This is the afghan that never ends...

...yes it goes on and on my friends!

Knitting blankets is hell. And I'm only knitting a damn throw, not a bed-sized cover!

Yeah, it's an easy pattern and yeah I have "turbo" needles (no, really) but it's taking for. ever.

I still have a Latifa to finish for myself and Paul has given up hope of ever getting his alien illusion while the snow still flies.

And then I want to make this, this and this.

Must. Keep. Knitting.

Twas the night before...

...and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, because all the damn cookies were made. I don't think I've ever made as many cookies as I did this year. Eventually, when it became obvious last night that the "fivetuple" (whatever's after quadruple) batch of shortbread I made was indeed not going to be enough, I grinchily decided that two people on my list simple weren't getting cookies this year. Sorry Grandma.

In addition to the hearts, I also made little white men, little brown men, stars and circles.

All batches included, I made, count em' SEVENTEEN BATCHES OF COOKIES and it STILL WASN'T enough. I'm getting smaller tins next year.















After all that, I collapsed on the couch, brewed a cup of tea and watched the 1951 version of everyone's favourite holiday Dickens tale.

Gah! I underestimated the number of cookies I'd need to make to fill the 14 medium-size cookie tins that we're giving away this year.

I asked Paul to fill up the Pod with some new Podcasts so that I'll have something to listen to this afternoon while I make. more. damn. cookies.

It's gonna be a long day

Ugh. So. Tired. This is what I get for going to see a three-hour movie on a Monday night. My body simply isn’t designed to do strenuous things like stay awake until 11 in a darkened movie theatre, go home, collapse into bed and then, like, get up in six hours.

...

Anyway, King Kong was fantastic and I would have cried in the movie theatre if I hadn’t been sitting with five guys. It’s got everything – love, tragedy, comedy, irony, a big ape, huge bugs, a T-Rex and some awesome depictions of Depression-era New York. And I’m not ashamed to say that Adrian Brody made this woman’s… uh, heart…yeah, heart, go pitter pat. Hrrmm.

...

I wish I looked that good running around the jungle in a slip.

It pays to read the recipe

Last night at 7 p.m., after a lazy afternoon of lolling around on the couch watching the Food Network holiday specials following a huge buffet brunch with some friends, I was jerked out of my near comatose state with the sudden guilty thought that I had promised to bring in a plate of gooey brownies to work the next morning as part of a United Way commitment. Gah!

I hoisted down my copy of Regan Daly’s “In the Sweet Kitchen,” which in itself tips the scales at 10 pounds, and blearily looked up the recipe for Really Really Fudgey Brownies. I didn’t have enough chocolate in the house for a double recipe. Double Gah!

I pulled on some boots, threw a coat on and stumbled out the door with Paul’s “don’t drive too fast, for cripes sake!” ringing in my ears. I got to Sobeys’ 24 Hour and picked up six boxes of bittersweet and unsweetened chocolate, congratulating myself for thinking ahead and buying more than necessary. You know, just in case.

I got home and got to work melting the 20 ounces of chopped chocolate with an entire pound of butter in a double boiler. I got out the vanilla and noted that I would need eight eggs, 4 ½ cups of sugar and 2 ½ cups of flour. Yeah, I only had four eggs in the house, maybe a cup of sugar and a dwindling amount of flour. For the love of pete!

I took the giant bowl of melted chocolate and butter off the stove, put my boots and coat back and drove to Sobey’s. I picked up everything, made sure I didn’t get the same cashier, silently cursed the father and son in front of me in the line who were buying four litre tubs of both Oreo and After Eight ice cream, which they obviously planned to consume that night, no doubt in front of the TV, where I belonged, and arrived home loudly declaring that if I’d forgotten anything else, I. Didn’t. Care.

All’s well that ends well though, because the brownies turned out fantastic. They are decadent. They are dense. They weigh a tonne. They are the best damn brownies ever. Let me know if you want the recipe. Just make sure you read it first before you start.

Scared and excited

My mother is going to have surgery in January to have the Cochler implant, well, implanted into her inner ear.

What is a Cochler implant? Here’s a link but essentially the implant allows a hearing impaired person to hear sound in a way that hearing aids can’t provide. As they explain on the site “Hearing aids are designed to amplify sound. To a person with severe to profound hearing loss, amplification won't provide much hearing because sound is still being delivered through a damaged part of the ear. A cochlear implant doesn’t make sounds louder – it bypasses the damaged part of the ear and sends sound directly to the auditory (hearing) nerve to provide a clearer understanding of sound and speech.”

Sounds cool eh? It is and I’m excited for my mother who is also really excited. As someone with only very slight hearing loss, I can try to imagine how I might feel knowing that the possibility of somewhat normal hearing might be available to me. As my mother could tell you, hearing loss is a very isolating disability. Not only are you isolated from joining in people’s conversations and experiencing the world in the way that others do, but you also isolate yourself. You avoid people and situations where your hearing loss will be a disadvantage to you. You worry about not hearing something and being made a fool of or ignored. It happens all the time and it’s often perpetuated by people who should know better.

