To market, to market

 I've been putting it off for a week, but I suppose I should now finally report back from my first ever craft market.

We trekked out to Kitchener, and got up before 7 a.m. so we could get to the awesome farmers' market and set up, ready to rock by 8:45 a.m.

I gathered my wares -- hand-made recycled-and-recyclable gift bows made from magazines, and accessories made from ribbon and vintage buttons -- and presented them just so.

And then I amiably chatted with dozens, nay hundreds, of people, almost all of whom professed their utter admiration for my bows, and almost all of whom then wandered away without buying a thing.




As a learning experience, this was tops. As anything approaching worth the effort it required, zilch.
Still, if anyone out there needs a bow, I think I might be able to fix you up with something....

Do II

Further to the previous post 'Do',  subsection 2b, may I present the following household chattels and accoutrements. I argue that, despite being made previous to the current 'Do' week, the collection of these goods from their place of creation during said 'Do' week renders them admissible for inclusion under that same banner.


The exhibit includes: Six (6) napkin rings of my own design; 

Three (3) finger bowls, originally intended to have been cereal bowls, but reduced in stature due to unfortunate incidents during the throwing stage of creation (henceforth to be known as 'my clumsiness'); 

and One (1) leaf-shaped soap dish, also of my own design, created specifically for ease of soap removal from said dish. 

All works were created and glazed by me during six lessons held in the months of February and March. As some pieces remain outstanding due to a delay in the firing process, I reserve the right to reinstate 'Do' week as and when such pieces come into my possession.


Yours faithfully,
T.

Do

For quite some while I've been wondering what to do with this blog. Keep it lighthearted? Wander into the deeper, less entertaining territory of life's unexpected transitions? Start a chronicle of my get-rich-eventually schemes? (they are legion.)
In the end (as I sit here half loaded following a meeting of the Women's Wine Federation), I have decided to follow five themes: Do, Be, Hear, See and Say.
This week, it is Do.


On Monday, I trekked an hour on the TTC to reach the Lawrence-Yonge part of Toronto to turn a stranger's backyard lawn into the beginnings of a vegetable garden. 
I am a Gardeneer -- basically a volunteer who gardens -- and I'm helping the Young Urban Farmers community shared agriculture get up and running. The idea is cool. Instead of trying to find enough land in Toronto to make a farm, homeowners donate use of their backyards so the volunteers and organizers can grow fresh produce, which is then sold through food boxes.
Great idea. Hard work. I spent four hours de-sodding earth, and frankly, that's tough. Sod is hard to turn asunder. Let that be a lesson for life.


Today, Tuesday, I made 50 bows out of magazine pages. It's all towards a craft stall I'll be manning later this month, and frankly, this one-woman-sweat-shop is wearing me down. Thank goodness my darling husband ran out at 10:30pm on Easter Saturday to buy me chocolate bunnies. Everything is better with chocolate bunnies. Another lesson in life for you.


Also today, I went to AFL practise and then trundled eastward for French wine and food with the glorious WWF ladies. I hope to extol the virtues of both at some later date.


For now, it's late and I shall now go curl up around my darling husband and sleep a deep, sore and slightly drunken sleep. The best kind. Lesson for life. 


x

Aus-tastic

I had the strangest experience recently: I had a brilliant phone call with a bank.
I had called my Australian bank to cancel my credit card. I don't use it much, don't want to keep paying annual fees, rah rah rah, and was gearing up to encounter a paperwork juggernaut.
But no. Turns out, the help centre staff were more interested in chatting about Canada, laughing about Melbourne, and helping me do everything over the phone. And then, to top it off, the final lass (I spoke to three people, all lovely) mentioned that, instead of canceling my card, she could just waive the annual fees forever. So she did. And we chatted a bit more like old friends, and then I hung up with the hugest smile.
I walked into the next room, where my bemused husband was shaking his head. "Only in Australia," he muttered. Or something like that. I was busy chuckling and grinning, and being homesick. Ah, Aussies. Gotta love 'em!

Boyz in da kitchen

Peanut butter. Bacon. Cookies. Do it.

You know you want to.

Have you met my little friend?

This little guy was just flitting about outside my window.

Isn't he handsome?

Ahoy thar fishes!

Naughty me. It's been a whole week since I dropped by. I really should have brought wine in apology, or at least a treat to go with the morning coffee. Schade, I've neglected that too. 


