a memo from my high school self.

all you need is love. [25 Aug 2005|05:58pm]
so today my mum tells me that she has worked in my favourite song into the wedding.
that as they walk back down the aisle, 'All You Need is Love' will be playing.
I then proceeded to tell her that 'All You Need is Love' is not, infact, my favourite song and went on listing some of my favourite Beatles songs.
She denied forgetting what my favourite song was and retorted with, 'well you have too many favourite songs anyways and this one is like in Love Actually, so we're using it.'
i told her it'd be better if 'Hey Jude' or 'Oh! Darling' was playing instead and told her, once again, that when i get married, when i walk down the aisle i shall have 'Hey Jude' playing instead of the bride song.



I still want to walk down the aisle to 'Hey Jude'

jealousy of my fiance.

So since my last entry a very exciting thing had happened. Somehow I have found myself engaged to Kyleman which is very, very lovely as it happened on our fourth anniversary.

But in the whirlwind of engagement and loveliness, I have discovered that weddings come with choices. And frankly some choices cause me anxiety and anxiety causes me nausea and nausea causes me unpleasant thoughts.  And it all makes me very jealous of my lovely fiance and the easy decisions he has been able to make a lot more easily than I have.

Anyways, right now I'm watching The Abyss on tv and I really don't know why I am as I don't like creepy movies. Oh well.

Priceless

When my stepsister left for Edmonton, my stepdad made her a DVD with pictures and videos from family trips all the way back to 2001 - which we just realized is getting to be a very long time ago.

Tonight we watched it again and it always amazes me how perfect Stepdad's choice of soundtrack is for our family. Good job, padre, good job.

vexation

My mum has this bad habit of putting knitting books on hold for me at the library, which is very easy for her to do since she happens to work there. Although I always appreciate having a new knitting book floating around my room, I hate having to give them back. Which is what is happening with the book Fearless Fair Isle.  I have a feeling I am going to have a lot of overdues on this book since I've decided to make the hooded vest which appears on the cover.

Now for this pattern I knew I'd need to go buy some yarn; my sock yarn stash is equipped enough to make baby sweaters but not full grown sweaters. So I traversed to the local yarn shop with a colour-scheme in mind and totally broke it. Instead of a nice variegated yarn with a beige/brown basis, I ended up with two variegated yarns. One called was Diamond Luxury Collection's Foot Loose in plum garden and the other is Diamond Luxury Collection's Fancy Free in various shades of green and yellow. Both lovely lovely yarns.......that blend too well together to be complimentary in fair isle. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Of course, by this point I am so desperate to work on this project, I cannot wait for Tuesday when the shop opens again so I settled for a yarn substitute of Lion Brand's Sock-Ease in Marshmallow [or white].

I also don't have the suggested needle size and did a quick swatch with the smallest size I did have and it seemed to work out....I'm hoping it'll still work with the Lion Brand-Diamond combo.

Sigh.

Don't Forget the Shoes

I've hit packing fever and have slowly over the last two evenings dragged the suitcases up to my room and have been dropping things in occasionally or when I remember things that I definitely should not forget to bring. I'm finding this method is working quite well for me and by Friday I'm sure I'll be done aside from Kyle's shoes.

Oh yes, I am packing for the boy too. Which is slightly backfiring on me since A) This is his first trip so he has been stalling on giving me things/thinks he can essentially pack Saturday/keeps wanting me to pack slightly ridiculous things to bring on a cruise, for example a thermos [as I clarified to my mum, I don't mean a travel mug, I mean a legit "let me unscrew my thermos cap and pour some soup into it" thermos]. And B) I can't truly pack until I have all his things since I've decided spreading both our clothes over two suitcases will help if one of them gets LOST. I'm such an optimist.

Also today my work day was spend helping students participating in a Heritage Fair more commonly known around here as Historica put together pots I smashed in front of Guy House Tuesday. Believe me, both of these activities are surprisingly fun. Now the biggest part of Historica are all these student projects on display boards that get judged and while the projects are on display, the students rotate around to listen/participate in different museum presentations/activities. Dorky sounding - I know. But awesome.

One of the projects was about suffragette women and had this poster on it:

I love it.

The end.

look at me go!

Well, look at that! A second post in a relatively short period of time! And I'm feeling much better today [other than a small headache but I'm ignoring it until it goes away]

Today is going to be a lazy day - my day off for the week, and a rainy one at that. One of my major goals of today is doing laundry and possibly dragging a suitcase up from the basement. Why a suitcase, you may ask? Well, let me tell you! Sunday Kyleman and I will be heading off on a wonderful vacation pour deux. It is super exciting since this is our first week-long trip together ALONE.

