Thanks to Todd for this one...

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

okay, that was a bad idea

this is the view out the back window of my house today
see that sort of dark-ish patch on the ground next to my downstairs neighbour's jeep? about 30 minutes ago, that was bare black asphalt... stupid snow that started falling again just after I finished clearing the driveway!

anyway, all I can say now is "OW!" Too much sitting (with poor posture) at the computer every day has been making my lower back quite sore, and now all that snow shovelling (of a very reasonable - for Ottawa - 3 inches of snow has made my upper back hurt now too... grrr!

After I go in searh of some ibuprofens, I may just have to go spend the rest of the afternoon curled up on the couch knitting...Look! its finally starting to resemble a proper cardi (ignore the pins)! I finished the sleeves last night, and sewed the shoulders together. now its on to the front bands and the collar, and sewing in the sleeves, and I may just get my first 2008 FO before the month is out!

hmm... now I wonder if I can find some hot chocolate in the house that is suitable for my new healthy eating regime...

PS: did you know that knitting burns 31 calories per hour? I wonder how much one burns when frogging vigorously? :)

Facebook: the new crack

Ok, I've finally given in and signed up to Facebook... only two days on, and already I've spent way too much time on there! but at least its not as bad as myspace - no videos or music or stupid banners for movies/bands/other crap filling up everyone's pages... besides, this was started for University networking, so it has to be good, right? :)

but now I really must tear myself away from this computer and go finish that sock!

Just a quick post tonight, since there's not a whole lot of news to share... not yet anyway!

Last week I went to see the Magic Flute at the Theatre Royal with my friends Maithe and Jenny. The production was by Opera North, and was done in English. The show was great - I highly recommend it!

We had well priced seats, and therefore ended up way up high in the gallery. The view was good though... here's what it looked like before the show started:
Fortunately, the stage was a lot deeper once the painted screen lifted, so the vertigo caused by the sheer drop was considerably reduced!

On Sunday, Lucy hosted a baby shower for Jen, our resident New Yorker turned Geordie. The shower was great, all thanks to Lucy's hard work. She had baby shower decorations, themed games, and even hand-made stitch markers as part of the prizes. I stole this photo of the "guess the baby food flavour game" from Jen's blog... go check it out to see what the trendiest knitting-baby is going to be wearing this season! :)
Other than these outings - and a little shoe shopping! - its just been work, work, work. Good thing spring break is coming up in a little over a week! I wonder if the easter bunny will know to look for me in Dublin this Easter?

Happy Valentine's Day!

My Mikey is so cute... look what arrived at my door this morning!
Okay, so maybe they look a little green at the moment, but the florists' insert said that they ship the lilies this way "for maximum vase life". Whatever, I still love them! (I'll post another photo when they open)

by the way Michael, did you choose lilies on purpose to keep Greebo out of my room? :)

In the box with the flowers was a little box of yummy chocolate discs
mmmm... chocolate!

ps: Happy Birthday Daddy!

back in the UK

Made it safe to Newcastle yesterday, ran a few errands, and then met Suzanne at good old M&S so she could show me how to get home... yummy dinner, some knitting, a little Celebrity Big Brother, and then it was off to bed for me nice and early. Then Greebo helped me unpack this morning! :)

The plan now is to study, study, study, so I can get all my research finished asap... that way I'll have lots more time for knitting!

oh, and for future reference, leaving the country 3 days after you get engaged really sucks! :)

waste reduction strategies

Far be it from me to become all techie on you, but I couldn't help but notice that the new iPod mobile phone was released this week (not for sale, just as a preview version). News of this apparently 'hot' item (I'm personally not a big fan of the iPods) has caused a lot of discussion about the disposable nature of iPods, mobiles, and most of today's electronic 'toys'.

Finally, there is a solution! Check this one out, courtesy of my brother's email threads:

Will it blend?

Maybe we should do this with all our junk, and save some space in the landfills! :)

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

with vidalia onions, garlic cloves, and ginger root all in a row....

