Because I wanted to..

The beginning of time off -Days 1!

2011-05-03T23:59:00.000-07:00

I'd been planning for quite a while now to take time off once I completed my degree... well that time has finally arrived!

I present you with Day 1 of this side adventure!

Day 1 began quite slowly due to the end of tax season festivities the night before, as I'd anticipated. However, after some time at home, working in the garden, and enjoying the sunshine on my lawn, I ventured out with a friend.

First stop outside of home base: McDonald's... to help with post party hat pickling of my liver.

This was followed by an adventure to a liqudation warehouse place on Lougheed Hwy near Willingdon Ave. I procured a few wonderous items, including some terrible Engrish stationary, a Dish jean skirt for $5 (!) and slipper boots which I pledge to wear only 1) around the house or 2) while camping... and most definitely NOT outside when it's raining in Vancouver...

Subsequently there was a trip to the library where I picked up a couple books...

The one by Dr. Wayne Dyer has been excellent reading material discussing the Tao and application to daily life. I had downloaded the audio book courtesy of the Vancouver Public Library's electronic resources, but haven't made it all the way through listening yet. The other book, World War II for Dummies, will be nice and easy to read through.

I also have a copy of the Canadian Firearms Safety Course student handbook from a friend, to study. I am thinking I'd still like to have my firearms license. I'll come back to this later probably...

Then after the library was the beach! It was super windy out!

Later in the evening, I linked up with Dave Macdonald and our friend Rob in celebration of Dave's birthday. Since I wasn't drinking (surprise, surprise), I drove us down to Hapa Izakaya in Kits for some birthday day brulee!

The evening was splendid and good conversation especially at the end of the night! I even managed to pick up my bowl, necklace, and gift certificate which were prizes I'd won at the silent auction at the Global Agents for Change Gala a few weeks back. Dave had been graciously guarding them for me as our schedules routinely looked like two ships passing in the night.

I'd say that this adventure is off to a good start!

So.. Tax season is done!

2011-05-02T23:59:00.000-07:00

YIPEE!

So on with the other updates! I had my birthday recently -- it started with cheese and then followed by brunch at Bandidas Taqueria

Some time at the beach spinning poi, as well as going out for coffee and a few tasty treats before dinner

Dinner itself was very tasty -- fresh crab steamed up with some butter (thanks to my camp stove) and consumed picnic style overlooking the ocean. The rest of the evening was very relaxed and full of cheese, cream puffs, and a Planet Earth episode of fish!

Tax season, volunteering, and general mobility

2011-04-23T23:59:00.000-07:00

So onward with the random updates and pictures!

I volunteered this afternoon in the Downtown Eastside today with the Canada Revenue Agency's Community Volunteer Income Tax Program (aka CVITP). I had contacted the Harbour Light Centre to offer my time, representing as an accounting student with the Langara Accounting Club (which I'd been quite involved with in 2009-2010). Today was pretty quiet, but productive and I think I helped several people get caught up with their tax returns. This is important because not only does it mean that these people usually will get a refund, but also they'll get other monetary benefits like the GST/HST credit for filing their returns - people that could definitely use the cash. This was a nice change from my regular tax season crazy, though it was tax related. However, I'll be back with my nose against the grindstone tomorrow.

The variety of things that I've learned over tax season never cease to surprise me. To first reflect though, here are some of the general things I learned last tax season which helped me out greatly:

Find clothes that you don't need to iron (in my case, a black dress)
buy 2-3 outfits worth of the above mentioned clothing (I bought 2 of them and wear them in rotation/pending dry cleaning)
Keep some kind of breakfast stock in the fridge at work (thanks to a friend, I have been regularly supplied with bagels and all I need to do is make sure I have cream cheese)
Don't worry about hitting up the coffee shop every day (it's worth it)
If you get going on a file and have some good motivation rolling, go with it until you run out of steam
Don't pick a restaurant to order dinner from that no one else likes (I didn't do this, but I heard enough to make me think twice!)

I've also had the recent privilege of helping a friend who's become suddenly quite limited in mobility. Due to a bit of a mishap, he's found himself the new operator of a pair of crutches! I did some cooking yesterday for a group of mutual friends and help with running an errand today. After my volunteering, I went back over to aid with a cheeseburger run (on nom!) and a stop at the park (as documented above).

The rest of the evening was pretty low key, and I stopped by to see my friend Dan the Man for a half hour at The Bunker near the end of my day. It was nice to slow down the world a little and talk to a friend who knows me well enough that I can just really be myself around. I'm excited for his countdown until his very cool girlfriend returns from teaching overseas. I'm not sure if I'll be in Canada when she does, but I'm sure I'll see her shortly after I return!

I also found the sweater I started knitting back in 2007 (? I think?). My goodness. How long should sleeves take to finish anyhow?! I put a few rows in on the weekend. I think this'll start travelling with me wherever I go. Ahhh. How I missed knitting.

The light at the end of the tunnel

2011-04-15T20:34:00.000-07:00

I spent much of the last few years looking towards reaching the peaks of mountains I was climbing... stepping one foot in front of the other at a steady pace, occasionally trucking along with a large pack of what felt at times like rocks. Last week, I reached a huge point in my travels:

I completed my graduation project for my degree. Now, I'm just waiting for my grade.

I set out on this path in 2007, just after the time I started this blog. Looking over the posts, I realize how much I miss writing here and how busy I've been the past two years. I've accomplished a lot and I'm excited to put my thoughts down about all the things I've learned... though this will take a while. There have been challenging times, but really not bad.. just great oppotunities to prove my mettle.Having come through the program.. I have to say I am so glad to have done this.

I also realize, having this project done and waking up the next day.. well... I knew nothing would really change. I think a lot of anticipation can be built up around the expectations involving using the end of something as some kind of carrot/stick to help a person get through challenging times.. however, I did feel a HUGE amount lighter in my mind.

There is so much more to say, but not tonight! Soon enough however..

Hope you are all well.

Which are you?

2011-02-05T17:32:00.000-08:00

Which are you?

There are two kinds of people on earth to-day;
Just two kinds of people, no more, I say.

Not the sinner and saint, for it's well understood,
The good are half bad, and the bad are half good.

Not the rich and the poor, for to rate a man's wealth,
You must first know the state of his conscience and health.

Not the humble and proud, for in life's little span,
Who puts on vain airs, is not counted a man.

Not the happy and sad, for the swift flying years
Bring each man his laughter and each man his tears.

No; the two kinds of people on earth I mean,
Are the people who lift, and the people who lean.

Wherever you go, you will find the earth's masses,
Are always divided in just these two classes.

And oddly enough, you will find too, I ween,
There's only one lifter to twenty who lean.

In which class are you? Are you easing the load,
Of overtaxed lifters, who toil down the road?

Or are you a leaner, who lets others share
Your portion of labor, and worry and care?

-Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Lead, follow, or get the heck out of my way

2010-09-18T17:18:00.000-07:00

So as the Fall arrives, I'm definitely feeling the decline in the warm summer weather. I'm both a little sad to see the summer go and excited for the autumn. With things cooling off, I'm looking forward to having quieter campgrounds, less bugs, more campfires (huzzah for no bans!) and an array of indoor activities.

Not too long ago I got myself signed up for a yoga pass at Open Door Yoga which seemed like a pretty good deal. It's also really convenient since there's one in my neighbourhood, one on the way to school, and one in a friend's neighbourhood also. Yoga will be a really nice way to keep me flexible and the blood flowing as I ramp up with the school season and Work.

As well, I've signed back up for level 2 of the west coast swing dancing class at the Urban Beat Dance Co. where I absolutely love taking classes. I was a bit nervous to get back into it, but after the first class I think it's all coming back to me. I just have to remember to stop trying to lead.

My favourite thoughts about being a leader involve this 3 minute TED talk by Derek Sivers entitled "how to start a movement" -- it sums it up quite nicely, that a leader is just a "lone nut" until the first follower.

In the last few weeks, I've also noticed a shift to more comfort foods and I've also started cooking again, now that I've settled in my kitchen once more. It's quite nice to be able to have invested enough into my kitchen to be able to cook just about anything by only picking up a few items from the store... and certainly inspiring me to cook again.

I have to admit that while I'm not a burger and french fries sort of girl, I believe I've actually eaten more cheeseburgers (!) and poutine in the past 2 or so months, that I have in the past 8 years combined.

(Poutine -- as shared with my friend Dan at St. Augustine's)

I'm not sure what happened... I mean, the poutine is easy to explain -- the cheese curds + me = love. I realize while I avoid places like McDonalds, Burger King, A&W (etc) and I never, ever order burgers from restaurants, that I'm a McDonald's cheeseburger kind of person. Just one cheeseburger, no more and no less seems to sate the appetite for something greasy, quick and comforting just as much as a box of Kraft Dinner.

Three things a man should and should not be content with

2010-08-24T01:00:00.000-07:00

For all the wishful thinking of wanting to travel, to see and do more things, I'm again reminded today to ground myself by stopping and resting my mind. I've had a hard time sitting still as my drive to take advantage of my free time has been overwhelmingly pushy. The "I'm supposed to" is sneaking its way in there a little, and so I decided to pull it in check a bit by going to a spot I feel quite at peace at. Straight from Work, I went to The Quiet Beach with my book (Not So Big Life), my knitting (secret project!), and a blanket.
Proof:

I sat down and began thinking, along side the readings of this book, about an excerpt I had read by James Allen:

"There are three things with which a man should be content:

With whatever happens
With his friendship and possessions
With his pure thoughts.
Contented with whatever happens, he will escape grief; with his friends and possessions he will avoid anxiety and wretchedness; and with his pure thoughts, he will never go back to suffer and grovel in impurities.

There are three things with which a man should not be content:

With his opinions
With his character
With his spiritual condition.

Not content with his opinions, he will continually increase in intelligence; not content with his character, he will ceaselessly grow in strength and virtue; and not content with his spiritual condition, he will everyday enter into a larger wisdom and fuller blessedness. In a word, a man should be contented, but not indifferent to his development as a responsible and spiritual being."

I really liked the final sentance in that quote --thoughts of being happy with what you have, but never complacent with respects to who you are. I love both those ideas.

I broke from my reading and pondering to take some photos of the world around me at that moment. Consciously forcing myself to spend time in the present instead of planning for the future (and all the "should's, have to's, ought to's" that follow that list).

Looking at my camera's pictures (oh hail the ever instant digital camera) I realized that these shoes which I randomly picked up at a second hand store (when shopping for my Zombie Walk dress) were quite bright.

They instantly reminded me of Dorthy's ruby red slippers from the Wizard of Oz. Oddly, thinking about that movie made me ponder why I think about going elsewhere when there is so much right here. I know I seem to long for adventure, yet when I travel, I always love returning to the British Columbia coast. There has not been a single time where I have come home from my travels and thought elsewhere to be more beautiful.

The groups of people at the beach disbursed as it got cooler, leaving me to my thoughts and enjoyment of the tranquillity surrounding me. I stopped everything to watch this gorgeous, serene sunset and did my best to clear my mind, to be living in the present.

The only thought seemed to stick was "there's no place like home."

Tests, zucchinis, zombies

2010-08-24T00:28:00.000-07:00

It's late night and I'm sleepy, but wanted to share some highlights over the past week. I missed taking pictures at a lovely party on the weekend at my friend T's place, but I assure you that was a wonderful tasty time also!

Europe was worth it

I wrote an exam this past week for an accounting class. Here's the apres test beverages with a few of my number crunching friends, Matt and Adam. Matt technically isn't in accounting anymore, but I still think of him as a fellow number nerd at heart.

I found out that while I passed the class, I still need a better mark to meet both my school requirements and my personal wishes for the material in the course. The only thing that kinda is hurting about this is my sore ego --though nary a dent in my awesome GPA, I know I can do better! I suppose this is what missing 2-3 weeks of classes by going to Croatia in mid semester does. Mind, I did kick butt in the two accelerated/compressed (1/2 semester) courses I was doing at the same time. 6 in one hand, half dozen in the other... I'm really glad I have the opportunity to take it with the same instructor again. I really enjoyed her class the first time around. Here's to kicking some fanny on the second round.

Green thumbs

I'd like to share with you some of my dear friend Neil's pride and joy of the garden. Behold! Zucchinis! Grown from seed!

Thank you Neil for bestowing upon me some tasty veggie goodness.

Zombie Walk 2010

BRAAAAIIINS

Freedom and inner peace

2010-08-16T19:48:00.000-07:00

Okay, second post in a row about touchy feeling contemplative things. Soon, soon we will be back to the blog about knitting, cheese, fish, and the occasional adventure in life or accounting.

I was seeking some readings on thoughts about freeing yourself from past experiences and finding achieving more peace within myself. In particular, when feeling a certain way about a situation and the thought "I wish I had" or "I wish I hadn't" comes to mind. I find these kinds of thoughts can sort of hold my mind hostage when I am trying to sleep at night, or when my mind is trying to rest.

I came across these three thoughts about forgiveness and inner peace, on a sleepless night a few days ago in which I decided that browsing the interwebs for advice at 2am was a good idea (who doesn't, really? Especially right after reading Failblog):

Forgiveness:
"Giving forgiveness does not require giving absolution; it simply requires that you give up longing for a better past." (no author given)

Inner peace:
"Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually. Peace, for example, starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us. When our community is in a state of peace, it can share that peace with neighbouring communities, and so on."- Dalai Lama

and one that combines the both:
"Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is therefore the means for correcting our misperceptions."- Gerald Jampolsky

Inner peace and freedom originate inside oneself -- however, I think I'm still looking. The both of them I swear are hanging onto a revolving door and wandering in from and out to lunch.

Attachment - habit - addiction and consumption

2010-08-16T19:33:00.000-07:00

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

– Frank Outlaw

In the past, I've discussed and probed the idea of what a habit is and find it interesting to observe how a habit influences a person's life. This week I found myself re-exploring what my own habits are, and becoming more aware of them since my last reflection.

In general, I can't stand the thought of having to do something everyday (well, outside the norms, say, of hygiene and nourishment). The thought of having any sort of addiction is kind of appalling; I don't like the thought of something else having that much influence over my decisions.

< begin long winded ponderings>
I began thinking how addictions become in the first place. In my first thoughts go something like: when something is a habit, it can become an addiction... so how then does a habit form? Maybe you develop some kind of association with something, such as the enjoyment of the simple warmth in a cup of coffee and the ever popular, socially acceptable act of going out for a coffee. The regular caffeine filled activity of having a coffee being paired with the pleasant feelings of what you get out of them (social interaction, "me time", warmth, reward) develops into an attachment.

I can see how it'd be easy to develop a habit of picking up a cup of coffee, when really I might be seeking social interaction or "me time". The habit may or may not result in an addiction -- where you repeat the habit, rather than adopting a different approach, for reasons of imposed comfort and perhaps laziness.

< end long winded ponderings>

My thoughts this week: What habits have I accumulated and which actually stem from seeking something else due to an association? In particular, what things am I more likely to consume?

I'm hoping that reflecting on this will help bring more awareness to my own levels of general over consumption of "stuff" and also bring focus to things that bring me contentment that don't involve throwing down my credit card, such as this:

It's also caused me to do crazy things like this:

Island time and slowing the train down

2010-08-10T14:37:00.000-07:00

One thing I've been thinking about quite a bit lately is the amount of ridiculous busy that had been my life in the past year. Now that I've climbed (and conquered!) a few of those mountains, I'm trying to enjoy time where nothing is scheduled in particular.

I decided a few weeks back that I wanted to go to Victoria. Not for a single obvious purpose but rather to go and see what I would get up to -- have a bit of adventure!

Adrielle decided to join me for a day at the last minute, so we set off in the late morning to the ferry.

