I think we missed the fall harvest...

Seeing as there is a little sprinkling of snow on the ground now.

This is the result of our gardening efforts this year. Not quite bountiful, but it's pretty damn cute.



First he was green, then he turned red. Our Christmas Pepper.
Except I don't think he'll last that long.


I sorta don't want to eat him. I kinda want to see if he'll turn orange next.

How I know I'm a freakin' awesome girlfriend

See that?



It's a crusty loaf of bread.

AND.... I made it. ME. In a dutch oven. (Actually, technically what we have is called a french oven.)

Sounds more impressive than it really is. Because when you get right down to it... it's another "just add water" recipe. The recipe is that super easy No Knead Recipe going around the blog-verse. Of course, with my tendency to over - think and over-analyze things, I had a few issues and challenges.

"active dry yeast"
Okay... I had bread machine yeast. Is that active dry yeast? It didn't really say on the jar I had, but since it was the only yeast I had, I had no choice but to use it. That was an easy deliberation.

"warm room temperature, about 70 degrees."
What does 70 degrees translate to? Because where I come from, the house is always around 17 degrees. I had a feeling that 17 degrees is colder than the bread would like to be resting at. So I stuck it in the oven.

"what do you mean you stuck it in the oven?"
As R pointed out, I could have melted my melamine mixing bowl. Shit. Didn't think of that.

"The dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles."
The first time I made this bread. No bubbles. I thought a lot about the fact that there were no bubbles. I have no idea why there were no bubbles. The second time I made this bread, there were so many bubbles - it scared the crap out of me after I saw it breathing on its own out of the corner of my eye.

"When it's ready, the dough will have doubled in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger."
Um. It looks the same to me. Poked it a few times. Absolutely could not tell if it "readily" sprung (sprung? sprang?) back.

"At least 20 minutes before the dough is ready"
aka "At least three hours after you've forgotten about it"

"heat oven to 475 degrees."
Shit. My new, very precious, dutch oven has a heating maximum of 375 degrees. Fuck. An hour of googling later (Google, how i love thee) I realized that I had racially profiled my little pot incorrectly. He's FRENCH. Not Dutch! French ones have a [insert more technical term here that is not "plastic"] handle at the top which prevent you from heating it in the oven more than 375 degrees, unless you want to kill everybody in your house with toxic fumes as the handle melts and causes world-wide catastrophe. At least, that's pretty much the implications I took away with me when R told me not to heat it beyond 375 degrees. So I improvised. I stuck the oven in at 375 degrees for around 40 minutes, then I took the lid off and blasted it for another 15 minutes at 475 degrees.

I'm so clever.

On another note, if you want to double the recipe - don't forget to double the flour too. Just a friendly reminder ... I know most people wouldn't need this reminder... but some people might find it helpful.

When you don't have cable and don't listen to the radio.

Everybody's freaking out about H1N1 these days. So I hear. Lots of pandemic planning going on. Lots of meetings on what to do if everybody got sick at the same time.

It's all I can do in these meetings not to voice my concerns over all of this "preparedness". So I'll get it out of my system here.

My real concern is this - if the entire town turned into raging, blood-thirsty zombies with a viral infection that is transmitted through projectile vomiting - it's quite likely that R and I will have no freakin' clue until I start my morning walk to work and wonder where everybody is.

Too bad I can't take out an RESP for this...

Where's the ruby slippers to take me to Kansas City, when I need 'em?

Yarn and Felt SCHOOL. This is homework I wouldn't mind doing.

Check it out :: here ::

If you're going. I'm SO jealous.

Berry Gluttons

We've totally taken advantage of the farmer's markets over the past few weekends. It's our favourite thing now.

The first weekend we went, we bought three containers of strawberries, two pints of blackberries, two containers of blueberries and two containers of raspberries. I had it in the back of my mind to take some into work every day.

GONE. BY. MONDAY.



We seriously can't get enough. It's so yummy.

Look what the girls found on the weekend.

The first time I saw the bones of a dead fish, I was convinced we had discovered the remains of some prehistoric fish species due to the ginormous teeth coming out of its head. Never mind the fact that we were just on the outskirts of Burlington, ON.

