Sunshine and Bicycles

A Saturday afternoon...

January Flip-flop weather...

Sunshine personified (the gorsey smell of coconut tanning lotion)

The way in (or out).

Sadie, my white goat!! Though she is neither white, nor a goat.

Mmmmm, yarn...

Tintin

Today I discovered that Steven Spielburg and Peter Jackson are making a 3-D motion capture film version of Tintin...

You know what this means right? It means that....wait, WHAT?

Tintin people!!!
GOD!! Didn't you read Tintin? What was wrong with your childhood??? I am so sorry for you...

Remember, the boy who was always running around stopping espionage, foiling national thieves, and discovering Yeti's???
Oooh, and remeber Captain Haddock!!! hahaha!! Blistering Blue Barnacles!!! hahahahhahah!!
And Snowy...he always knew what was up, except when he was the one getting in trouble!!
And Professor Calculus (deaf most of the time), and Thompson & Thomson (haha, their HATS!!)
OMG, remember when they all went to the moon???


It means that my entire childhood portrayed on the big screen is now complete!!

Sleepy

Being warm, furry,

Saren puts a nap on me.
I can not resist.

Questions

An e-mail I sent today...

Is there any mail?
Do we need brown sugar?
Do we need anything eles (besides cat food, litter, and cream)?
What do you want for dinner and is there anything I can pick up to accomadate your wishes?
Are we watching Star Trek tonight?
Do you think that a rat paper about learned non-use in a forelimb reaching task after a motor cortex lesion constitutes a true recovery of function construct?
Ok, you don't have to answer that last one...

Dragons and Bottles, Blue

Lunch

Mail

I love getting mail.
Letters, postcards, presents, swaps, boxes of things ordered off the internet....
It has to be actually stuff or some personalized paper product for me to love it though. Bills and junk-mail don't count (though getting my house assessment thrills me every year).
However, I hate Canada Post.
Which sucks, because this is the organization that is responsible for mail making it into my mail box. I also hate Canada Customs and conflate them with Canada Post even though I know they don't really have anything to do with each other (although I secretly think they are in cahoots with each other and that there is a secret underground conspiracy going on to make sure mail is impossibly slow).
When I don't get mail, I don't particularly notice how inferior Canada Post is compared to most developed nations postal systems. However, I've been getting a lot of mail recently, due to holidays, knitting swaps, traveling scarves, and internet ordering. I am currently waiting for a large box full of fabulous yarn and books to arrive. I am not waiting patiently...

In honor of my hatred of Canada Post, I wish to share some brief stories of woe with you about recent and past postal mishaps.

Holiday Mailing
My good friend Peter lives in Scotland. He sent me two separate presents for Christmas, and he mailed them at the same time (as in on the same day). The box got here on Christmas Eve, the flat package got here yesterday (January 7th). That is a 15 day difference!!

Traveling Scarves
I knit scarves with other people from around the world, it is super fun and my room mate thinks I'm a dork (these two items may or may not be related, I'm not sure sometimes). Every three weeks I get a new scarf in the mail (from Australia), I knit 5 inches of lovely lace on that scarf, and then I send it to the next person (in the US). To avoid lost scarves we all add tracking to our packages so we can see where a scarf is at any given time. EVERY SINGLE TIME I get a scarf from Australia it gets held at customs for 1-2 weeks before it gets to me.
I don't get it. Is my scarf partner sending scarf bombs in the mail (they make them with radioactive yarn see)? Perhaps sending some deadly bio toxin to me every three weeks (a scattered timed dispersal is the best method right?)

