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| Thursday, May 15th, 2008 | | 9:43 am |
Yesterday my family was suddenly the model for the ' family squeeze'. Z had been feverish for a little more than a day so I decided to take her to the doctor and got an appointment around 11:30. As I was waiting for the doctor, my sister called to ask me to take my mom to the doctor to look at her neck (It had been hurting since friday). My mom's doctor was not in, so since I was already around Women's College, my parents decided to meet me there and go to the urgent care clinic there. Think an emergency room without the blood and screaming, but with all the waiting. My sister and I split the waiting time - she came and relieved me at 3:30pm so I could get Z out of the room filled with sick people. But she and I spent a total of 8 hours t the hospital. I'm just glad I'm not an only chld. | | Monday, May 12th, 2008 | | 11:55 am |
Every year my knitting seems to have a theme. Some years it's colour work, some years it's cables. This year it seems to be new techniques. I just finished all the knitting on a Lizard Ridge blanket which really got me proficient with the whole short row thing. And I plan on edging it in applied I-cord. I should be an expert by the time it's done Now I've just started an entrelac scarf and I seem to be well on my way to mastering that technique. Other things I want to try this year: Mosaic knitting - there are a couple of things in No Sheep For You that I want to do that incorporate mosaic patterns, and double knitting. The next pair of socks I start I want to do t wo at the same time. Maybe I'll actually put up pictures of the finished objects here! | | Friday, May 2nd, 2008 | | 3:54 pm |
I love these memes.
What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels<
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers | | 9:31 am |
When your birthday starts with your debit card being declined, the fates are obviously against you. | | Monday, April 21st, 2008 | | 1:03 pm |
bad phone Karma
So after my phone's power supply gave up the ghost a couple of weeks ago, I got a loaner while mine went in the shop. On Friday I got the word that my phone was in. On Saturday, I lost the loaner in Chinatown. Hopefully there are no 5 hour calls to China on my next bill. | | Sunday, April 13th, 2008 | | 8:34 am |
Ooh, here's a gorgeous picture of the wrap that I designed!  | | Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 | | 11:18 am |
| | Thursday, March 27th, 2008 | | 9:01 am |
a quick blogthing:
What Joycelyn Means
|
You are fair, honest, and logical. You are a natural leader, and people respect you.
You never give up, and you will succeed... even if it takes you a hundred tries.
You are rational enough to see every part of a problem. You are great at giving other people advice.
You are well rounded, with a complete perspective on life.
You are solid and dependable. You are loyal, and people can count on you.
At times, you can be a bit too serious. You tend to put too much pressure on yourself.
You are a free spirit, and you resent anyone who tries to fence you in.
You are unpredictable, adventurous, and always a little surprising.
You may miss out by not settling down, but you're too busy having fun to care.
You are very open. You communicate well, and you connect with other people easily.
You are a naturally creative person. Ideas just flow from your mind.
A true chameleon, you are many things at different points in your life. You are very adaptable.
You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone.
You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together.
At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together.
You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow.
You are light hearted and accepting. You don't get worked up easily.
Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is.
You are very intuitive and wise. You understand the world better than most people.
You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts.
You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals.
|
| | Thursday, February 28th, 2008 | | 9:48 am |
Holy crap! I just checked the weather. -17?! Are you shitting me? My child is beginning to forget there is such a thing as outside! We need to get out of the house! | | Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 | | 7:58 am |
Last week I did something that I almost never do. I took a knitting class! I am a self taught knitter and I've been able to figure out most knitting techniques on my own or with a few pointers from some of my more knowledgeable friends. But there was a pattern that I really wanted to do that was totally kicking my ass. The Lizard Ridge afghan is gorgeous and would be a perfect present for some close friends that are getting married soon. I tried to start it in 2006, and I even finished a square, but it looked, well, not great. I usually don't mind an error or two in my knitting, but this was more than that. This was me not knowing what the hell I was doing.  I don't know if you can see it clearly in the crappy photo, but in the middle of some of the nice orderly rows of knit stitches, there are stitches with a bar of yarn in front of them. This was from me not wrapping/picking up the wrapped stitch properly. Since the pattern is pretty much dependent on doing this technique properly, this was a problem. The other problem I was having was that if I put the square down, I could never figure out where I was in the pattern when I went back to knit it again. I have honestly never had this much trouble with a pattern in my life. Luckily for me, Kate gave a workshop on this very pattern at the Purple Purl last thursday. Kate is an amazing teacher. I've seen her in action many times and I've always wanted to take a class with her. It was totally worth it. She helped me with the wrapping problem (I don't actually know what I was doing wrong, and after she showed me how to do it, it seems weird that it's possible to screw it up.) and simplified the pattern so much that I don't even really need to look at the instructions any more. As a result, I am loving doing the squares. I've done 4 and a half so far and if I didn't have to hold Zoë for most of the day, I would have even more done. And after this blanket is done, I'm planning at least one more! | | Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 | | 3:35 pm |
