Weekend blog link love

It's Friday, or as I first spelled it after too much caffeine and before a spell-check: "Firday".

Sending you some linky-love (linky, people, not kinky) for the weekend ahead.

For gluten-free yumminess:

• Check out Iris's waffle recipes (pic below) over at The Daily Dietribe

• And Naomi's baking up a brownie storm (pic below) over at Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried

If all you need is love:

• Shauna James Ahern is sharing some with a beautiful post over at Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef

If you're short on cute, small & human or cute, small & furry:

• Head on over to *e* to fill-up on the gorgeousness.
  

Have a great weekend peeps!

A "Jane" by (m)any other name(s)...

My top ten list-a-Janes...

1. Admiral Kathryn Janeway (former Captain of the Starfleet starship, USS Voyager);
2. Patrick Jane (consultant to the CBI in The Mentalist);
3. Fun with Dick and Jane (movie with Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni);
   
4. Jane Austen (English novelist);
5. Jane Eyre (novel by Charlotte Bronte which took me WAY too long to read in first year varsity English lit);
6. Jane Goodall (chimpanzee researcher);
7. Sweet Jane (my fave cover by the Cowboy Junkies);
8. Jane Lynch (wicked funny comedian currently on show in Glee);
9. Jane Fonda (Barbarella 4-eva-eva);
10. Jane Seymour (the oh so chaste Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, who has apparently found her wilder movie side as she's aging).
    

Break on through to the other side

Gotta love The Doors, right?

It's weird being on the other side of an experience you never knew how you'd get through.

Since caring for someone with a terminal illness can be all-consuming, it's taken me a while to even know what I just liked to do in spare time anymore.

Gardening till I got blisters was immensely helpful in externalising painful emotions. As was sitting for mind-numbing hours in front of the TV watching nothing in particular. Eventually, hints of what I felt like doing trickled through.

Learning how to mosaic has become a favourite. There is something immensely gratifying about creating a work of art from hundreds of shards of porcelain. You're putting together the pieces, in a manner of speaking.

Baking for tastebud-pleasure also re-emerged once my appetite did.

Not avoiding crowds anymore (as an ode to sucking the proverbial marrow out of life) has also led to some cool new experiences - expo's and markets visited, concerts watched and even braving a world cup soccer match!

Mourning is a bit like having a veil drawn over your life. Once it's lifted, the clarity with which you see things has changed. And since there are so many doors you can choose to walk through, you've kinda got to just keep on keepin' on.