eggs & laundry (not necessarily in that order)

As I no longer have en suite laundry, I now use the laundromat at Queen & Spadina. I don't really mind hauling my laundry two blocks considering that it is warm out and there is no snow on the ground. I plan on researching some wash'n'fold'deliver services come the winter time. Sure, going to the laundromat isn't as convenient as having en suite machines, but it sure cuts down on the actual time I spend doing laundry. After my first trip to the laundromat, I figured out my system.

1. Wash whites, brights, and darks that need to go into the dryer.
2. Once that load is done, load delicates and items that need to line dried into the wash.
3. Load first load(s) into the dryer.
4. Wait for first load(s) to dry, second load(s) to wash.
5. Fold dry clothing and remove second load(s) from washer to be hung to dry at home.

I got two loads of laundry done in about an hour and fifteen minutes and it cost $7.00. I love look of the vintage dryers there. Probably not good for the environment, but I can use two of these huge machines and have dry clothes in 12 minutes. Now if you weigh that against the time it takes a load to dry in a machine at home (at least 40 minutes) then it may all work out to be the same environment wise.

After laundry, I walked home and hung stuff up to dry, installed a closet rod and unpacked a lot more clothing, and then went to work. I wanted to close because I'm going to the cottage this weekend, but I lost the draw. As I did not plan on contending with co-workers on closing, I did not plan on dinner. Solution: white rice with two over medium eggs and soy and broccoli with oyster sauce. I'd take that over a T.V. dinner any day. I now want to eat the rest of the blackberry yogurt in the fridge, but I will save it for breakfast.

hands that heal

My left hand is wrinkled, dented, cut and swollen. The result of three and a half hours shucking oysters to help the wholesale department fill their orders (being Mothers' Day tomorrow, all the major hotels upped their usual orders). I am not accustomed to shucking for that long. I am contemplating sleeping with a sock on my left hand after I slather hand cream all over it.

and the winners are...

Spaghetti with meat sauce and peanut butter cookies!!! I've been in my new apartment since April 17th and it took me until today to break in the kitchen. I am very relived that the stove and oven both work properly.

I've been very slowly getting my place together. All of my books are still downstairs in the basement of this place, but at least everything is under one roof. There have been many opportunities to get my place all set up, but let's face it, I am the worst procrastinator I know. I kept saying that I would use a raining day to get everything set up or that I would just go on a whirl wind cleaning/organizing spree, but neither of those things have occurred. I'm heading to Muskoka for Victoria Day weekend so my goal is to have everything in place by then. That will give me around eight days. Here's hoping.

I want to revamp this blog. The grey is too blah for me now and I'm over the pink. I will need for assistance for customization as I am not very versed with html. I need to think of some new clever theme or title and pick a colour scheme that reflects that. *sigh* I feel very uninspired right now. But on the bright side, I'm having a cold glass of milk with a freshly baked peanut butter cookie. Maybe I will be inspired tomorrow...

sick and tired

I am sitting in Leadership class and am bored out of my skull. This is easily the most useless class in the program I am taking. I understand the purpose of having a leadership class in terms of professional development, but this class is horrible. I am not learning anything in class that I can't learn out of a text book.

I've spent at least 14 of the last 24 hours sleeping because I've been sick since the weekend. I went to see my doctor yesterday and prescribed me Coactifed. This drug knocks you out so I'm not taking any during the day and now I'm suffering from my symtopms. Running nose, sore throat, pain in my ears. Bah. I guess I'm lucky in the sense that I only get sick one or twice a year, but when I finally do get sick, I might as well be dead to the world.

vision

I can't see very well without corrective lenses. It isn't really all that big of an issue except that I am not a person who leaves her glasses in the same spot every day. For instance, I usually leave my glasses beside my pillow on my bed or on the floor before bed because I will generally read at least a couple of pages before sleeping. However, I am sometimes to tired to read and just toss my glasses haphazardly onto the floor before crashing into a deep sleep. When I awake, I have no idea where on the floor my glasses are. I then have to fumbled around and feel the items around my bed until I find my specs. My vision isn't horrible, just minus 3.75 in both eyes with slight astigmatism in my left eye. Things get blurry from three feet and further but I'm by no means incapable of functioning without my glasses.

