A few weeks ago a friend messaged me and asked if I'd be interested in doing the EdgeWalk atop the CN tower here in Toronto in celebration of her husband's birthday. Without hesitating I said yes despite it never having been on my bucket list of things I must do. In fact, I'm fairly certain that when the EdgeWalk opened in 2011 I said it was something I would never do.

For weeks every time I thought about what I had agreed to do I got butterflies in my stomach the size of pterodactyls, but this past Saturday I rode an elevator up 116 stories and stepped outside 356m (1,168ft) above Toronto and took a little stroll.

I can say now that it was fun, but while I was up there I have no problem admitting I was a bit scared. Heck - you can see it in the video - at points I wasn't sure I'd be able to do the 'activities'. I'm not generally afraid of heights, but there's something about peering over the edge at that altitude with just a couple of ropes to hold you up that's a bit terrifying.

In the month+ since I last posted I've been busy. Classes finally finished mid-august and I will admit to being completely burnt out. I see now that I took on way too much, and it's time to scale back a bit. I'm going to continue with my Interior decorating courses, but I think I might do just one this semester - three while working full time was just nutty.

Anyways, In order to recover a bit from my rather hectic spring/summer I took a bit of time off from blogging to visit my parents, work on a couple of small projects around my place, catch up on some sleep, and work on a big change that's been on my 'must-do-list' forever.

Re-branding is something I've wanted to do for a long time, but I wanted to make sure I was sure about the new name I chose - I didn't want to have to make the change a second time. It's been a lot of work and, since I'm attempting to do it myself, a lot of time googleing, watching YouTube videos, and making mistakes.

I'm hoping to have my new site up and ready sometime this week (keep your fingers crossed for me - this was supposed to happen in July but I had some technical problems , and there was a some procrastination). There's still piles to do - hopefully the major stuff will be sorted out and I can get this launched - some stuff, like re-watermarking my 789 photos might take a while, but can be done after my new site is live.

Oh, my new blog name? It's Eamonn & Jack. I'll share the origin of the name one it's launched - I hope you'll continue to visit once it's up and running.

During my Design Theory class last semester the final project involved using images to demonstrate the theories we'd learned. Naturally I used Pinterest as my source for images. I came across one picture that I loved, but unfortunately it wasn't credited properly so I did a bit more digging and discovered where the image was taken.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I didn't. I spent it working on my final project for my drafting class. I think I may have a permanent crick in my neck from hunching over my drafting board. My project is due on Tuesday and then I'll be done the course. Hallelujah! In all honestly so far I'm pretty happy with the way the project is turning out. If that's still the case once I'm done I might share it here - but we'll have to see how the colouring portion goes since it's been quite a white since I've coloured anything and I'm out of practice :)

Anyways, I saw this image on Friday evening when I should have been working on my project and I fell in love - isn't it the neatest looking house you've ever seen?

What do you think? I've always been a bit partial to stone houses, and this one is no exception.

Hi Guys. This post is not anything like what I normally post here, but I wanted to share my experiences at Camp Grounded in case anyone was interested. It's quite a long post - feel free to skip past it if you'd like - Michelle
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Camp. That one word for me means summer adventures in northern Quebec with loads of outdoor activities like swimming, canoeing, learning new skills and making friendships that survived the 11 months until we met again. I have incredibly great memories of my summers at camp, so when I saw this article on the CBC news website way back in March I was intrigued. Summer camp for adults? With the added incentive of forcing us off the digital grid for a few days? Having been accused by various loved ones that I spend a bit too much of my time glued to my phone or staring at a computer screen engrossed in some internet randomness, I thought this might be a wonderful way to really relive a cherished part of my childhood. Because I grew up in the dark ages, the ‘no digital anything’ rule would be just like those balmy summer days of yore, before we all had smartphones, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and various other digital necessities  procrastination tools. So, doing something completely out of character, I signed up for a summer camp for adults in the California redwoods at an old Boy Scout camp - I was going to Camp Grounded.

On arrival at camp we were met with bear hugs from greeters who directed us where to leave our luggage, and gave us paper bags in which we were to put all our digital paraphernalia (goodbye smartphone, e-reader and DSLR) as well as money, watches and other valuables. As w-talk (work-talk) and real names weren’t allowed I was then given a nickname in a naming ceremony by a guy who hadn’t worn a shirt in years. It was about this time that I had the first inkling that camp was more than likely not going to be anything like the one I so fondly remembered from my childhood.

