BIG NEWS

the exam is in an hour and a half. but that's not the big news. the big news is that it's snowing. again, not that exciting since it's december in newfoundland and this is not by far the first snowfall of the year... the big news is that it's been snowing STRAIGHT DOWN for the past couple of hours. no wind. no crazy blizzardness. just beautiful straight down snow... it's eerie and beautiful.


i just read this blog post over at crazyauntpurl and it really resonated with me. i have nothing to add here on it. just go read her post and maybe once the exam is done i'll come with something to add that's more relevant to my life...
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t-21 hours

in less than 24 hours i'll be writing the exam. in about 24 hours i'll be done.

eek.

i'm not ready. but maybe i'm ready as i'll ever be?

did i mention... eek?

study study. cram cram cram.

the view from the study nook. note festive twinkly lights.

it has begun. the final push towards the exam is here. only two days to go... actually less than two days. i'm down to t-44.5 hours. not that i'm counting. i'm only about 4 hours behind on my study schedule, which, considering my study schedule involves bending the space-time continuum, means i'm doing fairly well. back at it i suppose. can't waste all my time blogging. gawd.

so why am i going to be an accountant?

Benevolent Artist




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no denying it

there really is no reason to deny it anymore. winter is fast approaching. i've been trying to convince myself that the chilly mornings were just a passing thing, that maybe this year we wouldn't get winter... but, according to environment canada, winter might just visit us on monday. it's not so much the chance of flurries as the high of minus 1 that gets to me. the fact that the high doesn't even break the freezing point of water kind of irritates me. good thing my car goes in on thursday to get her studs on... today is chilly, but clear blue skies and very little wind. too bad i'm chained inside listening to accounting lectures.....

enjoy the silence?

i can't believe it's been over two months since i've written anything here. the time has flown by and i must say that the fall has been.... in a nutshell? really really fun. i finally have a pretty solid crew of friends here on the rock and i must say, we know how to have fun. whether it's lunch, drinks, an all night party or just hanging out...they are a great group of people. and the really cool part is that i can actually understand them all through their sometimes gnarly accents. when i first met a few of them i remember thinking "holy COW, i will never pick this up...WHAT?" but now, it's good.

i got off the Avalon peninsula, finally, and went out to Fogo Island with my friend Krista. i am never one to turn down a bit of adventure and holy...an adventure it was. it's about a 4 hour drive (maybe 5 actually) to the ferry crossing, and then a 45 minute boat ride....then about another 30 minutes or so to Fogo proper. you basically leave St John's and drive to Gander, turn north and drive until the land ends, then get on a boat and chug out into the middle of Notre Dame bay and there you are....on an island in the middle of nowhere....which is off the coast of the bigger island in the middle of nowhere..... in the winter the island is surrounded by ice - the ferry needs a ice breaker pretty much continuously through the bad months to help it get through. the harbour freezes over solid (although not quite as solid as it used to according to the locals).

me and maggie overlooking the harbour and Fogo Head. we saw whales from here. i freaked out a little bit.

it's pretty desolate... this is actually the location of one of the old settlements.... if you turn right and look out to sea there is nothing but horizon staring back at you.

me, standing on Fogo Head with Change Islands behind. it was really windy, as evidenced by my hair. the binoculors were courtesy of krista's dad who insructed me to use them to look at Change Islands. i did, and it was cool. i also used them to spy on people in the town.... this is one of the four corners of the earth:

this was at Tilting, or Joe Batt's Arm, or some other little town.

Krista's family was really really fun, sort of what i would consider "typical" newfoundlanders. they fed us until we were full, filled us full of drink until i was pretty sure i was toxic and were so welcoming and friendly. very cool trip. i'd do it again...but maybe if it was warmer....