But this... this has to be a dinosaur.... or dragon.



Lunch, anyone?

The actual conversation we had about gardening

As an addendum to my previous post, I thought I'd record the conversation we had about not having a garden this year.

circa: 16 may 2009

The first thing we needed in order to start our square foot garden was a wood box. We didn't have a bottomless wood box, so we had to plan a trip out to the hardware store....and then the nursery for seeds and soil ...and this and that and that and this.

R: We need to get a saw.

N: We don't have a saw?

R: No.

N: Can't they cut the wood for you at the store?

R: Only you know these things. You know things that nobody knows.
*or some paraphase of what he actually said*

N: Should we go to Home Depot?

....

N: Want to stay home and read?

R: Okay.

I really did pass first year Botany with an A.

We nixed the idea of a garden. 

Did I mention that we were looking into square foot gardening? Check it out :: here :: From what I can tell, you build square boxes, divvy it up into square sections and you magically grow awesome veggies ...and  fruit? Not sure about the fruit...but hell, why not.  Yes. You magically grow awesome fruits and veggies allll summer.

*Nobody will listen to me anyways by the time they finish reading this.*

I was filled with fantasies about walking into the backyard and picking out veggies for our dinner salad every night.  Apparently with this method, you don't really need to weed. (Don't quote me on that.) We were going to be all cool, green and eco-y this year with our backyard. I was thinking that we would save all this money and cut our grocery bill by 20% (okay, I made up that number) by growing our own fruits and veggies. Nevermind the fact that we buy two zucchinis and three tomatoes every week versus the 8 apples and 6 bananas that would be impossible for us to grow this summer...and that I've let salad mix compost IN our fridge more times than R would like to acknowledge

Numbers aside, reality tried to hint at me after I spent two weeks admiring the blooming magnolias in our neighbourhood. I even took pictures of them with my Blackberry. I even marveled and GUSHED at the one growing in our neighbour's backyard while he stared at me - no doubt slightly uncomfortable by my sudden and unexpected enthusiasm for his magnolia tree. I forced R into a conversation about how much I loved magnolias, how they were Jane's favourite tree but that I didn't think I would like to have one because they bloom for two seconds and then get messy afterwards. 

Then one Saturday, a few weeks ago, I walked to the back of OUR yard and around the corner.

No freakin' shit.


We own one.

Then I did the same thing last weekend. We were walking down the street with the girls and I made R stop and smell a lilac tree (bush?). He had a cold, so I practically shoved a bloom up his nose because I really wanted him to smell how yummy it was. That afternoon, I walked to the back of our yard...

... and yeah... we own a lilac bush (tree?) too.

We also have some funky looking tulips ....

...and some lily of the valley's ...

There's a few random bushes as well. Most of which have either been trampled down, dug out or stripped bare of any greenery due to the combined efforts of the girls.  Actually, I can't blame it all on the girls. I pulled an entire plant out the other day when I was trying to get all the brown stalks off. So I made ONE hole. The rest of them belong to Dayna and Nori's dirt-flying competitions. 

Reality then whacked me upside the head when we spent a few hours raking up all the dead leaves left over from the fall. I was giving myself the heebie-jeebies every time I lifted a pile of leaves to reveal the wet underside and all the icky, crawly things went scurrying everywhere. The first time I shrieked, R just looked up and said very patiently: "It's nature."  That's just ...icky. NATURE is when we were walking in the ravine and we saw two hawks tearing apart a groundhog. 

Fast forward to mother's day weekend and I was trying to help by cleaning out the leaves in our back stairwell and I ended up shrieking "TOO MANY LEGS! TOO MANY LEGS!". A pathetically obvious attempt for R to come and rescue me. Finally, I gave up (since he was clearly not coming) and ran squealing into the backyard and danced around to stop my skin crawling. Mr. Ossi just looked at me - not much fazes him -  while R said to me: "I THOUGHT I heard some funny noises. Was that you?" Not much fazes him either.

Of course it was ME!  That was not the romantic response I was looking for.

