49| window shopping, jewelry

it's friday, and fridays are often very big and important shopping days for me. actually, that's a complete lie, but often times i do find myself in a mall on a friday afternoon, credit card in hand {debt be damned}.

and while i do still love shopping on fridays, i also love window shopping on a variety of different websites while i should *actually* be doing work. therefore, fridays {already being such a painful day to get through at work} will be filled with little lovelies found online. trinkets and toys and things to wear. and things that are just downright pretty.

enjoy!

tryst by kerry, $18

shlomitofir, $18

rdmdesign, $12

envejewelry, $53

48| new love.

for anyone who doesn't read my blog often, or who missed the first few weeks of blogging, i've had an etsy store for about a month now, and slowly but surely i've been adding items.

while i was doing a lot of jewelry before etsy, i've grown a bit tired of it, and am finding it hard to sell. on the other hand, i have picked up knitting and expanded my mixed-media work, only to receive warm reception, and to find myself enjoying the work much more than with jewelry.

tonight i uploaded two new scarves, one short and one longer. both are lovely and lightweight enough for spring {which hopefully will come rather soon}.

what's your latest etsy find?

47| i never wrote a forty-third post.

and perhaps, i never will.

46| gadgets + weddings.

my favourite + my best and i have a very large selection of pots, pans, and odds and ends that make a house a house. we want things that will make our house more of a home.

a lot of the stuff are things which we brought from our singlehoof: his tv, his couch, my tea kettle, his coffee table, his bookshelf, my bookshelf, his poang chain, his plates. he lived by himself before we met, while i sort of just nudged my way after annuling a deal with roommates {i was spending four or five nights a week there, so it made more sense}.

i don't like the idea of having a wedding to get gifts, in fact i hate it {there's currently a couple who are asking for donations online. from strangers. yeah, i know.} however, given that our friends are too generous to just come to the wedding and hang out and eat and have a good time, we are creating a registry. also, my parents' 25th wedding anniversary is the following september, and there will be a joint party at their place, and there will be more people, and more opportunities for generosity.

but, we're happy with our ikea plates, and we don't have anywhere for a second sofa {as badly as we nede a new one}. a bbq is out until we buy a place. and quite frankly, we have more glasses than we can shake a fist at {but perhaps, if we shook a fist at them, some would break and we would need more}.

so, i've put forth the motion that we will be registering for four traditional items:

• an oversized afghan.
• taika cutlery {my family in germany has the same set. it is soooooo incredible}.
• a blender.
• a nice set of dishes that we can use for sunday dinners, with company, and with one another before we get to the sunday dinners and company stage of our life.

don't ask me where we're finding that last one.

other than that, it's going to be a bizarre collection of odds and ends, cute things that we don't need, but are nice-to-haves, and a selection of things that involve doing. camping. skiing. travelling. cooking {but, for us. cooking lessons, per se}. things we enjoy doing, things we will learn from, things which will strengthen us as a couple.

45| jump.

because you can.

43| buttercream yellow = ♥

props to first milk for finding a field journal {does that just sound a little odd in non-blog speak?}, a wonderful collection of pretty, classic things.

most recently, livy posted photos from her twenty-first birthday {aye, to be young}, including this one. i love how classic and simple it is, and yet how whimsical at the same time. my birthday isn't for another four months {almost exactly}, but i can't help to start thinking about planning.

credit afieldjournal

42| quiet post, chicago.

just a few reasons, why i'm excited to go.

41| to recreate us.

one of my dear friends, mikael, and i have decided to make a road trip this summer, mostly because holy-crap-i-have-cabin-fever {and i'm jealous that my better half is going to boston for his bachelor party, most likely}.

i haven't been travelling in the states since i was twelve or thirteen--i was with someone from grand rapids for a part of a summer, but that's a long story {which hopefully no one will tell at our wedding}. new york. boston. washington. these all seem like really wonderful cities.

but, really, i want to go to chicago.

it seems like a really wonderful, well-cultured, but not snobby city. an industrial city, with a lot of history and wonderful architecture. kind of like america's edinburgh.

plus, there's the complete opposite of italian pizza. and the 609m Spire. and they're bidding for the 2016 olympics.

| credit jaunted |

40| joyful hearts ensue.

