Crafts

I haven't posted anything in a long time and worse, I haven't posted any craft for much longer. But that doesn't mean I wasn't doing anything!


Here are my Fimo and craft project for the last 4 months.

Fimo... originally I only tried these to have a subject for my photography project. I also have to use my clay soon, unless someone has a genius idea on how to soften close-to-dry clay (it's only 6months old and well wrapped in its original paper).

This is also my Christmas stockings! Couldn't find small and well decorated socks for a good price so I opted for a different version of it... practically everything inside was cooking related anyway.

As a Christmas present (maybe also a new year resolution, who knows), I made a series of organization boxes, like this one:

For those who absolutely don't get the idea... this is what our table looks like when we come back from out-freezing-side...

and that's why we need this to tidy all of our small outwear. For some of us, it will also help not forgetting a glove or the second layer hat.. for sure we'll save some time and energy!

I also needed to get crafty on the computer ("but what does that mean?"). I am starting my event photography business in Toronto and need to have a webpage which represents exactly who I am and what I am offering! So say Hi! to Duographie.

Please follow me on duographie.com but also on Facebook and Twitter @duographie !

Postcard from Hawaii!!

            

I particularly dedicate this postcard to all the people I met who asked me if I wasn't afraid of getting bored with staying 17 days in Hawaii. Well, if you really want to visit the archipelago, you'll actually need a lot more than that. 

Of course, if your goal is only to sleep on the beach, I guess your time there depends on how long it takes you to disconnect from the real world and on how many days straight you can lay on the beach doing nothing without loosing your mind. 

Red Sand Beach, Maui.

This Monk Seal I guess is my illustration for people sunbathing on Hawaiian beaches :)

We decided to widely visit the two islands of Maui and Big Island (Hawai'i), leaving Ni'lhau, Kaua'i, O'ahu, Lana'i and Moloka'i for an other trip. 17 days was just enough to explore them at a good pace, getting up with the sun (sometime around 7am) and stopping any visiting activity by sunset (shortly after 6pm) - as we were camping most of the time, this actually means stoping all activity at pitch black 8pm.

I don't think a post on the blog can describe how great this trip was, and I'm sure the picture (even the best ones) don't represent 1/10th of the awesomeness of that place. To summarize, spending time on Hawaii is the dream life: it has ocean, mountain, every kind of climate, gorgeous flora and delicious food... what else!? The scariest dangers being sharks, black widow spiders, (americans?) and erupting volcanos (non of the above I've actually encountered).

Pele, the Goddess of Fire, Lightning, Wind and Volcanoes.

Since we came back to Toronto (and oh we're lucky it was only Toronto, we couldn't even imagine how a shock it would be to transitione in only a few hours from quiet peaceful Maui to Paris..) we keep talking about all the amazing things we've seen and experienced and about living there. 

Just to be able to live there I think it's worth fighting for the Green card... unless Hawaii regain its independence soon... 

Swimming with Sea Turtles.

Anyway, I highly recommend a cure of Hawaii! I'm pretty sure it would treat anything: it has sun, fun, happy people, beaches, hot surfers, vitaminful fruits, iodeful fishes, ocean fresh air, a complete set of climates to satisfy every mood, a few over 10,000ft mountains to concentrate your blood with haemoglobin, a language mouthful of vowels, fun and colorful animals, wild orchids growing on the side of the roads! 

Strawberry papaya, which seeds have been removed and replaced with lilikoi (passion fruit) seeds and lime juice!

Rambutan. 

Starfruits.

But also friendly hippies who come with zen and aloha power: i.e. yoga, naturopathy healing, and fresh healthy organic food stores... 

And it is really a place where they call "Women" as "Wahine"!! (as a kid I love that word but I was sure it was either made up or just a baking powder brand, now it all makes sense!).

They also have great coffee (Kona Coffee), grown on the West side of Mauna Lea Volcano on a very fertile soil and constantly humid. FYI: this is a freshly harvested coffee cherry.

