thoughts over tea

I'm sitting here enjoying a cup of tea as I type (basic orange pekoe, Salada, I think), reflecting on a busy weekend.

Friday night was pizza and a movie (date night -- we went to see Daybreakers). We almost gave up when we got to the theatre; a combination of the credit union debit card system being down across BC and the armies of people buying tickets for Avatar (when we arrived at 7, all showings up to 10:30 were sold out; by the time we left, it was sold out until sometime on Saturday) the line-ups stretched almost to the parking lot. We persevered though and saw the movie which, I am not sure was worth the full admission price (now up to $11.50).

Saturday started off nice and lazy but worked up to a small panic when we realized the dryer was no longer working (after weeks of the washing machine limping along, I never guessed the dryer would give up first). We have purchased a new set and are awaiting their delivery later in the week.

We also found time to see another movie on Saturday, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (whole family, at Cinecenta -- btw, you need to check out their new website, it seriously rocks) -- which was better than I had been expecting.

Today, while Hubby helped a friend film a short subject, Kiddo and I went shopping (with a purpose -- she needs some boots with heels for riding). We struck out at the mall (in all of Mayfair there were only two places selling kids shoes in her sizes and neither had anything close to appropriate footwear) and after some consideration, decided to bus into town to check Value Village -- I should have checked there first! We found two pairs of short boots (but with the right heels, hooray!) and a few other things that, together, cost less than one pair of boots new would have cost, even on sale. Yay!

The Vancouver Embargo Begins

A while back, we earned a free night with our "usual" hotel chain and we had to use it before Dec 25th or lose it. We chose to use it in order to facilitate one last shopping spree in Vancouver before the International Sporting Event That Shall Not Be Named (ISETSNBN) descends, bringing with it all manner of neo-fascist f**kery¹.

We rolled out on a 9 am ferry, dining in style in the Pacific Buffet. After a brief stop to fuel up, we headed for Aberdeen Mall -- Hubby hung with Kiddo in the play zone while I did some damage in Daiso. As luck would have it, Friday turned out to be Midnight Madness at IKEA -- specials every hour and crowds to go with it, but we got two new cabinets and more media storage for the living room plus a few other bits and pieces.

After all that, we returned to the hotel exhausted. Sunday we picked up my Mother in Law from the ferries and ventured into DressSew Supplies downtown -- frustrating to get there but we left with two bags of fabric, trim, notions and costume pieces. Next stop was T, then lunch and a few stores in the Kits neighbourhood. Our last stop was to stock up on some Asian imports at Yaohan Centre in Richmond before it was back to the ferries and another trip to the buffet.

Today was planned to be a quiet day but turned out to be a lot of work as we built and installed new IKEA purchases, sorted and reorganized our crap (why? to make room for MORE crap, of course! Sigh.) and swept up two or three rabbits worth of dust bunnies from the corners. That was followed by an attempted computer rescue for my Mom (her machine froze and she had no way to get past the blue error screen without a rescue disk). Unfortunately, there was to be no rescue -- it's still in limbo. Once home, there was still filing and laundry waiting. Ugh.

This week will be busy: five days of work and Hubby has meeting-palooza this week plus Kiddo has two evening performances of her Holiday Concert. At least Friday is my last workday and Kiddo's last school day until January.


¹Yeah, I'm more than a little bitter after actually trying to navigate through the "transportation improvements" -- slowly crawling past the many signs stating No Stopping Feb-Mar.

weekend that was

Friday, we got Kiddo to school then packed our bags to head back to Sooke Harbour House. The room was ready to go when we got there (early check-in, yay!) so we dumped our stuff (this time in the Driftwood Room, next door to the room we stayed in on our anniversary) and headed back to the kitchen for our "adventure."

