We're moving!

After a long time on Blogger, I am moving the works over to Wordpress. This blog will remain available and active, but I am moving all the posts over to my blog on Wordpress: www.inspirationfile.wordpress.com

We'll see how it goes and maybe we'll like it better!

first day of summer break!

Today was my first day of summer break. Summer school behind me, and bright beautiful opportunity ahead. So I spent all morning reading and all afternoon too, and when Stephen got off work we decided to go to Ikea and have dinner.

On our way walking up from the highway where the bus lets us off, we saw a groundhog! It was moving really fast, sort of loping up and down. I had seen one there before just very briefly, but this time Stephen got to see it too and we watched it for a while. So nice! Sadly, my uncle shoots groundhogs. I can't imagine shooting anything.

While we were in line at the cafeteria in Ikea we decided to get a little Daim cake -- it's a small flat little slice of cake with ice cream on the bottom and little swedish Daim chocolate candy crumbled on the top costing a mere $1.95. I broke a tip of the cake off and ate it while in line. Suddenly the thought occurred to us, in a very 12 year old style of rebellious excitement, could we eat the cake before getting through the line up? An empty plate with chocolate smears on it just ahead of us told us that we could. We ate half and then I got cold feet and we left the other half there melting by the garlic toast. It is so silly that at 20 we can get a little thrill of rebellion from doing that as we could have when we were 14.

And now for something completely different:

transcendence within us

"If we call transcendence the ability of the mind to pass beyond itself and all other things as well, to escape from itself that it may lose itself elsewhere; then to be a visible transcendence is the meaning of a face" - Jean Paul Sartre "The Face"

Just a repost from a while ago.

possible clubs of the month

(photo via Xx_rebeldiamonds_xX on photobucket)

I was thinking about those monthly subscriptions you can get for various things. Usually this occurs as some kind of gift, because most people can buy their own fruit/salsa/wine/cigar/perfume. But can't there be more exciting thing-of-the-month subscriptions? The coolest actual one I know of, which I ordered for S once was a "Man Pack" which you could subscribe to on various levels, and which supplied you with an order of fresh socks or basic tshirt or boxers, all in a range of different styles or colours, and different amounts. I would like a girl version of this. I have seen things like panty of the month, but what about a whole package of neat things? Here are some other ideas:

• Photo of the month: this would be a fine-art type photo subscription that could be organized by category (farm, dogs, people, European, bridges, hats etc.) Or you could get an assortment of random ones
• Stationary of the month: this would supply you (over the course of a year) with a stock of nice stationary. One month you'd get some fancy monogrammed envelopes, the next some nice stationary, the next some lovely blank birthday cards, the next a fountain pen. You could choose the style: froofy, plain jane, country, business, teen and so on.
• Sport of the month: each month you would receive some sporting gear based on the season and your location. So in Montreal in January you'd get a hockey stick and hockey puck with a Canadiens scarf (in Vancouver it'd be the same, except a Canucks scarf), in May you'd get a frisbee and sunglasses and in December you'd get dance shoes.
• Fish of the month: pretty self-explanatory. This is for people that love aquariums. I don't know if you can mail fish, but you could order them into a pet shop. You could choose between sizes, colours, temperatures and salt or fresh water.
• Instrument of the month: this one would really depend on how much you were willing to spend. For a low-income student for example, one month you'd get a bongo, another month you'd get an Irish tin whistle, and the next a xylophone. For highrollers, you'd get a electric guitars, grand pianos of different styles, and an organ.
• Wedding of the month: okay so this one you'd have to specify exactly when your wedding was and then you would receive the things you need based on the time before. So first you'd get some stamps with both your names and some photo holders and card stock, then eventually you'd get a dress, then invitations, and finally lots of painkillers and something to take the edge off.
• Party of the month: in a similar vein to the other one, except this one would be theme specific, like mardi gras, bar mitzvah, school's-out, cocktail, craft parties. You would receive invitations, some decor, music selection, appropriate costume (like beads, or a mask or fancy hair stuff, or bowties), and some food help, like a picnic blanket or even flute glasses.
• Cat of the month: this is for crazy cat ladies. The possibilities are endless. Different breeds, different sizes, even "painted cats" (don't know how I feel about that last one, but in the name of capitalism...)
• Icon of the month: hey! Now there is a good idea! This could be a pre-specified selection of saints, or based on the liturgical year, or based on the family's patron saints (and how many members there are).
• Boudoir of the month: little need be said here. Sounds fancy and fun though!
• Hygiene year: okay so this one is pretty practical. You could specify between the targeted demographic, because everyone knows that a 19 year old guy's hygiene is different from a 48 year old lady's. Soaps, shampoo, shaving soap, face masks, travel cleansers, cologne, body powder, after-shave, scrubs, etc.
• Soother of the month: for new parents. Every month you get a set of new soothers for your baby.

Too bad I can't really copyright any of these ideas, because I think there are a few goodies in there.