hi!

So we decide to write again… Congrats on the home! I can’t wait to see it. The good thing about buying a place that needs some work, is that you get to really personalize it. Just remember the golden rules: do one room at a time and do the rooms that you really want to use first. I read that if your priorities are to host dinner parties or friends, start with the living room or dining room. If you love cooking, do the kitchen. That way, your comfort is assured and then you can get to the nitty-gritty stuff. Hopefully, we’ll stop by in october and help out with some renos. 

   We’re going to Watford soon for a few days. I’m really exhausted, so I’m not really mentally ready to go and spend some rare time off with a hole bunch of people, but hopefully I’ll snap out of it once we’re all there and we eat lots of good food. We’re going to have a pic-nic and watch Cabaret at Stratford. That’s going to be a great show for set designing. We have to drive back that night. Andreas is leaving the day after. 

 I am excited about the Toronto Stitch’n'Pitch! Also, seeing you and shopping. More about that another time. I wish that I had the energy to send you some pics from my birthday. Andreas bought everyone party hats. He made a cake that I found in a Martha Stewart magazine: coconut crust with an almond paste custard and fresh berries on top, with whipped cream of course! So good…maybe I’ll go eat a may west to ease the hunger.

I suck at blogging….

Hi

I suck at blogging. It’s been so long since I’ve written! Thankfully I’ve seen you a couple of times since the last entry but still, there’s no excuse and I’m full of shame and sadness….ok I’m over it now.

So, we officially have a real estate agent and are actively on the house hunt! We have 6 (!!!) places to see on Saturday which will probably have our heads spinning by noon! Our realtor is suggesting we go for a semi detached as we’ll get more house per $ but I don’t think we’re too keen on the idea. It’s a little too similar to being in an apartment… we’ll visit a couple and see how we feel about it.

Also, since I last saw you I have a new job…I am now working for a stroller and baby toy company doing customer service. It’s way more enjoyable than the last place! Everyone has been there for ever and it’s like a big family! I’m sure I’ll find something bad to say about it in a few months, but for now it’s sunshine and lollipops (and good $$$ too!) The only thing is the commute from where we’re staying is a little awkward because it’s in Pickering, but we’re keeping that in mind when looking for a place so we’ll try to get something near a bus route. I’ve also been considering getting a scooter until I get my real license. It would be so fun to scoot to work, literally! Not so much in -40 degrees though….

Anyhoo, I’m pretty tired and it seems as though I’m writing lot’s of run-on sentences, so I’m gonna take my leave for now. But not for too long! I promise. 

and you can cease your strike and resume blogging now that I’m back in the game.

 

aaaaannnnnddd I sent your birthday gift in the mail today! I wanted to make it prettier, so instead of using the normal label for postage I asked for real stamps. You  won’t believe the amount of stamps on that thing! It might have actually defeated the whole pretty idea…whatever. I hope you like it and find it useful!

See ya! (next time I see you might just have to be a house warming! (maybe!))

say hi to the bagels for me! I miss you chewy doughy circles of goodness….

You’re coming so soon!

Hello,

 I can’t wait for you to come visit! I took today off and finally slept in. I can’t stop dreaming about work! I’ve been reading about how to sleep better when under stress. This one article explained that people who worry about their stress tend to sleep worse than people who don’t worry about their stress. Thanks, I hadn’t noticed! I also read that a healthy sex life helps. That’s a solution I like! I’ve begun meditating in the mornings or evenings as well. Check out this podcast if you’re interested: Learn how to meditate (They tell you the meaning of life in episode 2). It’s kinda working. It makes me feel relaxed in the moment, but once I’m at work, I slowly get pretty irritable. There are only 3 days left before the Open House and the showroom is looking great! I’m really happy with our work. So why the hell can’t I just relax? Anyway, I’m working on it. 

 So, how’s your job? Do you think that you’ll be affected by the closing of the GM plant in Oshawa? How’s it going to affect the city of Oshawa? 

 On another note, here are some lobsters that we made a couple weeks ago up at the chalet. It was a yummy lunch. Summer’s on it’s way. No matter what the hell is happening in our lives, as canadians, we need to find complete joy in this fact and let it make us very happy and hot. Enjoy the grass and sun… and a terrace lunch at Aux Vivres very soon for you (there won’t be any lobster there though).