We'll see if both of us come back at the end of the week. Hehe.

In other news, this is what I accomplished today:

Purl Soho's Short Row Sweater in Tanis Fibre Arts Fingering. I am in love with this and have enough left over for some socks!

I also started this last night

It's a leg warmer for a cutie-patootie little girlie I know. I've been debating the colour scheme I chose - The stockinette part is actually two different shades of pink, it's just funny how a like they became once I started knitting it. Now it makes me wonder if the cuff is too drastic a change. Although little girls seem more open to slightly mismatched things.

I also realized how many projects I have on my plate and how many more should be on my plate, not including projects I want to do just because. Let me count the ways:

1. The sweater my mother connived me into
2. a wedding afghan for my friend  [ay carumba]
3. these leg warmers
4. a baby shower present for my darling friend - which is really difficult for me because I want to make her so much! But because it's a gender surprise, I'm going to have to save all the cutie-patootie girlie stuff until after the birth [I think it's going to be a girl; I've only been wrong once]. Yes, Ewa, I am talking about you. 
5. my socks!

fouche.

I'm beginning to come to the realization that maybe I am a horrible blogger. Or that maybe I am a horrible blogger because I can never dedicate a blog to a single subject so it's hard to write because then I wonder, "I think it's interesting, but will anyone else?"


I have had a horrible week to go along with my horrible blogger realization. Things have just been angry and frustrating, confusing with hits of happiness in between. The last little while I've been having an internal job crisis, which I feel isn't uncommon in my field, and after not getting a job I worked really hard for the interview for, and beginning to have worries about my current steady pay-cheque plus being guilted and stilted by my not-so-steady pay-cheque, I am afraid I might be losing confidence in myself.

It doesn't help when you get told by your grandfather [who I might add, just got shuttled around by your truly around a doctor's clinic for 2 hours] that you are being stupid for wanting to save up and buy a car on your own. This makes me lose my feminist temper and faith that men will ever see women as truly independent beings that can secure their own lives [feminist temper - right there]. I was so angry I lost my appetite and told him I didn't want to go to breakfast anymore.

The fact that nothing seems to be moving forward in my life really bothers me. I can't find a permanent job [that wants me back], I have a clunky car that sometimes makes funny windmill noises, I live with my parents and my boyfriend can't start a life with me yet. The real sad thing about all of those is that all of those are barely my own choices.

Maybe this is a horrible post to end a long absence on, I promise the next one will be better [I also promise not to wait 6 months before visiting again], but I'm home alone right now before heading to work with only the dog to listen to me, and she's fast asleep from my woes.

I want a nap.

december baby

So tomorrow is my birthday. I am turning the big 2-3, which, to me, is a lot more exciting than 22. There seems to be nothing exciting about 22, it's the let-down of the early twenties. I mean, 19 you're legal to drink [haha American teensters], 20 you've left teenagehood, 21 you're legal in every country of the world and 22.....nadda. At least at 23 it's the milestone of being halfway to 25 which is halfway to 30 and therefore officially exiting "young adult" and just being an "adult". Exciting! [I already feel like I'm in my mid-twenties rather than still in the beginnings of them, which probably also contributes to my lack of excitement for 22; thank gosh it'll only last for one more day!]

Thus tonight a bunch of my favourite people and I are going out for dinner. And tomorrow night my absolute favourite person [Kyleman, duh] is taking me out again. I am spoiled with lurve.

Before being spoiled with lurve though, I've been spending my afternoon making some gingerbread deer.

I had fun experimenting with icing and facial expressions appropriate for deer. Including a Harry Potter deer.

[his scar got a little less lightning mark like due to the slight liquidy property of my fly by the seat of my pants icing]

Also also I've almost finished my Christmas knitting. The only thing left is some ribbing on Kyleman's sweater. Due to the fact that it's a pattern from the 70s and I wasn't thinking that I should block it before seaming, the length worried me a bit and so I made him try it on early. Which I'm glad I did as it'd really only be perfectly long enough if he wore higher pants. Unfortunately he is a modern man and wears low slung everything [don't worry I'm not talking about wigger-style; his boxers are always covered!] and therefore I was forced to add on a couple extra inches of ribbing along the bottom. Le sigh. Well better now than on Christmas day in front of all our family.