Day 1: Adventure in Victoria

On the ferry, I had planned on sitting in their quiet lounge area. It's $12 and to me, it's worth it if you're looking for some peace and quiet which can be hard to find when the ferry is full. Plus you get all sorts of tasty coffee/cookies/cheese and papers to read, and a great view. I convinced Adrielle to join me with a twist of a rubber arm.

I was surpised that there was one group having a quite loud conversation about personal matters in the lounge. Actually, there were discussing their opinions about someone else's personal matters, which made it all the more odd. I threw in my headphones and watched a bit of TED while I enjoyed my coffee and snacks for the remainder of the ferry ride.

Once settled at the hotel in Victoria, we set off to find a bus to take us into the downtown area. We made it not even to the bus stop before we encountered our first stop. Behold, The Rockshop:

... where my rock loving friend certainly jumped on the opportunity to explore. After a little bit there, we hopped a random bus. After wandering around *cough-stoppingbyBeehiveYarnStore-cough* and encountering a stag (that involved a woman's swimsuit and a mullet wig -- I will spare you the photo of that), we took refuge from the rain at the Irish Times. I sampled their "5 Mile" sampler of local beers which was tasty.

After, we continued on our walking adventure some more before resting again at Blenz Coffee. Here, our Navy friend Devin came by to say hello.

He was in town only for a few days before setting back out. This time we shuffled off to Garrich's Head Pub (almost right beside the Irish Times) where a few more beers were consumed and more Navy friends joined. During this time we were educated us on all sorts of random and wonderful things Navy, including the difference between a ship and a boat. Also, Devin modelled his Boba Fett hoodie, a super cool gift from his girlfriend.

Adrielle and I retired back to the hotel relatively early as we were to be up early the next day. After breakfast in the morning, Adrielle and I parted ways --She to a final yarn purchase decision and back to Vancity, and I to a solo driving adventure to Port Renfew to pick up a friend from the end of the West Coast Trail.

Day 2 part I: Adventure to Port Renfrew and back
Port Renfrew is about 2 hours driving time, heading west of Victoria. The driving portion was pretty uneventful, besides encountering a marathon in Sooke, and devoid of picture taking -- I hear that whole taking pictures and driving thing is somewhat frowned upon. I made do with a fun ipod playlist which involved everything from M.I.A, to Madonna, to NIN, to the Dreadnaughts. I arrived in Port Renfew a little later than I'd hoped due to the marathon and began my search for the trail head.

First I found the Lighthouse Pub. Which, while tempting, was unfortunately not the trail head. After talking with a few people outside, I asked the friendly waitress at the bar counter for directions and she pointed me back down the road I came in on. I stopped a little ways down and checked again with the General Store, where I received more friendly directions. Subsequently I made my way on the road leading to the bridge and to the WCT registration building. My friend Steve had arrived about an hour before around back, and was enjoying resting with his boots off. I was glad that he'd made it out safe, albeit a little sandy! After a few minutes catching up, we loaded his things into my mighty wagon and headed back towards Victoria.

In Sooke, we stopped at a place called the 17 Mile House Pub as Steve had a hankering for something to eat that didn't involve reconstituting it with water. It was quite busy but after a patient wait we chowed down and watched a few people try their hand at horseshoes (the game, not applying them to horses) before heading back on the road.

Day 2 part II: Car adventures and Stephen & Kim's
Once back in Victoria, I got him settled into the hotel and then headed back to my car with the intention of driving over to see Stephen and Kim while my friend was getting cleaned up. However, I was quite surprised to find a few things in the wagon a little .... ruffled... It turns out that during the time I was parked, someone had broken into my car! Nothing was taken, besides the last of my wine gums candy (the bugger!) and nothing really broken besides some scratches where the window was pried open. Oh well. I piled the mass pile of macaroni that had been dumped out in the back seat back into the dry food bag and drove over to Stephen and Kim's.

It turned out Stephen and Kim were cooking dinner and so I was sent back to pick up a (hopefully) cleaned up Steve for a bite. Stephen and Kim had made a tasty curry with raita and graced us with thought provoking conversation (and a bit of cheese/wine too). I had forgotten to bring my camera, but their place is looking quite awesome as usually. Their sun room has been finished --it sure looks cozy, and inviting.

Since Steve hadn't really spent much time in Victoria, we left the house to check out downtown. Of course, there was a stop at the Irish Times for an Irish coffee as well. We meandered about and talked to an interesting local fellow who was quite excitable about hookahs and what the different kinds of tobacco were used for-- kind of random, but interesting.

Back at the hotel I got a chance to read more of a book I had picked up from the library: Not So Big Life. I've been doing a lot more self reflection lately, especially after having overcome the past 1 1/2 years of a hard, busy push for school and career goals. Now that some of these have been realized, or are close to it, I can shift my forward attention to the next "thing" (whatever that is!) which making good use of the momentum I've built. There's more though on this.. but not for this post!

Day 3: Uneventful return to Vancity

After checking out of the hotel, I took Steve to one of my favourite breakfast places in Victoria: Shine Cafe. It's a little but cheery place and I like the variety of eggs benny that is offered. After stuffing our faces, we drove into downtown to check out the Legislative Buildings near the inner harbour and walked for a bit despite the rain. After a little while, we jumped back into the wagon and headed back to Vancity via the ferry.

Baden Powell trail: Lynn Headwaters to Grouse Skyride

2010-08-10T13:30:00.000-07:00

Adrielle and I headed up to Lynn Headwaters to hike part of the Baden-Powell trail. I checked a few books and a map, and I'm a little confused when I look at all these references for this part of the trail:

Some say to start at Lynn Canyon instead of Lynn Headwaters though the maps start at the Headwaters.... while the range of time of 4-5 hours would make sense if hiking from Lynn Canyon, the total km of 7 seems more aligned with starting at the Headwaters.

Here's what we did:

Parked at Lynn Headwaters, by the General Store and grabbed a coffee/tea.
You know you're hiking in Vancouver when...

Now safely armed to face the woods on the North Shore, we started walking up the trail, pausing here and there for photo ops such as

We encountered a variety of other people on the trail, including a whole plethora of mountain bikers. After watching a few particularly interesting navigations, I was glad that I only had to worry about keeping my own two feet in order.

We stopped at Mosquito Creek (I think) to look at the water and of course, for me to check out the wee fish. Adrielle found a rock she wanted to take home..

We stopped several times along the way, taking it quite slow and steady. There was another interesting crossing at Mackay Creek:

But relatively uneventful most of the hike. After about 3 and 1/2 hours ended up at the bottom of the Grouse Mountain Skyride. A friend came to pick us up which was fantastic since I honestly was not enthused to be taking the bus somewhere on the North Shore in hopes of finding my car on a Sunday night.

I slept well that evening and was reminded that outdoor adventures were as fun as I remember them to be.

Blogging hiatus almost over..

2010-06-07T02:30:00.000-07:00

And wow, it's been over a year and I've been smoking busy trying to take over the world, or save it, depending on your perspective. I'm wrapping up a mixed bag of things and looking forward to writing more again.

... as soon as I get back to Canada!

Cheers.

Up for a breath of air..

2009-03-06T17:18:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone!
I'm still alive. Busy as all heck and having a good time with it though I haven't knit a stitch for about 2.5 months!. Trying to decide what I should do for my birthday, which is a little ways away still... Suggestions?? Looking at my calendar over the new few weeks and it seems like school, work (my own plus marking), and the Accounting Club have firmly taken over my life for now. Back up for air in April! Peace out!

High performance

2009-02-12T22:57:00.000-08:00

Wow. It's been over a month since my last post. I've had lots of ideas of things to write about, but it seems like every time I sit down, something more urgent grabs my attention and before I know it, I must sleep. I am pretty sure I've been operating at one of my highest capacities for most of the last 4 weeks.

So, what's new? A lot. In short (while I have the time!):

A new semester ~~has started~~ is half way over and my classes for the most part are pretty awesome, aside from one in particular.. but hey, not letting a bad apple spoil the rest.
I've become president of the Accounting Club, which has a whole bunch of things in the works that I get to help make happen. Awesomeness and ultra nerdiness (which is why it's awesome).
That active health class I'm taking is kicking my butt.. but in a kind of perverse way, I'm almost, ALMOST starting to enjoy running. Actually in comparison with everything we've done so far, I think it's my favorite activity.
Work is ridiculously busy, I've taken on another client as well. I've also started marking for the college on top of that. Hello crazy.
Still eating (mostly) well. Trying to cut back on the cheese. Not sure if I'm winning or losing.
The fish are still good. I have a crazy "black beard algae" problem. 3 large shrimp (ha) have been added to the tank. I haven't had time to name them yet, and still can't tell them apart.
I have knitting-- somewhere there's one fingerless glove, the start of the shoulder on my sweater (need dpns!), and some funky lace thing. My stubby print o' the waves scarf makes me feel pretty when I wear it, and I'm not so sad that it's short now.
I'm going to be done my diploma at the end of this semester. Just over half way to the degree. Woot.

I'm starting to see some really wonderful growth in the people around me, in addition to myself. I am continually finding myself inspired by a set of people in particular --You folks rock my potato.

Thanks for the encouragement, the support/babysitting, the bad witty puns, and the coffee in plentiful portions. I don't think I could be doing all this without you.

I survived..

2009-01-10T18:00:00.000-08:00

the Three Bags Full boxing day sale.. phew! Saved over 60 bucks on yarn, and after all a penny saved is a penny earned! It's slushing again.. do not approve.

Random selction of photos from Cuba

2009-01-09T20:49:00.000-08:00

Cuba 2008-Trip Summary

2008-12-28T23:36:00.000-08:00

Smeags and I stayed at the Breezes Varadero resort for a week.. A 14 years and older only place located on the resort strip near the town of Varadero. It was a nice place, 30 second walk from our door to the beach and had a 24 bar/snack available. Here's some highlights from the trip:

Day 1-arrive in the evening, get aquainted with the place, watched the evening show which featured black lights and costume crocodiles humping a piano player. Entertaining in an odd way.

Day 2-sleep in and checked out the beach, chased the lizards around the resort trying to snap pictures, drank. Avoided getting picked to go on stage for the second night of entertainment (Smeags and I high five over this)

Day 3-Take the bus into town and walked around. Organized a bus to pick us up the next day to take us to Old Havana and also organized 2 nights accommodation at a private house (licensed kind of bed and breakfast) in Old Havana called La Casa Obrapia, run by two gentleman Reymond and Raydel. Feel free to check out my Tripadvisor page for my review

Day 4-Travel to Havana was 2-3 hours. Enjoyed watching the changing scenery on the bus and tried to block out the Celine Dion special that was being played. We got off at the Capitolio building and were instantly surrounded by 3 little boys. After much racking my brain, I realized they were looking for candy and much to their dismay, we were candyless. We left them with some Canadian pencils that I had brought which went over like a pork chop and a school of piranhas.

We walked to La Casa Obrapia and were greeted by Raydel, who showed us around the place. My Spanish was quite rusty but Raydel was really nice and with a bit of patience we managed to communicate enough between my bad Spanish and his English to understand each other. Colm and I ventured back out to the city and stopped in a bar for a bite to eat which seemed relatively like a well rounded choice. After several mojitos, I looked up to see the neon sign on the place:
"La Lluvia de Oro Bar" or roughly translated, "Golden Shower Bar". SNICKER!!!!

We headed back to the bed and breakfast and ended up hanging out with Raydel, his friend Alex, and of course Rocky the dog and Frida the goldfish. Later that night, Reymond returned and we had the chance to talk to him a bit (his English is pretty good) before retiring to bed.
I think I must have had one too many mojitos or maybe a bad combo of food, as that night was the only one I didn't feel well.

Day 5- We had organized a breakfast today and a dinner, made up by Raydel, which were both wonderful! I think that these may have been some of the best food I had the whole trip. Breakfast with a fruit plate of delicious things, eggs, bread, fresh juice and good coffee!

We ventured out to walk around Old Havana.. meandering through the streets. It was a bit overwhelming the amount of attention that tourists get. It seemed like there was no shortage of people that wanted to see if we needed anything or wanted to sell us things. Particularly, we found the only place we stopped walking was at a park near the water, where we sat on a bench for a little while. The decay of all the buildings is quite incredible. I vaguely remembered from the last time in Cuba (8 years ago) and seeing them again.. wow.

After much walking around, we eventually had dinner back at la Casa Obrapia and it was also fantastic! Soup, salad, bread, lobster (!!) and rice/veggies, and dessert! Nom nom indeed! We also got to hang out with Reymond after dinner, and chatted for a while before bed.

Day 6- We got up and after another nice breakfast and chat with Raydel, we made out way over to the old plaza to visit a house that had a sort of periscope/telescope thingy on the roof which showed the reflection of the view from up top (around the city). After, we stopped for a coffee and then headed back to the bed and breakfast. Once all paid up, we met up with our bus at the NH hotel near the Capitolio and headed back to Varadero. The rest of the night was spent relaxing.

Day 7-Last full day in Cuba! We made the most of it by hanging out at the beach.. Colm lounging in the sun, and me chasing fish in the water. It was quite lovely.

Day 8-Organized a late check out and enjoyed more beach, buffet, and then our bus came in the afternoon to take us to the airport. Le sigh!

We're home!

2008-12-23T14:36:00.001-08:00

Just a quick note! Smeags and I made it home safe and sound... there is much to tell but will compose that later with the pictures!

I can't believe it snowed here in Vancouver. Insane. More on the way tonight and I have to make a battle plan for all the cold!

Merry ho ho!

Call a stupid person, a stupid person

2008-12-10T23:34:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to summarize some of my thoughts when it comes to what's going on in the economy and in particular with the auto industry bailouts. How could injecting money into a business, the market has determined is failing, a good idea? Businesses come and go all the time in the market, and many for very good reason: no one is buying their product or service.

As an example, in yarn terms here in Vancouver, if Michaels suddenly failed because other yarn stores (i.e. Three Bags Full, Urban Yarns, Birkland Bros) were more successful in retaining customers due to their levels of service, quality and general direction of products being offered was what people wanted and could afford, then why bother lending Michael's money?

I understand that there are a HUGE number of people working in the auto industry, dependent on it for their family's livelihood. But, if the ship is sinking, no matter how much money you put in, it will still sink and all those people will still lose their jobs. Unless of course, you have a plan.

Either injecting money into those communities to help diversify the town's portfolio of business (creates jobs, makes communities less dependant on one major industry) or restructure and take the auto companies in a new direction. Consider evaluating the people that made the final decisions which eventually resulted, in their sum, in the failed state of those businesses. As someone said to me recently, "Call a stupid person a stupid person, and let them go."

This is a big risk I think, especially if you are going after the exact same target market. Right now demand is low, simply put. People in North America and in the USA especially are not going to be looking at buying a brand new vehicle due to the state of economy and tightness surrounding liquidity/borrowing. Decisions whether or not to lend these businesses taxpayers' money should not be made overnight.

If the companies went bankrupt, the government as a lender would be in a good position to be paid first (among other creditors), and the shareholders last. However, currently if there's no money left in the company i.e. all the retained earnings are gone, the shareholders really have nothing more left to lose. This could lead them to making risky decisions, trying to be profitable quickly in the short term but selling themselves short in the long run (hey, speculate away!). If so, and the company gets the loan from the government, and they end up making risky decisions which run the company bankrupt, how is the government going to get paid? By liquidating the assets and distributing what's left to the creditors who are owed?

Think about it-- If the company is still unsuccessful, that means that a good chunk of their inventory (cars) aren't selling (maybe demand is still low and no one wants to buy). If they must liquidate the company, this involves selling the inventory off... but to whom, if no one was buying cars in the first place (which resulted in the bankruptcy situation)? Could we realistically recover the lent money?

Though honestly I'm sure there would be businesses out there that would take advantage of liquidation prices because: no matter how much something is "worth", if it's sitting on your shelf at the end of the day, you still don't have the cash in hand. Getting something is better than getting nothing.