andrew + i decided on wedding invitations yesterday, after a long and hearty battle with each other, and many printers. sadly, it seems that printers need margins, and we just aren`t down with that.

furthermore, we want something simple. a conversation a few weeks ago with a friend revealed this:

me: well, we have the cake and the venue
friend: all you need is a judge then
me: well, the real pickle is invitations, right now.
friend: you know, you could just invite people.

so much for simplicity {his wedding had close to five times the number of guests we expect to host}.

that said, it`s one more thing to cross off the "list of things to lead to marital bliss" {ha}. why is it that the lists on theknot are more than 180 items long?

credit ellothere

39| terrible sting and terrible storm

for a long time, i was obsessed with music, mostly in the top 40 pop genre, but nonetheless obsessed: with the charts, with the artists, with magazines about the artists, with the music.

somewhere around the age of nineteen or twenty, and the introduction of serious iPod use, i stopped searching for new music. i had my ani difranco, i had my canadian content, government regulated and encouraged. what did i need the radio for?

then, i met my favourite and my best, andrew, who fostered further admiration for ms. difranco, as well as bruce springsteen, the stones and taj mahal. and those were basically on rotation for the past two and a half years. it was kind of like i got into a relationship with music, and let myself go.

but, luckily, and magically, in the past six months i have slowly found myself returning to my musics and seeking out artists and bands, new and old. i cannot pinpoint when this started, but since the fall, my playlist has more than doubled, and i have happily found myself amongst the likes of classics like bowie and morrisey, as well as a plethora of new-to-me music, such as arcade fire {so behind the trends i am} and sufjan stevens, who was--until very recently--a mere name on facebook pages that made me go "wha?"

so happy to make your acquaintance, sufjan. swoon.

38| aprons: making breakfast happier since the victorian era.

my most favourite food in the world is breakfast or brunch. i know, this sounds like a meal. but for me, it is a food in the same way that pizza is a food. not to say that i gorge daily on hash browns, sausage, and hollandaise on eggs, because i don`t. i would, if i could do it without weighing a metric tonne.

that said, breakfast is also my least favourite part of my diet. yep, i just used the d-word. ick. i decided last week to start working with a personal trainer, but naturally some of that also means changing eating habits. in short, erinn told me: no more pastries for breakfast. eat breakfast before you leave the house. the latter, i simply cannot accustom myself to doing. this morning, however, was a myriad of natural yoghurt, banana, and a half peanut butter sandwich. all for 400 calories. i will be adding sugar to the yoghurt tomorrow. also, the banana will be riper, hopefully.

on weekends, however, i will eat my eggs and sausage and biscuit. because breakfast is this wonderfully magically meal that makes me smile so much deep down inside {notice how ever single "saturdays are for..." post starts with brunch or breakfast?}.

problematically, going out for brunch is expensive, and on sundays involves a half-hour wait no matter where you go in ottawa, followed by being rushed out of the brunching place. sigh. so, hopefully there will be more brunches at home, "the eggs and sausage, tomato and maybe even homefries" kind of brunches, rather than the pancakes-are-easy kind.

one of my favourite things about brunch, as much as i love it as a food, is also brunch as a space. it is everything i want in a space, especially when we go to one of my two favourite places {stonefacedollys or jak`s}. the atmosphere is so relaxed and peacefully, the food is always amazing, and as a space, it`s very decluttering for me. jak`s has a plethora of recipebooks, and the sweetest servers.

this weekend, they were missing one of their regular girls, and so one of the servers brought along her friend to help out. she had the most wonderful apron: half-length, pink and brown, with little eiffel towers everywhere, and two very lovely pockets with lace on the edges. swoon. i felt like it was a magic apron, and with it you could make the most amazing breakfasts.

the hunt for my magic apron has begun.

credit sarakhomemade

37| happy monday, or why government runs so slowly.

i came into work today to discover that our system had been "upgraded" to windows vista. furthermore, in doing this, i lost a whole lot of research. and my boss was wondering why i was cursing at nine in the morning.

monday morning props to the crew of wall-e, for winning best animated film, and for reminding me why i hate pc.

credit unknown

36| brides, i don't wanna be one of those.

