Us hadleys have never been known for our fashion prowess….
My dad was the first bad influence. His idea of dressing up was to don a Jack Shirt. I’m not sure where he ever got the idea that a jack shirt meant dressing up… but as an unbiased daughter, he always looked pretty darn spiffy, so it seemed dressy to me.
hmmmm i just googled jack shirt so i could show my internets what the heck i’m talking about and nada. So for those going ???? A jack shirt is a short sleeved shirt, which is cut square on the bottom, and you wear it not tucked in. It usually has pockets in the front.
My mother did try herself, i do seem to remember some nice dresses, and her making herself up for a sortie… but having three daughters in 4 years, meant she was very practical when it came time to clothe said three daughters.
My memory is of a rule that you had to pick the top shirt, and the top pair of pants in the drawer (whether they matched or not) and that was that. Occasionally we were dressed in matching ruffly dresses (sewn by said mama) which somehow always seemed a little scratchy and uncomfortable… and from my recollection we couldn’t wait to get out of them.
I don’t remember really bothering with clothes most of my life, if it was comfortable and cheap… it was mine to wear. Well maybe there was that period in high school where i would work at creating wide bell bottom, tighter than tight, bleached jeans just like everyone else had… but it was short and sweet in comparison to the 45 years post that of fashion faux pas.
I think deep down inside, we are all a little proud of our non fashion ways… some minor badge of hadley honor somehow at stake. Hand in hand to the barefoot badge of honor.
So where am i going with all this you might ask? Well i did have a point when i started this long backdrop to a simple observation!
Yea, right point being…. friday night i went to a performance out in the burbs of vancouver. As i rode the subway back on said friday night (a night it seems when people get dressed up and go out) i was horrified by some of the fashion… horrified in an old frumpy lady way.
Found it! Cuban Jack Shirt
I kept thinking to myself, what the heck is she wearing, and does she think she looks good in that?
Mostly i was horrified by the foot wear. Women staggering down the road in high, teetery tottery shoes…. shoes that looked not only ridiculous, but so very impractical. I just don’t get it.
Give me my comfy pink polka dotted Uggs any day of the week… now THAT’s a fashion statement!!
P.S… Well maybe i should backtrack and give some props. The next generation of hadley’s seem to be on the right track (well i guess that’s a relative statement to which side of the track one wants to be on!) in that they actually do have a fashion sense… but we seriously do not know where they got it from.
This cottage comes not only with a lovely view, but an amazing lounge to enjoy the view.
The lounge actually allows one to lounge all day whilst pretending to work. Well errr i’m sure i’m working, but there are an amazing number of opportunities to look up throughout the day!
There’s something about the vista that never ceases to enthrall and amuse. It might be that life is in slow motion, or i’m easily amused, but the wealth of things that happen in this landscape are amazing.
Take this week.
I can’t even imagine how cold the water is, but there they are braving it, and having a great time. I was going to call out but thought better of it when i caught sight of their naked butts!I mean seriously folks, is that not the stuff that life is made of, vantage point on the world as it unfolds below?
Hey internets, how you all doing? long time no chat! Seems like i’m slacking a bit in the blogging department… got to get on that one.
Mostly busy working on some great and interesting projects, and fighting with the weather… which has been CRAPPY this week. Ending with a bang today… 110 km/hr winds, rain and miserable…. BC sometimes you know how to put a damper on Gibsons Love!
Our plans to head to to the big city (Vancouver) this afternoon to visit family and take ourselves out to a romantic healthy raw vegan meal in the city (errrr maybe vegetarian, raw, healthy shouldn’t be in the same sentence as romantic???), changed once we saw the weather. Plan B was a lovely day huddling for warmth under 14 blankets!
Ha… not that we didn’t get down and dirty under those blankets… we spent part of the afternoon looking at porn. Luscious, sexy porn.
I know, i know you might be shocked, and well maybe it’s all a little TOO MUCH INFORMATION… but have i ever led you astray my internets? Check it out, really… i promise you won’t be disappointed if you clicked on this the link . Are you brave enough?
