improved. but certainly not new.

for anyone who missed me, i can now be found at my slightly more, but not always, professional blog

the past is prologue

my life is now public history, design, being a wife, cooking (not for my husband!) and vaccine clinics. please be advised ;)

130| welcome, june.

summer is certainly my favourite season {even if i truly love all season}. part of the reason why i love it is because there's so much to do and to see and to take in.

getting married only amplifies this.

tonight's the first night in a very, ridiculously long time that i've been able to sit and blog. or do something that wasn't pre-planned, for that matter.

can i confess something?

i'm delightedly excited to get married to my best friend in just a few months. actually, we should be counting in weeks now. yikes.

i'm also excited for things to calm down a bit. for there to be time for me to reflect. please.

i will make a more concerted effort to blog, and to take time to reflect.

128| flailing.

i am flailing. it has been very nearly a week since i blogged. my job is redunant, but my work has ricidulously high security. so, blogging has been left to evenings and weekends. but evenings and weekends are taken up now with friends and family and all sorts of necessary things. none of which are bad, but they are very time consuming.

this weekend, for example, started with a very lovely evening celebrating the anniversary of one of my professors. man, she knows how to party! it was held at a really cool, ecclectic cafe nearby, and there were lots of nibblies and bevvies, and great music. moreover, jen is quite good at hosting. she was really able to introduce people fully and trying and find little connectors between them (for me, this meant finding myself amongst a really cool professor of political science and an archivist). honestly, andrew didn't feel at all awkward amongst the learneds.

it reminded me about the purpose of marriage, and being present in the moment. sounds funny, sure. but truly, it reminded me of all the things to look forward to once the glitter has fallen off and the wedding blogs become a less regular part of my life (eep).

today involved andrew working, me running and running errands. by the time he got home, he was zonked. we went out for pizza and beer, and it was nice. but, he was tired and has called it a night, even though i wanted serious one-on-one time.

oh well.

next weekend, we're at a friends' cottage. the week after that is andrew's mother's birthday, my convocation and visit one of three from my parents. i haven't figured out yet how to deal with all the sh*t my father has thrust upon me. nothing about this is cut and dry and our wedding only two months from now, it's become a whole lot less so. blarg.

all of this is to say, i'm sorry that i've been blogging less. really, right now i want to be blogging more.

127| peeking, piquing

this weekend was long. and fun. and i want to do it all over again, very soon.

friday afternoon began with a thud and thump, and my father continuing to refuse to give me necessary documents for my taxes. i was not pleased. i don't recall much about friday evening, other than a long, long sleep that bled into saturday morning.

saturday morning we garage saled. or garage bought? i had three marvelous finds. that lovely bowl that i blogged about last week...the green one. i found for only $10. and a remarkable candlelabra. and a stuffed pig. the pig was probably the most meaningful. i had one, named knuckles when i went to europe last year and lost it in italy. so we found a new one and we're calling him Knuckle Junior, or KnuJu for short.

saturday afternoon was a lot of walking and exploring the market, buying new plants and coming home to garden them. we then made pizzas and yum, yum, yum. it was delightful! oh, in between garage sale-ing and gardening there was marvelous brunch. oh so tasty.

sunday was filled with grocery shopping, more gardening, more markets, baking, playing frisbee, eating BBQ and playing cards. i haven't had this much sun in a long time. i feel wonderful. like i said, i didn't really want for this weekend to end.

oh well, some of the goodies will last. including but not limited to these.

126| three months out, both feet in.

so for ignoring you all in the last week {all three of you?}. i started a new job with the municipal government that has very high restrictions on internet access {blogger won't let me sign in, but it will let me read blogs}. i also had the stomach flu, so yeah.

the week was ridiculously busy.

we settled on "catering".
by which i mean we talked to my friend sara, who cooks wicked good food. and we've hired her. and i'm so delighted about this. one very large thing to cross of our long list.

we went to the places that we registered at, and added and removed a few things. a rice cooker is simply something we don't have space for.

i've decided on maybe a parasol, or maybe not. so, i haven't decided.

also, i'm in the process of baking a cake for andrew's niece.

long weekend, you are going by too quickly.

