Friday, April 10, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Return To The Wild
My boyfriend brought home a snail. Actually, he brought home two. They languidly left trails of goo as they slithered along his palm, looking all cute and alien-like with their extending/retracting eyes.
He raided the cupboard (or was it the recycling bin?) and found a plastic dwelling for our quiet new guests. There was much research to discover what snails eat, where they like to live, what they like to do with their spare time and who their favourite celebs are...all in an effort to make them more comfortable in their new surroundings--our home.
Boy, it didn't take long for them to get comfy! In no time at all our two gooey pets layed a batch of eggs and Voila! a family was hatched! My boyfriend and I joked that the parent snails were our children and their offspring were our grandkids. When this little family grew to a whopping 83 members, I stopped laughing.
I don't know if you should admire a guy for tending to 83 snails or have him sent to a therapist, but take care of them he did, to the best of his abilities. There were some casualties through the months. Baby snails are micro-miniatures of their mature counterparts and have paper thin shells. One plastic lid can decimate a handful of these fragile infants with a Snap! Crackle! Pop!
There was laughter, there were tears, there were even attempts at escape, but after being confined to a life of store-bought soil and grocery store vegetation it is time that these small slithering slugs with shells return to their home in the wild.
My boyfriend and I are no longer a couple. I have tended to the snails for a couple of months now. Their numbers have decreased drastically but not during my care. I feel for these little critters but I believe, and had argued this point more than once, that they belong on the trail where they were found, not jarred and set upon a shelf like a knick knack.
And so I shall liberate my filmy family and wish them well on their journey through the wilderness of an empty wood lot in Port Perry. Vive les escargots!
He raided the cupboard (or was it the recycling bin?) and found a plastic dwelling for our quiet new guests. There was much research to discover what snails eat, where they like to live, what they like to do with their spare time and who their favourite celebs are...all in an effort to make them more comfortable in their new surroundings--our home.
Boy, it didn't take long for them to get comfy! In no time at all our two gooey pets layed a batch of eggs and Voila! a family was hatched! My boyfriend and I joked that the parent snails were our children and their offspring were our grandkids. When this little family grew to a whopping 83 members, I stopped laughing.
I don't know if you should admire a guy for tending to 83 snails or have him sent to a therapist, but take care of them he did, to the best of his abilities. There were some casualties through the months. Baby snails are micro-miniatures of their mature counterparts and have paper thin shells. One plastic lid can decimate a handful of these fragile infants with a Snap! Crackle! Pop!
There was laughter, there were tears, there were even attempts at escape, but after being confined to a life of store-bought soil and grocery store vegetation it is time that these small slithering slugs with shells return to their home in the wild.
My boyfriend and I are no longer a couple. I have tended to the snails for a couple of months now. Their numbers have decreased drastically but not during my care. I feel for these little critters but I believe, and had argued this point more than once, that they belong on the trail where they were found, not jarred and set upon a shelf like a knick knack.
And so I shall liberate my filmy family and wish them well on their journey through the wilderness of an empty wood lot in Port Perry. Vive les escargots!
Search, Save, Find!
Every crafter has a stash of materials stuffed in all the nooks and crannies of their home. Every crafter has an extensive personal library of patterns to organize and maintain. The materials are one thing, but that long list of projects you want to make means there is as many (at least) patterns hiding somewhere to go with them. If you're like me, you have a multitude of patterns that you don't have supplies for and every once in a while you page through the pattern books, magazines and binders of cut-outs imagining when you might find the time (probably when you're 80) to make all of those wonderful things. And if you're like me, you spend time (translates as hours) surfing the net in search of more crafting inspiration...and you find it and save it to your computer. But then what? You can print it, adding to your already hazardously tall mountain of patterns. Or you can leave it saved on the computer and look at it from time-to-time until you are ready to print it off and use it.
Have you ever noticed how your documents list keeps getting longer and longer? There's this mish mash of text files, pattern files, important files, useless files.... Well, it is almost Spring and what better time than to give your computer a good cleaning and organize those miscellaneous files so that they're easier on the eyes and easier to find!
Let's begin with the wonderful array of crafting files you've been collecting. Some are probably in your Pictures but I'm guessing most of them are in your Documents. No matter where they are, find them all and move them to one spot... "My Documents". This way, when you do go to print them, they won't print off in photo mode. Once all of your pattern files in are in "My Documents", create a file called "Patterns". Open that file and create subfolders with titles like "Crochet", "Knit", "Sewing", "Scrapbook", "". Now start moving those pattern files you've collected into the relevant subfolders. If, like me, you want to go one step further, open subfolders in your subfolders so that you can organize patterns for each craft even more. I have subfolders for things like sweaters, skirts, accessories, hats, etc.
With just a few clicks of the mouse I can find any pattern on my computer easily. This same technique can be used for pictures. I have a file in "My Pictures" called "Inspiration" and in there I store pictures I have found online that inspire my crafting. They are pictures of adorable outfits, colour combinations, fancy detailing...all the things that make clothes and accessories stand out in a crowd. None of those files have text with them, they are only pictures, but they are all organized in the same manner as the patterns on my computer.
Good luck with your Spring cleaning!
Have you ever noticed how your documents list keeps getting longer and longer? There's this mish mash of text files, pattern files, important files, useless files.... Well, it is almost Spring and what better time than to give your computer a good cleaning and organize those miscellaneous files so that they're easier on the eyes and easier to find!
Let's begin with the wonderful array of crafting files you've been collecting. Some are probably in your Pictures but I'm guessing most of them are in your Documents. No matter where they are, find them all and move them to one spot... "My Documents". This way, when you do go to print them, they won't print off in photo mode. Once all of your pattern files in are in "My Documents", create a file called "Patterns". Open that file and create subfolders with titles like "Crochet", "Knit", "Sewing", "Scrapbook", "
With just a few clicks of the mouse I can find any pattern on my computer easily. This same technique can be used for pictures. I have a file in "My Pictures" called "Inspiration" and in there I store pictures I have found online that inspire my crafting. They are pictures of adorable outfits, colour combinations, fancy detailing...all the things that make clothes and accessories stand out in a crowd. None of those files have text with them, they are only pictures, but they are all organized in the same manner as the patterns on my computer.
Good luck with your Spring cleaning!
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