Tour De Fleece

I seriously love how creative fibre folks are. I love the quirky fun that comes out of blogs, Ravelry and Craftster. This time I'm talking about the Tour de Fleece.

What is this Tour de Fleece? It is basically a spin-a-long coinciding with the Tour de France. The first Tour de Fleece was in 2006 (starting from the creative brain :: here :: ) and there were 16 spinners participating. Last year, there were over 400 spinners joining in on the fun. Dude. Can you imagine? Are there even that many cyclists in the Tour de France?

As I commit myself to this, I have to laugh. I've only ever watched the Tour de France once when I was hanging out with Mr. Ossi last year. Since we don't have cable - I can't actually watch the Tour de France (ZZZzzz) but I can still "spin-a-long".

Tour de Fleece 2009 starts July 4th and runs until July 26. The main goal is to set personal challenges and spin every day. I joined the Rookie team since it's my first year participating and my first year spinning. I also joined Team Lantern Rouge. These are the cyclists who form a little group at the back known as the "lanterne rouge"....the underdogs. My kind of group.

Rav Group for the Tour de Fleece is :: here :: The team names that are popping up are making me laugh. Flickr pool is :: here :: Both are amazing sources of inspiration and encouragement.

My goal for this challenge?
: Spin for at least 30 minutes every day
: Spin and ply at least 12 oz of fibre by the end of the Tour.

My prize after this challenge?
: I get to buy more fleece

Hey Mar...you going to give that spindle of yours a work out too?

It's In You to Give.

That's one of my favourite advertising tag lines ever! It's for the Canadian Blood Services.

I've always wanted to be a regular donor. I really don't know what's prevented me from doing it all these years. I'm healthy. I've got a strong immune system. I go to my annual physical once a year. My parents feed me red meat whenever they see me and think I look anemic. I eat spinach. I haven't travelled anywhere further than Toronto, so I shouldn't have been exposed to malaria recently. There has never been any symptoms that I'm prone to anemia and my strongest drug to date is an Advil.

I SHOULD be a regular donor.

I guess it's just been laziness but I never got around to researching where the clinics are and their hours. Here in my current position, the people in the office regular donate and there is a blood donor clinic conveniently located about 5 minutes from our building. So I really don't have an excuse not to pump some out for the peeps.

Today, on my lunch hour, I happened to walk past the girl sitting at the clinic table. I thought I'd ask for more information. She asked me if I wanted to see what my blood type was. That sounded cool so I sat down.

And immediately felt woozy.

Dude. Nothing's come near me that is sharper than the pen and form I need to fill out.

R's always said "Mind over Matter". So I told Self to stop being such a wuss. Besides, I've had plenty of blood taken in the past and never had a problem.

Just as she was telling another girl that the prick for blood type testing "hurt" more than the needle for blood donating, she stapled the side of my middle finger.

FRACK.

ChirpyNurseLady: That wasn't so bad was it?

I felt like I had to say no. So I said it was fine.

She took three drops of blood and put each one in a tray that held columns of blue, yellow and clear liquid. Depending on how the blood clotted in that liquid, she was able to tell my blood type. SO COOL.

She said that I'm a B positive. She also said that since less than 8% of the population had this blood type, I really should go and donate some blood today. I may have looked a bit pale so she said that they had plenty of cookies and juice.

While I did NOT faint, I had a feeling that the coffee, trail mix, muesli and carrots currently sustaining my system would not make me a good candidate to be a donor today. Plus, what good are cookies and juice AFTER you've collapsed in a humiliating heap in the middle of the room?

Maybe I better do it tomorrow.

BUT...

If less than 8% of this population has this blood type, then if anything ever happened to me, they'd be madly scrambling for some of it. There could be a shortage. You'd think.

Maybe.

In any case, I just discovered a huge deficit in my karma quota.

I should really do it today.

I was reading their information pamphlet and was amused to discover that those of us with Blood Type B are prone to:

- be full of ideas

- have diverse interests

- sleuthing (detective work)

- be persuasive

- be a great sleeper

- be emotional

- be candid

...and "can probably make good decisions"

Karma-on-hold, I snuck out of the building because she was watching me walk away and was expecting me to go straight down to the clinic.

I think I can probably go donate some blood tomorrow.

After I eat a steak or something.

$100,000 piece of paper

My little sister is officially an M.D.!

Pictures, Family commentary and Update later.

Too pooped at the moment.