Shall I just plough on and explain my absence? I don't have a good explanation, really. I blame the ice fishing. It's an annual tradition. We gather the troops, drive an hour north of Toronto, and then drive over Lake Simcoe to party it up and then nurse hangovers in the ice-fishing huts the next day. At least, that's how it usually goes. We weren't quite game enough to drive our own cars over the ice this year though, what with the unseasonable warmth and the patches of watery-looking ice near the edges, so we hopped a lift in the back of a ute. All else went as per usual though. Hangovers were highly successful. The fish could smell us a mile off, I swear. Well, that's my excuse for not catching anything...

The fishing huts

The trick with ice fishing, the thing that no-one tells you, is how very, very dull it is for 98% of the time. Unless you bring lots of snacks, some drinks, and maybe a frisbee. That doesn't help the fishing, but at least it fills in that 98%. A quick run-down: 
The tools: A paint stick, with some fishing line wrapped around it and a hook of some sort attached. 
The bait: Some wary looking minnows, swimming round and round a bucket. The clever ones dive to the bottom whenever a hand comes near, leaving the losers at the top to be impaled on the hooks.
The process: Put minnow on hook. Drop minnow into water through hole carved in ice. Either a) watch minnow swim to freedom because you didn't impale it properly, or b) watch minnow hang about and slowly get less active (i.e. more dead). Suspect you feel a nibble. Tug vehemently on paint stick. Dislodge some lake weed. 
Repeat.

Perch-eye-view of the action

There were some fish down there. We caught a couple of them, dragged them up to say hi, and then sent them back into the water. The rest just gorged themselves on minnows and waited for us to drop down the next course. Clever buggers.

Workin' it

Since living in Canada, I've been introduced to the most ingenious, fun and madcap way to expand one's wardrobe: The Clothing Swap.
Most people probably already know of these things, but they're a relatively recent addition to my humble Aussie life. In essence: Clean out your wardrobe. Have friends do likewise. Bring all discards to a central location, and devolve into a mad fit of shrieks and giggles, while simultaneously adopting a manic look in your eyes as you try to find the one perfect item. Take home what you will. Everything left goes to charity.


It's awesome. Through these things -- preferably wine-sodden -- I've gained a sparkly silver 60s cocktail dress, a trench coat, a cool singlet silkscreened with a picture of a Mac Truck, and many other bits of whimsy I now adore. Of course, I've also brought home loads of dubious choices I end up giving to charity anyway, but that's the beauty of it all.


Latest absolute winners: These wicked 90s style running pants. I have gone running twice this week, just as an excuse to wear them. SCORE!

First words!

Tune in to the Six Sentences blog tomorrow and you should see my very first inclusion in their daily micro-fiction stream. It was my first submission to the site, and I am pumped to try crafting more.

This will mark my first purely-creative publication since a tortuously post-modern poem of mine was published while I was at university. (Yes, it used symbolic http-code. Yes, once I learned http-code I realized how dumb that was.)

I am so excited! A big thanks to Rob for his extremely enthusiastic response. For anyone thinking of trying this out for themselves, DO IT! It's a fun challenge, and can take your brain to some seriously weird places.

And please, feel free to tell me what you think!


Update: My entry has been nominated for 6S of the Month for February, 2010. If you want to vote (oh, do!), go here (and, quite ingeniously, follow the link that says 'cast your vote HERE') before March 7.


Updated update: I didn't win, but I did get a solid third of the vote. Which is awesome! Sadly, I haven't had chance to submit much to the blog since then, but I have been included in the next book, 6S Volume 3. :D 

Pop-psych

So, ladies, what Barbie are you?


I am, apparently The Original Teenage Fashion Model Barbie, a "timeless original" who adores design and haute couture, and while having a "delightfully flirty, sultry streak", at heart is a traditional romantic.


I'll take that.

I'll also take her swimsuit, if I can find it in my size.

Curling rocks!

My current obsession with the Winter Olympics has turned up some big surprises! It turns out curling can be absolutely thrilling, white-knuckle stuff, the Australian skating uniform designers apparently hold a big grudge against the athletes, and there is such a thing as jingle-induced insanity. (Any Canadians watching the CTV coverage can attest to this.)
We Aussies never get much coverage of this stuff, so I hereby consider it my duty to lounge about* and soak up as much of it as I can, while eating peanut butter from the jar and watching it snow outside. Reckon that'll help get me points for citizenship?


