a short list of unrelated things

1. yesterday it snowed. it didn't stick, and it only lasted about 30 minutes, but it was a complete white out. it was during dinner and i was staring out the window saying "what...is.......what is that?" it sort of started as hail and then turned into giant flakes. very odd.

2. tonight it the launch concert for the university orchestra (this is the one that vernon is taking to russia). they leave a week today. he is stressed, but as things fall into place he's getting excited which is great to see.

3. this weekend i need to buckle down and get and get cracking on my midterm assignment. it's due while i'm in paris....so i guess i should crank that out. after this week of having the flu and then a really bad cold i'm just not into it. hopefully by the morning that will change.

4. it was 20 degrees in paris today.

5. i am still dealing with the crushing blow caused by the knowledge that my favourite candies are dairy based. the joy-ride type thrill of realizing i can still get them here in the middle of the atlantic completely crashed by the ingredient list. things were so much easier Before Allergies.

flu bug marathon

i have the flu. and have for 3 days. it came on sometime on saturday as a sore throat. and then became, well, the flu. i stayed home from work yesterday, went in for 2 hours this morning and then came home and crawled right back into the pajamas and onto the couch.

the only good thing about this is that i've completed these:

mom's belated (like by 2.5 months) birthday gift. bed socks of a design by her request,
just in time for the 22 degree weather they are having....ugh.

and an action shot...sort of....pretend i'm walking......

disregard the tissues on the carpet. i've spent two days propped in the corner of the couch engaged in a Lord of the Rings DVD marathon....what do you expect? only some of those tissues are from an actual cold. the rest are from when various bad things happen to various fantastic characters. yes, i've seen the movies before. yes, i know what happens. yes yes and yes to all the rest of your questions. i get somewhat...involved...in fantasty fiction. i can't help it - the men are wearing breast plates and have swords!

alright - i could rant about how 90% of the pine trees in kamloops are dead from the pine beetle already and there's no way they can remove all the dead trees from my parents neighbourhood by the time fire season comes along this year (think heavily wooded + lots of dead trees + fire = bad)...but i can't put enough coherent sentences together to tell the whole story. suffice to say - lots of trees dead. entire once beautifully wooded parks are treeless and barren. it's really really sad. i'm really really sad.

back to the couch for me. those hobbits haven't finished their journey and they won't with me just sitting here...

life meets the vinyl cafe

it's been a while since i have blogged and for that...many apologies. life here has gotten a wee bit out of control. work is INSANELY busy. lots of good things happening which all require a lot of extra digging and figuring. school is chugging along and i can happily announce that i aced my last quiz. that's right, i got 100%. because of this i have gleefully decided that i'm remarkably brilliant and that last semester's small "issue" with getting the knowledge from my head to the paper was an inconvenience and nothing more. remarkably brilliant. yup.

last night vernon and i went to the Ship for folk night. live music, open mike, door prizes, good times. while there i got to meet stuart mclean. it was really cool. he's a really nice guy. i'm kind of hoping that i either didn't make a complete arse of myself (is that possible?) or that i never see him again. i'm sure i was fine.... he's taping two live shows here next week. it would be really fun to go. the band (hey rosetta!) that vernon did some recording with last year are one or the musical guests which is great for them. that album won a whole bunch of awards this year. but vernon and i don't have the money to go really. or rather, we have the money but i'm saving my 40$ for some fun in paris. you know, fun like wine and baguettes!

other than that - things here are pretty dull. i'm still working on mom's bday gift. this is like, 2 months overdue already. i think i finally have it figured out though and can now START AGAIN. sigh. the red scarf is almost done. but it's going in the xmas gift pile so you can't see it. because it might just be for you!

alright. i need a nap. i stayed up too late talking to stuart mclean. (i can not believe i didn't have my camera. i will officially never leave home without it. there could be a really cool picture of me WITH stuart mclean here, but alas. there is none.)

