Sunday

I think I've heard it said that a carpenter is only as good as his or her tools.

Well, we bought a hell of a new tool last week, a gorgeous Canon EOS camera. And with it, the carpenter took this photo.


Grammar and Chad have long had a very close bond. I think this picture says it all.

If I can take a photo like this in our low-light downtown condo, I can hardly wait to see the shots we take on Georgian Bay this summer.

Welcome to 'Stuff Chad Does'

I’m seriously considering renaming this blog 'Stuff Chad Does' in light of the fact that there’s no crafting of any kind going on in the Crafty Kitchen. But once again, Chad has supplied me with a story it would be downright negligent not to share. (For other Chad adventures, click here.)

Chad went paddling at the Toronto waterfront today. I stayed home. I knew he’d get hungry, so I suggested that he take some leftover pasta casserole with him for lunch. But, because I am inherently selfish, apparently, and wasn’t going on this outing with him, I did not assemble a nutritious lunch for him. Surely thinking, ‘Huh, wife right. I will be hungry soon,’ he dutifully scooped some casserole into a plastic container and packed it with his paddling stuff. Off he went and had a lovely solo paddling excursion.

Later in the evening, I was washing a few dishes, including the plastic container Chad had taken with him. I kind of smirked as I washed it, thinking, Oops, I forgot to tell him to take some sort of utensil to eat it with. I wonder how he ate it. Probably with his hands. How cute.

When I opened the container to scoop out the remaining few pieces of pasta before washing it, there was also a small piece of cardboard in the container. I recognized this piece of cardboard as one we used recently to modify our car bike rack so as not to put undue stress on a few cables. We cut a few of these pieces (rectangles of roughly one inch by three inches) from a case of beer bottle empties that was in the car trunk. Huh, I thought, here’s one of the cardboard pieces. How on earth did it get in with Chad’s lunch? Whatever…

So I’m washing dishes and smirking because I know he forgot to take a fork, and I ask Chad, ‘So, I forgot to tell you to pack a fork to eat your pasta. How did you eat it?’ Chad starts to giggle. ‘Heh heh, you know what I did?’ Oh God, things are coming together in my brain. The cardboard. The cardboard IN the lunch container. The absence of any utensil. ‘Heh heh,’ says Chad. ‘You know those cardboard pieces….’ I drop my dishcloth and back away from the sink and cardboard piece. No, he didn’t, I think. He wouldn’t. But he did. He used the cardboard piece as an improvised spoon, or crude scooping device, anyway, to eat his pasta casserole.




‘What? I washed it off first! What?’ he asserts defensively. So he ‘washed off’ a piece of dirty cardboard in the foul water of Toronto’s harbour. And then he ate off it. A dirty piece of soggy cardboard. Like a hobo. My husband. I hate to repeat myself, but just when you think you know a guy...

The Converts

Once upon a time, there was a family. The S family. And the S family was not known for its love of cats. For years, nay, decades, Mr. S. made jokes that went something like this: 'Ha, nice kitty. But you'd be nicer in the freezer!!' 'Ha, I love cats....frozen solid in the freezer!' et cetera. Mrs. S's feelings about cats were less obvious, leaning more toward ambivalence. It has been reported that Mrs. S considered feline purring 'suspicious.' Also, Mrs. S. did not like to touch or pick up cats, finding it 'creepy' that they sometimes go limp when you pick them up, and you can feel their bones under their fur.

Then, something changed. Last autumn, it occurred to S.S. that perhaps she liked cats. Perhaps she wanted a cat. Enter stage left the H sisters, who within hours had convinced S.S. that in fact she wanted two cats, and we'll pick them up tomorrow....but that's another story.

And then, on that October weekend, began a family transformation.