I was going to write about this over a week ago, but then I got sick and then Joe got sick and then Zoë got sick... I went to the big library at College and Spadina to sign up for the baby storytimeand while I was there I thought I'd check and see if they had Anthony Bourdain's second book A Cook's Tour. I had read Kitchen Confidential (finally) over Christmas and enjoyed it enough to want to read his follow up. Seeing as I didn't know where in the library to look for his book - Biography? Travel? Food? I went up to the information desk on the second level where I encountered the real life equivalent of 'If you liked this book, you may be interested in this book'. I didn't really appreciate it at the time because I had Zoë with me and she was starting to get impatient with me, but the librarian was great! I asked her for just the one book and she just started throwing titles at me (completely ignoring the fact that Zoë was starting to melt down. I thought librarians looked down on screaming kids in their library.). I went home that day with A Cook's Tour as well as Heat by Bill Buford, and she put on hold for me The Making of A Chef by Michael Ruhlman and Julie & Julia by Julie Powell. (I picked them up last friday) The last two weeks have been an orgy of foodie reading for me! Even though I don't consider myself a cook (I can cook, I just don't enjoy doing it. I think I'm more of a baker at heart.)I am totally inspired now. I even have the urge to go through an entire cookbook like Julie Powell did. Between this and Joe and I cooking together once a week, our kitchen is going to get a workout this year! | | Saturday, December 15th, 2007 | | 9:28 am |
My five year old niece is incredible. She's a very social girl who loves parties and makes friends easily. A couple of months ago, she was at a birthday party where she met another 5 year old who happens to have Juvenile diabetes. The two of them got to talking about it and Katherine learned all sorts of things including that having JD hurts. When she overheard her mother and the other little girl's mother talking about fundraising, she wanted to know what it was. My sister explained that that was when you raised money to give to the scientists to help them find a cure. So my niece decided that she wanted to hold a fundraiser to help her new friend. She was already planning a get together with a couple of her friends to design dresses that her cousin, a fashion design student at Ryerson was going to help them make. She decided to turn that into a fundraiser instead. So she invited a few of her other friends and she and my sister canvassed some fabric stores for donations of material. And about a month ago my three sisters and I sat down at sewing machines with the intention of sewing 8 dresses in 4 hours. The plan was, one Sunday, for a donation, the little girls would come over around 1pm, draw the dress they wanted, my fashion designer niece would then take measurements, help them choose fabrics and come up with some sort of pattern we could then use to sew the dresses. The girls would have a playdate while the sewing went on, and around 5pm, they would all go home with their custom made dress. HaHaHa. In the end, we did not finish a single dress that day. We were close with a couple of them, but just fell short. I had to go over on the Monday and Tuesday to help finish them off, and my sister finally got them all done by the end of the week. The upside though was that when they finally got the dresses, the girls loved them! Not to mention the fact that my niece raised over $500 for the JD foundation. | | Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 | | 3:35 pm |
Well, that was extremely frustrating. I had a doctor's appointment for 1:30pm today, so I left Joe with the baby and hiked out to the doctor's only to find out that, despite the fact that my doctor was fully booked for the afternoon, she was not in and no one was expecting her to come in today. And they can't fit me in for a physical until the end of January. What gets me is, if I did this to the doctor, I'd be paying through the nose for it. All I got was a 'sorry about that' from the secretary. | | Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 | | 10:01 am |
Spicy! Your Score: Saffron You scored 75% intoxication, 50% hotness, 75% complexity, and 50% craziness!
You are Saffron!
Those other spices have nothing on you! You're warm, smart, and you make people feel really good (and with no side-effects!). You can be difficult to get to know and require a lot of those who try, but you're so totally worth it. *Sigh*
| | Saturday, November 24th, 2007 | | 12:36 pm |
A few years ago, my friend Stef and I used to take cooking lessons at George Brown together and when the classes were over, we used to get together once a week and cook something we'd never cooked before. We made all sorts of things in those days. Everything from sushi to masala chicken. Joe loved those nights. He never ate so well! So in an attempt to give Joe and I some quality time together we decided to ressurect those cooking days with the two of us. Last week we made Crispy Rosemary-Orange Chicken from Rachel Ray 365: No Repeats which was quite good. This week though, we tried one of Joe's absolute favourite dishes: Chicken Fried Steaks with Creamed Pan Gravy (also from a Rachel Ray book. This time 30 Minute Meals 2). Wow this was good. The kitchen was a bit of a disaster zone afterwards what with all the breading and such, but it was worth it. I even took a picture of my plate before we ate. There was a side of greenbeans and I baked cornbread instead of the pillsbury biscuits that she suggested.  Yum! | | Thursday, November 15th, 2007 | | 12:32 pm |
I was having a bit of a downer couple of days so I decided to try and shake it with some retail therapy. So yesterday I bundled Zoë up and headed to the Eaton Centre with no clear idea of what I wanted to buy. I just knew I wanted to spend some money on myself. Nothing jumped out at me at Chapters or Williams Sonoma, but I was walking by the Skechers store and I saw a pair of Mary Janes that was exactly what I've been looking for for over a year. These in black:  I love them. The only problem is, in order to fit my orthotics in, I have to rip out the innersole of the shoe. But my orthotics are only half the foot. I'm not sure what to do. Do I only rip out half the innersole? Do I buy new half innersoles? Do I live with the crappy gluey shoe under the ball of my foot and my toes? I don't want to rip it out until I decided what I want to do and I can't wear them comfortably until I rip out the innersoles. Stupid foot pain. | | Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 | | 10:39 pm |
