have you heard of this series? I recently finished watching it and it is uh-maze-ing.

The Honourable Woman is an eight-part political spy-thriller TV mini-series directed by Hugo Blick and put on by the BBC. The show centres around Nessa Stein, a business woman and humanitarian at the helm of her father's mega corporation, who basically falls down the rabbit hole into international conflict/craziness. The backdrop is the conflict in the Middle East (talk about timing), but I didn't find that it minimized the present real-life conflict there at all.

Maggie Gyllenhaal stars as Nessa and she is just so so good (even her British accent is spot on - as far as my Canadian ears can tell anyway, lol). Actually there is a lot of great acting in this series in general. As for the show itself it comes in eight fully-packed episodes (read: it won't take long to get through it) and there will not be second season. CBC is going to be airing it this fall so it you're into this kind of thing (and not faint of heart because things do get graphic in this one), check it out!

What shows have you watched lately? Any good ones to share?

Children's Book Illustrators

One of the things I like about children's books is all the pictures and illustrations! Now I'm no children's illustration connoisieur and I'm certainly no artist, but I really like what these two guys put out.

Peter H. Reynolds
(Watercolour has never looked so vibrant or fun!)


Eric Carle
(Love his unique, fun, bold, and colourful style!)

My little bookworm

We were playing with K yesterday when J and I started talking and K crawled off on her own. I looked up a minute later and saw this:

I love that she loves her books! Here's to hoping that her love for books will develop into a love for reading that will continue for many, many years to come. :)

Peering over the edge

Today I was reading a book to K while she was in her crib and after turning a page I looked up and saw her standing up, hanging onto the side of her crib, and peering over the side of the crib while grinning at me.

She is the best. :)

Note to self: Ask J to lower the crib mattress down again.

Green bin'd

Things went from looking real bad to worse for the cattleya and now it's official: the cattleya has fallen (both figuratively and literally into the green bin).

I'm sad I wasn't able to save it, but at least I tried. Better luck next time!

Orchids on the brain

I love orchids and I have two orchid plants. One is a phalaenopsis (of the "Just Add Ice" variety - more on that later) and the other is a cattleya. Sadly both were in really rough shape a few months ago so I took it upon myself to try to revive them. Here are the updates:

Phalaenopsis:
We got the phal last November when little K was born. When we first got it, I watered it by putting in 3 ice cubes weekly as per the instructions it came with but then things went downhill from there. First the blooms fell off and the spike dried up (this is normal, you just cut the spike), but then the leaves started getting wrinkly and the plant started looking really pathetic. Not wanting to give up that easily, I started researching orchid care online and realized that the "Just Add Ice" company is delusional - three ice cubes a week is not sufficient for any type of orchid. Case in point, here is how you are supposed to water them:

1/ Fill your pot with water. All the way to the brim.
2/ Soak the bark/medium for a few minutes (optional).
3/ Drain the pot of the water.

Three ice cubes?! Ha.

Anyway, the phal is actually doing pretty good now that I am watering it properly. So far there are two new leaves and new roots popping out everywhere. No shoots yet (so no bloom, boo), but I'm hopeful they will come because things are looking promising. Yes!

Cattelya:
This plant was an offshoot of my late mother-in-laws plant so I really wanted to be able to save it. It sat in our house for about a year and a half with sparse waterings here and there but somehow managed to survive, albeit barely.

Unfortunately I think the day I decided to revive it was the start of its demise. Fast forward to today and it's looking the worst it's ever looked: there are no new roots, no new leaves, and definitely no new shoots. In fact, this plant basically has no roots at all because they have all rotted. As for the leaves, it used to sport two long green ones, but they have since been cut off because they slowly shrivelled up while turning light green, then yellow, then brown.

There was a section of new green roots about a month ago, but I wasn't able to re-pot it quickly enough (kept forgetting to pick up a pot from my father-in-law's house) and now all those green roots are now dead because the plant kept bouncing here there and everywhere in the bigger pot whenever I watered it. All that's left is one TINY little green leaf (which has no roots attached to it anymore so I think it's only a matter of time before that dies off) and a mostly brown stump. I'm still hopeful and trying to water it to give it one last go but it's looking bad, guys. Real bad.

f o u r

Has it really been four years since we said, "I do?"

I guess time flies when you're with the right person.

Happy anniversary, J. :)

Her nose works!

This afternoon we checked out the Asian night market "Night It Up!" and when we passed by the stinky tofu vendors I noticed K furrowed her brows, wrinkled her nose, and had a general look of "I don't like this" meets "I think I'm going to be sick" on her face.  I made J pass by the 'stink zone' a few more times on our walk around the marketplace just to make sure it wasn't a coincidence (poor guy), and each time we passed by her facial expression would go from neutral to "Ughh." Needless to say, we were both thrilled.

Unlike me, we are pretty sure that K can smell, huzzah!