Nowadays, Mr. S. is known to rearrange and even outright lie about his week's plans to enable him to take the felines to the cottage for an extended getaway. He can even be seen--gasp!--walking Charles and Katherine on their leashes, introducing them to the great outdoors as he takes his morning constitutional. While cottaging, the family is often awoken in the morning by the delighted giggles of Mr. S. as he taunts the kittens with a toy. And Mrs. S., apparently no longer finding it stomach-turning to hold a feline, is reported to scoop the cats into her arms for a snuggle greeting upon arriving chez S.S.

Chad and I had dinner last week with S.S. and her much beloved felines, Charles and Katherine. S.S. had received a new shower curtain for Christmas, putting her old shower curtain out of work. The old shower curtain was essentially a huge bath towel with some grommets along the top. So, S.S., of the family not previously known for its love of cats, retained this old terrycloth shower curtain and, all tricky-like, says to me: 'Hey, is there any way you could use this? Maybe sew it into something useful for the Humane Society?'

Translation: 'I am now a great lover of cats, and nothing would please me more than to bring some joy to the felines who have no loving homes. I am personally not in possession of a sewing machine. I find nothing more frustrating than when you're sewing along all fine and the bobbin suddenly goes 'bbzzzeetpppfffft' and you have to rethread the machine. So, won't you please take this old shower curtain and, using your own sewing machine, turn it into some cat beds for the poor, lonely feline souls at the Humane Society?'

So, in a gift made possible by the family not previously known for its love of cats, I shall donate the resulting five cat beds to the Toronto Humane Society.

The Ultimate Craft Project

Last Thursday morning, Chad and I started prepping our little condo for its new hardwood floor. We woke up, had a nice breakfast, coffee, and took some deep breaths. We scrutinized the waist-high pile of flooring and underlayment rolls blocking our bedroom door.



The living room was up first. We started unloading the three big bookshelves, and piling all the books in the bedroom. We disassembled my crafty station, and moved everything we could into the solarium. We decided to not disassemble the couch, but just moved it from one side of the room to the other. And the dining table was pressed into service as a workbench/saw table. David lent us his awesome mitre saw, which was truly indispensable. No sooner had the last piece of furniture left the living room was Chad slashing at the carpet with an exacto knife and ripping it out by the roots—disgusting, decrepit underpad and all.


We rolled the carpet up into big logs, and Chad heaved it onto his shoulder, took it downstairs and started a Sanford & Son-style pile on top of the Sunfire in the parking garage. We were just waiting for the polite call from the building management: “Um, Mrs. Harkness, we’re going to have to ask you to find another place for the carpet.”

The carpet was affixed to the floor (as is most carpet in North America) by means of a thin wood strip with spiky nails poking up through it—as Chad put it, a very sinister way to install carpet (see photo of spiky box of tetanus death above). So we pulled up all the spiky strips with a hammer, and later with a crowbar.
Once all the carpet and spiky strips were gone, we had disgusting brown snowdrifts of carpet underpad dust to clean up, which we did by shop-vac and good old-fashioned broom and dustpan.

And then, once 24 hours had elapsed since the flooring was delivered, and we had a nice, clean expanse of concrete to work on, we rolled out the new padded underlayment and started clicking together the flooring. Laying the flooring itself was surprisingly easy. The flooring we chose is truly excellent, and clicked together dreamily. Our flooring comes in “random lengths,” which means, obviously, that all the pieces are different lengths, which is really efficient: if you need a short piece to end a row, you just search the box for a short piece, and you don’t have to sacrifice a four-foot piece to fill a foot-long space. Very ingenious, and it leads to very little waste.

So, on we went with assembling the giant puzzle/mosaic.

By Thursday evening, we had about half of the living room done. On Friday, we finished the living room up to the point where it starts to run into the bedroom, and we had to stop because Jim and Linda were arriving to help for the weekend, and the bedroom hadn’t been prepped.

Phew. Saturday morning, Jim, Linda, Chad and I were up at 7:30 for breakfast. We weren’t allowed to start making renovation noise until 11:00 a.m., so we started by moving everything out of the bedroom and solarium, into the newly finished living room. Then Chad and Jim ripped up all the carpet and spiky strips. When 11:00 rolled around, we started shop-vacing up the mess and rolling out the underlayment.

