The Pear Tree

Archive for the ‘Features’ Category

I tried, this year, I really did. I tried to make the transition from traditional book-form agenda packer to techno-savvy iPhone calendar user.

But alas.

Mid way through January I caved, nipped over to Chapters and picked up one of the last remaining agendas in stock. Happily, they were on for half price, and one of the ones I’d been eyeing before Christmas was still there.

I started buying appointment diaries – or engagement calendars or day planners – when I started university. I went to school in England, and fell in love with the ones I saw in WH Smiths every year. Rather than just your standard, business-minded book with little more than numbers to mark the dates, these ones had decorative covers, and graphics or quotations (or both) throughout.

When I returned to Canada, I was hard-pressed to find anything that motivated me to keep track of my appointments… aside from the need to keep track. I bemoaned what I found long and hard.

But the tides have turned, and today my biggest dilemma is choosing just one attractive day planner from the multitude out there.

Then, last December, I inherited an iPhone 3G. With, of course, an electronic calendar. “I can do this,” I avowed, thinking about the paper I’d save, not to mention the efficiency of having everything together in one little gadget.

I resolutely ignored the fact that it takes three times as long to type appointments into the calendar than it does to quickly scrawl something on a bookmarked page. I reminded myself that, if this calendar layout is too humdrum for my whimsical taste, I can probably find another, nicer one in the apps store.

What drove me over the edge, however, was booking appointments on the phone. How, pray tell, am I supposed to ensure that my calendar is clear before committing to something if I can’t access it because it’s currently being used as a phone? Hmmm?

After running into this problem a few times in the first fortnight, I abandon the idea and went to back to the way I love.

The paper way. With heavy, silky pages to turn, room to jot things in my own personal font, and not just appointments but random thoughts and impressions.

Of course I do love that my phone can remind me of my commitments with a little ding, so I’m going to keep using it for important reminders. But I know now that the book calendar is here to stay.

What do you use to keep track of yourself?

- Words and photos by Lori-Anne Poirier

There are two ways I’ve found of getting through the winter. The first is to hunker down in a warm place and bide my time safely removed from the elements. When I get sick to death of that, I force myself outdoors to confront my discomfort with the cold, and attempt to find some pleasure in it.

Last week, with temperatures nosediving down to minus 30C (with the wind chill), it was a hunkering week. We only went out when absolutely required.

This week we needed – all of us – to break the cabin fever and do something, anything, somewhere, anywhere but home.

So we headed to Father Pandosy’s Mission, in Kelowna’s Mission area, with its collections of old cabins, houses, sheds and a little chapel.

My kids loved snooping through the buildings last summer, imagining how Laura and Mary and their family and neighbours might have lived in the Little House on the Prairie days.

While we could still come onto the property and wander around, the buildings were locked up for the winter…

Leaving us to peek through the handsome, heavy windows to glimpse the inside…

Or just photograph them from a distance.

Father Pandosy’s Mission is a popular place for wedding photos. I used to hate the pics I saw from there because they always boasted a heavy country/western theme. But lately, I’ve been seeing the old buildings with new eyes, and find them endlessly inspirational for photographing.

So I thought I’d share some of my favourite shots from today’s visit here.

All these pics were taken with my Instagram app on my iPhone. If you use Instagram yourself, look me up: I’m @MrsPearTree. I’ll follow you if you follow me

These stairs were so skinny and steep, leading up to a little room above the chapel, I couldn’t help but wonder how the person or people who used them daily felt about going up and down everyday – especially in the winter!

There’s an open shed filled with old buggies, wagons and sleighs that the kids love sitting in. I loved all these wheels – layers and layers of them.

Amélie was right at home in this old buggy. It was pimped out with flashy red wheels.

I love the idea of adding to the history of these old buildings by living our own stories in and around them.

Our visit really did help brighten the winter doldrums. And now we’re back home and the snow is coming down again. Time to hunker back down, at least for the rest of the afternoon. At least we have electricity and central heating, which is more than I can say about those poor settlers who gave us those buildings. Another thing to be thankful for!

- Words and photos by Lori-Anne Poirier

A way back in October I told you about the new skill I had gleaned: Knitting in the round. You can read about it here. At the time, I didn’t tell you what I was making, because it was going to be a Christmas present for someone in my family.

Well, as luck would have it, I didn’t quite finish these aubergine fingerless gloves in time to package them up for December 25.

It’s so unfortunate. I’m so sorry, and I think about whomever they would have gone to every time I wear them, which I seem to do a lot. And I smile. I suppose it was just fate.

I’ve always loved fingerless gloves and the way they keep your hands warm but your fingers free. Working as a freelance photographer for a local paper for the last dozen years, they were definitely a staple of my winter wardrobe. This is the first pair I’ve made, though, and they don’t have the rather important removable hood that protects your fingers when they aren’t being busy.

