School Is Good for the Waistline

I'd heard about the "freshman fifteen", and although I was pretty sure I wouldn't be a victim, I was a little concerned. Needlessly, as it turns out.

I used to pack amazingly huge lunches at work, not realizing at the time that I ate so much because I was bored with my job. I am the very opposite of bored now; perhaps even overstimulated. I run from class to class, so engaged in what I'm doing that I eat now only to fuel the machine. I make sure the snacks I take to eat in class are veggie-and-fruit heavy, and two days a week I sub in a meal replacement bar instead of a packed lunch.

I've completely overhauled the way I eat, and the way I see food, and it was pretty much effortless. I saw the new routine of school as a perfect opportunity to change what I thought needed changing. I also must say that being surrounded by slim young 20-somethings goes a long way towards keeping me motivated. I'm not competing or anything, but motivation is where you find it.

I've felt fantastic these last couple of months... yes, I'm challenged by the work-load, but I love having my brain stretched in different directions, and I have incredible amounts of energy. I'm down five pounds since school started, and I bet there's more where that came from. I acknowledge that I don't *have* a weight problem, per say, but I could stand to lose a few more to get me to my ideal weight. And if I drop an inch or two in the hip/thigh department in the bargain... well, that's all good.

Actually, I am aiming for the freshman fifteen. Only the other way 'round... taking it off my ass, not packing it on.

Postcard From The West Edge

(Written on Saturday but not posted until today due to a lack of time to get collaborating pictures downloaded)

It was impossible to just go away and leave it all behind… there are mid-terms coming up in college, studying to be done, projects to work on. As if that wasn’t enough pressure, I had additional goals. Get some gloves started, make a pouch for my Zen MP3 player. Finish Eye of the North, and finish mapping Elona. Cheer mum up.

I’m on the plane back, and I got every single one of those goals done, yet I still feel as if I had a holiday. I spent hours tinkering with Oracle, made study notes for Computer Fundamentals, wrote two pages for English, and put together some info for Success Skills.

Here’s the gloves that I started.



(Recognize that scrumptious yarn, V? )

Here’s the MP3 cozy, prior to felting. Love that applied I-cord. God bless Elizabeth Zimmerman.



The Guild Wars goals… well… a little harder to show you, but I now have mapped all of Cantha and Elona and am beginning Tyria. It’ll be a nightmare, to be sure… it’s HUGE, but when I get the Tyrian Grandmaster Cartographer title, I will also max the Legendary Cartographer title, for obtaining all three campaigns… and then I shall be Kind Of A Big Deal. No, really. I’m not just saying that. (I bet no-one has a clue what I’m going on about, but dudes, I did it, I’m proud of it, and you’re gonna hear about it.)

As for mum. Well. That’s not so straight forward. I don’t think she and I are quite polar opposites, but pretty darned close. I’m adventurous; she won’t drive a new way to the store. I take charge of a situation; she lets the situation take charge of her. She is letting her fears and anxieties run her over, and it’s taking the inevitable toll on her health. She needs me, or some other personal cheer-leader, there every day… I did what I could but I hate to leave her to her own devices. Reason 4,744 why being in Ottawa SUCKS.

You want to see Reason 4,741-4,743? Here ya go.







(That's a caterpillar on that leaf. A live one. In the middle of freakin' February.)

As demoralizing as it is to be on this metal tube which is hurtling me back to the land where winter still holds sway, my soul is refreshed. Perhaps I can make it through to our own spring. Sure, it’ll be in April… but it will be worth the wait.

In Short...

I have an hour between when school is done and when I have to be at the airport.... I'm flying out to Nanaimo (BC) for reading week. Although I take with me massive amounts of homework, both projects and reading, I feel this break is due and deserved.

Last night's dance went amazingly well, and the video looks great. However, the file is 151 Mb and Flickr only accepts videos 150 Mb and under. Of course. So, until I figure out the mysteries of AVI compression, you cannot share our moment of glory. (Is there anyone wise in the ways of this that can throw me a tip?)

(I emailed a link to the photo of the outfit I made for dance class to Linda MacPhee, the designer. She wants to use the photo and my email in her next newsletter! *squee!*)

I'll blog as I can and as I feel like it from the West Coast. I can feel something easing in me already, just knowing I'm going back to the place I love so well. Have a fabulous week.

Twenty Years Better

I've recently been pummeled on Facebook with "friend requests" from my fellow graduates from high school. Our 20-year reunion is coming up this summer, and I guess everyone is feeling all huggy and emotional about those days.

