Rocks, Gin and Candles

A bit of randomness for you this weekend.

1.  I bought a candle on Etsy that claimed to smell like books. Now, you might be thinking that I've finally gone over the top and completely lost it. No, that happened a long time ago.

I bought it because it's one of Brad's favourite smells. I've witnessed him put his face inside a book and take deep breaths. The candle smells kind of like books, but has a bit of a lemony smell too. Overall, it was worth it.

2. Watch this short film.

Do it.

I saw it years ago at either the VIFF of Spike and Mike's and I never forgot it. It's about rocks and the passage of time. One of the rocks has an under bite. An under bite. If that isn't enough to intrigue you, well I don't know what to say. 

3. I made another cocktail that was over the top delicious.

Grapefriut, lime, ginger and gin*. This might just be my drink of the summer. Gin is on my radar these days big time. As I write this I have another concoction brewing in the fridge. Let's just say it involves rhubarb and tequila.



*This picture is deceiving. There was no Cherry Garcia ice cream in my cocktail. This is a pile of stuff I bought the day I got my top braces on, I had the cocktail with the ice cream on the side.

The Book Sale

We went. Twice.

Showed up at 9:00am when the doors opened. Long line but we don't panic any more - it always moves fast. Had our lists ready, here's mine.

Remember last year when I found 3 books on the first table? Yeah, not so this year. I didn't find one book on my list! This is not to say it was a bust, it's never a bust. Here are our books from Saturday.

This was Brad's year. His first glance down at a table and his gaze landed directly on one of the books on his list. I think he got 9 or 10 off his list! I even found one or two that I knew he wanted.

After browsing for 4 hours, our feet were on fire. It was time to check out. We went home and combed through our haul - the usual tradition....

There are some books in my pile that might be misses for me...a couple guys who I thought were other authors, a complete shot in the dark, but the king: Ignition. I was getting desperate and only read part of the synopsis?! An astronaut named Iceberg Friese who saves Cape Canaveral from terrorists?!

The next day we were lounging around and I nudged Brad and asked him if he wanted to go again. He wasn't completely opposed (which was a surprise) so we went. We told ourselves that it was an experiment - we wanted to see how picked over it was the next afternoon.

It was the last day, a couple hours before the sale was over and we were about to walk past the last table which is the "Volunteer Picks" table and Brad declares "I want Oryx and Crake, in good condition." I laughed out loud at him and wished him good luck. Five minutes later I found it and threw it at him.

On that note I found one of the books from my list that day.

Here are our books from Sunday.

Here's where it gets crazy.

The 'top book' that both of us wanted this year was Dan Simmons' Hyperion. We had donated it to the book sale 2 weeks ago because our copy wasn't in very good shape. I thought I had scored big time when I found it in the Fiction section. There was major fist pumping happening. Major.

We brought it home and realized....it's the same book we donated.

But it's in worse shape now because the first 40 pages are missing.

Jaws III

I had the rest of my braces put on Thursday afternoon. The procedure was uneventful except that they couldn't put bands on my teeth at all for whatever reason. So I have brackets on every tooth! This is cause for serious celebration in my little world. 

The bands on my top teeth are so hard to floss around. Some nights, after trying to get the floss under the wire for the 21st time, I throw it across the room and stomp off to bed angry. The process is abandoned for another time. It's like trying to thread a needle around a corner - blindfolded.

As they were trying to get a band to fit I joked that maybe I didn't need bands at all. At first, they said things like "nice try" and "wouldn't that be nice". I didn't think it was actually a possibility?!

I left quickly believing I had gotten away with something until halfway home I realized I had worn the spacers last week for nothing*.

I'm on Day #3 and I'm seriously, seriously miserable. The top braces were nothing compared to this hell. 

For some reason the brackets on my bottom teeth are 1000x more irritating than my upper teeth were.

I have at least two canker sores, my entire lower cheek is super sore and red and on the left side it's so bad I can barely move my cheek. It hurts to talk people...it hurts to TALK. I've been on a complete soft food diet, soup is even difficult. Basically anything that involves moving my mouth around is painful.

I hope that whoever invented dental wax has creme brulee for dessert every night, sleeps in every day and has an unlimited supply of every kind of cheese known to man in their fridge.

I've been through almost an entire package of dental wax. This stuff is soooo the bomb, I can't ever say enough about it.

Hopefully by tomorrow I've improved a lot because I'm not impressed. I apologize to anyone I might have offended with my offhand comments of "I don't know what all the complaining is about" or "it isn't as bad as they say". I guess I was asking for this by being so cocky.

Sorry universe.


*Super annoying and way more sore this time. Again, I promise I won't be cocky about anything in this process. Pinkie swear.

Wren's Dress

I'm not sure why I haven't posted this yet?!

I made a dress. Not just any dress, but a dress for someone very special to me - even though I haven't met her yet.

Can you handle the little pocket?

And guess what?! This time I didn't give the pattern the finger. Likely because I bought it from Made by Rae who never fails to deliver patterns that I can get into.

Flutter sleeves?! I'm down with that. It was something new for me and I think I pulled it off.

I can't wait to see photos of her in this. Hopefully on a beach with mountains and the lake in the background!? Hint. Hint.