Category: Life

Currently, and Presently

26/4/2012

Currently:

Reading "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson. Sometimes you need something light and entertaining. It's making me itch to at least get out somewhere local, easy, and leafy: Pacific Spirit Park, or Norvan Falls in Lynn Valley... The only disappointing thing in this book so far is the occassional mention of his hiking buddy throwing litter away along the trail.

About to watch "One Hour With You" on youtube. I have yet to be disappointed by Ernst Lubitsch.

Presently:

There are eggs in the fridge to use up, and they may very well be destined for Guinness-milk chocolate ice cream from "The Perfect Scoop". The coffee and stout ice cream from "Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home" was excellent and I bet the two are somewhat similar. Booze is a great addition to home-made ice cream and sorbet - it helps you avoid ending up with a rock-solid frozen treat.

When I can knit again (soon-ish? maybe?) I'll be making the Jaali shawl by Kitman Figueroa. After being on the fence about shawls for some time (a lot of them are lace, which I like, but would they really get incorporated into my wardrobe? would I want to incorporate them into my wardrobe?), I saw the pattern for Damask and immediately bought it. It's one of my all-time favourite knits - both the process and the finished product.

But mostly, it's now time to get off the couch and out of the house a bit more. Even though I had to cancel my trip this past weekend, my mind keeps thinking travel-y thoughts...

0 Comments

Oops: my Easter diary (part 3)

22/4/2012

1 Comment

This will be the last oops installment. All this wordiness is getting dull; high time I had some photo content and talked about something else!

I had surgery on a Tuesday morning, and was in an especial amount of pain for the next 24 hours or so. Happily, they aren't stingy with pain medication at the hospital. The following afternoon I went home, feeling delicate but also feeling positive about our health care system.

People have been very kind. I've received a lot of help, offers of more help, and a lot of food. It has been extremely useful and very appreciated. Work has been very understanding, and I've eased myself back into the office this last week.

My left hand is still quite swollen (I call it my cartoon hand). I've been getting used to doing things with one hand but more time and energy is required for even simple tasks.

No sock camp for me. I'm very grateful to the Yarn Harlot for finding someone to take my place in Port Ludlow and I'm looking forward to going another time. Still, I'll be very interested to read blog posts about camp to see what it was like.

Yesterday was really the first day that I felt good about leaving the house, and able to walk around comfortably. In recognition of feeling on the mend, I put the ice cream maker in the freezer before going to bed, and am now making a batch of Coffee Frozen Yogurt - the easiest recipe from The Perfect Scoop, requiring the merest amount of measuring and whisking. It's got me thinking about whether perhaps I can do a little one-handed cooking after all, maybe even a little one-handed embroidery....

1 Comment

Oops: my Easter diary (part 2)

18/4/2012

1 Comment

Synopsis from Part 1: I was on my bike, lost control, and was just about to hit the ground...

After my crash landing, I felt very certain about one thing: I was not getting up. I knew that if I tried to move I would faint, and the pain in my left elbow and wrist was intense. Besides, it wasn't so bad lying there in the sun; I only wanted some crackers as ballast. A group of well-meaning people quickly and inevitably gathered round.

Lisa took our bikes back to her house, the car was brought round, and eventually we made our way to Langley Memorial hospital. Aside from being in a lot of pain, I was mad at myself for not being more careful and avoiding the accident altogether. It took me a day or so to get over this and just accept what had happened - which actually is a pretty short time to be hard on oneself.

They took x-rays and we waited for the emergency room doctor. It was well past lunch so Lisa picked up a couple of pastries from the hospital cafeteria. When it was finally our turn to see the doctor, he took one look at the food wrappers and said "well, you won't be going in for surgery today".
Diagnosis: elbow broken in 2 places.
Treatment: surgery required (must fast beforehand)

In the interim, my arm was bandaged up with a splint and supported with a sling. They gave me Tylenol 3, a CD with copies of the x-rays, and a suggestion to go to VGH for surgery since I live in Vancouver.

Back to Lisa's. How do you spend an evening with a broken elbow? Well, your friend takes good care of you. You have stirfry for dinner and then watch "Friends With Benefits", a surprisingly good rom-com starring Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake.

The next day (Sunday) Lisa took me to VGH. More x-rays and a CT scan. This time I was fasting, but was eventually told that surgery would hopefully be the next day. They admitted me, but let me was allowed to go home overnight with instructions not to consume any food or drink after midnight, and to report back at 6am.

My new talent? Putting in contact lens with one hand.

To be continued - again. Since I won't have any project or kitchen related updates for the next little bit, I might as well go on with my little saga...

1 Comment

Oops: my Easter diary (part 1)

15/4/2012

1 Comment

My plans for Easter weekend included 1) being productive (attending to day-to-day matters such as cleaning and studying, trying out new recipes, etc) and 2) having a visit with my friend Lisa in Fort Langley. Lisa's husband offered me a ride out on Friday evening; their car has a bike rack, and I had all my cycling gear (except my bike shorts - whoops! - realized too late that I had forgotten to pack them) and I was going to stay until Sunday morning and then cycle home. Fort Langley to Vancouver is about 55km, and this was to be the test run of whether it's a pleasant ride or not.

We hid eggs for the kids on Friday night, and on Saturday morning, I discovered that the Easter bunny had come back and left chocolate and a fabric flower for me too! Which is funny, because the Easter bunny seems to have forgotten me for the previous 15 years.

