Pre-Friday Friday

Finished up my training course today.  I was assured by our instructor that I am now an effective communicator.  Huzzah!

It was too miserable out today for me to get you many interesting photos.  I swear, at one point, the rain drops were the size of kittens.  Okay, small exaggeration there, I’m just so excited to be communicating with you.  I did take a pici of this building that I rather like.

It’s a bit nondescript but it always puts me in mind of this comedic gem from Monty Python.

I know, the building isn’t the same colour at all, it just makes me smirk and giggle a bit.  Which also made me remember what just might be my most favourite Terry Gilliam bit ever:

Now, tomorrow is a statutory holiday here in Canada, Remembrance Day.   Our time to take at least a minute to remember what others have sacrificed and are still sacrificing for us.  Wreaths will be placed at memorials and speeches will be made.   At eleven minutes past eleven a.m. on November 11 millions of Canadians are all sending out thoughts of thankfulness and hope that all our troops will one day soon be home.  That kind of gives me goosebumps.

Monday, done & done

So, today and tomorrow I’m in Vancouver on training instead of at my desk slaving away like the good cog that I am.  Seriously, it’s almost as good as a holiday day.  On my lunch hour I wandered out into the wicked rain and found out that we’re starting to wrap things up for the Olympics.

Specifically, we’re apparently wrapping up buildings.  I got such a lump in my throat when I saw that humongous flag.  Makes me all squishy.  After class was over the rain had miraculously gone and the sun had come out to play.  Then I noticed that there’s a bunch of stuff going on for the Olympics.  The sails were surrounded with scaffolding and are getting cleaned:

The street that was just gravel last time I was there, all paved and pretty now:

February is going to be insane in this town.

Oh, and Yonners wanted to know what pattern I used Joseph.  It’s the Nativity Set by Alan Dart.

So, my mom called…

and asked if I’d moved the blog somewhere else and was chatting over there.  No, I promise, I’ve just been beyond lazy about updating lately.  I”m not avoiding you mom.    You’re so funny!

I had a poopy head cold this weekend and I’ve got class in downtown Vancouver tomorrow and Tuesday so this will be short.  I did finish something though.  Look how cute this is:

It’s for a friend’s mom.  She’s always wanted a knitted nativity so a bunch of us each took one thing and are giving her one.  I got Joseph.  I was really hoping to draw a sheep or a donkey, but Joseph is pretty cool too, I guess.

Here he is getting all packaged up to head off to Australia:

Super cute but in a word, fiddly.  I will never be creating a set of these for me, that’s for sure.  Although, maybe a donkey or two for my desk.

Okay, that’s it.  I’m going back to lozenges, knitting, and watching hubby play Paper Mario.  Happy Sunday all.

Friday Eve! Friday Eve!

Whew, we’ve almost made it to another weekend.  Thank all that’s holy for that.  The full moon is coming up on November 2 and it seems to be affecting people much more than normal.  Work has been, shall we say, interesting.  Not nearly a strong enough word for it but this blog tries to stay pretty PG. 

I think I’ve talked to more people in serious need of mental health assistance in the last two weeks than in the entire 18 months previous that I’ve worked at my current job.  Just wild stuff.  I don’t work in a mental health agency, so it’s sometimes really hard to keep  the needs of these people evened out with what our agency actually does.  Kind of a balancing act.  Most days it’s pretty easy, lately, not so much. 

In knitting news, it’s secret, I can’t show it to you.  I know that my swap buddy comes over here once in awhile so I can’t show you until after December 5th.

Oh, wait, Mr. Beentsy stopped at the store on his way home today and picked up a little Hallowe’en candy.  Okay, not a little, a metric tonne of the stuff.  But he did get Rockets:

Love the bad quality cheezy photo of the handful of Rockets while hubby hits the mouse to take the picture.  Thank you modern technology, you sometimes make me so very happy.

 

Love me some lazy Saturday on the couch

**note**this was supposed to be posted yesterday but Flickr and I are having issues.  Actually, based on the forum posts, a lot of people are having some problems with Flickr.  Grrrrr

Heya!  How’s it going?  It’s so nice to be on a computer for purely non school or work related activities!  Wanna see some stuff?  Excellent.

First up, Nate got a new game for the Wii.  He spent pretty much the entire Thanksgiving day weekend killing zombies, in a mall.  Sort of odd considering how much he hates shopping.  Anyway, Dead Rising:  Chop ’til you Drop, kind of gross in a humorous sort of way.  Hubby had a good time, finished the game in about 2.5 days.  Here are some zombie killing action shots:

Handgun

Some form of automatic weapon.

Jane ensuring that hubby’s technique is good.

Then last weekend I took a couple hours off from midterm studying and headed out with the Terminal City Yarn Wranglers for a finished object fashion show.  I only had one finished object but I’m pretty proud of her.  I got the lovely Nellum to model for me.

Then, suddenly there was a problem, and her face went all funny!

I hope it doesn’t get stuck like that!  Poor thing.

Here are some closeups:

I’m really happy with it.  Wanna make one for yourself?  You can find the designer here on Ravelry or over here for non-Ravelry users.  She’s an amazing designer and this pattern was so well written that I managed it for my first ever lace and beading project.

Thanks to Monnibo and Yarnpiggy for taking such fantastic photos!  Want to see everyone’s photos?  They are pretty great and some are really funny.

Okay, it’s now Sunday morning and I need some coffee, breakfast, and a shower.  Off to knit with the Wranglers.  Happy Sunday everyone.