But there’s myriad other reasons to wear them. Being an outdoor musician, for example (I, myself, am not actually talented enough to take my music beyond my living room). Most recently, I’ve found them useful when I want to use my iPhone outside, whether to make a call, take a photo or use one of the several other apps I’ve collected.

Right now it’s so cold that I’ve been wearing them over a pair of black leather and angora/wool gloves. They’re so cozy!

I’ve got just enough wool (an acrylic/wool mix) left to make a scarf or hat to go with them. But first, I’m thinking of starting another pair to actually give away for Christmas. If I start now, I’ll surely be finished in time…

- Words and photos by Lori-Anne Poirier

I’m finally giving up. I’m flying the white flag. I’m done with resolutions. Loosing weight, eating better, exercising more, getting organized, not procrastinating, quit this, start that, on and on and on.

They’re always the same, year after year, because I never manage to get past the month of January.

What? You too?

But there’s a new trend I’ve picked up on that I think I’m going to try. It’s picking a banner word for the year. A word you want to focus on. A word to exemplify your life, or what you’d like to work your life towards. A sort of theme for living, if you will.

Some really good ones I saw out in the blogosphere last January, when I first encountered the idea, include “celebrate,” “rest,” “believe,” “patience,” “change” and “experience.”

I considered using “calm,” but with a four-year-old and two-year-old in the house I decided that wasn’t realistic.

I kind of liked “coffee,” but that’s already a theme anyway.

Finally, I settled on “grace.”

It’s a small word, but spring loaded with impact. It’s everything from elegance – which I could definitely use more of, oh so much more of – to forgiveness, kindness and charity. I have a hunch that the latter produces the former (think Audrey Hepburn or Princess Di) but I haven’t actually made much of an attempt to try the theory out. Until now.

Until I sat down and thought about how little grace I feel I exercise in my life. And how much I need – to give and receive.

I want grace when I’m tired and cranky and up to here with kids that are tired and cranky and up to here with it.

I want grace when the two-year-old drops buttons down the heat register, when my husband accidentally breaks my favourite cup, when there’s more food under the table than in the tummies, and when the kids chase each other around and around the kitchen island while I’m trying to prepare supper, shrieking at the top of their lungs the entire time.

I want grace when, at the end of the day, I beat myself up for my shortcomings, as a mother and as a person.

I want grace when someone cuts me off in traffic or cuts in front of me in the coffee shop line. Grace for them, and grace for me.

Some people seem to be born with grace (think Audrey Hepburn or Princess Di). It seems to come so easy for them. Me? I’m a “have the last word,” “told ya so,” kinda girl. Very graceless.

But I’m hoping that, if I surround myself with this word – write it in my agenda, put it in a pretty font and an attractive frame and set it on my desk, engrave it in silver and hang it around my neck – then maybe it will start to seep in.

Help me to be the bigger person. Let it go. Hug more and holler less. Speak in slow, soothing tones. Remember that everyone makes mistakes, even me.

That’s a lot of resolutions wrapped up in one small, somewhat antiquated word.

I just hope I can carry them of with, well, a bit of grace.

- Words by Lori-Anne Poirier

- Image from Pinterest

I want to show off a couple of my Christmas presents. Not everything, you understand (a girl’s got to have some secrets) but some that I thought were especially “Pear Tree-ish” (read practical mixed with fanciful, and somehow connecting us with the past or tradition).

But first, I’m going to reveal a secret. It’s likely a secret many of you harbour as well. I don’t really like cooking. I can do, and I do it pretty well if I do say so myself. But I don’t do it just for fun, because I love to potter around in the kitchen or experiment with different ingredients. Before I had a family to feed I was an “eat out” singleton who tried restaurants as a hobby (okay, and job since I wrote a restaurant review column). And I liked it that way.

But if there’s one thing that gets me excited about working in the kitchen – besides the resulting meal – it’s some pretty utensils. Earthenware dishes, patterned, ceramic bowls, an heirloom rolling-pin.

So Christmas morning I knew I must have been a really good girl when I tore the paper off a new set of decorative measuring spoons – each looking like it came from a fancy set of flatware, but with a bowl measured to be a tablespoon, teaspoon and half, quarter and eighth of a teaspoon. I never thought in all my years that I’d get excited to get measuring spoons for Christmas, but it turns out I can still surprise even myself!

I’ve used them almost every day since I got them, and feel like such a stylish cook. According to Mr. Pear Tree Santa Claus, they came from Olive and Elle in Kelowna, on the corner of Pandosy Street and Lawrence Avenue, downtown.

The reusable ceramic egg carton, in the top photo and below, also hailed from thence. I got two of them, and they always make me when I open my fridge now, and see the eggs all lined up in them, six in each. It actually inspires me to take one out and make something with the eggs.

So who knows? Maybe there is a chef lurking somewhere, deep below the surface. A very vain, superficial chef who likes her fancy-schmancy kitchen utensils better than the process of cooking… but a chef, none-the-less. Stay tuned to find out…