How much money are they looking for (Financial Post here) and how are they going to use it?

"GM has said it needs US$4-billion this month alone to fund its operations. Chrysler has said it needs US$7-billion immediately or it will fail. Both companies reject bankruptcy as an option to fix their business."

"Executives of the Detroit automakers were met with skeptical lawmakers two weeks ago when they appeared before Congress in their initial plea for aid. They were asked to submit detailed business plans to prove they would be able to stay in business and pay back any loans."

This is why having a very well thought out, well researched plan is crucial to this "bailout." Without this, the auto industry we're throwing money into might as well be a paper shredder. I want the people working for them to have sustainable jobs.. Not just ones we can throw money at today, and only keep fingers crossed that tomorrow they'll have them still. A long term solution versus a temporary band-aid prolonging the inevitable.. which will only come with a very strategic plan and change.

I think that it was also poor taste to arrive, asking for money without actually putting together a detailed business plan to support their cause first. I have no idea exactly what happened, but why even bother if you can't outline how the money will turn things around, how you'll be successful, versus just prolonging death of the company.

Anyways, I came across Michael Moore's recent letter and thought that there were some great economically sound, logical ideas in there of what exactly would be more sustainable. If you have a couple minutes, grab your coffee and read it over. You don't have to agree with everything he is about, but it's an interesting read.

PS-Also an interesting read about the public vs private sector wage gap. Interesting information, I'm neither proclaiming yea nor nay, but throwing the idea out there to consider the following and ask yourselves how you feel about these things (big picture)! Food for thought! Keep your brain thinking:

Is the private sector underpaid, or is the public sector overpaid?
What do you think would be reasonable levels of compensation considering the state of the economy?
Where does that level fit in with what businesses have to work with? I've talked to many people where they know of others losing jobs/being laid off because of a variety of things outside of their own personal control.

PPS- One more exam to go! I kicked butt today with the two I did..

Hours of sleep lost: ~9 Hours
Money spent on coffee:~$30
Swear words uttered while studying: many
NPV of feeling like I kicked ass today: Priceless.

Wrap up

2008-12-02T11:04:00.000-08:00

I had my last day of poi class yesterday! I'm a little sad to have it all wrapped up, since it was such a fun and creative thing, so I'm hoping my schedule works out to make it to the next run of sessions in the new year. I'm thinking about bringing them with me on my trip.. or maybe making a pair to travel with since water (balloons + airlines) + (Fun fur + sand) = probably not a great idea.

Today also is the last day of classes at the Place of Mass Instruction.. and I only have one more class today before freedom (well, until exams that is)! I'm thinking about taking my poi over to the grass beside and killing some time by practicing. Here's to possibly wacking myself in the face some more..

Anyhow, time to talk to a friend who's just popped online! Back later, with pictures!

Pretending to read, downtime is great.

2008-11-27T11:00:00.000-08:00

I'm enjoying a little bit of downtime from all the craziness that are assignments and projects for school, only a handful of them left. I've been terrible with this blog updating, hopefully I can fit this all in before I have to head to my next class.

This last week I've actually managed to finish a few things, like that Print of the Waves scarf, and a few easy gift items that shall remain unlisted. Unfortunately the Print of the Waves scarf is, well, very very stunted. The lovely Blue Sky Alpacas yarn was only (I think) about 50m. Oops. So here's to hoping when I block it, it'll be long enough to wrap around my neck, once. The sweater has yet to be continued on the ribbing (that'll be done by next Wed hopefully, in time for Karen's craft night), and I've started an eggplant hat which I hope to have finished by the end of school today for Smeags to bring on a trip as a gift.

In other fun, nonschool/work relatedness: I got to spin fire at my poi class a couple weeks back, which is going very fabulous by the way. I am by no means ready to pullout all the ninja tricks for fire spinning, but I'm on my way to hitting myself less in the face with the poi. That's good progress to me! We have our last class on Monday and it's a little sad that it's over. I was hoping to possibly get involved with the Winter Solstice event on Dec 21, but it looks like I'll be away for that.. which brings me to this:

SMEAGOL AND I ARE GOING ON VACATION TO CUBA!

I am really, really, REALLY excited. I had gone when I was 17, with my high school band, and I vowed to go back some day to see some more but wanted to learn (some) Spanish first. You know, more than the "yo quiero Taco Bell" and "dos cervesas, por favor." Anyhow, with less than a month before we go, I dusted off a book I had picked up in January and pulled out my good ol' English/Spanish dictionary.

Today is day #1 of getting my stuff together, and so far I'm remembering a lot more Spanish than I thought I would. Next step I suppose is putting together a list of things to bring with us (gifts) for the people there.

Well, time to log off here and have lunch before class! Cheerio!

Still busy, but... 2 things:

2008-11-09T22:41:00.000-08:00

1) The sweater in progress, that has been in progress forever because it's been sitting in a bag in the yarn dresser is just about long enough (on the bottom ribbing) to cast off! Here's me trying it on (wearing my pyjamas, of course):

After some debate with Mrs. Q, as it was maybe just a little short, "should I put the stitches on waste yarn and block it? will that change the gauge?" we decided that I'm going to knit about another 2 or so inches and see how that feels. I mean, worse comes to worse... I could always, ALWAYS rip it back. Going to get started on that, but not until after this coming Thursday where my last two midterms and Crazy Marketing Project will be virtually finito.

2) Two weeks late, but better than never.. I present Pumpkin-Fish! A carved pumpkin for all occasions. I also managed to make two tasty pumpkin pies courtesy of Mrs. Q's Mum's Recipe. YAY ME!!!

Adventures of Bachelor-girl: (unofficial) Langara Drinking Club and KD

2008-10-23T18:24:00.000-07:00

Last night, after a lovely dinner at home with Cat, I went out to Pop Opera for their official grand opening, where a friend of mine works. It was a pretty darn good time!

There were appys

and the Drinking Club accepted the sacrificial offerings by the bar. Good times ensued.

Tonight, as the last evening in this episode of Bachelor-Girl, I'm having a delicious box of White Chedder Kraft Dinner before heading out to a farewell party for a few girlfriends who are winding up to go to Australia. Huzzah!

And just when I thought my brain was full!

2008-10-21T20:49:00.000-07:00

Whammo, we're back at it without skipping a beat! So.. besides the things that are Weapons of Mass Instruction, I'm trying not to be creeped by the funny noises at home when Smeags is away. Both of us are a little under the weather, Smeags moreso than myself... and poor Smeags is away for a project in Ontario. I wish I could be there to hang out and be whiny together, cause misery sure loves company. I'm counting down the time till he's back.. *wah*

I wound the yarn and am almost done the ribbing for the sweater!! Huzzah!! I've decided I'm going to do a few more rounds and then move it on to waste yarn so I can get a move on to the sleeves. If the ribbing turns out a little short, I can then pick up the stitches and do some more rounds before binding off! Hahahah take that SIP!

Reaching capacity

2008-10-16T11:59:00.000-07:00

I think my brain is close to reaching it's full capacity at the moment.. Not much more fitting in here, if any more tidbits at all! I need to somehow modify my studying for a particular class.. as this class consumes as much time as all three other classes combined. E-gads. With time as a precious resource, I can't afford to keep this up as my other classes are suffering greatly.

The yarn still needs to be wound for my sweater.. Mrs. Q has graciously offered use of her ball winder, but I have yet to have free time available at a reasonable hour. And by reasonable, I mean before 12:30 in the morning.

Random note though: I got a huge pumpkin yesterday while I was grocery shopping! Amazing :D I am super dooper excited about it, and Smeags has been entertaining my ramblings.

Back to studying.. Send help, coffee, or a Caesar..

PS-I watched TV for the first time last night since I can't remember when, for at least an hour!
PPS- I saw this on the way home from school. Cheapest passport photo I've ever seen!

Round one done!

2008-10-09T20:39:00.001-07:00

It's almost but not quite 9pm and I'm hanging out at the Crossfit gym, where Smeags and James are a-sweating away. What a long day it's been! I caught a ride as Smeags intercepted me on the commute home (which was ridiculously long --1.33 hours to not even make it all the way-fiddlesticks) and happy to hang out, read the Financial Post and knit.

Accomplished this week

first round of midterms-done!
bringing lunch everyday to school
eating home every night (well since Sunday

Almost accomplished this week

Almost time to join the second ball of yarn for my sweater in progress! YIPEE! I know it's been forever, but hell I'll take any sort of measurable progress.
Keeping mostly on top of stuff at home
Organizing the hallway closet (it's almost there!)

I'm looking forward to holding up the sweater and taking gratuitous self portraits for your amusement.

Oh... and I mentioned reading the Financial Post --Holy Shamoly that's a pretty cool paper. Now that I've done some economics classes (oh how I'd be happy to never take again in some respects) I almost wish I had a social atmosphere to just discuss the ideas and apply what's out there within the context in the classes I had. I never, ever thought I'd say this. Crazy eh?

Well, I'm off to go finish the last round or so left of yarn for my sweater.. I realize I don't have any of the other skeins wound up, so I'm guessing I'll be begging Mrs. Q for a borrow of her ball winder real soon.

Be excellent to yourselves this weekend people!

Wonderful food for thought

2008-10-08T19:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I read an awesome post by Laurie aka Crazy Aunt Purl, and there was a particular quote that stood out to me which I completely related to:

"Yes I love pretty things, and I like shoes and I love to shop at the grocery store and buy the stinky yummy expensive cheese. But all of it is just stuff. It took a while for me to disassociate who I am from what I have, and sometimes it was painful. I had given all these little things -- things with no value -- so much sentimental value that I had a house full of clutter and my life was cramped and confusing and uncomfortable."

I realized I had much stuff after the Big Move in '06. I was deathly attached to all of it. The useless things, the decorative things, the strange kitchen gadgets that you MUST HAVE from the PNE, things that were broken or that I would never really want in my home other than stowed a box, clothes that didn't fit right, shoes, etc. I had been trucking a lot of this around from the move after high school, adding to the masses, until I finally had a home. For a while.

I unpacked everything! How wonderful it was to not live out of a box, to have all of your "things" accessible! I was attached to my things like a hard drive magnet to a fridge. It wasn't until the Big Move that I began to see all the "things" as just stuff I was hauling around.

I had bought so many things that I thought would make me feel better, more organized, that were nice and pretty, blah blah. The stuff kept me company when I was upset, and most things became sentimentally or emotionally priceless. But, when I looked inside myself, they didn't do anything and I was still as sad as I was before.

Another favorite story of mine by Laurie is the bit about the picture frame at one of her yard sales. I remember the first time I really let go of something after the Big Move of '06. Some things that were priceless to me: gifts from Christmas, birthday and etc. One day, I picked up one of these treasures, a pretty necklace. I held it up in the light and thought about it --I never got jewelry as gifts and here was this very pretty, sparkly, lovely thing. I had been avoiding wearing it because of how I had gotten it, and never found there was a right time to wear it.

I closed my hands around it, and closed my eyes. I remembered the delight in receiving it, and somehow had managed to wrap my heart up in some alternate world where the reality of the situation was so different and it hurt me each time I realized the reality. Every time I looked at the necklace since then, all I could think of was this thing wrapped around my neck, like some sort of rope.

I opened my hands and saw it for what it really was: something that represented a hurt, sad, lonely, and miserable past me. Something that wasn't me any longer. Unable to simply throw away something so pretty, I gave it to my mother the next chance I got. It was her style, colour, and it would serve a much much better purpose with her than sitting in a box with me. I felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders, my heart.

Since the Big Move of '06, I started letting all these things go. One bag, one box of stuff at a time. I've counted over 17 garbage bags of clothing that I've donated, and I've lost count of how many boxes of stuff. It's been extremely liberating.

I am not my stuff.

(................. except for loving the stinky yummy cheese)

Dreams of fish?

2008-10-06T23:15:00.000-07:00

I'm half way through battling the evilness that is round 1 of midterms. So far, I think I'm on the winning side!
I had my 3rd poi class tonight, which was awesome!! I'm trying to master my planes, though I'm sure it looks like I keep trying, successfully, to hit myself in the face over and over again. Ahem, how humbling.

I've been having a bunch of strange dreams as of late, which involve fretting over my fish tank, and my fish dying. It's quite sad actually, and since I'm such a carebear (with the whole sensitivity to pain/violence of any kind), they've almost had me in tears. I love my fish to bits, and the thought of them sick, dying or anything is heartbreaking.

I think these dreams have something to do with feeling like I don't have much control, or not being successful at something. Maybe something to do with this whole student loan fiasco? Smeags and I have been trying to figure something out, and we have a plan. Even though I think it's going to work, my self esteem has been taking a beating lately. It's hard to be scrutinizing every penny I spend. It'll be nice when this all wraps up.

I started working on the sweater again, finally. Still on the main body ribbing towards the waste... still yet to pick up the stitches for both sleeves, as well as pickup the stitches to do the ribbing around the collar.

Print of the waves scarf

2008-09-25T15:46:00.000-07:00

I'd mentioned a ways back that I was working on a scarf that had adapted the Print O' the Waves stole centre panel. Here's where I've gotten so far:

It's Blue Sky Alpaca -baby alpaca and it's gloriously soft, wonderful, and worth to simply wrap the skein around myself. Nom Nom. I hope I get it done before mid-October.

And on that note.. I should probably at least finish the length on the sweater ribbing so I can start the sleeves!

Unleash the zombie turkeys!

2008-09-24T16:51:00.000-07:00

I finally found out the status of my student loan and it looks like I wasn't approved-Damn. This is quite unfortunate and I feel like I'm stuck in a somewhat awkward place between living costs, tuition, and anything else that life brings and the reality of being very, very short on liquidity at this moment.

I've thought about it all day and I think I have a few options

start a second job now
make it through the current semester and look at making my schedule for January as convenient as possible to pickup a second job that would hopefully continue into the summer
secretly train and unleash a rafter of zombie turkeys upon the student loan processing office and/or calculation document formulas

I'm somewhat partial to the zombie turkeys plan. Let me know if you see any roaming about.

In the meantime, I've looked at the house accounting for the past quarter and I realized that I've only picked up yarn once (for Mrs. Landlord's baby knits) since April. That's pretty good though I hear from Mrs. Q that there is something delicious called Malabrigo Sock yarn, and I realize I may fall victim to at least one skein in the next few months. On the other hand, several weddings in a row sure add up to $$. Hmm. I'm going to talk with Smeags when he gets in, and see what he thinks.

Class

2008-09-22T22:41:00.000-07:00

Came across this today... A thought:

Class never tries to build itself up by tearing others down. Class is already up and need not strive to look better by making others look worse.

Listening to my thoughts

2008-09-22T00:06:00.000-07:00

Wow, indeed it's already well into September and I feel as busy as ever! Trying to balance out my time between my school priorities and everything else is challenging indeed. I can for sure do it, it just requires some careful balancing and detailed schedule keeping. With the extra classmates I'm tutoring this semester (which is double what any other semester has been) I find myself continually occupied with school details. I love to help people, but I should remember to make time for myself too.. lest I boarder the danger of burning out.

I went to the first martial arts seminar early today (after an adventure on the skytrain). It was mainly for instructor-levels, but I was invited to attend and watch. In honest, while I expected a good base of thoughts/discussion there, it was much more mentally provoking than I can put into words right now --I'm thrilled! Jamen had touched upon a whole variety of areas that have been on my mind in the last 4 months and just having those verbalized by someone who's obviously put a lot of heart and mind into it.. well.. it was really great to say the least. I hope to write some more about this later, if I can collect all the thoughts that are floating in my head.

I'm pretty exhausted right now, so going to head off to bed. This week has been packed busy, and next week looks that way too. I can't wait until a day comes where I can sleep in.. or get a soild 8 hours of sleep.. I'd settle for either!

Sleep tight and rest well!

