Pre-Christmas madness

I think I now understand why some people find Christmas so stressful. I'm usually an uber prepared Christmas elf. I love to shop early and have everything smugly stowed (usually wrapped) way before those last few crazy shopping days. This year for some reason I was in Christmas denial and really didn't get started until just recently. Shopping close to Christmas is not fun! There are hoards of people and inevitably the item you want is sold out. There's nothing worse than a smug sales person saying "Oh, that's a very popular item, we're all sold out" as I imagine the sad look of my niece when I present her with nothing on Christmas. In the end I had to do a bit more running around (thank goodness for Lavinia) but it is all done. PHEW!!!

Now I can concentrate on finishing the Christmas baking and gingerbread house assembling.

Sadly my knitting project has made no further progress...Blah.

Falling behind

It has been awhile since my last post. I don't feel as though I've accomplished all that much and yet I've been pretty busy. I've been making really good progress on my baby sweater but I've hit a snag and will have to consult my knitting friend for some advice. Sometimes there just isn't a substitute for a real live human being showing you what to do. My knitting book just isn't cutting it right now.

I'm starting to get in the Christmas spirit although I've been a bit late off the mark. I'm usually very prepared for Christmas ages before the big day. Thankfully, many of the items on my family's wish lists have been on sale recently. Woo hoo!

The weather people are forecasting some big snow for the next day and a bit. While I usually enjoy a good snow, this storm means that my dear friend wasn't able to visit. She was going to stay over tonight but sensibly decided to head home before the storm hit. SIGH sometimes its tough to be sensible.

The wind is howling outside and I'm glad to be snug inside my little house.

A Little Bit of Everything

I've had an extremely busy weekend. So much so, that I'm not sure how many tags to use for this post. I'm feeling very well rounded as I've baked, done some kitting, played my bass guitar, done some gardening and some other handy tasks.

Here in Toronto the weather has been so warm that the garden just kept on going. Most of the trees still had their leaves until very recently. So I've been putting off my annual winterizing tasks. Then of course it snowed last week. Today I was out in the garden doing a bit of remedial winterizing. During the horrid rain of last week that quickly became snow, I did a couple of basic tasks like disconnecting the downspout attached to the rain barrel and turning off the outside tap. I didn't manage to drain the rain barrel or to drain the hose. So today I had to contend with an icy layer in the barrel and a practically frozen hose. The barrel is sorted but the fate of the hose won't be completely clear until next spring.

I've also embarked on an ambitious knitting project. I've got a number of friends expecting babies (YIKES!) and I've decided to knit something for two of them. I started on a little sweater for my friend who is expecting a boy in February. I bought the yarn at Lettuce Knit in Kensington. So far its going pretty well. Here's a photo of the navy cotton yarn I've chosen and a photo of my gauge swatch.



I did a lot this weekend so I'm pretty tired, that's enough for today.

An Arty Weekend

I'm feeling all hip and arty this weekend. Last night I went so see Shara Worden a.k.a. My Brightest Diamond at the Drake Hotel. She's a friend of a friend which almost makes me cool. I'd had brunch with Shara but had never heard her perform live. I really enjoyed it (ipod updating in progress). She put on a great show and had the audience laughing and nodding along, there was even a little bit of dancing (goodness!). Of course it was even more fun to watch my friend France watch the show. I got the occasional tidbit about the songs and set list.

This afternoon I went to the Tarragon Theatre to see Hannah Moscovitch's East of Berlin. I thought it was very good with a couple of caveats. Early on she describes one of the characters, Hermann, as someone who is worldly and as someone of whom his schoolmates are in awe. The chap portraying Hermann didn't seem worldly to me. He seemed shy and hesitant. The actor brought an interesting character but he just didn't jive with the earlier description. I also felt that the ending was a complete cop out. Perhaps I was the only one who found the ending dissatisfying; other theatre goers seemed impressed. To me it seemed as though the author couldn't figure a way out of the dilemma she'd written and chose the quickest solution. I'd definitely recommend seeing it, the actors do a good job and the staging is very clever. The objects arranged on the set increased in meaning as the play progressed (very interesting).

A brief synopsis (with some plot spoilers!!! WARNING):

Rudi grows up in Paraguay knowing that his German parents had been somehow involved in the war. His friend Heinrich tells him about the concentration camps and his father's involvement in gruesome experiments as a camp doctor. Rudi attempts to atone for the sins of his father in a number of self destructive and life affirming ways. In the end he can't reconcile the love he has for his father and the guilt he feels for loving a monster.

Birthday fun

I love my birthday, its a reason to have cake and enjoy time with friends. This year I decided that my cake must be a cube and orange (in colour, not flavour). I think I managed it (although its not a perfect cube).


A few weeks ago my mother decreed that my very ugly third generation hand-me-down chair had to go. I'm not terribly attached to the chair but it was very comfortable and Ogham the cat really enjoyed it.


My mother doesn't often comment on my home decor choices (except for the bike hanging on the wall) but seeing as she and Dad were willing to foot the bill for a new chair, I was willing to listen.

After a great deal of anxiety and self doubt I chose a new chair. I really like it but unfortunately much of its early time here in its new home was spent helping me recover from wrenching my ankle. Tip: Take care when rushing on the stairs with a vacuum cleaner in pre-party haste.

Happy Halloween

I'm not a big fan of Halloween. I never really enjoyed trick-0r-treating. I especially hated it when the adults tried to scare us and when they couldn't recognize my strange homemade costumes. The candy always made the hassle of Halloween worthwhile.

Now I'm an old lady (grin), I give out the candy. I never plan far enough in advance and always end up doing a very slap-dash job of my pumpkin. I like a friendly toothy pumpkin but this year I lost a tooth in my carving haste.


Handing out candy is reasonably fun but this year very few kids came by. So I baked cookies... They were terrible.
I used one of my old recipes and as I was going along I thought, "This can't be right" but I persisted. I should have trusted my baking guts. They're edible but I want to take them to work and frankly I've got a reputation to uphold. I knew they were bad when roommate J declared that I'd made better. My second attempt (with a different recipe) looks better so far. I'll see how they taste as soon as they're cool enough.

Cookie Update:
So much better! I was attempting a ginger molasses cookie. I made some excellent ones last year which my coworkers still rave about (thus my wanting to take them to work). These are good but aren't as kicky. I have of course misplaced the recipe I used last year. This recipe was from Cook's Illustrated.com. I made one modification to the recipe. Instead of using one egg yolk, I used the whole egg. I guess I could have saved the white for this weekend's project (a birthday cake for me).

Back at it

So this didn't go so well... All my best laid plans and so on and so forth. I haven't been completely idle, I've had a number of triumphs and spectacular failures.

In brief my best triumph was the cake I made for my niece's 8th birthday (I feel so old). Its amazing how quickly they grow up. This year she had a gymnastics party so I made a gymnastics themed cake. I usually get my cake ideas off the internet but this time it failed me. I only found two examples of gymnastics themed cakes and neither looked very appetizing to me. I eventually found some simple images on a scrap booking site which I blew up on the photocopier at work (there has to be some perks). Here is the end result. I think it worked out quite well.


My Saturday morning pancakes are getting cold and I've got to go and meet the mother soon, so that's all for now. I'll try to be back soon.

Embracing the Inner

I wish I was better at many things. Knitting, playing the bass guitar, many sporty things, being slim, keeping my room tidy... Of course all these things require dedication, practice and so forth. SIGH. So, maybe if I write about these things, post some photos... I'll magically get better at them.

Here I go, embracing my inner knitter, bass chick, jock and so forth.