Test Roll Kodak Retinette

Kodak Retinette: what an awesome little film camera! It's so awesome I'll bring it on my next trip(s ?). I found it in my grand parents' stuff while clearing their apartment.

It's a very compact camera with bellows(!!!) so the lens is retractable and is protected by a little door when it's closed. I tested quite a few old cameras lately and, I need to dig a little deeper and take more pics with it, but I think the Retinette will be my favourite.

Quite 'osé' street art on a miror.

This picture in particular makes me say the retinette is awesome for such a small camera. With others, pictures shot indoors are pretty dark, not this one.

Might also be because I can't use the other ones and got lucky this time. Entirely possible.

I got a little scared when I scanned the roll because these came up and I just thought it might be broken. But it doesn't seem to be.

Again, possibly entirely my fault. Too bad, those were pictures of Paris Plage, when the banks of the Seine are covered in sand and lounging chairs during summer.

From the date I saw on the manual(because I found the manual as well! In a totally different place from the camera), this camera is from the fifties. I can't believe how beautifully it still works.

I took these pictures of the Sonia Rykiel window shop on august 24th, she passed away the next day.

Greg working his palate before gallons of Canadian beers.

Hey! we're in the window!

As he often says when I take a picture of him with flowers: 'A flower amongst flowers'. So True. :)

Snapshots from August

August was a busy month. I was working full time the first 3weeks and the last week we got ready for our trip, that means visiting family, buying the few things we would need for a one-month vacation, having all the paperwork(more or less) in order.

Was I drunk when I took this picture or what?

Him. This little bugger here put us through so much trouble. One of our main things on our to-do list before going was bringing him to a friend of mine so she would look after him for the whole month of september for us. But that didn't go according to plan. 

It's getting harder and harder to let him go for a month and also to find someone who is willing to look after him for a whole month(that means no going away for a weekend and lots of attention because he craves cuddles and attention). It's getting harder because the more I know him, the more I empathise and realize what hell it must be for him to be carried away from his home and spend time in an unknown place with someone he might or might not know, but since cats are more attached to places than people, it means it will always be trouble unless someone spends the whole month with him at our apartment.

Well, three days before our departure day we brought him to my friend. She loves cats and I thought that would be easy since she had all the experience. Boy, was I wrong. 

I was pretty stressed out because he made quite a fuss when we put him in his travel box. He used to go in there so easily. I was feeling so terrible. It was really nerve wrecking, and unfortunatelly, it was probably more on his part than on mine(and I was a total mess, he probably felt it too).

As soon as we opened his travel box at my friend's place, he got out all hissy and mad. We let him roam around a little while, he was still hissing. We said good bye to my friend and told her to call if she needed anything. I sent her a text when we got back to our place to ask if he had calmed down a little. She said no but that she could manage. She called an hour later, he had attacked her(nothing too bad but she got really scared) and was now on her bed, hissing every time she came near.

So at 11pm, I was in my PJ's on the metro with Greg getting Hopi back.

He got back to normal as soon as we got back home. All sweetness and big beautiful innocent eyes.

In the end, I called a friend of my brother's, Jordan, who looked after Hopi a couple of times before (and both times for a month), he agreed to keep him for two weeks and my Mom had no choice but to have him at her place for the last couple of weeks of september.

My adorable Grand Pa drove all the way to Paris to help us bring Hopi to Jordan's place. It took him nearly two hours to get here and then another two to Jordan's. My Grand Pa is a saint, Jordan is not bad either, agreeing to look after my cat at the last minute like that.

I didn't want Hopi to go through public transportation again, I thought going by car would be easier on him. It wasn't much better. It was rush hour and took way longer than it should have.

But we got there eventually and Jordan was all sweet about it. I felt so much better. I knew Hopi was in good hands.

But what an emotionnal roller coaster for all of us.

Next year, I'm really thinking of paying someone to visit him everyday so we don't have to tear him from his home. It would be ideal if I could find someone to live here with him. But I don't know how I could find such a life saver.

'Life's a bitch'

Snapshots from July

Summer 2016 was sweet and lazy by my window. Dinking wine, reading and enjoying a little sunshine by my plants (which are all dead now, a month without watering just did the trick :( )

I had flowers, the most flowers I have ever had. That was nice to see the bees coming and going all summer long.

I upgraded the tiny nook by the window that is now refered as 'the library'. I installed a wooden wine box and put of all my yet-to-read books in it. I also salvaged a cute and vintage little table from my grand parents' which gives a very chic and library feel to my nook (yet I still put my glass on the floor, but hey, the table looks nice).

Before going to Toronto for a month, I pressed the flowers that were blooming and harvested my verbena, so now I have verbena herbal tea for, I hope, a few months.

Books. So many books. I bought so many books this year. The number even got bigger in Toronto. I brought back about twenty books. Greg hates me for this ;p The luggage was so heavy. But if you ask me, it was of course all worth it. I didn't buy much else. A bunch of clothes that I badly needed (3pairs of pants and 4shirts), mine are falling apart. So I went to all the bookstores I could find, preferably, used books, and that was that.

The pigeons were back this year, two floors below from last year. There were two baby pigeons. They made a lot of noise and a big mess in our neighbour's flower pot while they were away for a couple of months.

DIY Old T-shirts Rug

Sorting clothes at my grand parents, I found a lot of old T-shirt too old and shabby to donate and perfect to make something I had wanted to try for a while. A braided rug.

I used this DIY by My Poppet. I love this blog. Her pictures are always beautiful, and her instructions crystal clear. And also, she has the best ideas for DIY projects, always original and fresh.

I cut the shirts and made balls of yarn. It took me quite a while. But that was fun.

I watched Law and Order SVU all the time I was making the rugs. That is hours on end.

I did a couple of them since our place is really small, one big one would have been hard to find a spot for.

I hated every single second of the braiding process. But, as you can see with the number of pictures I took of my big ball of braided yarn, I loved the finish product though.

Unfortunatelly, I wasn't able to assemble the rug with my sewing machine. The braid was too thick, so I had  to handsew the whole thing . Which was fine, hard on my poor hands but kind of fun.

Got a little crazy with my ball.

Let's take a minute and appreciate yet again the love I bore for my ball of braided yarn.

(plus it smelled like the laundry detergent my grand parents used. Love the memories)

Some more love for my ball.

I found this in my grand mother's things, she hadn't finished it. So I'll try to finish it and make something out of it.

I don't have a good picture of my finished rugs, they'll appear here and there, bits and pieces in the next posts. 

Birthday Boy

We just got back from Toronto today. I ran to the lab to get three rolls back and gave them all of my rolls from Toronto.

I'm so sleepy right now I could pass out. So I'm trying to keep busy blogging about these pictures from last July.

It was my Grand Pa's birthday and we celebrated at m parents'.

My Mom BBQing. Always exciting.

I hope I did a better job with the Toronto pictures than I did with these. They are so blurry. But I still need time to get around this camera (Olympus OM-2).

I love this outfit. I got the skirt when we were sorting out my late Grand Ma's clothes. It's actually a 'jupe culotte', mix between pants and skirt. I took for myself a bunch of her clothes and it's so nice to wear them and keep her memory alive somewhat.

Haaa... Champagne!

My tired brother.

My Grand Pa and his birthday present. Greg and I got him 2 cushions for his living room. I think he likes them. He put them to use right away.

Tomorrow I'm heading to my parents' for a family meal and to get my cat back, they looked after him while we were away and on monday my Grand Pa and I are going on one of our road trips with the camper. I still don't know where yet. My Grand Pa seems to have figured out a destination but I kind of want it to be a surprise till the last minute.