C'mon spammers.. you can do better

2008-09-18T11:11:00.001-07:00

After several years of email spam with subjects like "shamed of your sex? we can change it!"and "viagra for cheap,"I was disappointed to find this in my inbox this morning:
(click picture for larger image)

What's the world coming to? Terrible shame.

Now back to finishing my tax assignment..

Trucking right along

2008-09-16T11:44:00.001-07:00

I've been sporadically knitting on a scarf based off the center panel of the "print of the waves" pattern, and have given up on counting stitches. I realize it's a scarf... not something that's going to be subject to ultimate scrutiny if I m1 or k2tog at the end of a row in order to get the right number.. I think I've ripped back and re-knit various rows too many times to count and really, I just can't be bothered! I love the yarn so much that it's going to get finished sooner than later, perfect or not, and I will be so happy to wrap it around my neck in all of it's lovely baby alpaca gloriousness. So there.

School is, well, school. I've managed to meet a few more people this semester and reconnect with those I missed over the summer. I'm finding it challenging for my Tues/Thurs classes, as the first one I find quite difficult to be awake in (due to sleeping issues, not content) and the last one of the day I think I should have challenged -- it's a class I feel like I have to jump through hoops to pass versus actually passing based on learning something. Unfortunate, but that's the way it goes and I know how to play by that game, so we'll see how high I have to leap.

Along with the classes, I've been slowly starting to put together my thoughts on the different accounting designations. This means of course I'm starting to realize how much I don't know and how many questions I have. I think I'm in a great place to start putting this all together in preparation for about a year from now. Hmm business card ideas anyone?

Short term versus long term goals for the upcoming quarter (Oct-Dec)? Let's just start with trying to eat consistantly good food and getting proper rest. Seems tres simple but life keeps on jumping up.

and of course: HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEVIE!! >MWAH<

Umm.. is this thing on?

2008-08-29T11:32:00.001-07:00

Well indeed it's been a slow time for blogging this summer... There's a lot that's come and pass.. I've been slow with knitting, and busy with spending time with friends. In just a few days, I'll be retreating into my hermit like winter state, burrowed deep beside the textbooks of the fall semester.

I've spent time with many, many people. I realize that if I had the time free, I'd probably spend it all seeing those who I love.. my friends, family, the fish at the Vancouver Aquarium. Even with all this free time this summer, there are still so many more people which I want badly to work some time in with, but schedules and sleep permitting, it hasn't always worked out. Although on the bright side, I've had several friends come to me, to thank me for making the effort to see them, or even just stay in touch. It looks like prioritizing my social life is starting to make a difference to those around and that's what's important to me.

I've been contemplating signing up for a poi spinning class at a local community centre, which would start in late September. Also, I've decided to look into martial arts as a physical and mentally challenging activity. My friend Dave is taking the time to teach me thing (second day was yesterday) and so far it's pretty interesting. I feel so awkward at times, trying to coordinate my hands/legs/arms/fingers/etc but I feel it's a good challenge for me. I have not so secretly begun giving certain things my own nicknames to help me remember where I should be, and what I should be doing.

Lately, it seems like I could be doing a better job of taking care of myself. Little things like watching the quality in my consumption, getting proper rest, being active. The sum of the small things certainly adds up and I think I owe it to myself to be nice to me.

Well, time for me to get on cleaning and tidying around home. The last weekend of the summer is coming up and I don't want to waste it doing laundry!

3 words (stolen from Meryl)

2008-08-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

You have to use 3 words to answer each question. No more, no less.

It's harder than you think.

1. Where is your cell phone?:
In my purse

2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend?:
sweet, quiet Smeagol

3. Your hair?:
very, very long

4. Where is your father?:
probably at work

6. Your favorite thing to do?:
sitting, drinking thinking

7. Your dream last night?:
quite graphically unmentionable

8. Your favorite drink?:
ice cold gerwertz.

9. Your dream car?:
Blue Corvette Stingray

10. The room you're in?:
relaxing living room

12. Your fears?:
disappointing precious people

14. Who did you hang out with last night?:
many party people

15. What you're not good at?:
tracking insignificant details

16. Muffins?:
no thanks man

17. One of your wish list items?:
red kitchenaid mixer

18. Where did you grow up?:
East Vancouver baby!

19. The last thing you did?:
drank some scotch

20. What are you wearing?:
black wife beater

23. Your computer?:
slow ass thing

24. Your life?:
pretty fucken awesome

25. Your mood?:
thoughtful and relaxed

26. Missing?:
doing crazy shit

27. What are you thinking about right now?:
drinking more scotch

28. Your car?:
sexy toyota wagon

29. Your job?:
unless you want!

30. Your summer?:
pretty damn awesome

31. Your relationship status?:
Smeagol's girl, duh.

32. Your favorite color(s):
red, yellow, brown

33. When is the last time you laughed?:
today of course!

34. Last time you cried?:
Jen's wedding yesterday

35. School?:
Don't remind me

Time flies when..

2008-08-12T22:37:00.001-07:00

I wondered, how is it that while I was in school, I managed to blog pretty often.. and yet when I now have this time away from it, I haven't sat down to blog at all? The answer finally arrived --I used blogging to procrastinate doing things, like homework. Now with all the fun things I've been doing, there's no time for procrastination by blogging!

I've been lacking sleep lately, which is the result of a combination of various things including: weddings, working, procrastinating household duties, seeing friends, and having fun. An excerpt from such events:Mike and Carm

Smeagol and I

Bridal Party, showing some ankle! Awoo

Still here, enjoying the sun

2008-08-06T16:19:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been about two weeks since my last post.. Well I guess things have been pretty busy. There was a fun trip over to Tofino, which involved 4 people (myself, Adrielle, Dan, and Neil) being stuffed with camping gear into my station wagon, and frolicing in the Pacific Ocean on Long Beach in my red dress:

Smeagol got back from his course adventure and we spent a good number of days relaxing on the Sunshine Coast (pictures to come). And now, I'm just gearing up for a number of weddings (3 wedding in about 5 weeks!!), frantically knitting little socks for Mrs. Landlord (the new family addition I believe has arrived already) Wah hoo!

(more stuff being updated.. this post written last week now being posted!)

Biggest thank you ever

2008-07-24T23:03:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Q virtually saved my life tonight, from the clutches of an almost dead mouse (which was in my kitchen). No other details will be provided. I would like to thank her from the dearest part of my ~~brie~~ heart --I most certainly couldn't have done it with out you!

Loving this time of night

2008-07-24T02:06:00.000-07:00

Sure, 2am is a time when I should be in bed, enjoying the sleeping world... but I've really come to enjoy this time of night in the last couple of weeks.

During the day, there always seems to be responsibilities and errands that need doing. Whenever I sit down, I have another idea of something else productive. I feel like I should be active during the daylight hours; taking advantage of the summer light. Doing something. Doing Anything.

But, when the sun goes down, dinner is eaten, and the kitchen tidy, I look back to enjoy that I've been busy this day, and now allow my mind to wander a bit further than my organized self would normally permit. Surf the internet and look up a few things in more detail that I normally browse quickly though. Make an effort to wish a few friends good thoughts for the upcoming day, before they retire offline. Read. General relaxation and unwinding instead of go-go-go. Quiet. There's nothing scheduled for 2am that I should be doing.

Right now, I'm not quite tired enough for bed, which I'm guessing is to do with the fantastic sleep and rest I've been having. I've spent much time in good company, relaxing this evening.. I've reminded myself to take the time to connect with a few friends.. To say good night and wish them a good day tomorrow, or good luck with something challenging.

Unpressured by the light of daytime to be productive, what I'd like most right now (other than spending time, curled up with Smeagol) is to read. To stretch myself out and snuggle into a blanket and think a bit more. Maybe do something else creative. Maybe dream a little more. Maybe play guitar or draw. Any of those things, to do with the sole purpose of enjoying doing them, would be wonderful.. consciously encouraging myself to not produce something (task oriented), but just enjoy and experience what this quiet time is.

No planning for tomorrow or analyzing yesterday.. just enjoying the stillness right here, and right now...

I can haz haircut?

2008-07-23T23:39:00.000-07:00

Nothing too outrageous to report.... Mrs. Q graciously trimmed the back of my hair earlier today, and I'm super pleased! There was grocery shopping, house tidying, avoiding the Mt. Laundry situation, and hanging out with Adrielle for several hours while watching the last bit of the Planet Earth DVD 1, all of DVD 2, and all of DVD 3. Damn cool. (if anyone wants to watch some interesting stuff, check out a Bird of Paradise mating dance for funny, and the cordyceps fungus that makes ants crazy and then kills them from the inside out. Very "alien-esque"). She also spun up a storm of my blue lb of corridale. Very nice indeed.

It's now late and I'm going to have some tea, tidy up, and read a little bit. Tomorrow's plan involves seeing friends, bottling wine (maybe), getting the other two batches of wine sorted (2nd and final steps), and preparing for this weekend's adventure.

(And my freaking hot damn, still counting down 'till Smeagol comes home!! I can't wait.

Keeping busy

2008-07-22T00:29:00.000-07:00

Carm's stagette on Saturday was a hoot! There was much hollering, drinking, swinging around poles, somersaulting upside down, and woohooing.

I woke up the next day, still laughing... hungover, but still laughing. I called a few friends up to see if anyone was interested to go lay down in the sun somewhere and enjoy the day... as that was all I was up for doing. I had one taker and we ended up at Crescent Beach/Blackie Spit (protected bird migration spot):

It was really nice to lay out there. So relaxing and much quieter than the conventional beaches downtown. Ahhhh! Only thing that I wasn't as excited about was the water at Blackie Spit (where we'd decided to hang out)... it was quite marshy. Hmm. Bird habitat... marsh.. hmmm. Oh well, I went in the water anyways and squished about the fine sand sludge for a few minutes. This car was also spotted in the parking area:

Apparently someone has a thing for seashells! I drove home in the late afternoon/early evening and relaxed.. worked on spinning up the last of the red marino wool from Penelope Fibre Arts, and watched the movie Esoteric Agenda. I've been working on the sweater pretty steadily now, and here's where I was at as of last Friday
Today I took it easy as well, spending time up at English Bay with a friend --grabbed a pint of Guinness n' some nachos. Aaahhh. Sweet relaxation. I'm thinking I'm going to need a haircut soon. Maybe I can talk Mrs. Q into trimming the bottom for me when she's back! That's all for now.

A week already?

2008-07-17T23:57:00.000-07:00

Oops, lack of posting.. It's been a nice busy week --gorgeous outside and overall just good.

I've managed to

visit a number of visits outdoors to various parks (Ambleside, English Bay, New Brighton),

keep on knitting the sweater from "Fitted Knits"
go to a bridal shower for Carmelina, which involved a plethora of cupcakes. (The blue frosting incident killed my mixer, so I'm hoping to be replacing that sometime soon)

start another wine kit (Chardonnay with extra oak is now in the carboy, so the primary has a Pinot Noir)
do something funny to my back while lifting some of the previously mentioned wine
be responsible and take out the garbage/recycling on time
get the house back into reasonable shape
start laundry
see a whole variety of friends
start planning a few trips (Victoria, Tofino, Sunshine Coast)

I really should post more pictures of the sweater, but I haven't taken any because I'm a lazy bum.... I'm into the ribbing, but probably have to at least double what I have for that section to make it long enough, then I'll be onto picking up the stitches for the sleeves -- OH BOY! It's looking like a real sweater!

I'm getting excited for this coming weekend: going out with the girls, bbq, and then probably being a little hungover too. Hee hee hee.

Counting down the number of sleeps until I see Smeags again!!

Dearest Smeagol,

2008-07-10T23:03:00.001-07:00

Dearest Smeagol,

I miss you. The strange burst of Jelaina-piles around the house is back under control, and I've managed to even keep the kitchen tidy, as well as keep an eye on the wine. It's still awfully weird without you here at home, but nice to have the fish to keep me company.

Is it strange that I watch it for hours on end? They're very cute, the little fish.. but not nearly as cute as you. It's a nice thing to have to distract me. I get quite excited about them, and it seems like sometimes no one understands except you.

Thanks for calling me virtually each day. I'm sorry that things are sometimes retarded, but I know you'll be so happy to have finished your course. Our friends ask about you, and they're excited for you to be done, as well. They miss you lots and can't wait to see you too. I was thinking I could make a cake or something to celebrate --wouldn't that be yummmmm?

I keep staying up late, to odd hours.. passing time so when I finally lay my head on the pillow, I fall straight asleep.

You're one of the bestestest friends I've ever had and I miss your everything. When I'm with you, wrapped in your arms, it feels like the world is just right.

Love you.
I miss you.

I wait.

love,
me.

Whoa, busy week

2008-07-07T11:20:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been about 6-7 days since Smeagol has left for his course and a lot has happened. Here's a general summary of the last week with pictures!

Smeagol and I got back from camping with James and Stevie.. Here's Smeags (Right) at our local diner, pre coffee.

Of course then, there's the packing at home.. I've decided no pictures of this, but my Fedor-Fish died (previous post) and Smeags stopped in the middle of getting ready to help me bury him. To celebrate Fedor-fish being a good, lovely fish, I used the rest of the cake mix from the camping trip to bake a chocolate cake. Mmmmm cake!

Early the next morning was a little sad, taking Smeagol to the airport to see him off! I shmerped lots and kissed him a billion times before he walked through security. We saw other guys from the unit, so it was kinda nice to see some familiar faces.

I got back to the car to drive home and cried a little. I do that and I'm okay with it. Here's me and Smeags at the airport before his flight.

Later that day, I decided that I should get outside and enjoy the nice day.. do something with myself besides mope and moon over missing my love.

Dan the man came out on the Skytrain and we beverage. Voila, also went to hang out at the beach n' had a tasty my sweater in progress at the beach! We hung out at my house in the back yard for a few hours, while Mr. and Mrs. Landlord were away, and enjoyed the last of the sun.

Also this week, there had been some car adventure. First, a running light and all my dash lights were out, so I stopped by my step-dad T's for some supervision while I learned how to take apart the dash. There were three little lights that I had to change in the dash, which went pretty smoothly.

There was the funeral on Thursday for my late aunt. All I'll say was that it was hard but I made it though.

Friday night, after work, I went out to a bar with my friend Stevie, who's fast pitch team was having a fund raiser. I had a great time, but of course in my great wisdom, I forgot to pack extra clothes for the day after (I stayed at her place). I ended up putting on the stuff I wore the night before (classy!) and after breakfast I started driving over to stop by Dan the man's work.

I note that my car had been sounding rough for a few days and there was a hole in the muffler somewhere, making it really loud. On the drive over, I heard a loud "KA-thunk/scraaaape!" from the back of my car!

Pulling over at the first side street I could, I got out and looked at the back. My muffler had decided to become unattached and was barely hanging by two rubber rings. In my heels n' all, I grabbed a towel from the back of my car, got down and proceeded to rip the thing off and threw it in my trunk.

I went and had my visit with Dan and scored a free hot dog! Yipee!

I drove back home, and after getting in touch with my Step-Dad again, dropped the car off at his place. I got home and had a shower, etc etc.

Later that day, there was a BBQ at a Chi-Kit's place. Jeff, who I've known forever, picked me up to run around and do some errands, have a coffee, and then later picked me up on the way to the BBQ.

made some sangria, Jeff manned the BBQ most of the time (sporting his "Drink apple juice, OJ will kill you" Tshirt), and I ateIt was a pretty good time --the weather started to cooperate, I myself silly! As well, there was some funny playing of "Rock Band" where I determined that I couldn't sing, but sang anyways.

My car was also fixed in a really short time, exciting! I took her out on Sunday to visit Adrielle and go to Three Bags Full, where I picked up my very first set of Addi Lace circulars. Oh my freaking god, these things are so sexy. I cannot wait to get them into a serious project, but first-- Keep knitting the sweater, at least into the ribbing section... Right now I've had to tink back two rounds, which is making me a little crazy, but I'm almost there and going to throw a lifeline in there before I do anything else!

