I'm Tired and Cranky. This Is What You Get

I had a couple of book reviews I wanted to write up tonight.

And I wanted to talk about my love of the new show GCB (totally my guilty pleasure).

And how I'm five episodes in to rewatching the entire Star Trek: The Next Generation because that show was such a huge part of my childhood so I've decided to watch an episode a night for the next, oh, eight months or so until I'm done. (Eight months is longer than it should take me at an episode a night, but I'm allowing for nights of going out.)

And how Game of Thrones comes back on Sunday but I won't be able to watch it because I'll be in Seattle ::sadface:: for the Emerald City Comicon ::happyface::

And that if I don't end the weekend with Wil Wheaton phoning security to remove me from his room, I've totally failed in my objectives.

I'm kidding!

I just plan to hang around his table until he gets creeped out and asks security to remove me from the entire convention.

Again, just kidding!

Kinda.

Obviously, I had a lot I wanted to write about, but my computer is being a total twat and just ate my last post before crashing... twice. So instead, you get this:

On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
Been on my too-read for a long time. Really glad I did. Found it fascinating. Recommend it if you have an interest in science... otherwise it can be a bit dense and dull. I highly recommend getting an annotated edition because he often references other scientists/science papers from that era.

They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children by Romeo Dallaire
Started reading this last year. Got a little emotional so I put it down... for 11 months. So, so good (but I will always recommend Shake Hands with the Devil first). I tip my hat because the man can also craft some good fiction in amongst his fabulous non-fiction.

Malachy McCourt's History of Ireland by Malachy McCourt
Loved it. It was written very much like an oral history. I felt like I was sitting down with Mr. McCourt at a table in a bar as he told me the stories. My dad, who is no big fan of the McCourt brothers (and I'll talk about that in another post with another book review), even loves it. There's a line in the book which sums it up nicely (and I'm paraphrasing because my dad has the book at the moment): You should know by now that in Irish history, whether or not something is true is not as important as whether or not it makes a good story.

Playing With Fire by Theoren Fluery
If you like hockey, read this book. If you are curious of the thought process of someone dealing with being sexual abused as a child, read this book. If you want to better understand the mind frame of an addict, read this book. I'm not going to talk about him being some great writer (because he's not, although he is good), but his honesty and openness about what he went through is incredible. He lays his entire life out for everyone to view and he doesn't sugar coat any of it. Loved this book.

There are more books but these are the only ones I feel like mentioning now that I'm tired, cranky, and hating my computer so why write about the books I wasn't enamoured with? And, because no one wants to end on a downer, I found another craft project online that I want the pattern for:

They even put a bumb on Worf's forehead! *squee!*

Stop the Crochet Hooks!

Most important thing you need to know about today is that I found this Game of Thrones craft online:

As if the Stark family isn't cute enough they come with little direwolves!

And Arya has a tiny Needle!!

*squee!!!*

I WANT!!

At the very least, I want the crochet pattern. I've never crochetted dolls before but I've done beanies so how hard could dolls be? Famous last words.

A Case For Giving Me All Your Money

Save for a month and a half last spring, I have not worked full-time since August 2009. For the record, returning to full-time work kind of sucks. I mean, money is nice. Paying bills is nice. Showering every morning and leaving the house with a sense of purpose is nice.Working? Not so much.

It's nothing against this specific job or my current work place, it's just work in general. Why couldn't I have been born into a titled Victorian family? Or be a lady of the court during the Tudor reign? Or waxed poetic about the plight of the plebs while lounging on a bed of pillows in a lavish Roman villa? In short, why couldn't I have been born ludicrously privileged and ridiculously wealthy? Is that too much to ask for? For the record, I would kick ass at telling my servants what to do. I'm very good at telling other people what to do. It's like I was meant to be a socialite from a bygone era. (Not one from this era because apparently I enjoying wearing too many layers of clothes for that role.)

