Guest Post - Donna from An Anglo in Quebec

I want to thank Donna for volunteering to do a guest post while I am away this summer.  I am very happy that many months ago I stumbled on Donna's lovely blog - not only does she have a gorgeous home, but she lives in one of my favourite parts of Canada - Quebec - and she writes about it on her blog.  You can find her at An Anglo in Quebec.  Thanks again Donna!

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Grace was one of the first bloggers that talked to me

in the blogosphere...

and for that I will always be grateful 

so

to my fellow Canadian

 here is my take on her questions

and it is all

Juste pour toi Grace...

What is the oldest thing in my home?

The oldest piece in my home is from my

grandmother ....  Sarah Jane.

She had a spectacular garden and this fern stand sat in her livingroom window....

I know, it needs new stain but it has such sentimental value to me right now

I love it just as it is!

and this chair was given to me by my mother,

Joy ...

It has this lovely needle-point seat.

But,  probably the oldest, date unknown, are these plates...

they were given to us as a wedding gift.

Together they form an antique dessert set.

They have been passed down through several generations

and we will certainly pass them along one day ourselves.

 


Okay, next question Gracie!

What is the favourite thing you have made?

Yikes....tough one Grace...

I don't seem to have "made" too much these days...

 but here are a few simple things I am feelin' rather proud of.

 

Feels like a game of Where's Waldo?

What did she exactly "make" here?

Yes, well,  this is not much I know but extremely practical by our side door!

It is simply a wood frame I assembled for hanging coats, purses,

oh ..... and the odd helmet has hung from the higher hook!

This multiple cast iron hook affair makes it all work...

But this is my favourite.... again simple but practical

I made this curtain as a result of looking for a way to hide my washer and dryer

which is in our pantry off the kitchen

and visible from several vantage points in our open floor concept...

it is a simple combination of material and velcro.

So simple, that you can easily change it up for different effects

at different times of the year...

below....

our red velvet Christmas fabric. 

Oh and I am looking at a red chintz for next year!

Okay, je sais...je sais

I am almost done here Gracie!!

What is the favourite room in your house?

Well, hands down on that one for the whole family!

We have been slowly renovating our home over the last few years

and last year was the "real deal" renovation to the main floor of our house.

I say real deal because we camped on the front deck for about 2 months!!

Open concept is what we were after.  

I love to cook and entertain so the goal was to optimize our small space!

So ....  voila 

our open concept main floor.

I hope I can count this as one room.... ????

Standing at the kitchen island you can have a take on everything.....

 or if you are sitting in the livingroom....

or looking to the diningroom...

you get to be part of it all!

So that is it, no more questions from Grace, 

thank you ...... I had lots of fun ...

merci beaucoup from your neighbour here in la belle province!!

À tantôt

Our Evening with the International Models

I never in my wildest dreams thought I would attend my first fashion show while I was in Bangladesh.  Yep, you read that right - recently we went to a fashion show at a fancy hotel in Dhaka.  Kim and I were asked by the Centre for Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP) to attend a charity reception as the money was being raised for CRP and Miss Canada was going to be there.  And since Kim and I are so closely associated with both Miss Canada and international models we were selected to attend the posh event.  All I can say is that it was the most surreal evening of my life!


Late Friday afternoon Kim and I got dressed in our finest (which for me meant my slightly dirty linen pants and a navy and beige blouse) and met at the gate of CRP with one of the Bangali Speech teachers who was going to attend with us.  It took two hours of bumpy, hot, sweaty driving to get to the hotel.  The drive was through all the poverty and crowds and noise that make up life for most of the people here in Bangladesh.

The event was about an hour and a half late starting so I had plenty of time to people watch - very interesting as you can imagine.  The evening began with a somewhat dubious comedian who liked to berate the audiance for not laughing - an interesting technique!  Then we watched the CRP video and finally saw the fashion show.  

The fashion show was a mix of western clothing - some of which were a tad on the skimpy side shall we say - and Bangladeshi clothing.  The Bangladeshi clothing were lovely, all decorated with jewels and fine material.  I do always wonder why models, no matter where they are from, insist on glowering at the audience.  

We left at the break as it was already 10:30 and we had a long drive to get back to CRP. On the way home we had to stop at a gas station to have the heat indicator on the jeep looked at. When we stopped our driver asked us to please sit in the plastic lawn chairs beside the jeep.  It struck Kim and I as rather hilarious to be sitting in the middle of a gas station at 12:30 at night surrounded by buses.  I referred to the plastic lawn chairs as our princess chairs (you can see me sitting on my princess chair in the photo below).

We got home to a minor flood in the kitchen and a giant cockroach.  It's never dull here - is all I can say!

Guest Post - Anita from Going a Little Coastal

Anita from Going a Little Coastal (I love her blog's name, by the way) volunteered to do a guest blog post today and tell us a bit about herself.  Wait until you read about the hall piece she made - I'm already in love with it and wish I had thought of doing something like that in our front hall.  You should check out her coastal inspired blog for lots of great decorating, cooking, and gardening ideas.  Thanks Anita!

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Hi everyone, I’m Anita and I blog at Going a little Coastal. I am filling in for Grace while she’s is flying all over the world. Lucky girl! Grace asked me to blog about 3 things today. 

The oldest thing in my home, a favorite item that I made and my favorite room.

Old and vintage items always appeal to me. It’s like they have a story to tell. I love painting furniture but sometimes there are pieces that just shouldn’t be painted.