125| window shopping, cake.

it's been a few weeks since i've gone window shopping--mostly because i've been too busy with life to actually stop and look at what is in the windows. today, i might actually buy something {my quarterly sales tax refund came today in the mail}.

today's also my sweetheart's birthday. except that in three years together, i don't think i've ever called him my sweetheart. but he is. andrew is also a cake monster, according to his mother--and i can agree with that sentiment. so, i made his birthday cake this year, and i made him three small cakes as well to snack on this afternoon {they're cupcake sized}. i'll post pictures over at butter-and-patience later today {for fear he is checking the blog}. anyway, as if i haven't spent enough time with cake this week, i'm going to share with you some of my favourite "cake" things.

milk-glass cake plate, eddie ross, $35

elephant wedding cake toppers, $75

pyrex mixing bowls, vintage

124| five-hundred dollars for chairs.

this is a charivari chair. aesthetically, it is one of the prettiest chairs i have ever seen. it holds historic sentiment in much of french canada as a folk custom originating in france whereby the community would clammor about if they didn't approve of the marriage. they would hoist the bride up on to one of these chairs and carry her through the city. should she still make it to her wedding night, they would stand outside the newlyweds room and make lots of noise so as to show disapproval. charivaris still take place to this day, with one recorded in 2008 in atlantic canada with people using more modern noisemakers, this time to show their approval. wikipedia cites a charivari as a "mock-seranade". i just think it's a cool part of north american french history.

however, it turns out that our party rental place has charivari chairs. for $10 a piece. but there's no way i can rationalize spending $500 on chairs. can i? {for the record: i could, but i don't think andrew would go for it}. i need to go see what kind of chairs there are at the venue again.

also, when did i become so concerned with the aesthetics of what my guests are sitting upon? someone?

123| a second home.

i started a second blog. not because i don't like my home here, because i do.
but rather, because i am going to be doing more cooking, baking, and making in the next four months than i ever have in my twenty-some years. and i couldn't be happier to share with all of you.

so, if you like sugar, and butter and eggs, and tasty things make from real food, you can find me at butter & patience. the story of which is as follows:

tonight while out for a walk, andrew & i were talking about the countless cakes that i have offered to bake for friends, family, my fiancé {andrew} and complete strangers in the next month. i mentioned something about the icing, and "if i have enough butter and patience". and so this blog was born. i love to cook and i love to bake. but sometimes i don't have the patience. not for the task, but rather for recipes.

it shall be an interesting four months. i will do my darndest to not get completely fat.

122| lists.

clearly, i'm in a blogging mood today {i also have fifteen minutes to kill until the end of my work morning and the much anticipated lunch out}.

so, what did i do with the first five of the fifteen minutes? why, i looked at the knot.com, of course, like any insane bride would. right then. there are one-hundred-and-eighty-four things on my "list" to be completed. i checked off all the ones that i thought didn't apply to me/him/us/our wedding/our party {as my father is now calling it, because there are no aunts, uncles invited, and therefore it can't possibly be a wedding}.

there were still twenty-one things. more manageable, sure. but twenty-one things. it's still a lot of pressure to do and check and make and think and participate in this grand scheme.

actually, there were only twenty. i left one unchecked because i thought it was the most ridiculous thing i had ever heard. ever.

Brides: Choose your bridesmaids' accessories (shoes, gloves, etc.) and either purchase or pass along purchasing information.

you know, because my bridesmaid is not twenty-three and cannot make these types of decisions on her own.

when she {steph} was in town this week, we went to a nice trendy dress shop and bought her a nice, cute dress, that she looks incredible in. she wanted to buy it right away. i told her we should take a second look. and we did. but in te end, she was right. and i trusted her. and she will look incredible. without. doubt.

the strange thing about the knot is that it is so redunant. you're supposed to do the same things every month. it doesn't make a lot of sense. the words "submit your wedding anouncement" appears in five different sentences in five different months {although, i think the knot assumes that we are supposed to have engagement announcements and wedding announcements as separate entities. we have neither, thankfully}.

it reminds me of the instructions on a box of tea:

1. open box
2. remove sachet of tea
3. boil water
4. unwrap string from sachet
5. procure cups and teapot
6. place sachet in teapot
7. when water has reached its boiling point, pour water into teapot
8. let tea steep
9. once the tea has steeped to your liking, pour into cup(s)
10. enjoy
11. remove tea sachet before the tea becomes too strong

it's tea, for heaven's sake. and that's kind of how i feel about this wedding business: as long as i am married at the end of the day, and as long as i have had my share of cake and ice cream, i will be very, particularly delighted and it will have been a marvelous success of a wedding.

image my own {from where i hope to have our photos done.}

121| last.

goodbye greenbelt staff, fair thee well.

i'm one of three staff of the eight-person branch leaving in the next three months. david bowie's song changes is playing my head. it'll be good for the branch, and for the department, but damn: i'm going to miss it.

next monday, i start talking about swine flu in the municipal government. i feel a bit like a substitute teacher, but for the federal government. i like wearing the different hats, but it's hard not making connections and settling down a little bit.