This is coming from the man who spent a week laughing about the time that I went to Blue Mountain, saw flies in our room and told the front desk that there were 12 flies in our room. TWELVE.  She was also quite unsympathetic and told me "Welcome to the country." And then firmly assured me that although they keep spare towels, toothbrushes and shampoos for their guests, they did not have any fly swatters. Not exactly the romantic or helpful response there either. We were clearly not on the same frequency.  R was highly amused that it bothered me enough to report it and that I had to report the exact number of them.

Anyways, country crap aside, there's really no way we would realistically devote the time and energy to nuturing a garden this summer.  It's definitely on the list for next year. Someone just needs to invent a bug free garden, is all.

As a compromise I'm going to try and buy local at the farmer's markets which are starting to pop up in and around London.  We made this decision about two weeks ago and have yet to visit one of the big ones.  We seem to keep missing them. We've tried the small one downtown but it's mostly herb or tomato plants, bison and some rhubarb at the moment. I've come to the realization that buying local also implies that you know how to cook meals that involve more than "just add water". My staple.

I barely shake 'n bake chicken. What the heck would I do with a bison?

... and seriously, if someone asked you right now, what a rhubarb looked like... would you be able to describe it?  Just sayin'.

Found

Yep. I'm still kicking around.

We've been keeping busy. I've got a bunch of half typed up blog posts sitting in my file. Partly to blame is the fact that it takes so flippin' long to launch my iPhoto and upload photos from the camera. For the most part however, everything is very much stewing within the cesspool of my brain. I think it's a combo-case of start - itis and indecisiveness. I know I'm not making much sense but let's just say that I've been toying with the idea of selling my crafts either on Etsy or have R build me a shop under a personal domain.

When I started teaching a few weeks ago, I was all fired up to teach crafting classes as well. I had awesome (to me) workshops and craft kits planned out. I put everything together (and had a whole ton of fun doing it) and then stalled. This is not surprising. Whenever I used to play "office" or "teacher" as a kid, I just liked setting everything up - I didn't actually spend much time playing the game. Anyways, the one major roadblock to all of this? I really hate marketing myself. Plus I weighed the teaching time against the personal crafting time and I thought: "Meh". There are other reasons as well, but for now I have my piano/theatre arts/craft studio shelved until another time.

So yeah, lots of waffling. Sell stuff online? Or teach workshops? Or both?

.... Or neither?

I'm still teaching piano though (grand roster of one student) and I'm really enjoying it. I've also fallen back in love with playing regularly again.... which is another something that has cut into my crafting and blogging time. The list of songs I want to learn and re-learn keeps growing every time I sit on the bench. I'm incredibly rusty and it's a bit painful to hear since I know how I used to be able to play the pieces... 10 years ago. Ouch. But it's still awesome.

There's been lots of knitting going on still and a bit of weaving. R and I have also had a few guests over too! So unusual for our normal hermit-like tendencies. Here's our favourite guy who came to visit over the long weekend.

It's amazing how one little man can exhaust four adults. Apparently, he's what people call an "altitude" baby. Pretty much, one of us had to be standing (absolutely NO sitting) around and dancing the entire weekend.

Yeah...that picture pretty much sums us up.

Anyways, lots on the list for the summer. It's going to be a good one!

Happy Belated Anniversary to Me!

So my four year blog anniversary came and went very quietly. I toyed with the idea of doing a giveaway but given the eclectic collection of people who read this blog just for my postings about my parents, there really wasn't anything I could give to a "winner" even if I could get you guys to delurk and make a smarmy comment.

What I did do was spend some time going through my archives. Unlike most of the blogs I read, I don't have a focus for this one. I used to think I had to make it about one thing or another but then I realized I've never done just one thing. Ever. And really, my target audience is me. Anyways, I loved going through my old posts and reliving my theatre work, remembering Nori as a puppy, and all these anecdotes about my family that I never want to forget.

I pulled a list of some of my favourite blog entries together.