Best tshirt ever? Oh I think so

Honestly, I just snorted orange juice out of my nose when I saw this.

Hello, welcome to midterms and term papers

Please understand that during this week you will have no life.  You will see no friends.  You don’t even get to knit on the bus, now go re-read the Homeric Hymn to Apollo and Demeter and every other god or goddess and the tragedy of Oedipus the King.  Seriously, this guy?  He had a bad gig.  Just sayin’.  Oh, wait.  Don’t forget about Prometheus.  I have to admit though, I’m a little smitten with Hermes.  I love this whole stealing Apollo’s cows bit.

Also, Persephone and the whole underworld thing.  I would give my left arm (not the right, let’s not get crazy here), to hang out in the underworld.  But no, mom, (Demeter) pulls an epic hissy fit, starves the people and stops the grain from growing until Persephone is returned.  Uh oh!  What’s this though?  Persephone ate some pomegranate seeds while she was in Hades?  Oh, oh, oh!  She’ll be spending 1/3 of her time there from now on.

She did it on purpose.   One can only cavort with nymphs in flower filled meadows for so long before craving a little of the dark side.  Know what I mean?  I think you do.  Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Okay, anyway, off on a tangent again.  I have to go study some more.  I’ll be back after Tuesday. 

Holiday Monday

Mmmmmm, so nice to not be at work.  We had a lovely non-turkey brunch with hubby’s parents yesterday morning then the full pull super-turkey dinner with my parents last night.  I’m still full from yesterday.  I’m still not sure why I felt that four of us needed a 18 pound bird, which I originally thought was 22 pounds.  Oh well.  The leftovers were spectacular.

Today will be a quick trip to Ikea to look at lighting options for the kitchen then a day on the couch.  Reading & note taking for class with knitting breaks while the hubster continues to kill zombies.  He’s up to 2243 kills now.  Nasty.

Wishing everyone in Canada a wonderful Thanksgiving Day weekend and just a happy Monday to everyone else. 

Happy Thursday!

Hubby needed a camera for work, for insurance claims and such.  He decided it would be good if he took my old Canon Powershot and I got a new one.  He also did not have to tell me twice.  On Tuesday a new little Canon Elph came home to live at our house.  It is so wee and I think I might be a bit smitten with it.  First picture I took?

Of course I took a picture of the nearest animal.  Hi Stella Bo Bella.  Not a great pici.  I’m sensing there will be a small learning curve with the new technology.

Then today I had to pick up a package at the post office.  A week or so ago Lectio had sent out a twitter alert that she was running perilously close to not having enough of a certain Noro Kureyon yarn to finish her lovely cardigan.  As fate would have it, I had a ball of the colour she was looking for in the stash.  Take that Murpy’s law!  Hubby got out the FoodSaver TM.  super sealed it up that yarn, and Canada Post took it to her.  Turned out she did have enough, so Murphy was double bumped, but she’s thinking of a hat to match the sweater.  I think she’s going to need it.  It’s been snowing off and on at her place all week!

Anyway, I picked up this package from the post office and behold:

Um, yeah.  She ’said’ she was going to be sending me one ball of Noro Kureyon in another colourway that she had, like a trade.  Get it?  She lied.  Look at this box o’ bootie!  It’s a Noro junkies wonderland.  Two skeins of Kureyon in a brilliant anti-winter grey colourway and a skein of Noro sock that makes me think of balloons at a birthday party.  But wait, there’s more!  Also in the box of treats, the coolest little gizmo ever.  Behold:

**Note, glass of wine is for scale only!**

I can now knit and read.  Sweet!  I’ve been using a rolled up tea towel to elevate my books coupled with a heavy plate to hold them open.  This is so much easier and compact.  It’s like I’ve been given fire, I’m that chuffed about this invention.

Thank you so much Lectio!  Also, and even more cool, she’s a published author!  She’s going to be in the the Evolve (scroll down a tiny bit), anthology that’s being published in spring 2010.  I keep checking the site for when I can pre-order.  Hopefully it will be soon.  She’s also been published in Kaleidotrope (which is also a very cool read).  Knitters who love zombies are truly cool individuals.

I leave you now with this.  We use a lot of garlic and ginger in our cooking.  I personally believe that stirfries (sp?) might just be one of the best food delivery methods ever.  While we were working on our kitchen and stuff we weren’t cooking much.  During that time our ginger sprouted.  I couldn’t eat it when it was trying so hard to live and grow.  So I planted  it.  Here is hubby’s picture of it.  He’s been playing with the settings of the new camera something fierce:

Then there is my interpretation of the same thing.  All auto, all the time.  I am just way too lazy to be as involved as him:

Hmmm, my colour is true but his image ‘cooler’ somehow.  Gotta go eat dinner now.  I’ll post hubby’s photo montage of beentsy (me, not the cat), tomorrow.

What we did with our weekend

Let’s just do this as a photo essay, shall we?

This is what we started with

Rip it out!

Really former owner of my house? Were you on crack?

A little rotting drain pipe anyone?

At least someone liked the old cabinets

Still going

Gee, I wonder when we can turn the water back on?

What? I'm on a break

OMG! Countertops!

Supervisor Stella

Gonna be a sink in here soon!

Oh, and there it is.

Unfortunately, the water was shut off for awhile. Miles of dirty dishes!

Miles

A tap!

With running water

Man, that was a lot of work.

It’s all in and we love it.  Of course everything took 4 times longer than it should have because we had to keep fixing previous reno nightmares of the form owners.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to run 2 or three loads of dishes and laundry.  I’m so happy to have the water back on!