Despite the fact that i’m very happy with the airstream dream as it’s evolving.. yet somehow when i see these little cabins in their landscape… oh my, my heart starts to beating. I start to dream about one of them perched on a Gibsons point of land, with the airstream parked along side, the two of them holding strong against those cold winter days…. i got it bad.
It’s been a little rainy and dreary of late… so not much time out to play. Suddenly sky cleared, and it’s been so spectacular.
Of course spectacular means it’s really hard to sit in front of that window working away on the laptop… the ocean and kayaks beckon constantly… relentless buggers they are.
My honey came back sunday, after a couple of weeks away in sunny/warm california, so i felt i had to remind her how much she loves it here by taking her out to play at every beckon! Well that combined with my youngest son coming for a visit on his days off… well it was that kind of week.
The highlight (well apart from a 4 hour meandering tour with said son) was a very brief but all too amazing encounter with some dolphins.
We don’t get too many dolphin sightings here in Howe Sound, spied them twice last year off in the distance… so imagine how excited we were when three of them surfaced not 50 ft from us.
It’s so funny how one reacts to such things. Initially i was about to leap out of the kayak and join them i was so excited to see them.
Then i could see that they caught sight of us, and switched directions, starting to swim straight towards us… suddenly my excitement had a little fear in play.
I found myself talking very loudly to deb, making sure the dolphins.. what???? Knew we were excited? Knew we were friendly? Knew not to accidentally hit us? Maybe i got confused with my “keep bears away” strategy?
I’ve got no idea… all i know is then they left…. so i’m pretty sure that strategy will have to be re-examined for the next time.
Of course then they left and i was bereft. Kept looking for them for hours after, even now wistfully gazing out the window in hopes of a fin sighting.
In an ongoing attempt to reduce the “stuff” in our lives, i’ve set myself a winter project of scanning all my photos.
The logic is i’ll eliminate 3 large bins taking up space, and have better access to those old photos. Not sure how that moment of actually tossing the bins is going to go, but that’s the theory!
Have only managed to get 1/2 a bin done in two months, so think i’m going to have to step up the speed!
Those bins have been in storage for 3 years, and previous to that hidden away in my basement… so it’s been awhile since i actually looked through them. It’s been a really lovely 
journey so far.
What occurs to me the most as i go through the process is how many lives i’ve lived. Somehow when i look at the pictures, it seems like that, separate lives seem so very uniquely different from each other. Almost as if a different person lived each of them.
The other thing that occurs to me is I can’t seem to recall these moments as actual memories… or maybe more accurately i remember specific events, but not how i felt, or what i was thinking… i’ve ceased to be able to draw them up as reality … just these 2 dimensional representations.
I look back at wonder at all that’s happened in my life, all the different lives lived over the years… it’s all gone by so fast, and i wish i could remember more of it in a more tangible way… these darn 55 yr old brain cells!
Happy 2012 my internets, hope you step into an amazing new year, full to bursting with your own airstream dreams.
Yesterday was a grand exit to 2011. Went out the evening before with a great bunch of women, danced, ate, played lesbian trivia, danced more then had the most incredible impromptu drumming play time with my random library girl (lesbian trivia queen), and another of the drumming group.
As a non musician (well my perception of myself) it felt amazing to now know enough to be able to just play… and play we did, we ROCKED the house. (well at least in my mind!)
Woke up to the most amazing sky… bright red, lit up from end to end. Puttered about and then went on a kayak outing to celebrate the end of 2011 and welcome in 2012. It was a bit windy to go too far, so i puttered about the shoreline, and went over to the harbor and perused all the boats, and action going on there.
The light was amazing, felt surreal to be floating out there… time stands still somehow when you are in that kayak.
Stepping in
Well, Christmas has come and gone, a lovely time was had by all. As current tradition dictates, deb spends christmas with her family, i with mine… the hazards of scattered family.
I headed over to my family on christmas eve, and had a lovely gibsons exit in the process. A woman sat down beside me in the bus to vancouver after we got off the ferry, i recognized her from the waiting room before we got on said ferry…. greeted her and next thing i know we talk the whole way to town. Not just polite chatter, but the stuff real conversations are made of. Classic coaster experience!