I have ignored every one of the friend requests. Chances are pretty good that if we're actually friends, we're already Facebook friends. I know that the definition of friends on Facebook is probably different from the real-life definition of friend. Even so, being trapped for a few years in the same educational institution together does not automatically make you my friend twenty years later.

One fellow didn't take a hint when I ignored his request. Twice. The third time (and I was surprised I bit my tongue for that long) I messaged him, telling him I wasn't his friend back then, and I wasn't feeling any closer to him two decades later. (He had something over 1000 people in his friends list. Tell me he's not trying to compensate for something.)

He was surprised, and admitted after a couple of messages exchanged back and forth that he recalls being mean to me in high school. All the more reason not to throw myself at him for a nice how-ya-doin' hug, though honestly I don't remember him being mean. Or much of anything about high school. Everytime I have a drink, I will the alcohol to kill those specific memory cells.

Back to the reunion. I hated that school, that dead-end hick town, my social status (or lack thereof), my friends (or the lack thereof) and the powerlessness of youth. A year or two after graduation, I cut all ties (including an engagement to a local hick boy) and moved down to Vancouver, which marked the beginning of my real life. The one that I carved for myself, not had pushed upon me by convention or lack of other opportunities.

The only reason at all I'd go back is to laugh. To laugh at the high-school beauty queens, once the envy of the school, now 60 pounds overweight, with three pudgy vacant children (or, more likely, grand-children) and a job at the nail salon. To laugh at the school jocks, unobtainable and desireable back then, now with thinning hair and their guts straining their John Deere belt buckles.

It's not worth the airfare just to mock them. My successes and adventures do my mocking for me. I wish my fellow graduates well, but I never want to see them or set foot in that town again.

Organizing committee? You can take that as a "no, I won't be attending." Now piss off and stop sending me info about it.

Finally Finished

These two pairs of socks seemed to take forever, but they were worth the wait. I took pictures of these as I kayaked the Rideau canal last summer... Yeah... they're skating on it now. Glory hallelujah, they're done. (Indigo Moon hand-dyed yarn, Cookie A's Hedera pattern.)
These began as "Plane Socks", started on DPN's as I needed something to work on while flying out West. Then they became "The Socks That Never End"... and now they're simply done. I ran out of the "On Your Toes" yarn near the top but boldly kept on knitting with some Louet Gems that I had laying around... these are lovely cold-weather buddies.

Finally, in the sewing room, I've made a lovely outfit for dancing. Kate and I sat in on some of Linda MacPhee's workshops at CSNF in the fall, and Linda has made me fall in love all over again with sewing. Great patterns, clearly written, and not needlessly complicated, made in forgiving and wonderfully drapy fabrics. What's not to love?

Wayne and I are doing a floor-show at our dance-studio this Thursday... a sultry rumba to Sade's Smooth Operator. I'll be wearing this:
This skirt, Linda's "Salsa Skirt", is made out of movement itself. I think it would dance without me wearing it... I can't wait to show it off in the studio. Looking fantastic is at least half of any dance routine! (The top is just her "Model T" with funnel neck and long sleeves.)

I love this skirt so much I just ordered more slinky from Linda to make three more... I'm hoping to record our floor-show, but will only post it if it is of good quality, and if the dancers (cough*us*cough*) don't screw it up too badly. Wish us luck!

A Losing Battle

My husband and I don't give our daughters everything they ask for. Every week they come to us, begging for (insert current electronic "have-to-have" item here) or money to go on some optional school field trip or some such thing. They do not lead deprived lives; they have every thing they need and quite a few things that they don't. Compared to our childhoods, they are spoiled rotten, though they don't often come across as such.

Last year the question of cell phones came up. They were 11 and 12, and their friends started getting cell phones, so immediately my husband and I became Bad Parents since we didn't think that children needed them.

Then their mother came back from Afghanistan, and one of the first things she did was to buy them both cell phones.

Let me tell you a little bit about their mother. This is the woman who went away for seven months into a dangerous operational theater, and who called her children perhaps once a month while she was gone. This is the woman who made her kids cry themselves to sleep out of worry every night for half-a-year because they never knew if their mother was alive or not, because she couldn't be bothered to call. (In contrast, my husband called me at least daily while he was in the same theater, so it certainly wasn't a matter of access... and she never left camp, either.)

By any account I can give, she is a bad mother who cares far more about her own interests than about her children.

So. She buys them cell phones. The youngest immediately lost hers, and mummy replaced it just as quickly with a newer, better model.