This was the time I almost developed multiple personalities because science hadn't perfected cloning humans in time for one of my theatre shows :: here ::

Then there was the time when Nori was on speed and went through withdrawal for three days. :: here ::

What amuses me to no end is that Dayna is truly THE second child. I used to know the consistency, density and viscosity of Every. Single. One. of Nori's poops. Now... I couldn't even tell you if either of them did their morning business. We (okay, just me) freaked out over everything Nori did or didn't do. Last night, I heard some painful sounding yelps of the Dayna-variety...but did I rush upstairs to go see what was wrong? Nope. I was in the middle of crafting and I didn't hear my name being bellowed so I figured everything was fine. Terrible. (Dayna caught her tail in the door but she's cool. That's another thing we've had to get used to ...a dog with a tail that thumps into things.)



Anyways... I digress again. R and I often talk about how much fun we had at my cousin Jen's wedding a couple of summer's ago. It was such a fun weekend away for us and we missed most of the family drama but it was awesome hearing about it afterwards. It cracks me up how much they worried about R (aka "Rostol") being my boyfriend given the initial sleeping arrangements prior to the wedding. :: here ::

Then there was the progress made when my parents finally realized there was nothing they could do about us living in sin - already a cult favourite :: here ::

Well, despite all that HAS changed in the past year with R going back to school and our move to a new city, our relationships really hasn't evolved that much from this :: here ::

On a crafting note, I've definitely noticed that the more I do, the more I want to do. (Ya think?!?) My projects from four years ago seem so juvenile to me now but I was pretty happy with them back then. I spent the weekend working on a bunch of new things.



I'm REALLY happy with the way they turned out. I wonder what I'll think about them four years from now?

I teach music ...and repeatable phrases

I started teaching piano lessons way back when I was around 15 or 16. Ironically, they were the children of some of my high school music teachers. Then word got around and my roster expanded. When I finished high school, I moved to Guelph for my undergraduate and I taught through most of those years as well, with the Ontario Conservatory of Music in Guelph, since I didn't have a piano of my own back then.

Teaching for a studio was really convenient but I was limited in the sort of pedagogy that I wanted to explore as a music teacher despite my lack of formal training in that area. Teaching at home, I turned my parent's house upside down playing Music Note Bowling Down the Front Stairs. Trust me, students learn their musical alphabet really fast playing this game.

Once I moved back to Toronto, the teaching got pushed aside with all of my theatre work but it's always been in the back of mind. So I'm really excited now to start teaching again.

I had my first lesson with a student last week. She lives across the street (next door to Tango) and her mom just jumped at the chance when she heard I wanted to get back into teaching. The lesson went really well. I'm not sure who had more fun. Me or Rebecca. At any rate, the feedback was very positive and enthusiastic.

On Saturday, we ended up going for a dogwalk with my mom, my sister, Tango, Tango's dad and Rebecca and her mom. In all my years of teaching, it has been extremely rare for me to bump into a student outside of a lesson, the class or theatre. Clearly I need to do a little more filtering from now on. (Although, in general, R has warned me about my tendency to blurt things out without looking around to see who is within earshot)

During the walk, Dayna took two poops within five minutes of each other and my mom made a comment about it.

I called over my shoulder with: "Yeah.. Dayna's a double dumper."

Then I hear:

"Mom! What's a double dumper?"

oops.

This is my problem

"The irony of multitasking is that it's exhausting: when you're doing two or three things simultaneously, you use more energy than the sum of energy required to do each task independently. You're also cheating yourself because you're not doing anything excellently. You're compromising your virtuosity. In the words of T. S. Elliot, you're 'distracted from distractions by distractions'."

~ Twyla Tharp, "The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life"

...although, I am doing most things rather excellently.

:: I'm 75% done warping the loom for my next big project.
:: I'm planning another weaving project on a small Dorothy loom I picked up off of Craigslist over the weekend.
:: I knit another baby sweater and just need to sew on buttons.
:: I'm planning out activities and lesson plans for my new creativenture. (Surprise! I'm going back to teaching piano again! My new-to-me 100 year old FREE piano is getting delivered today. Just FYI, when you ask the universe for a free piano, it's actually not that hard to come by.)
:: I've got a new quilt project planned out and just need to start cutting.
:: I turned the heel on another sock that I'm working on.

So everything is going rather excellently.... Just nothing that involves putting away laundry, cleaning the gunk in the back corner of the fridge or gardening.

Earth Hour 2009!