Olivia is getting huge, and has changed SO much since they moved back to the rock it's incredible. This is really the first time i've been around a kid this much as they are growing and it's really cool to see her develop. it helps that she has a great personality and isn't irritating. (that sounds really bad, but some kids are irritating. i'm allowed to say that. don't judge me.) she loves to play in my yarn baskets and take out the balls and squish them. it's really cute. and it's really the only thing she's interested in playing in (as opposed to say, the laptop, or the books on the shelf) so that's great!


other than that... school is basically draining the life out of me, but i'm trying to balance it with at least doing some writing for fun (which is going slowly and painfully). i think the events of my life are basically going to make a really cheesy/bad romance novel... the movie could make me a lot of coin though.... i wonder who would play me?


on the knitting front i'm full on into christmas knitting....only a few people are going to benefit from it this year because i've left it too late, procrastinated too much, was too indecive, and i knit too slowly. i've knit myself a pair of mittens, having lost my store bought pair. i'm not convinced they will be warm enough, but they might be. plus, they were quick and now that i've knit one pair i'm sure i can bang off a second pair easily enough. no pics of that though, it's too dark in the evenings by the time i get home from work and in the mornings i'm just not organized enough.

radio silence

you can expect some pretty severe radio silence from me now. i'm leaving for a week to go back to BC for my grandfather's funeral and to see some friends; it's year end at work and we are (still) short staffed; i'm not into broadcasting the events of my life of late, what with all the upheavals.

plans to blog in the future are there...but i can't tell you when the future will be.

i expect the next few months to involve a lot of nights ending in empty pitchers...

nothing spells trouble like beer through a straw.

cheers.

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last.fm

if you listen to a lot of music and totally hate the radio stations in your town (hello!) last.fm might be the solution to your troubles. i had heard of last.fm, but thought it was something that wouldn't be any use to me. well, living without tv is great, but holy cow it can be quiet around here sometimes. so i do listen to a lot of music and am constantly wishing i could expand my play list. enter last.fm. i listen to whatever i normally would and it comes up with a list of things that i would probably like and i can listen to them online, just like the radio. or, you can put in that you want to listen to bands that sound like whoever, and it will generate a playlist of bands that are similar. sweet. i'm going to listen some more now.

100/70

well that's more like it. although i had a really salty dinner last night and drank a coffee before going in. but still, when they said 100/70 i didn't think "am i dead?".

tomorrow we go for blood work. fun! nothing like being stuck with needles and peeing in a cup at 7:30 in the morning to really remind you that life is what you make of it.

i am quite proud that my resting heart rate is 60 though. and not something that would indicate i am the lazy sloth that i am. :)

in other news... it seems that if i'm not working late (which i am) then i'm on the biggest time suck of all time: facebook. oh, but then if i'm not on facebook or working late i'm on the biggest time suck of all time specific to fibre fetishists: ravelry. what is it about that site that just drains the minutes away? it's fantastic - i love it! i only wish i had more friends who knit.

90/55

i went to see the Naturopath today and that was my blood pressure. 90/55. I don't think it's ever been so low (not like i know what it is all the time, but whenever i've had it taken and they say it's low it's never THAT low). she did ask me several times if i was ever dizzy. (which i'm not).

huh.

distraction from thinking too hard about the end

My grandfather died last weekend. At this point I don't have too much to say about it as it's too recent for me to gather any concrete rational thoughts on it. The loss makes the distance between here and there feel even more immense. I'll go home in mid-September for the memorial. For anyone interested the obit can be accessed here.

Moving on to less tearful things....

my baby surprise sweater in action!

Now that I know how the sweater fits together I would stripe it differently the next time I knit this. (I really had no idea what I was doing. I'm not sure how I feel about the shorter sleeve (as per the original design) but I'll withhold judgement until I hear feedback from the parents. I'm sure EZ knew what she was doing when she designed it. And who am I to argue with EZ? I'm also not happy with the buttons - it needs bigger ones. the bottom two buttons in the picture aren't done up because really, there's no point if they are just going to fall out of the button holes every time the little one moves.

The WIP parade:

Something for someone for Christmas. That's all I can say for now and all I'll show until after the 25th of December! I think it will be a big hit. :)

I finally turned the heel on V's sock. I'm hoping to have these wrapped up within the month. The flight to the west coast and back should help with that.