I'm thinking I'm going to try that Tuscany shawl, that Mrs. Q seems to be excited over, from the "No Sheep For You" book. I borrowed a copy from the library and I think it's definitely doable.

I "kidnapped" Adrielle and twisted her rubber arm to come on an adventure with me to White Rock. I figured I should take the car out and listen to her, see if there was anything else that sounded odd. Car ran beautifully and Adrielle n' I hung out at White Rock beach, walked the pier, went for ice cream and had some fish n' chips before enjoying the beautiful sunset on the drive home.

Later at home, Cat came by to have a few tasty beverages.. we hung out and watched George Carlin on youtube till both of us passed out in my living room.

(PS-Going to edit and add links later! Right now, breakfast is calling!)

Made it through

2008-07-04T01:12:00.001-07:00

I made it through the funeral today. Glad that it's done but I'm emotionally exhausted, and am going to hit the hay. Too tired to think right now. More tomorrow.

Older blurb about me

2008-07-02T18:34:00.001-07:00

I was looking through an old notebook that was given to me as a gift. The first thing I put into it, was a blurb that I felt described who I was at the time. This is what I had to say, year 2004-2005:

Me? Food, I love food... cooking, eating. Shopping for it... whatever. Its one of the most wicked things on the face of the earth and I want it to be all mine! I spend a lot of time outdoors and throwing myself up to the peaks of mountains... camping ready 365 1/4 days of the year. I'd rather be in Tofino in a tent listening to the hail rip my tarp down. The worst day fishing is better than the best day working... (With exception of that 16 hour canoe trip down the Thompson River all on a bagel and a case of beer). All things soft and funny are great (like my binary blanket). I'm a bit of a geek. Don’t sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things. I like watching hockey (or maybe it's just the beer), Good music and ass shaking provide me with hours of entertainment... though names of bands and songs, actors and singers all elude me.. Couldn’t tell you who that is on the radio... don’t care about brittney, if I like it , I'll listen to it and if i don’t know the words, dammit! I'll make them up as I go along (second verse, same as the first!)! Trying to find a good friend that I can call up at any hour in any weather... who can be ready to get out of town in a moment's notice and puts the lame "I need to watch (insert lame TV show here) tonight, I cant leave the house" in the trash where it belongs. Someone who is up for living life every day... I'm so sick of watching people dead to the life around them... crying over spilled milk and spending their lives all on the big screen television, a washing machine, new car, coupon super saving on Sunday, matching furniture sets, spoilers, and whatever that guy's name is who makes the ugly brown purses/wallets with his initials stamped all over them!! One style handbag is USD $2,240.00??!! WTF? I could think of better things to do with that money than buy a freaking bag! Really, I think that purse is UGLY and you couldn’t pay me to carry it around... Get over it. Start talking to the person right beside you! That’s what life’s about…Now on to living...

With Smeagol having departed for a month long training course, I'm reminded again to re-evaluate who I am, what's important to me, and the things I'm passionate about. There's a lot that the above paragraph still holds true, but maybe a few additions since a lot has happened since I wrote that. Something else in this notebook was a quote from the Paradox of Our Age, which says

"... We buy more but enjoy less... We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment... We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life, not life to years. ... We've done larger things, but not better things... We write more but learn less. We plan more but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait."

"These are times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses but broken homes.."

"..Remember, spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever. ...Remember to say " I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all, mean it. Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again."

My values more than ever before have shifted to the importance of day to day living. Why not try to enjoy every day of your life by making sure you include some important things? For me, some of these things during the week include:

Getting solid rest, most days
Sharing at least one meal with my partner a day
Getting things done during the week, so the weekend isn't bombarded with chores (some neat ideas are currently being inspired from Sarah)
Making meals from scratch rather than insta-microwave-meals
Making the effort to talk to people that matter to you, rather than waiting for a convenient time. Sometimes all it takes is a phone call or a letter.
(new!) Spend at least 10 minutes with my fish

Jennifer was writing on her blog about how to make time during the day and here's my response to ideas:
Ordinary tasks: (Laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, meal planning, general tidying, clean bathroom, etc)

This involves being very motivated for short periods of time and multi-tasking. If I am starting my week, I'll try to do this plan which takes me a few hours but then I don't have to do as much later in the week:

I'll get up and allot myself a bit of time to do the usual check email, have a coffee and make breakfast. This is usually a 1/2 hour to 40 min.

During breakfast/coffee, I set myself up for the week by evaluating what ordinary stuff I would like to do each day, and then write also the unusual "to dos" that come up (ie donation drop off, check on homebrew in the closet, etc). I also make up a grocery list and a general meal plan. I have a list of staple items that I keep stocked, which I know we'll use. Most of my lunch plans involve lots of easy stuff like leftovers with fruit and yogurt as a treat.

As soon as breakfast is eaten, I set up the dishes to be done (fill rinse tub tub, and sink) and let the dishes soak. I have my shower (spray down bathroom when I'm out to clean) and then throw some laundry on. Then, I get back to the dishes. Dishes dry while I take the rise water from the tub to water the plants with, wipe the table, stove, etc. I head back to the bathroom to wipe everything down.

At this point I may or may not do a spot sweep around the house until the laundry is ready to go in the dryer. At that point (when the laundry is in the dryer now) I'll run through the house and do a quick tidy (alloted 5 minutes in each area: office, living room, counter in kitchen, and bedroom). Since the dryer takes long-ish to dry, depending on the load, I now turn the time back up and put in a new load in the washer.

Now, with the time up on the dryer, I grab my shopping bags and head into the neighborhood to do the grocery shopping. If there are any unusual tasks to be done, I do them at this time. By the time I'm back, the laundry is dry and I cycle the wet stuff in. I put the groceries away and voila! Lots done in two or three hours. Smeagol helps put the dry dishes and laundry away when he gets in.

While I'm getting dinner ready in the evening, I look at what I want to cook later in the week, and sometimes do more food prep (ie. chopping veggies, etc) and store the extra in the fridge for later. As well, I make lunches at this time too. I keep a few batches of things I've frozen to reheat in case things get too busy or time gets tight to cook.

I suppose the easiest part about that routine is that if I keep it semi consistent, I don't even have to think about doing it, I just go through the motions. As well, giving myself a time line to do some of these things (ie. " I plan to be out and grocery shopping in one hour, so time to get my butt in gear!") and so if other things come up, and I've got spare alloted time, I'll do them... Like the 5 minutes in each area, for example. But if not, they get put on the list for later.

I also plan time for doing crafty stuff and time that I look at as "invested in me" rather than looking at it like "time that I could spend cleaning". In addition, I do a lot during the week, so that when Smeagol and I actually have spare time together, we don't spend the whole time cleaning or running errands. If dishes don't get done for 2 days on the weekend, well, as long as they're rinsed off and not smelling bad... who cares?!

Okay, I have to run away and do some work on the car! I found some moss growing in one of the water troughs earlier today.. Hmm.

An eulogy for Fedor-fish

2008-06-30T17:36:00.000-07:00

Fedor-fish was bought for my tank, from a pet store in Richmond, while I was living in south west Vancouver, to help with a snail problem that had exploded in my tank. I researched what I could to find a natural solution, and it seemed that clown loaches were recommended.

The first day I had him, I thought I had lost him! I searched everywhere, and could not find him for the life of me anywhere inside the tank. It wasn't until later, that I realized he had made his home hiding with the algae eater --he hid in the top of the tiny tree stump ornament while the algae eater hung half out of the opening at the bottom. The snails disappeared within a week and have never returned.

The pair, Fedor-fish and algae eater, had been pretty much inseparable. Swimming to and fro, hiding under various things together, they were adorable! Their growth in size (Fedor was a whopping 8cm/3.14 inches long) prompted me to pick up a larger tree ornament with a larger opening, so they could hide out together.

I noticed him acting strange today and was able to get a closer look at him. Looks like he had ich so I started a half dosage of fish medicine only a couple hours ago. It was hard to tell he was sick, as he spent so much of his time hiding, I couldn't see anything was wrong.

It's with great sadness that I announce Fedor-fish's passing away today, sometime within the last hour. He was found in the inside of his favorite tree ornament, with the algae eater guarding the door.

I spent a lot of time watching Fedor-fish swim, especially when Smeagol was away firefighting in the summer. He cheered me up when I was depressed and feeling lonely.. I sometimes even would hang out with the fish tank all evening, listening to the radio. Watching him do silly clown loach stuff, like laying on his side, and cuddling/schooling with the algae eater made me laugh.

Here is a picture of Fedor-fish, in happier days
Rest in peace little fishy. I'll miss you.

Camping with James and Stevie

2008-06-30T10:33:00.000-07:00

To enjoy the gorgeous weather we've been having, we jumped on James and Stevie's camping bandwagon at a secret location.

Voila, James and Stevie:

Here's Smeagol and me at the lake, a little hike away. (James has some terrific pictures I hope to snag later, of the time at the lake... His camera is waterproof, but mine... not so much... so it stayed at the lake edge)

Smeagol's perfect Smore
Myself and Stevie attempting some camping-cake! Take half cake mix, add an egg, some oil and milk and mix. Pour into small pie tins and add marshmellow for good luck.

Seal to make a tin foil/pie tin contraption. Proceed to cook over fire. Make sure you talk lots about wonder when they'll be done.

And then Ta-Da! (Add marshmellow on top as the one inside has melted to be one with the cake)

What a great time! Well, it's another gorgeous day out there, and we've finished our brunch --which means it's time to get Smeagol all packed up for tomorrow. *sniff* *sniff* He's taking a course with work that'll see him away for a little while.

PS- Congratulations Candace and Orion, on getting engaged!! Woohoo!

Brain activity --reboot!

2008-06-27T16:30:00.000-07:00

Ohhhhh yeah, there's this blog thing. I've been a couple fries short of a happy meal the last few days, so here's an update! Finally! With Pictures!

What have I been up to? Well last weekend there was the Victoria Fibrefest. Ooh La La! It turned out to be a gorgeous, somewhat sleep deprived weekend. I presented Rabbitch a pot of coffee one morning, which I had to venture out and procure sneakily. (Well okay, not so sneaky but, OMGWTFBBQ, we were one of two tables and the staff were nowhere. Hello?? Us ~~caffeine junkies~~ tired folks need coffee please?! I could go on. This ensured the rest of the humans we encountered would indeed remain unharmed. ) Here are some pictures Adrielle took of the day.

After the festival I pretty freaking tired. I drove us up to the ferry and we got parked in line.. It was only just after 6pm, and we were hoping to catch the 7pm.. but were told that it was sold out and so I quickly accepted we'd be on the 9pm back to Vancouver.

Adrielle and I grabbed a snack and I had just gotten comfortable to have a nap on the hood of the ol' Station Wagon.. my eyelids heavy and falling asleep.. when I noticed something was different. The car in front of me was moving away!! I realised they were trying to cram a few more vehicles into the 7pm ferry after all and our lane was (at least partially) loading! With a "Holy %^@%$ we're loading, get in the car!!" Adrielle and I jumped in the wagon and we ended up getting on the ferry!

It took me about 2 days to regain brain activity and the ability to formulate complete sentences/thoughts.

I registered for my classes, for the fall semester! Got every one of the classes I was hoping for! Yay! Cake for everyone!

On Wednesday, I re-organized my stash! I've decided that the felted bag project (at the bottom) is going to the Frog Pond. (Notice the pretty rectangular bag above it? I picked that up at a sample sale for cheap!! yipee!)

And also, the picture above is taken against my fish tank stand! That's right, I've finally moved my fish tank back home. Since Fedor the clown loach and Sucker, the algae eater were the last two in there, I decided to pick up a few more fish at the local pet shop.

I got three small clown loaches to add to the school, as well as some zebra danios (as top feeders)
With the stash reorganization, I realized I haven't bought any fibre since my trip to Toronto this past April. That's about 2 months of no yarn/roving purchasing! Crazy, isn't it? I think I'm just really happy with my stash. That being said, I also started organizing a plethora of projects.

I just finished putting the armhole stitches on waste yarn for the V-Neck Sweater. Mrs. Q humbly took some pictures of me at the local coffee shop, ~~being a goofball~~ modeling both my SIP and my new Ravelry shirt!! Heart (eleventybillion). It's amazing she still goes out in public with me!
And today, I did a couple knit rounds and tried it on.

Ooooh baby!! Check out my armhole!

Okay, I'm a dork, but so stoked this sweater is getting there and actually looks like something. YIPEE!

one of my favorite pics from the weekend

2008-06-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

because I'm tired, and nothing makes any sense right now. more later!

Sad news

2008-06-19T17:22:00.000-07:00

This is a short post, as I'm not sure entirely how to put any of this:

My name, Jelaina, is based on a tradition in my father's family that each first born girl per generation is named Jelena (my mum changed a few letters to make it more unique). My aunt Jelena, who was named so in the generation before me, passed away today.

I'm wavering between okay and really upset... I know she wasn't in the best of health, but it doesn't make it feel any better.

Maybe more later.

Cheakamus Lake

2008-06-16T16:39:00.000-07:00

Last week, I hiked up to Cheakamus Lake with Cat, to camp for two nights! Do I feel accomplished? yes! What did I learn? to pack lighter!! It was an easy trail, made a little difficult by the amount of junk I was packing up, and I'd be excited to do it again... but with less stuff and more carefully planned meals.

Also interesting, was that the three other girls that we were with were knitters!!! Mwahaha --we're everywhere! One of the group even had brought her knitted leg warmers!

Thanks Cat, for the invite!

me and Cat, on the way up, with all our stuff!

at camp

at Singing Creek

view at one of the camp sites

Kevin with the fish-spear/marshmallow roaster

Sunset from our camp site

me spotting the parking lot on the hike out

Adventure and strange noises (unrelated)

2008-06-12T00:39:00.000-07:00

Looks like tomorrow I'll be headed over (backpacking) to Cheakamus Lake with my friend Cat (and people she knows) to camp for a couple days. Very exciting! I'm very excited and anxious at the same time. I've packed and repacked my bag... it still seems really heavy. Probably due to my heavy tent and also the bottle of wine. Hmmm. I think they both gotta stay. Maybe I'm just being a pansy cause I haven't carried a pack in such a long time... But I think I'll be just fine.

I went to a Clubtread meetup tonight to hear Gordon White speak about his new book --2nd edtion of the Stein Valley (a guidebook). I got to meet him and everything! How cool is that, eh? I bought a book and hopefully will read through on my trip (above). I also won a groundsheet in a draw! Yipee!!! I feel like lucky today. I freaked some muggles out with my sweater-in-progress.. (pictures soon)

Now that I'm back home.. the house is quiet... it's creeping me out that Smeags isn't here! eeeeeeeee.. even the fridge is making weird noises. CREEPY.

PS-Rabbitch lent me a spinning wheel. Mrs. Q delivered and gave me a quick lesson. Just wait till Smeags sees this in the living room... ooooooh boy.

PPS-I've been playing a game called the Longest Journey (computer game). .... and I finished it today!

Want (some thoughts)

2008-06-08T21:45:00.000-07:00

I want to

hike up somewhere beautiful when the snow melts
drink Sangria all summer long
finish putting together my photos
catch some lake rainbow trout
get back on the wagon with running
go clothing shopping (first must put together a list and budget)
organize a cycling trip
someone else to organize one cool trip/adventure this summer

and

not screw up the 6-10th rows of the sweater I just started. AGAIN. (le sigh)

How many pitchers of Sangria?

2008-06-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

Six.

Smeags and I decided to put together a small last minute social. Adrielle was over earlier and helped us get the food stuff together, including some very very tasty crab stuffed mushroom caps. YUM! A few friends in the area stopped by and we of course made them help us with our try at Sangria. We ended up making six pitchers of the stuff by the time the night was done --Oops!