As evidenced by this lovely collection of sprouting vegetables, the heating in our house is very odd - all of our vents are placed in the walls instead of the floors, and in the kitchen at least, that vent is way up high near the ceiling - right over the shelving that houses our dry goods and most of our dishes (its a very small kitchen, with very little cupboard space). recently, I've been noticing that everything wants to keep sprouting on us - onions, potatoes, even the ginger, as you can see... I think maybe I need to give up school and open a vegetable hot-house instead! :)

frozen faces

In Ottawa, especially in December, it is not uncommon to come home with a frozen face - your cheeks feel cold and stiff, and its difficult to speak. Today's frozen face, however, is not due to the balmy +1 temperatures outside, but rather to a brief visit to the dentist this morning. If you were lucky enough to be here right now, you would be laughing very hard right now, watching me try to eat soup with only half a working mouth! :)

The lovely beaded snowflake ornaments that are decorating today's post were sent to me by my Secret Pal, as part of the last package. Silly me just forgot to mention them before... (I hung them on our tree right away, so when I went to photograph the package contents, I forgot about them)
Aren't they pretty? I especially like the way the blue translucent beads on this last one one catch the sunlight in the mornings!

I'm still knitting furiously away on the sock... did you ever notice how projects that have deadlines seem to take way longer than other projects? but maybe its just that I'm more aware of the ticking clock at the moment... as I recall, I knit the first part of the first sock while on the train from Toronto back to Ottawa - that's a 41/2 hour trip, and I know I haven't spent that long on this sock yet... ugh. guess its back to knitting for me! (I'm beginning to see where second sock syndrome comes from... I think I'm going to have to teach myself to knit two socks at once!)

In other news, I got a fun Christmas card from Ysolda!
Isn't it fun?! I'm hoping my card reaches her soon too - my cards were a little delayed by recent events, so I think I missed the international mailing dates. Good thing the Christmas spirit lasts longer than just the one day!

but now I need to stop procrastinating and get on with the housekeeping today... Kieron's mom is coming to stay for Xmas, and I need to vacuum the crumbs out of the couch so Kieron can sleep on it for the next week! :)

I never promised you a rose garden*

but I did promise you photos of the pumpkins! so here goes!

the scary guy you saw on Monday

franken-pumpkin and friends

pacman and a ghostie... please tell me you remember
playing this in the video arcades... I'm not that old, am i?

mike's scary skull

the punkin crowd (i like mike's scared pumkin hiding his eyes behind his hands)

We had 8 pumpkins altogether - 2 big ones and a medium one that Mike got from the store, two smaller ones that we grew in the backyard but couldn't eat because the vines got killed by frost before the pumpkins were ripe, and 3 squashes that we got from our neighbour - they never ripened properly either because of the frost.

I loved all our pumpkins, but this little guy was one of my favourite:
I had this guy sitting on the kitchen windowsill while he was waiting to be carved, and at one point I knocked him over and he landed head first on a metal measuring scoop that i had been using to scrape out the insides... it cut into him and stuck there, so I decided to leave it in... you know, like when you get a piece of glass in your hand and you're supposed to leave it in there till you get medical help, so that you don't bleed to death? (this is the one piece of first aid i remember learning in grade school - well, this and how to hide under your desk in the event of an earthquake) well, this guy's cut started to leech a little water, so I decided it was best to leave the scoop where it was. So i cut a hole in his back to gut him and put the candle in, and then carved his little face. I thought his look of horror was especially appropriate since the evil rats with fur coats (a.k.a. the squirrels) had already attacked his face several weeks ago. so now he looks like he's as huge a klutz as i am!

After setting up all the pumpkins (and taking far too many photos of them) i got the candies ready...

Aeros and smarties and reese peanut butter cups - oh my!
just the standard Canadian candy selection :)

and play-doh for the little ones!

and now, in a move that i may very soon come to regret... here are some photos of us at the Halloween party we went to on Saturday night...

do you recognize our costumes? Mighty Hercules and his girlfriend Helena, from the 1970's cartoon series... (mike is going to kill me when he sees these photos on here!) We made the costumes from two flat sheets, some cardboard, and some fake leather... took 4 hours and about $30... and I think it shows, just a little! ;)

k, that's it... the halloween flashback is over... time to go get ready for Guy Fawkes day! (no, we don't actually celebrate it here... but i would if we had a place to light a bonfire, or even a fireplace that was more than just a mantle!)

more knitting stuff in my next post, I promise!