Then commenced a truly slick operation, with two teams working on two rooms: Jim and I on the small but fussy solarium; Chad and his mom on the big but more straightforward bedroom. It was cute to see Jim and Linda working so intently, clearly having so much fun just being part of the mess.

At about 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, with two hours to go until the noise-making period was over at 5:00, I silently suffered a small internal fit. The living room/workshop had hit a point of disarray, destruction and dirtiness that I thought would be impossible to reverse. The living room was like the wood-cutting station at Home Depot. There was a lineup: Chad waiting for the mitre saw, Jim carefully cutting a piece lengthwise with the jigsaw, me waiting to cut an end piece. There were veritable heaps of sawdust on the table and under it, the saw spewing even more directly onto the wall and bookshelves. The living room felt like a cave, with stuff piled up to the ceiling. Grammar was understandably hiding somewhere, not having been seen for hours.

But then, we began to see the light. Jim and I finished up the solarium, performing a fancy feat by gouging out the bottom of some planks to accommodate some unremovable protrusions in the concrete floor. This dangerous manoeuvre involved me holding the whirring mitre saw while he manually held the plank against the blade to shave off as much of the underside as he could. Chad and Linda were in the home stretch in the bedroom. A production line formed: Linda and I quickly searching the box of flooring for appropriately sized pieces, Chad measuring and marking for cutting, passing the pieces off to Jim for cutting and quick return to the bedroom. At 5:20 p.m., the last piece was snapped into place in the closet.


The end result:
-a beautiful course of panels that runs straight as an arrow from the front door, through the bedroom, and lines up perfectly with the panels in the solarium.
-some impressive precision-cut angles at the junction of kitchen and front hall
-some fancy “custom Chad triangles ‘n skinny strips” where whole panels wouldn’t fit
-a gorgeous, marbled, glowing, organic, beautifully schizophrenic floor that makes me a bit teary

The start of a beautiful friendship (or a broken back)

Last night, my friend Jenn took me shopping for hockey gear. I'm starting hockey lessons next Thursday. That's right. Hockey lessons. So off we went to Play It Again Sports in Scarborough to see what we could find. I already bought great skates last winter, so we needed everything but the skates. I wanted to get most things used, because though I like to watch hockey on the telly, I cannot say yet whether I actually like to play it, never having picked up and skated with a stick.

But actually I ended up getting most stuff new anyway. It proved tricky to find used stuff that would fit me. It was either tiny or huge. But it didn't turn out to be too expensive anyway.

So, I picked up hockey pants, shin guards, hockey socks (which, as I learned, should be called "hockey leg warmers" but are not, for obvious reasons), a women's jock (a.k.a. a jill), shoulder pads, elbow pads, a jersey, a cool helmet, some tape and a stick. Yes, at 32, I have my own hockey stick. The ideas I get into my head.....

I just need a few other things, like gloves, and I'm good to go.

I'll probably spend some time with "Hockey for Dummies" this weekend.

Thanksgiving craftiness

As you saw last week, I started working on mosaicking our bedside tables. Well, after my visiting in-laws left yesterday afternoon, I dove right into grouting. As usual, I can never wait to see what a piece looks like when it's grouted.




So here they are! I think the grout colour looks great. It was Chad's idea. I was planning to do a very dark brown, so the top would look very uniform, with the gold of the tiles winking out from the dark grout. But Chad thought the little tables might end up looking like two black holes in our bedroom. And he was absolutely right. So I picked a sandy coloured grout, which turned out to match the colour of the wooden legs perfectly.

So this morning when we got up, I gave them a quick polish with some vinegar and put them beside the bed. They look all sparkly and nice, and they'll look even better when our bedroom isn't baby blue anymore.