Of course, work is only a small reason I've been absent around these parts. Another reason is Downton Abbey which I kept hearing people talk about and finally decided to watch. Um, yeah. There's nothing I can really add to the reviews and ideas already tumbling around the Internet except to say 'watch it and thank me later'.

I've also been working on a few crafting projects which may or may not see the light of day on this blog. Mostly, this depends on whether or not I fork out for a new camera in the near future. It's really difficult to show the Internets your crafting project when you don't have a camera. Also, I'm cheap so I don't even have a decent camera phone to take pictures with.

If I was independently wealthy, I'd have you all around for tea with little sandwiches while I show you my craft projects in person. *sigh*

Hello November!

The hard thing about writing about Derry is that the post almost always ends up sounding political. Truthfully, that could just be me reading my own opinions about Northern Ireland into what I wrote. Maybe other people wouldn't read it that way. Or maybe they would. Anyway, I wrote a post, sat on it for two days, rewrote it, sat on it again, reworked it... it's an on going struggle but I will get it up eventually; I think the one I've most recently wrote is probably the version I'll end up with but I want to sit on it and make sure.

In the meantime, it's November! Not only that but it's the fifth of November! When I was young, my dad always had a bonfire for Guy Fawkes day. The property is surrounded by a forest so we'd accumulate a lot of cuttings and underbrush* we had to get rid of. By November 5th, it was damp enough to have a bonfire. Two birds, one bonfire so to speak.

We don't have bonfires anymore because as the development around us grew, firefighter visits became more frequent (this is more a complaint from my dad and brothers. I usually called the fire department... joking!) so permits had to be obtained and that tends to be a pain in the butt. If I had thought far enough ahead to realise that this year it fell on a Saturday, I might have made an effort to get the permits sorted. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to rely on facebook to commemorate the day.

November is Adoption Awareness Month. Now that I've made you aware of that, my work here is done ;-) And I may or may not blog about it later.

I'm being crafty again and will hopefully have something soon to show you. Also, does anyone have any tips for getting spray paint flecks off of a wood patio? These two things are most definitely related.

*Nothing makes me feel better than watching broom burn. Burn motha-frakker, burn!**

**Um, the spell check wanted to change 'motha' to 'mothra'. I always knew my computer was a nerd!

Crafting Up Some Sci-Fi

I'm interrupting my Ireland posts for a brief moment to talk about awesome friends, family and crafts.

A few months ago, THR and her boy went to Seattle for a weekend. While there, they attended the BSG exhibit at the EMP. More importantly, she bought me two BSG posters (and a Firefly sticker which I still haven't decided how to display) because she's an awesome friend.

I instantly knew where I wanted to put them in my apartment; the wall in my hallway is decorated with postcard copies of modern art in cheap frames. It's one of those displays that I put up because empty walls bug me but I've wanted to change it for a while.

My stepdad made up square backings because I didn't want to actually frame them and as of yesterday, my hallway now looks like this:

Now the only sci-fi show missing from my walls is Doctor Who. Yeah, I'll get on that soon!

A big thank you to THR for the posters, thank you to my stepdad for making the backings, and a big thank you to me for hanging them BSG for being awesome.

As for those cheap, ugly, gold frames? You might be seeing them in a future craft project.

Things I Think Are Awesome: Part Two

Part two of no segues has arrived. (There will also be no segways. We've been over this.)

1. This Photo

For those of you born without the geek chromosome (oh, how boring your life must be), that's Nathan Fillion, Felicity Day, Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Anthony Head all in the same photo! On top of that, the photo was taken in the house of Joss Whedon!!

Throw in a Wil Wheaton, and I would have stolen a car and driven to that party... three days late, but whatever.

2. Sleeping masks

At some point this summer, I noticed that I was waking up really early regardless of what time I went to bed. I started sleeping with a shirt strategically placed across the top half of my head and noticed a huge difference. After a conversation with my mom, I got one of their free-from-a-plane-trip sleeping mask and it's love. Well, lust.