-aholic

While going into the library yesterday to drop my mum off a coffee, I ended up coming out with six enormous books. Well, two of them are only semi-enormous. And while Kyleman looked about ready to keel over from the sight of wee me looking about ready to keel over myself under all these books, my mum barely batted a lash and stated, "she's been doing this since she was little".

It made me slightly proud inside.

Apparently even though I've never been a big biography person, most of the books chosen yesterday were in that category: Spencer Tracey, Gene Kelley, Agatha Christie, Stephen Fry and Katharine Hepburn. God, I love Katharine Hepburn. I started hers last night, unable to resist the calling and man she's fabulous.

If anyone still needs to get me a Christmas present, please please please buy me The Philadelphia Story or Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is just a triple hitter: Hepburn, Tracey AND Poitier!?!? Someone pass me my smelling salts!

mugs

I am beginning to realize that I actually might just be a bit of a bad blogger. Oops.

In other news, I am slightly very bored at work today. I've officially started my full contract position and almost officially over my cold if I could ever get this phlegm to leave my body.

I've learned that my favourite mugs at work are the collection we seem to have of ones with faces on them with noses that stick out and make wonderful finger rests and pseudo-handle grips. The one I am rocking today is the sick one that has a thermometer sticking out of it's mouth. I would have used it earlier this week and last week but I only discovered it today in the back of the cabinet.

I've also mastered stranding knitting in the last little while. Okay, maybe mastered is a little too strong a word. However, saying that I have gotten good enough at it to make people ooh and aah and not notice the little occasional puckers from still learning how to balance out floats across double-pointed needles is definitely true.

Yes, I made that. Unfortunately after reading multiple comments on ravelry about how the mittens are mostly too long for people in the fingers, and worrying about what I was going to do to make them fit my slightly un-naturally small hands, I ended up misreading/assuming I knew how the pattern went from the thumb up and forgot a repeat of the pattern which made the mittens a tad bit too small. Which is why I'm blocking them, which will hopefully stretch them enough to allow my fingers at least to be able to wiggle straightened rather than curved at a 45 degree angle.

Otherwise I am set for a good old Canadian winter. Well, at least my hands will be.

[note: mittens are made from the Tiffany pattern on Knitty.]

One for the Canadians

I don't know how Americans last until November to have Thanksgiving. I am a serious turkey-er and by this time of the year I am yenning the works so hardcore that when my mother even suggests we go to Swiss Chalet for our Thanksgiving dinner [well, to give her -some- credit, she is still recovering from a hysterectomy AND they left for Italy tonight so...yes] I'm almost in tears for fear of one less turkey.

Maybe that just shows how pathetic I am. Anyways.

I love Thanksgiving, it probably comes in second to Christmas for me mostly because I love food and at Easter people seem to favour ham, which I do not.

And to go along with the whole food topic, Kyleman and I are in hot debates on air-popped vs. bagged popcorn and whether the different types of pasta [ie. spaghetti, linguine, bow-tie, penne, etc.] actually matter, especially when it comes to sauce. I personally think they do, Kyle does not. He never seems to get cravings for certain pastas, where as I'll get a penchant for bow-ties or penne vs. a longer noodle - this is especially put to practice when debating whether I want a tomato sauce, a meaty tomato sauce, an alfredo sauce, rose....the list goes on and on.

 It so totally matters.

And with that, said sauce needs a'stirring.
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving to all!

on demand

I've worked all weekend doing this:

In case anyone is wondering about the slightly old school fabric covering my lap, well, it went very well with my old school costume of Victorian wear. Oh yes, rocking it 1850s style.

wedding speeches.

It's here. The final week before the final bridesmaid wedding of the season.

And it's making me go, "AAAAAAH!"

 Especially right now as I'm trying to write a suitable wedding speech. Most of my thoughts revolve around individual sentences; even the story I am trying to throw in it [I was forbidden to tell any embarrassing stories about the bride, I can't think of any embarrassing stories about the groom that don't involve the bride and well, wedding speeches suck without one embarrassing story] seems to be an entity of its own.

In other non-brain-melting news, today's weather was refreshingly fall-like which let me whip out one of my favourite light sweaters and jeans and not feel like a knob wearing a sweater in the summertime. I like sweaters.

thunderstorms and P&P

I've been a very naughty blogger. Obviously I am very bad at updating and although I could blame it on the fact that my life has seemed a frizzy little blur does not seem like a good enough excuse.