As it is off-season, things are a little quieter (fewer than half the staff of the busy summer and wedding season) but that's why the package is only offered October-May. At any rate, we got "suited up" in cook's jackets and aprons (we were allowed to forego the checkered pants -- phew!). After meeting the chefs and a quick tour of the kitchen, we were put to work -- basically we were prep cooks for the afternoon. We cleaned and chopped a lot of mushrooms (some so fresh that foragers were still signing off on the delivery when we arrived) then I got to sautee them while Hubby moved on to making tartar sauce from scratch. Next I helped to make a chunky golden beet and hazelnut pesto and fishcakes while Hubby was rolling up springrolls containing the mushrooms and other veggies. We also looked on while the chefs created asian-style braised lamb shanks and an amazing soup made with squash, root vegetables, and quince. I had expected a little more instruction and/or some time with the pastry chef but perhaps they were waiting for us to ask? It all seemed very.... organic in its (lack of) structure.

Later, as we ate dinner it was interesting to see which things we had prepped ended up with which dishes on the menu. (Kiddo and my Mother in Law joined us but apparently it was all too much for Kiddo -- she and Hubby ended up eating in the room instead of the dining area). When it was time for dessert, I just asked to have that sent to the room as well and went down to see what was up. Kiddo was already curled up in bed.

While waiting for breakfast we went out and watched the waves rolling in along the shore but once we were done eating we basically packed up and headed back to town. On the way in, we stopped and waited in a big line with a few hundred people to get H1N1 vaccines (yes, I decided ultimately it was the lesser evil) since as of Friday it was available to the general public. It didn't take too long (just over 90 minutes from door to jab) and now it's done so I can bring my internal panic level down a notch.

Worst thing about this weekend? Between the standing in the kitchen Friday and the standing in line Saturday, my left hip is really sore.

Tonight, we decided to "take advantage" of Hillside Mall's special "Night before late-night shopping" event. The key was that it was ticketed entry only at $5 per ticket (kids under 10 free, proceeds to BC Children's Hospital) and there were oodles of door prizes, appetizers, fashion shows, etc. plus special sale prices at most stores. Well, lemme tell you, I feel like a rube. The place was PACKED. Like December 23rd, no-room-to-park packed. Insane. We took advantage of 25% off everything at the dollar store plus bought a few other things (most of them at Bolen Books where stuff was 10%-15% off) then got the hell out. Seriously, not worth the savings.

Lazy weekend

Actually, that's not entirely true, but there wasn't much on the books.

We decided yesterday to go out to Langford for a trip to Costco and Glenwood Meats with a friend of ours. Unfortunately, we ran into trouble as people were lining the streets and rail line to get a glimpse of the Emperor and Empress of Japan as they travelled on the E&N -- at least that's what we think was going on; there were no signs and nothing on the news later for the kickoff to the Langford Summer Festival (thanks for the update, Hubby). So, after some delay (because Glenwood Meats was on the far side of the impromptu parade route), we did manage to get both stops done and also sneak in a trip to the evil Wal-Mart in search of lawn ornaments on clearance.

After that, I napped. A lot. I'm still not sleeping well (I think I need to hibernate through the heat... in a nice cool, damp cave somewhere) so I find I am napping almost daily.

Then I hung out with Kiddo, sorting and playing with LEGO, for the most part. We found two sets still in boxes that she'd never opened (that's how much LEGO she has!!). She did most of the small one last night (finishing the set -- a Star Wars Pit Droid -- this morning) and now is working on the larger set.

Today, I got some much needed yardwork done -- trimming, weeding, staking and repotting one tomato plant from the greenhouse. I am pleased that we are starting to get food from the garden -- more than just the odd bit of lettuce and clump of radishes. It is very satisfying, though I doubt this year the garden will pay for itself. Maybe if I can master year-round planting and harvesting...

On Facebook, I decided to buy an ad to get more fans for FrugalVictoria.com. Before the ad started, I thought I was doing well with 47 fans. Since the ad has been running (it finishes tonight), I've more than trippled that number to 144 fans and counting. (I'd be happy to share more details if anyone is interested in the mechanics and costs.) What it's done, though, is made me feel more obligated to keep the website fresh and interesting. I may have to do that for my Creative Miscellany page, too.