Then Lisa and I set out for a little bike ride - there's a charming trail network all along the river in Fort Langley. As we were setting out, I gave Lisa a little lecture on wearing a helmet. Because you know, I am all about safety. We had only gone about 100m when my hands started feeling a bit chilly. In my head I thought "I should stop to put on my gloves" but had already started to fiddle with them while still moving - not very fast, but in a moment I lost control and crashed. Even as I fell, I could tell that I was in an awkward position and that the landing wasn't going to go over well...

to be continued

1 Comment

What is reasonable?

13/4/2012

1 Comment

Is playing acoustic guitar at 10:30pm on a Friday night in a wood-frame apartment building:
a) reasonable? or
b) unreasonable?

I'd try to figure out how to add a poll here, but it's late and I'm tired. If you have thoughts about this, I'm very interested.
Coming soon: the story of why cooking and crafting will be on hiatus for a little while...

1 Comment

Representative

27/3/2012

0 Comments

My iphone arrived last week, and I was testing out the camera by taking a few pictures in my living room. While these were random pictures of nothing in particular, it turns out that this non-composed photo actually captures my domestic situation quite well.

See? Nothing much to look at.

But on closer inspection, we have all the ingredients of my home life:
1. Fake flowers.
2. Fairy lights.
3. A ridiculous lamp (difficult to see, but it's Peter Pumpkin Eater). 4. An interesting cotton print (in this case, a pillow in Marimekko fabric).
5. Another ridiculous lamp (unfortunately, not on). Also, drapes from Restoration Hardware. I loathe blinds and think that RH has the ultimate selection of drapery.
6. A skirt in progress.
7. The Rebar cookbook, hiding.
8. Bathrobe.
9. Something from Nancy (in this case a Casablanca coaster).
10. Barbara Walker's Treasury of Knitting Patterns, Vol 1. (See swatch, below).

0 Comments

Making

15/3/2012

1 Comment

Another tomato bib.

Tiramisu ice cream (from "The Perfect Scoop" by David Lebovitz).

Deep dish winter fruit pie (pear/apple/cranberry/dried figs/ apricots/orange zest, and topped with a pecan crumble).

Finished spindle socks.

1 Comment

Ambitious undertaking

13/3/2012

0 Comments

This was the phrase going through my head today. An ambitious undertaking is what I want right now. Researchers say that people are happiest when they're fully absorbed in a task that is almost too hard for them. Right now, doing something ambitious is likely so appealing because what I'm really looking for is focus; to be able to just concentrate fully on one thing for large chunks of time, to bring together my scattered energies. I want to focus on something that's fussy and involved, time-consuming and challenging.
This is one of the reasons that I decided to hike the Annapurna Circuit in October. It seemed ambitious since it was more hiking and more altitude gain than I had ever done before, and all I had to do on any given day was just walk - no other responsibilities. While I was happy that the trip was successful, I was actually a little disappointed that it wasn't that difficult (we stopped early-to-mid afternoon every day; hiking all day, every day would have made some difference. As it was, I only gave it a 4 out of 10 on the challenging scale).

Hi. I'm in Nepal.

Thankfully my next week or two is light on the scheduled commitments, and I intend to keep it that way; without focused quiet time, life mostly tends to be about day-to-day routine.

0 Comments

This and that

12/3/2012

0 Comments

Are you going to a potluck? If so, this soba noodle salad with eggplant and mango is the perfect thing to take. It's seriously good, served at room temperature, and you can even transport it on the bus without fear of having a gooey mess at your destination. Perfect, unless all of your friends hate cilantro.

See this typewriter brooch? A while back, I ordered one for Nancy from Craftyfolk's etsy shop. I wish I had picked up more than one because it turns out that I might need this too.

Today I received an (ahem, rather large) order of socks from Sock Dreams. Since I wear skirts and over-the-knee socks pretty much every day this is not a complete indulgence.

As God is my witness, I'll never be without socks again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, cheat, or steal. As God is my witness, I'll never be without socks again.

And to end on a note of awesome, Dolly Parton singing "In the Ghetto".

0 Comments

Catching up

9/3/2012

1 Comment

It's been a week comprised of a) being out; b) being social; c) being at work; and d) studying. As of yesterday, I was living in my own filth and eating take-out sushi for dinner. Today I have groceries and the carpet has been vacuumed. There's swiss chard-chickpea stew simmering on the stove alongside a pot of rice. This is progress. (However, my bathroom needs cleaning and my inbox is out of control. Such is life.)

On Sunday, Tara and Deb and I went cross-country skiing in the Callaghan Valley. A couple of months ago, my manager gave me her cross-country ski equipment (thanks Elisa!). Despite a pretty spectacular wipeout into the trees on Cypress in December, I was looking forward to getting out skiing again. I've barely cross-country skiied as an adult; when we were kids, my parents would take us out skiing a few times a year. We were pretty wussy and whiny kids. "I'm cold." "I'm tired." And so on. It's amazing that they kept taking us out, but it means that now as an adult, I can get from point A to point B on a pair of skis, so long as there aren't a lot of hills involved (hills are scary).

This was exactly the third time that Tara had gone cross-country skiing. She was a trooper, despite the fact that the terrain had as many hills (scary) as flat stretches. And even though it was kind of a wet day, it was nice to be out in the quiet and the snow and the trees. And to eat Tara's home-made peanut butter cookies on the way home (thanks Tara!).

One unexpected thing that happened this week was a spontaneous visit with my next-door neighbour. We've never really gotten to know each other, but now that she's about to move we finally spent an hour or two chatting, and it turns out that she's interested in cycling and food and textiles. In fact, she even gave me her button and fabric stash and a bag of stuffing (thanks Margie!).