The Selfie Project – November to January

So here we are with four months done. It seems like I have been taking these pictures for ever! Looking back we can begin to see the changing of the season’s and, of course, the coming of Christmas. So here we go! Two more months and then we will be half way!

15 November 2020  Out for a walk in the rain with my sweetie pie! We are lucky where we live to have the most beautiful places to walk.

16 November 2020  Today’s walk we went down to the Second Narrows Bridge. As you can see, it is still raining and it is winter cold but still we walk.

17 November 2020  Photographers see the world through a different lens ….. or two!

18 Nov 2020  Time to Gas Up! I just wish it wasn’t a Porsche. It likes to drink the expensive gas!

21 November 2020  Locked down because of the Covid Virus I am finding lots of time to take pictures and play with my cameras. So it’s not all bad!

Our Oak Chairs 

I am still working on the Family Room Oak Chairs. There are six of them and it seems like they go on for ever. However, slowly slowly they are getting done. Susan is dragging me to one upholstery shop after another to look at fabric. And in the meantime, I am stripping, sanding, steel wooling, finishing. Truth is, I enjoy it.

19 Nov 2020  This is a chair before I start with it. The one on the table is how they are to end up, cleaned and refinished!

20 Nov 2020  The finishing is a lot of hand work. First, I use paint stripper. Then come two grades of sandpaper, then steel wool and finally new finish.

30 Nov 2020  Chair Number 4 is finished! Looks pretty good.

24 Nov 2020  Tonight it is Gnocchi! Now that has to be good. Maybe!? This is my first time making it.

22 Nov 2020 – What a camera! It takes a picture of both sides of me at the same time. 

23 Nov 2020  Well, it‘s that time of year. It is time to decorate the house and the tree in the front yard. Up to this point the weather and the Covid lockdown was depressing me but getting the decorations out and putting the lights on lit up my Christmas Spirit.

25 Nov 2020  The biggest part of the job was getting the lights sorted out. Tough! I must store them better this year to avoid this.

27 Nov 2020  Once I had them untangled, then I had to string the lights around the house. However, the untangling was the challenge!

29 Nov 2020  Time for a break from all the decorating to feed the bird. He particularly likes the seeds in the bird feeder.

26 Nov 2020  Well, it’s time to feed my additction. Coffee, coffee, coffee!

28 Nov 2020  Researching my other addiction. Now what is the history on this one?

01 Dec 2020  –  Well, winter weather is upon us. There are nice days but all of Susan’s beautiful flowers are gone, the furniture is covered, and the air is cold.

02 December 2020 – There is not much food for our little friends so we feed them.

03 December 2020 – Our front yard. What a beautiful place we live in!

04 December 2020 – Ahhh …. a moment of December sunshine! Time for coffee. Well, any time is time for coffee.

05 December 2020  –  Our red maple in the front yard is only red in the summer. In the winter it is a Christmas Tree.

07 December 2020  –  Bed time for teddy bears! The best part of the day is snuggling with my sweetie right here. But I won’t bore you with the details.

06 December 2020  –  Reading by the Christmas Tree. Susan made this little tree out of coat hangers years ago and we have put it out every Christmas since.

09 December 2020  –  Here I am in my role as Santa Claus. Did you know Santa was so handsome?

08 December 2020  –  Waiting for Susan while she shops. This happens a lot!

10 December 2020 –  The kitchen computer has always been slow almost to the point it was unusable. So I decided to upgrade the hard drive and RAM . It made a big difference.

11 December 2020 – Susan’s car has not been used for a year now and we start it every so often to charge the battery. Well, we left it too long so I had to jump start it.

12 December 2020

12 December 2020 – How can we have a normal life with this rule in place. I really miss having my family and my friends around me. But it is good in one way. It has shown me how much I miss everyone.

13 December 2020 – Christmas is coming. Putting up the Christmas lights did a lot to get me in the mood.. However, it is a subdued feeling this year as we cannot get together with family and friends.

14 December 2020 – The only time I get lasagna is when our son Caesar comes over. Otherwise I am out of luck. So I invite Caesar all the time. He loves it as much as I do. And Susan’s lasagna is the best I have ever tasted. It is a long job and my contribution is to roll out the pasta and help her cook it. I love rolling that pasta!

15 December 2020 – I think sometime back I promised you I would spare you a picture of me in the shower. But then I got to thinking, “Why not?”

16 December 2020 – Cold day outside. When that happens we usually put on the wood fireplace in the family room. I don’t know why heat from the fireplace feels so good but it is the best. And of course, everything feels better with a cup of coffee in hand!

19 December 2020 – This is tough trying to find a good picture idea every day. This one is in a mirror in the front hall of the house. It is actually very pretty, well except for me. I am …. interesting.

17 December 2020 – The fireplace in the living room has never been used and the one in my den was once upon a time but not for twenty years. So, we decided to convert them to gas. That required electrical connections to be installed in them and I did the wiring myself.

