Quote of the Day

" There are defeats in life. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for."

-Paulo Coelho

The Big Picture

Sometimes it is very easy, too too easy, to get caught up in the little things. The details. Those moments you think you can't forget but that you lived so easily without not long ago. You get trapped in the drama like in a web. Which is ridiculous. Sometimes you forget to look at the big picture. But the big picture is what's important here. The big picture holds your future, the future you want to have. Not the non event of the present. Remember what you want. Hold onto what you really want and what you deserve. 

You want this

and this

date nights like this

and road trips like this

and silly redheaded fun like this

and never ever again this.

Remember what you need and want for your life. Don't compromise or give up certain parts of yourself that you are not able to give up. Don't lose the best parts of yourself~ the hope, the romanticism, the starry eyed belief in things that are right and happy. Do yourself a favour and allow only that which is good into your life. 

And remember the big picture. 

Favourite Lyric of the Day

"Life is easy with your eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see."

-The Beatles

Daddy

When I'm down the best thing in the world for my spirits is to get in my car and drive the twenty five minutes to my parents' house. I adore my mother (hi mom!) but my father is my endless source of entertainment. We are two peas in a pod; I am truly my father's daughter. He is ridiculous and charming and engaging (actually, I don't get that from him at all!). People are drawn to him and adore him because of his natural zeal for life. 

Things I am crazy about in my amazing dad: 

1. He giggles. Like a child. And oh, very very loudly. His laugh, though sometimes like a sonic boom, is always infectious. When he giggles, I giggle. It's pretty fab.

2. He makes fun of me like no other. And I adore it. He calls this blog Ally I'm A Redhead and continually pitches guest posts to me. He wants me to write endlessly about The Beatles. And to post the 11 minute car chase from Bullit, his favourite movie. 

(Fine, fine. Click here to watch it.)

He pretends my brother is his fave to drive me crazy. He tells me I'm wearing too much make up when I go home bare faced and tells me I'm pale when I go all glammed up. 

He keeps me in line. 

3. He has nicknames for all my friends. You aren't loved until you have a ridiculous nickname. Currents are Vonda, Marilyn, LP and the little one from Regina 

(not very inventive, that last one).

4. We have inside jokes that never cease to bring a smile to my face. 

5. We go to lunch, just the two of us. Often to the neighbourhood pub, where the old cougar servers bring his Stella without asking and I feast on grilled cheese and yam fries. It wouldn't matter where we go~ we laugh, he talks about music and tells me stories. It's the best. 

I am incredibly grateful to have the father I have. Today I woke up with a cold, sneezing like crazy. I had to go to their house to renew my car insurance and my Dad was waiting for me. He took care of it while I sneezed and sniffled inside. Then he took me to lunch and he made me feel normal again and then I slept the afternoon away in their bed, while he was careful to be quiet. Then he gave me a $50 bill and I came home. Aren't parents wonderful? 

Nie Nie Dialogues

What I have loved most about entering the blogging world is not my writing itself but instead the discovery of other people's lives through their own insightful and charming blogs. Very quickly you can feel like you know these people because they allow you into their days~ you meet their spouses, children; see their homes and friends; the parties they attend and the events (big or small) in their lives. Even more wonderfully you are able (invited even) to peer into their dreams and hear their hopes for their lives. Bloggers share freely their hardships with their good fortune and it is this I love so much, because it allows others to relate and not feel alone, even across a continent. 

I was moved today. Hugely. Today was a lovely and lazy Sunday where I huddled with a cough and a sore throat in bed, nursing Halls (cherry) and reading Wuthering Heights as the late summer sun streamed through the window. Taking a break from the book, I began browsing through some blogs and alighted onto the Nie Nie Dialogues, which I had visited briefly once or twice before. Today reading these entries entranced me and soon I was lost in the life of Stephanie Nielson (Stephanie Nielson), her husband Christian (lovingly referred to as Mr. Nielson most of the time) and their four insanely cute children~ Jane, Claire, Oliver and Nicholas. However, this is no ordinary family. A year ago Nie and her husband were in a plane crash and very nearly killed. After months and months in the hospital (where she was in a coma and suffered burns to 83% of her body) Nie is now home with her family, recovering slowly and transitioning back into her daily life, despite repeated surgeries and chronic pain. This woman is a true survivor and hero. She has lived through what most people cannot even imagine and she is doing so with grace and good humor. She has bad days and shares them, and good days that she is grateful for. 