:)

this weekend has been all about studying. it hasn't been fun, it hasn't been pretty, but at least i'm getting it done. i basically have nothing new to say. the snow is almost gone. it's patchy and there are still piles, but in comparison to how much was here, it's almost not even noticeable at this point. what is left is all brown and very dry and crumbly. all we need is a few good hard rains and it would all go away. instead we are getting a lot of faint drizzle which isn't doing anything. at least it isn't the 15-20 cm that the maritimes and the western parts of newfoundland were/are getting. i suppose i can't really complain!


i've started a new scarf:
just something mindless to give my hands something to do while listening to the TERRIBLE lecturer drone on and on. the pattern is adapted from Wendy's Fir Cone Wrap.
i have made quite a few mistakes in the pattern already but i'm not sure that i care enough to rip back. you can't really tell in the photo above (or at least i can't), but you can when you look closely:

i guess you just shouldn't look closely.

that's it for now. back to the books....

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.

testing

i'm just testing the RSS feed - lack thereof. it's actually there - so yay! it works.

even on a mac. :)

that's right y'all....

MAMA'S GOT A NEW PAIR OF SOCKS!

i apologize the pics are kind of dark...i didn't want to sully them with a flash. :)

STORM updated

well. the reports of how much snow we received were grossly understated. in fact, the weather people came back and said that they were wrong (how often does THAT happen?). it was more like mid 40's centimetre wise. and some parts of the city got more like 60.

last night we had another foot. FUN! i seriously wondered where i was going to put it. the banks on either side of my driveway are about 7 feet high now and it's getting hard to throw the snow over that. luckily, vernon is taller than me, so he shovelled this morning for me.


there is precipitation coming down right now, and it's definitely snow....but it's heavier and distinctly smaller than normal (whatever normal is). i fear this is the dreaded snow/rain mix they were calling for.

on a side note, i don't think i ever showed you this toque. it's going to charity. not because i don't like it, but because i agreed to knit 5 things for charity and i sort of want to keep my part of the bargain. this is item #2.

and - so mom can see that actual progress is being made. here's a shot of the first booty in progress. i'm farther along now, but you get the idea of the pattern at least...

and now, i will leave you with this picture so that i can get back to school work. this is the stop sign on my street. note how if it snows again it will be gone. :)

ps: the house next door finally sold and i think the people may have now moved in....judging by the fact that there are 4 (FOUR!) kids running around the backyard (more trudging through waist deep snow than running really).... now they are jumping from the roof of the little shed into the giant snow pile that is their hard. that actually looks really fun!

STORM

we received just over 30cm of snow last night. (i will add an update to say that some parts of the city got closer to 50cm. i may or may not have been in one of those parts.... people are saying that it is close to the storm they had last year, if not worse, and that one was 70cm. we just drove from vernon's house to mine and some of the main arteries aren't even plowed - or they were only able to do one pass so it's one lane. lots of black ice. lots of abandoned vehicles.) the winds were between 80 and 90 km/h with gusting over 110. it snowed most of yesterday and all night - the wind was raging all day and night. i think the craziest part is that when i awoke this morning - the wind was still howling. it hasn't died down yet. my phone rang at 7am and it was M (my boss), telling me the office was closed until at least noon. my office NEVER closes. last time they closed the banks and took the buses off the road i still worked my full day - we openly mock those who close in the face of a bit of "weather". apparently this is serious. our building manager will reassess at 10:30. if we hear nothing, we go in at noon.
here are some pics.

exhibit A: ok - in this one, although it's a crappy photo - you see that car across the street? in the driveway?

ok - now see in this photo taken this morning (about 16 hours later) how you can't see the wheels for the snow? (click on the pics to view them bigger)


exhibit B: my driveway. what driveway you ask? that's what i said when i looked out the window. obviously the plow came by during the night, BUT the snow at the front of my driveway is now as tall as the piles on either side. those piles are AS TALL AS MY RAV4. which is almost taller than me. that's going to be really really fun to shovel.

exhibit C: the snow on my deck. is up to my kitchen window.

exhibit D: speaking of snow on the deck. i'm sure my landlady is concerned about all that weight. too bad the kitchen door opens OUT. don't think i'm going to get out there for a while...



i have double checked and the snow is not drifted up on my front steps. so at least i can get outside to shovel the snow. i have my fingers crossed that the office will remain closed.