More mindless knitting. The pocketbook slippers. My feet are always cold and I hate wearing socks so this could have been a good solution to that issue. I'm not convinced about this pattern for me. It might be better for someone with shorter feet. I'll finish the second one that is barely started so I have a pair. These really aren't using much of the wool (Patons SWS - 70% wool, 30% soy) so I'll have enough to make these slippers as well. I know I like this pattern so that should be better.

in case you weren't convinced they actually could be worn on the feet...

Thrums to make mittens! There is no way in hell my hands are going to be cold here this winter. Ha! Take that Newfoundland winter! Jen 1, Newfoundland Winter 0. (OK ok, it's more like Newfoundland Winter 8675, Jen 1... but whatever).
(and in case you have no idea what I'm talking about when I say thrums, THIS is what I mean. It's tradition. It's warm. I figure I can knit my own, no need to buy!)


The leisel scarf. I'm feeling particulary 'meh' about the pattern as a whole. The only reason I cast on for it was because I happened to have it lying around. This might get frogged in favour of the flame scarf from Knit and Tonic.

green scarf, lounging

another scarf, this one almost done. it's just a nice easy brioche stitch: cast on of a multiple of 3 and then *yo,sl1,k2tog* repeat. alternating greens every second row. niiiiiice and mindless. and the fabric created by brioche is really really soft and squooshy. yum. this one might get kept by me.

a big PS for Michelle... you complained that you don't figure prominently enough in my blog...does it count that i got your baby AND the back of your husband's head in this post??

busy

the last two weeks have been really busy. with the tuckamore festival going on it's been seemingly non-stop chamber music. there is only one concert left on sunday and then we are done. i managed to somehow volunteer myself to work the merchandise table at almost all the concerts so i haven't been able to skip out at all.
V's dad was here the first week which was great. their concert was fantastic, as always, and it was fun to see him again. the shanghai quartet has been here for the past several days and their two concerts were also incredible. V is really good friends with the cellist, Nick, and I met him last august in new york so it was fun to see him again. i forgot my camera when we took him out to cape spear otherwise i'd have funny photos of him and big V. oh well.
i've gone on a couple of short hikes in the last week or so as well. Karen and i went on one that wasn't very good just north of ferryland. the views were incredible, but the hike itself was crap. then V and his dad and I hiked down to North Head from Cape Spear. we saw whales off of cape spear - or rather, one whale. it was neat. i think V's dad got some good photos of it. sometime this fall i want to hike to Maddox Cove. it wasn't in the cards for us this time though. i also want to do the hike from Cape Spear back into the city. apparently there is some really cool stuff to see.

cool caves on the crap hike

the trail to maddox cove

me at north head

saturday.

map of the east coast trail; capespear to blackhead portion

yesterday was a wonderful day. it was beautiful and warm all day and we had a great time getting out and about. first off, after lounging around drinking coffee and eating croissant from the french bakery a few blocks away, we drove out to cape spear. from the parking lot there we walked south on the East Coast Trail down to Black Head. (on the map we started in the yellow area and walked down to the bottom point). it's around 4.5-5 km one direction so in a couple hours we wandered a good 8 km, maybe a bit more. we were moving pretty quickly though since we were on a tight schedule. the scenery is all the same basically: lots of boggy areas and long sweeping vistas of ocean. if it were still whale season it would be a great vantage point to watch them.

lighthouse of cape spear seen in the distance.

those brown specs in the grasses are pitcher plants

pitcher plants. the provincial flower of newfoundland, these are carnivorous.

the wind at this point was so strong that i was leaning into it and it was holding me up. it was pretty incredible, and only felt a wee bit like it was going to sweep me into the ocean.

view from along the trail

after our hiking around and around the cape, we wandered over to the annual Folk Fest being held at Bannerman park. there were some great groups from all over. this band was fantastic; i have no idea who they were or where they were from but the music was Greek and middle eastern-y. lots of fun to listen to. we enjoyed a cold beer from the beer tent and ate Indian food from the Hindu Temple Association tent. ah, nothing spells Folk Fest like Chickpea Masala, a cold Molson product and some international music.