120| ninety-nine.

yep. that's how many days until our wedding. i'm worried. but only because the wedding industrial complex tells me to be worried.

i actually wasn't counting until a friend of mine pointed out that it was 57 days until her wedding. then i had to go count.

it could be worse. another dear friend is getting hitched in eight days. so, really i feel rather ahead of the game.

it's been a long time coming. and it's still a little ways to go.

|image theknot, because they started this rebellion in me. |

119| in the margins.

i like talking about marginalization. mostly because i believe such a dialogue is healthy, and somewhat necessary to putting an end to marginalizing groups and individuals.

meg is talking about feminism and weddings today. it makes me ridiculously happy.

on the other hand, a local columnist in london {ontario} and i have been picking our battles this weekend over his ethnocentric column from a week ago. the column talks about his experience with a family of either "romanian or lebanese" origin, haggling with someone at a sears outlet store. hardly newsworthy. his assessment of the family as weird and his mocking of their experience was indeed very ethnocentric and hardly empathetic to the culture shock they likely experienced. anyway, it has resulted in a back and forth of comments from myself and from the blogger and a discussion about ethnocentricity and the marginalization of minorities in North American journalism. the discussion was interesting, even if i didn't change his opinion {it ended with "you're wrong, kate! you're wrong about canada and you're wrong about journalism-- i'm not sure if he realized that i'm a communications & canadian history major.}

| image yushimoto |

118| late nights and earlier mornings.

my best friend {and maid of honor} is up in ottawa visiting me, and has been for the last forty-eight hours. can i say that i'm so happy to have such a wonderful, amazing human being in my life? seriously. she's the best evar!!!! we spent the last few days exploring and re-exploring the city, trying on dresses, looking pretty, drinking, eating, sleeping in, and tomorrow we'll cap it off with my favourite brunch place. only because i have to go back to work. *sigh*

we saw the wedding venue tonight, and i kind of am realizing that things will slowly, but surely fall into place. it's a bit scary. and very exciting.

also, because of her visit, the earliest i've gone to bed in over a week has been 1:30. hopefully this will change tonight. but, i've become a little bit of an insomniac. in addition to many other things. consequently, i'm spending my night in front of a computer screen deleting people from facebook that i haven't talked to in a long, long time. for. the. win.

p.s. i promise that my blogs will become more interesting upon my return to the work environment.

117| decompressing by doing.

{or: how to have a really, really productive saturday}

today was my last saturday as an undergraduate student. this sounds really weird, and it is a really weird thing to mark, but i've sort of had a schedule for saturdays over the past four years that has involved brunch, grocery shopping, school work and an out of the house activity in the evening.

in light of the really long paper i've been writing, my sleep schedule was thrown off and i went ot bed at six thirty this morning, after falling asleep on the couch around four {thank you to those of you who sent me lovely messages of support and demands for me to go to bed between four and six-thirty}.

my day commenced with andrew's doing the crossword and my trying to remain perfectly silent while he did so. i am not so good at this. but it was a good test for me, and i started thinking of all the things i wanted to do today, given that the weather could not have been nicer if it had tried.

we brunched at jak's, one of my most favourite brunching places, and the patio was open, which was marvelous! we went shopping for him and found the most adorable top for our friend's daughter who is presently obsessed with wonderwoman. we went to bridgehead: i worked for two or three hours plugging in footnotes {over a hundred}, while he went and played catch with a friend {tee hee}. we then came home and i gardened, and gardened and gardened. we are going to have so many beets this year. gardening was followed by picnicking {hamburgers} on the grass in our yard, and then more schoolwork, and then baking.

this might have been one of the busiest days i've had in a long time. but, it's also been one of the most enjoyable!

happy saturday!

116| window shopping, living rooms

i'm an awful blogger. really, and truly. i'm also an awful spender. i do however, have four weddings, two anniversary parties, a broadway show, my convocation and a great deal of brunches on patios to attend this summer, and only one dress to spare {which i am presently sporting}. and otherwise, i'm spending wisely.

however, there will be a large purchase in august. a new sofa is coming into our living room {andrew's parents are amazing and are footing the bill as a wedding gift}.

having worked at ikea in the sofa department, i understand the sofa to be the most critical piece of furniture in your living room. or at least, the seating area in general as being the msot critical. so, we hummed and we hawwed {does haw have two Ws as a past tense? amanda? anyone?} and we decided on this little lovely sectional that will look lovely in our current apartment...

but, now i'm left with the question of "what do we put with it?" it's much more modern than our current sofa, and is leather {i'm going to hell, i'm aware of that...andrew really wanted leather, so leather it is}. We have the rest iof the furniture quite well sworted out, but I think such an event might call for a few accessory pieces...

jenna rose pillow, $60

andrea rund carpet {ikea}, $299

wall decal, $18