Anyway, going back to how I don't keep my glasses in the same spot. Sometimes I leave my glasses in the bathroom and don't put them on when I take my contacts out before bed. When I do this, I wake up not remembering that I left them in the bathroom the morning before. I then fumbled around the floor a bit and after I conclude that my glasses are not on the floor, I lie back down and think, "Shit. Fuck. Where the HELL are my glasses?!?!" Then I get up and look for for them in the usual places. Usually I find them within three minutes of leaving my bed. Usually. I once spent a week without them. Not really a big deal as I also wear contacts, but it makes reading in bed difficult.

Weirdest place I've ever found my glasses: in a sock in washer. I suppose I put them in a sock one day because I forgot the case for them and put them in the sock to keep them from getting scratched and just didn't need to go looking for them later.

I am seriously contemplating corrective laser surgery.

busy as a bee

2009 has proven to be a bit challenging as far as my schedule goes. My week is comprised of five days of school, usually five days of work, two days of volleyball, and a day to spend with family and/or friends. Feeling a little stressed out, but on the bright side, I'm almost at the half way mark of this semester and April 17th is the magic date.

The other magic date right now is March 7th. That is the day I will fly out to Flagstaff, Arizona with Mimi and Claudia. Fun times!! No annual winter trip to NYC this year and no trip to a hot tropical locale, but I'm going to see the Grand Canyon. Horseback riding is in the plans and that's all I really know right now. After three nights in Arizona, we will be driving to Las Vegas to stay at the MGM Grand for three nights. So excited!!! Maybe I'll win a million bucks at the card tables or the slots. Wishful thinking? I hope not.

Time to go study for a law quiz. Blah. At least I'm actually interested in the subject.

almost, but not quite

So I did some of the things on my to-do list but not all and not all of them were done by the end of last week. I spent today moving furniture around in my bedroom, but I still have more work to do. My bed is wider than I thought. Here's an update on that list.

Replace all the burnt out light bulbs in the apartment.
I replaced all the lights in the living room and the bathroom last week only to discover that this week, two lights in the hallway have blown out. So now I have to go out an buy more bulbs and wait for someone tall to come over and coerce them to change the burnt out bulbs.

I'm actually happy that the hallway bulbs have blown because now I can replace them with energy efficient ones. I also need to get an appliance bulb for the fridge.

Rearrange bedroom furniture.
Almost there. I'm a little dismayed that my bed didn't fit where I want it to be. Now I have to move two more book shelves and a dresser. I am in desparate need of a new dresser. The one I have is actually part of a bedroom set that Irene and Eliza had when they were little girls. It was originally an orangy-yellow colour and I painted it black. The rails are now slivering, making opening and closing the drawers very difficult. MUST GET NEW DRESSER!! I may also need another bookshelf depending on how many more books I acquire. I love that I have almost an entire bookshelf for my food-related books =)

Meet up with Brent for some long over due drinks.
Done. Two pints of cider and some good laughing until my stomach hurt.

Dinner with my lovely cousins.
Sushi on Bloor. Delish. Too bad I didn't make it out for the weekend visit with baby Emmeline because I was sick all weekend.

Get back into a gym routine.
Maybe next week...

At least I play volleyball every Thursday.

Clean the fridge.
I cleaned out the fridge of food that was going bad but I didn't actually pull everything out and wipe down the shelving. I think I'll tackle that on Sunday.

Buy materials for DIY Christmas presents.
I already have some materials for my presents but I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with my original plan. Must decide on that and get things sorted out before crazy final exams week hits.

Set up computer desk for actually work rather than just miscellaneous storage.
No dice. More crap has been piled onto it. I'll work on that at some point. It doesn't really help that I've grown accustomed to doing homework in the kitchen. It just makes more sense considering that my computer desk is in the living room and the T.V. is a big reason to procrastinate.