This shouldn't be so difficult.

When we moved, we jettisoned our sofa and love-seat. They were a ideal dimensions and an OK colour (sort of a rusty brown shiny leather) in good condition... but we hated them. They were the furniture most likely to eat things (in fact one swallowed our cordless phone and kept it hidden for 6 months) and the seat cushions were forever sliding off. So off they went to someone who would give them a welcome home (my Mother in Law) and we set out to find a new sofa and love-seat set.

We had in mind something simple, square-ish, in brown (espresso?) leather or similar (honestly with a pet and a child and being so clumsy myself, I think I can live with "bicast" leather which really is synthetic but offers a similar look for a fraction of the price). In general, a shape something like this:



But... this has proven to be a challenge. One of the biggest issues is size -- our last sofa was 6'2" from arm to arm; most we've seen now are over 7'. How is that useful when more and more people are buying small condos? Or is it a reflection of the average North American "seat" size? Hmmm.

Anyway, in the past two weeks we have sat on a lot of sofas in a lot of stores. Some sag in the middle (crummy plywood frames), some have as much give as a concrete pad, others seem to swallow a body whole. Some have poorly placed back cushions or no support at all. Most of those that are comfortable are ridiculously expensive (and by ridiculously expensive I mean over $3,000 for a sofa; this may not be ridiculous to some readers, but I am not used to seeing price tags with numbers that high).

We've been combing second hand stores and online classifieds as well as every furniture store in the city. The closest to look and comfort we've found was at the Brick but we hate that company enough to not want to give them a nickel, even for the "right" furniture. We haven't given up yet... but we may have to give in a bit and rent some furniture for a few months because we have grown very tired of sitting in one of three largely uncomfortable chairs currently in place.

Closer to ready....

Despite yesterday's lackluster open houses (yes, the market has relaxed a little, but there's still not quite what we want in the price range we can comfortably afford), we moved ahead this weekend on some of the finer details we need to finish off before we list our place for sale.

Hubby tackled the transitional rails around the edges of our laminate flooring (e.g. wherever the laminate meets another type of flooring or doorway). This was hard work, involving a lot of drilling into concrete. (Thanks, Hubby).

Meanwhile, Kiddo helped me peel off the silicone sealant from the tub surround -- when Hubby did this during our bathroom reno earlier this year he was already suffering from though not yet diagnosed with pneumonia, so while the seal was sound, it wasn't pretty. After much scraping and scrubbing, we prepped the surround for the new seal. I applied it this afternoon, cursing surprisingly little since I used a tip I found online somewhere: apply soft soap to your finger so that the silicone doesn't stick to your skin when smoothing the bead. I also read the info on the tube which suggested masking both sides of the seam -- good plan!

We also splurged on a new appliance this weekend -- a much dreamed-of compact, portable dishwasher. This meant that I spent about an hour last night re-arranging the kitchen so that we had room to store the dishwasher during the hours it won't be used.

But let me tell you, we are so looking forward to loading that sucker after our next round of entertaining.

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Photography, books, and good food.

First of all, some Happy Mothers' Day wishes to all the maternal parents in the audience.

This morning, Hubby made me savory stuffed french toast at my request (mmMMMmm) and I'll be going out to the Keg for dinner this evening for dinner. Until then, I plan to have a hang day, doing very little.

This weekend has been all about hanging, actually. I had Friday off and it was the first flex day in a while where I had nothing really planned. I took Kiddo to school (on the bus, which makes her very happy) then went into town.

I wandered around the waterfront taking photos before starting my shopping wanders. I was happy to get a pretty good photo of the Johnson Street bridge in action, from the parking lot beside the Janion hotel.

My shopping day included visits to Sally Ann (found a copy of Dark is Rising (which I've never read) for a buck plus a bag of rick-rack), Solstice Cafe (for Kicking Horse coffee!), BeadWorld (beads, of course), Capitol Iron (hardware supplies), and Value Village (big bag of buttons and some kids' books).