And now when we set a glass down on them, we get a 'clink' instead of a 'thunk.' Very satisfying, for some reason.

The Prototype Syndrome strikes again!

(The Prototype Syndrome always applies when I make a gift for Cheryl! I usually attempt something I've never made before, a prototype, and it usually turns out great!)

Ok, I can post this now. The pillow above is Cheryl's birthday present, and I'm meeting her shortly to give it to her. I didn't want to post it earlier in the week and spoil the surprise.

I hope she likes it. As you can see, it is orange. Very orange. Orange vinyl. I've never seen Cheryl wear a stitch of orange. Oh well, I'm not gonna lie. I'm on an orange kick, so if she doesn't like it, I'll keep it!

This little pillow was really fun to make. The fabric in the middle is hand-stamped with fabric paint and...wait for it....old-school POTATO stamps! Yes, like you used to make when you were little! I was experimenting with my new fabric paints, so I cut up a few potatoes (and carrots, which make perfect little circle stamps!) and tried them out. And after the fabric paint has dried for a few days, you iron it from the back, which sets the paint permanently. You can even hand-wash it.

So, I cut out a little window in the orange vinyl for the fabric piece and sewed the panel in. I've never worked with vinyl before. In a way it's very easy to work with. It doesn't fray and you don't have to sew any edges. You just cut the shape you want and it stays that way. But, if you screw up your line of stitches, you're kinda screwed, because any mistakes really show up, and you're left with visible holes where your stitches were. But I really had fun working out how to make this, and how to insert the offset zipper. It's not at the seam of the vinyl and white canvas, so I had to use all of my limited sewing skills to make it work. I'm really pleased with how it turned out; just like the picture in my brain.

Now, anyone else want anything in orange vinyl? I've got lots left!

Happy birthday, Cheryl.

I love you, IKEA. No! I hate you! No, I love you...

In other 'I guess I'll just make it myself...' news are our new bedside tables! I bought two cute little simple bedside tables from IKEA (hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em). I think they were about $30 each. They have a nice solid pine top and legs, with a little magazine shelf underneath.

I've had this plan in my brain for a while. I fell in love with some gorgeous tiles at my mosaic store. They are glass mosaic tiles, and they are the colour of Coca-Cola, with gold swirls throughout. Yes, gold, gold, gold. (Miss you, Cheryl! Call me!) And Stacey, no, you cannot eat them.

So last weekend I bought a few sheets of them. They come in sheets of 225 tiles, which is one square foot. And of course the tabletops aren't one square foot, so I had to cut up the sheets and fit them together to fit the tabletop. Last night I glued them down onto the tabletop in a bed of tile adhesive. I don't work with tile adhesive often, and it's not my favourite. It smells fume-y, and if you use too much, it squirts up between the tiles and you have to dig it out.

Today, after the adhesive had dried for a while, I moistened the paper backing and peeled it off. This type of mosaic method is called the indirect method, where you
initially glue the tiles upside-down onto paper, then lay the tiles face-down in the adhesive. Then you wait. Then you get to moisten the paper and reveal the mosaic, which is very exciting! Does it suck?? Is it great?? You're about to find out!!


Other than the extra adhesive I'll have to dig out, the table looks FABULOUS! Very luxe. Very not-really-my-style, but I just love it anyway. So, I just have to grout it, which will probably happen soon, because Chad misses having somewhere to keep his slippers and glass of water. And I may stain the legs, too, but I'm not sure yet.

The lesson here: you can almost always make something nicer yourself! Up yours, IKEA! (But I love you....don't hate me...)

'Well, I guess I'll just make it myself...'

The above words have been my mantra lately. I've been trying to investigate getting some new kitchen cabinets. Or rather, new kitchen cabinet doors. The layout of our tiny kitchen is such that it really can't be improved, other than by totally gutting it back to the bare walls. And as handy as I am, I don't think I'm capable of this kind of job by myself, and I'm really not the kind of cook who needs a fantastic kitchen. I need a functional kitchen that is not too ugly.

