Month: July 2010

Boosting the Blue Jays

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 31/07/2010

I went to another ball game last night, Blue Jays vs. Cleveland Indians. We got great seats because we went with a friend who’s in a wheelchair: disabled seating’s quite fantastic, actually, you’re on the floor right behind the 100′s and they give you folding chairs, so there’s tons of legroom, you can stand up and scream and not worry about blocking anyone’s view and you’re right at the concession stands and washrooms. Worth every penny of the $24.00 it cost for 2 tickets.  It was also Fan Friday and we all got free towels to twirl in the air whenever the Jays got a run.

And let me tell ya, my arm is tired. Final score? 8-1 for the Jays! Yahoo!

The seats weren’t perfect, I guess. We were pretty far out to the left (or is it right?) field and couldn’t see the Jumbotron. Oh well. It was still better than nosebleeds!

I also spent a while trying on Jays baseball hats, I really want one but they were either outrageously expensive (I mean, really? $47 for a CAP??!?) or had a velcro closure that ripped out my hair. Or were too small for my giant head. So I looked online and found a couple that I’ll never order, including this one.  It is described as such:

The 2008 MLB “Stars and Stripes” cap by New Era features a light navy crown and visor, with the teams primary logo embroidered with a US flag design. The MLB logo on the back is also embroidered with the “Stars and Stripes” pattern. A portion of the proceeds that New Era receives will go to WELCOMEBACKVETERANS.ORG, a foundation to help out returning military soldiers.

Which I don’t have a problem with, except that it has a Canadian flag design. So. Yeah.

(And I am not a huge fan of the newer Jays logo anyway, I want old skool.)

Exciting give away time!

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 26/07/2010

Shannon ordered the three shirt surprise pack from teefury and liked only 2 of them. This is where I come in. Rather than let shirt #3 rot on the couch, I thought I could mail it to a deserving recipient.

This is a Lost shirt, a men’s size XL, it’s pretty big. This is the front and there’s nothing on the back:

I guess, uh, the first person to comment on this blog post that wants it, gets it. But be specific, “I WANT THAT SHIRT!” or something to that effect, ok?

Also delicious

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 20/07/2010

Crumbles be damned, from this day forward I am a Cobbler girl. I think I got this recipe from PW and it’s a total winner:

1 stick butter, melted

1.25 C sugar

1 C self-rising flour

1 C milk (I used goat milk because that’s what we have here these days)

2 C blackberries

Whisk together 1 C sugar, flour and milk, add butter, mix

Butter a baking dish (I used an 8×8 square dark metal pan) and pour in batter, sprinkle in berries and 1/4 C sugar over top.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour (although I took mine out at 45 min because it smelled good, was brown around the edges and was cooked all the way through).

Eat with whipped cream and laugh your troubles away.

Here’s what to do:

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 20/07/2010

When you have the time/space. Since last Monday when I was at the Sorauren Farmer’s Market (which, if you are in the area, you really should go to, it’s small but everyone there is nice and has beautiful local/organic produce) and met some nice ladies from Parkdale’s Westend Food Co-op who made me think about canning. And it’s Jana’s fault too, I guess. And Libs.

Yesterday I made pickled beets. I used this recipe and it’s seriously perfect. To think I was going to halve the recipe? I should have doubled it, Shannon’s already eaten half a jar.

Three jars. I expect them to be empty by the week’s end.

Today I made blueberry jam because blueberries are on sale and what is a girl to do with 4 cup of berries? Freezer jam. The direction was ‘crush’ the berries and I considered whizzing them in the blender but ended up just mashing them with my hands so it will be very chunky jam.

With crepes wrapped around giant blobs of it, I am very certain it will be most delicious.

Also of note, I saw an extremely cute car on my way to the grocery store and found out that Spongebob shills for corn watermelon.

If I were to send an open invitation for a canning party, here at my place (I have 2 kitchens and buckets of space) would anyone out there be interested?

Also, what can anyone tell me about Athens, Georgia? I have been looking at real estate there and for some reason I’ve got it in my head that it’s where I must live. Is it nice there?

What we done did do

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 19/07/2010

Went swimming, we sure did. Some of us, at least. The water was crystal clear and cold as fuck, just like I like it. Little Bluff is my very favourite fresh water place to swim, I guess.  Don’t look too closely at my love handles, I promise I am working at making them smaller.

Then we ate a metric ton of sushi, watched movies, snuggled in bed, woke up to room service then shuffled Ari off to her grandmother’s to enjoy her cousins and some fresh air.  Now that I have Shannon all to myself for maybe a week, I have NO idea what to do with him as it’s been so long since we’ve had a break from parenting.

Luckily for me, a new LLCBO opened around the corner, that ought to help me make decisions.

Perspective

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 12/07/2010

My mother asked about the size of the bricks used in the Japan style Lego project in my previous post, so I took a couple pictures to show just how small they are. I dug through Ari’s regular Lego collection and tried to find matching bricks. As you can see, they dwarf the Nanoblocks:

And for further perspective, here is the completed castle with my beloved 90210 ruler propped up against it. It’s surprisingly smaller than I even thought, less than 6″ high.

A group effort

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 11/07/2010

Ari was sent a giant package from Japan including this micro lego set. It’s a little beyond Ari’s abilities (or rather, her patience and willingness to build something so detailed) so after her and Shannon completed the first 4 levels, I took it over and snapped a picture at the end of each level. It was most satisfying and I’d collect all the sets of this amazing toy if I could (I also completed all of the smaller sets of animals she got).

Then Shannon took over and created this flash file, which was probably just as much work, if not more.

Yay for collaborations!

I live for this stuff

Posted by Caitlin Jane – 08/07/2010

Feverishly trying to prove myself smarter than a fifth grader on my DS last night, I came upon this question:

I realize it’s blurry, that is part of the charm of taking pictures in a hurry with a camera phone. Phone camera.  Anyway, it reads:

WHAT IN NOT A TYPICAL SYMPTOM OF A BROKEN BONE?

IN! No, not IS,  IN! Ha ha! That means that not only am I smarter than a fifth grader, I am also smarter than the person that wrote this game and every person after that tested it. And Jeff Foxworthy, for sure.

(The answer they were looking for-which I got wrong-was DIZZINESS-but I swear that if I broke a bone I’d experience dizziness.)

This also means I never have to play that stupid game again.