Had lunch with a co-worker, took a few more photos in town, went to the Market on Yates for dinner ingredients, then hopped on a bus home. I was happy to be using the bus on Friday because I am pretty sure every road crew in the CRD was out working -- road work, sewers, utilities, you name it -- tearing up the road and blocking traffic all over the city.

Saturday, we went to the GVPL Friends of the Library book sale -- billed as the "biggest ever" I think they may have exaggerated, but it was big. For the past few years they have been having more frequent, small sales in the meeting room of one of the branch libraries. I went to one in that location and swore I would not go to others because it felt like being led like cattle through a series of gates. There was no room to really browse (elbows everywhere) and little choice.

For this sale, though, the Friends of the Library rented space at the Archie Browning Centre in Esquimalt. There were no lines to get in and dozens of tables overflowing with discarded and donated books. I picked up a half dozen books ranging from cookbooks to graphic novels; adding in Kiddo's and Hubby's choices the total came to an amazingly affordable $14.50. My favourite find of the day is probably Little Lit: Strange Stories for Strange Kids. I got another one in the series a while back -- paying full price -- so a buck for this book was a fantastic bargain.

After the sale, we stopped in to John's Noodle Village on Bay Street. I had low expectations for what looks like a hole in the wall but I think we found the best ginger fried beef in the city! The other foodie treat I got yesterday was a yummy fresh-baked batch of raisin scones, complete with Devonshire Clotted Cream and strawberry jam. MmmmMMM!

Weekends like this make it very difficult to go back to work... sigh.

Sampler-iffic!

I got my goodies from The Sampler today (it took a little over 2 weeks):

The top set is the Mini March Sampler which included a cross-stitch pattern, notecards, a button, a print, a sliver of soap (that smells really good), a beaded dangle, and a ribbon bracelet (not shown because it fell off the table -- doh!) The bottom set was the Mini Sampler Select: Buttons which included the most awesome zombie button set from re-conceived.

I'm glad that I ordered them -- it was fun to get other handmade stuff in the mail -- but I think I would prefer to be a contributor in the future... but what to contribute? It needs to be small but "representative" of my work.... I have a few things in mind, including printing up some Huggitz pictures for buttons -- I might be able to track down a button-maker in town (i.e. borrow or rent one and find the supplies myself) or, I could just order a batch through an etsy seller (there are several) who will work with my artwork. Any thoughts?

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Oh. I needed that.

When I came home yesterday, my head was pounding from what was beginning to feel like the never-ending sinus congestion. I got home, made dinner, then put what effort I had into crafting. I was still feeling miserable at bedtime but I woke up feeling somewhat better. I'm still coughing but it isn't constant any more and neither is the sinus pressure. Yay.

So anyway... today I went out. Mostly shopping. I even drove this morning! Wheee! I got lots done and in between the morning trip to the mall with big retailers and the afternoon leisurely wander through downtown Victoria, I met up with Hubby and went to Chikara Sushi for lunch. MMmm (I had the bento box lunch with nigiri sushi and tempura).

I took lots of photos this afternoon -- the day was chilly but bright -- and indulged in a few things just for me (some extra yarn, most of which will go to making baby hats; a dark chocolate mint meltie bar from Purdy's; and a whole lot of window shopping).

Tonight, I bound a few more of the Coffee Haiku books -- easy peasy now since I found a great Japanese Binding tutorial.

It felt good to go out on my own again, not too worried about how long I could go before I would have to sit down and not relying on other people to get me from A to B and back again.

This, that and the other.

Yesterday proved to be one of the most frustrating days of work in the time I have held my current position. All I will say is that working on projects which involve multi-institution collaboration have far too many opportunities to run off the rails or into walls. I left work so grumpy and annoyed that even an hour of transit travel didn't give me enough time to decompress.

