Brad and I don't watch much prime time tv. In fact, years after shows have been on the air we finally discover them.
Our latest discovery is House.
Ohmigod I love this show. I love his smart-ass comments, reckless behavior, the way he manipulates his team of doctors.....also the fast pace, medical information and story lines are all interesting. We are only on the second season, and apparently there are 6 seasons? Woo hoo!Is it just me or does anyone else notice a similarity between Hugh Laurie and Tom Waits?
Both of whom are super sexy.
So we flew to my hometown on the prairies for Christmas to visit my parents. This involved taking The Bad Room Mate in the car and on the ferry to Vancouver so he could stay with my in-laws while we were away. Ziggy is a really calm cat in the car which is super rare and we love him for it. On the way to Vancouver, he ate his lunch in the back seat.
We had to take three planes and drive another hour to get to my home town, it takes all day and we finally arrived at the house around 8:30pm on Christmas Eve. I don't like flying, but I know that once we get there, it will be a great relaxing time.
Once we arrive at the house we all turn into slugs. Christmas Day was busy with my brother and his family coming to visit. My niece (she's three) is the cutest munchkin ever, but I won't post a picture of her because, well it's the internet.
The rest of the week we all lounged around, watched lots of tv, ate tons of baking and chips and dip and mandarin oranges, drank copious amounts of rum and sat by the fireplace.
One of my favourite memories this year is this:
I have a guilty pleasure and it is the movie "You've Got Mail". I know, I know...so cheesy, so formulated, but I love Tom Hanks and every time I see it I cry at the end. So it's right at the end when they meet and tears are welling in my eyes when I hear the voice of my dad who had just walked into the room say "She's a stupe." We all burst out laughing and for once I didn't cry.(Hey look! Someone took a picture of me watching it!)
Once in awhile we left the house to appease Brad who loves the cold (-25C) weather and the fluffy, crunchy snow. Mom and I agreed to go for a walk on the frozen river. Seriously people, this picture is nice but it was so. freaking. cold. Mom and I were just putting one foot in front of the other to get back to the car while Brad ran circles around us taking pictures of everything.
What a great Christmas, The Quilt went over great (read my post if you haven't, I'm so mad it posted on December 10th and not after Christmas as I would have liked).
Brad gave me a one year pass for Imax so we are off to see something tonight. Great gift huh??
Check this link in case you miss 'The Quilt' post, which I actually posted today but Blogger thinks it was Dec. 10th. Long story....
http://cafejabbaccino.blogspot.com/2009/12/quilt.html
So, I'm reading The Mysteries of Udolpho because I'm a ridiculous Jane Austen fan and a complete nerd.
In Northanger Abbey, Catherine Morland gets into trouble when she reads too many "trashy novels". Of course I had to know what was considered a "trashy novel" back in 1803..... plus the novel is mentioned enough that it almost seems like a minor character.
So, I'm on page 230 and Emily has finally arrived at the Castle Udolpho. Oooohhhh....so creepy*. The first 1/3 of the book set up her life with her father, how she met her true love Valancourt and how she ended up separated from both of them and in her wretched circumstances.
Five pages after she arrived at the castle, she discovered a mysterious painting, found a secret staircase and learned of the ghosts that are hanging out in the castle. Sweet. The book reads just like I expected a really old gothic novel would - super dramatic and way more descriptive than any kind of trashy novel written these days.**
So, yesterday I met up with as good friend of mine - J. He is absolutely hilarious and often makes me crack up unexpectedly. So I told him about Udolpho and his immediate comeback?
"Oooh! Like Scooby Doo?"
Great, now I'll be expecting Shaggy to come around the corner any minute and discover that the evil Montoni has a fake beard and is really Emily's long-lost cousin out for revenge.*Claire - if you survive reading Dracula, you might want to put this one on your list of creepy reads.**My only, complaint is, the amount of punctuation!!! Damn, Ann needed, to learn to edit. (Then again it almost adds to the dramatic effect of the book. It's like William Shatner is reading it to me.)