thirty-six posts into this blog, and i still haven't mentioned my fiancé. probably, possibly, because i am in wedding denial. or, i was. i don't really love this whole wedding planning thing {aspects of it}, because it all seems so very cookie cutter, like the McMansions in the suburbs, and a lot of things associated with womanhood, there is only one way to do it, supposedly.

i am, however, engaged to my favourite and my best, as i call him. it's been a motherload of a long engagement {36 + months by the time we tie the knot. we did get engaged six weeks after our first date, and i was nineteen}. which is maybe why i've hated the planning up until now. or, maybe it's because i'm indecisive.

suddenly, however, i have found myself caught in a whirlwind of choice-making, which i am not very good at. and, so, faithful readers {all five of you}, stay tuned for more wedding-like talk. i promise, it won't actually be wedding-talk, but just rather my mocking of the wedding industrial complex.

a dear friend, in regards to other friends' invites: wow, wedding magnets! with the date! what a neat idea? who though of those?

me: the wedding industrial complex.

35| saturdays are for...

• ... going out for a delicious, amazing brunch, with eggs done just right {i don't remember the last time i didn't go for brunch on a saturday}.
• ...shopping at wonderful vintage stores and fair-trade shoppes in the market. my favourite score of the day? a lovely, bright orange and green peruvian poncho, for $16. or perhaps, my sterling silver hoops.
• ...working out, like i committed myself to doing, with excellent music, and a half-empty gym.
• ...cooking a yummy pasta dinner, followed by some serious monopoly rivalry {i had more than half the properties, and still managed to be the first bankrupted. sounds like our economy}
• ...falling asleep for a cozy nap on a friend's floor. 

34| swappity, love

i  {finally} received my swappity package this evening courtesy of hannah by way of first milk {once again, many thanks for organizing this}. such lovely little trinkets and teensies being delivered from a merry little cupid!

i absolutely love the three heart pop-up card she created, and which was accompanied by a lovely pair of earrings and an adorable little saucer. love.

33| a most miniscule glimpse.

every morning, i get off the bus at bank and albert, grab an americano from my favourite coffee shop and schlepp my stuff three blocks to my office. about two blocks in, i was stopped by an rcmp officer, a mountie if you will.

and so it began, ottawa's circus maximus, the preparation for the arrival of american president obama. for the past three days, there has been an nbc van outside my office {which is across from parliament hill}, and the crowds this morning have been building around the building. i think about this in terms of a miniscule glimpse, both in terms of glimpsing at the president {not likely} and also a somewhat satirical glimpse into what a security state in canada would look like. the mountie stopped me and asked me what my business in the area was. i shook my head, told him i worked in the chambers building, and moved on. but by no means could i take this attempt and state control seriously, even as the officers were stopping every vehicle on the road, because vehicles are much more likely to harbour terrorists.

either way, i think {no matter how much i adore obama} that this visit will further a post-colonial {read: americanized} canadian identity, and will remind me why i really can't stand canadian media.

yes, we can {overdo it with media coverage of obama's visit}

credit hankins

32| doy, doy, doy.

our friends' son is eighteen months old, and very talkative, despite a limited vocabulary. he will tell you a very long story about a dog, or a dinosaur, and all it sounds like is: "doy doy doy doy doy" and on it will go. and it's really quite cute while he's doing it.

but, after several hours of hanging out with the munchkin, the doy doy gets into your head. and for a while, i would just say "doy doy" when i was sighing. now it's just running on and i can't stop it. almost like an ohrworm {german for catchy thing stuck in your head}, except twenty times more annoying.

i can't tell if this is a cause of my migraine, but it certainly is not the solution. i'm giving myself another half-hour before making like an eighteen-month old and going home for a nap.

credit martha stewart, via apracticalwedding

31| asparation, or: an asapargus and a broccoli walk into a bar.

whenever i eat a food that i don't normally eat, or haven't eaten for a very long time, i tend to look it up online, especially if i'm eating it at my desk. a few weeks ago, i found out that pears are in the same family as apples, and that a pistachio only has 3 calories per nut {i ought to keep more of both of these things around}. today's lunch was sourdough bread with hummus, feta and tomato. nothing out of the ordinary. however, last night, we made a stirfry that had asparation in it, and there was too much asparation leftover. so, i did what any normal asparation-loving person would do, and steamed it with soy sauce and sesame seed oil for a snack to take with.