We participated in last year's Earth Hour and ended up walking along Lake Ontario to view the effects of Earth Hour on the city of Toronto. Unfortunately, it was a little disappointing. Plus Nori gave us a collective heart attack when she jumped onto the ice and we all had visions of it collapsing out from under her. Anyways, I'm sure a lot of people participated last year, but the sun hadn't quite set yet and it didn't look like many of the businesses in the city's financial district were participating. So I didn't get the cool black-out I was hoping for. But you know...that's just my wishful thinking.



Be the voice of positive change in your world, sign up for Earth Hour and get your friends to do the same! You can access the link :: here ::

Savouring

I've been trying to embrace the quiet moments. My days are busy with lots of noise and a constant stream of information flowing in and out.  The silence between the words is what I've been craving.  December should be enjoyed and not full to the brim of oppressing obligations. Lately, I've been trying to wrap up 2008 as much as possible and allowing myself to let go of things that I just won't have time to do.


We're adjusting well to Life in the new city. The snow is beautiful and we haven't tired of it. Even bought that shovel finally - notice the singularity in that.  I should probably get another one before R dumps a pile of snow down the back of my neck as retribution. The house is cold despite what our gas bill says so I've been gravitating towards warm blankets, thick socks and heavy sweaters.  I'm trying for a (mostly) handmade Christmas and to simplify the gifts this year. I don't know why I always feel like I have to get people more than one prezzie. Partly, it's fun for me because I usually have a few ideas of what people will like, but it's not necessary as R will remind me.

Nori is having an awesome time. She's still puppy-like whenever we go out to the park and there's snow for her to burrow into. She never minds the cold and is still going into the river no matter what the temperature is. Evidently, Elkhound paws are immune to frostbite. Just today, she found the remains of some small animal skull and decided that it would be good to roll on top of it. Repeatedly. Yum.


Nori has a new friend who lives across the street. This is Tango. So incredibly lovable and placid. Their favourite thing to do is taking toys away from each other. In this picture, Tango is practicing his highly effective "I'm taller than you" evasive maneuver.


I picked up a new hobby and now I'm in danger of falling down another dark path to complement it. (I've been bitten by the spinning bug! Good lord. I'm in trouble.) These are my beginner coasters and were woven on a LeClerc Dorothy Table Loom. I'm currently debating whether to purchase the table loom or to just go with a 36" floor loom which I can get at an incredible deal.


I've made six wonky coasters (unintentionally, of varying sizes) as my beginner project and now I'm working on a matching table runner. Learning how to weave has been a fantastic experience. I can't wait to explore this more in 2009 with different textiles, materials and projects.




I'm such a sucker for a new hobby. 

We haven't even bought a shovel yet...

5:00pm :: Walking home. Cold. Wet. Miserable. Major ugh.

6:30pm :: Walking Nori. Savouring the peace and solitude of the ravine. Small chunky flakes start to fall onto the Thames River. Ignore screams of the three girls smoking weed up ahead on the trail.

7:00pm :: Watching Nori run circles around a baying hound as huge chunky flakes start to fall. Laugh at her antics.

7:30pm :: Make dinner. Look outside kitchen window and say to self "I can't believe it's snowing!"

11:00pm :: Take Nori out for a pee. Say to self, "I can't believe it's STILL snowing!"

12:00pm :: Go to bed.

12:30pm :: Wonder how the pond is doing and whether we should be worried about the sump pump.

1:00am :: Say to self, "SHIT...the pond is still going. Oh well" Try to fall back asleep.

1:30am :: Power goes out.

1:32am :: Power comes back on.

2:30am :: Hear big crash. Raise head. See Nori raise head. R is snoring. Try to go back to sleep. Say to self, "I guess the sump pump emptied itself out? Maybe?"

2:45am :: Trying to sleep. Worry about the sump pump and envision dire consequences of flooding in the basement due to sump pump and the pond.

3:00am :: Can't sleep. Haul self out of bed to check things out. Walk past the kitchen window and think to self, "Wow. It's STILL snowing!"

3:01am :: Basement seems fine. Smells fishy but that's just Nori following me around (evidently she rolled in something disgusting on our walk).

3:03am :: Walk past the kitchen window and think to self, "Did we have that many leaves covering our window before?" (Realization that I'm incredibly vapid when thinking to myself. No need to be profound.)