This morning, I slept in. Hooray for sleep! (It's been difficult re-adjusting to the 6 a.m. alarm now that I am back to full time and my regular start time of 8 a.m.) It doesn't help that I am fighting a sinus cold. Bah.

In between doing some laundry, I made some pie pastry (and Kiddo helped me) so that Hubby could bake an apple pie. He used about a half dozen large apples; it's HUUUGE.

This afternoon, we went out to Glenwood meats -- we got turkey sausage, turkey & cranberry sausage, buffalo sausage (yes, we like sausage), beef bacon (mMMMmmm), Ayrshire bacon (a traditional Scottish cut of bacon, similar to back bacon or "Canadian" bacon), and some chicken thighs -- to round out what's in our freezer.

After grabbing some lunch, we drove out to deep Gordon Head to take some photos in this month's Grid -- it's likely that it will be our only chance to do so this month, so we tried to make the most of it.

Back home, kiddo helped Hubby make fresh pasta for dinner -- lasagna, her choice.

...And now I am about to settle in to making some more catnip mice!

Back Home for a while.

Saturday was a busy shopping day... we had planned to hit the Outlet mall, KMart, CostCutter Foods and maybe Fred Meyer as well. After a nice breakfast in the hotel, we tried to get a pre-lit Christmas tree at Macy*s "One Day Sale" but they were already sold out. Too bad.

Next we hit the Outlet mall but started at Michael's craft store, where Halloween stock was an amazing 90% off! We bought a cart-full of items including 5 carveable styrene pumpkins for future Halloween celebrations. The first few stores were sadly lacking in things we really wanted, and then it appeared that the Sewer's Dream Fabric Outlet was gone, as was the Socks Unlimited store. I was pretty bummed until I discovered that the fabric outlet had only moved across to a larger storefront. (I ended up spending quite a bit of money there... and would have spent even more had I been given more time to root through the five huge bins of scrap fabric, sold by the pound!)

After a couple more stops, we bowed to Kiddo's request for a quick loop around Costco -- for samples!! -- and then headed for Jack-in-the-Box for lunch. (Low-brow fare, yes, but since there are none in Canada, we tend to go there when we can.) Post-lunch we hit KMart and Cost-Cutter foods, after which we were all tired and cranky and in need of some decompression. (Let's just say there's a good reason KMart went out of business in Canada.)

Dinner on Saturday was at Outback Steakhouse. Mmmmmmm.

After dinner, I hung out with Kiddo in the hotel (knitting) while Hubby and his Mom went back out to Fred Meyer.

This morning, we played tetris with our purchases, cramming them into every nook and cranny we could find, then checked out and headed for Bellingham. Among the things we picked up in Bellingham was a pre-lit Christmas tree at Wallgreens -- for $20 less than we were hoping to spend at Macy*s and about one tenth of what we expected to spend here.

We took the Pacific truck crossing back into Canada and made good time to the ferries. At 5:00 we pulled out of Tsawassen and two hours later we were back home, faced with unpacking our ridiculously full van.

I don't think we will need to cross the border for another year or so.

As the eyes roll back into our heads....

Quite accidentally, on our way into Burlington, we stumbled on a strip mall we hadn't seen on our last trip and lo, it was good. We had been hoping to go to a Ross (almost identical to our Winners and Home Sense stores) so we decided to stop. (The mall also included Home Depot, Kohl's, Best Buy, Linens & Things, Old Navy and Game Stop).

Several large bags later we managed to get out of Ross.... but we found clothes, Christmas gifts, and two new sets of flannel sheets. Woo!

After checking into the hotel, we went to the Cascade Mall and were largely underwhelmed.... though we did go to Chuck E. Cheese's, as we had promised Kiddo. I was surprised at how un-crazy it was (I was expecting kids hanging from the ceiling....) and how manageable the noise-level was. On the other hand, the Chuck E. Cheese radio/muzak was a clocktower-rampage level of horrible.

We continued our shopping at Target... and walked out of there with an overflowing cart, also largely items from the Christmas lists.