I've noticed that it's much easier to fall asleep and when I wake up, I've actually slept the whole night. I'm waking up at 7:00am (without an alarm clock!) feeling completely refreshed. I'm also not waking up through out the night because of various street noises. I'm attributing this to the fact that I'm reaching REM sooner and staying in it longer because the light from the outside streetlamp is no longer affecting my sleep patterns.

Of course, I'm not a scientist, so this could all just be mumbo-jumbo bulldroppings.

But it sounds impressive, right?

The only downside is that the cheep sleeping mask can occasionally get a little hot and sweaty. An upgrade to a higher calibre of mask is on the horizon (although I'll stick with this one for now).

3. Fernwood Village

I felt it was time I threw a little love at my little corner of Victoria. It's a funky area to live in and I don't always give it the props it deserves. When I first moved to Fernwood in 2003, the NRG was pretty much a non-entity,  the George and Dragon Pub was the site of the worst service I had ever experienced in my life (and I was spat on by a waitress in Paris, so, you know, the G&D was pretty crappy), the dark square and questionable 'residents' meant I never walked through the area at night, and the largest building sat boarded up.

I would tell people I lived in Fernwood and I could see that look in their eye.

Flash forward five years and I'm back into the neighbourhood. The NRG is a sizable organisation which has bought and developed the Cornerstone Building (which houses the awesome Cornerstone Cafe), all available building space has been taken up by independent, locally owned businesses, the Fernwood Inn is actually a decent pub with decent service(!!), and the more questionable residents have been 'encouraged' to vacate, leaving behind the fun, funky artist and Bohemian types who make this neighbourhood so awesome.

As a community, we came together for a day and painted the poles. How awesome is that?

The Cornerstone Building is hiding in the background.

From the annual FernFest to small street parties, Fernwood really is about making the neighbourhood a neighbourhood. It's impossible to walk around the area without meeting someone you know from random conversations in  the cafe, the pub, or one of the restaurants.

I'm so glad I moved back to the area and got to give it another chance. I couldn't imagine living anywhere else.

PS. One of the people who makes Fernwood awesome, is Terry.

4. TARDIS Cat scratcher

Doctor Who!

Cats!

Together at last!

My mind = blown!

Okay, so it's not really the first time they've been together. In fact, if google is anything to go by, most Doctor Who fans must also be cat-owners. But my mind is still blown!

Tip of the Catnip to THR for sending this my way. More pictures can be found here.

5. Bakingdom

I woke up to find this announcement on the Bakingdom facebook place:

I pretty much had to sweep up my mind so it could be re-blown.

Fingers crossed she finds a way to make this happen!

6. Munro's Books

In anticipation of possibly going to Guinea next year, I wandered into Chapter's to peruse their French section. I had two goals while I was in there: 1) create a mental list of the type of French books I'd like to take to the school, and 2) check out the selection of sewing books to gauge if there's any with lots of pictures and very little writing.

While the children's section in french took up a decent chunk of space, it was the same eight books over and over and over and over. Okay, so perhaps there were more than eight, but the point is that there was a lot of repetition.

I mentally noted a couple of books and then headed out to Munro's. It will never cease to amaze me that a book a book store that would take up less than half of one floor of our three story Chapters building has a better book selection. Not only did they have more options for children's books in french, they also had an adult section in French, German, Italian and Spanish.

When it comes time to actually think about ordering these books seriously, you'll find me at Munro's (or Bolen's, love them too).

Also, Chapters, you kinda suck. But that's a different post.

Things I Think Are Awesome: Part One

I’ve seen these lists posts on other blogs so I decided to do one here... mostly because I really don’t know how to segue through all the things I want to talk about. Although normally I think a well-crafted segue is awesome.

Not segways, though. They kinda suck.

(The only good thing to come from segways was G.O.B.)

