on new habits and sidelong glances

So I've sort of kicked the “I need coffee to make it through the day” habit and switched to the - only somewhat less ominous - “I drink coffee socially” thing. After an initial four days of withering withdrawal, I can now drive confidently past any Starbucks at 6 AM with nary a sidelonging glance. At $5.04 per grande non-fat no-whip one-pump sugar-free hazelnut white chocolate mocha (you read that right), my burgeoning habit was cramping the live-simply, live-debt-freely, give-generously lifestyle I’ve been (only somewhat successfully) attempting to emulate. So let’s raise our 75% recycled materials cups to fresh starts, and to driving bleary eyed past the ubiquitous green sign that beckons in every early morning mist.

{she thought road rage was over rated, 

preferring instead to take photographs of the clouds}

guerilla beautification

There's this tree that I pass every morning on my commute to work.  It's a small Douglas Fir - probably planted within the last 10 years - and it has made its home on the boulevard between the freeway and the onramp I frequent each early morning.   There's nothing significant about this tree, really, except that every Christmas, someone decorates it.  They must do it in the dead of night, as I'm quite sure decorating trees on the boulevard between the freeway and the onramp would attract some unwanted attention.  And yet, every December, without fail, there is the tree, decorated to the hilt in homemade ornaments of paper and string.  

There is something about this act of guerilla decorating that makes me happy.  It's subversive, and yet it's quite the opposite, as it tends to bring cheery smiles to the faces of the otherwise slack-jawed commuters crammed unromantically into two lanes of bumper-to-bumper gridlock.  

I ran across this work (above) of poster child   (via poppytalk) and think it is rather delightful.

Numerous of these planters were put up around a city, and people were encouraged online to water any they came across.  

A similar idea can be found in the form of one of the assignments on Learning to Love You More.   This one is my favourite, and it's even in Vancouver (click the little arrows to see the project from beginning to end).

While I have been known to do some guerilla beautifying in my day (stay tuned for a post about my guerilla lamp project), it's been decidedly small-scale.   One day I may just plant my own garden of blooms in an unusual spot.  In the meantime, let's all look for ways to bring beauty to unexpected places in unexpected ways.