Craft camp

Traditions are nice.  I think the best kind of traditions are the accidental ones.  Like the fact that it seems like Kaeli and I have done some sort of ski trip on all of her past few birthday weekends.  I don't know if it ranks as tradition yet, but it might be starting, and that's nice.  Another good one is going canoeing on my birthday weekend down the north saskatchewan river with a pack of my friends every year for several years now.  Another good one is eating chicken ceaser salad with natasha.  A not so great one is drinking diet coke with Natasha. ha.

Every Canada day weekend for the past 14 years, my extended family on my mom's side has gathered in Saskatoon.  This is pretty much the tradition to beat out all other traditions as far as my life goes.  We eat good food, have fun times, and craft our brains out.  My friend Rebecca has started calling it craft camp.

It started out when my sister and I spent a week with my aunt each making our own quilts.  I was 12.  The next summer we went back and made another one, this time for my parents.  And my brother tagged along and spent the time working with my uncle in his fully equipped wood working shop. And the next summer we decided to get together and make a quilt for my cousin who was getting married as a gift from all of us.  By this time we were noticing the pattern and somebody dubbed the event as QUILTFEST as a joke, but the name stuck.

Then we started doing other sorts of projects.  Making canoe paddles with the help of my patient uncle.  Making cutting boards, knitting, upholstering, gocco printing.  Anyways, here we are 14 years later still going strong and taking on even bigger projects, like my brother who put the biggest log of all time on the lathe...


Joel made a quilt and a lemon meringue pie using a blow torch...

Other projects included making dresses, drum sticks, upholstering, a huge cedar bench, a giant set of pick up sticks, a wooden bowl.

I almost feel sheepish at how great my family is when I talk about Quiltfest, but then I remember how to everyone else we just sound like a bunch of nerds, so it can't be that bad to gush a bit.

just the five of us

I usually let May long weekend pass without any major plans, but this year some sweet plans fell into my lap.  When I was visiting Kerry early this spring we spotted some serious antique cuteness in her house and asked about it.  She told us it was from Nanton, which has great antique shops and an all girls road trip was born. 

It was a great weekend.  We picked up Kerry at camp and headed straight to Nanton.  I had no idea they had all those antiques.  Being in the car for that long got a little tiresome, but over and over, there were little moments where we all felt glad to be friends.  I like those moments...the ones where you know that everyone  is thinking the same thing: how am I so lucky to have these great people as my dear friends.  There were five of us, and I've known them all between 9 and 23 years.  That's a lot of years.

Sooooo, because I am lazy, a photo collage clockwise from top left: we found letterpress blocks at the last minute, antique gates and beds, sharing a milkshake, we're not sure, grumpy family vacation photo, kerry and tash against a brick wall, best pic ever of kim wearing an aviator hat, pretending to walk down the street in nanton, grain elevator!

Chatting with my brother

I think my brother can make me laugh harder than almost anyone else.   It's all in the details.

Scott: BSS* tix on sale for oct 8 show at Winspear.  Heidi and I got tix and Sean bought 2 also!

Me:  Did you mean BSB?

Scott: Yes. The ESO covering the backstreet boys entire discography with a guest French hornist.

Me:  Call me crazy but I'd buy tickets to that too.

Scott: You know what else we should really see is all the HSM movies back to back (the acronym is a test).

Me: HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL! KABLAM!

Scott: Nothin but net

*BSS is Broken Social Scene

Seedlings

Gardening started early around our house this year.  Bri's got a flat of jiffy pots growing, and Joel and I have been working on our own seedlings too.  The first picture is of the tomato seeds in Joel's hand...we were amazed by the tiny-ness of the tomato seeds.  I've never taken the time to grow tomatoes from seeds, since it was always fun to pick them up at the farmer's market.  As an experiment, we used plastic egg cartons with holes punched in the bottom to grow our seedlings.  I'm not sure it was the best choice as they are pretty small, but the verdict is still out on that one. 

We've got basil, tomatoes, green beans, sugar peas, sweet peas, and lupin growing so far.  The rest will be planted straight into the ground.  At first I wanted to start some beets early but then I realized that if I did that, then I would have to transplant them one beet at a time into the garden, which would be ridiculous.  Glad I realized that one before I tried it!

I'm excited for my little garden this year. Yay.