The actual conversation we had about gardening

As an addendum to my previous post, I thought I'd record the conversation we had about not having a garden this year.

circa: 16 may 2009

The first thing we needed in order to start our square foot garden was a wood box. We didn't have a bottomless wood box, so we had to plan a trip out to the hardware store....and then the nursery for seeds and soil ...and this and that and that and this.

R: We need to get a saw.

N: We don't have a saw?

R: No.

N: Can't they cut the wood for you at the store?

R: Only you know these things. You know things that nobody knows.
*or some paraphase of what he actually said*

N: Should we go to Home Depot?

....

N: Want to stay home and read?

R: Okay.

I really did pass first year Botany with an A.

We nixed the idea of a garden. 

Did I mention that we were looking into square foot gardening? Check it out :: here :: From what I can tell, you build square boxes, divvy it up into square sections and you magically grow awesome veggies ...and  fruit? Not sure about the fruit...but hell, why not.  Yes. You magically grow awesome fruits and veggies allll summer.

*Nobody will listen to me anyways by the time they finish reading this.*

I was filled with fantasies about walking into the backyard and picking out veggies for our dinner salad every night.  Apparently with this method, you don't really need to weed. (Don't quote me on that.) We were going to be all cool, green and eco-y this year with our backyard. I was thinking that we would save all this money and cut our grocery bill by 20% (okay, I made up that number) by growing our own fruits and veggies. Nevermind the fact that we buy two zucchinis and three tomatoes every week versus the 8 apples and 6 bananas that would be impossible for us to grow this summer...and that I've let salad mix compost IN our fridge more times than R would like to acknowledge

Numbers aside, reality tried to hint at me after I spent two weeks admiring the blooming magnolias in our neighbourhood. I even took pictures of them with my Blackberry. I even marveled and GUSHED at the one growing in our neighbour's backyard while he stared at me - no doubt slightly uncomfortable by my sudden and unexpected enthusiasm for his magnolia tree. I forced R into a conversation about how much I loved magnolias, how they were Jane's favourite tree but that I didn't think I would like to have one because they bloom for two seconds and then get messy afterwards. 

Then one Saturday, a few weeks ago, I walked to the back of OUR yard and around the corner.

No freakin' shit.


We own one.

Then I did the same thing last weekend. We were walking down the street with the girls and I made R stop and smell a lilac tree (bush?). He had a cold, so I practically shoved a bloom up his nose because I really wanted him to smell how yummy it was. That afternoon, I walked to the back of our yard...

... and yeah... we own a lilac bush (tree?) too.

We also have some funky looking tulips ....

...and some lily of the valley's ...

There's a few random bushes as well. Most of which have either been trampled down, dug out or stripped bare of any greenery due to the combined efforts of the girls.  Actually, I can't blame it all on the girls. I pulled an entire plant out the other day when I was trying to get all the brown stalks off. So I made ONE hole. The rest of them belong to Dayna and Nori's dirt-flying competitions. 

Reality then whacked me upside the head when we spent a few hours raking up all the dead leaves left over from the fall. I was giving myself the heebie-jeebies every time I lifted a pile of leaves to reveal the wet underside and all the icky, crawly things went scurrying everywhere. The first time I shrieked, R just looked up and said very patiently: "It's nature."  That's just ...icky. NATURE is when we were walking in the ravine and we saw two hawks tearing apart a groundhog. 

Fast forward to mother's day weekend and I was trying to help by cleaning out the leaves in our back stairwell and I ended up shrieking "TOO MANY LEGS! TOO MANY LEGS!". A pathetically obvious attempt for R to come and rescue me. Finally, I gave up (since he was clearly not coming) and ran squealing into the backyard and danced around to stop my skin crawling. Mr. Ossi just looked at me - not much fazes him -  while R said to me: "I THOUGHT I heard some funny noises. Was that you?" Not much fazes him either.

Of course it was ME!  That was not the romantic response I was looking for.

This is coming from the man who spent a week laughing about the time that I went to Blue Mountain, saw flies in our room and told the front desk that there were 12 flies in our room. TWELVE.  She was also quite unsympathetic and told me "Welcome to the country." And then firmly assured me that although they keep spare towels, toothbrushes and shampoos for their guests, they did not have any fly swatters. Not exactly the romantic or helpful response there either. We were clearly not on the same frequency.  R was highly amused that it bothered me enough to report it and that I had to report the exact number of them.

Anyways, country crap aside, there's really no way we would realistically devote the time and energy to nuturing a garden this summer.  It's definitely on the list for next year. Someone just needs to invent a bug free garden, is all.