On another note, I've decided that I should finally start the V-Neck sweater from S. Japel's "Fitted Knits" book. Apparently I also need to pickup some 5.5mm circulars... another trip to the yarn store...

I can has frisbee?

2008-06-05T12:35:00.000-07:00

Thats right! Park goers, lookout! For the thrilling price of $1.00 and tax, I am now a proud owner of a red Frisbee! Yipeeeeeee!

Too bad it's pouring rain outside. Sniffle. Maybe when Smeags gets home, we'll throw it around the house....

It's raining again

2008-06-03T17:38:00.001-07:00

and there's nothing too exciting going on here! Here's the picture I had mentioned, of me, in Peru.
Stay dry out there!

Last minute overnighter

2008-06-02T11:41:00.000-07:00

I stole Smeagol just after he finished work on Friday-- I finished work in the early afternoon and then decided to throw our camping stuff in the station wagon for a last minute overnight camping trip.

We drove out to Golden Ears park, in Maple Ridge. The park can get really retardedly busy in the summer, as there are a lot of camp sites and it's pretty darn accessible for us city folk. Of course though, going when everyone else can go sometimes has a price: the Weekend Warrior Yahoos (WWY).

Smeags and I had just finished setting up the tent when a SUV of folks, around the same age as us, peeled into the site directly beside ours. Windows rolled down, blaring Snoop Dogg's "Drop it like it's hot." Even further, as the car was parking, one of the shirtless gentlemen jumped and ran into the forest to pee in plain view of everyone. Soon after they were parked, a girl in a dress jumped out with a small dog in her arms.

I'd really like to dispel the whole stereotype of associating these activities with young people, but for God's sakes, these people seemed like they didn't have a clue as to what was appropriate... that there are other places for partying and being that obnoxious, like clubs or backyard parties...

While everyone should have the opportunity to have a good time, it's completely disrespectful to force one person's party atmosphere on others, when the main purpose of getting out of the city is the opposite. I mean, what if someone went to a club and turned off all the music because it wasn't their idea of a good time? I bet someone would have a temper tantrum...

I shake my head. Some people's children.

Smeags and I looked at each other. Within 3 minutes, we put the tent quickly back in the car and drove to the other side of the campground and pulled into another site. We setup and hung out, enjoying the lack of "noise" we had come all this way for. (Now I actually don't mind the song at all, but since it was actually interfering with the ability to have a conversation, I can't say I was impressed. )

We hung out for about 4 hours (till after sundown) before seeing the park operator, which was a bit surprising. It had cooled off by quite a bit at this point and we looked forward to picking up some firewood off him. Smeags and I had some snacks and cuddled up when the fire got started. I'm thinking I should really pickup one of those two-seater camp chairs that have a drink holder: That'd be nice.

The next day we spent some time building rock fortresses and interpretive art while laying down at the Alouette Lake beach. Ahhhh sometimes a little relaxing goes a long ways.

a good reminder

2008-05-28T12:12:00.000-07:00

You know when you have days where you feel like you've fallen off the wagon and somehow you look back and realize that you've been off for more than a few days.. maybe months.. maybe years? It's a freaky realization... but figuring it out in the first place is half the battle. The second half is actually doing something about it.

I miss doing things outside, and it's been on my mind for a long time... but I finally started doing something about it. Yesterday, I got out with my friend Cat, in the morning, to go cycling. We went from our neighborhood by the PNE, down to Science World, onto the north side of the False Creek bike route and over to Stanley Park. It was a little cool out but it was wonderful. After hanging out at Lost Lagoon (and watching fish jump!), we went around downtown and stopped for a hot chocolate before heading back towards home. When I got in, I went directly to see my friend Stevie and go for a swim in her family's pool. Even more, we went to Aquafit in my neighborhood with Mrs. Q. in the evening. She has some notes about the pool...

By the time I got home, I was really tired. Smeagol had just gotten in from his workout too and we both hung out for a bit. He watched a show while I started to make progress on the contents of my photo bin --about the size of a Rubbermaid container-- which is full of pictures of the last 8 years of my life.

I looked through them and remembered moments during some of my adventures outside. Pictures of me on the trails and out camping.. it felt strange, but then I had a small epiphany. It's not the activities that I reminisce about missing, but it's the sense of accomplishment. Last night seeing a picture of myself on top of a ridge in the Cordillera Huayhuash (Peru) reminded me of exactly that.

That whole trip was a love/hate experience in so many ways, than it was of just traveling. I struggled with lots of personal feelings and my self worth. But being able to see myself smile in a picture, remembering exactly what I felt, is priceless.

My picture sits on the fridge now, to encourage me and remind me that I can do just about anything if I believe in myself first.

Adjustment in goals and enjoying the weekend

2008-05-25T23:25:00.000-07:00

I've had a fabulous, fabulous weekend! I also finished Week 1 completely of the C25K. Whoop whoop!

Friday night there was a year end party at Smeagol's unit and we were there from about open till close. This explains a lot about Saturday morning.... I had anticipated being a little hungover, in line with my hangover hiking goals, but this was somewhat ridiculous. I have no idea what I was thinking, but I think here's what went wrong:

eat a light early dinner (should have eaten again during the night.. even if it was a pizza pop)
drink beer for 4-5 hours (hello?????)
drink some water for 2 hours (apparently not enough)

I was planning on going out to Maple Ridge with Adrielle on Saturday morning, for a hike.. but indeed, I was retardedly hungover and barely managed to make it to her place after resting a while and a few visits to pay homage to the porcelain deity in my bathroom. I think I'm done with planning "hungover hiking" for now. Cross that off the list--we'll stick with non-hungover hiking until I'm back in season..

On the way, it was pointed out that I had a huge gash in my pants across my right buttcheek. Too hungover to care and remembering that I brought shorts, I kept on my journey to her place. Adrielle was very good natured about everything (thank the FSM for her patience). I laid on her front lawn for a while before actually going inside. She gave me some licorice tasting stuff which helped with the tummy situation, and reminded me to change from the peepshow pants to my shorts. Good idea.

We eventually drove to Maple Ridge with the intention of stopping at a yarn store and then going to either Alouette Lake or the Malcolm Knapp UBC Research Forest. Much to our dismay, the yarn store was closed. Damn. The hours posted indicated they should have been open, so we were a little disappointed. Instead, we stopped at a Quiltopia and window shopped at a few artisan places in the area. Eventually, I drove us up to Alouette Lake and we happily ate our sandwiches on the shore. Yipee!! It was a nice "no yarn store" consolation prize.

Today, Smeagol and I went out for a grand bike ride. Just the two of us, having a lovely bike date. I was distracted along the way by something wonderful and made Smeags stop too:

Those two ice cream cones didn't last very long! We ended up riding our bikes all the way to Kitsilano Beach and enjoyed a bit of the view. Vancouver is a beautiful place when it ain't raining outside. Alas, I was enjoying it so much I forgot to take more pictures... Oh well!

Tomorrow I'm going to try Week 2, Day 1 of the C25K. I'm a little nervous as I'm pretty tired from the cycling and the hungoverness of Saturday, as well as residually sore from running on Friday... but I'm going to do my best and we'll see!

Monday - heading home and some thoughts

2008-05-20T15:18:00.000-07:00

Smeagol and I had our flight back Monday afternoon. Rob Keene (spelling again?) had the same flight, so Smeagol and him talked while I did a bit of knitting/had a nap. We talked a little during the car ride home and came to a few conclusions about what our plan is for the next few years. It's easy to get caught up living life the way you think you should, but not necessarily thinking about what's really making you happy.

For now, I can say we'll probably be based out of Vancouver until I finish my degree, which is another 2-3 years, depending on how the schedule goes. Around the end of that time, who knows?! The world is our oyster.. and I like the idea of being able to be free to choose where I'll go after school is done. It seems like far away, but I think it'll go by really quick and part of me feels a little motivated to get through school quicker now that I see something at the end of that tunnel.

Another thought was wondering what was it, about Vancouver, that was keeping me here. A few years ago, I was so in love with this city and yet now... well.. I'm not so sure. It's beautiful but am I really taking advantage of the beauty of this city? Is it worth only being able to afford buying a 500 square foot closet to live in and paying off a mortgage when I'm 70 years old? Sure there isn't any snow, but it rains enough that I find myself indoors more often --so what would be the difference if it was snowy outside or not? Between the food and the shopping, I like what I can make here at home almost better than eating out and buying things, which I can't find, over the internet is becoming increasingly easy. I haven't finished thinking about this yet, but I'll post some more ramblings later.

Sunday-Sunshine and Silliness

2008-05-20T15:04:00.000-07:00

Checking out Charlie Lake, Playing with Danny's bow, Paul's house, Serious Croquet, the Flip, and Campfire sing-a-long (does anyone know more than just the first verse??!) including the Fort St John blues.... loving it!

I also had a nice talk with Rolande (spelling?!), Tom's wife, about living up north and her experiences. Made me think a little bit about what's kept me down at the coast here in BC and I'm sure I'll post some of my thoughts later..

The rest of Saturday-hanging and at Charlie Lake

2008-05-20T14:50:00.000-07:00

Here are some other various pictures before we went to the camp (side)

After the rookies jumped, Smeagol and I dropped by the golf course where many were gathering

for some serious (or rather, not so serious) golf. We observed the antics for a few minutes before heading back to the college to have some lunch. Afterwards, we made our way out of town to Charlie Lake where it was organized to camp and relax.

Arriving with Jimmy, we were the first folks there for that day. We unlocked the main building and explored.... there were two windows that had boards from the outside, which seemed odd at first, but looking from the inside-out, I was delighted to discover that there were about 15 bats that had made there home in one, and a single bat in the other. Damn cool!! I watch one clean itself by licking it's arm and wiping it's head.

The rest of the evening was really chilled out. Dinner of steak, salad, and corn on the cob was yummy, and hanging out by the fire was great.

Back from the north-Friday to Saturday morning

2008-05-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

We returned last night from the 10 year Parattack Reunion, in Fort St John/Charlie Lake which was a lot of fun! It was really good to see everyone, catch up, bullshit and hangout around the camp fire.

Here are a few of pictures of the first 24 hours:
Hanging out at the Parattack base while the current smokejumpers were getting ready to do their first jumps of the season, relaxing at the college, and the next morning watching the rookies jump.

Me and the parattack dummy.. apparently the dummy likes my knitting..

Darcy and Joel

Hanging out at the college-Eva and Jimmy making tacos

Me all grin-happy with Smeagol

Another of Eva (yay!)

Rookies doing a mock up

And a rookie's first jump

Before the flight

2008-05-16T09:26:00.000-07:00

I'm currently at Smeagol's work -we stopped on our way to the airport so he could wrap a few things up. Well actually stopped on the way isn't exactly the term, but he bribed me to come with promises of ice cream. I've had my ice cream and part of me is wishing I hadn't scarfed it so quickly!

I'm excited to head up to Fort St John and catch up with friends who I haven't seen for a good while--especially Eva, who's birthday was the day after mine! I hope to get some good pictures of the events... I'll be almost disappointed if someone doesn't go streaking!

Big Steps

2008-05-15T10:40:00.000-07:00

I've finally started actioning on two specific things that I've been meaning to do for a long time

Started the C25K (couch to 5k) running program and made a fitness plan outline
Made an active effort to get back in the outdoors community by posting on Clubtread

Couch to 5K/Fitness Plan
Ok, so here is what I'm hoping to do. Stick with the C25K running program, where I hopefully will take myself from being a couch potato to being able to run 5K. I've never liked running before (hated it, in fact) but I did Week 1, Day 1 yesterday: I was amazed at how doable it was and really enjoyed it. I procrastinated before the run by doing some stretching and a little strength training in my living room.

For the program, essentially there are intervals of running and walking, and you eventually build up to running the whole time. An ingenious person put together some music for download, so you don't have to actually stare at the watch, but instead just listen to the tunes for the time you are out which signals when it's time to walk/run. Freaking brilliant!! I was so inspired I tried to do some chin ups at the monkey bars. Thank goodness no one was watching...

Today I'm really freaking sore. >grin< I'm planning on doing the run on alternating days with yoga/stretching in between. I've been watching Tara Stiles on youtube, and she has some nice yoga videos which seem really straightforward and easy to follow along with. Here's the one I hope to get ideas from today

Aside from that, I'm planning on continuing eating balanced meals and drinking plenty of water in my pretty new water bottle from MEC (in pink!).

Outdoors
I used to be more active outside and I realized there were a number of reasons that have been keeping me from getting back into it-- namely my own personal issues and hang ups. I think I've worked through enough of them to feel a bit more confident and more self motivated. Talking things out with Smeags has been really helpful.. getting though my hang ups and trying to work past some low self esteem when it comes to a few particular things has been challenging, but I'm doing it, and that's what counts.

I finally reposted on Clubtread, which is a great outdoors/hiking community that I used to be a part of a number of years ago. I completely forgot about this site until the other day, when I was going through my sewing supplies and found some Clubtread patches (for bags, etc) that I had meant to sew on my backpack but never got around to. When I start doing more outdoors, I'll put it on.. but not before then.

I realize that I've spent a lot of time sorting things out at home, but now that some of my projects and to do's are winding down, I'm feeling like I can really be looking elsewhere for something to do without feeling like I'm not taking care of myself. Oh boy!! I'd like to do a trip out to Manning Park maybe some time in the next month, but we'll see if it actually happens.

While looking through my old hiking books and maps, I'm feeling a bit intimidated by all the information .. like I've got new person disease all over again. Oh well! With the trip to Fort St John this weekend, I'm going to look through my gear and start planning what I need to update in the big picture.

OH yeah. Smeags and I are flying to Fort St John tomorrow for the 10 yr reunion for Parattack. Camping, good company, and I'm almost betting on someone streaking..... Yipee!

Back in Vancouver, but not for long!

2008-05-13T19:58:00.000-07:00

This past weekend Smeagol and I took the ferry over to Victoria to visit our friends Andrew and Steph, as well as Stephen and Kim (who are also in Smeag's extended family). On the way, a pod of killer whales made an appearance which I'm sure was specifically to brighten my grumpy-trafficblowsgoats-mood.

Andrew and Steph are busy sorting their work lives out --Andrew applied and was accepted for an internal job posting at the company he works for.. Even more exciting is that this job posting is in France! They'll be moving in the not too distant future so it was nice to see them before things get crazy. We walked around the downtown, had coffee, stopped at the Temple of My People (as Mrs. Q would say!), and I also finished the socks! YIPEE!

And speaking of crazy things, Stephen and Kim are full fledged into their home renovation.. I love their place and it's becoming even more insanely beautiful (I didn't even know that was possible)! The exterior stuff is mostly done (well the main stuff I think??) and they've been working on all sorts of things for the interior--flooring, cabinetry, little beautiful details. We brought some of our home brewed wine over to ~~torture~~ share with them. It was nice to catch up and hang out in the new sun room at the back of the house. I am so excited to watch their creation of awesomeness.

Each time we visit them, it's kind of like time stops for a while and the world seems a little brighter.

A good spring cleaning

2008-05-07T09:39:00.001-07:00

A good spring cleaning has been taking place at home! It's exciting to finally be able to get rid of a number of things. At the same time, it's freaky how many things I've had a hard time letting go of. Besides material possessions, I've also done some personal housekeeping and am in the middle of sorting a few things for myself, as well as revising my own goals.

Last night I finally summarized my position when it comes to my student loans and other debt. I'm unhappy that I'm going into debt for school... but it's better to figure out where I'll stand in a few years, rather than pretending it doesn't exist. With my education so far, I can even calculate what I anticipate my monthly student loan repayments will be! Exciting, eh?