 See you soon!

Day off work!

Hello,

 I’m in the middle of my big work rush! Not only am i working long days, but I’ve decided to slap a sewing class into the mix every tuesday night and my knitting class on wednesdays. I’m tired a lot. At least it’s going well at work. I’ll post some pictures up of the changes that we’re making. I’m pretty excited to see what it’ll all amount to. 

 I spoke to Jill this week. She’s now living in Edmonton. Connor’s looking for a job. She’s writing her thesis. She actually really loves Alberta. Who would’ve known that a liberal vegetarian hippy would take such a turn in her late 20s. I guess that that goes for all of us. Except for Eric, he’s just going to go be a bigger hippy in Victoria. It’s just such an odd time in our lives. Isa’s moving to a condo in Outremont with her friend Koa. Celine’s moving in with Rudy. Jill and I were talking about how we are all doing or looking for jobs that are not our ideal dreams, but instead the place we go to to make money to fulfill our dreams. I sometimes feel like a sell-out working somewhere that is so cushy, but the truth is that it’s allowing me to be able to do more. What did we used to do? I can’t remember, but was it easier? Shitty restaurant, retail, or evil telemarketing jobs to be able to travel, pay rent, eat and drink. It’s not so different. I guess that our tastes are more expensive now. We don’t sleep under bridges when we travel now. No more hitch hiking; planes, cars, trains now. We don’t want to pay rent, we want to buy houses and condos. Even food is different, my cheeseburgers and snickers days are over. So is drinking pitchers of bad cheap beer. Are we growing up for the best? Or are we becoming yuppies? I guess this is exactly what a quarter life crisis feels like. I’m just scared of becoming my parents.

 I can’t wait to see you. We’re going to eat so much that weekend. By the way the 14th of June is World Wide Knitting in Public Day. It’s going to be at Parc Lafontaine. I’m going to stop by for a couple of hours if you’d like to join in on the fun. Bring your mom! In Toronto, it’s gonna be crazy. It’s the yarn harlot’s 40th birthday bash in combination with this knitting celebration. But forget Toronto. You’re gonna be in Montreal!!! So exciting: Sex and the City, knitting, Aux vivres, Pushaps?, dancing…what else do you want to do? Stay all week! I’ll take it off.

 

Jonesing for my sewing machine…

Hey Isa,

So it’s been another week and still nothing on the job front. I’m getting a little antsy and I’m feeling like I need to be more productive with my time. So where do I turn in such times? Crafting. The problem is, I don’t have my tools here. I haven’t got my sewing machine, I don’t have any of my magnet making stuff, I don’t even have my stamp set. And with zero income at the moment I can’t really afford to outfit myself. But I’m not gonna let it get me down. I’ve got a great book called  ”Lotta Prints” by Lotta Jansdotter and it’s really inspiring me to work with what I’ve got and have fun doing it. Another factor is that it’s tricky to get a solid couple of hours of crafting without the kids getting in on the fun and in turn creating mayhem. So I figured why not let the kids in on the fun? So I raided the fridge and found some stamp making produce ( in this case turnips), broke out a couple of blank t shirts and let them go crazy. So C, being a rock star at heart, wanted microphones and lighting bolts (“just like AC/DC”) and L, who’s in love with the movie Cars (which is actually a really good movie…) wanted “Lighting McQueen”  a fast racecar. So Josh and I got busy designing and carving and we managed to keep them entertained for a solid hour or more and they came out with a new t-shirt each!

Another craft I’m gonna start working on is knitting squares for Blankets for Canada it’s a project I stumbled on at Micheals the other day. You knit up 8” by 8″ squares and drop them off a Micheals where they get collected and made into blankets for the needy! I figure since knitting is the most portable and relatively mess-free craft I know; and I don’t really know what to knit in the summer anyway (if you have suggestions I’m all ears) It would be a good way to pass the time… along with job hunting of course.

Speaking of jobs, I was watching a home improvement show the other day and I saw an add for the Home Staging association of Canada (or something along those lines..) and I thought that would be a really cool job for me. You basically work with home owners and realtors to make homes look their best in order to sell them faster. It’s a little designy, a little organisational, even a little crafty….But I looked into the training and it’s something like $2500 for a three day course! Not happening right now but it peaked my interest for sure. 

