windstorm

There was a huge storm here over the weekend. Living underground as we do, I didn’t even realize until I took Gwen with me to the post office on Saturday and we were almost blown away. Afterwards we tried to go to the farmer’s market to get some tomatoes and berries but the wind was so bad they had shut down early.

A lot of branches and whole trees and power lines came down, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power. I wasn’t one of those people, for which I feel incredibly lucky. The border of the blackout was actually just 1 block north and half a block east of my house!

01 cedar sidewalk
All these red cedar twigs and branches and cones all over the sidewalk are weirdly inspirational to me, like I want to photograph all the individual elements and put them together to make like… desktop wallpaper or giftwrap or something. Maybe when it’s dry out I’ll go collect some fresh specimens off the tree.

02 crow on fence

03 puddle reflection

04 fallen tree
That is not where that tree is supposed to be.

05 gwen on beach

06 sunset beach

07 gwen on log

08 gwen on rock

09 gwen on seawall
Cozy in her her owl blanket.

10 stormy skies
Ready to start storming again at any minute.

On Sunday the rain and wind let up long enough for Gwen and I to take a little wander down to Sunset Beach and along the Seawall. The weather was definitely feeling mercurial; at times so sunny and warm I had to take of my jacket and sweater and at others threatening more rain, but other than a few errant raindrops we stayed dry.

sale promo Aug 2015 final day
ALSO: Today is the LAST DAY to use the code SUMMER25 to get 25% off everything in the shop. I prob won’t have another sale until Boxing Day so get your orders in asap!

five things | twenty-four

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sleepy friends

How Dogs Get Older

Looks for the Very End of Summer

The trailer for He Named me Malala.

It’s super rainy here today, the perfect sort of day to curl up with a blanket and a hot drink and watch some super-sad short films:

Till We’re Free, a short film about the kidnapping, torture and murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till. Today is the 60th anniversary of his death and the film is free to watch, today only.

Dawn, a short film directed by Rose McGowan about a sheltered teenage girl who is lured into a terrible situation.

gone soon

sale promo Aug 2015

Just a quick lil post to let everyone know this is the FINAL WEEKEND of my big summer sale. Visit shop.unicornpara.de and use code SUMMER25 to get 25% off everything. This sale ends Monday, August 31st so don’t miss out!

five things | twenty-three

toes
Sleeping toddler toes.

Only 1.5 million dollars and this nightmare The Shining-looking carpet museum of a house could be yours!

I have a little cloud-shaped napkin holder on my desk (I use it for mail and coasters) and could def use some more cloud accessories, like these candles or this lamp.

These found photos are incredible, as are these pics of an all-women’s cross-Canada road trip, circa 1954.

ALL the new Beach House!

NEW WITP FULL
I had to discontinue my super-popular “What Is The Point” mini glitter banner due to a supply issue with some of the colours I used to make it, but it’s back in stock with a whole new colour scheme! You can get it here.

Happy Friday everyone!

better

gwen & georgie x 5

Yesterday morning was ROUGH you guys. Gwen was tired and cranky, I was tired and cranky, and it was the morning with the whole day to get through yet. GROSS. In a weird miracle though, everything that happened later in the day was a total delight:

1. GWEN NAPPED. Yes, finally, blessedly, she napped for AT LEAST an hour and a half. I set up a little naptime cot for her in the living room with STRICT INSTRUCTIONS that she had to stay on it. Of course she didn’t, and ended up moving up onto the couch, which she promptly fell off of. Hopefully she learned a valuable lesson about staying on her cot and today will go even better, with a yes to napping and a no to falling off the couch. Because she napped she was in a much better mood in the evening, went to bed at the normal time and stayed in bed until 6am. Just an all-round win in the toddler sleeping department.

2. A shirt? dress? tunic? I ordered a billion years ago came in the mail and is totally perfect.

3. I had at least half a dozen people contact me about childcare! Maybe more! And I have three meetings set up! Hopefully a couple will work out! Fingers crossed!

4. Sara sent me some more elements for my redesign and I’m IN LUV, it’s so cute! The last time I redid my layout/branding I was MEGA depressed so it is all very bleak and it is definitely time for a change. I posted a lil sneak peak on my insta here.