Some other thoughts that came to mind:

I'm happy with my stash. I have so many wonderful things in there to keep me busy, I don't feel like yarn shopping. (Crazy, isn't it?)
The same idea applies to most of the things I have in my home. I really just don't want more junk to cart around.
I'd like to finish a few projects that have been on the go for a VERY VERY long time (sort though my bin of photographs and finish this T-Shirt quilt that I've been meaning to do)

On another note, I'm having a difficult time forgetting spiteful words spoken to me. Snarky remarks, where the intent was to be hurtful or sarcastic. Usually I'm good with not worrying about these things, but in the last day.. it seems like all I can hear are these past words, over and over, and when I remember them, tears well up in my eyes and I feel hurt all over again. I'd like memories to fade where they don't bother me so much, however, I haven't figured that part out just yet. I guess maybe I'm a little depressed.

Anyhooo on with something a little cheerful... Here's a pic of my current SIP (first one done, second one in progress, in some lightweight pretty Socks That Rock on 2.0mm dpns..

And here are some pictures from my hair styling adventures.. The style on Friday didn't work out so well, so I ended up trying again on Saturday afternoon, following an idea on youtube. Here's the result:

I'm going to spend the rest of my day trying to finish the top piece of my T-shirt quilt and trying to mend my heart.

House work day

2008-05-02T11:09:00.001-07:00

I've decided today is going to be (hopefully) a "get a whole bunch of crap done around the house" kind of day, wearing my "I'm gonna get things done" apron. To ~~procrastinate~~ motivate myself, I've attempted to do my hair up in 1940's-50's hair do. Apparently I'm not that talented at finger rolling my hair... and the million feet of it is fighting with me.. so I've got lots of pins and fly aways.. Oh well! Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Maybe I'll post a picture later.

Getting any wiser?

2008-05-01T15:17:00.000-07:00

It was my birthday and I've been doing a lot of reflecting in preparation... none of which I'll discuss at this time. Instead here's how my day went:

I went to work and these jumped at me from my desk:

After work, I made my way to the cheese store where I picked up some brie, and stopped at the grocery for some crackers. I arrived at home and relaxed for a bit.. Smeagol came home and surprised me with this

And he also brought home an ice cream cake!! Here's me posing with my cheese, cake, flowers, and wine....

And to top it all off, surprise dinner at the Cannery (YUM).

What a lovely day!!!!!! Shmeeheart!

2008 Spring Semester is officially done!

2008-05-01T15:12:00.001-07:00

Looks like for my three classes, I got three A's! YIPEE!!!! Celebration!!

NOM NOM NOM!

Ontario Trip

2008-05-01T14:27:00.000-07:00

Ontario was good.. I was so glad to get out of Vancity for a bit. While Smeagol was working, I got to spend a nice day out with my friend Karen who's just finished her master's at U of T.

We hit up Romni Wool, Lettuce Knit, and another yarn store (can't recall the name sorry!). I managed to pick up a nice wood shawl pin and some Socks That Rock in a pretty purple/pink variated lightweight yarn. (I was so excited that I lost the ball band and finished the first sock within 48 hours. Wooo!) Yarn aside, Karen took me for sushi pizza. Interesting and very tasty! Smeagol met up with us at Future Cafe (hellllllo cake selection) and we walked to Casa Loma.

It was closed but it was nice to look at outside. My friend Jeffrey joined us for dinner at an Indian restaurant in the evening. Afterwards, Smeagol and I hung out with Karen and a friend of hers till we had to catch the subway back to the hotel.

On the last day of Smeagol's work we were on our way to drop the car off and managed to work in stopping by the Royal Ontario Museum to see the Dinosaur exhibit.

So very VERY cool. Maybe if accounting doesn't work out, I should try to become a paleontologist. As well, we grabbed some yummy coffee and cake at the Future Cafe... here's a pic of cake and the first sock:

The rest of the trip was spent hanging out with family in Oshawa, having some nice food/wine, and a day trip to Port Perry. I even managed to find Island Wool (craft store) there which was having a 50% off sale on all their knitting things (yarn, needles). With great restraint, I managed to walk away without buying anything. There wasn't too much I was really interested in, which helped.. although 50% on yarn is a little crazy.

I had a great trip!

(flight rant!)
Smeagol and I had a bit of a tight time catching our flight home... mostly to do with Air Canada's lack of staff combined with the HUGE line up to drop off Air Canada bags. (Actually it was the same situation on my flight up, barely making it though to board). There were several of us somewhat frustrated but trying to be patient.. HOWEVER after politely expressing concern, being told while in line, that if my baggage wasn't dropped off in the next fifteen minutes, I probably wouldn't be on the flight really pissed me off. Apparently arriving as recommended by Air Canada is my own fault...

My recommendations to Air Canada:

Change booking information to recommend arriving two hours before a domestic flight instead of one hour. Seriously, it would probably give their passengers a realistic expectation of processing time at the airport if they don't have the staff to deal with their customer volume.
Retrain staff thinking to focus on solutions for passenger concerns versus reiterating the problem back at them.

I have made an announced note to self, to try to avoid flying with Air Canada when I have the option. Generally, I've just been unimpressed by a whole variety of things I've experienced with them (negative experiences outweigh the positives). I think whenever I can, I'll try to fly with Westjet instead, even if it's a few bucks more.

Whoa time for updating!

2008-05-01T08:56:00.001-07:00

Ok so I've been slacking with the blogging.. I'm going to do my best to a few updates for the last week by the end of this morning! Stay tuned!

Happy and alive

2008-04-24T12:56:00.000-07:00

in Toronto/Oshawa. Things are awesome.. It's about 20 degrees and absolutely beautiful.

That is all for now.. be jealous-- here are a few pictures...

Royal Ontario Museum..

Global Cheese in Kensington Market

Lettuce Knit

Romni (yarn store)

Karen, in front of Romni

Almost the beginning...

2008-04-20T21:33:00.000-07:00

of a new 'season'! I have one LAST final exam, tomorrow, which I can't wait to get over with. It feels like it's been dragging ON and ON and ON, I hope I don't go crazy before I write it!

Anyhow, enough about school and on to adventure! Smeagol is flying to Toronto for work on Monday and I'm going to be flying over Wednesday --yipee! I've got a few friends who I'm excited to see as well as Smeagol's family (who live out that way). Last time we were in Ontario was during Xmas at the end of 2006, and I'm looking forward to seeing it not in the winter.

Planning so far had been put on hold pending information about a possible transit strike in Toronto, which I've been slightly freaked out over. However, it was announced earlier today that there'd be no strike, and I'm excited to start figuring out some of the details of my trip. With Smeags working during the day, I'll have the chance to explore on my own, see my friends, do a bunch of window shopping, and maybe even crash a knit night if I'm lucky!

Ahhhh oh the possibilities. I better get back to studying though.. don't want to start celebrating before I'm finished!

After the hurricane

2008-04-16T10:31:00.000-07:00

I'm finishing up the last bit of my "breakfast" which is way off timing (due to the fun pills) and will be heading down to the office soon.

I'd like to share a few pics with you .. here's

the finished Modified Fetching for Isa

my Eagle's Flight socks on 1.2mm circulars (thanks Francesca)
I've started with some ribbing first...

First attempt at making a version of "Fongs"
They are a little small, so will redo.. Plus Paton's Marino wool + summer = too warm!

and a lamp shade I had covered many, many years ago. I finally donated it yesterday. Sigh...

With all the resting I've done I feel a very strange (unusual?!) sense of calm as if all is right in the world.. Maybe it's the warmer weather and seeing cherry blossoms covering the streets of Vancouver.. Maybe it's winding down from school craziness.. Maybe it's cause things at home have been especially awesome lately and I'm completely smitten with Smeagol...

I'm not really sure... but I'm happy. I've got the urge to go pick flowers and frolic around!

On a side note, our landlords are going to be having another baby(!) --Actually, not too distant into the future either. I'd noticed that Mrs. Landlord was looking a bit curvier at the end of Feb.. Of course, didn't come out and say "hey it looks like you've put on a few pounds!" cause that would be kinda rude and I didn't think anything of it as people generally tend to put on a bit over winter. However, Smeagol did talk to her outside last week and yessiree she's about 6 months along! Our landlords are pretty awesome people and I'm really happy for them. I have this incredible urge to knit something, but what?

Okay, my time is up and food time has expired. Heading to the office!

Strep throat

2008-04-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

i gotz it. can i haz a refund?

I picked up my prescription and just finished reading over the info-pamphlet. Looks like take pretty pills on an empty stomach (I just ate) and take at least 2-3 hours after having any dairy, and wait another hour before having any dairy. Le sigh. My whole diet is virtually comprised of yogurt, cheese and lattes. Damn. I guess I'm going to have to wait until I get home from my exam.

Interesting possible side effects include "black hairy tongue." (WTF? totally weird. How the heck does that happen??)

Let's hope my tongue stays normal and that I get better soon.

Stop spending money on coffee... and "Ooh Girl"

2008-04-13T22:30:00.000-07:00

My friend Brenda is doing the Walk for Miracles this June, and is trying to hit a goal of $2k.

Why not take the cash you'd spend buying coffee/tea in one day (or two) and sponsor her instead? Whether that's a 50 cent cup, $8.00 at Starbucks, every little bit will help her reach the goal!

I'm going to take the cash I'd normally spend buying beer ~~before~~ after my final exam tomorrow and donating it, along with coffee change this week.

Besides.. I think I may or may not have strep throat (going to the doctor's first thing tomorrow). So no drinking for me. (Cry. cry. cry.)

Speaking of drinking, Smeagol and I bottled the wine today (merlot!). He picked up a kit for making Chardonnay which we'll start later this week. (Oh Yay!)

Anyhow, I need to go rest. For your further amusement, I highly recommend watching this video clip. It's entitled "Ooh Girl".

The Fetching is done!

2008-04-12T11:46:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd share.. it's only taken me the whole first quarter of 2008 to do them. laugh.
Now on to finishing a few things that I wanted to send to my friend Ivana, who's in France. (Her birthday was last month, it's terrible that I haven't finished them.... I also want to buy some Blessed Juno soap to send from Rabbitch.. hmmm!!)

Almost done the fetching and stupid yarn tricks

2008-04-10T08:40:00.001-07:00

That's right!! I even picked up the thumb stitches in dim lighting after several drinks without screwing up (though I decided not to start cause I couldn't see much of anything). Previously there was an incident with putting the thumb stitches on waste yarn.

Since I had a very short piece of waste yarn, and decided I HAD TO DO IT RIGHT THEN, I decided to try and move the stitches (before I was done the rest of the glove) off the waste yarn and on to something else. Prepare yourself for Jel's stupid yarn trick of the day:

Do you know what that is? Neither do I. Scary thing is that I wasn't even drinking when this happened.

I frogged back the few rows and reknit them last night at the Three Bags Full's knitting circle before going to watch a Gentle Infidel's show, along with Mrs. Q. It was my first time out at the Three Bags knit night and I had a good adventure. There was lots of Ravelry talk/gossip(!Ravelraiser was a success! What's going on with Hipknits/Magknits?!) and chocolate things. I will definitely try to make it back considering Smeagol has army training usually at that time anyways. Mrs. Q finished her (second round) socks:

The Getle Infidel's show was at the interesting Cafe Montmartre. They had brie cheese things and crepes like the delicious ones below. I'm very critical of crepes and while I'm usually disappointed, I thoroughly enjoyed these:

Apparently Mrs. Q did too as nary a scrap was left on our plates!

Today I'm going to spend some time studying Statistics with a friend from school. Considering that our class pre-final exam percent statistics are this:

and that the average is 59.3% , I would normally be a bit worried.... However, the highest grade is sitting at 94.0% and that belongs to me!!! To get the next grade up (at 96%) I think I'm going to have to do near perfect, so there's the challenge. Fingers crossed.

I'm off to find my coffee and get my butt in gear!

Crazy yarnies -Ravelraiser 2008

2008-04-09T11:17:00.001-07:00

Well this will be a quick post! I've been lurking in the 10 Lousy Bucks group on Ravelry for the last day.. there is a fund raiser going on right now and it's going really well. There are awesome prizes donated and I definitely hope (fingers crossed) I win something! (Draw entries close May 2, I think)

It started out to raise about $5k for a new Ravelry server for Jess and Casey.. which happened yesterday! A new goal was set to raise enough money to set Ravelry debt free, goal of $30k.

From yesterday to this morning, the donations have gone from $5,000 to $27,394 (last posted). Freaking amazing. Considering Ravelry is free to users and that Jess n' Casey worked so hard to get this going (and are still working hard!), I can't wait to see how far we can take it!

WahHoo!

Update at 5:17pm PST $29,166!!

Last day of the semester

2008-04-08T12:25:00.001-07:00

And since I have a break for two hours.. I think I'm going to treat myself to a snack and a tasty beverage to celebrate.

(Two projects/assignments to submit still, but I think I'm on the right track to being done.)

WAHOOOO!

PS: There was a welcome home bbq for a friend, who's recently returned from a tour overseas, the Saturday which just past. There was maniac laughter, interpretive dancing, and competitive pantsless beer-chugging.. Report later!

A fine line

2008-04-05T13:42:00.000-07:00

Dinner yesterday was pretty awesome! I wish I'd taken pictures but I completely forgot with all the yummy nibblies, so all I have is a pic of most of the platter I made (before I left).

Voila!

Grin!

Anyhow, I did have the interesting experience of talking to someone who I'd be quite happy never to talk to again. I've looked into some thoughts and found some great opinions here, and have included some excerpts below:

Confidence and Arrogance

Both confidence and arrogance both deal with understanding one's own areas of strength. A confident person will also understand that every person is a complete package of strengths and weaknesses, including themselves, and will remain humble in both. An arrogant person will often neglect to acknowledge weakness in light of playing up the strengths.

There's a fine line between confidence and arrogance. They can be easily confused, one for the other, and the line between them is humility. Confidence is something that can be admired and respected by others. Without humility, however, confidence becomes arrogance which disgusts people.

An arrogant person may seem to ignore any areas of weakness and only play up areas of strength, but they often do so because of an inability to come to terms with weakness. A confident person finds the root of their confidence in self acceptance - a key confidence vs arrogance difference. A confident person accepts their weaknesses or faults, even though they may not like them. This acceptance enables the confident person to handle faults with grace and without further compacting the areas of weakness with arrogance.

The effects of confidence vs arrogance on relationships clearly mark the difference between the two characteristics. An arrogant person tends to brag and can put others down in an attempt to be the best or come out the coolest.

A confident person is above such antics. They recognize their strengths and weaknesses, and allow that other people will have strengths and weaknesses. A confident person need not make life a competition, so a confident person is often much easier to be around. An arrogant person can be cocky and difficult to reason with, making conversation difficult and bothersome.

---
Let's say I was so disgusted with a certain someone's behavior, I found myself tempted to drive a dpn through their temple.. but I'm glad I didn't have my knitting with me, as that would have resulted in dropped stitches, bloody mess, and probably an assault charge. What have I learned from this?

Don't bother debating with arrogant idiots. They won't get it.

PS:

Setting another goal.. or two

2008-04-04T11:46:00.000-07:00

I've always thought of running as something you did to torture yourself. While I've been running adverse (ie hated it) pretty much my whole life, I see a lot of people who run that enjoy it. I realize it's one of the more convenient things you can do to be active and right now lots of changes in my life are all about making them convenient/easy to incorporate.

Adrielle recommended checking out the C25K program (also a website here too) a long ways back. I looked it up again today (did you know there is a Ravelry C25K group here too?) and I'm going to think about planning this out, to start after April 8th. Adrielle is a great resource of taking care of yourself... whenever I can't think of something, she seems to always have an idea (or three) to try.

I'd love to start this program with another person, for encouragement, even if we did the runs on our own (in our own respective areas) but at the same times during the week, so we could be in touch before and after the run. Being able to complain to someone that is in the same boat is motivating.... cause misery loves company! Any takers?