*this is the title of a book, in case you didn't know....

ketchup (or catsup, if you prefer)

Lots of things going on here recently, yet surprisingly few posts to talk about it... oh well, today is my day to catch up before tomorrow's trip to Toronto (and the meeting that will happen there) leads to oodles of work for the next two months...

first off, a conveniently timed article in martha-stewart living - fun felt projects made from sweaters that have been (purposely or not) felted in the washing machine... mits, hats gloves, a very cute hot-water bottle cozy, and some stuffed animals... so maybe my gray sweater has a future after all!

next up, weekend happenings...
Mike's family for dinner here on Friday, followed by a visit from out-of-town friends on Saturday which included a visit to parliament hill, dinner, and then brunch on Sunday; there was also a halloween party on Saturday night, and the requisite day of recovery on Sunday. then last night we carved pumpkins! yay! here's the photo review of all those events...

baking cake #1

decorating cake #2 (we had 3 birthdays altogether, and since I hate sharing my cake with people, why should i force others to share their cakes?)

tired kiddies don't like staying up late at dinner parties... :(

inside parliament hill
the Peace Tower of the Parliament buildings
(Ottawa is the country's capital, not Toronto, which comes as some surprise to many non-Canadians)

one of our many pumpkins... you'll get to see the rest of them tomorrow!

The last surprise of the weekend was my hot socks swap package, which was delivered yesterday!

mmmm... 2 kinds of Green & Blacks hot chocolate and a chocolate bar, pretty yarn, and even a fun little stitch marker which opted not to be photographed - thanks Deb!

Happy Halloween everyone!

8 words to make me laugh

"then some skinny bitch walks by in hotpants"

(from: Don't let him waste your time, by Nancy Sinatra.)

Now its your turn - go listen to some music and find something to make you laugh, then post it so the rest of us can laugh too! :)

(and now back to my regularly scheduled mad typing, with obvious over-use of the backspace key)

just a quick post

I have yet another deadline coming up this friday, so of course I've been spending my time dreaming about all the fun things I'll get to knit when I'm done and therefore have a little more leisure time... wait, no! that's not it! I'm spending my time WORKING really hard. really i am! :)

I've decided to take a page (post) from Alice's blog, and reward my work time with knitting time... so, let's say 1000 word equals an hour of knitting... (in the evening of course, since there's no way I would stop knitting if i picked up the needles now!) well, I have 2 hours after tonight's German class that could be used for either knitting or working... keep your fingers crossed!

for any of you who aren't facing a big deadline this week, go check out www.garnstudio.com (the site is a little flaky sometimes, so be patient) - the website for the manufacturers of the Drops alpaca yarn i showed you yesterday... I has looked on the site briefly, but couldn't find the link to the free patterns that were supposed to be there... well, I went back this morning (with inspiration from my Secret Pal's comment) and realised that, stupid me, every pattern shown on the site is free! They have, like 1500+ patterns (2000+ if you can read Norsk) all for free! yay! i love free patterns!

but now im going back to work. for real this time :)

In case you didn't have enough things to knit already...

want to knit a random animal? a pterodactyl maybe, or a kangaroo?

go check this site out. bonus points to the person who guesses which one I'm thinking of knitting. because of course i don't have enough stuff to knit already. :)

Wherein Glenda is reminded why Michael is not allowed to do laundry without supervision

This past week, winter reared its ugly head and dropped 2 feet of snow on parts of Ontario and New York State... we didn't get the snow, but we are certainly getting the colder weather, which means only one thing: time to winterize our life before we too, become walking snowmen.

First on the list were the storm windows - off went the screens and up went the glass panels that will form the second layer of window in our pseudo double-pane windows. This is a very odd ritual for me, seeing as Vancouver has no need for storm windows, and in every other place I've lived in Ottawa, the landlord or super has put up the windows. But no big deal, its done and already the house feels warmer.

Next on the list was the wardrobe exchange - all the winter sweaters come out of the storage bin, and all the shorts, capris, and summer tops go back in. In the meantime, we also did a bit of laundry, so those clothes could be re-organized as necessary also.

let me show you some of those clothes:
this is my fairly new, worn only 4 times sweater. does it look a little odd to you? perhaps the skinny arms are a clue? or the fact that the body of the sweater fits on a throw pillow with room to spare?!! Apparently, Michael has texture blindness, because he failed to notice this sweater as he was (clearly) dumping all the clothes into the washer... Some of us actually look at the clothes as we put them in, but I guess Mike forgot that part! grrr... anyway, I'm not allowed to bug him about it anymore because he did buy me a replacement. And he's definitely off laundry duty for a while! (ps: in case you're wondering, I had no idea the sweater was in the laundry basket... and I take it for granted that everyone knows not to wash a wool sweater in the machine, especially ours, which has no temperature control and therefore washes everything in hot!).