3:05am :: Open the front door. Say out loud: "HO. LY. SHIT."



3:20a.m. :: After discussing situation with R, go outside to investigate damage. Investigation hampered by minimal vision due to wet snow falling on glasses.

3:22a.m. :: Spend a few moments appreciating the beauty of the moment.

3:23a.m. :: Walk out from under our tree.

3:24a.m. :: Watch branch fall right where I was standing moments before.

3:25a.m. :: Nori goes to inspect branch. Decide that it's too dangerous for us to be standing outside. Note that more branches have fallen on the wires connecting our house to the main hydro line. Feel concern.

3:26a.m. :: Unplug the pond. Appears to be fine.

3:45a.m. :: After reading the City of London website and learning about the local weed bylaws and lawn infractions, R convinces me to call the police. Call Non-emergency police hotline. Discuss with woman why she thought my call to her was pointless.

3:50a.m. :: Email pictures to co-workers and notify them I'll be late in the morning...with good reason.

3:55a.m. :: Power goes out

8:00a.m. :: Wake up. It's still snowing. View carnage and note that Nori's stick supply has managed to replenish itself.



We were going to get a pumpkin tonight and carve it. But unless, we figure out how to get that tree removed, we may not be participating in Hallowe'en this year.



R and I laughed this morning about how one of the big selling points for us to move to this house were the old trees in the neighbourhood. The destruction around us is incredible.



We lucked out though. *crosses fingers* A coworker told me that her friend had a tree fall on BOTH of the cars parked in her driveway. Oh.



I was just informed that the sump pump is completely independent of the pond.

oh.

Pointless worrying? Check.

Popping In

I've lapsed into another blog silence by accident. Just busy settling into our new life here in a different city. It's been fun adjusting. There's been a lot of:

Unpacking
Exploring
Reorganizing
Meeting of the neighbours
Remembering to take the garbage out to the curb.
Not being able to sleep because you're wondering if the raccoons are going to throw your garbage around the street in anger because all they've found is empty soup cans and unwanted take out menus.
Debating whether or not we should rake the leaves because everybody else on our street has.
Deciding that the novelty of raking leaves has quickly lost its appeal seeing as the trees are still shedding and give up after making five neat piles in the backyard. (Note that after five minutes, piles have disappeared)
Ploughing down students on my way to work because clearly, my body is still programmed to walk at mach five toronto commuter pace.
Screaming at every single spider I see and scaring the be-jaysus out of Nori.

So ya know. The usual.

Anyways, hope you're enjoying the fall weather! We certainly are.



These days, R studies... while Nori tries to help him procrastinate



We've been enjoying our walks a lot more since Nori's been off leash for almost two months now. She's definitely enjoying this freedom to run and explore, but she's also become more obedient as a result. It's SO awesome. She continues her personal mission to destroy sticks, but you can't win them all. A girl has to have a few vices.



I haven't been doing much knitting these last few weeks but I have been collecting acorn caps.... cute, huh?



Things are good. (Miss ya!)

Last few days on the balcony...

One of Nori's favourite spots in her world is people watching from our balcony.

She's the biggest busybody EVER. So flippin' nosy about stuff that it makes me ache with the cuteness of it all being part of who she is.

I love watching her hear or see something really interesting and then she's craning her neck to get a good view of what's going on.

Soon we'll be saying good bye to the balcony....and hello, to a new backyard!

Hello Life

Motivated solely by the overwhelming amount of smack talk I've been getting from my readers (otherwise, singularly known as Jane) about how boring my blog has become due to the lack of actual blogging, I find myself writing a quick update post to ...well, how do you say it?

SHUT HER UP.

Since I last posted, this is what I have been up to..