 

This piece I found at an antique market in Mt. Dora FL. 

It was really dark and dreary when I bought it but I just cleaned it really well and fell in love with the warm patina of the wood. 

I would not be painting this one!

 

The guy I bought it from called it a linen press so that is what I have stuck with. 

It has a deep drawer that I happen to keep linens in and lots of space below where I store photos.

My favorite item that I made is probably this hall tree. 

When I lived in GA I did not have much of a foyer so I came up with this piece to put by the door. 

It gave me a spot to drop the mail, hang a jacket or display some flower.

When we moved to FL once again I did not have a foyer. 

It happens to fit well in a narrow hall going to the kitchen. 

It was put together with a set of bifold doors, a board, some corbels and some molding. 

Very easy to do and very easy to personalize to fit your own needs.

 

My favorite room? Well this might seem silly but it’s my half bath. 

It took us a year to get this built and we were so happy to when it was finally done. 

We had no guest bath on the first floor, only my master bath and I always hated that.

  

So we carved out some space from a closet in the laundry room and a few feet out of the garage and it have us the guest bath right next to the door to the pool. I just love it!

You can see a before and after here.

 

So there you have it. Three of my favorites.

Thank you Grace for inviting me to come by and fill in for you while you are away. You are on such amazing journey and doing such great things. I can’t wait to hear all about it when you get back.

see ya,

Boating on the Ganges

Yesterday we went for a boat ride on the Ganges River. I hadn't realized until I came to Bangladesh that the Ganges River delta is the largest in the world and forms the river network that makes up most of southern Bangladesh. 


It was lovely to be away from the hustle and bustle of life in one of the most densely populated countries in the world and to relax and see all the wonderful things the river had to offer.  


It's always an adventure when you step out the door here.  Since there were eight foreign volunteers on the boat trip, we made quite a convoy of rickshaws barrelling down the street to get to the river. There are not many westerners here in Bangladesh so we always get lots of stares everywhere we go, let alone with eight of us.

Our boat was a lovely little wooden boat with a woven mat covering painted slats and a curved roof to shade us.  

We were taken on a two-hour tour up and around a series of islands.  One side of the river was very industrialized with metal buildings lining the river, work boats moored, and people going about their business.

The other side of the river and the islands were low-lying rural lands and such a joy to see after all the people and urban spaces we have been living in for the past three weeks.

There was a steady stream of boats going past us.  Everything from boats laden with hay (anyone else think the man in the photo below looks like Santa Claus),

to boats transporting motorcycles,

to barges traveling so low in the water we had no idea why they were even still afloat.

I feel like I got a peak at such a different part of Bangladesh yesterday.  

Linked to My Favourite Post of 2011 Link Party at Home Stories A2Z

Guest Post - Gina from Three Ring Cottage

Gina, from Three Ring Cottage, and I have become friends over the past year and half of blogging and I count myself lucky that I found her (or did she find me???) early in our blogging careers.  I just knew Gina would have some interesting things to share in her guest post and boy am I right - I love old photographs and hers are amazing.  If you haven't found Gina's blog yet, you should head on over and have a look at all the chippy, industrial, vintage loveliness.  Thanks for volunteering to do a guest post while I'm away!

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I'm so happy to be guest posting at Sense and Simplicity while Grace is away in Bangladesh training students so they can improve speech-language therapy services in that region of the world. 

I run a little blog called 3 Ring Cottage and I'm a fellow Speech-Language Pathologist just like Grace. Over the last year, we've become good blog friends so I was thrilled when she asked me to guest post about three specific things: the oldest thing in my home, my favorite thing I've made and my favorite room in my house.

The oldest thing in my home

I'm fortunate that my family keeps a lot of stuff and values things passed down through the generations.  I have a lot of stuff that is really old so it's difficult to pinpoint which one is the oldest.  Some of my favorite oldest things are pictures...old family photos. 

Now when I say "old", I mean really old.

Here is my favorite old picture from around 1912.

That is my maternal grandmother in the chair and her brother beside her.

Isn't she the cutest thing?

I also like the blue color that is part of the picture.

This is my father's maternal grandmother.

I'm not sure of the date but I'm guessing late 1800's to early 1900's.

This is my great-great grandparents on my mom's side.

The girl to the far left is my great-grandmother, Mamie.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess we didn't come from a lot of money.

This is my dad's father.  He was born in 1880 so this was 

probably taken around the turn of the century because he was in his 20's here 

(my dad was born when the guy was 50). 

I'm guessing this was taken in Texas purely because it looks like 

an early Texas background although he was born in Canada (Ontario) 

which is where his family lived before moving to Texas.

My favorite thing I've made

My favorite thing I've made is my big red sign which hangs in my entry.

It greets when I come home and I love it.

It has two of our family names on it and it's my favorite color!

My favorite room in my house right now

My favorite room in my house right now is a toss up between

my front porch and our main living area downstairs.

I've always loved our front porch but our main living area has been

my most frustrating and least favorite room since we moved in.

This room should have been the first to be completely decorated because 

it is the main room where visitors gather but it's never been even close.

It has too many windows and open areas and one gigantic blank wall.

In the last few months, I've finally had a vision for that room and it's starting 

to come together...finally.  It still has a long way to go but I'm loving the progress

right now and it's no longer an embarrassment.  

It's a mix of cottage, farmhouse and vintage industrial styles.

pardon the dog bed and shoes...this is how we live folks.