Year of the Pig: Who's Gonna Bring Home the Bacon?

It's Pig Earth Year in the Chinese astrological calendar, and some will be happier than a pig in mud!  The Chinese zodiac has twelve astrological animal signs, the pig being the last.  There are also five elements, water, wood, fire, earth and metal.  It takes sixty years to go through all twelve signs, and five elements.  The last pig earth year was 1959, and the next one will be 2079.

Over and over, the word "calm" is used to describe those born under the sign of the pig.  They are thought to be the "Mother Teresa's of the Chinese zodiac":  humanitarian, generous, kind, and selfless.  Add in the attributes of those born in an earth year - thoughtful, practical, dependable, and trustworthy - and you have a "salt of the earth" kind of person.

Pig people love social events with family and friends. They can also be hedonistic party animals.  There may not be an app for that, however, the gemstone opal is said to guard against addiction.  Did you notice the number of opal images showing up on your Facebook newsfeed in the days leading up to Chinese New Year?  As investors, pigs are said to be gullible, and may be easily cheated.  They are also said to spend everything they make.

You know the game of rock, paper, scissors?  The elements work in much the same way, with fire dominating metal, earth dominating water, metal dominating wood, water dominating fire, and wood conquering earth.  Since wood dominates earth, the wood element industries (paper, publishing, education, the environment, media and fashion) are prosperous in an earth year.  Also in an earth year, earth industries such as property, mining, even computer software (how do they figure all this out?) will do well.  Water industries, such as shipping and transport may be sink or swim.

Being an earth year, it is a good time to invest in realestate and construction.  It is also a good time to "lay the foundations" for the future.  Think of seeds that are planted in the earth now, to grow for the future. 

Chinese astrology is complex.  It's not like reading a fortune cookie!  Although this is an earth year, the pig's natural element is water.  Muddy!  Although this is a great year for investments, water symbolizes fear, and danger lurking beneath the surface.  Optimism makes the market climb.  Fear, can halt economic investment and growth.  Predictions are, that it will be 2025, before another fire year fires up the market.

Those of us born in the Nobelman years of 1956, '57, '66, '67 - or any year ending in a six or a seven - are seen as "angels from Heaven", during a pig year.  We are the rescuers, supporters, solution finders and comforters, who can save your bacon!  It is also safe for those born in those years to go ahead and develop new projects!

Who will bring home the bacon in this pig year?  Astrologers say it will be an interesting year... 

Rats:  a year of prosperity
Ox:  hard work and patience will ensure success
Tiger:  a year of limited resources, and budgeting
Rabbit:  a positive year
Dragon:  business will excel
Snake:  from March until June money will show up whenever it's needed
Horse:  success and accomplishments in the beginning of the year
Goat:  focus on what you know best

Monkey:  great profits, great job opportunities, send your resume everywhere
Rooster:  major career changes, including possible relocation
Dog:  risk of going into debt
Pig:  financial prospects are favourable

Wishing you great health, peace, prosperity and pure joy!

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

Kick Up Your Heels!

I can always tell who the December tourists and newcomers are.  They're the women in sexy, spike heeled boots trying to run through snow and ice.  It's not long before they're wearing solid, dependable boots just like the rest of us.    

After years of wearing practical, sturdy, manly boots, I finally found a pair of boots that are feminine and practical.  They're black leather, with a solid heel and great treads!  Treads are like snow tires on your feet.  For readers in Australia, and South America, you need treads for traction on snow and ice.  I fractured my shoulder last Christmas, slipping on an invisible stretch of ice on a downtown Toronto street.  It didn't help that the treads on my boots had worn down.  No more slipping on the ice for me! 

I turn over every boot in shoe stores, looking for the price, sure...and the treads on the sole.  Sometimes, they're too wide around the rim of the boot, and you can trip over your own feet.  Sometimes, they're too thin, and will wear out before the season is over.  Sometimes, they're stacked so high even Elton John wouldn't walk around in them.

My little black boots are feminine, and stylish enough to wear indoors, with a dress or mini-skirt; or outdoors with cords, two sweaters, possibly a lightweight vest, a heavy overcoat, scarf, gloves, a hat, and a partridge in a pear tree.  Toronto fashionistas call it "layering", the rest of us, call it survival.  The boots are designed in Montreal, and made in Spain.  They have a decorative and practical leather loop at the back of the heel, which you can use to help pull up the boot, as you play do-it-yourself-Cinderella. 