So it's become, in this matter and many others, her against us. She is quick to throw money at their every whim, which I suppose for her is much easier than actually loving her children, or wanting to set any kind of boundaries for them. Anything we deny them they run to her for. I know this isn't a new story or situation, that countless children of divorced parents manipulate their parents in the same way, but by God is it frustrating.

My husband and I set limits for the girls so they learn to appreciate what they have, so that they understand that sometimes you have to earn the things you want. That maybe getting everything you want isn't the best thing for you in the long run. That learning the pleasures of delayed gratification builds a strong, enduring character.

She undoes everything we do, every lesson we try to teach she renders invalid. We're the mean parents, in the girls' minds, the ones who are more likely to say no to everything. I know that twenty years from now, they'll be on a therapist's couch, realizing that their mother really didn't love them and we weren't being mean, we were just trying to raise decent human beings. In twenty years, we shall be vindicated... but until we win the war, we shall lose every battle.

I hate parenting (step-parenting, in my case.) This is exactly why I never wanted children in my life in the first place... it's a lonely, thankless job. They hate me for trying to do what's best for them.

Week Five, and I Am Humbled

The first couple of weeks, I was cocky. "This is easy!" I said, tempting fate and showing how little I've really learned in life.

The next two weeks picked up a little. Assignments followed labs which followed tutorials which followed quizzes, and I cocked an eyebrow in the general direction of my schoolwork and thought I may have to start applying myself a little.

It's now week five, and I beg forgiveness of the capricious School Gods who smote me mightily for my over-confidence those first weeks. It's not that it's beyond me, it's just that there's SO MUCH of it and it never stops coming and deadlines are blurring and I'm never sure what's due when and I am having to devote a huge chunk of non-school time to... well, school.

I'm still loving it. Don't get me wrong. It's just that it's not the cakewalk I mistook it for. (You can all stop laughing now. I know you all saw it coming.)

I'm still managing to knit on the sly... I've actually finished two pairs of socks this week, including the now falsely-named Socks That Never End (TM). (Pics to come) I swatched last night for a pair of Nereid fingerless gloves, a little somethin-somethin that I can take on the plane with me when I fly to Vancouver Island for reading week. (The week after next. Can I get an alhamdulillah??!)

Thanks to all the commenters on my last post. Two of you were new commenters, and it was so nice to hear from you! Sometimes I feel I'm talking to myself out here, so I loves the comments.

BTW... Ratbastard transit strike is nominally over but bus service won't begin until next week, full service within two months. Um. Rejoice?

Stay warm, friends. The end of winter is nigh.

I've Been Tagged!

Arzu, my crazy geeky knitting gaming friend, has tagged me. These are the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random, arbitrary things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Thing the First: I always thought I'd like to go into nursing when I was younger, so when I was a teenager, I became a candystriper at the local hospital. I worked thousands of volunteer hours, and while I found it a rewarding venture, it convinced me that nursing just was not for me.

Thing the Second: I have a thing about clothes... I cannot wear the same outfit without a nice long delay in between wearings. Say, a month. This little peccadillo goes a long way towards explaining the size of my closet.

Thing the Third: That being said, the majority of my garments were purchased from second-hand shops. I love me a good Value Village/Salvation Army crawl, and indulge once or twice a year. I usually spend the princely sum of about $100 and come home with several new outfits or separates.

Thing the Fourth: I believe my love of second-hand clothing is genetic. Both of my mums love a good Sally Ann crawl. I love it when we get the chance to do it together.

Thing the Fifth: I did not get my birth mum's shoe gene. She loves sexy, spiky-heeled shoes, and loads of em (you should have seen her in the stylish shoe shops in Zagreb, trying to fit just one more pair of gorgeous Italian stilettos into her luggage.) Me? I love my Chacos (often with socks... expat Vancouverite that I am) and when I wear heels, they're chunky and practical. And I only have a few pairs.

Thing the Sixth: I am a huge tea lover. I have in excess of 40 (!) varieties of tea in the house and may consume over 3 litres of tea a day. I enjoy loose variants of green tea the most, but there's a soft place in my heart for herbals, Earl Grey Creme and other premium loose teas.

Those are my Six Random Things. I won't tag you, but feel free to consider yourself tagged. If you take this and run with it, it'd be fun if you commented here and told me so!

Coming Up for Air

...huh? Pardon? I have a blog? Wow. Guess I better update it! :)

College has turned my life on its head, in mostly a good way. I have a full load of six courses, and I love them all... but especially Java. This week I hammered my first ever program together, and despite the sheer terror of only vaguely having a clue what I was doing, it was mad fun and exhilarating as hell to successfully run it for the first time.

