Brrrrr.....

We've dropped down to -20 this morning. Thankfully I finished my new mittens last night, and apart from a little chill on the left thumb, they stood up to the chill very very well. Like having a duvet on your hands.

(This shot taken before mittens became tainted with frozen droplets of tea. And snot).

Snuggly hands much in demand, because the light this morning was beautiful, so I needed somewhere to warm my fingers after snapping with the camera.

Adult content warning

For those of you with delicate hearts, or who are easily offended by mature content, I'd suggest moving on and not watching the video below. I am giving you fair warning that I am wearing my sexiest sleepwear in this video, and you may not be able to concentrate on your usual day to day activities if you watch it, I am that hot.
I fully expect this film to go viral as it gets reposted around the internet, as who wouldn't want to witness the beauty that is me ice-skating in my pyjamas:

Hows that heart holding up? Palpitations?

In defence of my skating skills - remember that I could not skate 7 weeks ago. I could stand up on skates. I could shout and yell at people whilst wearing skates. I could stamp off the ice in frustration in skates  and go shopping (after taking skates off). I could not however move in any way that involved gliding, because it scared the bejeebus out of me and I ended up shaking and moody and mean. Progress is massive!

In defence of my outfit - let it be known that despite the ever so saggy crotch and the way that the onesie seems to enlarge my hips by a factor of ten, it is still my favourite item of clothing and I am staying true to it. Oh and just to be clear, I am wearing day-clothes underneath it. I am not denying that I am a lumpy bumpy woman, but not quite this lumpy and bumpy!

Happy Christmas everyone.....oh and a little bonus for those of you making it to the end of this post. This week i learnt to stop - and now that I have seen how much stopping increases my similarity to a constipated chicken I think it'll be best if I just keep going in future.

x

Trucking...

We were upgraded to a truck this weekend (after having to return the Suzuki Swift that sounded like a Wildebeest).
When you have a truck you should:
Drive out into the country, fill it with Christmas Trees and fill yourself with perogies and cabbage rolls.

Drive your friends around town so they can fully experience truck joy too.
Head to the beer store at fill it up with beer......it is the festive season after all.
Get up earlier than you have in weeks and head to the diner for breakfast, eggs benedict and crispy home fries - deelicious!

 Pose for far too many shots with the truck - I think Paul has fallen hard for this beauty.

And ensure you've cleared your credit card so you can afford to fill it up again!

What's in the bag?

Hello there....remember me? I have been a busy busy girl, with lots of blog-able activities,  but just not had the chance to catch up. So here is a completely random post, unrelated to everything. Maybe it'll give me the kick I need to get back into this again.

Right, introducing my bag. This is my fabulous bag, made for me by my middlest sister earlier this year:

Fab isn't it?!

I use it most days, in fact every day that doesn't involve carrying my skates.....and it has excellent Mary Poppins meets Tardis qualities - much bigger on the inside. Here are the treasures I bought home today:

From top down:

• Upper Canada Village Cranberries and oranges for making delicious sponge pudding to take to a Christmas Tree party on Saturday. (Looking forward to perogies).
• Red peppers to make sweet potato and red pepper chowder over the weekend.
• Quebec carrots - going in the vegetarian Shepherd's pie this evening.
• A bag of figs - late night snack this evening, grilled with goats cheese and honey - yummy!
• Art-is-in rosemary and garlic rolls
• Two bags of pasta, stocking up again.
• CHEESE!!!! I'm not sure whether I spend more on cheese or yarn on average.
• A poppy I found on the way home today. I'm collecting them for an art project at some point in the future.
• My funky red felted slippers for changing into at work.
• A copy of this weeks Metro - it has a story about yarn-bombing on the front.
• Miscellaneous packaging from this weeks lunches. Leftover fake-chicken and fennel pie today, scrumptious.
• Chewing gum and a harvest bar - staples.
• A pencil I found in the street.
• A recipe for Tofu stew, from a fellow crafter at the bookbinding course I did last weekend.
• The pattern for the socks I've been knitting for the last fortnight.
• My knitting bag, this weeks project is thrummed mittens. Oh so snuggly.
• Mini-skeins of Art-by-Ana sock yarn - check out her etsy shop in the new year (she's closed for the holidays). Scrummy!!!