 

So it looks like there might be a trip to Montreal in store for the next few weeks!! We’re waiting on the insurance to go through on the car and when it does we’ll head out to old Mtl!  I think a little road trip will do me good and I miss my family, and real bread, and potholes, and people speaking french and oh and you I guess… (I’m kidding! I can’t wait to go see SATC!!!) 

Also: we may have found a place to have the wedding!! It’s pretty premature, we haven’t 100% decided to even have it in Ontario yet, but K and C took us out to a spot they came across the other day; and it would be perfect! It’s a nature conservation area in a really lush hilly area full of trees and birds and butterflies! It’s basically a big platform with a barn like roof at the top of a little slope and surrounded by a grassy area! We figured we could seat about 90 to 100 people, there are toilets there and if we had it catered BBQ style, which we were thinking anyway, we wouldn’t need a kitchen. It would look soooo nice with lanterns and string lights! and the best part is it would only cost $100 to rent for the day! Man! a $50 dress a $100 location, this might be the cheapest wedding in history! I’ll send pictures soon, Josh and I are gonna look into it a little more. 

 

Miss you, 

see you soon in Montreal!!!

I want to alpaca with you.

I’m pretty jealous. It’s almost guaranteed that I couldn’t make it that weekend, since my deadline at work is on June 8th. You will have such a nice time with Josh that weekend; wine, yarn, spinning wheels… who needs sex on their birthday when you got all that? 

Anyway, it looks like I’m coming down to see that wedding dress of yours on thursday. So let’s make plans as to where you want to meet. Call me when you can. I can’t wait to see you in 3 days!

A day full of discoveries….

Hello there!

Yay for camping! I can smell the burning hot dogs already!!!! I’ll confirm stuff with Josh and we can book it this week!

So today, we went to a little farm to see if they did weddings (turns out they don’t) but what we did find out is that there’s an alpaca farm down the road that’s having an open house on May 31! It’s Spinning Wheel Alpaca Farm and they’re motto is : “once you go Alpaca… you’ll never go backa!” (hilarious!) They’re having a tour of the farm with spinning demos, shearing, and local vendors selling jewelry, clothes, fibers…I wish you could come!! (maybe you can…?) I wanted to text you as soon as I saw it but I forgot my phone at home. It happens to be on Josh’s birthday but he knows I can’t miss out on it, so he’s bitting the bullet for me. Plus, that afternoon we’re going to Archibalds Winery to a fruit wine and food festival! Josh’s brother got us the tickets for his birthday. It’s gonna be quite the day out in the country! 

  This afternoon we drove out to the Beaches in Toronto and walked around and had a bite to eat. It’s really nice around there! I stumbled upon a knit shop called the Naked Sheep. It reminded me of Ariadne but with less community vibe. They had nice yarn though and beautiful baskets! You know me, I’m a sucker for a good basket! So we did a bit of book shopping and had a bite, it was a really nice day.. I think we’ll probably go out there quite a bit this summer…

  I got you a couple of treats today, so you’ll be getting a package in the mail soon. Although really, I should wait till after the Alpaca fest because who are we kidding, I’m getting you some fleece!

 OK, well I’m off to felt my fuzzy feet. (any non-knitter reading that, not that anyone reads our blog, is probably really confused!) Talk to you soon!

PS: sorry no pictures, I really need to get a a pocket sized camera!

Get your marshmallow grilling sticks ready! We’re gonna make s’mores!

Hello,

 last night I went out for a rainy walk to the Cagibi with Andreas, map and calendar in hand. We pondered all the possibilities of when we would be able to fit visits to Ontario this summer (between you and his family). 

 So here’s the dirt. 

Option 1: As much as Pelee Island sounds great based on the Lonely Planet’s description of it, it’s 5 and a half hours from Oshawa. That’s far, considering that Josh doesn’t have that much time off work! Please refer to this google map link. When looking at the map, think that Andreas’ parents basically live in Sarnia. So we were thinking, maybe we could meet you at his parent’s place on the friday night (if Josh is working until 5) and have a huge (but late) birthday dinner with cake. Then leave for Pelee the next morning after breakfast. That’s about 3 hours, but at least we’re all together. If not, we could just meet at the ferry early on the saturday. 