Colorful orchids. 

Star Stinkhorn Fungus and Great Smell Plumeria.

After a few nights sleeping in the tent on windy Maui, surrounded by hippies (that last point was not that unpleasant but just got perfect for the rime), we definitively packed up the tent and arranged the trunk to sleep in the car. Way better against the wind and a quick escape mode in case of a Tsunami alert. We noticed that every single campground (as usually on a Beach Park) was in a Tsunami Evacuation Area... which I wasn't really comfortable sleeping around.

 Ok, there's one thing about Hawaii that apparently my body doesn't quite appreciate: it's the mosquitos. I know they usually like my blood and they don't go easy on me, but this time... I thought Canadian mosquitos were the worse but I was wrong. Hawaiian mosquitos are vicious, they act solo and they are so discrete I didn't know I got bitten until a few minutes later when my body was not itchy but would literally hurt! I wore mosquito repellant (natural or chemical usually doesn't make a big difference in my case so for my own sake I use natural ones since I need to heavily cover myself with repellant) and I indeed was the only one bitten. (Greg didn't put not even a drop for the whole vacation and didn't get a single bite!?!?). But as much as the first bite of the day crually hurts, I felt that over their numbers (sometimes 6 in less than 10 minutes...) I would loose sensation in these areas. It's like alcohol, after 3 mosquito bites I loose all sense of humor or creatism (that's how this amazing bamboo forest is completely missing in my portefolio).

 One of the only - blurry - capture from the Bamboo forest in Kipahulu.

Moreover, I used this eco-friendly anti-itchy remedy which consists in teasing yourself with a mini-teaser Mousti-click... not pleasant and pretty ineffective on Hawaiian mosquito bites. After 5 mosquito bites I loose total control and over 10 I do not feel anything anymore; I'm all swollen, my body is totally high from its own load of anti-histaminics. I wonder how I could survive in such a country with malaria.

Greg in Haleakala crater (and yes, we were wearing winter clothes!).

Inside the main crater on Maui (Haleakala crater) there is almost no life, just a few exotic and almost extinct species. I feels like being on an other planet (at least as I could imagine it would be...).
After 7 days on Maui, a 10-seats plane shuttled us from Kahului to Kona (Big Island of Hawaii). That was relatively unstable but definitively and experience. No check-point, no security, just pilot, co-pilot and locals!

Sunset from Mauna Kea, Big Island of Hawaii.

Petroglyphs on Puu Oo.                              Torch Ginger.

Among the other things that we've seen: a macadamia orchard with 250,000 trees... all hand picked and a thermal pool of ocean water. We talked to a few locals that were partying on the campground, we've witnessed people trading a haircut over a pound of fruits :)) we have snorkeled in crystal clear water and we hiked endlessly on lava field to reach brand new flowing lava... 7 miles one way and we were still not able to poke the lava with a stick despite the advices of the rangers.

And for Christmas we've booked ourselves a tiny cabin (no commodity included) in Volcano National Park and we ended up spending the night in a huge house just for the two of us with heat and hot shower! They made a mistake during the check-in/check-out of two other people and they ended up overbooking our cabin. Lucky us/them one of their employee just moved out of his house but still had the keys. This guy was so fun, he wanted to make sure that we were gonna be comfortable in his house... but you know, after 2 weeks of camping..

Huge butterflies.

Enormous spider, very thoughtful, it draws a thicker line in the middle of its web for you not to get taken in :)

Gecko.

Whales.

And yes, we are in the U.S. Imagine this sign on the road: "Speed limit enforced by laser"... like they're gonna cut my car with laser if I go over the limit? And there is of course Hand sanitizer at the waterless washrooms of the most secluded campground of the island.

A big 'Aloha' to you all, see you in no time for new adventures!

And if you don't have enough with these pictures, take a trip to my Flickr set! Mahalo!

P.S: for those of you who follow my blog for the craft, here is an incredible work from an Hawaiian woman with polymer clay. She makes perfect fake orchids out of polymer clay. It's just stunning!