:Planned a surprise 60th party for my mom

:Managed to actually surprise our mom despite our dad being the worse secret keeper EVER

:Turned 31 with a Starbucks birthday breakfast, a BBQ feast and still looking like a 12 year old

:Sewed a tote bag

:Sewed two zippered pouches

:Resigned from my job with a tentative end date that depends on when I get a new job

:Went on my first interview in six years

:Didn't get the job

:Finished five knitting projects: one stroller blanket, two cowls, one pair of pedicure socks and one ballband dishcloth

:Told my parents that R and I are going to move to London and NOT get married

:Stuck to my guns even as my mom tried to bribe me with the grand piano

:Saw two movies - "Wanted" and "The Dark Knight"

:Did not scream during "The Dark Knight" - *cough* Like Jane did *cough*

:Had six weeks of open houses for the condo

:Watched R spend six weeks vacuuming up Nori-fur EVERY. DAY.

:Spent six weeks keeping Nori out of the condo and discovered she has an inexplicable hate-on for schnauzers and most other dogs who rush over to her to say hi

:Laughed at people who asked if the bed was going to be sold with the condo

:Sold the condo; kept the bed

:Spent $75 on a new dog trainer who told us that Nori's fine. She hasn't turned savage on us. She's just telling dogs to screw off because she has no tolerance for inappropriate greeting rituals. Crotch first, then a face -to-face hello. She's a lady, that one!

:Welcomed Baby Alexander, of Pete & Tash fame, into the world of raucous laughter and stupid jokes

:Celebrated R's dad's 70th birthday and did not take any pictures

So it's been a busy summer. I'll provide more indepth details of these events when I can. (Ya, we've all heard that, right?) Well... I'll at least leave you with the details of our Stitch "N Pitch night a few weeks ago.

Jane and I had a rollickin' good time at the Jays game. We went with hundreds of knitters to the Sky Dome (Wait, is it still called the sky dome or did they change the name again?) to watch the Blue Jays play against another team... um, who wore green.

Stitch 'n Pitch was a special event organized by the National NeedleArts Association and I believe there were many of these nights held all over North America.

It was a great blend of interests. Jane got to watch baseball. We got to hang out together (with her cousin, Sarah, who spent the entire time wondering how she got coerced into coming with us) and I got to knit. Jane took out her knitting to show us proof that she belonged in the knitter's section and then didn't touch it again for the rest of the game. She was too busy riding the baseball emotional rollercoaster to knit.


I haven't been to a game in almost 10 years. The last time I was there, I spent the entire time ducking wayward balls flying over to our section. With good reason. The people who had our seats the night before told us that the person sitting in front of them got a baseball in the face. The Hell Kind of Whacked Out Game is This?

I had no idea what was going on with the game. Luckily, Jane knew everything about everybody and why everybody was doing what they were doing. She told me why people were booing. She explained why they were cheering. She jumped up and boogied when everybody else was boogie-ing.

At the end of the game, she turned to me and said: "You seriously just came here to knit?" Yes.

The Jays won the game. (Thank god because I think the other knitters would have pummeled them with their needles if they hadn't.)

I was still knitting when the game was over. I didn't notice that everybody was standing up because somehow...SOMEHOW... I managed to drop a flippin' stitch. It was an intense moment.

Stupid baseball. (Although, note Jane's ecstatic reaction to the Jay's winning and Sarah's "I can't believe we're related" expression)

Global News was there to film the event too. They had the most trite opening introduction to the segment: "At the Jay's Game tonight, everybody was on.... [insert dramatic pause]... pins and needles"

Are you kidding me?

The camera guy got some nice action shots of me knitting my ballband dishcloth. Evidently this was considered fascinating enough for the National News. It did make the segment even though I was very concious of the fact that I was being filmed and I was going to either a) collapse from the pressure or b) swear out loud because the pressure made me drop a stitch or c) start to giggle uncontrollably like the knitter sitting across the aisle from me was doing

I opted for (c) and the segment included the back of my head as I laughed rather hysterically at something Jane said.

Next year ... Jumbo-tron.

I've added it to my list of Life Goals.

Google Reader

Oh, how I love thee... but you overfloweth.

I'm playing catch up with my life. I'll blog as soon as things are a bit more manageable.

Here's the little gimlet that kept us hopping for a week.



As R so succintly said the other day: Peetown, USA.

Natalie is

... not into hard liquor or drugs, but the confluence of errors on others' parts might push me there.

On a happy note, we're puppy sitting for the week! Check out Bronte, the bearded lady pup!



Happy Friday, peeps!