that said, what the hell is asparation, other than the letting out of a breath? asparation is the trademark of Sanbon, Inc. for broccolini, which is essentially what you get when you cross asaparagus and broccoli. it was also cheaper than either the broccoli or the asparagus. regardless, it's delicious, and about as low on the totem pole of genetically modified organisms are you can get.

credit http://myrecipes.com/

30| fail, epic.

i attempted to make a rainbow cake on the weekend for a birthday party. it was pretty, until i turned it over and realized that it wasn't cooked all the way through. ooey, gooey, messy goop. ick. i shall try again next weekend.

29| how the gym is like the dentist.

i'm trying so hard not to eat before going to meet with the gym membership dude. it's like eating sugary junk before you go to the dentist. it's just not done. or, more specifically, how many people brush, floss, and rinse with mouthwash before going to the dentist, even though you only do one of these things the other 364 days of the year {guilty.}

i will eat before i go, i just think that 11 is a bit early for lunch, when you have breakfast at 9. even if breakfast was small. regardless.

28| studying stones.

how was your weekend?

in ontario, there is this fabulous thing called family day held on the third monday of february. it's maybe three years old, this idea. all the shops close, all the museums close. and everyone, except for federal government employees {which is all this city is made of} have the day off. so, the day off yesterday i had {even though i work for the government...}

a friend of mine gave birth on sunday, to her second son. i would use adjectives to describe him, but i don't know what he looks like other than a baby with dark dark hair and big eyes, that looks a lot like his older brother did about eighteen months ago. anyway, one of her friends made a comment about how wonderful it was, that the baby came just in time for family day. i says, pardon? because it would be a tragedy if the baby came in time for st. patty's day? {i'm sure baby's father would think otherwise, actually). i know this person was well meaning, but seriously, babies are not things to make political comments about {unless you have eight of them, by in vitro fertilization, and the doctor put 6 embyros in your body. and then you ask people for money *sigh*}.

anyway, enough soapbox for one day.

credit boopsie daisy

27| saturdays are for...

• ... going out for a delicious, but incredibly early breakfast, with your friend + her daughter, in order to beat the early morning valentine's day breakfast rush. which is larger than every other saturday brunching rush.
• ...playing endless rounds of twenty questions, whilst waiting for food, waiting for the bill, and whilst driving {my two favourites of the day: gordon ramsay and woody woodpecker}
• ...reminding yourself why and how the dinosaurs died, and that your death will be much less interesting, and less widely studied.
• ...taking a plethora of photographs explaining why the dinosaurs died and what they looked like beforehand {to be posted upon editing}.
• ... finishing one of these.
• ... making a delightful dinner, served with an even better red wine.
• ...kicking ass and taking names.

all in all, quite possibly the best valentine's day i've ever had. surely it beats the one where i was stuck in an airport, and the one where my boyfriend was in chile. sans doute.

| credit little papoose |

26| get your things and lose your way.

i truly cannot wait for the summer to arrive. more specifically, i cannot wait for this snow to disappear, and to be able to spend ten hours outside a day: gardening, walking, photo-taking, patio talks, late nights by the lake.

and to be able to dress in single digit layers again. it appears as though all my weekend goals revolve around preparing for summer's arrival. just like the arrival of a good friend, i want to make sure i'm well prepared {even if summer doesn't show for another three months here}:

• start planning trip with mikael
• get ahold of lovely plastic planting pots
• plant seeds and dirt into said pots
• order more seeds
• finish up planning of summer projects, via newly constructed planning board {planning is half the fun}
• give self pedicure in order to prepare for the apocolypse of boots and wool socks, and the coming of the age of sandals
• read about fashion trends and summer photography techniques while said pedicure dries.

this summer is apparently all about gardening and consumerism. but hopefully not too much of the latter.

25| happy v-day.

to all you fine folks out there with friends, family and miscellaneous loved ones with whom you can spend the day.

24| quiet post, toronto

i took a marvelous day trip to toronto last summer. i didn't get a chance to edit my photos until this evening. it's a little like revisiting the city all over again.