This is one of my favourite sights that only happens around Christmas.
No, seriously!! It's absolutely hilarious when you are hanging out on the sofa and you hear a soft *tinkle* sound, look around and notice the tree gently shaking all over...ornaments swaying....gentle rustling....It's only then that you look down and see the culprit: a stripey tail hanging out at the bottom.
I've never given friends or family a "list" of gifts for myself, that's just not what it's about for me. Sure, some people are really hard to buy for and for those people in my life I keep lists of ideas throughout the year - seriously I do.
But, now that my mom and I live so far apart it's really hard for her to think of things that I would want or need so she usually asks me for ideas, not specific items but ideas. This year I had a most excellent idea - I shared my Etsy Favourites with her.
This way if she wanted she could buy something that she knew I would like or simply get ideas and go shopping herself. Brilliant!!
I emailed her when I found this bag on Etsy because I loved it so much. I told her in the email that if she had no intention of buying it for me to let me know because I would buy it myself.
A few days later we were chatting on the phone and I asked her if she saw the bag. Here is how our conversation went:
J: So, what do you think?
M: Well, I'm not sure.......
J: If you totally aren't interested just let me know.
M: Well......
J: I'm in front of the computer now, let me just look at it again.....oh NO. It SOLD!!!
M: (silence)
J: (panicking) Oh crap! She only had one, maybe I'll write her and ask her to make me another one...
M: No, DON'T. Merry Fucking Christmas, I BOUGHT IT.Mom's dropping the f-bomb, Jabba's laughing her head off. It was one great Christmas moment.
I've been waiting all year to post about this...
In February I decided to make a quilt for my parents. I went into Vancouver to go to Fabricana with Rawbean so she could help me pick out the fabric. I need her guidance because I tend to lose focus in that store. So these are the fabrics - my mom loves green, yellow and browns so it wasn't too hard.
Rawbean also lent me her cutting mat, straight edge and rotary cutter - thank GOD. Can you imagine cutting all these squares out with scissors?! Not happening.
Then the most fun part was laying out the fabric for the top.
(Keep in mind that I wasn't working when I made this. If I was, I'm estimating it would have taken me approximately 5 years to make this thing. Plus, I totally winged it when it came to the assembly. I planned my moves as they came and only thought one step ahead. Otherwise I would have given up.)
So anyway, next came sewing together all the squares. At first I started pinning the squares together, but realized after the first two squares that this seemed to be a waste of time. Instead I zipped them through the machine two squares at a time, making a long row. Then I added the next row to the one I just did......24 times or whatever. Then I sewed the other way.
After that, I attached the borders...yeah......I tend to over-complicate things. I took an easy detail and made it ridiculously difficult but got it right in the end after going to the local quilting fabric shop and begging the ladies to help me.
After this, honestly - it wasn't much fun - attaching the batting and the back. Do you know how hard it is to get pieces of fabric this big to lay flat, nevertheless three pieces of fabric to sandwich together and be flat?!
I finally ended up taping the top fabric down to the floor, then putting the batting on top of that. Still, it was frustrating and hard and after that it seemed to even take forever to sew everything together.
After this, I tied french knots at every intersection of squares to bind everything together.
I do not hand sew - ever.
I should also mention here that The Bad Room Mate wouldn't leave me alone the entire time. There is a reason he is in a lot of these pictures: wheneverI left the quilt lying around he was all over it. Whether I was putting it through the machine or working with it on my lap, I couldn't get away from him.
Then, in typical Jabba style, I procrastinated until almost the last night before we left for my parents. As Brad predicated in June - I was up panicking the night before trying to finish it.
So now it's done, and I've given it to my parents. We've been sitting next to the fireplace and huddling under The Quilt since Christmas morning because they live in "the frozen tundra" (Saskatchewan).
Seriously, tonight it's -25C.
I use Windows at work. Window 64-bit. Apparently this is a good thing for Revit, but it really sucks for Itunes, meaning that I can't install Itunes at all.