I've broken-in a few pairs hiking boots, so it was no surprise to experience pain on the very first daywearing the lovely black leather beauties.  The worst of the pain was at the back of my right ankle, just above the heel...just about where that little leather loop is stitched to the inside of the boot. 

The enormous blister, behind my right ankle, just above the heel was a shock!  My years of caregiving came into play, in making a homemade dressing for the blister, covering it with gauze and medical tape before slipping on the boots for a quick trip to the grocery store the next day. 

I walked gingerly up the street, and limped back home.  The bandages had curled up, and come off, and the now exposed blister was rubbing against the inside of the boot. The next dressing was nothing short of a medical miracle!  It was twice as big as the first one, and covered in a waterproof, tear proof medical tape.  It was as if I were channeling Florence Nightengale.   

Stepping into my boots on day three, my right foot came to an abrupt stop.  The uber dressing was too thick!  Like one of Cinderella's ugly step-sisters, I wrestled getting my foot into the boot.  There was no point in searching for a shoe horn, because months ago, I had given them all away...because I NEVER use them!  Then, in stroke of pure genius (hold the applause), I thought of using a plain old kitchen soup spoon.  The spoon slid in behind my heel, and with a gentle grunt, and an oomph, my right foot now matched my booted left one.  Ta-da!

The spoon, however, remained stuck inside the boot.   For three frantic minutes, I fought with the spoon, turning it right, left, up and down, fearing that I'd have to walk with the damn thing up the back of my boots, or worse - sleep with my boots on!  (This is too funny:  I always write with music on...right now...exactly now, Marc Broussard is singing Twistin' the Night Away).  Finally, a few squiggles to the left, and a hard tug upwards, and the little spoon may yet join a Zydeco band!

As I write, I'm wearing my oh-so-comfortable Brazilian flip-flops...the boots will take a few more days to break-in.

If you're wondering about the peignoirs featured in this blogpost about boots, I designed each one from my photographs.  They not only look fabulous in the bedroom, they can be worn over a dress like a kimono jacket.  Wear them with a mini-skirt and high boots!  Kick up your heels, and go out on the town!  Boots and peignoirs - a perfect match!

All of the peignoirs can be found here:
http://bit.do/peignoirs

The marijuana motif peignoirs are sold through Stolbie Brand.  The Stolbie Sisters' company "for the socially a-wear", plants a tree in British Columbia, Canada. for every item sold on their site.  Please support them in the work they do.  Here's the link:
https://www.stolbiebrand.com/

 

Photographs Copyright of Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated

Sizzling Last Days of Summer

What do you mean, Summer is almost over?  It's only just beginning in Toronto!  August turned to September, and the hot and humid weather has kept Toronto sizzling for nearly three weeks.  Finally, what we longed for through the frozen months of December, January and February arrived with a Tropical blast of heat.  I feel like a wet kleenex, but the balcony flowers are thriving in the sunshine!

Autumn officially arrives in the Northern Hemisphere on September 23rd.  The Fall foliage will just have to find room alongside the sweet Summer blossoms!

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

Fairies, Butterflies and Ladybugs

Summer is drawing to an end, and the enchanted garden next door is all aflutter.  The fairies are doing their best to calm the butterflies, as the Monarchs excitedly prepare for their long flight back to Mexico. They've got butterflies!  You know - the kind you get in your tummy before a big event, or doing something new.

If you have a child, or grandchild starting school, they may have butterflies too!  Like the Monarchs, generations before them have made the journey, in a mass migration.  Like the Monarchs, the children won't be travelling alone.  Yet, the first day of school is experienced by one child at a time. It's personal.  It may be awful...or awesome!  

    

Every advice column on the subject, says to take time to visit the school with your child before the school year begins.  This way, your child learns the route to school, and has a sense of what that big building looks like on the inside.  If possible, introduce yourselves to the teacher, so that your child sees a familiar face in a classroom of strangers.

Creating an amazing first day of school may be as simple as a comforting hug, and a message to carry your child through the day, and through the years.  "You are going to learn so much, and make a difference in this world.  Remember, you are loved".  The ever cheerful Ladybug, would add, "Just be you!"

The Fuchsia ballerina fairies are whispering that Summer's carefree spirit does not have to end. Those magical days of happy adventures, and playful learning can be part of everyday life, for the rest of a child's life.  Curiosity about the world, and creative expression last a lifetime - if they're nurtured.

We all know what happens when we take a beautiful butterfly, or tiny ladybug and put them in a glass jar.  Something inside a child dies when creativity is stifled.  In the coming months and years, give them the freedom to explore, experiment and discover.  Give them new ways to express themselves, through art, music, dance, writing, baking, woodwork, or sewing. Give them a sense of security, without the walls of a glass jar. Give them plenty of hugs, and smiles...and love. 