1. Stir It Up

I wanted to give some love to a new-to-me restaurant in Fernwood, Stir It Up. I was finally enticed into trying the restaurant one day after smelling of their delicious food. It's Jamaican and Caribbean food. Sadly, the kitchen is very small and does not allow for prep in the space so some of the items are premade and then reheated but it tasted so delicious, I got over that very quickly.

GET IN MY BELLY!!

[Photo from their site]

It is cash only so hit up the ATM before you go (there's one across the street at the Fernwood Inn, so, you know...) and you either need to go on a sunny day when you can sit outside or get take out as the inside has about two 'cozy' seats. Meals run about $10.

2. XKCD

So, this webcomic is something that I always love but I was a little enamoured with this particular comic:

[Permanently borrowed from XKCD]

I know I may get some haters but based on the people I know who attend Burning Man, I have come to decision that the majority of attendees are socially obnoxious d-bags. Also, based on the number of stories those same people have told me about cheating or being cheated on at Burning Man, they're d-bags who can't stay faithful so... yeah...

3. THR

This falls into the list of things I always love but THR (who is also crafty) is back from her trip Down Under to see her family and she linked up to a great link of free organization tools. I thought it was so awesome, I decided it needed to be shared over here too. She linked to some crafty person who also had links to fee name tags/crafty items. The part I liked most is here. It's all free and all cute. What's not to love?

4. Star Trek (TOS)

Thanks to Darla over at Bakingdom (that girl is seriously talented and you should all have her in your reader even if only to look at the pretty pictures of things you'll never make... like me!) I learned that today is the 45th anniversary of the airing of very first episode of Star Trek.

I don't know if you guys have noticed but I am a huge nerd! I watched every single episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation growing up. I read a couple of the books (which I would only read at home so I wouldn't accidentally be caught with one by a 'cool' kid and mercilessly mocked for) and even dressed up as Counselor Troi for Halloween one year.

I dyed my hair black with one of those 'one wash' dyes and then I curled it.

The curls were gone in about 30 minutes (stupid poker straight hair) and

I was still washing the black dye out two weeks later. One wash my *ss!

I was a late-comer to The Original Series (called  TOS by those 'in the know' aka geeks) only starting to watch it about five years ago. I love it. Some day, when I meet my sugar daddy (so, you know, never), I plan to buy the entire series on DVD because I'm nerdy awesome like that.

Back to Darla's awesomeness. Also being of the geek-persuasion, Darla made these awesome TOS sugar cookies.

[Credit: shamelessly stolen from Bakingdom]

Seeing them in my reader this morning made my heart go pitter-patter! Also, she insinuated she was going to make some Firefly baked goods so that's my day made.

Captain Mal in edible form? If you insist!

So, those are some things I think are awesome right now. I have more to talk about but a) I have a lunch meeting I have to get to and b) The Guild isn't going to watch itself in the next 20 minutes before I have to leave, so, you know...

Crafting Some Visual Puns

Summer arrived!

Finally!

And then it left again.

But it was here for a weekend!!

Well, it's still sort of here but not like it was on the weekend.

And what better why to spend that weekend then sitting inside crafting?

Exactly!

I headed over to my mom's again to use the sewing machine. I'm almost done my project and I'm really happy with how it's turning out. Going in for round two, there are a few adjustments I'd make (like actually ensuring my cutting was right instead of just eyeballing it) but this one is for my own personal collection so I can live with the little 'original details' that my on-the-fly sketched-out-pattern-redesigns have resulted in.

I would have finished this weekend except two things happened:

1) I'm also working on multiple crochet projects which I brought with me. I ended up working on them while I rewatched the entire Sherlock series on Saturday night (watch that series NOW! It's awesome and series two is coming out veryveryvery soon!)

2) when I finally got around to sewing I screwed up twice and had to pull out all the stitching. After a combined 45 minutes of correcting my mistakes, I decided to walk away before I went all Homer Hulk on the machine. Because you totally know it was the machine's fault. (It's out to get me. I swear!)