So, we're planning to replace just the cabinet doors, because the cabinets themselves are in fine shape. But try going to IKEA or Home Depot and suggesting this CRAZY idea and they look at you as though you've got two heads. They really don't want to even talk to you unless you're redoing your whole kitchen. (Sorry, Aunt Pat. I know you'd help me, but you don't work at the Depot any more!)

IKEA will sell you the doors.....after you've put your name on the waiting list and waited hours for someone to help you. And then, oops! They don't have the size you need! And Home Depot will sell you just the doors.....but frankly, the ones they have are ugly, and they only come in a few sizes, and they're too country-kitchen-y.

Which leads us to....'Oh, I guess I'll just make them myself.' Which is fine with me. I'm planning to get some simple plywood, maybe birch or something not too wood-grainy. And sand them down nicely and Varathane them. I'm going for a cool, semi-industrial unfinished look. I'm going to try one or two, and we'll see how they look.

How hard can it be? (Famous last words...)




Also in the category of 'I guess I'll just make it myself...' are these new cushions! I'm really happy with them! They're made with the same beautiful fabric I used on my new craft station. It's not heavy duty upholstery fabric, so we'll have to be a bit careful with them, but they're comfy and soft. I bought two pillow forms (nice ones! only $8!) at the fabric store and two zippers. They look just great on our couch (which is getting a new futon cover soon) and with the green wall. It's soooo cheap to make simple stuff yourself. I think I used about $10 worth of fabric for each cushion, plus $8 for the pillow form, and $1.50 for each zipper.

So there you go! You can go far with only straight-line sewing skills!!

Back in business

Hi! Finally, something craft-related to blog about!

Yes, I know it’s still summer, and there’s paddling and camping to be done, and hot traffic to be sat in, and sweaty brows to be mopped. But lately I’ve realized that the only piles of homeless stuff still sitting around cluttering up our new condo are my craft supplies. And damn it, they need a home! I have boxes of tiles and glass and tools, and they’re just sitting there TAUNTING me! And I’ve waited a long time for a permanent home for my craft stuff, and a user-friendly craft station that doesn’t have to be disassembled whenever we want to eat a meal. So damn it, I’m saying “screw you” to the 15,000-word essay I’m supposed to be copy editing on Conrad Black right now and putting the finishing touches on my new CRAFT STATION!!!!! Yay! Screw Conrad!




So, last week I did a weeknight run to IKEA and bought two simple little pine bedside tables for $20 each and stacked them on top of each other and screwed them together. They make for lots of perfect storage, with a little drawer area and three shelves for tools and tiles. And I bought a desk tabletop that matches our bookcases for $30. So one end of the desk is supported by the stacked bedside tables and one end is supported by our inset front windowsill, with another little shelf that used to be our bathroom medicine cabinet. Reduce, reuse, baby, so I sawed about 8 inches off it, screwed it back together, laid it on its side in the windowsill, and lo and behold if it wasn’t the PERFECT size and height to support the other end of the desktop. So there’s even storage underneath the desk in the windowsill—perfect little nooks for paper and crafty scissors. EEEEEEE!! Can you feel my excitement?!

And what did I do next? I went to MacFab, a great fabric store, and bought a piece of gorgeous fabric I’ve been lusting after for months. And I sewed a nice little double-sided panel to cover the craft shelves. It looks great with the colours in the living room, and when we get the new beautiful hardwood floor, omigod I think I’m going to pass out it will look so good.

Oh, and there’s more! Then I went to Canadian Tire and bought some little hooks, screwed them to the outside of the shelves and hung my most-used mosaic tools on them. Geez, can you tell I’ve been reading a lot of Blueprint and ReadyMade magazines? Ack! I love it, and it’s so adorable! Can’t wait to make something!

