Upside down is right side up; new perspective

I came across a product today that has given me pause. It's an upside down planter. A rather ingenious idea and especially suited to those tight on space, the plant pot hangs upside down!

http://www.boskke.com/products/skyplanter/gallery/

It's rather brilliant in that you water from the top where the roots are so over-watering becomes next to impossible. What I can't seem to get past is the look of plants upside down!

The creators of said innovation recommend certain plants for best results, including a couple of herbs like mint and parsley. Imagine these hanging in your kitchen, ever ready for you to pluck a few stems off for the meal you're preparing.

Too cool.

P.S. Spring is coming...two more sleeps...yaaayyy!

More and Less

I saw this in a store and just LOVED it!

It was waaaay too expensive for what it was and being a graphic designer, I can easily recreate this for a fraction of the price. It would be awesome at a huge size - like 5 feet tall and placed somewhere you'd see it a zillion times a day.

I'll have to get to work on that...

Have a great weekend!

Leapin' Lizards, it's snowing lint balls!

Happy Leap Year everyone! I just had to look up the origin of Sadie Hawkins Day; did you know it originated in the comic L'il Abner? A "spinster" daughter (35 yrs old!) of one of the comic's characters started the whole thing.

Today, the temperature's cold enough to snow but really, it wants to rain. I'm driving along when it starts to really snow CLUMPS! They were huge...like a handful of lint from your dryer! At one point, it was like I was in a giant snow globe - the massive clumps were mesmerizing as I moved through them.

Cool!
(literally)

Hope you did something special for the extra day we got...I'd love to hear about it if you did!

crazy numbers; dates this week

Silly little notice...

As I wrote the date today (earlier tonight was Tuesday!), it gave me pause: 02-21-2012
Then I thought:

Monday: 02-20-2012

Which led me to think:

Wednesday: 02-22-2012

Then Thursday the 23rd wrecks it for the rest of the year. Well, until December when we have the 12, 20, 21 and 22 come around.

Hmm....Evidently I'm a bit punchy - working late and waiting for a client to give final approval on a project. Part of my brain's still working!

Thanks for indulging me.

Have a FAB Hump Day!

The Chinese Invented this too...?

I had breakfast at a popular little restaurant on the beach and with limited seating, I decided to sit at the counter. There are just two spots at this counter and a man sat in one of the seats. He read his book while waiting for his breakfast.

His breakfast arrives and he asks me to pass the "catsup". Haven't heard that word in a while! Got me to thinking about 'catsup' vs 'ketchup' and decided I'd have to look it up.

Here's what I found on Wikipedia:

In the 1690s the Chinese mixed together a concoction of pickled fish and spices and called it kôe-chiap or kê-chiap (鮭汁) meaning the brine of pickled fish (鮭, carp; 汁, juice) or shellfish.^[2]
By the early 18th century, the table sauce had made it to the Malay states (present day Malaysia and Singapore), where it was discovered by British explorers, and by 1740, it had become a British staple.^{[citation needed]} The Malay word for the sauce was kĕchap. That word evolved into the English word "ketchup".

While we're on the topic of ketchup, the Heinz label sported a tiny little pickle under its name...until recently that is. As a graphic designer, I'm always looking at packaging and labels and so I wondered what the little pickle was about. I was fairly sure that ketchup was their namesake and that it should be a little tomato if anything on there. I wrote Heinz Canada an email inquiring about this and sadly, I received a corporate email that not only didn't answer the question, it said surprisingly little, despite its length.

After that, Heinz did put a nice little illustration of a tomato on their label (I'm not insinuating I had anything to do with this either!). Now if only they could train people to keep the squeeze bottle standing on its cap, as it was designed to be used...

Food for thought!

Smell of Summer...in February!

I bought a package of strawberries the other day. They were so red and an awesome price for this time of year. I was lured not only by their lovely redness but their SMELL. Oh the fragrance of June!

In an instant, our most powerful of senses - smell - went to work conjuring up summery thoughts when  I raised the package to my nose. There's nothing like it, really. And in that moment I was grateful for such a lovely trigger.

I got the berries home and when I opened the clamshell, it seemed to let more scent out and the were so enticingly RED that I had to take a pic. I half expected the photo to smell good.
Then I ate some!

For a moment, that usually rainy and dismal February day became more hopeful with the smell of strawberries hinting at summer. Soon spring will be here and in BC, it is one of the most glorious of seasons!!

By the way, you have to try this AMAZING combination for dessert sometime. Get the nicest, largest strawberries you can and some full-fat sour cream and soft brown sugar. Put some sour cream in a shallow bowl and do the same with a layer of the sugar. Take your washed and now dry berry, dip it in the sour cream first, then the brown sugar. You will likely moan from the taste! A decadent and wonderful party for your mouth.

These tasted as good as they look!

Lightning Speed of Progress

I've just attended a social media workshop and I'm glad I did. It affirmed what I already knew and I picked up a couple of good tidbits.

Technology has never scared me and I've come through the more trying times of owning/operating a computer and its peripherals. Big fat SCSI cables connecting your scanner, printer, modem...yes, back in the day when external modems were the only kind!

Now every time I plug in my iPhone to recharge, I'm reminded of those cables and the "daisy-chaining" of hardware...and I marvel at how far we've come in 10-15 years. A year ago, when I had a flip phone that was 4 years old, I never dreamed I'd enjoy having a camera in my phone. I thought it was silly and superfluous as I had just gotten a new digital camera. I hardly use that one now.

The camera and the texting are just two of the many joys my iPhone brings me. My niece gave me a blinged out iPhone cover in my fave colour and it sparkles like nuts! I swear I'm still 5 years old! Or I was a crow in my last life...I'd love a different twinkly cover for every day of the week!

So in addition to taking pix at every whim and texting like spaz (897 last month, apparently), I can now access my social media on the fly. I have already been tweeting semi-regularly from the iPhone although the app is rather different from the twitter page I use online. So I'll have to get all FB ready on there too now!

I'll have to re-activate my personal FB page in order to get my business pages up. Look forward to sharing my address and you can come "like" me!

As always, thanks for reading and share a little love with a stranger today. Smile - it's contagious!