Stephanie is an inspiration and I am delighted to read about her family and peek into her life as she heals, everyday. Without knowing it, she has also given me enormous perspective on my own life, as I evaluate what I am grateful for and what I see for my future. It is hard to worry about insignificant details when someone so hurt is so strong and brave. 

Thank you, Nie, for sharing your life with your readers. Thank you for teaching me today to be grateful for each day and live for each moment. I can't wait to read more about your life. 

Nie Nie Dialogues

ps- If you love Nie's site as much as I do you can add a "button" to your own blog, like the one I have in the right hand column. 

Indecision

(Photo via Paper Tissue)

Quote of the Day- Strength

"In the depth of winter, I finally realized that within me there lay an invincible summer."

-Albert Camus

Eight Years Later

How can I blog as normal today? I can't. It is September 11 and though I won't go into a long post my silence is in respect for those that lost their lives and those that lost loved ones. The world changed that day and we are still feeling the repercussions radiating outwards eight years later. My heart goes out to everyone on this day. 

ps- Tell someone you love them today. Kiss. Hug. 

(Photo via Paper Tissue)

Girl Time

Why are some days so much harder than others? Nothing in particular goes wrong, there is no disaster~ for some reason they just seem harder. This is usually when I get in my own head and that is always a dangerous place to wander when I feel a little off. 

Last night after work my blues were abated by girl time on the sofa of my best friend, as we talked and enjoyed the deliciousness that is Cheez Whiz on Wheat Thins and peanut butter cookies. It doesn't matter how turned over my thoughts are, she is always a voice of reason and clarity. It reminded me of this post on one of my favourite blogs, Le Love, and how as soon as I read it a few days ago it made me want to talk to her (she was out of town for a few days). It is so important to have that person to turn to when you need to just sit and be yourself and feel normal and loved. I needed that. And today is a better day for it. 

(Photo 1 via Paper Tissue, Photo 2 via Le Love)

Big Style In A Small Space

Sometimes it is very cool to be on a "hello" basis with someone you admire from afar. That happened to me the other night and I got a little kick out of it. It might not mean much to other people but to me it was a small thrill.  

As I have mentioned before my favourite store in the world (think of the way Holly Golightly feels for Tiffany&Co.) is the Yaletown home decor mecca, The Cross. When I walk in the doors and the 5000 square feet envelopes me, I weirdly feel like nothing bad can happen to me. To be surrounded by so much beauty is a heady thing. I often feel transported to an entirely different place~ a gentler, English-speaking Paris perhaps? No matter~ I adore everything about it. My consistent wanderings through over the past five years has gotten me on a hello, chit chat basis with the staff while there. I experienced role reversal a few evenings ago when Peter, one of the store's amazing designers, stopped by my work and we exchanged genuine greetings of the "nice to see you" variety. A solid friendship it is not, but a little random connection in this city is a funny, lovely thing. 

At any rate, the exchange reminded me of Peter's gorgeous home, featured in the August 2008 issue of Canadian House & Home. He lives in a 625 square foot apartment in the downtown core and though the physical space is small, as it is apt to be in the centre of a city, it is broad with impact and style. Besides, as many of his furnishings are from The Cross, it was inevitable I would absolutely love it! The juicy hits of colour and wall of books makes me swoon! 

(Photos via The Cross from Canadian House and Home)

Quote of the Day

"When people hear good music it makes them homesick for something they never had, and never will have."

-Edgar Watson Howe

Music, lyrics make me feel exactly that. Sometimes a longing to live in the moment of that song or to feel that feeling forever. I think this is one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. I think that love is very much like that feeling too~ a sense of homesickness for someone else.