Pat, pat, pat myself on the back

If you scroll down, you’ll see the beginnings of this cutting board I made for my colleague Lisa’s mom. Here are a couple shots of the completed piece—looking even better in Lisa’s cool kitchen. Um, Lisa? Maybe you should have just kept it! I just love this piece, love it. It has rubber feet and a hook on the back, so it can be hung on the wall when not in use. I love the pattern, and I love the colours. I think a series in the same pattern would look nice—I’m thinking of doing one in different colours for our new place.

I suspect mosaicking will be kind of scarce over the summer months. We tend to be away a lot, plus our condo has CARPET everywhere. Not exactly ideal for clipping little pieces of glass. But geez, I miss it so much I’ll probably do some anyway. We have two little wooden bedside tables (two!! Our new bedroom has space for Chad and I to BOTH have a bedside table! Unbelievable!) from IKEA whose tops I’m going to mosaic, and I can’t see myself being able to wait too long to start that project, so stay tuned.

Just when you think you know a guy...

Dear loyal reader,
Sincere apologies for the lack of blogging for, oh, two months or so. There’s a problem in having a craft-focused blog: if there’s no crafting, there’s not much to blog about. And in the two months since my last post, there has been no time for crafting, to say the least. Much of note has happened: there’s been intense family strife, a pack-up-and-move to a new home, a bridal shower, a stagette, crazy long work hours, freelance work, unpacking, painting, hardwood floor shopping, attempts to fix a leaky tap, a paralyzing back ailment, a sad cat, hockey playoffs, and on and on.

But tonight a discovery was made. A discovery too important to escape chronicling here.

The photo you see above is of what I believe to be a “date kit” found in my own closet tonight, belonging to my husband of one and a half years, Chadwick. As these things always begin, I was innocently trying to create some space in our new bedroom closet. I came across Chad’s “toiletry bag” (eeew…so icky when referring to a man’s stuff) and thought that perhaps I’d move it to the bathroom, and what the heck is in here, anyway? Chad is a man of few toiletries, so I opened the bag to see what if anything could be gotten rid of.

The bag itself is sketchy (kind of sticky—inexplicably, like a lot of his possessions acquired pre-Amy—and rarely used), so generally I steer clear of it. All I knew of the bag before tonight is that it holds Chad’s electric clippers, which he uses for his self-administered haircuts. But oh, it holds much, much more.

Exhibit A:
1) A grainy layer of clipped hairs caking the inside of the vinyl bag, whose likely provenance was the Leamington Zellers, circa 1988 (“Well, a young man needs an ‘overnight bag’”, thinks Grandma as she buys it as a birthday gift)
2) Conair electric clippers, sporting 1970s-style silhouette of a hairdressing lady cutting a dapper, similarly silhouetted man’s hair
3) a set of attachments for said Conair electric clippers, the most instructive being labeled “Left Ear”
4) A grimy contact lens case, which, when opened yielded a single folded-over, yellowed-with-age contact lens in a dry little well
5) A squeeze tube of Drakkar Noir. No, not even the vaguely forbidding black glass bottle that can sometimes still be found in the back of medicine cabinets the world over. A squeeze tube. But, to Chad’s credit, it was labeled “not for individual sale,” indicating that he likely received this seductive potion as a gift (provenance probably, again, Leamington Zellers). And lemme tell you, it still smells as potent as the day it was nestled into its gift box with Drakkar Noir soap and Drakkar Noir after-shave. Rrrroowwwrrr. Ouch, my eyes hurt.
6) And last but not least, four Trojan condoms. Four. No, he couldn’t bring one, use it up, and then replenish his toiletry bag when he got home. No sirree. This is a man who likes to be prepared.

Clippers, contacts, cologne and condoms. But you’ve gotta give him credit. What else do you really need for a night out?

Note: The photo was not modified or styled in any way. This is exactly how the bag looked as I opened it.

What's cookin' in the kitchen?

A trivet for my colleague Lisa’s mom. This little project came at a perfect time. After finishing the dragon a few weeks ago, I wanted to start something else. Something small but not too small—something that I could finish before we move.

