nothing to say.

is it time for summer yet?? this is the weather than i'm waiting for!

i don't even know what to talk about today....but i felt the need to post some kind of update.

this week has been REALLY busy. we finally finished quarter end for Q2 and even though the auditors are now coming back with more in depth questions we are on top of it. it just takes time. generally lots of time. another month end starts tonight with me having to go into the office around 11pm to run reports. fun! oh well. whatever. it will only take an hour or so.

i need to start cracking down on school too. i'm paranoid that i will get behind when i go to paris (PARIS!) and want to be well ahead of the game by the time that comes around.

elga mailed me back the last harry potter book that i had lent her when i left town last year. she sent a cute note card with a sentiment so hilarious and inappropriate that i won't repeat it here. but i laughed. really hard. and then i missed her even more.

isn't that a cute card? i want one with a J!

i finished the first bed sock for mom. as you can see from the pictures below i have made some grave errors in judgement. BUT, that's ok. i've figured it out. i know how to make it and how it all fits together. it's knit in one piece which confused the heck out of me, and also made it hard for me to tell what part was what because it all sort of bunches up on the needles. now i just need to reknit two more and make more ankle, less foot. *sigh* i still thinks it's pretty amazing that i managed to get that far with no pattern and without actually taking it off the needles to see how it was working out.

my version. hmmmm....something is terribly wrong with this foot!

the original. knit by someone who knew what they were doing.

practicing my french*

yesterday we had a big turkey dinner. very appropriate as the weather turned bitterly cold again and we awoke to snow beginning to fall. it didn't end up sticking, but the sentiment was there. mother nature knows i wore my spring coat last friday. and she is not amused. the day went something like this:

vernon and i lazily prep veggies and make salads.

here is vernon prepping avacodos for guac. doesn't he look relaxed?

the turkey was in the oven by 11:45. plenty of time for mr ding-dong* to cook and be out of the oven by 5:30. (guests are due to arrive shortly after and dinner is at 6:30). but then....

it's 4 o'clock and what's this?


holy crap the turkey was done! what-to-do-what-to-do?? i called mom. she wasn't home so vernon and i gave each other a hard shake and pulled it together. i put the joy of cooking away - realising that it would be of no use in an emergency of this magnitude. we didn't panic. or rather vernon didn't panic. and i didn't either. much. i convinced myself that having the turkey ready 2 hours before the guests were scheduled to arrive was much better than having to compose the obligatory "sorry i gave your children salmonella" emails if i fed it to them undercooked. look - here i am being very happy i'm not going to kill my guests with undercooked poultry.

am i disappointed about the turkey or the fact that vernon has decided to
document what could be a complete disaster in my culinary life to date?

needless to say, somehow it all came together. the turkey was so huge it kept warm for another hour while veggies roasted in the oven, i basted it to within an inch of it's life to keep it moist (i'd also cooked it upside down in an effort to keep those 18 pound turkey boobs from drying out - if i hadn't it probably would have been a bigger disaster). and it ended up being fall off the bone fantastic. the only thing that was missing was cranberries which i had completely forgotten about until the next morning when i woke up and thought "cranberries. dang."

and so today was full of turkey leftovers (as will be tomorrow.... and the next day....).

but now, it's off to curl up with this quartet of reading material....

michelle's "let's go paris" plus 3 other travel guides loaned to me by ron...

ps... by practicing my french i mean continuing the family tradition of referring to the turkey as mr ding-dong. aka. monsieur dinde. yes, i know it isn't pronounced ding-dong. work with me here.

paris? oui oui!

why yes, that IS a calendar set to MAY with a picture of NOTRE DAME on it. and why yes, in MAY i will be standing in paris looking at it for real!

YAY!

the exam

well b'ye. the exam is DONE. and it went WELL. ! yay! i am so so so relieved to have it done. and it felt really really good. i am so relaxed right now it's fantastic. i'm actually too relaxed to blog right now. i'm at vernon's and we had a fantastic day with his mom looking at antiques and visiting cape spear. go look at some pics of us at the cape here at vernon's blog.

alright. i'm done. like dinner. (which was fantastic by the way).

i'm taking a break after nailing a concept that was so completely lost on me last night i was seriously starting to freak out. disaster averted. i can now read an ANOVA table and actually know what it means (ANOVA is "analysis of variance"...aka B.O.R.I.N.G.) ok. so i'm breaking and i cruise onto the internet and go get a fortune cookie. how creeped out am i that this is my fortune:

My Fortune Cookie told me: On Sunday, a cellist will be tempted to assault you with a pear. Get a cookie from Miss Fortune

is anyone else creeped out? i'll be keeping an eye on vernon during our dinner date tonight. gotta make sure he doesn't have any pears in his pockets.

morning light

8:30 am
saturday

every morning this week, regardless of the weather later in the day, has been beautiful and sunny. the light coming into my apartment is so fantastic and wonderful at this time of year, i just had to share. (just ignore the pile of papers and calculators and knitting on the ottoman....there are only so many lectures a person can listen to before the knitting gets hauled out to give the fingers something to do between the note taking.)

friday.

just a quick yoohoo to alert everyone to the fact that i haven't perished or become trapped under a pile of statistical data. i'm in vernon's office typing on his crappy keyboard (why is the keyboard crap when the computer is super fancy?). we were supposed to grab a quick bite between our work days and my super-crappy study evening and his have-fun-going-to-super-fun-recital-happy-fun-fun-joy evening. but his auditions are running overtime so it looks like we will have exactly enough time to say "hey, how are you? uh-huh. good. ok then, bye!" quick peck on the cheek and that's it until tomorrow. *sigh*. when do i get to have the super-fun-happy-fun-fun-joy evenings again?

alrighty.

if you want to watch a really cute animated short about knitting - go here. this is the kind of animation i like the most...and of course, i can relate....

ok. i'm done. i have no photos these days.... big *SIGH*

pressure cooker

this past week has been like being in a pressure cooker. i can feel the tension in my life rising as i get closer to this exam. it might be panic as i remember the last exam that went oh-so-completely-wrong-wrong-WRONG.

i went to the track last week and felt my hip starting to hurt after 20 minutes of hauling myself around the track and did i stop? did i attempt to alleviate the problem? did i attempt to SAVE MYSELF? no. no, i just kept going. ok. i'm horribly out of shape. my hip is screwed up now - hurts to walk, hurts to sit, hurts to lie down, hurts to move. this isn't the first time this has happened. it's just started to rotate out of the socket. fun! so i need a massage and then a serious regime of strengthening exercises to tighten up those muscles so they can hold the bones together. doesn't' that sound great? anyhoo - because my hip is sore i'm overcompensating and now my back is all skewed.

alright then. enough lounging around. back to the books. you too web surfer - back to work.