ho hum, ho hum

after nov. 29 please visit this link instead.

funny this happens when i lose interest but now i may be able to get a free camera!

ever since i discovered loobylu i can't stop reading her blog. i usually go through bouts of bloggie obsessions but this time the obsession is like none other. i've read every single loobylu entry since 2002.

the original attraction of this site was her wonderful illustrations - which are very cute but sophisticated with shadowing and textile-ish patterns and textures. i was also very much intrigued with her craft and knitting projects, of which she is extremely prolific for a mother of a toddler and a freelance illustrator. but now, after reading all her blogs from 2002 - 2004, i've delved into the archives of her archives. i went to the very first entry of loobylu.

to my surprise the loobylu of 1999 cursed in her blogs and each post had a scattering of disparate ideas jumbled into an entry (much like me!). to further my surprise, loobylu of 1999 was trying out freelancing and finding it extremely difficult (much like me of 2003). during this time she also had to come to terms w/ the failure of a start up ... hmmmmm. also, the illustrating style of the loobylu of 1999 wasn't as sophisticated as it is now (there's hope for me yet!).

i'm glad that there is still 2000 - 2002 to read. hopefully i can get some insight into how she became a successfull illustrator, who can purchase print goccos, fabric, yarn and blythe dolls without much hesitation. either way loobylu is very inspiring and infuses a lot of hope into me! can't... stop... reading.....

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wondering what these sketches in this post are? they are a preview of the 2004 happy d xmas card! if you want one, send me an email with your snail mail address and i will be happy to oblige.

yay! we did it! our loft is finally clean! aside from the things that were shoved into the storage space under the stairs we've found homes for all our belongings and we only have to put a mirror up in our upstairs bathroom. being in a space that doesn't have open boxes and piles of recycling on the floor really transformed my mood. it finally feels like my place and i have ownership of it.

we welcomed a's sister and her fiancé over as our first official dinner guests as a thank you for helping us move. a made his 'ernie' steaks (which were savoury) and i made mashed butternut squash and roasted veggies (really simple and after chatting w/ ernie i think i'll try olive oil drenched whole garlic cloves within their skin instead of mincing them next time). a's sister brought 'home sweet home' cupcakes from a cupcake store that uses the exact same colour scheme as 'cupcakes' on denman. the toronto cupcake shoppe, however, uses real butter icing. mmmmmm

so.. i've joined a book club! the group is mostly comprised of girls. there is only a small number of us and we had our first meeting on friday. it was really cool to be with a group of people who've read so much and love to read but aren't overly intellectual about it. during our meet up we decided on how and at what intervals we'll have our meetings and most importantly chose the first 6 books we'll be reading. since we're going to be meeting every 6 weeks we are set for the next 9 months!

unbeknownst to me all book clubs have a name. as a pun on my coworker/friend's name, i shouted out, 'the joy of reading' - the name stuck.

here's our booklist:

• the cave - jose saramago
• the pilot's wife - anita shreve
• brave new world - aldous huxley (this was my pick that was drawn!)
• body artist - don delillo (i read his 'end zone' and didn't enjoy it. hopefully this one will be better)
• anil's ghost - michael ondaatje
• unless - carol shields

my other pick that i put into the draw was no crystal stair another can-con book which has been short-listed for cbc's 2005 canada reads (thanks to my other coworker who's part of our club for tipping me off on this cool list).

did a lot of things this weekend including learning how to knit 'continental' style (aka 'euro-style'), purl, increase and yarnover, going to see matt and ben and going to a silly top 40 club for my friend's birthday party.

sadly i came to the realization that i've spent my last 4 weekends working on the curtains for our large windows. 4 weekends! that's a month! the saddest part, though, is that when i went to put my finished curtains for our upstairs windows the curtains ended up being 15 cm too short. they look so ugly and cheap, even though b/c these were the 2nd set of curtains i sewed the workmanship was better. now i don't even want to look at my sewing machine. i'm a failed seamstress.

acutally no i'm not. i blame the guy who sold me the fabric. he said if i added an extra 2" onto my measurements it should account for shrinkage, since i wouldn't be able to prewash the 88' for fabric before cutting it. so i cut the fab before washing it adding a good 2" to each section and it still came out too short. it's all that guy's fault. i'm a good sewer dammit!

i'm finding all these really cool girls online (:

• loobylu is an illustrator from down-under and she's into knitting as well!
• the chapin sisters please go to 'listen' and listen to 'toxic'. it's a must.
• she is only 19, makes cool stuff and is a news editor for design is kinky

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i finally purchased a USB wacom tablet!!! YAY! i'm back.

chopin/dido white flag

phew! who knew that learning to knit would take this much brain power. the photo above shows how much i knit after 3 straight hours of trying to knit. ya, it's only about 1.5" high ... and ya, it's crooked ... to ho ho

'member that irving berlin song, 'anything you can do i can do better, i can do anything better than you'? for the longest time i would sing that song to encourage myself to be able to do things i knew other people could do. you can drive stick shift? i can drive stick. you can down shift before a turn? i can down shift before a turn AND double clutch.

i need to sing this song to myself until i can knit, but man! there are so many variables when you knit - tension, counting stitches, ensuring the needles don't flip flop around everywhere. also because when you knit you don't get a direct result from an action (rather you need to complete several actions before a connection from the actions create a result - if that made any sense at all), you may not realize that you've made a mistake until several actions later. hopefully the more i knit, i'll be able to catch mistakes as i make them!

my brain is so tired ... but i still want to knit. i want to call in sick to work tomorrow so i can knit.

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and hmm, i wonder how many people submit photos?

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oh yea! it was -1 and we had flurries today. it's only november...

ok now for some positivity! i found this wonderful post about social change:


supernaturale.com

2 of my co-workers and i are going to meet up next week to make some plans on how we can get the rest of the office to recycle more and become aware of our dying environment. we are going to talk about putting up signs, creating a short pamphlet on simple things like remembering to always photocopy double sided, getting third party recycling programs and such. very exciting! apparently not only individuals but whole companies can sign up for the nature challenge.

ahaha ... america is going to implode.