My Favorite Postal Story of All Time
I lived in Colorado once (for a brief brief time). When I came home I mailed a bunch of stuff to myself. Boxes of books, clothes, etc. Again, they were all mailed on the same day in mid October. I receive all the boxes except one on the same day. About two weeks later I received the missing box. It was immediately obvious that it had been opened by customs (tape ALL over it). When I got it home and opened it up the overwhelming scent of way too much CKOne sprang from the box. What the hell?
Here's my theory; the box happened to contain my beautiful large green velvet cloak. Between the time that I sent the package and it arrived to me it happened to be Halloween. I can just imagine some custom guy opening my box, seeing the cloak and instantly having the perfect idea for a costume. No-one would know, he could wear it and put it back in the box and ship it on (it being late won't be a problem cause everyone knows that Canada Post never delivers things in a timely manner). Too bad the guy had to wear so much CKOne...

Anyone got any fabulously bad postal stories???

Perhaps insane is actually smart...

It is hard for me sometimes to determine if I am totally insane or actually really smart.
I am having one of those moments today.
I am falling off the fence towards the "crazy amount of work" option in deciding to take 4 very heavy classes and work in two labs this term. I think about this decision and I have these visions of myself sprawled across my bed, which is covered with large amounts of semi-organized stacks of paper (so is the floor) and wailing something along the lines of "...but I don't WANT to!!!". I know that this decision will lead me to this vision eventually, hopefully later than sooner. But it's strange. I can think of no other way right now to keep myself motivated and functional than to totally overwhelm myself with super crazy interesting stuff. Otherwise I am sure I will end up sitting in front of the television for the next three months and missing out on all the good stuff life has to offer.
An insane workload demands no less from me than perfect organization (which I am very good at). Timetables, to-do lists, checklists, spreadsheets, overly-tabbed binders, hierarchical file organization, those little sticky coloured things...you get the idea.
The cool thing is that this highly organized, ready for anything, up-on-the-know person that is created out of potential chaos ends up spilling into the other areas of my life. I am actually going to yoga tonight (not just talking about going to yoga). I have all these plans, ideas, and enthusiasms for creative things like music, knitting, and art. It is all very inspiring.
I know, I know, at some point I will curse myself for this decision and become that vision on the bed (this will probably happen several times in fact), but that will only be a few points of extreme stress during the next three months.
And I hope that the attention and work-ethic required to accomplish all this will close the door a little on the "life's really not worth living" feeling that has been rattling around in my brain for the last four months of my life.
Cheers everyone, here's to insanity!!

Saren of the Many Eyes

Photo a Day: January 3rd
Saren is a magical cat. She sees, hears, and smells everything because she has four eyes, four ears, and two noses!! Most of the time you can't see them all, but every so often I catch her showing off her multiple sensory organs.

2010

I've decided, in the long tradition of new years insanity, to have a resolution of balance in my life. The major addition to my life to manifest this so called balance is to add some creativity to my days. I have this terrible habit of procrastination, which actually works quite well for me when it comes to school work and other time sensitive things (I do my best work under pressure). However, along with the fantastic skill of a procrastinator comes the unfortunate addition of guilt. When I am not doing school work (because there is always *something* I could be working on) I always feel guilty. This means that I can't do anything else because that would mean I was actually NOT doing the school work that I should be. I end up doing nothing, or close to nothing (terrible reality TV anyone?) Make sense?

Well, this silly cycle doesn't work for me anymore.

The first thing I've decided to do is to take photos every day. I quite enjoy the various blogs I read that have everyday pictures of people and their lives. In this vein, here is my photo for today.


I went to Costco today and along with buying a ridiculous amount of fabulous cheese I also bought this sweater. It is quiet purple, but certain friends tell me that I can pull it off.

One of the my creative passions that usually manages to survive the procrastination effect is knitting. I suspect this is because I can knit while watching terrible reality television, but never mind...I have been knitting quite a lot recently and have progressed to designing some small things. My yarn habit is strong and healthy (have you had your daily fiber today?). So, again, in the interest of creativity I am going to pay more attention to my knitting blog.
Check out my newest stuff ~here~
(Postscript to this; if you knit and do not know about Ravelry.com...well, go there, right now!!)
I am sure I will come up with more ways to introduce more creativity into my life...I am hoping it will make me more productive all around.