#3 Things I actually like about Mondays (and this one in particular)

1. They signal a new beginning, however small

2. I have "important things" to do out in the world again.

3. They're not Tuesdays or Wednesdays (where things get truly bad).

4. It's a mail day.

5. Monday night television (to be watched later, always).

6. Monday is the 2nd best day for a statutory holiday.

7. Mondays are sometimes holidays.

8. On Mondays, the stores are open for longer than weekends.

9. Monday only happens once a week.

And *this* Monday:

10. The first day of the VACC's Bike to Work Week

11. Rainy days and Mondays don't get this girl down.

12. Pay day!

13. An evening spent with Em after her weekend away.

14. The last day of a May I did *not* love.

15. This list, which is stretching my brain.

five senses friday

(from here )

Seeing:

piles of lovely yarn

Tasting:

salvaged peanuts from the burnt granola

Hearing:

Espace Musique - CBC en francais is becoming loved by the fogies for its perseverance in playing the old-but-great

Smelling:

the coffee in my dirty chais

Feeling:

mist from the seemingly eternally-present rain

Right ON!

Sitting here reading this: http://mightygirl.com/2010/05/19/how-to-write-your-life-list-10-simple-tips-for-a-better-life/ when a co-worker came by and told me that she was inspired to take a course like this: http://www.sfu.ca/wpp/twwbb.htm.

If you're not doing it, why not?

Got the itch

Oh! I spent the whole day day itching, just *itching* - literally. Sitting in my office, it was as though I couldn't get to the source. I have to feel that it's a reflection of my mental state. I had thought that the hurry-up-and-waiting part of my year had come to an end, and I could start to plan.

A couple of events over the past week, though, threw me right back to where I had been: waiting for a sign of what my future will bring. Really, I know that it's not as bad as I feel, and fall should find me back where I need to be - in school. Still, you wouldn't thing that figuring out what city my classroom's going to be in would cause such a fuss. So I'm, back to waiting for a future to (maybe) be decided by someone else.

In the meantime, I'm trying to work on the list, to write it here, and to distract myself with pretty things on the internet. Any ideas?

#2: Sources of Endless Inspiration

Because if I'm going to try this, I'm going to need some major help.

1. This city.

2. And its people.

3. Heck, this country.

4. People I know. And have known.

5. My finished projects.

6. The intentions letter.

7. Magazines that are, and were.

8. Keri Smith's playlist.

9. People who try.

10. Good food.

11. Weekends spent exploring.

12. A good book.

Present on my Birthday

I found this song on my birthday (2 days ago), and have not been able to stop listening (and watching) since. The boat and the halo in particular, you need to watch out for. (via)

28 things in my 29th year

I wrote a letter of intentions for myself at the beginning of the calendar year. Now, at the beginning of my personal year, I'm making a list of things to do (the idea comes from hulaseventy).

1. host a party.

2. photograph one thing every day.

3. take a french class.

4. visit Vancouver Island & the pink bicycle.

5. fly a kite.

6. build a smilebooth-alike.

7. sew a coat.

8. own a pair of fluevogs. or two.

9. visit Montreal.

10. see a symphony.

11. go weekend camping.

12. re-pierce my ears.

13. piece a quilt top.

14. treat myself to a night out.

15. make guerilla art.

16. beat Lego Harry Potter with Em.

17. roast a chicken.

18. Cure my space.

19. find (make, buy, build) a great dress.

20. create an office space (corner, closet, nook) for myself.

21. grow a kitchen garden.

22. have Pride.

23. fill a notebook.

24. learn to patch a tire.

25. bike the Greenway.

26. make 52 lists (from Andrea again).

27. send letters and cards.

28. avoid waste.

Cleaning

Came home from visiting my hometown and many of my families with an outrageous desire to clean. Spring had entered my soul a couple of weeks ago, and it was working in similar paths, clearing out debris, making it impossible for me to tolerate stagnant air, and old projects.