Once we unloaded everything back at the hotel, I extrapolated to include our planned outings on Saturday and wondered whether our purchases would (a) fit back into the van and (b) still keep us under our collective Customs limit of $1600 (four people, $400 each after 48 hours away).... I didn't think it would.

[note: this post is backdated for NaBloPoMo purposes]

On the road again....

This weekend we are test-driving our passports and testing to see whether my Mother-in-Law, without a passport, can travel across the border. Fingers crossed!

We are going to the metropolis of Burlington, yeah baby! We visited the Prime Outlets there last year (they've since been sold and are now the Outlet Shoppes at Burlington, because that extra "pe" makes them high class, I guess) and decided since all the stores we wanted to shop at are in Burlington (the outlets plus most of the big American chain retail stores -- four at one mall), it really made no sense to stay elsewhere.

I spent some time the last two nights checking all the online flyers for the department stores and a couple of grocery stores... so with that plus all the Christmas shopping lists in hand we should be in good shape.

My only concern is that our Virgin phones will not work across the border, which really will suck, but we'll pretend it's 1977 (the last time I can remember our Canadian dollar being accepted at par) and try to survive without them!

Vancouver overnight...

On the way back from Naramata, we stayed friday night in Burnaby. We stayed at the Holiday Inn, adjascent to Metrotown, with the Skytrain and a major bus exchange right outside the window. I don't think we could have chosen a spot less like the idyllic calm of the Naramata Centre if we'd tried.

After a night of consumerism and a return to the matrix (free wifi and a very large LG LCD flat panel TV), we visited my brother and his family on Saturday. We also got a whirlwind tour of his new workplace, EA, which was swish, but apparently I can't say any more about it. (Trust me, very swish.) We also got to try out his Wii (which we very much enjoyed); here's Kiddo, concentrating on Wii tennis:

He even dragged out his "old" xbox (his 360 is dead again) so we could try our, uh, feet at Dance Dance Revolution. I have to admit, I was surprised at the amount of foot-eye coordination required, but I still think I would enjoy having the game.

After the kids had more time to visit, we headed off to the Richmond IKEA, then for the ferry home.

Hoarding, Headache, Happenstance, Horror, and Hometown.

Went out shopping this morning -- did the Langford thing: Glenwood Meats (I cannot say enough good things about the service and the high quality of meats here), Costco (big boxes, big portions, big billlz), Market on Millstream/Michaels, and Harveys Burgers in the Home Depot for lunch. Mmmmm

Problem was, even before getting home, I had a headache. It just kept getting worse... and making me grouchy. I tried napping but I wasn't tired -- just miserable.

After dinner, I curled up in bed** and discovered to my amusement that AMC was running the Independent Spirit Awards (yay!). I'm pretty sure some of the winners were wearing sneakers -- one was wearing jeans under a swanky dress -- and where else could you hear Minnie Driver singing "I blew a giant frog to smithereens; I've got his golden key" to the tune of Brand New Key?

After the Spirit Awards wrapped, the next movie happened to be The Exorcist -- which I've never seen but am watching now; on the heels of having watched Child's Play (another iconic horror film not previously seen) last night. I'm watching the Exorcist while at my computer and with all the lights on -- and this is the way I watch most horror movies, otherwise I get sucked into the tension just a bit too easily... and I have to say, the effects at the end of Child's Play were lots of fun... the Exorcist a whole lot more creepy and I'm not even at the halfway mark.

Of course, since they are playing on AMC, there are also frequent (really frequent), repetitive interruptions -- including far too many repititions featuring Andrew W. Marlowe, writer of some serious Box Office crapola -- which lessens the tension greatly.

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Later in the week, I am looking forward to taking in the 35th annual Be A Tourist in Your Own Hometown event... I've been to this event many, many times... it's changed a lot over the years and I stopped going at some point but now I have my own kid to take, it is more appealing.


**p.s. A big thanks to hubby for letting me curl up and hide when I needed it.
:)