23| the lowest common denominator

subtitle: an open letter to all the magazines that haven't gone under {yet}

i hate, with the passion of a thousand burning fires , cosmopolitan magazine.

what i hate even more than cosmo is just about every other so-called women's magazine that tries to make women into a lowest-common-denominator. no such thing. and i understand that in the world of publishing {or the world of everything}, you're never going to please everyone. but as long as you're not repressing people i'm okay with that. i feel as though in the past five years many of my favourite magazines, and many great magazines that i didn't know i loved until they were almost gone {domino} have gone by the wayside, and then enter whatever the so-called most read magazine in that genre to scoop up the remainder of good-magazine's readership.

amanda at first milk was talking about sassy magazine yesterday, which falls under the category of magazines-that-i-never-read-but-wish-i-had. however, when i was 21 {which isn't as long ago as i make it sound} i too lost my first love, jane...also published by conde nast.

in light of amanda's post, i revisited the jane website today, which has been shut down for just over two years. a press release issued on the front page reads as follows:

Dear Jane Reader:
With regret, Jane and janemag.com are no longer being
published. In their place, we invite you to explore Glamour magazine and
Glamour.com.
We think you’ll love Glamour.com. Like Jane, it’s packed with
everything smart, sexy women want to know—about your body, your beauty, your
relationships … and more!
Sincerely,
Jane Magazine

this is the point in the mourning process where one moves from sad, and displaced, to furious that someone could even suggest that you could ever replace your precious hamster, or magazine in this case.

beyond my feeling of mourning over the loss of domino {which, i am presently ordering back issues of, because holy crap, where was this when i needed it}, i feel repressed by women's magazines. the ones directed at style and sex. the glamours, the cosmopolitans, the marie claires of the publishing world.

specifically, i feel repressed about my sexuality, and specifically with regards to the female orgasm {insert gasp here. no boys, it's not a myth}. cosmopolitan ran an article this month entitled "An orgasm almost killed her: We're not kidding". It was about a young girl who had a pre-existing heart condition, and was on the Pill. The Pill led to a blood clot as can happen, and the blood clot moved up to her heart during sex because of an increased heart rate.

so, basically, cosmopolitan is implying that women should not have orgasms, because you might have a stroke. simplified? perhaps. but to title the story "An orgasm almost killed her" is pretty irresponsible journalism. furthermore, the story talks far more about the orgasm's role than the role of the Pill or the woman's pre-existing heart condition. It's not that far {in my mind at least} from someone having a stroke after going for a run, and the publisher claiming that it was the exercise that caused the stroke, not the heart condition, or the clot, or the Pill.

i despise how a vast number of magazines have made women into some sort of lowest common denominator, and assume that none of us will ever give up the so-called freedom that comes with the Pill, so to blame someone's death on it would be media suicide.

i digress.

mostly, what bothers me about cosmopolitan, and glamour, is how blantantly hypocritical they can be. they talk about the empowerment of women such as marianne pearl and drew barrymore. they talk about how far women have come as a gender, and what womanhood means. but then, they turn around and offer forward a list of 75 ways to please your {male} lover. without getting into the sexual identity politics in america, why is it that the ratio of article on male pleasure to those on female pleasure is nearly 3:1? i would place sexual pleasure alongside the voting and property ownership as rights for which women have struggled on some level {political or personal}. that's not to say by any means that i think the sexual pleasure of a woman is more important than their right to vote. but given how far we've come on a lot of other fronts, i find our discourse on sexuality and pleasure to be incredibly antiquated.

22| when dessert for breakfast just won't do.

i just came back from the using the faucets in the bathroom of my office. using is certainly the most appropriate of words, because i think i had the water running for a good two of three minutes {long by my terms of hand-washing}.

luckily, it was not my pen that exploded, or a paper cut which led me to the water, but rather the most digustingly sweet and sticky pastry known to man: the sticky bun.

the sticky bun, as its name implies, is well...sticky. duh, right? this one was not only sticky, but flat out a greasy, sugary, icky mess. it was delicious {at the time}, but for a full fifteen minutes i couldn't do any work because my hands were covered in what i don't doubt was brown sugar, maple syrup and butter {ick}.

in light of this, i have what lisa simpson refers to as the remorse of the sugar junkie. except that i'm not a sugar junkie, and consequently it takes a lot less sugar than for most to make me feel remorseful. but it is remorse that i now feel. icky, sticky, ooey, gooey, sugar covered remorse {and the sucker wasn't even that big}.