But i digress… christmas! Three days of eating, visiting, and enjoying family… that’s the stuff life’s made of! Culminated by a feast to rival all feasts cooked by chef dylan himself… hmmmmm
We started a new tradition and christmas morning we arraigned to have a virtual family visit. Initially we were going to try skyping it, but somehow it all went ary… thank god for julien (my nephew from germany), techie extraordinaire.. he got us all, including my mother (not so techie) in on a google + hangout.
Somehow my screen capture of the momentous event makes it look like i’ve photoshopped it to protect the faces of the innocent! But here we are in full hangout. Later on in the hangout, we actually got my mom to show other than her forehead!
If you haven’t tried one, and you want to do this type of thing (a group virtual get together)… you need to do this one, it is amazingly easy, and the results are like hanging out together in the same room.
We laughed, we cried (or as my brother says, our pressure valves released happiness), we were entertained, and most of all we connected as a family once again…. sweet.
Our family is totally scattered, my mom is in grenada, brother/family in Montreal, sister/family in germany and us rif raf out west… so days are long gone where we can get together for christmas. It really felt like we did with this new tradition.
So yay for technology, and yay for new traditions!
Today i went for a little walk with my ipod, and there was a moment on the beach with the sun streaming down, a rower rowing slowly across the sound, and the sound track on the ipod that i wanted to try to share…. so come walk with me would you?
Took me awhile, but i’m finally starting to embrace my 50′s right about now (it’s about freaking time i’m halfway through them!).
I realized something about them last weekend on our long and lingering kayak afternoon… my aging body is forcing me to meander through things, and that actually feels good.
When i was younger i would totally get into the challenge of a long walk, kayak ride, bike ride… pushing myself through it… better, bigger, faster, longer. I use to get great satisfaction in the push.
When i hit the point a few years ago where i couldn’t count on my body for what it use to give me, i was bereft. It felt like i lost something big. To me this was the hardest part of the aging process…. loosing the abilities i use to have.
As i was out there the other day, paddling for hours (conserving my energy so doing it really slowly!), i realized there’s something that i’ve been missing all these years. The stopping and smelling of the roses (or seaweed in this case!). In that moment i finally embraced this aging process. In that moment i realized it’s created a new speed.. that of a meander.
I might be slower, and might not be able to go as far, but i get to see more and now see that i can enjoy the process more than that outcome.
And that’s a good thing, n’est pas?
I know i go on and on about this place called Gibsons, but it really is the bomb…. every once in awhile i do have to expound on it’s glory, so humor me!
We so lucked in last year when we found this cottage, to have it to come back to this year again was even better luck. Every day from our little lounge chair, we sit and enjoy a view that is simply stunning. I can’t stop taking pictures of it, think i must have 5,000 by now of the same view, same angle, same ol mountains and ocean!
The photo’s never really capture it, the light, the colors are ever changing, somehow capturing that in words or image elude.
Besides the actual beauty of the view, is the life that goes by outside of that window. Birds fly by, or you see seals/otters/ducks on the ocean, the ferry on it’s regular journey back and forth to vancouver, small boats puttering, kayaker/outrigger/rowers… it’s like watching an amazing tv channel, you can’t turn it off for fear of missing something.
This particular week has been even more stunning than usual. It’s been a full moon, and uncharacteristically clear. So every night for about a week, we’ve watched the most amazing moon come out over the tops of the mountains, then lighting up the night with it’s yellowish glow… breathtaking.
Beyond the stunning beauty… it’s also life here i love.
Whether we are just going for a short walk for an afternoon break, or take a day off… there’s always an immediate connection to the land, ocean and nature. The other day we headed off for a short walk and saw 4 eagles in the first 5 minutes of the walk… now that was facebook status worthy!
This past Saturday was our deemed day off. Tho it was overcast and not that pretty a day to be venturing out.. the agenda called for a kayak spin… and i was damned if i was going to miss that. So we headed out.
The ocean was super calm, the temperature ended up being surprisingly perfect. So we just floated out there for hours, gliding along the shoreline, watching eagles fly overhead, seals followed us, boats putter occasionally past us… life simply doesn’t get any better than those moments.
gratitude doesn’t even begin to express the emotion i feel every day when i stumble out to the living room and that view catches my breath yet again.
Gibsons, i so heart you
