8r4dsfeets I like big bolts and I cannot lie… #rivervalley #walk

8r4dsfeets Lurking above the whale at #westedmontonmall

8r4d Mission Fail: My trip to the mall for #art supplies for my class which starts tomorrow hit a snag. I walked in to my trusty locale for inexpensive paints and behold the doors were shuttered and the bay dark. The cultural wasteland that is this city got another degree barren. Of course I spent an hour wandering in #westedmontonmall because y’know gas prices and why not. Tho for a Monday morning I don’t know what i was expecting. It’s dead as anything here.

8r4d It’s one of those things that often escapes or attention in a busy busy world, and tho you might feel that my life of quasi-middling retirement cannot possibly be busy busy, I do find myself needing to pause every once in a while and reflect on the good moments and #smallthings that warm up my still chilly days. Like when I walked over to starbucks for my two hours of morning writing today and was thankful that I wasn’t in this portapotty when the wind caught it, but also when I ordered a grande #coffee but they gave me a venti by accident so that my daily chapter was fuelled by discounted (but still overpriced) caffeine. Like I said, it’s the small things…

8r4d Around the park for some windy running play.

8r4d We did a trip to Canmore in March for spring break, tho the weather was decidedly still winterish. One of our hikes took us on a meandering stroll up and around the mountain trail past the golf course. #backposting

adventuredog Sleeping on the hand that feeds… #backposting

adventuredog Little miss crazy eyes! #backposting

adventuredog The snow dog collection this season is striking! #backposting

pixelazy Up up up and trees! #backposting

8r4dsfeets The winter made for some curious trail sights for one and dog… #backposting

8r4d Spring-ish weather has arrived so the trails beckoned us on our morning #running adventure. It’s nice to be off the snow and asphalt again.

8r4dsfeets For a few years I spent a lot of time on these paths around the university. Now I only wander thru here occasionally.

8r4d I was excited that the weather has finally improved enough for some long spring walks, but it seems like the second that happened they resumed road construction near our house again so our peaceful path is going to run adjacent to an active paving site for the foreseeable future.

squwetchy Starting next week I’m back in the classroom with my favourite watercolour instructor Frank. I signed up for another round of #watercolour painting classes at the local rec center. This time will be focussing on flowers so be prepared for lots of pictures of little pretty things and the high chance of me complaining about almost certainly being the only guy under 60 in my class. I was trying to get back into it as I haven’t done as much painting as I should have over the last month or two and I painted a couple spring scenes including these two.

8r4d Our #orchestra has been playing some challenging music this half of our season and I realized one of my biggest personal challenges with our music selection has been my lack of familiarity with the music itself. my approach to remedy this was to download the actual performances into my music playlist and to listen to them on repeat in hopes that have a little better sense of the sound so that when I see the notes on the page I can translate between the two. It did mean spending about $20 on, some new albums on iTunes but hopefully it’s worth it in the end. #violin

8r4d They say dogs just kind of roll with the punches, but no one was more surprised than cricket when she woke up this morning to find a couple inches of fresh snow in a backyard that was clean and clear for spring just a few hours earlier.

8r4d #autumn trails

adventuredog Ready to roll baby!

pixelazy #violin perspectives

8r4d Sixteen-ish candles!?

pixelazy #autumn scenes from the creek

squwetchy Another #autumn #watercolour landscape

adventuredog This is my summer-is-over face.