So yeah, the possibility of improving that situation for my mother is damn exciting. But I’m also scared. I’m scared something will happen to her during the operation. I remember being pretty much anxious through her entire last two pregnancies thinking that something would go wrong. I’m also scared the implant won’t work in the way she expects and maybe she’ll be disappointed.

So, scared and excited. If that’s how I feel, I can’t imagine how she feels.

- 6

Yeah, that's about what it feels like...in my office. At home, we keep the thermostat at a respectable 23 degrees when we're home. It's a bit cool for my taste, so I put on a sweater.

I wish that were all I would have to do here at the office. Currently, I have my scarf wrapped around my neck, my coat tucked over my lap, my heater going full blast to the point where it's making the arm of my plastic chair a bit gooey, and a heated bag of oats at my feet.

I kid you not.

It hurts to type with cold fingers.

You Must Try This

Try this in Google. Type in your name followed by the word “needs” and see what you get. Hilarious. Here are mine.

Melanie needs

...to become more tolerant, especially of emotions.
...to become somewhat flexible and leave some of the pig headedness behind.
...a DIVORCE.
...a man's body. A dead man's body.
...to be part of a novelty act to get attention.

Bwa ha ha! Try it yourself and let me know the best ones.

shopping goodies

Thanks to my sister-in-law, I managed to buy a pair of Seven jeans for a good price. I've been hearing about these jeans for a while now and I have to say, I have bought into the idea that designer jeans really are worth the extra dough you shell out, just for the quality. Anything that can make my bum look better is worth it to me. Not that it looks as good as the one in the picture above, but better than my squishy average. Hah!

10 Years Young

My baby brother turns 10 tomorrow. Ten! We celebrated and I made this cake for him (he's into cars). Amateurish? Yes. A suitable birthday cake for a kid? Sure. Man, it was sweet though. A few went into sugar shock.

Wee baby knitting

No, not for me. I've knitted two of these wee baby hats so far for friends of ours and they're so damn cute! It's an umbilical cord hat because of the knot at the top. Hee!

Blech

I’ve just experienced a truly heinous muffin. I woke up hungry from my nap on the train this morning (I do not miss driving into work) and decided to pick up a Tim Horton’s Low-Fat Cranberry muffin along with my super-size steeped tea.

What a waste of 290 precious calories. Oily cotton candy is not my muffin flavour of choice.

The tea was drinkable though. And I enjoy the camaraderie of standing in line with other sleepy patrons as we shuffle forward to order the shot of caffeine that makes the morning easier to get through.

How to Please Me

Scallops & Marinated Lobster with Niagara Verjus and Passion Fruit Dressing
Truffle Ravioli with Globe Chokes, Rocket & Porcini Foam
Fireweed Honey Butter Tart with Mulled Dried-Fruit Compote & Ginger Ice Cream

And a glass of Biff’s Big Juicy Red

This was my dinner at Canoe on Friday for my birthday and It. Was. Fabulous.

The designated eater had:

Hearts of Romaine with Creamed Horseradish Dressing Tomato Preserves & Focaccia Crisp
Cumbrae Farms Angus Ribeye (Naturally Raised) with Northern Woods Mushrooms, Yukon Confit & Sherried Truffle

(we shared the honey butter tart).

I'm back!

Phew! There are always gaps in my postings, but this was getting ridiculous! As my friend Dave said, “you’re back from Europe, the CBC is on the air and it’s time to start blogging again.”

Our trip to Greece and London was great and I’ve got a bit of a travelling bug…I hope it’s catching. Next on the list is another jaunt to Europe. Prague and Vienna are compelling as are the twin cities of Buda and Pest (I think that's Buda on the left and Pest on the right but I'm not sure).

There’s also a cruise ship that travels through Northern Europe making stops in Berlin, Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, Cohenhagen, St. Petersburg and a city in Estonia I’ve never heard of! If we can manage to get a group of friends to go with us, it’ll almost be too good to be true.

In the more near future though, the other half and I are trekking out to unknown parts of Etobicoke tomorrow evening to attend a lecture entitled “Tavern in the Town: A Look Back at Drinking in Toronto.” As a history buff, and a quaffer of beer, this seems an appropriate educational event to attend…especially given that the admission price includes a sampling of 19th century “bar snacks.” One can assume that “Chex Mix” won’t be offered, thank god.

Speaking of beer, a friend and I met for lunch this afternoon at an upscale joint where purportedly “80% of the menu features beer as an ingredient.” Yum! I had a Unibroue beer called “Blanche de Chambly,” a white beer that was really refreshing. I paired it with a beer-marinated mushroom and blue cheese pizza that was quite tasty.

I’ll report back on those bar snacks for you.

Toronto radio bites

I want my CBC back!

If you're interested in the lock-out and hearing directly from CBC employees, check out www.cbcunplugged.com

vacation planning

This is a picture my friend Jenn in Australia sent me of the scenary near where she lives on the Gold Coast. Yeah, I think I should go visit her too.