{ugh.}

| credit chubbyhubby |

21| persephone

the greek god of fertility.

"as she was gathering flowers with her playmates in a meadow, the earth opened and Pluto, god of the dead, appeared and carried her off to be his queen in the world below... torch in hand, her sorrowing mother sought her through the wide world, and finding her not she forbade the earth to put forth its increase. so all that year not a blade of corn grew on the earth, and men would have died of hunger if Zeus had not persuaded Pluto to let Persephone go. But before he let her go Pluto made her eat the seed of a pomegranate, and thus she could not stay away from him for ever. so it was arranged that she should spend two-thirds of every year with her mother and the heavenly gods, and should pass the rest of the year with Pluto beneath the earth. ... as wife of Pluto, she sent spectres, ruled the ghosts, and carried into effect the curses of men."

i came across the name yesterday, overhearing a conversation between two women at the coffee shop. in addition to being a really interesting myth, it's also a planet in firefly {geekdom} and a musical work by stravinsky. furthermore, one of the women said that the girl went by the nickname percy. who could go wrong with that name?

| credit openlearningcenter |

20| springtime.

it'll be here soon, and then i can wear this. for starts, i'm breaking out my wellies. and my bright green lululemon hat. hurray!

19| {february} thaw

usually, for about six months of the year in ottawa there are sandwich board signs on the streets which read danger: falling ice overhead. on the other hand, i feel as though today they should have read beware: lots of water splashing from overhead.

the temperature today was a balmy +10, celsisus. 50 farenheit {one day i'll learn to do this without using google conversions}. i could have gone out at lunch and never come back for the rest of the day. except then i wouldn't have a job.

today is one of those days where the air feels so fresh, and welcoming. i wore my spring jacket and running shoes to work, because i could {and i must say, it looked pretty damn chic}. tomorrow will be a day for wellies. perhaps i can get away with looking like paddington bear?

| credit jchangk |

18| the irony of a university education

carleton university has one of the best journalism programs in the country. they also have a mass communication program that ain't too shabby on its own feet.

however, it must be pretty rare that their mass communication department and their marketing team hang out. the university is running a series of bus advertisements posing the so-called big questions, including the following:

who owns the media?

and, they're asking this on an advertisement, on the side of a bus. i couldn't help but feel a little bit like the last four years of my education have been a bust.

17| stick, short end of.

wednesdays are my mondays right now, because of my schedule. i dislike mondays. more than that, i dislike having to experience them twice, every week. i am so unproductive on mondays {and wednesdays, therefore}, and being unproductive doesn't make me feel that secure about myself.

today is going to be a long wednesday/monday, which will hopefully allow for some serious blogging activity {both the reading and writing of}. i got to work at around 8:30, i will leave at 4:30, go to a meeting for ladyfest, return home to eat chilli and watch something {possibly make something as well}, and then head back out around 22:45 {10:45} to play ultimate. short. end. of. stick. yes? it's the first round of games for our league, so it was basically done by luck of the draw. my draw lacks luck, apparently. my game will finish at midnight. ugh.

onward. tech meeting, ho!

16| a quiet post. seeds.

| seeds of possibility | |tatiana cardeal |

| christine eaves | | emilybean |

15| shameless.

if there is one thing that i love about my program at school, it is the ability to take something completely wonderful, and turn it into a history lesson. i adore that my professors encourage this in us. what? you have an interest in comic books? why not study how comic books record history? oh, you like david bowie and the rolling stones? why not talk about the shamelessness of sexuality in popular music in the 1970s and 1980s?

why, i think i just might.

once i have finished my cultural studies midterm tonight, i can turn my focus to the lovely and amazing david bowie and all of his 1970s glam rock splendor. i could not be more excited to get to talk about mr. ziggy stardust himself for a whole 25-pages. even if it means i also have to talk a bit about the pet shop boys.

so, professor evans {because we are facebook friends, and we follow one another on twitter...so i do not doubt for a second you will one day come across my blog}, thank you for encouraging me to look to uncommon relics of sexuality for inspiration.

as much as i love cultural studies {with the exception of margaret atwood and northop frye}, i love bowie`s queen bitch even more.

| credit galaxyfm |

14| oh, happy day!

i love it when little things go right for people. it makes the day that much nicer, especially when that day is a monday. this morning, i rolled out of bed at a leisurely 8:30 {a full two-hours than i have been for the last two months}. a half-hour later, i walked to...a bus stop!