I've been obsessively doing crosswords for the last week or so. I blame it all on the documentary Word Play that Joe and I rented a last Sunday. I've been wanting to see this for quite a while now and I was not disappointed. I'm not hardcore like the crossword tournament entrants on the show, but I have to admit that it got my competitive spirit up to the extent that I have been timing how long it takes me to complete the puzzles (I went out and bought a collection of NY Times crosswords last week too). I've been coming in around the 10 minute mark. Not even close to the 2 minutes it took one of the guys in the doc. | | Monday, October 22nd, 2007 | | 4:01 pm |
Because of my wonderful friends, I got to try out three different spas this summer. I thought I would do a little comparison of the three spas here. I got a pedicure at both the Pantages Spa and the Elmwood, and a massage at the Stillwater. First of all, all three were fantastic and I would recommend them, but there were considerable differences in my experiences at my two pedicures. I went to the Pantages first. The actual pedicure experience was amazing. We were on the 5th floor (the only spa of the three where my treatment room was above ground) so there is a nice view of the city, the lighting was low, they had massage chairs and a whirlpool foot bath. The whole thing was very calming and relaxing. Where it falls down in the comparison to the others is before and after the pedicure. The waiting room for the pedicure was a small utilitarian area with a couple of cafe tables where you could get some water or packaged teas. I am told that if you are getting a massage there, the waiting room is quite nice as is the change room, but I didn't get to see any of that. If you only have time to get a pedicure (say, at lunch time or something,) and don't want to hang around, this is the place for you. The next spa I hit was the Stillwater for my pregnancy massage. I don't know if they give you the run of the place if you are just going in for a mani or pedi, but OH MY GOD! It was in the basement so, no view, but that didn't matter. The women's change room was a bit cramped, but that was to make room for the huge whirlpool (which I couldn't use, sadly) and the four small curtained off lounge chairs with their little tv's (which I did use). The waiting room was also really nice with the room split in two. Half with cafe tables and the other half with low couches. There was a selection of infused water and teas as well as some fruit and cookies laid out. I hung out for at least an hour after my massage. The massage was great. You could choose your music (within the 'spa music' genre only though) and flavour of massage oil (I believe I chose citrus'). The last place was the Elmwood. On the card, they invite you to come early to 'take the waters', so I did. The atmosphere of the place is much different than the other two. Where the other two were very subdued and had the lights dimmed everywhere, the Elmwood was bright and shiny. The change room and the pool/jacuzzi rooms were great. It felt like a really upscale health club. They also had infused water everywhere. For the pedicure itself, I think the Pantages wins out what with the foot baths and fancy chairs and all, but for the larger experience, no question the Elmwood was fabulous. Like I said, I would go back to any of them in a hot minute. I would just have to choose based on what mood I was in. | | Monday, October 15th, 2007 | | 12:03 pm |
I'm slowly getting back into the swing of having some kind of life here. I even went to Drunken Knitters on Friday night. It was a bit loud though. Don't think I'll be taking the little one again which means that I probably won't be able to make another one for a while. I really want to start posting here again. There are a couple of things I want to talk about, but today I'll just stick to one: my unholy love for Costco. My sister and I went Saturday to look for diapers for the little one. We haven't started with the cloth ones yet and she goes through so many a week that I really wanted to see if I could get them in bulk. Sadly they didn't have any in her wee little size, but the trip was not wasted. I held back from buying giant packages of foodstuffs but I just couldn't resist the comically huge containers of detergent.  I estimate I will not be needing to buy more dish soap this decade.  It has a spigot for god's sake! It's also almost as large as my apartment sized washer! I see many more trips to Costco in my future as Maria has a membership, but no car and I have a car, but no membership. Could things be more convenient? | | Monday, August 27th, 2007 | | 8:06 pm |
Everyone always says that when you start mat leave but haven't had the baby yet, you should keep busy so you're not sitting at home staring at your belly going 'contract!!'
I've been doing that, possibly too well. I think I am overestimating my endurance, or maybe rather, my endurance is slowly eroding and the amount of things I can do one day is just a bit too much the next. I think most of the things I plan from now until the baby gets here will consist mostly of going someplace and once I get there, staying in more or less the same position for the duration. Gone are the days like last Friday when Joe and I walked (slowly) around the Ex for 6 hours. I can't even begin to imagine doing that today.
Tomorrow's plan of going over to my friend Jen's place for knitting and movies is much more my speed these days.
I do still want to go to the Dream In High Park though. I think that falls into the 'go someplace and don't move for a long time' scenario.
If anyone is interested, I'm thinking Thursday night (always with the caveat - unless I am in labour). Let me know and I'll save you a seat! |
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