The transit strike continues to run my life. The inaction of every side involved is crazy-making. There have been days when I have arrived at college 6 hours before my first class and stayed 3 hours after my last class, just because that was the only ride I could obtain. Dudes... it sucks in every way possible. My laptop and my knitting are my constant companions as I sit on the floor in a hallway somewhere, feeling a little like a bag lady.

I'm still knitting on The Socks That Never End (TM) ... they are both up to my knees and I'm finishing off the cuff. (Please, God, let them be done soon.) I'm almost done one sleeve on the Kauni cardi. I've sewed up a skirt and top in the sewing room; pics when I get the chance.

I will now return to my regularly scheduled weekend. Enjoy it, despite the nose-hair-freezing coldness.

Enough is Enough

I am filled with absolute fury to be held at gunpoint by OC Transpo and the city. Although I have a truck, I chose not to put snow-tires on as I was planning on a winter of taking the bus to school. Even if it was worthy of the brutal snowy slushy greasy Ottawa roads, there is no parking available as thousands of other students are forced to drive now, as well.

I was lucky for the past week as DH was off of work and could play taxi, but as a new week sneaks up on me and takes him back to work, I realize I have no way of getting to school and back.

Edited to add: Thank you for your kindness, but I'm not asking for helpful tips on carpooling groups and shuttle buses; I know my options and they all freakin' SUCK. I am simply ranting to let off some steam before my head explodes.

Things I Learned This Week

• The college campus is big. Really big. I have several classes back-to-back at opposite ends of the campus, and spend an inordinate time walking briskly through the maze of corridors and stairwells. I must average 5 kms a day, just running from my locker to various classes.

• Textbooks are freaking heavy. Combine the sheer weight of my book-bag and the amount of travelling done in the average day, and you have a heck of an ad-hoc work out. I had had enough by Friday and went forth and bought my new best friend.

• I have given up pretending I am not a total geek. The program director was discussing the program stream and possibilities, and I swear to God I got tears of joy in my eye to know that I had this wonderful opportunity ahead of me.

• I love this subject matter so much that I was excited (!) to have homework.

• I am aware that perhaps the sheen may have worn off the concept of homework somewhere around week 9.

• I have 7 weeks of holidays a year, despite working through the summer. That's more than I had in my job! Dudes... I have "study break"... a week off in the middle of February, which I understand many students traditionally spent in Mexico or Florida.

• Me? I'll be in Nanaimo. Close enough! :)

I Love School

The first day was a blast and I can't wait to start all my other classes!!! Each day this week is like munching my way through a box of Purdy's chocolates... I don't know exactly what it is but I'm pretty sure I'll like it.

(Speaking of which. Why do only you spoiled Westerners get Purdy's stores? It was insult to injury to move out to Ontario (which is bad enough on its own) and then discover I had to do without really good chocolate.)

The Best Laid Plans...

I had such plans for the last three months. I made a list of all the projects I would get done, reveling in the vast amounts of free time I had at my disposal.

Today is the end of my happy little sabbatical, and as I look at my list, I see that everything I did on it, I did within the last two days, in a panic to be able to cross something off.

I did, however, play massive amounts of Guild Wars, and knit, stitch and sew up a storm. I got a lot of those projects done, and I suppose I ought to feel good about that, but yet there's furniture unpainted and spots on the walls yet to fix.

It's funny how I seem to be more efficient when I have something else on the go. I anticipate ramping up to be my old efficient self after the routines of school settle in.

I am very excited to start my big school adventure tomorrow; opening yet another chapter. I hope you begin your New Year with equal anticipation, excitement and hope.

New Year's Eve

The New Year's Gala at the Hampton Inn was wonderful. The food and wine never ended. It made me wish I could take my left-over food home as I would never be able to dance had I cleaned my plate for all of the seven courses. The DJ and band kept the dance-floor packed, but not so much that us ballroom dancers couldn't carve out a wedge for ourselves. The company, two other couples from the studio and their family, was wonderful. What fun! Wayne and I danced until 1:30 in the morning, and he almost had to carry me up to our hotel room because my feet hurt so much.

That's a tradition worth making. I hope we'll do it again next year!

My fascinator drew much favourable comment. Only one other woman wore one, a tiny veil-and-feather jobbie that looked spectacular on her. Here's the full effect of mine.

I'm Feeling Fascinated

Give me a hot-glue gun and I can rule the world.

This will look better once my hair is up and it's seated properly. I couldn't find the millinery supplies I needed but I am rather pleased with what I managed to do with $5 in feathers and acrylic rhinestones and an old French twist comb.