I'm thinking I might re-felt this sweater (on purpose this time) to make it a little more evenly shrunken, and then I'll make it into a purse of some sort. Although I did notice that if I cut the arms off short, it would probably fit Owen pretty well... the darts around the bust just make it a funny shape for a boy is all... Anyone got any suggestions for recycling my poor sweater?

the last thing we need to do is go get winter tires for our new new-to-us car (long story short, we had to return the first used VW Golf that we bought because it developed major engine damage from the time that we had it inspected and agreed to buy it and the time that we actually took possession. We now have a newer used Golf that's in much better condition. and its blue! :) ). Winter tires are one of those things that no one thinks about till the snow is already on the ground... but I've already been in one rolled-over car due to a lack of winter tires (we were all safe, but Kieron's poor (8 month old!) car was in bad shape) so we're making sure that doesn't happen again this year!

soo many other fun crafty things to blog about, but I'll have to leave those till tomorrow... nothing like a little suspense to keep you all interested! :)

edited to add: I was 'reminded' about Mike's laundry issues, because this is not the first time his poor observation skills have struck... earlier this summer, he put my favourite LBD (a halter one that I got for 15 pounds from H&M) in the dryer of all places... its jersey knit fabric makes it (occasionally) washing machine friendly, sure but not dryer friendly!! but he got off easy on that one, cause the dress took only very slight colouration damage which wasn't really noticeable except to me.

international student difficulties

two quick questions for my friends east of the Atlantic ocean

1) do english (and other european) academic writings share our Canadian fear of passive sentences in papers? my writing today is pissing off Microsoft Word with its excessive use of the passive voice, but I really don't feel like adding any more subjects to my sentences. besides, what does MS Word know anyway? it already hates me for ignoring its attempts to turn latin into english, so why should it be any nicer to me about all those passives?

and 2, (on a purely frivolous note) do you have pumpkins in England? I don't remember seeing any there last year, and vaguely remember my mother saying something about carving turnips as a child in Ireland because squash (the vegetable, not the drink) is an american thing. is that true or am i just really unobservant?

Blah

today i'm feeling very blah, so i am going to try and distract myself with thoughts of fun things...

like the Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca Silk yarn that I was swatching yesterday and today... go here for a photo, and then imagine all its lightweight silky chestnut-coloured softness. I'm trying to decide whether or not to believe yesterday's swatch, which I did while sitting in a McDonald's drinking very bad coffee (I was in a very non-trendy, rather industrial part of the west end of town, and there was not a proper coffee shop in sight!), waiting for the mechanic to tell me what turned out to be very irritating news about our new-to-us new car. Anyway, on a generic grey metal 3.75mm circular needle, I got 23 stitches in 4 inches instead of the necessary 24... but the stitches were loose and relaxed and I really don't trust myself to knit a whole sweater without adding a little more tension to the mix... so today I'm swatching with a fun purple 4mm circular to see if it gives a better result... i think its worth the extra swatching just for the fun purpleness of it all! :)


another fun thing to focus on is the hiking trip we took this weekend to Lake Placid, New York - after only a three hour drive, I was surrounded by mountains again! yay! this was the second time that we made this trip - 2 years ago, I decided that I wanted to go on one last hiking trip before the fall season was over, so we got a bunch of friends together and headed south. That trip ended up being on the 3rd weekend in October, so it was not surprising that we hiked through new-fallen snow on the second day. This time, we lucked out by going at the end of September - we had a bright sunny day, and the views from the top of the mountain (3,000 feet up) were amazing! Its been a chilly past few weeks too, so the leaves were at their peak for colour. Here, take a look!

a little waterfall on the way up the mountain

getting close to the top (the trees are shorter, that's how you can tell!)


Here's Mikey near the top
(see how red the hills are in the background?)


what the bear saw on the other side of the mountain


we followed a little stream all the way down the mountian... when the stream turned into this big waterfall, we knew we were close to the bottom! :)

almost there...

the cliffs on the side of the lake are too steep to climb over,
so they built us a boardwalk instead. Good thing too, by this time, we were exhausted!