The Canadian In Me

As we approach another celebration of our country’s birthday, I thought it appropriate to share a story about something that happened to me today. As it happens, I had another encounter with “Creepy Guy” on the train again this morning. Readers of this blog (God bless them) might remember my unfortunate tumble on the train some time ago. It was then that I first noticed the stares of Creepy Guy. I figured at the time that he couldn’t get the image of me tripping and falling on a train car full of commuters out of his head and couldn’t help himself from staring, open-mouthed, at me the whole way into Toronto.

Ever since then, if I come across him on the train car, I can’t help but notice him because, well, you notice when people are staring at you. Creep.

So this morning I unfortunately had a space free next to me and low and behold, Creepy Guy decided to take advantage. Now, if you don’t take the train, you might not know that people of average height and build can sit next to each other without touching. The taller and broader among us will likely take up a bit more room and on these occasions I would find myself companionably touching upper arms with a stranger during the ride in. I never usually mind this when it happens and I tend to reflect that it’s actually kind of nice that we’re all sleepily taking the same journey together and what does it matter if you lean on your seatmate a bit?

This tolerance ends with Creepy Guy who took every advantage to continuing leaning in on me, DESPITE the fact that there was more than enough room for both of us.

During the whole 40-minute ride, I would scrunch myself a bit smaller only to find that he would casually shift his laptop case and allow his arms to once again resettle INTO MY PERSONAL SPACE. Finally, after yet another “re-shift” I finally looked up from my book and stared ahead purposefully. Body language is a powerful thing and he got the message. I remained unmolested for the rest of the ride. As soon as the train approached Union Station, I got up waited by the doors.

Why, you might be asking yourself, didn’t I just move? Well, I asked myself the same question and I think it comes down to social conditioning. I just couldn’t bring myself do to something so rude as to move and make it obvious that I didn’t want to sit next to him. Then I thought I might hurt his feelings. Jeez. Must be the Canadian in me.

What I know for sure….

... that losing my temper always ends up hurting me just as much as the person whom I made the target of my wrath and fury. Which I suppose is rather fitting in a way and a good example of karma.

In the past two weeks, I’ve blown up at both a relative and a good friend. In retrospect, both temper tantrums were avoidable and completely unnecessary. I’ve apologized to both, but really, I don’t feel much better. I doubt they do either.

As my mother would likely say “I’ve resolved to change my thinking on this...I’ll put together some affirmations" (love The Mom). From what I’ve gleaned from that wonderful all-knowing source (the Internet, natch), I’ve put together the following affirmations which I resolve to repeat in my head whenever I feel The Rage:

1. Call a time out with myself whenever I feel my temper building.

2. Try deep breathing - breathe in through my nose for eight seconds, and out through my mouth for sixteen seconds. Repeat several times. Resolve not to care when people start looking at me funny.

3. Change my thoughts. "I'll show him!" becomes "What will best help me right now?" "He always does this to me," becomes "I'm the only one who can make a fool out of me." You got that right sister.

4. Try to think about how hurt someone could be by my words. Nothing’s worth causing unnecessary hurt to someone else – especially someone you care about.

Sorry Uncle George.

Sorry Joe.

a brief history

I stole this from a blogger who stole it from a blogger, who stole...well, you get the idea:

10 years ago:

I was 19.
I had just graduated high school.
I had been accepted into George Brown’s chef program but decided not to go for lack of funds.
I then started a job with a company that I would stay with for eight years.

5 years ago:

I was 24.
I was in a relationship with the man I would eventually marry, whee!
I had started taking courses towards a certificate program at Ryerson University.
I had lost about 50 pounds.

3 years ago:

I was 26.
I had been married for less than a year.
I was living in a house I bought with my husband.
I was still working at the same company and getting more and more stressed about it.

1 year ago:

I was 28.
I had learned that this marriage thing was pretty cool.
I had travelled to Costa Rica with my husband and decided that hot, humid climates weren’t my vacation destination of choice.
I started taking courses towards a degree program at York University.

Today:

I am 29.
I finally left my first employer and am pretty happy in a new position.
I am planning a trip to Europe with my husband for the fall. Whee hee!
I’ve learned that family is so important , that compassion is necessary and that love is the answer to almost every question.

How to Annoy My Husband

“La Toyota est une voiture japonaise!”

“La Chevrolet est une voiture américain!”

“La Peugeot est une voiture français!”

Repeat the above French sentences about foreign cars, with authority (!), over and over again while he’s trying to fold laundry, unload the dishwasher, and carry heavy objects.

We came across an old set of tapes during one of our spring cleaning escapes a few weeks ago. The tapes, with handily come with a compact French English dictionary, are supposed to teach you elementary French from the comfort of your home, office or vehicle...ahem, make that “voiture.”

Feeling the need to brush up on my Grade 13 French, I’ve now got tape number one in my car’s cassette player and I’ve already learned how to count to 12, how to add simple combinations of numbers, and how to say window, door, telephone, bells, violin, piano, and car, all during one trip to Sobey’s for some cauiflower! All in French!

Paris here I come!