Pack away summer clothing for the winter.
Done. Summer dresses are inside a suitcase until the warm weather returns. I'm so sad that they're not hanging in my closet right now.

Buy a paper shredder and finally get rid of all the banking statements/credit card applications/school documents that are nothing but garbage.
I'm a little scared of the paper shredder. Handy but a bit frightening at the same time.

I'm going to say that I accomplished about 6/10 on that list. More than I thought I would get done. Tomorrow is a full day of school and then a full night of work. Time to sleep.

sickies

I am currently experiencing my second bout of sniffles in the past three months or so. I was talking to Gareth about this yesterday and he said that my immune system will begin to weaken as I get older. Now, I've heard of one's metabolism slowing with age but I don't recall that one's immune system would weaken. I guess it makes sense considering that really old people are susceptible to illness but I am not even a quarter century old yet.

I don't get sick from my roommate or from my boyfriend or from other family members. Jen and Gareth's germs are more or less harmless to me as I'm around them all the time. I think I get sniffles because I have problems with staying at a comfortable temperature at night during the summer/fall change over. I wake up in the middle of the night chilly because I've thrown all the sheets off. I'm told that my body gets extremely warm when I'm asleep so that may be why. I don't feel it when I'm just lying in bed but I guess when I'm all under the covers and sleeping, even I can't stand that I've heated up to over 104 degrees.

Things I've accomplished so far this week:

1. Met Brent for drinks (Yay!! We finally met for drinks after months of trying)
2. I changed two out of four light bulbs. I need to buy an appliance bulb for the fridge and I'm going to change the one in the bathroom when I'm done this entry.
3. I empty the fridge of things no longer edible.
4. I went to Kitchen Stuff Plus and got a spice rack, a paper towel holder, and a honing stone. Kitchen Stuff Plus wasn't on my original list but I've been meaning to go for a long time and I was near one yesterday.

I will go to the Grand & Toy across the street from work and get a paper shredder. I've been warned by Irene not to go shredder happy but I only intend on shredding things I know I don't need. I've kept all my credit card and banking statements but I have a ton of other random pieces of mail with my account numbers and address on. Mostly offers for more credit cards and those lottery offers. I'm too paranoid to just chuck them in the recycling. If I had a fireplace, I would burn them but alas, not fireplace. Maybe I'll compost the untreated paper once I shred it.

a late start

So day one of getting stuff done has had a late start. I wanted to get up and go get my G1 testing done but since I didn't go to bed until the wee hours of the morning, I slept until 2:00pm today. I will go get G1 testing done some other time this week. As for today, I will make soup with some left over roast beef, go get light bulbs, buy a paper shredder, and (hopefully) meet Brent for drinks. He has a habit of not showing up or cancelling last minute. If he does cancel/doesn't show up, I'll still go to the place we planned on meeting because Jason works there and I haven't seen him in ages either.

I now have to go and buy some ingredients for my soup.

I like that I've posted two days in a row =)

a week to recover

It's intermission week at George Brown and in theory, I now have a week to recover from week 6 as it was rammed with mid-terms. Unfortunately for me, I have a heavier schedule than usual at work because a few people booked off some time. I wanted to use this week to meet up with people I haven't seen in a while and a cousin from out of province is visiting so I thought this week would have been perfect, but alas, no dice. I'm just going to try an cram all that stuff in anyway.

Things to do this week:

1. Replace all the burnt out light bulbs in the apartment.
2. Rearrange bedroom furniture
3. Meet up with Brent for some long over due drinks
4. Dinner with my lovely cousins
5. Get back into a gym routine
6. Clean the fridge
7. Buy materials for DIY Christmas presents
8. Set up computer desk for actually work rather than just miscellaneous storage
9. Pack away summer clothing for the winter
10. Buy a paper shredder and finally get rid of all the banking statements/credit card applications/school documents that are nothing but garbage.