I’m kinda in love with this little piece. The design is actually a quilt square design—it looks like a square of parquet flooring. Originally, each of the four squares was divided into four equal strips. And when I started laying the tiles, the four equal strips just looked too boring (like parquet!). So I decided to mix it up with strips of different widths, and different sizes of tile pieces. Some are whole, some halves, some quarters. I should be able to finish gluing the tiles tonight, and grout it by the end of the week. Then it’ll get some rubber feet and a hook, so Lisa’s mom can hang it if she wants (a lovely idea).

Thanks for the job, Lisa!


UPDATE!!
I finished laying the tiles last night (see photo above). Now I'm REALLY in love with this little piece! I'm already planning to do a series of smaller squares for myself, in cool colours, to hang together on a wall. I just love the different squares going in different directions. I wasn't sure how I was going to finish the edges. I've decided to tile them, too, so the edges will be nice and smooth when grouted. Might not be done as soon as I thought—edges take a while because you can only do one edge at a time, then you have to let it dry. But as usual, I'm anxious to see it done!

Sunday afternoon chez Aim 'n Chad

So what is there to do on a chilly, dreary early-spring Sunday afternoon? Laundry? Nah. Too much work. Reading? Nope. Did that yesterday. Sudoku puzzles? Too hard--maybe later. Cleaning? Ugh. Moving out in a month anyway. How about TRYING ON OUR NEW WETSUITS AND WATERPROOF NEOPRENE SOCKS!! Oh yeah!

Check out these two eager paddlers (and Grammar, who does not paddle but who snuck into the shot at the last minute). We got each other the wetsuits for Christmas. But we realized that our feet would be mighty chilly with just our summer paddling boots, so off we went to MEC this afternoon for some good 'n cheap neoprene socks, which will do the trick perfectly.

This summer's paddling and camping resolutions:
-go to Superior
-be more brave
-learn the fabled 'bombproof roll'
-be even more leave-no-trace

Cripes, is it only March?!

It's my birthday tomorrow

Hi,

I'm Grammar. Tomorrow is my birthday. I'm six. I usually get tuna for my birthday. I hope I get tuna for my birthday. It's tomorrow. I'm wearing my cape Auntie Stacey made me. I usually wear it for my birthday. It's tomorrow.

Bye.

This just in!

Stacey was sick this weekend, but she somehow managed to send me these shots of the mosaic I made her for Christmas. She has handily mounted it on her kitchen wall, where it looks so fabulous I can’t stand it! When I made the mosaic, I had no idea it would match her kitchen so perfectly—serendipity!

Stacey’s description of her illness made me laugh so heartily I must reprint it here: “Hey, I was supposed to work today, but instead am at home puking and having "loose stools" as we refer to them in the healthcare world--likely a bug i picked up in that very same healthcare world! ugh!”

My ultra-talented little polymath sister also sent me the following photos she took. The images in the e-mail were all called “aroundtown.033.jpg,” “aroundtown.032.jpg,” etc. So, in honour of her fledgling photography career, I present to you the “Around Town” series, by Stacey (she’s so damn doo-doo-doo-I-can- do-anything-and-make-it-look-easy, I doubt she even knows she’s shot a very professional and photographerly series).








I actually find the “Around Town” moniker strangely hilarious and cute. This may be because I’ve recently discovered “Cat Town.” You really shouldn’t check it out unless you’re alone or not worried about being judged by those around you. And if you have any liquid in your mouth, it will surely be shot out of your nostrils. Beware.

Ta dah!

It was a gorgeous pre-spring day today, so I took a few pictures of the completed dragon mosaic. He turned out pretty great. My only qualm: his wings are kind of washed out. They don't stand out enough, which is because the green of the wings and the grey of the grout are too similar. I didn't consider this when I planned the colours. I think I may eventually do mosaics of each of the other creatures in the series I modelled this guy on. He looks great hanging on the wall, but he'd look even better in the company of a few friends.