18 December 2020 – I spend a lot of time at the store with Susan. She prefers me to drive with her than go by herself and I don’t mind. This is Superstore; one of her favourites, in case you did not recognize it.

21 December 2020 – Yes, you are right. That is snow in the background. It lasted on the ground all day! Gone the next.

23 December 2020 – The weeping fig in the dining room has served as our Christmas Tree for several years now.

20 December 2020 – On our way for a walk.  I have my camera with me. I always have my camera because you never know when the perfect picture will appear.

24 December 2020 – Christmas Eve we were alone in front of the fire and I got the camera out to take this picture.

22 December 2020  –  This year shopping is a problem when we are going to be so alone. Presents are no fun if we are not there to deliver them. However, I went out to shop for il mio tesoro. Metrotown Mall was a zoo but it was fun. Unfortunately, it was also very expensive. But for her, too much is not enough!

Chrsitmas Morning

25 December 2020 – Chrsitmas morning and we are up and ready to open our Christmas presents. It is very quiet with no family and no friends. Susan spoke to everyone on the phone but that was pretty much it. We spend the day by ourselves. We had a fire on to cheer us up and the house was warm and cosy. We had a good Christmas together.

26 December 2020 – We really miss the exercise room at the Senior’s Center in Confederation Park. I was beginning to use it with Susan and feeling much better for it. Then they closed the Center. Our main exercise now is our walks which we try to take three or four times per week. On our walk is a Buddist Temple with this jolly fellow outside.

27 December 2020 – “Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him well, Horatio.” Sometimes it is difficult not to lose your head when all around you have lost theirs. I was with Susan in the Dollar Store near us when I came across these foam heads for keeping wigs.

28 December 2020 – I spend a lot of time at my desk in the “Servant’s Quarters”. I have my websites to work on, my collection to play with, and of course I am writing a novel. But you’ll have to wait for that!

29 December 2020 – Trying out the new gas fire place in the Living Room. We love it! It completely changes the feeling in that room which is usually cold and draughty. Now it is a pleasant room.

30 December 2020 –  Ahhh…. that morning cup of coffee to get the day going! I have tried many coffees and my favorite is the Red bag of Lavazza. Italian, of course! We buy the beans and grand what we need.

New Year’s Eve Dance Party

31 December 2020 –  Since I have known Susan every New Year’s Eve we have gone out to a party, usually at the Roma Hall, the Centro Italiano or a banquet and dance at some other hall. However, things being what they are, we stayed home this year. However, our friend, Lou Moroco, said he was going to play music for us on a Zoom get together to which he invited his family and friends. So, at home, alone, we danced to Lou’s music, drank wine, and talked with our friends. It was actually a lot of fun. I set up my laptop so we could participate but I connected it to the TV in the Family Room so we could see everyone on the big screen. But as much fun as this was, I will be so grateful if we never have to do this again.

01 January 2021 – See, there it is: New Years Day!

02 January 2021 – Rain today. 

03 January 2021 – A bit of sun today! I love it!

04 January 2021 – My earliest memories of cameras were these old box cameras. I have come to appreciate how good they really were.

05 January 2021 – I am enjoying our new fireplace in the living room. What a great place to sit and read. And lots of room on the hearth for my coffee.

06 January 2021 – Sitting in the Piazza Grande. Well, not really. Just wishing I was!

07 January 2021 – I spend a lot of time with my cameras and writing abut them on “thecanoncollector.com”.

08 January 2021 – This is the other woman in my life. Quiet, faithful, always there, she’s got everything!

09 January 2021 – Today we did our walk again down to the 2nd Narrows bridge, up to Hastings Street and then home again.

11 January 2021 – This is a picture I did for Susan of the Piazza Grande in Arezzo, the main square in her home town in Tuscany. She is actually in the picture.

10 January 2021 – Coffee in the backyard.  I love this coffee cup. I wanted a big cup so I found two “Carolan’s” mugs at the Sally Ann. A buck each!

13 January 2021 – This is my reading spot! Funny how we chose a spot where we are most comfortable.

14 January 2021 – This is our little red maple in the front yard. A really pretty tree that Caesar bought us several years ago.

15 January 2021 – Susan says if we are doing the chairs then we have to do the table so they all match.

12 January 2021 – I found a place where the screws in the chair had split the wood. I did a little surgery on the corner and now it is better than new.

So there we are! We have been at the Selfie Project for six months. In truth, it seems like a lot longer than that. This page is for the last two months. I have broken this record up into two month chunks to make the pages managable. You can navigate between the various months by using the buttons below.

The Selfie Project has been broken into Posts covering only two months of the year. Because I began the Project in the middle of July the posts are from the middle of the month to the middle of the month. This post is for 15 March thru 14th of May. You can jump to a different two months using the buttons below.