Not all of those things are dire but I would feel great if I got everything accomplished on the above list. In order to get back onto a regular blogging routine, I will update on the progress on this list everyday for the next week. But I wouldn't put money on it.

the countdown

I haven't really started a countdown yet but I suppose I should. I'm sitting on the porch of the log cabin at Duff's and I'm rather relaxed and don't really want to think about what the fall will bring.

I didn't get around to rearranging my bedroom and I'm not beating myself up over it. That can wait. Really, it's been waiting for over a year so what's another few weeks? I need to do some back-to-school shopping because I no longer have a massive supply of three-ringed lined paper in my closet (my parents were nuts when it came to stock piling things that were on sale) and I also need (translate: want) new clothes for the fall. My summer wardrobe consists of twenty some odd sun dresses and those won't do in George Brown because the air conditioning in there is cranked to the max. Not very green of them.

I do look forward to being busy and having a happy roommate. She has clinched a new job at Chatelaine and I'm sure she'll be much happier there and do very well. Maybe we'll go back-to-school/new-job shopping together as I'm sure she'll want to get some more clothing too. I have tons of office clothing left over from my last job but nothing that I really want to go to classes in. Banana Republic power suits are a little too much for college English. But I really don't want to be a student that shows up every day in Lululemon pants. C'mon ladies, yes, those are expensive pants but you can and should try to look a little more professional than that. It is just class but there are a lot of people in that building that can help you build your career.

My boyfriend is moving a tool shed. The plan was to do nothing but lay around on the dock and go for the occasional swim but he got roped into doing some rather hard looking physical labour. He how has a sledge hammer in his hands. I'm not really sure why they're moving a tool shed with just two people. Would it not be easier to get some machinery in here to haul it up the slight hill it's on? I've worked my way up to painting one of the cottages, prepping dinners, and doing the dishses. There will be no heavy lifting/pulling/pushing on my part. In fact, I think it's time for me to attempted another crossword puzzle.

under pressure

So school starts for real on Tuesday, September 2nd. I say "for real" because this time I'm really going as a full-time student rather than just part-time classes here and there. I'm excited to get back to class and finally earn my post secondary diploma (maybe a degree) because it's long overdue. I got sucked into working right after high school and while I had fun and learned a lot working in restaurants, I really should have gone back to school a lot sooner than now. Regardless, I'm happy to be going now. Although it would have been nice for classes to start the second week of September instead of right after Labour Day.

So here comes the pressure. I don't know how intense my course load will be but I want to keep full-time hours at work. I probably won't be spending as much money as I do right now because I won't have as much free time to to spend it but I'm a little concerned if that will be enough to offset my income if I do have to cut back on hours at work.

Time isn't on my side either. I feel like I have so much stuff to get done before school starts. I really want to get my furniture rearranged and I need a new dresser and maybe a new book shelf and my room desperately needs a good cleaning. All of this wouldn't be a problem if I was such a procrastinator and just tidied my room every now and then instead of letting become a total disaster area. I'm on vacation for the last two weeks of August so I essentially want to get everything done this week.

Now onto another type of pressure: my wisdom teeth. My lower right tooth is starting to grow out more and because it's impacted, it is pushing on the rest of my teeth. It now hurts to yawn and there is discomfort when I bite down. I was due for a routine cleaning about a month ago so it's just another thing I'm putting off. Hopefully I can get an appointment before the end of the week and get my name on the surgery list to get my wisdom teeth taken care of. My cousin recently got two removed but I have to get ALL FOUR yanked. Not looking forward to it.

I did get my eyes checked last week so at least there's one thing I can scratch off of my long overdue to-do list. Now on with the rest of it. *sigh*

so tired

My next day off is next Sunday and I've been working everyday since this past Monday. Granted that some of my exhaustion comes from things outside of work but still, I'm so tired of working right now. It would be nice if it rained on Thursday so I wouldn't be called in but at the same time, I really don't want it to rain if I have the day off.