The hike we did was the Algonquin Peak Loop, a mere 13 miles up and over a mountain - the first 4 miles took us up 3000 feet, and the next 2.4 miles took us back down... then we still had almost 7 miles to go before we were back out of the woods! Due to a missed turn on the way to a trailhead, we didn't get on the trail till about 10:30am... it was therefore not surprising that us not-so-quick hikers (those of us with shorter legs, for example!) didn't get off the trail till 7:30 that night! good thing we took our headlamps along! But it all ended very nicely with a big feast of pizza and pasta and beer in Lake Placid - the perfect ending to a fall hike! Also, since none of us had realized that the trail would be so long and arduous, the second day of hiking turned into a big brunch and then a hike through the local shops! We had to miss it, since Mike had to be back in Ottawa to catch a plane at 3:30 on the Sunday... too bad too, because I really wanted to go visit the Adirondack Yarns shop! oh well, maybe next time!

ugh. thats the end of the fun things to focus on for the moment... now I have to go and focus on the not so fun fact that I have a deadline coming up, and not nearly enough stuff written yet! Ahhhh! well, maybe I'll get lucky and one of the many fun packages that I'm expecting will arrive (its all stuff that I ordered, so no surprises, but I'm still excited to get them!)

hope you're having a less blah day than I am!

am i crazy, or just bored?

K, so for the past few days I've had christmas on the brain - not the actual holiday, just the preparation part of it. you know, cards, gifts to make, places to go (post-xmas skiing, anyone?), that kind of thing.

but then all of a sudden i'll stop suddenly and remember one key factor... its only SEPTEMBER!!!

i think i've officially lost it

ps: why is it that all of the good knitting books use such unbelievably expensive yarns?!

2nd ps: my hand sewing skills are atrocious - if i'm lucky i'll have this blanket done by the end of the weekend. but only if i'm very lucky...

sniffle... sniffle... achoo!

Today feels like fall. (that's autumn, for all you english folk! ;) )

Its chillier than it should be, the sky is kind of grey, and - that sign of all signs that fall is here, I have a cold! :( I had thought it was allergies, an idea further encouraged by the fact that yesterday my sniffles stopped after I took an allergy pill, but today a pill from that same box has done NOTHING for me! grrr! (achoo!)

i don't get sick too often, but when I do I'm a horrible patient. All I want to do is spend the day curled up on the couch with a warm blanket, drinking tea, watching television, and knitting. This is usually made even better by the fact that I'm tend to only get sick in the winter, so there's always an added comfort in sitting there all warm and cozy and watching people suffer through the cold wind and rain/snow outside! This is especially rewarding on blizzardy days, cause you can actually see the snow build up as high as the grass, then the bushes, and sometimes even the park benches (that was 2 years ago, when my windows looked out on a park) :)

but today, alas, its actually kind of sunny out, 20 degrees can hardly be considered cold, and the only things building up outside my window are piles of dirt from the construction guys tearing up the street for about the millionth time (they're replacing all the underground pipes, one system at a time, so they keep going from one end to the other, digging holes and filling them in again, and then coming back to make a new set of holes. based on this week's activities on the other side of the road, sometime next week we're going to lose part of our front yard for the sake of a new gas line!). and of course, what with september looming, there is no time for knitting during the day, cause I'm trying to keep up with my thesis writing so that I can meet my end of summer goals. Meanwhile, all the sneezing is making it very difficult to concentrate... ugh.

oh well. my bright spot today is that the postman left me a notice that there's a package waiting for me at the post office (the postal truck which usually brings the packages can't get to my house because of the holey road!) so maybe I'll quit a little early and go fetch my parcel late this afternoon. Good motivation to keep working! :)

drowning in air

you know how on cold days, when you walk inside a warm building your glasses immediately fog up? well today, I opened the door of the gym to go outside and my sunglasses immediately fogged up!

that was about an hour ago... now, its 9:35am, and the humidex is already at 40 degrees - that's 89% humidity people - it could only be higher if it were raining! (humidex is this random canadian term for the "feels like" temperature, as opposed to the actual air temperature... today its 27 degrees, but 40 with the humidex).

anyway, all this is to say that even though I wanted to post some photos today, I'm going to run away and find some air conditioning instead. Mint mocha Starbucks frappuccino, here I come!