I have to finish up all these projects soon however because my dear friend, THR, has challenged me to a crafting challenge (although I'm calling it a 'Craft Off' because that makes me giggle) to commence some time in the near future. What's a Craft Off? Well, we get the same piece of material and have to make something out of it. We were inspired by this blog (which we both adore).

If the Craft Off goes well, I think we should make it a yearly tradition and maybe open it up to additional people. Truthfully, it's a selfish wish to do that. See, more people means more end results to look at which means more inspiration for the next time I look at an old piece of clothing. First though, we need to get through the first craft off. Cart before the horse and all that jazz!

Warning: Visual Pun Ahead!

It's me on a cart!

It's me on a horse!

Wait. The pictures are in the wrong order!

Before we even get to the Craft Off, you should all go check out Kid and Caboodle, THR's etsy store. Because she's awesome. And because I said so.

Just to show that I do know the right order to put the horse and cart:

Me and my dad in our trap. Some parade in Chemainus circa 1988.

Tying Up a Few Loose Ends

Remember the problems I had with my mom's sewing machine which resulted in swearing and then sulking on facebook?

No?

Good thing I documented it on this blog then!

I was back at my mom's on Saturday. She sat down to the machine and it worked.

First time.

I'd hate that machine if it didn't then work perfectly for me for the remainder of the day. I'm almost done my crafting project. If I may say so myelf, it's looking pretty good so far.

I also forgot to link to the song I was talking about two posts ago in the last post. It was the Gordon Lightfoot classic of the same name and if you're Canadian and don't know that, we need to talk about your lack of music education.

Weekend of No Crafting

I did not get any crafting done this weekend. My plans were thwarted by a f*#%ing bobbin.

My mom got a new sewing machine. Seeing as I've used various sewing machines in the past and always been able to figure them out, I wasn't too worried about it even though she specifically said there are a couple of differences with this machine.

On Saturday I drew up my ideas, figured out my measurements and then cut all my pieces. I left my progress there because I have this thing about wanting a very clear 'finish' point at the end of the day--it irks me to stop at an unnatural part of the process--so I figured I'd do all the stitching on Sunday.

I spent Saturday evening experiencing the joy of having a cable again (I got to watch Murdoch Mysteries and it made me so happy) and having a friend who lived in the area come around for a cup of tea and a chat.

Sunday morning I woke up bright and early at a reasonable time, enjoyed a cup of tea, then set about setting up the sewing machine. It had white thread and I wanted black. I got the spool loaded with very little fuss then turned my attention to the bobbin.

There was no sliding door for the bobbin compartment.

Out came the instructions and I figured out how to get into the bobbin compartment without a screwdriver.

Then came the hard part. Instead of popping the bobbin into its spot and then looping the thread through until it catches, you removed the bobbin holder, secure the bobbin in it and then replace it in the machine (with the bobbin totally hidden). I couldn't get the holder to stay in the machine. It kept falling out.

I read and reread the picture instructions which must have been drawn by the same guy who does the Ikea instructions. I stared at the instructions to remove the holder. I stared at the instructions to insert the bobbin in the holder. I looked through the entire manual for how to replace the bobbin holder. When that failed, I went back to experimenting. Then back to staring.

I was starting to feel like a bit of a idiot.

When I swore at the machine, I knew it was time to walk about for a cup of tea. I'd try again after I had calmed down. I could stare at the pictures with fresh eyes as it were.

I went to take a picture of the problem. My camera took the picture... except it over-exposed the whole thing and it washed out. I played with camera settings, location, everything. The end result was either almost black or almost white photos. I resent factory settings but that just made it worse. Now the pictures are all white.

After I ranted on facebook and then had a cup of tea, I returned to the machine.

"I never had this many problems with the old machine," I explained to it. "I could have threaded the old machine with my eyes closed."

I looked at the instructions again and saw the tiny (seemingly insignificant) step I had missed. I retried the bobbin holder and, hallelujah, it went in and held in place! I did a happy dance.

