Happy New Year! Our 2011 was so out of the ordinary for us, it was enjoyable but challenging at times. I am so grateful for the experience of moving to a new country and working for Free People, but I am also a bit relieved to be back in Canada (for some complicated reasons). I will miss Philadelphia, my awesome job, and all the people there. But we are looking forward to reconnecting with friends here as well.

I am invigorated, and I hope to do a lot more this year, now that I have the freedom to work freelance and the time to do some great projects on the side (I have many ideas, and a few in the works). I don't know how I managed to find the time to make a Christmas/New Year's Card this year, but somehow it happened (inspired by Amanda's Year in Review). It's a little summary of how we spent our year, read on to see it in photos.

This was supposed to be a Halloween post, but of course, other things came up. In October, my Mom, Nana, and Papa came down to visit us for (Canadian) Thanksgiving dinner, and we had such a great time. We are all food obsessed and we had so much to eat--Thanksgiving dinner, the Junkyard special from Sarcone's, some Tamales from a lady at the market, we made some Alligator (yes, deep-fried, tastes just like chicken), seafood jambalaya, and some apple cider doughnuts.

Non food-related, we took a trip to the Eastern State Penitentiary up in the Fairmount neighbourhood. It wasn't for the haunted house, though it's supposed to be the scariest in the US and I don't think I could handle it... It was a really amazing space, beautiful in an eerie, decaying kind of way.

Back to work today after a whole week off, but it wasn't for a vacation unfortunately... Last Friday my Nana went into the hospital, and when I got there to see her on Saturday, she was already gone.

It was a shock, and yet it wasn't--she had been battling breast cancer for over a year, and it just kept spreading. She was only 66 years old. It feels strange, because she seemed to be doing so well. It's scary how someone with so much life can just die. She managed to hide a lot of her pain from us, always worrying about everyone but herself. She decided she did not want to fight for her life, and after her kidneys failed, she slipped off peacefully holding the hands of her children, Laurie (my mom) and Johnny (my uncle).

I think she was truly happy and content at this point in her life, and that must have made it easier for her to be at peace with this decision, however hard it is for her loved ones. The last time I saw her was in Philadelphia, when everyone came down to visit for an early Thanksgiving dinner, just one month ago.

We had a perfect time.

I have been doing a little fun project lately (it's actually more of a giant project, I don't know why I called it little). I am researching my family's geneaology, more specifically my Nana's family. She was adopted when she was two years old so she doesn't know much about her family history, so I have been having some fun looking into it. I have gotten QUITE far and I will share some visual progress with you in a bit. Turns out both sides ended up in Michigan for a while, so I have been reading up on Michigan and finding old documents (and do I ever love old documents). Google Books has proved pretty useful, and every once I stumble upon something very beautiful--like this "Michigan Manual" with it's swirly handdrawn type. Just thought I would share, hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

I have been looking forward to visiting Terrain for so long! It's a good 40 minutes out of the city though, so we haven't had the chance (without a car). This past weekend Jory's parents came to visit, and I convinced them it would be a great little trip and that they would love it. And they did! We walked around and window shopped, had lunch at the café, and luckily it was a really beautiful sunny day.

I have been wanting to share some of my work at Free People for a while, and I have finally gotten around to collecting some of it (we're busy over here!). Here are some emails and gateways (for the website) I have worked on over the last little while (from April to July, we'll call this part one)

Above is a gateway with instruction for tying scarves, April 2011.

Sometimes I photograph our bi-weekly walk to the Urban Farm to pick up our CSA share, in Fishtown. Fishtown is mainly residential, but there are still some very industrial parts of it on the fringe, as well as on the main streets (Girard and Frankford). It is currently on the mend, and being gentrified. The nightlife is popular, and many of my coworkers live in this area.

After relaxing and walking in Central Park for half the day, we made our way to the Lower East Side and Chinatown by subway. I really wanted to go there after reading the book 97 Orchard, which I really loved reading. It's about a tenement house, its immigrant residents over the years, and their cooking habits. There is actually a whole museum at 97 Orchard Street, the Tenement Museum. I kind of wanted to go, but it was $20 each per tour, and I already know all about it. So we visited the store across the street, and the neighbourhood instead. Apologies in advance for the crazy amount of pictures...

We had a nice time in New York yesterday, much of which turned out to be a park day. Our first stop (as usual) was Kinokuniya to pick up some gifts and check out some pens. Then we crossed over to Bryant Park to have a seat and decide where to go next. Then we walked to Central Park.

I take a lot of pictures, but some of them don't really tell much of a story. I thought I would share a few of what has been surrounding us lately. Above is from a recent trip to New York, where I hardly ever take any pictures for some reason. But I think we might head over this weekend for the sole purpose of exploring and photographing.

Last year we had the most amazing, fruitful, and food-filled summer. I think back to it so fondly and it seems like it was so far away, visiting cottages and spending time in Niagara with family. We spent time at Nana and Papa's garden picking blackberries, hot peppers, garlic and tomatoes, and snacking on meat from Papa's homemade smoker. We visited a little blueberry farm, and canned peaches and pears with my mom. Oh, and we made a million jars of jam which everyone got as Christmas gifts.

It was also the summer of our "food blog" which we started but couldn't keep up with. I admire everyone who has a food blog, the effort it takes to make food is enough, but to document it every step of the way?! We might try it again someday, but for now I have already got enough blogging projects on the go.

I am so excited to be collaborating with the new Kinfolk magazine! Such a beautiful idea, this magazine is all about spending time with those close to you--it's about those simple, intimate gatherings. I will be doing some blogging for their journal, check out my first post!

images via Odette NY.

1. all saints, 2. aperfectcommotion, 3. Mark Wickens via Misspaq, 4. ... , 5. Historic Portland Maine,
6. Fisher Bikes, 7. librislunaria, 8. Hound Design.

This will be my second post tagged "travel," which is basically accurate to the amount of globetrotting I have done in my life. But that number is slowly growing, because I am making a concerted effort to get out more and add new cities to the list. My US state count, in case you were wondering, is 4. While I am at it, I might as well tell you my embarrassing Canadian province count, which is 1. A great thing about Philadelphia is all of the interesting cities nearby that are clustered together, everything a short bus or train ride away.

Finally finished this collage I have been working on for a while, I had to search high and low for the pieces I was looking for. I need to get back to collaging!