So I came home with a vengeance; a need to sweep, the desire for a clean space overwhelming any sensible post-holiday rest. I feel like this cleaning-out applies, somehow on a larger scale - people, places and things all need a once-over to ensure that they are adding rather than draining what precious little energy I have.

Here's hoping it works.

Oh cow feets

I am sitting here eating yogourt with *surprise* gelatin in it for breakfast. I grabbed a perfectly innocent-looking container off the shelf out shopping as we needed it for a recipe. It wasn't until this morning when I opened it for the first time and saw it jiggling away - not in the good, gentle, yogourt-y jiggling way, but liiiiike jello, that I realized it. Yogourt with gelatin is slowly becoming a nemesis of mine - I prefer my yogourt with regular old milk fat, thanks - but like non-fat "yogourt" gelatin as a part of yogourt is becoming pervasive.
And I wonder why I'm thisclose to becoming one of those people who buys organic milk and makes her own yogourt. Why am I not just doing it, really?
The bastardization of what I start to feel like referring to as "food-based products" isn't new, certainly, but it's an eternal thorn in my side. It can make grocery shopping (and yeah, I'm still a big box or big chain shopper, more than I'd like) feel like a reading marathon, where I learn words I'd never care to use, and, more disturbingly, learn there aren't really brands you can trust.

This video is making me tear up...

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

And it's not just because of the song - though I am loving the song.

Not quite pudding

One of the major (MAJOR) differences between Emily and me is our patience levels. I need to be changing or disturbing things, coming or going, or messing around with things. Em, on the other hand, is quite happy to just sit with a rice pudding and let it become.

Over the weekend we made rice pudding from a semi-recipe we found at Rosy Little Things ("that's a recipe," said Em, "all of it?". It went smoothly with white rice and cardamom that she ground herself in a tiny mortar and pestle (and the only question would be: why don't *you* own one?), and it was good. And lo, we said, we shall make this again with the remaining half-a-can o'condensed milk. And so the rice was soaked, and the ingredients were joined and ne'er did I poke my head in the kitchen to see what was happening. And maybe an hour of quiet simmering later, we determined that into this short grain white rice recipe, there was long grain brown.

Emily had patiently followed the directions, had sat stirring over a vat of...well, can pudding be crunchy? The rice was not cooked, the pudding did not pud. We tried to eat it, much as we had loved the first batch, but it was not to be. Nevertheless we maintain hope, and plans for more - because you cannot, cannot have too much rice pudding.

The magic of Emily, though, is that I believe she convinced the sugar to caramelize. I kind of want to get more cans of condensed milk and see if she secretly knows how to make dulce de leche - I don't think she'll want to as she sometimes objects to snooty (french-named) foods on principle, but I can always tell her it's for more pudding (and then point out that she's been eating bastard-ish kheer).

It's like Venice...Italy...and California...but not...

We have a new mandate, Emily and I, to seek adventures of a Sunday, rather than, well, not. And so we plugged in Daisy, the trusty if sometimes a little addled GPS, and headed...well...somewhere! In this case, the "somewhere" that I plugged in was New Westminster - Quayside it said. I was thinking I would get to see the lovely public market there, but instead we found, well, we found these:

It's mid-February and little green things are beginning. Ah, yes, *that's* why I'm here. And we found:

We stumbled onto a boardwalk along the Fraser river, and found this weird wannabe Venice, Italy - fountains and reservoirs and even somewhere a classical-type statue (I did not take a picture of the statue because it mostly made me sad). It scared Em, but I rather enjoyed it. But we said goodbye to wannabe Italy and went back to the boardwalk (which wanted to be Venice Beach, CA) and found this:

Train tracks leading to nowhere, or to barges, but we don't think they're working anymore. And then, most wonderful, we found this!:

and Em got to climb. I got to take pictures of Em climbing (because it is a joy to watch). And I found pinecones (the good kind) and brought some home. It was nice to find all this about 20 minutes from home (by car!)

