Have a Seat

Our Monday morning art group are hosting a mini art exhibition starting next week, and one of our art projects has been to renovate and decorate an old piece of furniture. It could be a chair, a table, a footstool, whatever has been discarded.

Sometimes treasures can be found at the side of the road on garbage day, you just have to be at the right place at the right time. I kept looking but didn't find anything suitable.

I eventually found this child's chair at the local thrift shop, and took it home, but when I started sanding it down I noticed one of the stretchers between the chair legs was missing, making the whole thing a bit wobbly and unsafe.

A quick trip to the local lumber store for a dowel and then some TLC from a friend with a saw and a hammer fixed things fairly quickly.

Then a spray can of glossy black paint covered up the worst of the dents and scratches, and the Three Hares design was carefully painted on the seat in gesso. 

The Three Hares is an ancient design found in many locations including China, the Middle East, France, England..... a puzzle really, with each hare having two ears, but only 3 ears actually appearing.

Then the hares were painted with colourful acrylic paint. 

Now I'm debating whether to add any colour to the existing pressed wood design on the back of the chair..... what do you think?

Blog edit a few days later: I've decided to leave the chair as it is, no more colour. Just a coat of gloss medium over the paint to give it some shine. I'll be posting pics of the other art chairs once we get the exhibition started.

All Greek for St Patrick

Today, I went to a St Patrick's Day bake sale to buy some yummy goodies, but there wasn't any Irish stew or Colcannon anywhere in sight..... the bake sale was held by the nuns of the Holy Theotokos Convent.
The Holy Theotokos Convent is a small community of Greek Orthodox nuns located in tiny Cedar Valley in the heart of Ontario countryside. The nuns produce 100% pure beeswax candles for both church use and for general sale. They also produce natural products such as soap, moisturizers and lip balms. You can find out more about the convent here.

The shop was bustling with people who had all driven out into the country to the Convent to buy the pastries and the candles. It was a strange mixture of aromas of both beeswax and baking, beautiful candles for sale, colourful secular Easter egg and Easter bunny decorations, shamrocks and leprechauns and Orthodox religious icons, all presided over by the friendly nuns dressed from head to toe in black robes.

But they bake the most wonderful Greek pastries.

I came home with a custard tart, a pecan butter tart, a Greek cookie covered in icing sugar but I can't remember the Greek name, and two spanakopita pastries. Happy (Greek) St Patrick's Day!

Happy Pi Day!

Happy Pi Day! 

I'm admitting that this is a blatant repeat of my post published more than ten years ago, but maybe this will be the first time you see it! Anyway, Pi doesn't change, it's constant, and Pi Day happens every year on this date, so just read on and then go and have some pie.

Today is March 14 .... 3.14 ..... in other words, Pi Day!
(It's also Albert Einstein's birthday!) (And also the day that theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking passed away today 14 March 2018. An appropriate date.)

The Greek letter Pi is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It is approximately 22/7 and is usually calculated to 3 digits, 3.14, and is the most revered mathematical constant in the known universe.
Remember your Grade 9 math class?

With the use of computers, Pi has been calculated to over 1 trillion digits past the decimal. That's a whole lot of numbers!

So celebrate Pi Day with nerds worldwide by singing this little song, to the tune of "O Christmas Tree", all together now:

Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi 
Your digits are unending,
Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi
No pattern are you sending.
You're three point one four one five nine,
And even more if we had time,
Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi
For circle lengths unbending.

Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi
You are a number very sweet,
Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi
Your uses are so very neat.
There's 2 Pi r and Pi r squared,
A half a circle and you're there,
Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi
We know that Pi's a tasty treat.

(Lyrics by LaVern Christianson, math teacher Windom, MN, USA)

Back to Normal?

Oh-oh, I looked at the date and I haven't posted for almost a month! Probably because I haven't really been very far from home or done anything very exciting. Even though I was given permission to drive only 2 weeks after the hip surgery, YoungerSon had commandeered my car while his was getting some TLC, so I was without wheels. And then of course, there was the Olympics, and it was so easy to make myself comfortable on the couch and watch all those crazy athletes vying for medals. I loved it! Canada surpassed expectations in the medal count, Go CANADA Go, but we fell down badly in both the men's and women's curling, which Canada was expected to win. However we won gold in the mixed doubles curling, a new Olympic sport this year. Hooray!
So what else have I been doing? I went to see the movie "Peter Rabbit", yep those cute little bunnies wearing jackets are REAL I tell you! And I donated this small framed lino print for the silent auction at our Art Gallery Auction, I wonder if anyone will bid on it.
And the new hip update: all doing well, only 2 more physiotherapy visits left. The site of the incision is still a bit sore, but I'm walking upright and straight, and both legs are the same length, phew!
And just because it's still cold and a bit snowy outside, and winter isn't over yet, here are the lovely primroses (or are they primula?) a gift from my thoughtful daughter-in-law.