(*After writing some of my novel in the morning, naturally. Thank goodness for the time difference between TO and VCR that lets me be at least a little productive.)

This snowy lull

In snowboarding, I believe they call this patch the glide. Not much is going on. The track looks smooth and gentle, rolling along the hillside. But this apparently easy leveling-off is actually when it's hardest to stay on your feet.

This is where I live now, and, my lawyer tells me, where I'll likely stay for many months yet. The glide. 

Life is so much easier to handle when you're carrying momentum. Screaming down a mountain, trees and bumps coming at you faster than you can handle, everything flows on instinct. Fear forces you to take risks that either leave you whooping in exaltation or dumped on your arse trying to work out what not to do next time. Either way, one thing is for sure: you're alive.

This glide, though, steals that momentum. It robs you of balance and renders even the smallest of inclines a mighty challenge. You start to lose faith in your instincts, begin overcompensating with thought, and more often than not come grinding to a halt in the middle of nowhere, staring at the scenery and wondering where the heck to go.

My lawyer informed me yesterday that my residency likely won't come until July/August, one year after this debacle began. I had been hoping for a miraculous early arrival, even carrying my phone with me around the house in case the call came.

The phone's not on me any more. I'm not working on my novel, not making crafty bows, not running errands or going for jogs in the snow. I am simply drinking tea. 

The glide is where I'm at. And the scariest thing is, I don't know if I'll ever get that momentum back. 

Crafty bizniss

It seems my housewifery knows no bounds. As evidence, I present this week: I baked a vegetarian lasagna while gadding about in my frilly apron, mended my own sweater (purchased at the dangerously good Preloved annual sale), and today completed yet another recycled-magazine-craft project from How About Orange.
What next? Valium and fluffy heels? 

A coaster and two gift bows. Woot! Woot!

The haiku project

In November, I randomly decided to write my Facebook updates in haiku. I thought I might do it for a week, or maybe a month. Heading into my third month now, I'm not sure how much longer I'll keep at it. After all, it likely seems pretentious to people who read it.

But I like the challenge of it, so will keep at it. At least until my next update. 

Here are some favourites so far (although I just discovered Facebook doesn't seem to keep updates indefinitely, so I'm going to pretend there may have been some better ones prior to this...)

Today:

Ignore the ice. Look

up. Bare limbs, bathed in gold, have

much to teach of love.

Jan 6:

Velleity: (n)

an urge too weak to act on.

Sounds like my gym plans.

Dec. 26:

Ending the night with

a dwindling bowl of Twisties.

Does it get better?

Happy Australia Day!

It's snowy and 0 degrees today, so it must be Oz Day!  There may not be barbecues here in T-dot, nor the drinking-game-laden Hottest 100 games of my occasionally-wayward 20s, but I'll try to make sure there's at least some beer. 


You know, I've now been away from Australia for four years. Four years!! Bloody hell. Australia Day 2006 was spent in a Kenyan hut, feeding Tim Tams to a random group of people also trying to help save the black rhino. As you do. 
Since then, I've had one Aus. Day happily sweltering during a visit back to Brisbane, and the others rugged up in suitable Toronto gear, usually slipping by Hemingways at some point. (Yes, I know it's a Kiwi establishment, but sometimes one must simply make do.)


So whatever you do today, give a happy thought for all Australia adds to the world: drunken backpackers, the ultimate chocolate biscuit, and bizarre marsupials. Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!!!

Oz. Gotta love it.

(photo by my wonderful husband)

Getting inspired

T's and my good friend Louie Palu has been staying with us for a couple of days. Not only is he a disarmingly frank and funny friend, he's also a stunning freelance photographer, and a clumsy goof. There are three stairs to take you from the hallway down into our kitchen. This morning, he not only managed to fall down them, he somehow also obliterated our treasured wee bottle of Stanthorpe port (purchased when I took T. home to meet my family and tour the local Aussie vineyards). Glass shards went both up and down the stairs, and Louie has given the floorboards a slightly new stained tinge of, well, port.


I fed him hot sweet tea for the shock (he fell hard), and got on my hands and knees to clean the mess. Then he took me to lunch, and helped outline ways to nudge myself from 'journalist' to 'writer'. I think it's a fair trade.


