Dentistry

We took The Cobra to the vet today and she needs to have a tooth removed. She has a broken canine tooth (it's weird that felines have canine teeth) and that baby needs to come out soon!

I didn't add my weekly Sunday list this week, mainly because I forgot about it until yesterday (Wednesday) and I was feeling too lazy to do anything about it...I'll smarten up this week though.

wine and more wine

I'm not going to lie, I bought this bottle of wine because of it's label but I'm drinking it as I type this and it is one tasty bottle. That's it! Time for bed!

I'm way late but whatever...

I have never been one for gardening but lately I've been in love with the idea of starting a terrarium. I went home for a few days earlier this week for my brother's birthday and while shopping for a gift for him my Mum and I stumbled across the perfect terrarium container. It looks just like this but without anything inside it of course, I was too lazy to take a picture

When I was in San Francisco last summer I visited this amazing shop called "Paxton Gate" which is kind of like a gardening/curiosity shop. While there I picked up some seeds that I thought were venus flytrap seeds but it turns out that they are Drosera capensis seeds which is another type of carnivorous plant that looks like this:So I was thinking of planting this bad boy in my terrarium and maybe ordering some venus flytrap seeds online and making a badass carnivorous plant terrarium. I'm offically a big nerd!

From the vault

This is an old image that didn't make the cut for a third year project where the theme was "mundane". I went to the cemetery and photographed fake flowers at the end of winter...my teacher thought it was great, I'm just a weirdo who is fascinated by cemeteries. When my brother and I were kids we used to love to visit cemeteries, most likely because we thought they were haunted. Our parents thought we were crazy but I distinctly remember a trip to our grandparent's house one summer when we made them stop at every one we passed by on our way there. To this day I find myself drawn to the Mount Pleasant cemetery and the one in St. Jamestown and I'm not quite sure why, maybe I was a grave digger in a past life.

Sunday Blowout

- I went to Caplansky's for lunch last Thursday and if you eat meat you need to eat meat there. For $12 you get a bowl of soup or fries, coleslaw, a smoked meat sandwich and a pickle! Wash everything down with some root beer and top it off with a slice of pie and you will be full for about 2 days. Caplansky's is on Clinton just south of College and I'm pretty sure they only serve lunch and it's kind of weird because they operate out of the Monarch Tavern but seem to be a separate entity.

In the heart of downtown Philadelphia, among abandoned buildings and impoverished neighborhoods where drugs and unemployment pervade, is a place called Fletcher Street. A block that upon first glance looks just like all the others, that is, until you see the horses and hear their hoof beats.

Horses? In the middle of the ghetto? Surprisingly, yes. They have been here for years, when the African American community thrived in Philadelphia, before drugs and unemployment steadily encompassed healthy neighborhoods and they disintegrated into urban war zones.

Despite it all, the horses have stayed, and they have because of the small, passionate, dedicated group of men determined to reclaim their neighborhood and their children. In this fight, they use the one thing that they know, love and trust, the horses.

Check out the work of photographer Martha Camarillo at www.marthacamarillo.com

- I'm sure I've already mentioned this in earlier posts but I love the TV show 30 Rock, and you should too
- I stumbled across this great plate and many others at www.thomaspaul.com. Thomas Paul is a designer from New York and you can see the variety of his work on his website. I love the gothic doily melamine plates

I think that's it for this week! Happy Monday!

Music for the 2nd Week of March

Eazy-E

Untitled (for the time being)
Cross-stitch embroidery on fabric
8 inches x 8 inches

Detail

Biggie

Untitled (for the time being)
Cross-stitch embroidery on fabric
8 inches x 8 inches
(He's a little green in the face, I know. Too much Moet and Alize, or the computer file was a little wonky)

Detail

Tupac

Untitled (for the time being)
Cross-stitch embroidery on fabric
8 inches x 8 inches

Detail

The Little One

My brother was born when I was three and the only things I remember about going to the hospital to see him was seeing the lizards that are kept in the hospital lobby terrarium and a nurse giving me tiny bottle of Scope mouthwash (I'm not sure why). We've had our differences but Paul is a pretty awesome dude who shares my disgusting sense of humour, swears like a trucker and can be pretty profound sometimes without even knowing it. We have been through a hell of a lot together and I'm sure there's still a lot more shit left for us to handle. I was looking through photos on my computer when I found this one and just felt like it was time to write a little something about my little brother, or as I refer to him "Lil Brudder". You're Grade A all the way, Raymond!

The Sunday, Sunday, Sunday List on Monday, Monday, Monday

Hi Friends,

Due to getting called in to work and drinking a lot of wine last night I could not compile my weekly list of amazing things so here I am to let you know all the good stuff I discovered last week...

- Hibiscus and Rosehips is a charity organization that a friend of mine told me about. They support 'The Hibiscus Fund for Hope' which supports patients and their family who are undergoing treatment for Lymphatic cancer. They will be hosting their first fundraising event which is a folk tea party and bake sale on April 19th in Toronto. I just contacted the organizer today to see if I could get a spot selling some anti-cancer cupcakes at the event. When my brother ws going through cancer treatment for Hodgkin's lymphoma my family's mantra was "FUCK CANCER!" which is a phrase I'd love to pipe onto vanilla cupcakes, I'm not sure if everyone would find it as appropriate as we did though.

- Go to www.toast.co.uk and check out their spring/summer catalogue, the clothing is simple, too expensive for my blood these days but I love the hankerchief in the pocket thing that's going on

- www.loyalloot.com, check out the log bowls...amazing

- I also discovered google books when I was searching for a book I found today at the Toronto Reference Library. It seems that the only copy that exists in Toronto is at the Reference Library and I was relieved when I found the whole book available for me on google books, ahhh technology.


Also, I just canceled my website andrea-raymond.com and will be using this blog to post images and updates of my work from now on, or until I get someone to design a classier website for me. The website featured mostly undergrad artwork which is no longer relevant or even stuff I'd like others to see!

A Playlist For the First Week of March

So I figured I'd start to make weekly playlists (I'm all about posting things weekly or monthly it seems). There are 7 songs on this playlist, one song for every day of the week. I would like to mention that the T.I song on this list is dedicated to Zoe who is back in MTL, I had fun playing Trouble and being completely offensive with you this week!