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The Vacuum and the Spam

Published February 28, 2013 Life 4 Comments

So I haven’t blogged in super long time. Into that vacuum has come an incredible amount of blog spam for some reason… those telltale comments in obsequious tones and terrible grammar have been clogging my inbox.

So to keep the blog alive and keep the spammers at bay here is a short post. I’ve been sick with the flu which is lousy, but does have it’s upside. For a start, it’s enforced rest, something I need because I’m lousy at getting it on my own. The other good thing about the flu is that it has a definite ending to it; you feel like walking death for a while but then comes the day where every nap has you waking up stronger. Then you wake up famished and that’s a really good sign. Next thing you know you’re back to normal, albeit a bit weak. The cold, on the other hand, the cold feels like it can stick around for an entire season, like you’ve been cursed by a persistent, yet underachieving arch nemesis.

I have, however, been designing. New goodies to share soon!

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Weather with Benefits

Published February 8, 2013 Life , Photography 1 Comment
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This morning I found a snow drift high enough to attempt a vertical snow angel =D

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Of course, I had to take a bit of a run at it – which means it was less like making a snow angel and more like trying to make a cartoonesque Shireen-shaped-hole in the Skydome, but still. Good times.

Enjoy the weather today folks!

Starting off on the right foot

Published January 1, 2013 Life , Photography 11 Comments

Happy New Year :) I wish you all a happy healthy 2013!

A few months ago I received this email:

Dear Shireen,

I’ve seen your magnificent blog and fell in love with Newfoundland. We are redecorating our house and had been searching for a living room wall poster for a long time.

When we saw below picture we loved it so much. Is it possible for you to send a high resolution of this photo so we can have it print out in a 3mx2m wall poster. I can send you a picture of the room after :)

thank you very much,

(Name) from İstanbul-Turkey

Below it was this photo – of St. John’s Newfoundland, that I took of a neighbourhood known as the Battery.

The Battery ©Shireen Nadir 2013

I was blown away; normally I don’t release large format digital files – but how could I say no? Someone had written from Turkey with the humbling notion that they loved a photo of mine so much they’d like to cover a wall with it. I sent a link, they sent their thanks, and a kind note inviting me to stay with them if I’m ever in Istanbul and then I mostly forgot about it.

Last night, the most amazing New Years surprise arrived in my inbox:

The Battery ©Shireen Nadir 2013

They really did it – they used the photo of St John’s Newfoundland as a wallpaper. What a beautiful family – I am so honoured and humbled that I had to pass my phone around the party last night just so everyone could see these lovely people. What a connection! I hope one day to meet them in person.

I’ve spent some time, as you might expect, thinking of New Years Resolutions. I’m taking up horseback riding, violin lessons and needle felting. I’ve recently become a partner in the firm I work for, so building a company is going to form a big part of my goals. I’ve got financial goals, travel goals, and fitness goals.

But late last night I spent time reflecting – these were all well and good for ‘outside’ things that I’d like to be/have/do. What about the inside? What’s the most important thing there? It’s the people in my life that make it the beautiful journey that it is. I value the connections I share with others – be it over the internet or in person. I love the fact that I’ve connected with so many amazing people through this blog. I value my friends and family and, above everything else, I want to spend more time being with them and never losing an opportunity to let them know what they mean to me.

Thank you, friends in Turkey, for a New Years Eve treat, and a reminder of what’s really important in my world – you helped me start my 2013 off on the right foot!

When in Rome

Published November 29, 2012 Life 2 Comments
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Last weekend Tito and I put our tree up. The putting up of the Christmas tree has been a long tradition in our family – my parents still have the same tree they bought in 1975 and we put it up every year! My folks have always had a sort of ‘when in Rome’ type attitude towards Christmas – though we are not Christians we enjoy the festive spirit, decorations, good food, time with friends and family, gift  giving and, of course, putting up the tree.

Another tradition is the idea of inviting lots of folks over to participate in putting up the tree with us – we love to decorate while spending time with people we adore and eating good food! This time I had that roast from the Highland Cattle Farm and we took a stab at cooking it up for our guests.

Luckily I have two awesome women in my life, Cheryl and Beverly, who both know much more about cooking than I do. They gave us temperature and time recommendations and Bev suggested we just wrap the whole thing in bacon (because you can’t go wrong with bacon).

I don’t know anything about cooking, honestly. But Tito helped me out and we got the roast lightly seasoned with salt and pepper, wrapped it in a good coat of bacon and put it in the oven for a long time on a low heat. It was _amazing_. The meat was so tender and moist and the bacon flavouring was perfect!

We also enjoyed a selection of jams from the same farm, and used Kim’s spicy relish to spice up a cake of warmed up brie. Throw on some cookies, and Christmas cake, and even a culinary newbie like myself can set a good table =D

However you celebrate, whatever you celebrate, I hope you have some beautiful things planned for the month of December, I know we do!

 

Random word association

Published October 25, 2012 Life , Other media 2 Comments
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Here’s something fun I found this morning, an online app that lets you create word clouds. It’s free, and didn’t require a membership. Here’s the site.

I made mine by making a list of words. Words I repeated were bigger in the final word cloud. It was a fun exercise, I started by just listing the things I like, the mediums I like, and then it became a funny sort of random association exercise. Here’s what I came up with! I definitely recommend giving it a try :) If you come up with something fun I’d love to see it!

Word Cloud ©Shireen Nadir 2012

Women’s Self Defence

Published September 15, 2012 Life 2 Comments
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As a martial artist I’ve had a lot of exposure to different ways of looking at self defence. One of the things I’ve found interesting lately is the rise of this movement called ‘slut-walk’. At one end of that spectrum are people who believe that, if you’re not wearing a full body covering, then you deserve whatever happens to you. At the other end are folks who think they should have the right to walk down the street in a bikini without any unwanted attention. It made me put some serious thought into self defence, and to what degree we are each responsible for our own safety and well-being.

I think the important thing to remember is that, once a criminal act has been committed against someone, it’s the fault of the criminal. There is no such thing as an outfit you could wear that would give someone the right to commit an assault against you. The sad reality is that assault takes place on a regular basis, to people at all ends of that spectrum.

However, there are simple things we can each do to take charge of our own safety and well-being, and lessen the odds that a criminal would select us as a target.

This fall I’m putting my self defence and teaching experience to use in my community by offering a free, no-nonsense, women only self defence course. I’ll be teaching once a month, at the Metropolitan United Church in downtown Toronto. Classes are 2.5 hours long, on Saturday mornings and they are 100% free to attend.

The course is basic, and practical, and requires no prior knowledge of self defence. There is no minimum fitness level. It has been developed from 15 years of martial arts experience, with the input of my own Sensei, and a York Region Police Officer.

If you’re in the GTA, and this is something you might be interested in, you can email me at Toronto.Self.Defence@gmail.com, or check us out on Facebook!

This morning I held my first session – it was such an excellent experience. Photos of the morning are below :)

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The Pianoman

Published August 28, 2012 Life , Photography 2 Comments
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As part of Toronto ramping up for the 2015 Pan Am Games they’ve participated in an international project call ‘Play Me, I’m Yours.’ The project involves putting pianos in public spaces, and has already been through 26 cities around the world. Each piano is painted by a local artist, and they’re all beautiful.

This piano is outside of Toronto’s Union Station, partly hidden by the hoarding around the building announcing renovations. The person sitting there was playing beautifully, the sun was setting, the light was gorgeous and I was entranced. Alas, all I had was my iPhone, but the Instagram shot was everything I could have hoped for. I might just turn it into a painting.

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