Three things worth waiting for

This has been my view for the last two weeks solid. Ziggy likes to stare.

The other night I finally finished my last sewing project for the craft fair on Saturday. What sweet relief as I switched off my sewing machine for the last time. It's going on vacation for the rest of the year for sure.

Last weekend one of my best buddies took me for High Tea at The Empress.

Now, this is indulgence at it's finest in my opinion. It costs around $50/person but it's worth it. We got the best table in the room - right in front of a big fireplace.

You start off with strawberries and cream and mimosas.

Then you move on to a special Empress tea blend and 3 tiers of finger sandwiches, truffles, scones and other fantastic items of goodness. It's something I've wanted to do for years and it was well worth the wait.

At work I've been holding out for a wider monitor. I had the typical square size monitor since I started and when you are using Revit - this sucks. At one point I was offered a wider monitor but it was smaller vertically than the one I had. Something told me to wait.

Well, last week it all paid off. Long story short, this is what I ended up with:

The photo doesn't do it justice - that thing is 18" across!

Book Review #4

It's that time again - I've read four books since the last post. I blame this low number on all the crafting I've been doing for the craft show.

Anyway, I'll begin.

Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

What can I say other than: genius? If you've been reading my blog you know he's my favourite and after a rather disturbing/emotional read before this I found myself running back to Hardy almost like a security blanket. Which is interesting because his books are nothing but heartache and wretchedness.....but there is something so beautiful about it. It's hard to explain. Not my favourite book of his, but incredible nonetheless.

The Raw Shark Texts - Steven Hall

This was a book recommended to me by my boss. It sounded kind of like Memento so it peaked my interest - I don't normally read books like this. It was umm.....interesting. It totally gets you hooked from the start, and keeps the pace throughout the book - but it's confusing. At times I wasn't sure what the hell was going on and in the end it wasn't totally explained, but I guess that's part of what makes it good. Overall, I would recommend it.

The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy - James Anderson

Sometimes I get an itch for a good murder-mystery, so I head to the library and randomly pick off the shelf. I like my murders classy - a big house with lots of interesting people locked up in it, someone is shot with a revolver in the music room and a smart ass detective shows up and explains it all at the end. James Anderson delivers. I really enjoyed it. I'm planning on reserving another of his books for the beach in Cuba.

The Secret of Annexe 3 - Colin Dexter

Yawn. I brought this one home because sometimes English murder mysteries are really good. This one was boring, the characters not engaging at all and the story just didn't run the way I like. The murder wasn't even that interesting. Don't bother.

I'm reading an awesome book right now (I'm back on to novels for the moment) so it will be the first of my next batch of reviews. Cause I know you guys all run out and get these books based on my advice.

Ha. Ha.

Spanish Class

Esta mucho viento hoy en Victoria.

I've been meaning to tell you guys about the Spanish classes we are taking for a while now - we only have two classes left! Our teacher is hilarious and speaks pretty good English but we can tell it's her first time teaching a Spanish class. Here's why:

In our first class she taught us how to say simple things like 'Good morning' and 'How are you', please and thank you.

The next class she wrote a whole bunch of words on the whiteboard like dog (perro), cat (gato), sandwich (bocadillo), ice cream (helado).

But she hadn't taught us words like what, where, when, you, I, he, she etc. so I was having a hard time putting the language together if you know what I mean.

Then in one class she told us to write down some simple sentences. This is the English version of what I could come up with based on what she had taught us:

Ice cream dog sandwich.

While looking through the library I found this book - The Cat in the Hat Dictionary in Spanish!

It's actually been pretty helpful! She has JUST taught us how to conjugate verbs so we're working on that, but we don't know many verbs yet.

Jo tengo un gordo problemo gato.

My First Craft Market!

The other reason there has been lots going on here.....I'm going to be selling my bags in a craft market!

Rawbean and I both applied to it and we both got in!
We'll be there on Saturday November 27th.

The first thing for me to do was to order new fabric and finally get some business cards. Everything was shipped super quick which was perfect. Here is the fabric I ordered before I cut into it. Don't you love seeing piles of fabric before you cut into them?? (Again sorry about the crappy photos, but you get the idea...)

So I'm going to have 8 market bags (the big ones), about 15 or so Buttercup Bags and a whole bunch (20? 25?) coffee cozies to sell. I've been sewing like crazy and have a bit of a pile now.

Here are the market bags including the one on the far right which is in my shop right now. I have three more to make.

Here are the Buttercup Bags. I'm going to make about 5 or 6 more.

The other thing I'm going to sell are coffee cup cozies. Super simple, no snaps or buttons - just the sleeve that will slip around any size coffee cup. I have 6 of them started but they sew up really quickly so I'm not too worried about it.

Rawbean and I were hoping that we would get to have our tables next to each other because as if that wouldn't be a total blast! So today I called the organizers to ask if this was possible.

Turns out they already planned to have us side by side.

As. If.

Lots going on here

Just a quick update - mostly photos - on what's going on around here. This place turns into a madhouse this time of year.

The poor Bad Room Mate - he actually puts up with a lot from us. We put scary things (rats, giant flies, giant ants) right next to his food bowls at Halloween. That stupid skull - it jiggles and makes a weird noise when you touch it or bang something nearby. It has long garbage bag hair. So it sits right next to Ziggy's food bowl.

Oh - did I mention that it's eyes light up?

You guys know I can't bake cookies right? Now this is weird....and you won't believe it....but I make these cookies every Halloween and they always turn out. Maybe it's the mental decorations that inspire me to bake things properly?

Don't you dig my eyeball lights and skull mugs?

Work was fun this year too - I organized a costume contest and there were prizes! Almost everyone in the office dressed up. My favourite costume was Captain Kirk but guess what? I won first prize with the Thing 1 and Thing 2 costumes I made a few years ago! A workmate and I donned the red jumpsuits for the day.

I was Thing 2.

I love this pumpkin, I think it's the best one we've carved yet.

We went to the party on Saturday night, but didn't wear the Spy vs. Spy costumes.

I know.

Brad nearly died when I told him that we shouldn't do it. And I was right - those costumes were way too extreme to wear to a house party with about 10 people in attendance. Maybe next year.