{ if you would rather not read about canadian politics, you may scroll down to the next paragraph}

ottawa, a city of just over one-million people {and a lot of suburbia} was without transit for just under two months. our bus drivers, as lovely as they may be, decided that december--when it is cold, and when people need to get places{exams, holiday shopping, doctor appointments...work}--would be a marvelous time to start striking, even though they had been without contract for nine months. needless to say, this also happened while our government was not in session, because our wimp of a prime minister was afraid of non-confidence motion that would move to either a coalition government, or another election. therefore, the government could not step in, and the municipal government had its hands tied.

to make shorter a story that is far too long, when parliament resumed, they threatened to force workers back, and the union caved. {this is the very, very, very short version of the story}. all of this occurred whilst ottawa experienced ridiculously cold temperatures. so, it is no doubt safe to state that we are happy to have our buses back today. {okay, so they’ve been back since saturday, but many people didn’t notice.

so, that is fairly sizeable. i can’t top that and i know it {i think getting to knit on the bus was my favourite part of my ride this morning}. but, i am ever so happy that i was surprised to find $25 more on my card for the local coffee shop than i had initially suspected. this is not to say that i’m rich, so much as to say that holy moley, i need to pay more attention to when i load money on to cards {even though this is the only store that i do it at}.

so, my day started out very happily.

13| rules, even computers need

having arrived at my least favourite coffee shoppe in the entirely city, i opened my laptop to find that: a) i have internet access {hurrah} and b) that my computer is in dire need of rules and regulations. more specifically, i am in need of dire rules and regulations for my computer.

i have crumbs {red velvet cupcake}, paint {a marvelously beautiful blue}, glue, and a handful of scuff marks on the once pristine cover of my macbook pro.  no doubt this is the least of my problems, however, given that i am now sober, i am also now realizing that our house is a bit of a mess, and that mess {read: my art being spread around our library + living room} extends unto my computer. no more, says i. 

i say that a lot. 

|credit unplggd |

12| saturdays are for...

• ...coming home completely, and unexpectedly plastered from a friend's at three in the morning.
• ...waking up at 9 to go skating/curling/brunching, only to realize that you're completely hungover and standing in the shower, you once again become nauseous.
• ...going back to bed until 1pm.
• ...eating ridiculously crappy eggs and homefries in an effort to rejuvenate stomach and to make it look like you did this all on purpose, as though you were in college {but, wait i am in college, i just never drink}.

yikes. hopefully if i ever feel the strong desire {which i didn't at the time} to drink this much, i will go back to this blog and remind myself that, holy hell, it really is not a good idea. vodka, my relationship with you is over. permanently. wine, beer, we'll talk later.

i merely hope that the rest of my day is supremely better than the first half {not that the sleep wasn't good...it was the waking up from sleep}. fresh air, delicious chinese food, and the movie that should win best foreign language film if the critics have any say about it.

11| shakespeare's sister

a little bit of lovin' goes a long, long way. one more day until packages get sent for amanda's valentine's swappity and, to my luck, my swappity partner revealed some very interesting stuff about herself in her last blog post. we (or at least our hair) are not the least bit dissimilar.
tee hee. i'm still not quite done, but i think my niece will be able to help me out with that one.

i posted a motherload of photos to new sets on flickr. i have to say: why didn't i get a pro account earlier? i'm a little not on the ball with these things. flickr, skype, music in the great general sense of the word {i only discovered the marvelous arcade fire yesterday. srsly.}

for those of you who have not noticed, it is in fact friday. friday, i'm in love. friday gives me hope, and that makes me happy. though, i have little doubt that this weekend will fly past me like all the others before it {when you work full-time, weekends are precious things, not to be abused. abuse them with chores and they disappear like sand in your hands}. a full weekend. skating, curling, brunching, lots of doing. probably some crafting with my niece, definitely from cooking of delicious foods, and more likely than not some reading for myself. ah. four o'clock, please don't be late today.

