From the Interweb :: Aug 22, 2013

Honest Disney Posters Reveal True Movie Messages, Bored Panada - You really do need to take a look at these. While (mostly) tongue in cheek, it's worth thinking about the messages media portrays without the viewer necessarily realizing.

In Which love looks like spinning our own yarn, Sarah Bessey - I love how stories speak and love knowing that my honey and I are making memories; making our own stories and spinning our own yarns.

What every husband needs to hear, we are that family - I've been bad at this lately, but I'm trying. Words matter and I want my words to him to be such that they build him up, not tear him down.

Best Wildlife photos from National Geographic traveler photo contest 2013, bored panda - OH. MY. GOODNESS.

A Letter to Kate Middleton on the Postpartum Body, Emily Wierenga - Oh do, I love these words, shared one woman to another, words that, for one reason or another, we all need to hear.

My Husband is Not my soulmate, the art in life - You might think it's odd that my husband sent me the link to this article but, truly, it's not. Not when you realize that love is a choice, not an accident or by force. It's not something you fall in and out of. I like having the choice and knowing it. He's not "the one" I "have" to love because of force or fate or because there's no one else I "could" love, rather, I choose Him every day. There's both freedom and responsibility in that. Perhaps it's not as romantic a notion but it's far more true and far more valuable a mindset to hold if healthy, growing, lifetime relationships are to be built. It's where forever is found.

It's a Colorful Life

I came across a list of blog notes the other day. The kind of list I make when ideas are rolling around in my head but I don't actually have time to sit down and put them into words and sentences thinking that perhaps the list will be the trick to saving them for later. But no. It's months later and they're still just notes on a list. Lately I think it's been a bit of "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." I've been grumpy. Tired and grumpy. Maybe even a little angry. Less than thankful and not very hopeful. When gratitude and gratefulness feel like work but such important, life saving, worth investing in work.

When life feels black and white and hard, sometimes it's best to look at it in color. 

These are just a few of the moments I've captured this summer. I'm sure more will pop up soon.

Our Home and Native Land

I wish I could take credit for being creative enough to come up with some of these points but, alas, that is not the case. I can't even give credit where credit is due. Just know that it comes from someone somewhere on the interweb who loves this country too and is not afraid to poke a little fun at our differences.

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 
1. Vancouver : 1.5 million people and two bridges. You do the math. 
2. Your $400,000 Vancouver home is just 5 hours from downtown. 
3. You can throw a rock and hit three Starbucks locations. 
4. There's always some sort of deforestation protest going on. 
5. Weed. 

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN ALBERTA 
1. Big rock between you and B.C. 
2. Ottawa who? 
3. Tax is 5% instead of the approximately 200% it is for the rest of the country. 
4. You can exploit almost any natural resource you can think of. 
5. You live in the only province that could actually afford to be its own country. 
6. The Americans below you are all in anti-government militia groups. 

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN SASKATCHEWAN 
1. You never run out of wheat. 
2. Your province is really easy to draw. 
3. You can watch the dog run away from home for hours. 
4. People will assume you live on a farm. 
5. Daylight savings time? Who the hell needs that! 

 TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN MANITOBA 
1. You wake up one morning to find that you suddenly have a beachfront property. 
2. Hundreds of huge, horribly frigid lakes. 
3. Nothing compares to a wicked Winnipeg winter. 
4. You can be an Easterner or a Westerner depending on your mood. 
5. You can pass the time watching trucks and barns float by. 

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN ONTARIO 
1. You live in the centre of the universe. 
2. Your $400,000 Toronto home is actually a dump. 
3. You and you alone decide who will win the federal election. 
4. The only province with hard-core American-style crime. 

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN QUEBEC 
1. Racism is socially acceptable. 
2. You can take bets with your friends on which English neighbour will move out next. 
3. Other provinces basically bribe you to stay in Canada . 
4. You can blame all your problems on the "Anglo A*#!%!" 

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN NEW BRUNSWICK 
1. One way or another, the government gets 98% of your income. 
2. You're poor, but not as poor as the Newfies. 
3. No one ever blames anything on New Brunswick . 
4. Everybody has a grandfather who runs a lighthouse. 

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN NOVA SCOTIA 
1. Everyone can play the fiddle. The ones who can't, think they can. 
2. You can pretend to have Scottish heritage as an excuse to get drunk and wear a kilt. 
3. You are the only reason Anne Murray makes money. 

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND 
1. Even though more people live on Vancouver Island , you still got the big, new bridge. 
2. You can walk across the province in half an hour. 
3. You can drive across the province in two minutes. 
4. Everyone has been an extra on "Road to Avonlea." 
5. This is where all those tiny, red potatoes come from. 
6. You can confuse ships by turning your porch lights on and off at night. 

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN NEWFOUNDLAND 
1. If Quebec separates, you will float off to sea. 
2. If you do something stupid, you have a built-in excuse. 
3. The workday is about two hours long. 
4. It is socially acceptable to wear your hip waders to your wedding. 

Okay, fellow Canadians, anything you'd add to the list? 

Some west coast beauty.