Now I'm going to wash oysters, attend shucking boot camp, work a closing shift, and then bake cupcakes when I get home. I suppose I should go have lunch before all that starts.

My brain hurts.

too many?

How many black dresses do you need to own before you have too many? I just did a load of laundry and I was somewhat astounded when I pulled out four black dresses. I then decided to take a tally of how many more black dresses I had and I thought that I only had one more. Then I went to hang the dresses to dry and saw another one that I had forgotten to count, bringing the total to five. Then I remembered that I have another (more formal) black dress hanging in my closet, bringing the total up to six. If every woman is supposed to have at least one little black dress in her wardrobe, I guess I'm well covered.

Now, this only means one thing: must buy more dresses in different COLOURS to balance out all the black. =)

Comfort In a Bowl

Ice cream. Chocolate. Meatloaf. Cookies. Pudding. Peanut butter. Mashed potatoes. Not my ideas of comfort food.

Whenever I feel ill (emotionally or physically), I always go for a bowl of soup and noodles or congee. I guess it all depends with what you grow up with. My parents and brothers don't have very much of a sweet tooth so there wasn't a lot sugary stuff in the house. Unfortunately for me, I do have a very big sweet tooth but that's another entry.

Whenever I got sick as a child , my mother would make a small pot of congee for me for dinner while everyone else ate normally. The congee was always very thick and had little bits of pork in it. I suppose she made it very thick so that I would still get some food in me instead of me just eating a big bowl of rice water. I always knew if someone else in the house was sick if there was a small pot of congee on the stove. If it wasn't full of congee, it was full of a pungent black medicinal tea and that meant that someone had or was on the verge of having a cold. There was no comfort in that nasty tasting tea.

Soup and noodles is comfort food because my mom would make a big pot of it almost every weekend and that was what we would have for lunch on the weekends. Leftovers were for after school snacks. The comfort of that came from the routine of it and also because my mom would also make soup and noodles whenever she was stressed and too busy to make our regular dinners. I need to spend some time in the kitchen with her to learn the recipes. I've been able to pull off some of the stuff she makes but not as tasty. Perhaps it's because food generally tastes better when someone else has done the work in preparing it for you and because they made it for you because they love you.

I went for a bowl of congee today because I was feeling a bit low. The congee made me feel better but since congee is piping hot and not cool and creamy, like ice cream, I burnt the roof of my mouth. Boo-ers!

Now as far as mashed potatoes and meatloaf go, it just goes to show it all depends on what you grew up with. I don't remember my parents ever making mashed potatoes outside of our time at the C.V.M. Café in Carberry and even then it was from instant mix. When we got an order for a plate with mashed potatoes, my dad would send me to get a little juice glass of homo milk. I thought it was the oddest thing and I kinda still do. The only time I ever encounter mashed potatoes at a family dinner is on holidays and only at Uncle Dave or Jim's place. A couple of my cousins LOVE potoates. I don't get it.

Meatloaf just grosses me out. Meat shouldn't be in loaf form - ever!

I'm afraid of 8 out of 72 common fears

[] the dark
[] staying single forever
[] being a parent
[] giving birth
[] being myself in front of others
[] open spaces
[] closed spaces
[] heights
[x] dogs - large breeds
[x] birds - just pigeons
[] fish
[] spiders
[] flowers or other plants

Total so far: 2

[] being touched
[] fire
[] deep water
[] snakes
[] silk
[] the ocean
[x] failure
[] success
[] thunder/lightning
[] frogs/toads
[] my boyfriend's/girlfriend's dad
[] boyfriend's/girlfriend's mom
[x] rats - gross
[] jumping from high places
[] snow

Total so far: 4

[] rain
[] wind
[] crossing hanging bridges
[] death
[] heaven
[] being robbed
[] falling
[] clowns
[] dolls
[] large crowds of people
[] men
[] women
[] having great responsibilities
[] doctors, including dentists
[] tornadoes