Dreamy Light

p.s - As I wandered through the painting gallery (see post below), taking in the pretty landscapes, it occurred to me that everything I really loved involved either a beautiful sky or soft, dreamy light. Just as in painting, many of the photographs I bookmark for this blog have that same ethereal quality. I think I find it soothing and sweet and that nature is bestowing us with a lovely secret or a spontaneous gift when things are so irresistibly beautiful. A few photographs of dreamy light that give me goose bumps... just because it's raining again, and though I love it, this is prettier. xoxo

(Photos via Paper Tissue)

Ought Apartment

This past, rainy Labour Day long weekend in Vancouver I took advantage of the grey skies and opted to take in the latest Dutch Masters exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Having studied the content from this exact offering last semester I was looking forward to seeing the works in person~ and in my own back yard, so to speak (no Rijksmuseum for me this year). However, once inside the beautiful historical building I was instead immediately taken with a very different exhibit on display. Having not read or even heard anything about it previously I was curious as we made our way, physically, through Reece Terris' installation, Ought Apartment. 

The installation features six life sized apartments stacked on top of one another in the gallery's central rotunda, starting in the 1950s and traveling through each decade until the present day 2000s. Each "apartment" features a living room, kitchen and bathroom furnished and styled from the appropriate decade and while some you can move through and touch, others you can only look at from strategic viewpoints on the side of the rotunda. The piece instantly gripped me, for here was a physical rendering of the history of the home, from the time of my grandparents (just starting out, with my Dad as a wee babe) through to my parents (and my own childhood) up to the present day. 

It's hard to describe how profoundly this piece moved me, because half of these representations I myself never lived in (50s, 60s, 70s). However, I still felt like I was in an amazing time warp as I was being taken through the spaces and personal lives of people I felt I knew, trying to understand the lives they led and the intricacies of their home life. I found myself in a mystery~ who were these people? what did they do? did they have children? was this a normal home or were they more affluent? were they happy here? what will the typical home look like in another decade? 

If you live in Vancouver I strongly urge you to visit the VAG in the next (eek) 12 days before the installation ends September 20th to experience Terris' incredible work yourself. Also, besides Ought Apartment and the Dutch Masters, the gallery also has several fantastic photography exhibits on now as well. This was my favourite. Don't wait for rain; visit today.  

(Photo 1 via The Georgia Straight, Photo 2 via Vancouver Art Gallery)

Quote of the Day

"Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength."

-Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

(Photo via Paper Tissue)

Jewelry Pretty Enough To Eat

Sometimes, jewelry is so pretty it looks good enough to eat! Clearly, Anthropologie agrees~just look at this adorable new series of photos showcasing beautiful bracelets for fall against mouth watering candy! Sometimes a certain piece or product will stop me dead in my tracks to look but other times I'm drawn in by shiny, sexy advertising! These alluring pictures did exactly that~ ooooh, candy.... yummy...... oooh, time to buy a bracelet! How's that for brainwashed?! Still, as I've posted before here, Anthropologie has amazingly lovely jewelry that looks as if it's been found in an estate sale or in a flea market abroad. It all has a unique and special feel in contrast to the mass marketed pieces found in most accessories stores today. These gorgeous bracelets would be a fabulous addition to cute cardigans and jeans for a casual yet chic September outfit! 

 

ps- My favourite is the golden flowered cuff in the top photo.

pps- I'm hungry. But I don't think the gummy worms next to me are the best way to start off the day. Hmmmph. 

(Photos via Anthropologie)

A Few More From The Dirty 30

Humor me! My lovely girlfriend Christina kept taking photos long after my camera battery died the night of my 30th surprise party and I couldn't resist posting a few group shots I didn't have before! 

ps- The party was supposed to be a White Party, as it's my favourite thing to wear in the world! See how much my BFF knows me? 

Thank you, Berg, for the fabulous photos! I love you!