Happy Mother’s Day today to all of the strong, beautiful women who are mothers, to those who are chosen moms, surrogate moms, step-moms, adoptive moms, and to the men who are also mothers.
Special thanks to all those who love and support them.
Hugs,
M&M
Anyone else needing a nice warm hug? As explained in our We Have Huggers!! post in May last year, we came across a short video on Instagram showing someone who had created a Free Hugs zone in sidewalk chalk outside their house – and the various people who had taken advantage of the situation. Always willing to contribute to more acts of kindness, we created our own first attempt. We were so inspired by the effect that we created 11 different hug zone patterns in 2022 (12, if you include the one we created at our old Free Hugs spot at the Homecoming Memorial at Ship Point).
Well, we started earlier this year as we seem to have a break in the rain for a bit. We’ll take all of the healthy rain we can get as Victoria has a tendency toward hot, dry summers, but the rain does wreak havoc on our chalk art.
So here’s our first contribution to the Free Hugs movement for this year. If you’re wandering by James Bay and want to stop for a moment you’re more than welcome! And if you’re nowhere near here, feel free to create your own Hug Zone!!
Remember to hug someone you love today, even if it’s you!!
M&M
P.S. Many thanks to the two sisters who were the first (after us) to try out our hugging spot! We’re pretty sure they were the first people last year, too!!
Update:
April 2023:
#2 Our second design for this year. Spring rains wiped out the first one.
May 2023
This is our old hugging zone at Ship Point. In 11 years we shared hugs here with thousands of people from (at least) 88 countries. For the nonce, we’re encouraging people to share hugs with each other.
#3 Our Mother’s Day hug zone in front of our house. A new interpretation of Marcia’s design from last year. Stay tuned for more!!
Hi Folks:
In our We Have Huggers!! post we highlighted our latest escapade to encourage people to share hugs and spread kindness by creating a hugging spot on the sidewalk. The latest iteration looks like this (previous versions can be seen in the above post link):
While we know that people have stopped to share hugs with each other (or themselves), made images and sometimes just smiled as they walked past, we’re not aware of them unless we happen to be out front or near the window at the time. Nonetheless, everyone who engages with our chalk art adds their energy to our garden and our lives, and we very much appreciate it.
We have received two more tangible gifts, however, and we wanted to take a moment to say thank you to the donor(s) who secretly left them for us. The first is a Kindness Stone someone left on top of our gate:
The second is a note someone taped to the inside of our gate!
Whoever left these for us, we wanted you to know how much we value your acts of kindness. Made our whole day!!
Hugs,
M&M
P.S. It’s easy to find ways to spread kindness to others in your world, but if you’re looking for inspiration, check out The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation and Ripple Kindness Project as great places to start!
Hi Folks:
If you follow our blog you’ll know that for some 11 years we took our FREE HUGS posters to downtown Victoria and shared hugs with thousands of locals and visitors from (at least) 88 countries. Sadly, we had to quit in March 2020, and we have yet to return. Someday… In the interim we continue to give out Hug Certificates and we have sent out a smattering of Free Hugs postcards. We also continue to share hugs with loved ones where we can… but yesterday we tried something new…
Hi Folks:
It’s raining heavily as this post is being written; many locals complain about our wet time of the year but we look forward to knowing that the aquifer (and us and everything else) will appreciate the water next summer during our dry period. Apparently we had 26 days of rain in October this year… too much of a good thing, perhaps? 🙂
Collectively we made a good number of images over the past month; as usual selecting just two was a challenge but here’s what we have to offer.
Marcia’s image first.
Stepping into Fogtober
This image was made in Victoria’s Beacon Hill Park, showcasing a copper beech tree and morning fog. In addition to the rain we get, October is also a month where we get a lot of fog…to the point that our 10th month is often referred to as ‘Fogtober’.
Fall Colours
While Vancouver Island doesn’t have as many large deciduous forests as there are in eastern North America, there are some places around Victoria to view autumn colours. Beacon Hill Park is one, Ross Bay Cemetery is another. But there’s another kind of colour here, and that comes from chalk art playfully rendered into form. In our opinion this piece is worth submitting to the National Gallery in Ottawa, but we’re quite happy to leave it where it is. Our appreciations to the artist!
Okay, that’s it. Now go out and make some photographs!! (and don’t forget the brollie…)
Hugs,
M&M
Hi Folks:
It’s already the beginning of November and we’ve yet to do a ‘Photo of the Month‘ post for July, August, September or October! Yikes!! The challenge of many bloggers… life gets in the way. To that end we thought we’d combine them all into one post with one image for each month. Two of these images were made by Marcia and two by Mike, all of them were made with our Galaxy S4 cell phones, and all of them have been pushed around to varying degrees in Lightroom.
Off we go!! Continue Reading →