The Summer made me younger, but the Fall took it all.

I've been invited to participate in a photo challenge about Gourmandise. France is probably the best place to be gourmand (I've already explained that idea of gourmandise, which I would translate as state of non-restriction in front of yumminess and good food, in a previous post). To make sure I got the perfect picture, I went to a couple of bakery and catering places and picked up a few nice, tasty and delicate cakes (I didn't eat them all, but shared them with my host family). Anyway, here is the picture. And yes, it's photoshopped.

If you think this is a good one and is worth publication, please vote for it on this link, make your friends, family, neighbors vote for it too!
Speaking of publication, I was finally able to celebrate the publication of the paper from my PhD!! Direct link to its Pubmed page.

Besides being an infinite catalog for photo inspiration, I re-discovered the country I was born and raised in. I've lived in different countries, I loved living in Sweden or in Canada, but there's nowhere similar to France. As one of my friend said, for us (we are both born in France) everything here is so smooth, so easy, so natural. There are tones of things that are completely irrational, cities that are dirty, people that are crazier/stupider than anywhere else but we share a common culture, language, state of mind, humor: there is a connection that facilitates the communication. At the same time it's like I moved to an unknown country and also as if I moved back to my home country.
Because I focused on the bad side of France and french people lately, I will add that it was very unexpected for me... to like it so much! I fell in love here.

I fell in love with Bayonne and the Basque Country... It's so beautiful and I met very kind, interesting, diverse and motivating people.
That leads me to describe a little bit my 3 months experience in France. I came back because of the immigration system in Canada. It was supposed to be for 2 months, but I got a summer job for 3. I stayed! I was depressed to leave Canada and my life there. I almost didn't take my ticket back to Toronto!

In the past three months, the Olympic Games took me a lot of time! Let say sport in general took me a lot of time since I've been working in a French sport store (http://www.decathlon.fr/), and preparing (oh I'm still so behind my program!) my second half-marathon. I've had a very entertaining training: from running on the sand to hiking or doing splits up and down hills. But best, I've been doing long distance run on the Atlantic shore... and that is incomparable to any other run.

Most of all, I enjoyed working full time as a vendor in a sport store. I've never ever worked in sales before, I discovered how to manage stocks, how to expose products and how to deal with clients! Clients were the best part. Oh these clients; I saw all kinds: from tourists (French, Parisian, Dutch, Spanish...), to angry and stressed mom, but also happy runners, injured runners, over-seventy runners, old lady (often the nicest client of the day...), to 10 year old who want to be a great sprinter. I also got the angry-against-life teenager, the friendly winner of the local trail race but I missed the famous actor and famous football player... To sum it up, I'll say that it was pleasant to give advice, to give my opinion on running shoes, to help people run injure-free, and I'll be happy to do it again, maybe not all my life.. I miss science.

And I was delighted to talk to motivating people who were doing crazy challenges or huge trail in the Alps... they made me dream! they motivated me to try more things! they made my adventurous side come back to me! and I'm glad they did.

Even if that was a full time job, because the store is open 11 hours a day, I wasn't in there all day every day, and my schedule was perfectly adjusted so I could enjoy a week day off or half a day! I was able to visit my own country, I was able to go swim or in the ocean before work, I was able to party or spend time with my friends!

In a word, I had a good memorable time in France, surrounded with French people! And I would do it again!

The Summer made me younger, but the Fall took it all. That's how I feel now. I've been working and living with people who were younger than I am, who didn't know how old I was, most of them thought I was between 23 to 26 (which still had an impression of old to them... that's the disappointing part)!! Good to know! That was pleasant to talk and hang around with them, it actually made me feel and behave younger. I've been partying reasonably for a summer time (well, not that reasonably a few times but in average that was not that much). And despite 2 great sleepless nights, I found myself a bit older than I thought. But Summer is over, all the young ones went back to school and I am getting older again, looking and interviewing for a job, in a few days back to where I was 3 months ago.