Guilty (musical) pleasure

John Mayer concerts are turning into a guilty pleasure of mine.  You may recall the event of '07 when Kerry and I were transplanted from our nosebleed seats INTO THE FRONT ROW.  Because John Mayer is a lovely (if somewhat vile in magazine interviews) musician who likes to save the best seats for random fans with crappy seats. 

So, this time, NayNay and I scored 6th row tickets with help from my friend Matt.  The opener was Michael Franti and Spearhead, and I wouldn't normally bore you with details of the opener, but they were totally awesome.  Like rock-the-whole-place awesome.  Michael Franti ran off the stage and through the crowd high fiving everyone (including NayNay) as he ran past...

 
And his guitar player was the happiest little guy I ever did see.  He smiled at least this hard for almost the entire show, except for one song where he was totally rocking out too hard to smile...

And now some John Mayer, who put on  good show, except for a very, very long drum solo.  I'm talking possibly over five minutes.  The only other negative was his cargo pants.  He reallly needs to stop wearing those.  New fun fact: he is pretty good at whistling...

Dictionary Love

I recently discovered an awesome new section in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary that I hadn't noticed before.  It happened when I was looking something up at work, and just kept flipping to the back where I discovered a compilation of all of the words that have been most recently added to the dictionary!  So awesome.  Words like "cougar" and "bootylicious" are constantly emerging and coming up for review by dictionary editors, but I'm never sure which ones actually make the cut.  Anyways, some of the most relevant and entertaining ones, in my opinion, are below...

• Icicle lights (thank you 2001)
• Bad hair day (really?)
• Boy band (thank you BSB vs. 'N Sync rivalry circa 1999)
• Oxygen bar (ugh, people are so lame)
• Machiato (thank you Starbucks...and Italy, I guess)
• My bad (ew)
• Text messaging
• Yada yada yada (I want to say thank you Elaine from Seinfeld, but I'm not sure...anyone? Tash?)
• Talking stick
• TTYL
• IMHO
• Forensic accounting (thank you big business scandals of the 20th century)

Anyways, I thought it was pretty cool.  Some of the words totally suck, but I guess that's not a legitimate criteria for not including them in the dictionary. While we are on the subject, here is a word I would like to see REMOVED from all dictionaries: irregardless.  SHUDDER.

And here is something fun: The Pictorial Webster's Dictionary

Okay, one more thing, since I don't often indulge a dictionary blog post...I was flipping through the "C" section of the dictionary last week and happened to read the definition of Corona.  I had no idea that one of the definitions was "a chandelier of wrought metal, having the form of one or more concentric hoops". Did anyone else realize that this is why Corona LRT station is so named?  It totally has two huge corona style chandeliers above the escalators.  I never thought of it, although I always thought that the chandeliers were awesome and that it was a strange choice for the station name.

I love dictionaries.

Bicycle Love

I have always liked biking around, but many summers ago, I spent a summer biking an hour each way to work at the farm, and then two summers ago, my friend Rebecca decided to challenge herself not to drive for  the month of June except when it felt absolutely necessary.  She's cool like that and inspired me to start riding my bike to work.  I fell in love with the commute and ended up riding almost every day until it snowed in November.  I had purchased a new bike that spring and probably made its cost worth back in saved gas money that summer.

Anyways, it was a great summer, but then the next year I got a new job, and it messed up my biking groove, because I now work in a stuffier office tower downtown with nowhere to change and nowhere to stash my bike.  I haven't been able to overcome the obstacles, so my bike didn't get nearly as much use last summer as it had previously.  Sad.

Anyways, another strike came against my little bike when I got a flat tire riding home from my parents' house last fall. It sat in the garage all winter just waiting for me to fix it.

As much as I love biking, I don't know much about how to fix them.  I always feel a little embarrassed about it because generally I like doing little repairs on things and like to know how to take care of my stuff.  So, when my friend Caylie invited me to take a basic bike maintenance course at the Bikeworks, I jumped at the chance.  It cost only five bucks, and I took my flat tire with me and they totally showed me how to patch it!  So great.

Also, Caylie's tire was a bit wonky and wavy, so they showed her how to "true her spokes" as I breathed down her neck in fascination until she asked if I wanted to try.  It was so awesome. 

You just put your tire in this stand, spin it and carefully watch for the places that are scraping and tighten the spokes accordingly.  Caylie and I nerded out and compared it to editing, because it requires such careful attention and detail. Anyways, I ended up buying a membership and definitely plan on going back to learn more. I definitely recommend checking it out.  Like right now.  Go do it.