Mosaics are so unique. Right now he's hanging at the top of our stairs, so it's the first thing you see when you come in. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I don't know anyone else who has a mosaic in their entryway. There's just something about them...

Oh, sorry. I thought you said those pants didn't fit you anymore...

so I made them into more cat beds!! Chad and I were starting to clean out our closets for our move next month. He came across two pairs of pants with dangerously thin crotch areas (cycling is very hard on pants). To save any embarrassing potential pant crotch failure, we decided to decommission this pair of cords and pair of jeans.

I still had more leftover fleece from Christmas presents, so rather than move it, I stuffed the new cat beds with it. Each pant leg made one bed, so I ended up with four pant-beds (funny! a pant-bed!), and one more made of an old button-down Gap shirt. And, as you can see above, I'm left with two very hot pairs of '70s-style cutoffs, which I'll be wearing this summer (not on your life).

The new beds will be donated to the Toronto Humane Society again. The Humane Society does pretty well by us--Chad and I are monthly donors, and we're always dropping off old towels or blankets, which they use for the animals. In fact, they have a wish list of stuff they need. And you can always give me your clothing cast-offs and I'll stitch them into a snuggly bed. It's a good way to assuage your guilty consumptive soul.

A teaser

I took Friday off work to recover from the real estate drama earlier this week. As soon as Chad left for work, I grouted the dragon mosaic I've been working on. He's completely done now, and polished up and looking quite fabulous. I need to take a good photo in some natural light, which only occurs when I'm at work, nowadays. So, I'll post a good photo of the completed mosaic as soon as I can. For now, use your imagination. Grouting is so much fun.

I had a fairly considerable bawl-o-rama on Chad's shoulder when it sank in that we'll actually be leaving this apartment, with all its wonderful memories. But then, there was the day back in December when the landlord was re-cementing a chunk of the foundation in the basement apartment, and our apartment filled with billowing clouds of concrete dust. We had to plug up all the heating vents with books, magazines, pillows--anything that was handy. And then last year there were the crazy main-floor neighbours who secretly hated us, but were sweet to our faces, then locked us out of the house accidentally-on-purpose more than once. Assholes. But I won't miss having to turn off the coffee maker to blow-dry my hair (same breaker=blown fuses=having to bother the basement neighbour to reset the fuse box). And I won't miss certain aspects of renting, but I'll sure as hell miss my beautiful, sunny Crafty Kitchen, and our kayaks in the hallway and on the stairs. But it's the beginning of a new era, with new memories, and maybe a Crafty Nook.

The reason for my lack of blogging...

REAL ESTATE!! Yes, after just four weeks of looking, we bought a condo. What a crazy grown-up experience. They say that in Toronto, a huge proportion of stolen-car deals go down in Tim Hortons parking lots. And now I can say from experience that a lot of real estate deals go down at Tim's (and other coffee shops), too. The week before last, we met our agent at lunch at a downtown Starbucks to quickly put together an offer. Quick--decide right here, right now how to spend a gazillion dollars you don't have. I'll tell you, I've had more relaxing lunch hours.

But we think it was worth it. Check out the pics below--ain't she a looker?! Yes, a face only a mother could love. She's a bit of a fixer-upper, but with lots of potential. We're already picturing new floors, a nice bright paint job, and Aunt Pat on new-kitchen detail. It's in a nice, established building on King West. It's a one-bedroom, with an extra solarium space for an office, and a window-side nook for crafting, and windowsills big enough to accommodate a feline. It currently has vast expanses of icky carpet--volunteers to help rip it up?! We move in on or before May 1.

But our first night in the new place, I'm anticipating huge flashes of 'Oh God, why did we leave our nice, cheap, simple little no-responsibility apartment for this crappy, carpetty, dingy box in the sky?' But I already know the answer, and we're waaayy excited.