Month: January 2009

25 things about me

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 31/01/2009

This is going around on facebook but because not everyone there reads this (and vice versa) I am posting it both places.

Feel free to cut and paste your version of this in the comments.

1. I always put my right shoe on first. If I grab the left shoe first, I put it down and start again.

2. I hold my breath when I take off my shirt.

3. When I was little I told my grandma I wanted to be a kangaroo when I grew up.

4. I met my childhood best friend when I was 4 and she was 3 and she still slept in a crib which I thought was hilarious.

5. I can remember the words to almost every song I have ever learned and I am very good at name that tune.

6. In grade 6 I started taking flute lessons and carried on with them right through to grace 13 (because in those days, grade 13 still existed).

7. I don’t associate emotions or images with music because of an article written by Aaron Copland(Music Appreciation: The Art of Listening) I studied in grade 12.

8. My favourite colour is yellow and has been since I took my first breath.

9. I hate brushing and washing my hair so I just don’t bother any more and my hair has never looked better.

10. When it’s winter time I crochet my heart out but as soon as it’s warm, I stop.

11. When I moved to Windsor in 2003 I was running away from my life in Toronto.

12. I cry when I am angry or scared and I hate that I do that.

13. Every time I am at my mom’s house I like to look at old photographs because I had a very happy childhood.

14. My mom gives the best head rubs in the world.

15. I used to have a recurring dream about laying in the back of a hatchback car that is moving but there’s no driver, but now I have a recurring dream that I can lick my eyebrows and I always wake up thinking I really can.

16. For the first time in my life I have been going to the gym and I like it a lot more than I thought I would.

17. Shannon and I own almost 30 acres on Cape Breton Island and I think about living there all the time.

18. The first job I ever had was picking sweet cherries in the orchard across the road from our house in Niagara-On-The-Lake.

19. There has never been a time, up ’til very recently, that I have not been involved with live theatre in some form.

20. Because I grew up in Niagara I have an extreme love of soft fruits and I truly believe that there is no such thing as a decent peach or cherry or plum in Toronto.

21. In 2000 Shannon and I ate so much sushi each week that I got sick of it and declared a ban on it.

22. Some people call me a star fucker and that’s not really true. I met lots of rock stars when I was younger but I never fucked any of them.

23. My boss and I go see a movie almost every week, which I love because I am getting paid to sit in a free movie but it means I see a lot of crappy movies (ahem, Paul Blart Mall Cop anyone?).

24. My sister is my mentor. Everything she’s done, I’ve done too. I am a photocopy of my sister.

25. It’s partly my fault that Emily has twins. Yay!

Dreams

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 31/01/2009

Lately all of my dreams combine crocheting and New Super Mario Bros., which I have been playing on my DS non stop for the last week. It’s the best game and I will be sad when I finish it-not that it’s likely that I ever will, I am terrible at video games in general. We didn’t have a computer or a gaming console of any kind at my house growing up and I think, when you’re a kid, that’s when you learn how to press x fast.

Mushroom, 1-up, single chain, scarf. That’s what my dreams are like.

I am going to Windsor for the annual Superbowl orphans party. It’s been a year since I was there last and it’s super nice the way my friends there are clamoring for the opportunity to hang out. Really nice! I am making cookies to bring, but I don’t think they are turning out very well. So, I guess I am not much of a baker either.

Here’s what I am making:

Caramel Crinkles

ingredients

1 box white cake mix

1/2 Cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 package Skor bits

Icing sugar

Mix the cake mix, oil, eggs and Skor bits together. Dust your hands with icing sugar and roll the dough into 1″ balls, roll the balls in the icing sugar and put on a non stick cookie sheet 2″ apart. Bake 8-10 minutes at 350.

white balls

See? It sounds so easy, and they taste REALLY good, they just don’t look very pretty. I think this batch I will let cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before I transfer them too the cooling rack.

crinkles

And they smell AMAZING!

Tuesday.

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 27/01/2009

Has it really been almost a week since I last posted?

I have been sick-I started feeling tingly last Wednesday, at work, and we took the day off from the gym and part of me feels like that is the reason I got sick, some form of weird punishment from my body. Thursday I visited babies, as per usual, but I tried not to kiss them and slobber all over them as much as I like to. Friday I woke up and couldn’t breathe and spent about 2 hours on the phone calling everyone I could think of that might be able to cover my shift at work, but no one was up for it and I ended up calling in sick and just wishing T luck. I felt terrible doing it but I’d left food in her fridge so she had stuff for supper that just needed to be reheated.