Camp Grounded was just a few hours north of the head offices of Google, Apple, Twitter and Facebook – so I naively assumed it would be full of tech geeks with that pasty white glow one gets after prolonged exposure to computer screens and no sunlight. While there were quite a number of people there who did work in Silicon Valley (and judging by the cars leaving camp on Monday had done rather well for themselves) there were also a number of people there who could be described as hippies. Later, while talking with some other campers they referred to camp as a ‘Burning Man’ reunion. I was unfamiliar with the term, but apparently it’s a yearly festival in the desert – some say a modern-day Woodstock but without the music. I also heard the camp atmosphere being referred to that of a cult, and jokes being made about not drinking the Kool-Aid.

I enjoyed some of the meals so much I even asked my camp counsellor if it might be possible to get some of the recipes. I didn’t hear anything back about that request which is unfortunate.

Over the weekend I didn’t really miss my phone other than wishing I had it to take pictures and check the time. I brought with me a disposable camera which as you can see from the pictures in this post wasn’t a great substitute for a phone’s camera or my absent DSLR. I was quite honestly surprised at how little I missed social media and easy internet access. Instead I had a lot more trouble with not being able to know in an instant what time it was. I’m not honestly sure if that’s because in real life I always need to know what time it is, or if it was because I wasn’t really enjoying myself at camp and wanted to know how much longer I had until it was time to leave.

When I was young, camp meant doing outdoor activities like canoeing, swimming, tennis and windsurfing. When I saw the Camp Grounded website I assumed that since it was a digital-free weekend the camp would encourage us to do active things – get us pale pasty office drones out there in the world and feel the sun on our skin, and the wind in our hair. While there were some interesting activities like archery, rock climbing, making art on wood using the sun and a magnifying glass, truffle making, tree drawing and bug eating (see this article here to find out why) there were only two activity sessions on the first day – one in the morning and one in the afternoon. That evening when I heard about other campers different experiences there were several activities I wanted to try. It was very unfortunate they were not repeated the next day.

Sunday was the camp-wide activity – Colour Wars, and this one activity completely ruined Camp Grounded for me. We were all divided into teams based on our favourite colour – mine was blue. I was looking forward to Colour Wars – my childhood camp was always divided into two tribes, and throughout the month you earned points for your tribe by doing individual activities, earning badges, and participating in camp-wide programs. At Camp Grounded there were about 10 different colours and after breakfast that morning we all met our groups and were tasked with coming up with cheers, chants, posters, slogans etc. This might have been fun, however the sheer volume of items they asked us to create seemingly took hours to finish. When all the teams reconvened on the parade ground we all had to present the judges with their various cheers and slogans, and we were to be judged on them. This again could have been fun, except the judging was a farce with the judges assigning points in a random manner that reflected only the level to which a team would, to put it bluntly, kiss ass for what seemed like hours as each team repeatedly went up to do their cheers, and fawn over the judges.

Eventually it was time for lunch and we all sat in our teams, and at least where I was sitting, the talk turned to how Camp Grounded was nothing like what had been expected by the campers. There was a general feeling of discontent with some comparing it to being in high-school – the popular kids were the councillors and the chosen few of the campers who knew them previously, and the rest of us were the wallflowers who were being asked to obey their every whim.

About halfway through lunch the judges decreed that as of that moment we were no longer able to feed ourselves, and had to find someone to pair with and feed each other. I, along with some of the campers around me, refused to participate, and continued to eat as before. If a plausible explanation had been given for the request, or if there had been a reasoning behind it, I would have more than likely participated, but the dictate simply to force us to do something for the councillors amusement was despicable.

Once the delay was called a bunch of us ended up at the Typewriter range (the Boy Scouts had a rifle range – at Camp Grounded there were typewriters set up) where we chatted about Camp Grounded, reminisced about our different camp experiences growing up, and when they found out I was going to be playing tourist in San Francisco later that week made numerous excellent suggestions of places to see and things to do. Strangely, along with trying my hand at archery for the first time, sitting around and simply chatting with a bunch of people I didn’t really know, and more than likely won’t see again was one of the best times I had at Camp Grounded. I truly enjoyed talking with them without the crutch of what we all did for a living or talking about current world events.