5. My “I am a Wolf” print got a buncha reblogs on tumblr, I’m POSITIVE that eventually this will translate into money somehow.

6. I had wine and cake for dinner because I am an adult and I can do what I want.

rest

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This picture was 100% not staged, I actually asked her to smile at the camera and she did this instead.

I’ve been having a difficult time with Gwen & her naps recently. I thought I had found a groove where I’d take her for a walk in her stroller and she’d fall asleep, but she’s stopped falling asleep in her stroller unless we’ve been out for like… an hour, which just isn’t feasible. Also, when you are out walking around the city there are just so many things with the potential to be loud and wake her up. The other day there was a very loud cashier in a store, a barking dog tied up outside the store, a woman on a mobility scooter driving erratically all over the sidewalk and screaming into her cellphone, a person on a moped inexplicably blaring their horn, another dog barking in the park, and not one but TWO extremely noisy & smelly garbage trucks, all in the space of about 20 minutes while I was trying to get Gwen to sleep.

As a result she hasn’t had a proper afternoon nap in probably a week, and it is showing in her behaviour. She is cranky all the time, and in the late afternoons/early evening she descends into madness. She is so tired and grumpy by the time dinner rolls around, it’s almost impossible to get her to eat, and then make it through her bath without tears? SCOFF. Thankfully she’s been going to bed at night without any trouble, but the days are NOT EASY.

Yesterday she skipped her nap again, and since Taylor was at work so late I decided to let him sleep through the evening and give Gwen her dinner, bath and bedtime earlier than normal. I fed her as soon as I finished work and got her in bed and asleep by six, about an hour and a half earlier than normal. Everything seemed to be going well, until around 10pm, when she woke up. She’s recently learned how to work doorknobs, and won’t stay in her room. We let her get up, have some milk on the couch, then we brushed her teeth and put her back to bed.

Unfortunately she was way too awake to stay in bed and got up a couple more times, so I let her sleep in the bed with me, which was a literal nightmare and neither of us are rested today. I’m feeling very short-tempered and she has had half a dozen screaming meltdowns in as many hours. I’m really really hoping tonight is better, I’m going to go back to our regular schedule and just hope she doesn’t go too bananas this afternoon. We’ve ordered some doorknob covers that will hopefully thwart her from coming out of her room after bedtime, but they won’t get here until tomorrow and I don’t think either of us want another night like the last.

squelch beach

I didn’t mean for these trip-to-the-island posts to drag on for quite so long but I had some serious chaos around here last week and just didn’t have time to get to this, the final post. On our last day we went up to a beach on what my research tells me is Craig Bay (although I’m sure my mom will correct me if I’m wrong) but I like to call SQUELCH BEACH. The tide was out and the place was a serious mudpit, but in a good way? The wet sand was covered in crabs and periwinkles and oysters and even jellyfish. Gwen loved it, as soon as she got down to the sand she took off her shoes and just headed out to sea. The dogs also had a blast, and were very wet, muddy and smelly very quickly. Luckily (?) we trapped ourselves on the wrong side of the creek when the tide came in and had to walk back the long way round through the forest, which gave the dogs time to dry off and Gwen time to become very tired, so she fell asleep in the car on the way back to my mom’s.

01 squelch beach

02 gwen on the beach
That little pink speck is Gwen.

03 dogs on the beach

04 squelch beach
There is also a little pink Gwen-speck in this pic, although you probably can’t even see her. She just went for it.

05 water dogs

06 georgie & gwen in the water

07 micro crab
The tiniest crab in Crabville, it’s basically invisible.

08 rip shoes
When we got back to my mom’s I threw these in the trash, rip shoes.

09 dogs in the rocks

10 gwen on the rocks

11 kichou on the shore
At one point I lost sight of Kichou and had a panic that I’d have to call Taylor and be like “I lost your dog in the ocean, sorreeeeee.” Thankfully he’d just gone to explore a nearby resort, not the world under the sea.

12 gwen walking close

13 gwen walking far

14 honeycomb rocks
There were loads of these cool rock formations but unfortunately most were COVERED in goose doody, making them very unphotogenic.

15 zoe & chris on the bluff
My sister and her boyfriend, who were excellent travelling companions.

16 slime sluice
The aforementioned resort’s artifical waterfall, christened the Slime Sluice.