So there you go! Oh so much stuff.....most of it edible, what does that tell you?!

Creative inspiration.....

Last weekend was the gingerbread house competition, with the amazing creations on display at the Rideau Centre.

Well, I'm guessing they were amazing. I stumbled on this by happenstance two years ago and found beauties like this smartie-extravaganza:

Since then, I have missed the show, finding details of it two days after the masterpieces have been packed up - AGH!
So last night I decided to pay tribute to the event, using the 'build your own gingerbread house kit' B bought us a year or so ago, that had languished in the cupboard.

Step one - improve the structure of the walls by soaking in tea:

Step two - lighten the walls by removing large bite size chunks.

Step three - erm.....erm......enjoy?!

Ho hum.....turns out a gingerbread house won't stand up with only three walls......or only two.....lesson learned. x

Busy busy.

No time for naps this week - a sorry state of affairs.
Monday - birthday celebrations for a friend - pizza, hoorah!
Tuesday - babysitting.More delightful Mary Poppins melodies.
Wednesday - coffee and putting the world to rights with a new friend.
Thursday - Bruce Peninsula at raw Sugar - fabtastic.
Friday - bed by 9:30pm - shattered!

Thought we'd lined up a quiet week to follow but something seems to have gone awry with that plan. It is all fun though (with luck) so no complaints......but if you see me snoring leant against a lamppost somewhere - leave me be!

Learning curves.

I've been making progress in my classes in the last couple of weeks. For those of you who don't know, I am currently one week into a four Sunday weaving course, and 3ish weeks into my learn to ice-skate course.

Lets tackle the weaving first.

I've had a loom for 18 months or so now. I bought it on impulse at an estate sale, $40 for the loom, various homemade wooden contraptions and far too much scratchy acrylic yarn that the agent insisted I take too. The whole lot has been resident in the craft room since then, looking intriguing and taking up far too much room.
Whilst at the weaving and spinning sale a fortnight ago, I signed up for a course at last. And here is my progress after the first lesson:

Pretty impressive isn't it? Well I'm very fond of it anyway. Turns out I got one hell of a bargain, even if I did then let it gather dust for far too long. This Sunday we're sampling some more patterns and talking about colour combinations. If you've seen my wardrobe you'd realise how useful this may be!

Now the skating is more of an ongoing project. To fully understand and appreciate my breakthrough today, you really have to have been on the ice with me before. I am a wreck. A squealing, girly, shaky wreck. Who doesn't move anywhere.
As I have explained to my well meaning friends, it isn't the falling over that scares me - I stumble and trip so regularly without the aid of blades that I'm pretty used to this. It is the gliding I have an issue with - yes, actually skating. As soon as my feet make any kind of slidy motion, the screams start and I quit. Pathetic.

This week our teacher didn't turn up (maybe I should have tried this approach more when I taught!). I forced myself onto the ice anyway and decided that this week I was going to move on the ice - without holding on to the side barriers. And somehow that decision was all it took. By the end of the lesson I was gliding (albeit in short stuttery bursts) across the ice - out into no mans land, all the way to the other side. My knees were wobbly, my breathing ridiculously erratic. Bizarrely I was humming hits of Madonna to distract myself - but I made it! There were squeals again - of joy! So so proud of myself, I gave myself a moment to relish my victory, breathing deeply and relaxing again.

And that's when I fell over. Flat on my back, giggling my head off.

The man in charge of ice-care kindly took this piccie for me, just to record the day for posterity. Check out that sexy helmet!

Lets hope I make as much progress next week, I'll be spinning and jumping before we know it!