As a compromise I'm going to try and buy local at the farmer's markets which are starting to pop up in and around London.  We made this decision about two weeks ago and have yet to visit one of the big ones.  We seem to keep missing them. We've tried the small one downtown but it's mostly herb or tomato plants, bison and some rhubarb at the moment. I've come to the realization that buying local also implies that you know how to cook meals that involve more than "just add water". My staple.

I barely shake 'n bake chicken. What the heck would I do with a bison?

... and seriously, if someone asked you right now, what a rhubarb looked like... would you be able to describe it?  Just sayin'.

Found

Yep. I'm still kicking around.

We've been keeping busy. I've got a bunch of half typed up blog posts sitting in my file. Partly to blame is the fact that it takes so flippin' long to launch my iPhoto and upload photos from the camera. For the most part however, everything is very much stewing within the cesspool of my brain. I think it's a combo-case of start - itis and indecisiveness. I know I'm not making much sense but let's just say that I've been toying with the idea of selling my crafts either on Etsy or have R build me a shop under a personal domain.

When I started teaching a few weeks ago, I was all fired up to teach crafting classes as well. I had awesome (to me) workshops and craft kits planned out. I put everything together (and had a whole ton of fun doing it) and then stalled. This is not surprising. Whenever I used to play "office" or "teacher" as a kid, I just liked setting everything up - I didn't actually spend much time playing the game. Anyways, the one major roadblock to all of this? I really hate marketing myself. Plus I weighed the teaching time against the personal crafting time and I thought: "Meh". There are other reasons as well, but for now I have my piano/theatre arts/craft studio shelved until another time.

So yeah, lots of waffling. Sell stuff online? Or teach workshops? Or both?

.... Or neither?

I'm still teaching piano though (grand roster of one student) and I'm really enjoying it. I've also fallen back in love with playing regularly again.... which is another something that has cut into my crafting and blogging time. The list of songs I want to learn and re-learn keeps growing every time I sit on the bench. I'm incredibly rusty and it's a bit painful to hear since I know how I used to be able to play the pieces... 10 years ago. Ouch. But it's still awesome.

There's been lots of knitting going on still and a bit of weaving. R and I have also had a few guests over too! So unusual for our normal hermit-like tendencies. Here's our favourite guy who came to visit over the long weekend.

It's amazing how one little man can exhaust four adults. Apparently, he's what people call an "altitude" baby. Pretty much, one of us had to be standing (absolutely NO sitting) around and dancing the entire weekend.

Yeah...that picture pretty much sums us up.

Anyways, lots on the list for the summer. It's going to be a good one!

Big Bertha & Mr. Beat

No more standing in the corner collecting dust (and bearing the brunt of an obvious ebay obsession for knick-knacky owl figurines) for this big lady. She's coming out of retirement! She's a bit weathered and worn but there's still juice in her.



I think playing with some enthusiastic kids will breathe some life back into her.

This steadfast guy has finally found his lady.



Oh, but WOW...does the lady EVER need to be tuned before she starts singing.

Happy Belated Anniversary to Me!

So my four year blog anniversary came and went very quietly. I toyed with the idea of doing a giveaway but given the eclectic collection of people who read this blog just for my postings about my parents, there really wasn't anything I could give to a "winner" even if I could get you guys to delurk and make a smarmy comment.

What I did do was spend some time going through my archives. Unlike most of the blogs I read, I don't have a focus for this one. I used to think I had to make it about one thing or another but then I realized I've never done just one thing. Ever. And really, my target audience is me. Anyways, I loved going through my old posts and reliving my theatre work, remembering Nori as a puppy, and all these anecdotes about my family that I never want to forget.

I pulled a list of some of my favourite blog entries together.

This was the time I almost developed multiple personalities because science hadn't perfected cloning humans in time for one of my theatre shows :: here ::

Then there was the time when Nori was on speed and went through withdrawal for three days. :: here ::

What amuses me to no end is that Dayna is truly THE second child. I used to know the consistency, density and viscosity of Every. Single. One. of Nori's poops. Now... I couldn't even tell you if either of them did their morning business. We (okay, just me) freaked out over everything Nori did or didn't do. Last night, I heard some painful sounding yelps of the Dayna-variety...but did I rush upstairs to go see what was wrong? Nope. I was in the middle of crafting and I didn't hear my name being bellowed so I figured everything was fine. Terrible. (Dayna caught her tail in the door but she's cool. That's another thing we've had to get used to ...a dog with a tail that thumps into things.)