Another thing I've been slightly concerned with is the lack of knitting I've been doing lately. I mean I'm still working on my version of Fetching for my best friend, but other than that.. I've got nothing else on the go! (Gasp!) I am not sure what I should be knitting next... and feeling too tired to think of something small but interesting. Heck, even last week I tried to spit-felt some superwash marino together and couldn't figure out why it wasn't working.. There's a lot of sock yarn in the stash, but.. I guess I'd done a few pairs of socks in a row and I'm a little burnt out at the moment. Le sigh.

Tonight, James and Stevie are having us over for dinner and I've been asked to bring a cheese plate. Smeagol had to remind me last night to not get so excited... "cheese as an appy not as a main course!" Crazy cheese plate or not, I'm stoked for seeing our friends and having a nice meal.

Is the glass half full or half empty?

2008-04-03T22:49:00.000-07:00

I've been having some trouble falling sleeping lately (besides the times staying up late and drinking) when I'm tired. We've all been there, lying in bed with my mind racing a million miles away. I wish those hamsters would quit working overtime. I'm going to try a few things, like making a better effort to give myself wind down time in the evening, and maybe laying off the coffee after noon. End sleepless rant.

Pertinent to a discussion with some friends, I looked up accounting at cafepress.com, for some accounting swag inspiration. I found this, here:
Hee hee hee....

Feels like a perpetual hangover

2008-04-01T12:21:00.000-07:00

Probably because over the last week or so I've generally not slept much and attended a variety of social events. I think I am going to be picking and choosing my social engagements quite carefully for the next while so I can actually get some proper rest.

Tonight, I'm going to meet up with a friend for nibblies and a bit of a venting session. As talking with this friend yesterday, about a certain relationship, I summed it up with "Don't be a crutch for others!'' ....Life is too short to waste on relationships of convenience, nor people that don't actually give a flying hamster about who you really are. A relationship of any kind shouldn't be one sided.

I'm putting it out there, with the season changing to spring, consider reflecting on the winter past and start planning to move forward. Winter can be one of the loneliest times of the year (stuck indoors, not as much daylight) and I've seen many people flailing to find someone to latch on to, to pass the time.

How much of yourself have you put in a relationship that was convenient?

Who was it with?
How much time/effort did you put in?
What did you want from it?
How did you feel?
Was it worth it?
What did you learn?

Anyhow.. more probably later... I better go get some food before I attack someone.

PS: You know you due for change when: you're running really late and you're actually in a better mood because you realize you don't have to deal with the massive crowds of people who were on time, and also when you feel like crushing the souls of people who are loudly overly happy on the bus. (crush).

Accounting Club + Beer = Hangover and hiking

2008-03-31T11:15:00.000-07:00

Friday night marked the Accounting Club's semester end social! An intimate group turned out for some tasty food, lots of beer, and good music! I even managed to scare a few people with my knitting. (Mwahaha)
A few pictures that turned out okay:

El presidente

borrachos estudiantes de contabilidad
(left to right: Jay, Corina, Tanya, Adam, me)

Finally the time came when we had to leave. Sniffle. Adam and I took the bus downtown and after a long stumble, we arrived at the Loose Moose pub for some more beer. We thought this was a great idea, however come Saturday morning, I realized drinking from 5:30pm to 1:30am was a really, REALLY bad idea. Smeagol was gracious to come down to hang out for a bit, and take me home. Next time, would someone remind me to drink some water?

I spent most of Saturday (to early afternoon) feeling pretty green but did manage to putter about with Colm to see a friend and have food at Nyala before sleeping early that night. It was slushing out part of the day, and I was greatly unimpressed. When the heck is spring going to be here?!

Sunday, however, gave me some hope. It was kinda sunny outside and after a mountain of chores, Smeagol and I went for a hike. It was more of a walk than a hike through the mountain, but it's been a long while since I've gotten out and I hope to do this more often now that I'm not stuck with the 9-5 life. We went here and walked to the north end of the lake. It rained a bit on the way back, but we didn't mind. Sigh! I can't wait to do this more often!

Financial Management Midterm 2 done

2008-03-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit frustrated that I didn't get much sleep at all last night! For some reason, my brain wouldn't switch over to that unconscious mode until some time between 3:15am-4:00am. I'm completely uncoordinated and dragging myself around campus kinda like a zombie chicken. I did manage to finish the entire midterm under the time limit, so that's a good thing. I was terrified I'd have a repeat incident of the math final that didn't go so well last semester. Breathing sighs of relief. At least my underwear is on right side in today.

Brawk. Brawk. Now to go scratch at the coffee machine in the cafeteria....

If you need some additional amusement, here's Rowan Atkinson playing an invisible piano...

Know you're tired when

2008-03-27T00:02:00.000-07:00

you realize half way through the day that you put your underwear on inside out....

and don't care?

Financial Management Midterm 2 tomorrow! Cramming late as usual...

I expect to wake up half awake and mostly retarded tomorrow morning and probably won't be human 'till after 12 noon.

More then. After several coffees.

on the way home

2008-03-23T01:41:00.000-07:00

I went out this evening to visit a friend and meet new people. I had a really good time, once I started to wake up (hello iced coffee) and started talking more. When the end of the evening roleld around, I had to walk up to catch the bus in the neighborhood of the downtown eastside. Upon missing several buses (being a block away and watching them wizz by) I had some time to kill, so I pulled out a dishcloth I had recently just cast on and began to knit away.

The downtown east side is never a dull day for me... and tonight was definitely not an exception. A girl came by the bus stop where I was waiting and began talking about something she'd "screwed up." From what I understood, she seemed pretty young, from Terrace, and had met some people yesterday that turned out not so swell which resulted in not "being able to go home".... wherever that was, in the DTES. Without divulging into detail, we talked for some time (as well as with the rest of the people at the bus stop). She asked what I thought she should do.. and the best thing I could think to say was that she should definitely go talk to someone.. that she would be no worse off if anything, so she had nothing to lose. She opened up to the idea of taking a walk to the police station (just in case they were open). A safer place to talk to someone that could maybe help her. A kind lady at the bus stop (who seemed to know the area) offered to walk with her there and that was the last I saw of them two.

I wish I had known more to help this girl, but I had no idea of places to go that would be safe, that she could get some immediate help. I'm really thankful that someone at the bus stop did. Who ever you are, I send you a big thank you to you for caring about this girl too, at 1:30 in the morning, and sharing your knowledge to try and help her. Here's to hope.

Results in from the Statistics Midterm 2

2008-03-22T13:47:00.000-07:00

and it looks like I got the top mark!

>Grin<
>happy dance<

Re: yesterday's post to do with stamping my "food": I meant "foot'. Oops. Blogging at ridiculous hours of the day is not recommended for clarity.

I'm off to go check on Mrs. Q's kittens!

Good Friday

2008-03-22T00:26:00.000-07:00

a la bachelor-girl.

Sigh! It's Good Friday and Smeagol is away on exercise for a few days. I was looking forward to this weekend, as we've been so busy lately, but I miss him like crazy and the house is oddly quiet without him. le sigh-shmerp. I'm not so motivated at the moment (which may have to do with the fact it's quite late).

Tomorrow will be a productive day! >stamps food and waves fist triumphantly< Maybe I can co-ordinate with Rabbitch this weekend to buy some pretty things....

Blog stats from Oct 1 to March 19

2008-03-20T13:11:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm currently procrastinating studying (for just a bit) and have spent a bit of time looking over my google analytics data. Here's some neat info I found:

Reader stats
Location, top 3 for most visits:

USA (with 1,074 visits). Top city in USA: Milpitas, California
Canada (at 594). Top city in Canada: Vancouver, British Columbia
UK (at 80). Top city in UK: London

Some of the various keywords used:

jelaina.com (and jelaina.blogspot.com and jelaina blogspot)
ebonofier
Harlot pics
everyday normal guy rap lyrics
math rant
bullshit final exams
bunch of bullshit
cnd flying hamster game
dead flies on window sill
cleaning da crib
flying hampsters (whee!)
fort st john
girl suck monkey (eeewww)
I want to glue my pyrex dish
vancouver drivers suck
what is a "blue steel impersonation"?
smeagol motivational poster

Neato!! Seeing that my top Canadian city was Vancouver, BC was expected... but finding out that my top USA city was Milpitas, California was a surprise! I don't know too much about California, but if I ever were to go.. I wonder what Milpitas would be like! I guess I'm going to spend some time on google... of course not right this moment.. I'm going to go study my face off for my Stats midterm #2. Later today, Smeagol is taking me to look at a property in the neighborhood. Oh boy!

PS-there's an organic locally produced chocolate sale at school today. I fell victim to this and this.

"OOPS."

Want to give me a ride? How about a DPN up your nose?

2008-03-19T21:04:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention, last week I had a nice evening out with my friends Adam, Rob, and Andy, at the moose.

Which involved several of these:

Afterwards, I started walking down to Smeagol's work (army) which was about 10 min via the heel toe express. About half way into it I had a creepy weirdo drive slowly by in his car and try to:

Get a date with me, by
trying to persuade me to get in his car
by following me and shouting "Sinorita.. where are you going? I'll give you a ride. Get in. It's a party!" (helllo creepy!!)

So of course I told him where to go, and how to get there. This involved several words which I can't exactly remember but I definitely won't repeat. He didn't get the hint and followed me (by CIRCLING the block several times, in downtown, which is full of one way streets--how creepy is that?!). After the second and third round of being harassed, I was pretty pissed off, (a little tipsy), and seriously weirded out, so I decided of course to

take a picture of him for my blog (who knows if that could've come in handy too)
call Smeagol to come meet me part way immediately
contemplate stabbing him with my dpns if he got too close (they were well within reach....)

Smeagol and our friend James came a-running down the street right away (mind Smeagol completely ignored the cars and ran briefly into traffic, worried this wacko was still following me, completely with no regard of his own risk, that Smeagol vs. Car = not so good).

I saw no more of creepy weirdo guy, thank goodness. Here's two pictures for your mockery. (I was across the street, no way I was getting near him, so they're a little underexposed).

Never a dull day eh? In light of recent events in Vancouver here and here, and well.. things that can happen virtually at any time, I'd really recommend being aware of your surroundings and letting someone know where you are! Be safe!!!!

I'm really touched that Smeagol took me seriously when I was freaked out. In past experiences (pre-Smeagol, younger Jelaina), similar things have happened, and there were definitely times I was let down by the people around me in my life.

Here's a past experience I've decided to share, below. It's something that I'll never forget, and something that has forever changed the way I think about my own safety. This isn't because it was a wild event, but because someone I counted on let me down badly.

Caution: Depressing.
I recall one event I was being severely harassed (by a weirdo in some kind of sports car) in a not so great neighborhood. This guy's actions had disturbed me so much that I decided to call the police. I tried to call 911 on a public payphone and since it was one of the "not usual telephone company" kinds of public pay phones, it wouldn't make the call.

An automatic message informed me that "911 was a restricted number". Seriously, WTF? In addition, the second number I tried calling (to reach certain people to come get me/meet me, which were at my destination) was also apparently "restricted". I ran to another phone and had the same problem, however, this one didn't restrict the phone number of the place I was going to (to call someone to meet me).

During this call, I was greatly disappointed by the response I received. I was told to "just call a cab" and that the person I thought I could count on was essentially too busy playing cards and having fun to be bothered with my "overreaction". Click. Never mind that I've been followed for the past 8 blocks and have liberally told the weirdo to go f**k himself several times.

I was really upset and now angry. The car that was harassing me came by AGAIN . I remembered I had been hiking earlier that day and had my "bear pepper spray" still with me. A full can of mostly cayenne pepper oil, pressurized to be effective from a distance. It was better than nothing, so I improvised--- As this guy rolled down his window I pulled the pepper spray off my belt, took the safety piece off, and aimed it right in his window.

His mouth gaped open. "What's that?" he asked nervously, "75% cayenne pepper oil in an pressurized can" I replied, "and if you don't get the f**k away from me, I'm going to empty this can, in your car, right now." He peeled out. I eventually made it to my destination with no further problems and as for discussing the disappointment I had.. well.. let's just say that's a whole other can o' worms.
End sharing story.

Oh and PS: I changed a few things on the blog... font size.. type.. colour.. let me know if it doesn't work for you.

A month or so to go...

2008-03-19T20:22:00.001-07:00

St Patrick's Day came and went.. and now we're already close to Easter! I've been working ever so slowly on the pair of fingerless gloves (or rather, the second half of the pair) and I hope I can gain some serious speed this weekend--Smeagol is on exercise and I'm bachelor girl for about 3 days!

I've sent a package to someone on Ravelry, who was in need of some Drops Alpaca I had in my stash. The spare ball I had was excess of the very first socks that I ever made. Oh the memories! Oh the drinking! Oh the "why don't these stop falling down?" She's trading me for some Trekking, and I've been waiting by the mail box drooling since.

In the meantime, I've been attacked my Statistics Midterm 2 and Communications Job Package preparation for my place of Mass Instruction. On the bright side, next week there's a year end social for the Accounting Club (yes, I belong to an Accounting Club). Adam has graciously picked me up an early-bird ticket. I think I may even get a free beverage with purchase! oh boy!

I'm off and away to prepare defending myself tomorrow. Like trying to lace a pair of boots with wet lasagna noodles. Or a train wreck going at full tilt --even if I know it may be completely bust, go big or go home.

Happy Pi Day!

2008-03-14T23:58:00.000-07:00

Wishing each and everyone of you a Happy Pi Day! Woop to the 3.14

oh and for those with a saucy nature, it's also this celebratory holiday.. cough.

So here's to hoping you have some pie on Pi day... and uh.. steak if applicable.

Give me my hour back and no one gets hurt

2008-03-11T16:39:00.000-07:00

Day two of Daylight Savings Time coming into effect. Between being mildly retarded and super klutzy when I'm half awake in the morning, I think I'm losing this battle. Anyhow, a variety of things to be excited about:

I'm just finishing up the first half of my version of Fetching. If you have an account on Ravlery, here's what I've done. (Or if you'd like me to email you, just leave me a comment)

I also went to the FibreFestival last weekend (ooh ahh!) where I spent several hours walking in circles, fondling things. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I think one of my favorite pictures is of this cute furry creature below. I managed to wrangle myself down to a swift (Malabrigo incident, no more!), some roving, Princess Farms laceweight yarn (55% angora, 45% silk.. oh so lovely), and 5 felting needles.

"What are ewe looking at?"

I've already managed to break 3 out of the 5 felting needles, and only poked myself once! I've created a sort of "wooly-rat" looking 3-D creature that I'm going to bestow upon my stepdad for grand practical joke purposes.

Educating myself seems to be going well, but it looks as though I'm going to need to put a bit more work in than I had anticipated, which is just fine. I find being awake and well rested does wonders for my ability to learn, so this week has been slow. On the other hand, there seems to be some sort of interpretive 3-D media selectively displayed around campus.

Voila, the viewing of the extinct corded phone. Booohooo.

Last, there was a military dinner event which Smeagol and I got to get all dolled up for! Evening dress and fancy Wisp, n' all. I could go on an on, but the highlights (besides the food) included the pipes band, and jazz band after for dancing. Ahh loveliness. I even managed to take home some flowers at the end. Shmerp!

In OTHER exciting news, I hear Rabbitch has recently virtually quit her evil job that sucks soggy goat balls.. okay so she's moved to casual status instead, but really she's moving on to being a beautiful, strategically placed underwear, gorgeous fibre dying, ninja. Huzzah!

Trying to decide about summer school

2008-03-06T12:58:00.001-08:00

One of the best things about debating whether or not to go take classes in the upcoming summer semester is getting the registration guide and seeing that the financial classes I need towards the diploma aren't even offered!

I'm going to see if there's other classes I need to take, but so far all I've found is one class which runs 4 days a week from 12-2pm (or maybe it was 2-4pm).. This would make work impossible, so I guess that decides that.

Now I don't feel so guilty.