Hodge Podge Blog Post (Try saying that fast!)

Greeting loyal readers! Thank you for still dropping by even though I am not as voluminous a blogger as I once was. This week's post is a bit of a hodge podge, much like our life lately.

First, an update about the magnolia. I continue to document my magnolia tree's progress on a daily basis on my way to work. I am obsessed by the magnolia. Anyway, like the elves in the Lord of the Rings, it is diminishing...Yesterday when I dropped by on the way to brunch (at Barrio on Queen East - try the chicken schnitzel and scrumptious dill potato salad), I was sad to see that the tree had lost most of its flowers...



A few hearty blossoms remained; a veritable miracle considering the downpour that occurred earlier in the morning (check out the hail stones that assaulted Sar's garden!). It was noted that we weren't "brunching", technically we were "drenching".



I can't really explain why I like this tree so much; it's certainly not the biggest magnolia tree and it's in an odd location, just sprouting up on a tiny bit of grass in a concrete jungle...maybe that's the attraction. Speaking of large magnolia trees, later in the day when we detoured around a major traffic clogging incident involving at least four fire trucks and a bazillion cop cars on Queen East, we found this grand old magnolia tree on someone's front lawn. It was so large that I couldn't fit it in one frame (without falling into the ravine -- which seemed like a poor plan which would no doubt be badly executed as well).



What was quite interesting about this lovely enormous tree was that it was still full of blossoms, and the ones on the south side of the tree were much more open then the ones on the north side of the tree. These are the blossoms from the north side, and you can see they still haven't fully opened up.



Well, enough about magnolia trees. I won't even try to branch out into cherry blossoms or quince or anything else arboreal, as inspired as I might be.

Speaking of inspired, I have been taking a cookie baking and decorating class at the Bonnie Gorden School and am learning some very yummy and lovely decorating techniques. These are the cookies that I decorated at the class on Friday night. They are so pretty I am very reluctant to eat them - probably a first for me! We learned quite a few techniques so I didn't get a chance to finish them all (which is why there are a few naked cookies in this picture). I'm going to decorate them next week along with a big batch of sugar cookies I baked to practice.



Although I won't eat my own creations (yet), I had no qualms about biting into this beautiful little double vanilla daisy cake by Dufflet which I picked up as a treat at Pusateri's...



I meantioned the storm earlier in the day but there was one brewing as well when we were on our way home from brunch and shopping (at many yummy bakeries and yarn shops on Queen East) yesterday. I was able to catch this shot out the car window as we turned from northbound on University Avenue to westbound on Dundas Street. Not only can you see the looming clouds, but you can also see the Tamil protest at Queen's Park in the distance.



And to round out the hodge podge-edness of this post, I have this lovely dusk shot of the back staircase on the new AGO - taken from our old Grange wing at 100 McCaul street on Thursday night. I'm not in the main building too often anymore, but it was our Graduate Student Exhibition Opening Night, so I was doing the annual look-see with friends and this caught my eye on the way by...



Happy week!