I also stopped by all the craft tents and found a woman with a spinning wheel spinning yarn! she had beautiful sweaters for sale as well at the yarn itself. i bought a small skein and have already wound it into a ball. i really need to get a ball winder so that i can make nice cakes and not these lumpy bumpy hand rolled jobs. it does the trick though. i think this should be enough to make a hat. and if i like it, i know where i can get more! i also bought a teeny tiny little bowl from one of the potters - small enough to use as a salt cellar as i have nothing to put salt in and the box just looks wrong on the table.

hand spun 2-ply, 100% wool, 168 yards, grey and white.

all in all it was a great day.

i came across this site while poking around the net looking for locally grown food ideas here in NL. it's a great idea and i'd love to try it. using their "find your 100 miles" calculator it seems that my 100 miles gets me over 50% open ocean and the land that i do have to eat off of is the rockiest of rocky Avalon peninsula. i know there is local meat here, a ton of seafood, berries.... some veg although that's a tough one.... canning would have to be involved.... no grain though... not even grain other than wheat (i don't know that 100% but this IS a big rock with no farmland. there is a reason why these people live on salt fish and .... salt fish.

something to consider though.

AND - big EXCITING news. you all need to go to this podcast and listen. in this game, "circles of mosquitos", when Sage says "and Jennifer created this soundscape"... she's talking about ME. ya. that's right. i'm gettin' involved. (the link is to the specific episode - oh, and it's only, like, 6 minutes long so yes you do have time to listen.)

ya. i rock.

oh, and i passed my exam. woo.

no pics...

i have no pics from today, but nathan (the bro-in-law) and i went kayaking this morning. it was awesome. take the pics from yesterday, imagine similar scenery but viewed from the water, throw in some whales blowing a ways off and about eleventy billion puffins and you have our morning.

fun!

a good day for a hike

today i drove 3 hours to go on a 2 hour hike. somehow, that didn't seem odd to me. could be my bc upbringing and how in order to get really "out" of the lower mainland you're looking at a good 3 hours in a car anyway. regardless, the drive was fantastic, the hike magnificent, and the scenery spectacular.

i saw a chipmunky squirrell thing, a few dead foxes and eleventy billion jellyfish. other than that, nature stayed away from me. too bad. i was looking for whales.

summer reading.

read in only a few hours, spread over several days (darn job, getting in the way!) i finished the latest Potter last night. it was totally entertaining but i have to say i TOTALL CALLED IT while reading the last book. right down to the final ending part which i won't speak of here. but ya. jk offered me no surprises. maybe that's a good thing.

anyhoo. onto more exciting things. i'm back to reading simon winchester's krakatoa. and then i'll tackle gravity's rainbow. which i've been putting off because it weighs about 10 pounds and my wrists get sore looking at it. :)

jennifer is currently unavailable.

one long day

well, today was a looong day at the office but it went well... at the end... finally. with M gone for vacation and me all alone in charge of the big bad financial part it's a bit scary, but i think i'll manage fine. besides, he's taken a cell phone and i'm not afraid to use it.

as it stands now, it's 11:30, i've just gotten home and now i'm going to crawl into my nest and hibernate for a while.

M and N's move continues to go well (i think!) bar a few complications with the washer / dryer that they have given me. they are trying to get it all hooked up in spite of a wonky washer hose and i have high hopes they'll succeed. and if they don't then i'll call a handyman and for a bit of cash i'm sure it will all work out. as the apartment empties it's interesting to see the space differently and i will be able to better tell where the BIG holes are. like: gee a really need somewhere to put my glasses when i sleep, better buy a bedside table. or: gee that big wall is really empty now better buy...something...

:)

happiness is a warm couch.

yay! enough said.