Too bad because I love sharing music and seeing what other people are listening to. But I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to work without Itunes at my new job.
So today I was chatting with a guy in my office who is the unofficial IT guy. His eyes lit up as he pointed to an empty workstation piled up with a bunch of junk. He said "Oh! I just found a way to get you Itunes!"
He rummaged around and emerged victoriously holding an iMac. My eyes got huge as he walked over to my desk and plopped it down next to my monitor, plugged it in and it came to life.
Seriously.
I am now one of those Two-Monitor people, except one of them is a Mac and is there solely for the purpose of Itunes.
See? It always pays off to befriend the IT guy.
Ohmigod I love this show. I love his smart-ass comments, reckless behavior, the way he manipulates his team of doctors.....also the fast pace, medical information and story lines are all interesting. We are only on the second season, and apparently there are 6 seasons? Woo hoo!
Both of whom are super sexy.
Unfortunately at the last moment she requested a zipper. But I had already cut out the fabric, and I didn't have enough left over but she seems to be really happy with the snap in the end. And this allows me to breathe a sigh of relief, because well.....zippers.
Check out the Etsy shop where it came from.
I seriously apologize for the bad photos, but it's impossible to take a decent photo here during the week. I go to work in the dark and come home in the dark. Tomorrow I have to race home at lunch to take photos of the bag I just made for my shop, then race back to work again. What the hell??
We had to take three planes and drive another hour to get to my home town, it takes all day and we finally arrived at the house around 8:30pm on Christmas Eve. I don't like flying, but I know that once we get there, it will be a great relaxing time.
What a great Christmas, The Quilt went over great (read my post if you haven't, I'm so mad it posted on December 10th and not after Christmas as I would have liked).
So, I'm on page 230 and Emily has finally arrived at the Castle Udolpho. Oooohhhh....so creepy*. The first 1/3 of the book set up her life with her father, how she met her true love Valancourt and how she ended up separated from both of them and in her wretched circumstances.
Great, now I'll be expecting Shaggy to come around the corner any minute and discover that the evil Montoni has a fake beard and is really Emily's long-lost cousin out for revenge.
No, seriously!! It's absolutely hilarious when you are hanging out on the sofa and you hear a soft *tinkle* sound, look around and notice the tree gently shaking all over...ornaments swaying....gentle rustling....
Rawbean also lent me her cutting mat, straight edge and rotary cutter - thank GOD. Can you imagine cutting all these squares out with scissors?! Not happening.
Then the most fun part was laying out the fabric for the top.
So anyway, next came sewing together all the squares. At first I started pinning the squares together, but realized after the first two squares that this seemed to be a waste of time. Instead I zipped them through the machine two squares at a time, making a long row. Then I added the next row to the one I just did......24 times or whatever. Then I sewed the other way.
After that, I attached the borders...yeah......I tend to over-complicate things. I took an easy detail and made it ridiculously difficult but got it right in the end after going to the local quilting fabric shop and begging the ladies to help me.
After this, honestly - it wasn't much fun - attaching the batting and the back. Do you know how hard it is to get pieces of fabric this big to lay flat, nevertheless three pieces of fabric to sandwich together and be flat?!
After this, I tied french knots at every intersection of squares to bind everything together.
So now it's done, and I've given it to my parents. We've been sitting next to the fireplace and huddling under The Quilt since Christmas morning because they live in "the frozen tundra" (Saskatchewan).
It's Prawn Santa! We bought him last year to mark the year we got married and moved to Victoria. Again, please note his fishing-line-antennae and his sparkly Santa suit.
Because we live with The Bad Room Mate, every year we hang cheap plastic candy canes along the bottom of our tree to keep him distracted from the fabulous ornaments like Prawn Santa and the mental elephant. Our tree is also ornament-top-heavy because anything near the bottom is fair game for chewing or bashing around.
These candy canes have been through three years of abuse now and are in various states of disrepair. Some are completely chewed up and others are totally intact. Ziggy hates them, he'll walk all the way across the room only to give one of them a whack and send it flying.