Total so far: 4

[] hurricanes
[] incurable diseases
[] sharks
[] Friday the 13th
[] ghosts
[] poverty
[] Halloween
[] school
[] trains
[] odd numbers
[] even numbers
[] being alone
[] becoming blind
[] becoming deaf
[] growing up

Total so far: 4

[] creepy noises in the night
[] bee stings
[] not accomplishing my dreams/goals
[] needles
[] blood
[] dinosaurs
[] the welcome mat
[] high speed
[] throwing up
[] falling in love
[] super secrets

Final Total: 8

.. if you wish to post this in your journal, it's been requested that you title it "I'm afraid of __ out of 72 common fears."

If you get more than 30, I strongly recommend some counseling.
If you get more than 20, you’re paranoid.
If you get 10-20, you are normal.
If you get 10 or less, you’re fearless.
People who don’t have any are liars.

not sure what to do

I'm sitting at the computer with my red apron on and i'm waiting for chocolate to harden and frosting to stiffen which leaves me with some time to ponder.

I keep stressing myself out by thinking about what to do with my future. Such a dreaded word. I thought I had it all planned out to go to class for Special Events and Destination Tourism in either January or September of 2009. Now I've thrown Fitness and Lifestyle Management into the mix and I'm really not sure what to do. I love the special events part of the hospitality industry but I think I'm getting tired of it all. Maybe it's because I'm serving again and I feel like all my skills are being wasted and, in affect, disappearing from me. I know I'll keep working as a server because there really isn't another job out there, that I'm willing to do, that will provide the same amount of cash while I'm in classes.

I think my problem is that when I get inspired by something, I go into my fantasy world and say to myself, "THAT is what I'm going to do with my life!" Seeing Janet's improv shows, wine tastings, vacationing and picking up bits and pieces of foreign languages. All of a sudden I want to be a wine guru that speaks Spanish and occasionally dabbles in improv. Not to say that I can't do all of those things but what I guess I'm getting at is that I need to focus on something and stick to it.

Now that all that's off my chest, time to get back to cupcakes.

back on the (fitness) wagon

I go through phases of being super healthy and then, well, simply put, not healthy. I started to put stickers on my calendar for every day that I went to the gym or did something very active. April and half of May have at least three to four stickers per week but the second half of May and thus far in June, until today, have zero stickers.

I finally went back to Fitness One today and took my time going through and trying all of the machines. I have a personal training session booked for Friday so hopefully that will be me more familiar with the equipment so I won't have to walk around reading all of the labels on them to see if I actually want to use them or not. While most of the machines are fine, all the leg extension machines are not very comfortable for me. The seats/pads do adjust but I find that they're just not really where they should be on my body and I don't want to cheat and end up hurting myself.

I am looking forward to getting back to the gym more. I think I fell off because I stepped on the scale one day and recalculated my BMI and it was at 23.5, which is healthy. I don't really care to lose anymore weight as I know I probably won't because muscle weighs more than fat. I would like to be stronger. Maybe I'll try out some boxing classes. Who knows? Maybe I'll just fall off the wagon again. I hope not but I've come to accept that it takes me many tries to get things done.

my hair needs to grow

so about three months ago i cut my hair because i was long due for a change and know i just want my hair to grow out already. i also recently got more bangs trimmed in and i also need those to grow out too. it's not quite long enough to put into an up-do, it's just too short for a pony tail to fall nicely (there are bits and ends that stick out straight rather than fall into a nice curve), there isn't a layer long enough to wrap around the base of my pony tail to cover up the elastic, and i'm just a little tired of wearing it down all the time without the option of doing anything else with it.

that's all i wanted to say.

happy dance

courtesy of the government of canada. well, i'm not literally doing a happy dance but it was still a nice unexpected surprise. i thought that i stopped getting a gst credit because i used to get cheques every four months or so but i received nothing this year. maybe it's because i just filed my taxes for 2006 and 2007 this year. regardless, i am up a bit of cash that will help me pay off my commercial debt. stupid shopping.