I have, however, fallen back in love with Pride and Prejudice [not that I ever fell out of love in the first place; more just a re-acquaintance with an old lover]. After picking the book up for a more literal emotional pick-me-up, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy have once again become my favourite love story. Especially now that I have watched [by force] The Notebook [note: I did not particularly like it. James Garner was the best part/person of the entire movie]. It is so wonderful and lovely and....lurvealicious.

But then again, Jane Austen does that to me. Some people critique her books because all of them end in marriage. But what is so wrong with marriage - the moral of the story is true love that happens to end in the standard of today. I'm sure if Elizabeth and Darcy lived today they really would be more of a Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy combination [which is, in case you haven't noticed, a parallel to Pride and Prejudice]. Alongside the fact of it being social standard for marriage, every "happily ever after" marriage Austen ends the story with is one of true loves: if you met your true love, wouldn't you want to be married to them if you couldn't live with them otherwise?

But that is just my opinion.
I think I shall reread Emma next.

Unfortunately for me, I seem to be gaining a cough. It started out as a once in the morning thing only now to be coughing every couple minutes as I lay in bed. Oh dear. As my mother is on medical leave from work, I as her nurse [hehe] should not be getting sick. Especially as I would still be the one expected to get up and get things.

On an ending note: I think someone should bring back the curtsy.  Just sayin'

Garter toss

I've discovered garters are a very tricky thing to knit, especially when it's not to go on your own thigh but someone else who won't measure her thigh circumference.

 
I've also just realized that part of one of the elastics is coming off. EEK!
Sheesh.

chapel bells

I had the lovely experience of being lovely Lici's MoH on the weekend. It was stressful and [incredibly] wonderful all at the same time.

Beautiful.

It also reaffirmed the fact that these ladies are not just my friends, but my family.

It also made me very afraid for the time when I get to plan my own wedding. Oh dear lord. When Kyle and I collapsed on his bed late Saturday night, all I could ask was, "can we just go to City Hall?"

Really the thing I am most excited for is my dress and veil. Mostly the veil. I'm pretty sure it is the veil that makes the bride real.

Also something I will definately look for in a venue is nice chairs without needing chair covers. No chair covers, sil vous plait.

a true brunette

After being a redhead for a couple weeks [has it been a month already?] I'm missing my dark locks and am thinking there will be another dye-job coming my way soon ish. Most likely after Lici's upcoming wedding [this week will be ridiculously busy I feel] and before Jessica's September wedding when I will be donning my cherry red dress. Yes, making sure my red hair and red dress do not clash is a must. Jessica already hinted at me when we were buying the dress if it'd be too bridezilla of her to make me dye my hair back. Luckily for her I am a bridesmaidazilla and agree with her.

Also coming up is Kyleman's birthday, which falls on Lici's wedding but will be celebrated tomorrow. I have gone to extremes to wrap his present in such a way that he will probably end up crying in a corner before getting to the actual present. But that will teach him to guess the present correctly before the birthday!

I'm really not as heartless as the above sentence seems. I assure you if he looks like he's about to burst into tears I will go get some scissors to help. I'm also going to bake him some special cupcakes which really balances it out. I am torn between two recipes: one lemon meringue, and one cheesecake cupcakes. I haven't looked at the recipe cards in a while though so I think truly it'll all depend on which will be easiest. Kyleman will eat [and love] either.

when in doubt

I've found that when in doubt especially in a doubt crisis, or crisis in general, my mind automatically looks up and plays Chiquitita by ABBA. Or more specifically in my mind, the Mamma Mia movie version.

It does wonders to the morale.

books.

These are all the books that have managed their way over to my bedside table. 

It's slightly ridiculous the way I lose motivation for some books...

But I kind of love it at the same time.

La de de da.

acceptance

I finally got accepted into the awesome program I wanted to be in.
Except now I don't know what to do.
I had geared myself so hard into believing that I wouldn't get in....that I'm not prepared now for getting in.
I'm incredibly happy with where I am right now.
But then I could probably get so much farther with this program.
But I don't think I can manage the full-time program and both part time jobs at the same time. And I don't think I can switch down to part-time.
I'm really hoping I can defer.
I don't know what to do.
And I'm slightly freaking out.
I'm going to wait for the actual acceptance package [acceptance emails are never as exciting or informative - literally, I had to go on OntarioColleges.ca to even find out which program I had gotten in to] before I start freaking out [more] hardcore and address the options full-out with my bosses.
But for now I'm going to try and defer.


I think?