17 gwen on the blackberry trail
She discovered blackberries on this trail and we ended up wayyyyyy behind the others.

18 horsetails

19 dome spider
the woods were full of these weird dome-shaped spiderwebs

20 trees & sky

21 gwen sleeping

five things | twenty-two

Was True Detective season two just a less satisfying Pretty Little Liars?

A League of Their Own-Inspired Thinkpieces

Instead of Christmas pajamas this year I’m thinking of getting the girls some cozy bathrobes, and obviously Gwen’s has to be this one. The return of the baby bear!

I am a Wolf final small
My latest fine piece of art is this gem, inspired by the legit amazing song from Wet Hot American Summer: The First Day of Camp. I have prints & etc available on my Society6, as well as handmade stickers in my own shop.

New Beach House!

blackberries

01hill1

02hill2

03view

04oregongrapes

05skull

06deck

07plums

08apple

09stairs

10mossbranch

11swing

12georgiegarden

14driveway

13blackberries

15gwenkichougarden

16blackberrybowl

17gardenfence

18spiderweb

19berryeating1

20berryeating2

21kitchen

22traintrackflora

23shoesoff

24nap

25gwen

The last time Gwen went to the Island was back in October, and it was kind of cold and rainy. Even though there were a few showers on Saturday, it was mostly quite warm while we were there. Gwen had a lot of fun tramping around my mom’s property, exploring the forest and the garden and especially the blackberry brambles. Once she realized you could pick & eat them right off the branches it was like GAME OVER, MAN. She spent most of the weekend with purple staining her hands and face (and clothes…).

hometownward bound

Originally I’d planned just one post about this little getaway, but I have too many pictures and it would be obscene to cram them into one post. Like, you would all hate me & get a cramp in your scrolling finger. So while I settle back in to my regular life of cleaning the house and dishes and laundry (SO. MUCH. LAUNDY. I was so good at not overpacking this trip but between us Gwen and I had a full load of super-filthy clothes from just two and a half days away. How???) here are the pictures from Friday only.

00lookingbackatthecity
That little white cluster on the right of the horizon is Vancouver.

01everyoneonferry

02oceanwindows

03oceanmountainsskyclouds1

04oceanmountainsskyclouds2
The sky is so big over the water.

06gwenonferry1

07windowreflection
With no Taylor on this trip I had to be my own photographer

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09sunsetting2

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This past weekend Taylor and Sym were both going to be away so I decided to take Gwen over to Vancouver Island to visit my mom. Originally I’d planned a trip for the whole family later this month but my recent financial setback kind of scrapped that plan. I still really wanted to make it over there so I decided that rather than sit around my apartment alone all weekend, I’d get out of town.

Since I don’t have a car (or a driver’s license…) I had to walk on the ferry with the stroller and the little dogs, which was a super daunting prospect. I invited my sister ZoĆ« and her boyfriend Chris to come with, to help and also because they are cool and fun. Taylor booked a zipcar and drove us out to the ferry terminal on Friday night and we were on our way! We actually almost missed the ferry because they didn’t have any sort of announcement for foot passengers with dogs boarding the ferry, so we missed our opportunity to board before the cars and had to wait until after all the big trucks and busses had loaded. It was a huge hassle because the vehicles park so close together there weren’t a lot of places where the stroller could fit through, so at times I actually had to lift the stroller, with Gwen in it and the carseat bungee-corded to the back, over people’s cars (with the help of a VERY nice BC Ferries worker, don’t think I could have lifted it by myself).

They have a creepy little pet area on the upper car deck (which is annoying since we had to walk onto the lower car deck) but it was tiny and there was a large, mean, VERY AGGRESSIVE dog in it already, so the helpful worker showed us some weird little seats on the other side of the car deck instead. Considering she’d had no real dinner and was up past her bedtime, Gwen was really well-behaved, which was a blessing (and was not repeated on the return trip).

I used to take the ferry back and forth so much, and would spend most of my time on the passenger deck, and I guess I got used to how beautiful the trip is. Being stuck on the car deck with the dogs (tbh I don’t see why they couldn’t have a pet area on the upper outdoor passenger deck, like don’t even get me started on this) kind of forced me to spend a lot of time gazing at scenery, because there wasn’t anything else to gaze at. It really is amazingly stunning here.

05sunsetting1