I can't believe how fast the summer is whizzing by! It's already July 13 and I've barely been updating my blog, not to mention I haven't had a beach day yet!
I feel as though I've grown up A LOT through out the past week, probably because I made some "adult" purchases.
Number one was a water dispenser. Our apartment building is around 100 years old and I'm sure the water pipes haven't been updated in...quite a while. Instead of buying cases of water bottles which isn't environmentally friendly, we picked up a dispenser last week.
Cold water all summer!
Another interesting purchase I made off of Amazon was a...baby gate! No, I'm not planning anything drastic... We have graduated Oliver from X-pen to having the entire dining room while we're at work. We grabbed a wooden stretchy gate from Canadian Tire for the kitchen doorway, but the living room doorway is 51" wide which was problematic for gating. Most gates only stretch to 36". The bigger gates are easily $100+, not an amount we intended to spend.
Fortunately, I was able to find an Evenflo extra-wide gate for only $36 on Amazon! It was can span maximum 60" and doesn't need to be fixed to the door frame...It works by pressure mounting. I can see how this might be less suitable if a child was hanging off of it, but it works well for a puppy.
And yes, that is our massive Mr. Cat inspecting the barrier.
We also made a big purchase...physically and financially. Our queen sized bed has been a problem for a while. Because we made so many moves in the past four years, I'm sure the mattress sustained some serious wear-and-tear from being shoved and pulled and squished into small travelling vehicles. We realized earlier this week that the large hump in the middle of the mattress (impossible to avoid even when the mattress is rotated) isn't going away.
(Pillow top mattresses suck. I remember when I was a teenager flipping my mattress over and over every couple months in order to allow the coils to settle back down into the other side. It felt like a new mattress each time! )
Anyway, we went all out and purchased a KING sized mattress and box-spring for a very reasonable price at a mattress outlet store on Barton St. Pocket coil, pillow top (boo!) and with a mattress protector and it was extremely affordable compared to big mattress companies such as Sleep Country.
I'm getting more excited as we wait for it to be shipped in an delivered!
In the meantime, here are a few pics from this month so far!
Oliver is getting bigger before our eyes.
Watching ships past under the lift bridge
A beautiful new plant Matt bought (and potted!) for me
Our superintendent has a massive and beautiful garden at the front of the building
Licorice and Oliver retreated under some ivy to pant and cool down on a walk
I do have more photos but that's all for now!
I hope your summer is going well and you are enjoying the sunshine and long days :)
Peace
There isn't much to write on right now. Things have been relatively sedate since the wedding. I'm still trying to motivate myself to unpack certain things that have be left in boxes.
This morning, when I took Licorice for his walk prior to leaving for work, I heard a cardinal singing in trees outside of my apartment. Just last week we had a bit of a snow storm.
This is my apartment building. As you can see, it's an old piece of architecture; the supers told us it's 90 years old, at least. Our apartment is around the front of the building and I will try to take some pictures of it soon.
(I absolutely LOVE my apartment. I never realized how frustrated I was with my old apartment until I moved! Hey, I have a parking spot ALL THE TIME! I never have to worry about finding one when I return home from an excursion. My heat is ALWAYS ON--too hot even! And my supers are awesome! They have solved almost all our problems already!)
A view of James St. from the top
Slippery
Last year I went through a particularly bad time where I was truly struggling with loving my body and accepting myself. I came home from work and found a heart taped to my mirror in my dressing room.
When we moved to the new apartment, it was taped again to my mirror for me to see every day. That is only a small demonstration of how amazing Matt is. Me, below, with no make up.
The kittehs are happy at the new place too. There's SO MUCH ROOM for them to run around and behave like maniacs.
Matt is hilarious and still makes me laugh after being together almost 2 1/2 years.
Finally, twilight was beautiful earlier this week.
Spring is coming... Every time I think of that phrase or feel that delicious excitement for the musty smell of thawing earth and bird calls, I think of...
"Aslan is on the move"
That's all for now! Hope you're enjoying the segue into spring as much as I am!
Is Hamilton a beautiful city? I think most of us Hamiltonians have at least once suffered through a jape about the city being dirty and grungy. Perhaps the stigma originates from the steel factories and industrial area (Burlington St), but...do we, the people who actually live here have the right to defend our city and it's natural beauty?
We are the waterfall capital of the world with over 120 natural waterfalls. (You can read more about our beautiful waterfalls here.)
There's the RBG and multiple hiking trails that pass through even the inner core of the city.
Cootes Paradise, Devil's Punchbowl... We have so many natural wonders at our finger tips!
But strangely enough, even though I'm aware of those places, I had never visited the Hamilton beach on the east side before this past summer. A friend and I took the dogs out for a swim and I was surprised at how beautiful the beach was. The sand was clean and the water was clear.
Anyway, my dear boyfriend got a new job working on a construction site on Lakeshore Rd/Beach Boulevard. He starts at 7 a.m. so I've been helping him out by getting up at 6:30 and driving him there.
After Licorice and I drop him off, we drive over to this nearby beach and walk up and down it, taking in the beauty of the winter sunrise.
I snapped these pictures this morning! The sun was a penny lit on fire as it rose above the lake.
And of course, Licorice was bit too busy running and sniffing to pay any mind to the sunrise.
It was a bit nippy out so he was glad to get back into the warm car.
And those are all from this morning!
I have a couple more shots from another beautiful sunrise I saw last week.
The picture below is untouched. The sky was actually this pink. I tweeted the picture with a hash tag of #hamont and was honoured to have it included in CBC Hamilton's Pictures of the Week, which you can see here.
Licorice loves these early morning walks.
Even with hydro lines, the natural beauty is not diminished!
So there you have it! I think you can agree that Hamilton really has it's beautiful moments! I'm going to try and post more about beautiful places or views in Hamilton. I'm proud of this city!
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