Option 2:There’s this place called Bon Echo Park (Bon Echo Google map).  Andreas’ family has gone camping here and he says that it’s really nice. It’s between Oshawa and Montreal (sorta). The way that we see it, we have more time than you guys, so it’s best to get closer to you than to us. It’s only a 2 and a half hour drive for you. That way we don’t necessarily have to go all the way to Watford, we can just drive back to montreal directly from there.  His parents are coming to Montreal the week before, so we don’t really need to go visit them around then.

Option 3: The Pinery (Pinery Google map). This is right beside where Andreas is from. It’s very nice, we always go for walks there. His family would just go there to camp sometimes because it was close and easy. It’s 3 and a half hours away from you.He says that it will be busy though, it just always is. Also, that way maybe you could come to his parent’s house and if Josh has to go back to work that week, maybe you could come chill with me at the Mendritzki’s for a few days longer and we could do little day trips, there’s really nice beaches around there. We could even go to Toronto on our way back to Oshawa. 

 This is all dependent on whether or not you have a job then or on Josh’s days off. If you got any other ideas, let us know what you’re thinking.

 I was pretty sad when we got off the phone yesterday and I realized that you’d be in Halifax when I want to come down next weekend. That’s kinda why I decided to look into all of this. Also, it turns out that I’ll be in Ontario lots this summer. We are driving down on July 26th, maybe we can meet in Toronto for the day and hang out (Andreas’ dad might be with us as well). Then I got a hotel room rented for me in Toronto on Aug 9,10,11. So it would be great to see you then. As well as a wedding in Ontario on Aug. 30th, so maybe there would be a way to hook up around that time even if it’s just on your lunch hour one day on our way back. In October, we’re thinking about doing some renovations at Andreas’ parents’ place for a few weeks, so maybe I could come stay with you for a few days of that or vice versa. You might even have a house by then! So I’ll be seeing you a lot in the next few months. That makes me so happy!

 Think about all of the camping options. Pelee Island does sound like it’s really nice. The camping sounds pretty relaxed and the winery looks cool. It might just be too far and less relaxing for Josh overall. Also, we’re not sure if we want to go all the way to his parents’ place during that time, because we’re going to see them on June 19th and then again a month later. It might just not give us enough time to do things together in Montreal. I don’t know if I told you, Andreas is probably going to Nova Scotia for a month in August to help a friend out with her film. Needless to say, I’m not really looking forward to coming home to an empty apartment once I get back from Edmonton and for two weeks after that, especially during the Montreal show. But I can’t really ask him not to go, he will either way.

Call me soon to talk about all this camping trip. I can’t wait!

Isa

We’ve got wheels!

   Awww..your trip sounded so nice! I wish I could have been there to have cupcakes and drool over pretty fabrics with you! Speaking of fabrics, I just read, in the latest issue of Wish magazine, about a store in Hamilton that sells beautiful fabrics (European Textiles) and another that sells wallpaper for about 50% cheaper than retail! (A big big wallpaper store) (I can’t wait to have a house to decorate)  I was thinking that could be another week end destination for us to check out…It’s a little closer to Watford so maybe we could arrange something….

   Well, your spring cleaning extravaganza sounds like it’ll do you some good. There’s nothing like getting rid of old stuff that’s been dragging you down (subconsciously of course) and when it get’s to the point of vermin in the kitchen it’s definitely time to declutter! But don’t worry about mousy… I had one and it wasn’t any trouble. (just make sure you have a emergency kit with a baseball bat, thick gloves and a plastic bag for when you come home to a squealing noise…)  

  Great news about Andreas’ award. Give him a high five from me! You guys must be happy that school is behind you and you get some “you” time! Josh and I are about to be in for lots more “us time” now that we have a brand new car!!!!