Perhaps if camp had been located a few hours from home the failings I perceived wouldn’t have bothered me so much, but I flew across country at no small cost for what I hoped would be an amazing experience. Being so completely disheartened and disappointed after spending so much money to get there has, I think, made the negative feelings a bit more acute. I wish it was different, but I wouldn’t recommend Camp Grounded to anyone.

This post relates only my personal experiences at Camp Grounded. If you'd like to read other opinions here are articles from Mashable, The New Yorker, and The New York Times.

I few weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit the Okanagan Lavender and Herb farm in Kelowna, B.C. I’ve never been to a Lavender farm before so I was quite intrigued by the rows of fragrant, and brilliantly coloured lavender plants. They have 2.5 acres of plants and a little store where you can purchase hand-crafted lavender products. I love their Sea Salt Scrub - it smells divine.

If you’re ever lucky enough to visit Kelowna I encourage you to pay them a visit, but until you have that opportunity I thought I’d share with you some of the pictures I took when I was there. There are quite a few pictures - I took the opportunity to work of my photography.

Today I'm doing my first ever guest post for Brittany over on her wonderful blog - My. Daily. Randomness. You can check out my post here

Last week I was lucky enough to get to spend a little time with my parents in beautiful British Columbia. I had a great time relaxing and doing a few new things and I thought I'd share a few pictures from my week off.

My journey across the country started with a stop in a few airports where I discovered that the rumour about cops and Donut shops is true, and in Toronto Pearson the cops can drive their cute car to get some.

I brought my golf clubs with me. This was during my first go with them since last fall. When golfing one MUST have cute head cover, they're even more important than your ability to swing a club.

My mom and I visited a lavender farm while I was there. I'd never been to one before so it was neat. They were just starting to harvest, so the plants were in full bloom.

Who said frogs can't golf? This guy might need custom mini-clubs though.

There was a pretty impressive storm one evening - this was the sunset as the storm ended.

My dad and I went cherry picking. I LOVE cherries, and they were just in season as I was there. I may have eaten a few more than I put in the bucket.

When we went to the beach Bambi came down to have a snack. She seemed unconcerned about the strange, almost naked people gawking at her.

So there you go - a few snapshots of what I got up to on vacation. Have you gone away anywhere so far this summer? Did you have as much fun as I did?

All the pictures about were taken with my phone. I'm a little late to the party, but I've recently joined Instagram. I'm Sweetsuite10 if you'd like to follow me, but I can't promise that any of my 'regular life' pictures will be as fun as the ones above.

On the Easter weekend my boyfriend and I took a little road-trip to a little city just down the road. By just down the road I mean 800km down the road. And by little city I mean the Big Apple - New York City. I'd been once before for my high school grad trip (we're not going to discuss how many years ago that was), and I was rather excited to return.

We saw all the normal touristy things Grand Central station, the Empire State building, Times Square, Macy's, we rode the Staten Island ferry at night to see the Statue of Liberty, walked down 5th ave. (I went into Tiffany's, but D wouldn't even go past the front doors), ate in Little Italy, were driven around Central park, we went to Ground Zero, and visited the Wall St bull.

I asked very nicely and the lovely salespeople let me take some pictures of the many gorgeous things they had in the store - and now I'm sharing them with you!

Last weekend, my boyfriend D and I embarked at what we called our 'Epic East coast road trip'. Little did we know how that a small storm by the name of Irene would change our plans. Our original plan was to spend a day in Philadelphia, PA, two days in Virginia Beach, VA, one day in Washington, DC and one in Pittsburgh,PA before heading for home. Obviously given the storm's path our jaunt to the beach was out, so we ended up spending an extra day each in Philadelphia and Washington.

By the time we made it to Pittsburgh, we didn't quite feel like wandering around another city, especially since it didn't have the same famous history as our other two stops. Luckily I had discovered in my searches for things to see on our trip that Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic masterpiece is only about 1.5hrs from Pittsburgh, and completely worth the trip.

There are several different tours available at Fallingwater - a grounds tour, and regular tour where interior photo's are not allowed, and the in-depth tour where you can take interior pictures as long as they remain for personal use.