Old friends

I acquired my very first laptop when I started university back in 2000. It was small thick toshiba, with a tiny screen, and it was, to be honest, pretty ugly. It had a cd-READER, no network cards whatsoever, and a 3.5" floppy. In other words, it was a computer that should have been dead long ago. But I loved it, and it's a little Toshiba - built for the long-term as it were. So with the help of one of my best-tech-friends, I got a hold of a very lite-running version of Ubuntu Linux, and installed it, and what do you know? The computer surfs the internet (wirelessly!) We're talking an 8.5 year old laptop that has now regained basic functionality. Does making green get better than that? Well...maybe, but...this is just so fun.

Coffee & Strawberries

It is snowing in B.C. Again, some more, it will not stop snowing in this province. I should be used to it, I should hush up, quiet down and let it lie. The truth is I don't hate snow, I don't hate winter. But this. Is QUITE enough, thankyouverymuch. Despite that, we ventured out into it, seeing as this is my one weekend-day-off this week, and I wanted to make the most of what I had. We drove through the snow with the guidance of Daisy, the kid's lovely new-present GPS.
We actually made our first visit to the SUP bookstore (every time we see it on our way to the Daiso we exclaim " 'sup bookstore?"), and discovered there really are craft books to look at (or books describing the use of a katana if you could care less about the construction of tiny furniture as in Em's case).
Daisy got use there, and she got us safely to the Bubble World that is quickly becoming my favourite for bubble tea - largely because they have a delectably perfect Strawberry Milk w/ Coffee Jelly - which is so much better than it might sound to someone who has never had Strawberry & Coffee together.

We ended our day by skating the parking lot to the T&T for snacks and miniatures. Em tried to lose her phone for the second time in that parking lot, and she's just back from retrieving it - someone called us and said they'd found it and she drove back through the snow that continues to fall to pick it up. We are now safely home, surrounded by the debris of our day, and ready for bed.

Happy Day!

Hot Air Balloon
Originally uploaded by Bob onherown.

At home, in my city (I'm practicing saying I'm from Montreal - I hope I'm allowed?), it is already Canada Day as I write this. I usually don't do much to celebrate (it's a day that's mostly known as Moving Day to that city I love).
But July 1, a birthday of sorts, seems a good day to start things. Which just happens to be my plan.
1. The clothing pledge. I read, and now I forget where, about the clothing pledge: No new, manufactured articles of clothing for 4 months. I like the "new, manufactured" bit best as it leaves the fabric store's ever-loving arms open for when I need a cotton hug. I'm also going to let myself have 1 day a month - which doesn't have to be pre-planned, but is gone once it's gone - to maybe buy some new stuff. Oh, and must I mention that July is one of those days?
2. Let's just say that I'll be doing something that I don't strictly approve of for two weeks. A "challenge" of sorts. Don't plan to discuss it extensively here.
3. Green (red) worms! My new year's resolution this year involved a nix on the purchase of animal-tested products. I'm still doing okay on that one (although I have to say, I don't mean ANIMAL products - wool, milk, eggs are all part of my life), I have compact fluorescent or halogen in all the lamps (are those the same thing?). But I need to keep moving forward on it. Vermicompost is something that I need to explore more fully. Yes, that's living with worms. I think I'm okay with that. But where do I get them? And their home?
And a quick crafty update: I got a parcel from home (again) with sewing things and marble magnet things. And sat and cut and glued, and loved it again. The sewing continues to hold (need iron - have paycheck!), but will be on the move shortly? Please?

Summer!

Walking home the block-and-a-half from the bus at 6 this evening (picking up parcels), I was thinking two things: I'm heartbroken, and I'm in love.
Heartbreak is no surprise at the moment, my world seems to be swinging around to face something new, that is, turning its back on something old, something I rather loved, and I'm feeling it.
But am I in love? It made me stop for a minute, literally turning in a circle on the sidewalk. I'm in love? Because, oh god, do I mean Edmonton? (There's no person this feeling belongs with).
The sky was glowing at me again, and it was the first day of summer (I didn't know it at the time).
The boxes contained wonders: a stack of my cds, and some cookbooks, sent from home. Old friends, basically. Sam Roberts is singing in my house right now.
And the cookbooks? One, appropriately enough, was my stained, creased, and smudged copy of Forever Summer. Love.