SNOW DAY! YA!


ps - vernon just emailed this photo of his back door - holy COW!


UPDATE: it's about an hour later now. the entire city is shut down (keep your fingers crossed i don't have to go to the office at all today!). the guy across the street has started snow blowing his driveway. i wonder where he plans on going. there is absolutely nothing open today. i honestly think that people here just like playing with their snow blowers. it's fairly comical - he is totally bundled up and covered in snow. i'm not starting to shovel for a few hours at least.

but the snow day will not go to waste! along with more stats lectures that i need to watch/listen to - i have one more sock to finish. i can't let this one go on without a mate (plus, my right foot is cold). :)



EDITED AGAIN: we dug out my driveway. by "we" i mean, my landlady and the two guys across the street. they brought a snowblower over to do the last 5 feet between the house and the street. that was chest deep. yikes. this pic is of my landlady just as we started to get to the part where we were wishing they would hurry up with snowblowing all the old folks walkways and bring the snowblower over! but at least now it's done. it took two hours and the office is officially closed for the whole day. yay!

ps....

it seems that i have created a blogging monster.... he can be seen here:

cello prof on the rock

:)

the weekend

this weekend the weather was fantastic - saturday was a mix of sun and cloud and intermittant snow all day. not a lot, but basically continuous. sunday dawned bright and clear which really spells one thing: STORM. the storm came last night in the form of a crap load of snow. tonight the winds will apparently come. fun! but for now, some pics.

the sock is getting longer. i'm about halfway done the leg i figure. i'm not really sure. part of me wants to just end it now but i know i'll be sad when it's not long enough. so i soldier on. we drove out to beachy cove and bauline on sunday afternoon. basically we just wanted to get out of the city and see some country. it was very picturesque. and very very cold. here's a church in beachy cove. it has a fantastic view of the water.

the cliffs of bell island. isn't that spectacular? the ferry was coming in while we were there and it was heaving something fierce though. i wouldn't want to have to take a boat in the winter here.


how windy was it? so windy, my eyes blew shut. my body, thanks to my shiny new far west jacket is very very warm. my legs, thanks to my midzero tights under my jeans are very very warm. my face is frozen solid. and the snow is very bright in the sun. but it was pretty. so there you go.
the next time we got out of the car (this time in bauline), i was smart and wore my break n' enter gear:
the locals looked at me funny but i was warm so whatever. also - in this photo i'm actually smiling. talk about a reflex eh?

more lists...

lists have got to be, in my opinion, one of the greatest tools that we have at our disposal. i have lists for absolutely everything - a running list of groceries on the fridge, a list of potential christmas gift ideas for next year, a list of birthday ideas for everyone i know, a list of knitting projects (both in progress and future plans), a list of things to do each day.
at the end of every work day, i actually do clear my desk (as well as that can happen in the paper disaster that is my life) and make a coherent list of things that i need and want to get done the next day. this list then travels with me on my big notepad through the day. as things get accomplished i cross them out, as things come up i add them on. on any given day there are between 8 and 15 things on that list. and on any given day i accomplish about two of them. usually i just change the date on the top of the list and continue on the next day. on friday i accomplished nothing on my list. too many people came into my office with issues that needed dealing with immediately and everything else got pushed to the side. as i sit here in my little home office there are 3 lists around me - a list of knitting projects on the wall, a list of furniture i will need to buy when Michelle takes hers back and a grocery list on the desk. i come by this honestly. i come from a family of list makers.
whether my lists make me more organized or whether they just make me panicked, i'm not sure. probably a bit of both. but each month end as the list gets whittled down to nothing there is a great sense of accomplishment there. this sense of accomplishment does not occur when attempting to fill the grocery list, but such is the beast of grocery shopping in newfoundland. you just have to accept that cilantro is basically a thing of the past (although there is always a space for it...it's always empty) and that there will be days when there is no bread. or tomatoes. and that's just the way it is.
a new list for today:

1. make apple crisp
2. go for relaxing drive around top of peninsula with V and witness Newfoundland winter outside of the city
3. stress about homework

as you can see - i'm doing very well already, only one thing left to do!

lists

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