The truth is that I got sick because I am totally run down. I love my job and I love my boss but there are a lot of politics in the organization that I disagree with and sometimes I butt heads with her mother.  I feel like my job is to watch out for one person-my boss-and even if it goes against the greater good, this is what I do.  Tuesday, a week ago, was a day of colossol frustration and anger, culminating with me crying at T’s foot dr’s waiting area. Like a big baby.

Then I lost my Metropass walking to the subway. And I stood on Yonge Street, outside Indigo, and fought back more tears. So it’s no surprise that I got sick.

Now Little Miss Littlepants is sick and I get to take care of her. She’s like a sad ragdoll, all floppy and pink in the cheeks.

flying

I would post a picture of the little thing I made at the first Stitch and Bitch meeting I attended on Sunday, but I will wait until it arrives in the mail at it’s destination in order not to ruin any surprises.

And here’s one of Biddle

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 22/01/2009

Beabea

She’s so awesome, happy and funny. She loves to pat the cat and cackles like a loon when she does it. She knows where noses are and where her bellybutton is. She asks what stuff is all day.

And those are blueberries on her top.

Slow but not gone

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 22/01/2009

I sent 6 postcards from Mexico the day after we arrived. Oh, the day after that. Up until today, I’d assumed they were just…gone, floating in the ocean somewhere or perhaps on a trash heap in LaPaz. Well, I went to visit Em and the babies (and her mom, it turns out) and voila! Em got her postcard yesterday! It took almost a month, but it came!

late

I already emailed the picture to my boss who bugs me every day, asking where her postcard is.

Crochet MACHINE

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 21/01/2009

Seriously, if you see me without a crochet hook in my hand, there’s got to be something seriously wrong with me. I am constantly working on some project or another…I already said I got a gift certificate for Romni here in Toronto, and I finally found the perfect yarn for my friend Nicole’s special request-zombie bunny slippers!

This is what I have so far. I am using a double strand, the bright green fluffy stuff and a strand of standard green poly whatever to toughen it up. I am not so sure about the face-I used a green button for the nose, ’cause, like, it’s rotton? And the eyes are red buttons, but the only red buttons I have are sailboat buttons, so they’re sewn on backwards. And the eyes are bleeding, see? The picture doesn’t really do it justice, trust me.

zombunny will eat your brain!

The red above his eyes is supposed to be blood out of it’s ears, but I don’t know, maybe it just looks weird. And I think it needs angry black eyebrows.

If anyone has helpful suggestions on how I can make it more zombie-ish, that would be great. Oh, and the plan for the second slipper is to start it in fluffy red, so, at the toes for a few rounds, red, then to the green, so it looks like it’s throat is slit. Or something?

Food.

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 21/01/2009

Today, at work, we picked up my boss’s first food share box. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but for a mere $17, figured that even if it was full of potatoes and onions, it would still be fun. Well!

In the box were:

3 huge plum tomatoes

4 oranges

1 head leaf lettuce

1 brown paper bag FULL of green beans

1 pound new potatoes

1 pound parsnips

5 pounds onions

giant bag of pears

giant bunch of bananas

1 cantalope

4 sweet potatoes

Pretty sweet deal, eh? I made vegan curry for supper, on top of brown rice, how healthy! I will be bringing my blender to work on Friday (it doesn’t get used here) so we can have smoothies.  I should have taken a picture, but I forgot!

Brobee!

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 21/01/2009

Made entirely without a pattern. Just a little scribble on a piece of paper to sort out size and stripes.

Brobee!

I made him during the inauguration, haha. He will have another arm, some day…

Muno!

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 17/01/2009

He’s small, like, 4 inches maybe. And cute, but that’s just me and my love of Yo Gabba Gabba.

Find a friend and play

Also, 2 scarflets. The pink one I made for Ari but she immediately claimed it was ‘too itchy’ but I don’t think it is at all. It’s made with light pink soy yarn and self striping sock yarn-which might be wool, so that might be what makes it a little itchy? And chartreuse plastic buttons.

The second one I think I wrote about before, but I finally finished it. It’s also soy yarn mixed with sock yarn but it’s not even remotely itchy, not by any standards. The buttons are mother of pearl.

kid scarflet   mustard scarflet

ps Muno isn’t for sale. I have a person in mind for it. I may make another one though!

Oh. Ok.

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 17/01/2009

I took this picture on the way home from Aerial Dance class today. The plate made me laugh mostly because of the vehicle it was attached to-a GMC Safari mini van. I am assuming it means “Knight Ryder” but if you are funny and dirty minded, it might mean something else.

Kitt