   Actually it’s not brand new but it’s in great shape and only costs $40 to fill! We took it for a drive out to the country yesterday. It was so nice to be out and doing our own thing…We went to a cute little town called Port Perry and actually found a place that sells Fairmount Bagels! I almost shed a tear… 

  So you should definitely come out on the 16th!! We can drive into the city or check out the area around here…and you can for sure stay here for a night or two (but staying in Toronto could be fun too!) I hope it works out….I can show you all the business attire I’ve bought in preparation for my office job (whatever it may be…) My future sister in law loves shopping so she’s been bringing me to the mall and helping me pick out slacks and dress shirts. I don’t really recognize myself in that kind of outfit but I guess it just takes a little getting used to…Still, going to Toronto and getting some hip clothes would probably help my moral!

  Well, I’ll let you know when I get a job…hopefully soon! (For now I’m doing a little office work for J’s brother.) 

  By the way I got going on the fuzzy feet today and hope to be done in two days…I’ll post pre and post felting pics.

 

 

 

I’m back!

Hello,

 sorry that it’s taken so long to write about my trip to Germany. I’ve been incredibly busy. The other day I was downtown and I bought a book that was recommended to me by someone we met in Germany. It’s called Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui . So I began unpacking my luggage yesterday and I got a real cleaning bug. I decided to clean out all my drawers and closet. I got rid of 80% of my clothes, shoes, bags…everything. We’re spring cleaning all week, so I’m going to try to get rid of so much more. I’ve e-mailed out an invite to people to come over saturday for cupcakes & tea and take whatever they want. I’m giving away almost all my fabric, some books, kitchen stuff…take it all! It’ll give me a chance to try some of those recipes from the cupcake book that my sister bought me in NY. While I was cleaning my clothes, Andreas was cleaning the sun room. You won’t believe what he found. He had cooked the food for a film shoot at school in March. Somehow, the stuff from the shoot got stored in the back room, with that was a pot of unfinished risotto. Here’s a picture of Andreas washing that pot:

Not a pretty sight. At the same time, I was writing an e-mail on the couch, when I heard a little squeaking sound and saw a mouse run from the kitchen and under the couch. I screamed (which really surprised me because I though that I kinda liked mice). Anyway, we bough mouse traps. I feel really bad about killing the little guy. I was actually relieved when I saw the empty mouse traps this morning. Today Andreas is cleaning the oven and I’m doing lots of work that I’ve been ignoring. He’s making up for all the lost cleaning time that he didn’t do when he was very busy at school. It was all worth it because he won a great award at school the other night: The Greatest Achievement in Film Production Award. It came with a heavy plaque and a nice cheque. He was really happy. I was really happy. I’m especially happy to have a boyfriend again. 

 So here are a few pictures of my trip to Germany:

This where I ate donuts every morning

                                          This is the longest word ever (I still don’t know what it means)

 

                    Some of the food that we ate: schnitzel with white asparagus and a strange desert

  This is a TV program that they had every night about middle aged nudist activities. This one was about jogging naked. The night after it was about bowling naked. Well, that’s what it seemed to be about. We actually couldn’t understand any of it. Germany!

 

This Krongut-Bornstedt. It’s a small village where they have a clock maker, a yarn shop, a distillery, a potter… basically old school crafts. This is where I bought you little gifts. Check out those beautiful rolls of linen, sold by the meter. 

Pretty German flowers

                                                This is a fountain in front of a palace in Potsdam

                                                     I was horrified to have this happen to me

                              But then happy to find this place (where I also bought you some goodies)

This is mostly all the aesthetic stuff about my trip. There were awesome things about Berlin and maybe I’ll post about the cool tourist attractions of the city later on. These were just all the places and things that I did that I thought “i wish Bridget was here” or ” I’ll grab a pic of this for Bridget”. Except for the naked guy thing, that’s was ’cause I found it really funny.

  I got some good news. My new knitting class that I’m teaching will be on a thursday, so I’ll have my weekends off. Andreas will maybe be driving to Ontario May 16th. Maybe I could get a lift with him and he can drop me off in Oshawa where I can maybe stay overnight. Or he could drive me to Kingston and I could take a bus back that night or the next day. Or he can drop me off in Toronto and you can come meet me. We could stay in a hostel for one night or two. I could name lots of things, but it could happen. It’s a pretty busy time for me at work because my open house deadline is on June 8th, so it would have to be a pretty short visit. But it could still be fun.

Talk to you soon,

Isa