Walking around outside today I noticed a few houses have hung ornaments on the trees growing in their front yards.  I think it’s a brilliant idea as you are able to admire them all day rather than having to wait till after dusk. 

This is a nice alternative to having a tree in your house… why go to all that trouble when you can just decorate a growing and thriving tree in your yard? 

Have you seen this phenomenon? Gigantic Santa in a snow globe. I don’t quite get it… but perhaps I’m not the target audience.

Although for this one I feel I probably am the target audience.  SC seems to be sponsored by Harley, very funny indeed.

Happy Holidays!  May you have a festive, humorous , fun-filled celebration.

I stumbled across some more graffiti, this time on a wall close to Dundas West and Bloor. This particular wall made me chuckle. The images look like illustrations from a children’s novel. All these characters are painted in expressive moments. The crazy-haired pianist sitting spread eagled on the stool, rockin’ out with one finger pointing into the air. The poet preaching spoken word to the world wearing funny plaid pants. The lady with long curly hair taking flight from her day job on the back of a ladybug. The bowl-legged cyclist staring up at the sky. The super tall dude messing around with either an accordion or a beehive. Someone flying a flower flag while another person watches intently.

The theme of all of these images is confidence: each character appears confident and happy about what they are doing. There is no grass-is-greener going on in this painting. The way each of the characters is fully living in the moment may be why this collage reminds me of childrens’ books.

It’s a nice break from a usual walk down the street. The artist has a website listed if you are interested in looking at more images.

Technorati Tags: Toronto, graffiti, artist, fun, outdoor, illustration

Skating season is here again. Nathan Phillips Square and City Hall are all gussied up with lights to get you in the holiday spirit, and the City has a rink hotline for updates on all of its rinks. What a lovely way to spend an evening: get some fresh air, exercise, and finish off with a hot chocolate. I love the way your cheeks get rosy and people weave in and out of each other’s movement patterns. Time to dig up those rusted skates and get them sharpened!

Technorati Tags: Toronto, skating, exercise, holidays, winter, activities

Many of you, Mukodu’s fine, upstanding, and tasteful blog readers, have asked for a way to get blog articles delivered to you by email. If you are one of this erstwhile crowd, please read on.

Thanks to the miracle of Internet technology, you can now choose from two shiny new email delivery options:

Option 1, a.k.a. “The Full Meal Deal”: You receive an email in HTML format with the full article text and images whenever a new article is posted.

Option 2, a.k.a. “Lite ‘n Easy”: You receive a brief email notification whenever a new article is posted. The email contains a short excerpt of the article (text-only… boring!) and a link to the full post on the web site.

You can find out more and sign up on the blog. Please let us know by emailing mukodublog at mukodu dot com if you run into trouble. (With the site, that is.)

And of course, if you are suffering from email overload, the old standbys still work just fine: visiting the web site, or RSS updates.

Osh, a.k.a. “The Tech Department”

Well I’ll have to admit that this post is ‘out of scope’ – BUT these illustrations are too perfect not to write about.

Damned Dollies is a one woman show by Dana De Kuyper out of our neighbouring Montreal.  These charming little drawings and handmade dolls reflect exactly how I feel today.  There’s something a little angry and sarcastic about them. Perfect for days when you want the doll to do the talking.

Happy Monday!

I recently stumbled across some great skin care products that are made in Canada. Matter Company is especially appealing as they keep their products simple, by using few and mostly recognizable herbal ingredients. Less is more in this case, since many of the chemicals that we put on our skin end up in our bodies. (I am currently on a quest to reduce the number of chemicals I expose myself to in the world of ‘product’.) The shampoo for instance has ingredients of: alkyl glucoside, vegetable glycerin, tocopherol, deionized water, cleavers horsetail extract, juniper extract, rosemary extract, essential oils of bergamot, cedar wood, Canadian pine and , grapefruit … which all sounds pretty ok to me and they are biodegradable too.

Their philosophy is one of respect for the earth and using natural plant essences to encourage human health.
It’s nice to see these types of products coming out of Toronto rather than San Francisco or the usual suspects. This means less money spent on transport, more money supporting the local economy and less polluting done on my dime.

I’m really enjoying the products I bought. If you are interested they are available though phone order or from retailers such as Whole Foods.

Technorati Tags: Skin Care, Toronto, Canadian, simple, herbal