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

Pink and Grey

The benches in the park next door are sunbleached and weathered.  Worn by years of strong sun, heavy rain and icy snow, the grey wood grain has the look of driftwood, or old barn doors.  They're a beautiful backdrop to the muted pinks of Hydrangea blossoms.  Hipster Hydrangea!

Not to be outdone, this lovely Lespedeza Thunbergii - also known as Thunberg's Bush Clover, is at home growing next to the weathered park bench.  The vibrant pink-purple blossoms cascade in a fountain of colour in late Summer and Fall. Native to China and Japan, the blooms look like a cross between Wisteria and Sweet Peas.  They are a member of the legume family of plants, and love the sun.   

For urban photographers, the grey wood of the local park bench is as close to driftwood and barns as we get.  I love that the beauty of nature is steps from the busy streets of Canada's largest city! A perfect spot for dark roast coffee and a business meeting with myself!

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

World Photography Day

Of all my senses, I most cherish my sense of sight.  It is a gift to look into the expressive eyes of another; to see the ever changing colours of the evening sky; to gaze in awe at the unique colours, patterns and shapes of flower petals.

It is part of what makes us human, that we desire to share our experience of the world with others. Long ago, a friend who had gone on an Outward Bound adventure - days of which had to be hiked in isolation - said that he saw so many amazing landscapes, skyscapes, birds and animals, yet there was no one to share the glory of the moment with.  No one to nudge and say, "hey, look at this!"

All of our ancestors must have felt the same desire.  Pick a flower, press it between the pages of a book, and try to describe what it looked like when it was fresh and alive.  Draw a picture.  Paint a picture. 

  

  

Just over two hundred years ago, all that changed.  French inventor, Joseph "Nicephore" Niepce, took the first photographic image, using what was called a camera obscura.   Unlike today's cameras, his 1814 camera needed eight hours of exposure to light to produce an image.  Once the image was formed, Niepce couldn't keep it, because the image blackened the longer it was exposed to light. Now you see it, now you don't.

Then, in 1825 or '26 (or '27, depending on what you read), Niepce took what is now regarded as the world's oldest surviving photograph.  Point de vue de la fenetre du Gras, or View from the Window at Le Gras.  He used a combination of chemicals including bitumen of Judea (asphalt), and lavender oil to prevent light from further blackening the image.

The photograph has since been retouched, so that we are better able to see what Niepce saw from his window, overlooking his family estate in Burgundy.  

The first photograph of a recognizable human figure happened either by accident, or experimentation. In 1837, Louis Daguerre, the inventor of the daguerrotype process, was photographing the street view from his high window, overlooking Boulevard du Temple (near the Knights Templar temple). The exposure was "only" 10 or 15 minutes long, however, people moving about their daily lives are blurred into invisibility...with the exception of a man who stood still long enough to be captured in the photograph.  The world's first person to have his picture taken, was a man having his boots shined on the street corner!  You can see him in the bottom left corner of the picture.  The shoeshine boy, is only recognizable as a human figure, once his customer is identified.

There's some discussion about just how accidental this shot was.  Some say, that a skilled shoeshine boy wouldn't take 15 minutes to shine one boot - what customer would want to stand that long? What's more, the figures appear to have been strategically placed at a visual point of interest, with the tree lined street pointing from the temple to their corner.

Up until 1900, photography had been the realm of wealthy inventors, artists and entrepreneurs.  The Brownie camera, invented for Eastman Kodac by Frank Brownell, brought photography to the masses.  It sold for one dollar (not including the cost of a roll of film).  Colour film came along in 1941.  The beginning of the end of those rolls of film came in 1984, when Canon introduced the first digital camera.  By 1999, the first mobile phone with a camera and video device was introduced. Now, everyone is taking pictures!  We're the most photographed people ever!

We're entering a new era of Computational Photography, which uses multiple cameras and collected data to produce 3D and HDR (high dynamic range) images to create photographs with lighting and detail which is at once super real and surreal.  

Floral photography is my natural pain and stress reliever, thus the company name Widow's Endorphins.  Hours pass, and I am blissfully focussed on a new series of floral images, and eager to share them with you!  Hey, look at this! 

World Photography Day is Saturday, August 19th.  Take your camera, or phone with you wherever you go, and record the gift that is today.

Photographs by Joseph Nicephore Niepce and Louis Daguerre taken from Wikipedia.

Photographs Copyright:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.