Me. Sorta

Originally uploaded by Bob onherown.

I went into the library on a beautiful day and came out into a crazy windstorm. The saying is something like: If you live on the prairies, always bring a sweater. And sunglasses. And a scarf and mittens. And shorts. The weather here, she cannot be tay-med. It rained briefly, but I could see beautiful blue sky up ahead (towards home!), and after a few minutes the worst of it had passed.
The sky was beautiful and alive (yes, I GET that phrase, I don't think it needs to be on license plates everywhere), and crazy and huge. And blue. My friend, in a meme, named light blue as a colour that reminds her of me. Sky blue? If so, I'm flattered.
[E.T.A.(06/21/06): Yup, a second friend, same meme, sky blue.]

I am a prairie girl at heart. I seem to be stuck with this condition, despite having fallen in love with Montreal, with Edinburgh, with Greece.
I live in Edmonton at the moment, which is like my hometown SUPASIZED. I work a meh job at a nice place. I come home to two cats (one of whom climbs up into my lap and purrs if he thinks I've forgotten to feed them) in a little basement apartment in a certain kind of area (many people, having heard where I live, offer the phrase "isn't it a little...uh..." I assume they mean sketchy. Research supports the idea that they might mean something else).
I bake. I knit. I am trying to keep plants alive, trying to sew again, trying to put down roots (yup, I said it).

Fallen into a fabric store

I fell in a fabric store
Originally uploaded by Bob onherown.

So, yeah, I hiked out (if by hiked you mean took a lovely bus), to this fabric store on the South Side of Edmonton, Marshalls.
Which, wowie. I was in there for two hours, and that was not nearly enough time. The irresponsible part of my brain is already planning a return trip. These are just about half the fabrics I picked up there, and I have plans for them. SECRET plans, for the moment.
I am sad that this blog is not more active and even if I have to post crappy flickr-ed photos for a while, I am going to work to change that.

Weekend

Having the Job from Helltm means that weekends (as well as evenings, lunch hours, that time before you get to work, bathroom breaks, and the few moments no one's ordering me around) take on a greater-than-normal importance. I come home on Friday night needing time to recuperate, time to languish, time to surf the internet (about the biggest problem with the Job from Hell is that they don't let me at the computers on a regular basis, even during lunch).

But I also need time to bake things; to sew up a bunny's head, to think about what I want to do with the pretty coloured paper I rescued from the recycling bin. This weekend was spent on strawberry shortcake casserole and peach iced tea (both from Katie Brown), and various knitting and crochet projects.

Baking eggs

A couple days ago I had the most confusing conversation with a coworker about eggs. I had run out of this most essential staple, and was running to the grocery store to pick some up. "Because I want to bake" I told her. "You want to bake eggs?!" "I want to bake cookies." "Oh, right."
At the time I wasn't really thinking about the kind of cookie I was planning for, which turned out to be a bonus because trying to explain that they do look rather like eggs would have added a level of confusion to my day that I am generally unprepared to deal with.
The egg-cookies were put on hold for 24 hours in any case as I am currently without microwave, and therefore lack a 30 second method of achieving softened butter. The truth is I love the little ritual of pulling out a bit of butter in the a.m. and knowing it'll be yummy baked goods by that night. It's a small promise to myself.
But they finally emerged this morning, warm and lemon-scented, from the oven. Being a kid who likes to follow the pattern, I stuck pretty closely to the recipe, with one small exception. The lemon curd is meant to be dolloped on after baking, while the cookies are still warm. I took the obvious step of baking some with curd already added, in deference to the jam-jam, a cookie loved by my mother (in honor of whom this whole experiment was originally undertaken). I have a definite preference for the gently baked jam, especially if you're gulping the cookies down still warm, standing by the oven.