| credit pia jane bijkerk | {personally, i really like the name pia}

10| joker to the thief

yesterday was possibly the most productive day i've had at work since i started this contract. i went through some forty-odd folders and compiled research, then i took work home! i think i felt guilty for taking two hours at lunch on friday {my work week is wednesday through friday on account of being a student. therefore, wednesdays are my mondays}.

today, i'm slightly less optimistic about being productive. there are too many other things to look at and think about.

for starters, i've become absolutely addicted to three things in the past week and a half.

one, eddyizm being such an amazing photographer, has lead me on a the very addictive path to flickr {imitation is the most sincere form of flattery? when i see someone do something great that i admire, i immediately want to learn that skill}. even though i can't upload photos at work, i can edit them, and i can look at other people's. so. very. distracting.

two, i have taken to mixed-media art lately. i love working with glues, paints, and whatever the heck else i can find. i've been spending lots of time on etsy and craigslist looking for crazy free {or cheap} stuff to make things from. so far, my favourite find has been some old fake roman coins.

three, i'm looking for a change of scenery. nothing permanent. but i realized last night that this is the first time in seven years that i haven't had a planned trip! and i don't have a trip planned. so, for anyone who is interested in creating some sort of awesome excursion into the wilderness, or urbanity, please let me know, because i'd love to be a part of it. {consequently, however, i have been on travel websites all morning. mostly for the united states}

and, so, in between spurts and spats of this post, i have gone through maybe ten folders, about a half what i had done in the same amount of time yesterday. ugh, what utter silliness this work stuff is. all it does me good for is paying the bills and inspiring me to play more. when i should be working.

alas. at least i have amanda's valentine's swappity to look forward to tonight when i come home, and photoshop.

title credit: bob dylan, all along the watchtower
photo: gehoert mir

9| mimosas + marigolds

for the first time since before christmas, it is supposed to go above freezing this week. as much as i love, love, love winter in ottawa {and by winter, i mean the part where you eat hearty food and do amazing winter sports}, i am quite ready for some warmer weather thank you very much.

i don't remember who it was, but back in november, when i was just getting started into the winter season, someone wrote a post {in fact, i'm sure many people wrote a post} of things they would like to be doing in the summer, even though there was no summer to be found. at the time, i found the idea to be rather silly, since i was so thrilled to have winter plans, but now that winter is slowly winding down {what's that you say....six more weeks? heck no!} i am finding myself craving summer, and seed catalogs.

hopefully this summer will be long, because there is indeed many things i want to do.

• plant my garden with mimosas and marigolds--lots of marigolds-- as well as edibles
• take a photography course
• play ultimate twice, if not three times a week
• get out on my rollerblades (perhaps to and from work)
• get my ass to a bunch of outdoor concerts, festivals and shows
• volunteer in the lantern festival
• buy some raw wood pieces and finish them outside
• craft in the great outdoors with my niece
• use the patio furniture, even if we don't have a patio.

the list will get longer as the weather gets better, undoubtedly.

|credit smellyblog|

8| valentines are for lovers {and new friends}

hurray! amanda over at first milk just sent me an email about her valentine blog swappity! but sshhh, i will not tell who it is i am matched with.

as it turns out, i also cannot used the apostrophe on this computer, because it has a french keyboard. good grammar will get the best of me someday.

| credit tinatarnoff |

7| price, percival

one of the courses i am taking this term involves a practicum under the curator of the house of commons. i am working to try and determine whether the peace tower {the main tower of the parliament buildings} were ever inaugurated, or if they just got their name through informal practices.

one of the routes through my research has been by way of the office of the carillionneur, who rings the bells in the tower at lunch and on special occassions. percival price, the first carilloneur of the peace tower was quite an interesting man it appears, based upon this letter to the deputy minister of public works:

percival price, the carillonneur, a civil servant on the staff of your
department...sleeps in the tower every night in spit of our regulations and
has bottles of milk delivered at the rear door of the house of
commons.

price {or perhaps more his archive}, in addition to sleeping in his office, also seems to be a huge lead for me, having one of the few original invitations to the inauguration.

so, mr. percival price, i raise my glass of milk to you, whereever you are.

| credit parliament of canada |