I took some scraps of the fabric I was using to play around with the new-to-me machine. No matter how I tried--pushing, pulling, pushing and pulling--the fabric would not feed through the foot evenly. After 10 minutes, I gave up. I had just reached a point where I couldn't be bothered to stare at picture instructions any more.

So my pieces are cut, now I just await the return of my mom who will (as always) have all the answers.

Important Update

I know you will all be relieved to hear that www.ctv.ca is in fact airing multiple seasons of Canada's Worst Handyman. (And I'm sure they'll do the same with Canada's Worst Driver, there were just more episodes in the first season, 8 instead of 6, so they haven't gotten to season two yet.) I know that had all of you very worried. And by 'you', I meant 'me'.

One upside to watching CWH (as well as a few crafty blogs added to my reader, thank you THR) is that I'm looking at a couple of handy-type jobs that I've been meaning to handle for a while and actually feeling inspired to tackle them. It's nothing big like 'renovate a condemned building' (although that would be a great place to play with power tools) but I have my great-step-grandma's* still working 1920's singer sewing machine. If my camera was working, I'd unfold the table and take a picture but I'm missing the USB cord to upload photos (*cough*Darthstillhasit*cough*) so instead:

[source]

Sadly, great-step-grandpa (who I never met) decided to varnish it in the 1960's with something that I don't think was meant for wood (perhaps he should have been on CWH). Now its peeling and catching on the fabric rendering the machine almost useless for its intended purpose. I have stared at it in the corner of my apartment for roughly three years thinking 'some day'.

Well, I've been inspired. At some point this summer, I'll borrow some power tools and remove the sewing machine (because it adds a lot of weight to the table), strip and stain the table, reattach the machine, and then possibly sew something simple because the machine is old and has issues when you do anything other than straight lines in a simple stitch. I'll use my mom's machine for my bigger projects.

As for those bigger projects... I'm sewing shit this summer! Before you think this is some misguided attempt at being crafty which was inspired by a TV show, I've been humming and hawing about it for a while. In one of her many teaching careers, my mom was a Home Ec teacher so I've been sewing on and off for a number of years. I even made a few outfits in my younger days (with appropriately-hideous-only-a-12-year-old-would-pick-it-out fabric... ah, the 80's/early 90's) so I know what I'm doing.

As my mom is going camping, I'm taking over her sewing room for the weekend (and also her washer/dryer... bed sheets dried on the line = best thing ever!). I like the idea of having the house to myself while I do this. It's not that I don't want to spend time with my mom, it's because I'd want to spend time with my mom. It's too easy to get distracted by cups of tea in the backyard while we discuss travel plans.

Although I may bring my special mug with me for my solitary cups of tea.

Tea just tastes better in certain mugs.

Finally, I'm looking for ideas for paper crafts. My mom's cousin gave me two books about the history of my mom's home town and while they were fun to look through once (and I do plan on keeping any interesting parts pertaining to my family), they are now just really big books clocking in at roughly 1700 pages each.

I could attach them to either end of a weight bar...

I'm trying to empty my apartment of 'stuff' and these books take up a lot of room. Still, it's nice paper so if I can use some of it for a craft project... So far I've got 'oversized paper weight' and 'ransom note lettering' on my list of ideas. Any other suggestions are welcome.

And completely off-topic of everything I've been talking about (but really, it's me, 'off-topic' is kind of my thing), if you post a comment about Arrested Development on Facebook and you end up with 23 responses which are really just various quotes from the show then you have the best/coolest friends ever.

Just sayin'.

Also, if you've never watched Arrested Development, you really should.

*That's my stepmom's grandma for those of you playing along at home. I called her 'grandma' when she was alive as she was the only grandparent figure that lived within 12 hours of our house, but now I specify so as not to confuse everyone with my stories. I also have an oma (a family friends' mother) I tell stories about. In short, I like to adopt grandparents. If you have any going cheap let me know.