Anyways... I digress again. R and I often talk about how much fun we had at my cousin Jen's wedding a couple of summer's ago. It was such a fun weekend away for us and we missed most of the family drama but it was awesome hearing about it afterwards. It cracks me up how much they worried about R (aka "Rostol") being my boyfriend given the initial sleeping arrangements prior to the wedding. :: here ::

Then there was the progress made when my parents finally realized there was nothing they could do about us living in sin - already a cult favourite :: here ::

Well, despite all that HAS changed in the past year with R going back to school and our move to a new city, our relationships really hasn't evolved that much from this :: here ::

On a crafting note, I've definitely noticed that the more I do, the more I want to do. (Ya think?!?) My projects from four years ago seem so juvenile to me now but I was pretty happy with them back then. I spent the weekend working on a bunch of new things.



I'm REALLY happy with the way they turned out. I wonder what I'll think about them four years from now?

GRED

The beginning stages of my grey & red blanket.



Warp's done. It was starting to bother me that I had a nekkid loom.



I'm exploring a new-to-me weave pattern called Log Cabin. I'm dying to see how the colours play out.

I teach music ...and repeatable phrases

I started teaching piano lessons way back when I was around 15 or 16. Ironically, they were the children of some of my high school music teachers. Then word got around and my roster expanded. When I finished high school, I moved to Guelph for my undergraduate and I taught through most of those years as well, with the Ontario Conservatory of Music in Guelph, since I didn't have a piano of my own back then.

Teaching for a studio was really convenient but I was limited in the sort of pedagogy that I wanted to explore as a music teacher despite my lack of formal training in that area. Teaching at home, I turned my parent's house upside down playing Music Note Bowling Down the Front Stairs. Trust me, students learn their musical alphabet really fast playing this game.

Once I moved back to Toronto, the teaching got pushed aside with all of my theatre work but it's always been in the back of mind. So I'm really excited now to start teaching again.

I had my first lesson with a student last week. She lives across the street (next door to Tango) and her mom just jumped at the chance when she heard I wanted to get back into teaching. The lesson went really well. I'm not sure who had more fun. Me or Rebecca. At any rate, the feedback was very positive and enthusiastic.

On Saturday, we ended up going for a dogwalk with my mom, my sister, Tango, Tango's dad and Rebecca and her mom. In all my years of teaching, it has been extremely rare for me to bump into a student outside of a lesson, the class or theatre. Clearly I need to do a little more filtering from now on. (Although, in general, R has warned me about my tendency to blurt things out without looking around to see who is within earshot)

During the walk, Dayna took two poops within five minutes of each other and my mom made a comment about it.

I called over my shoulder with: "Yeah.. Dayna's a double dumper."

Then I hear:

"Mom! What's a double dumper?"

oops.

Last Minute Gifts

R and I don't go to many birthday parties anymore, but we found ourselves agreeing to attend one a few weeks ago. R boycotts shopping for the sake of gift-giving in general but I hate showing up empty-handed. So we always try to compromise and pass along a bottle of wine or I try to make something.

This time around, I was really stuck for something. A couple of hours before the party, I grabbed an empty moleskin notebook and some fabric scraps and pieced out this baby.

The idea comes from the book "Last Minute Patchwork & Quilted Gifts" by Joelle Hoverson.

I love the way this turned out and have ideas for embellishing more notebooks in the future.






...added a fancy pen et voila! Good to go.

This is my problem

"The irony of multitasking is that it's exhausting: when you're doing two or three things simultaneously, you use more energy than the sum of energy required to do each task independently. You're also cheating yourself because you're not doing anything excellently. You're compromising your virtuosity. In the words of T. S. Elliot, you're 'distracted from distractions by distractions'."

~ Twyla Tharp, "The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life"

...although, I am doing most things rather excellently.

:: I'm 75% done warping the loom for my next big project.
:: I'm planning another weaving project on a small Dorothy loom I picked up off of Craigslist over the weekend.
:: I knit another baby sweater and just need to sew on buttons.
:: I'm planning out activities and lesson plans for my new creativenture. (Surprise! I'm going back to teaching piano again! My new-to-me 100 year old FREE piano is getting delivered today. Just FYI, when you ask the universe for a free piano, it's actually not that hard to come by.)
:: I've got a new quilt project planned out and just need to start cutting.
:: I turned the heel on another sock that I'm working on.

So everything is going rather excellently.... Just nothing that involves putting away laundry, cleaning the gunk in the back corner of the fridge or gardening.