This afternoon has been spent gazing at a heart-achingly beautiful blue sky and browsing the interweb for blogs, writing journals, and inspiration. Today's best find: Six Sentences. 
What can I do in six sentences? What can you?? I vote we try it out.

The writer's error

Sitting down to write the next little snippet of my current project, and I made the fatal error of reading through the opening chapter. Ugh. 
There are few faster ways to demoralize one's self. All that stuff I wrote after the 3-Day Novel contest about writing being fun and not-too-arduous if one can only stick to it? Scratch that. 

Sloooooow food

Okay. Confession time. I'm not the world's best chef. Many of my friends can attest to this, particularly those that have been forced to stand under fire alarms waving towels to clear the air. But I try. Damn, do I try. And my poor friends must endure the results. (T. doesn't endure. He loves it. At least, that's what he tells me. ;)
Some girlfriends are coming around tonight to drink tea and catch up. Kind of like a wine night, but better for our livers. Not, however, better for our thighs, thanks to a poundcake recipe I found at Joy the Baker today. This morning's contemplation went something like this: That lemony cake recipe in Joy's best cakes list looks amazing. But I don't have all the ingredients, and I'm out of grocery money. What can I make with things already in my pantry? Enter Joy's Glazed Lime Cake. Looks delish in the pic, no?
Problem is, not only am I a somewhat ... adventurous chef, I also have an extremely limited supply of tools and bakeware, and am often stymied by North American baking terms. No mixing machine? No problem! I'll cream that butter and sugar by hand. Have no idea what powdered sugar is? No worries! I'm sure I can whip up something similar using my mortar and pestle.
It all makes for some very, very slow cooking. And, sadly, some rather mixed results.


To start, powder your sugar!

Then cream the butter and sugar...

a little bit longer...

Oh, that'll do!!

Now add the flour and eggs and milk and stuff, and whop into prepared baking pan. BUT you don't have the right pan, do you? Nope. So, what do you do? Improvise! With pyrex, and a slightly lower cooking temp. Surely it'll be a breeze.

Righto. While that cooks, get into those limes. You'll have to hand-squeeze, though, because you don't have a juicer either.  

This is really starting to get on my nerves, but dang if the lime zest doesn't look cute!

Turn juice, zest and sugar into a lime syrup and let sit. Once cake is cooked, poke with a skewer while still warm and drizzle over some syrup. (Good in theory. Problem is, cake sank in the middle -- probably something to do with that dodgy stand-in baking pan -- so all syrup runs into the centre.)

'Whisk' remaining powdered sugar into lime syrup to create glaze. Indeed. The results of that effort were so bad, I didn't even photograph them. Needless to say, ground sugar does not, apparently, powdered sugar make. Or at least, it doesn't a glaze make. Pour pitiful attempt at 'glaze' over cake, and cut.  Voila!

Please be aware this is the best picture of the lot. And I took a few. Sorry in advance to my ladeez who will have to pretend to like this tonight.  If it helps, I'll be pretending to like it too.

Update: It actually was delicious - heavy and satisfying, with a distinct lime tang - but supersweet due to the ridiculous amount of sugar I used. Shall rectify when I attempt this again.

The Plan

It's 10:11a.m. and I'm officially at work. Kind of.
During a dear friend's farewell on Friday night, I was talking about writing with another of my uber-dear friends. This one works in publishing, and she said the best and only advice she could give was to write, at the same time, in the same place, each day.
Thus, I am now set up in our front room, heater on my right, pot of tea on my left, snowy neighbourhood outside the windows, and my trusty laptop awaiting my attention.


If I get enough work done today, I get to watch an episode of Battlestar Galactica. These are the things of incentives in my officeworld.
Wish me luck, folks.
 

Malaise

Today I am doing nothing. Literally. It's 1:30pm, and all I've done is tootle around the internet, read some new blogs, and go daydream-websurfing looking at rental villas in Europe. I'm running out of steam, people. I can't be arsed to be motivated, can't be bothered to even think of something to achieve, let alone to then set out and achieve it. 

I really don't know what to do. I'm kind of scared that, once my papers do arrive, I'll not only have forgotten how to be active and productive, but I'll be furious with myself for wasting my time like this.

If only all of the energy I expend mentally berating myself could be put to positive use.