beachlass: Joseph Gordon Levitt making a funny face (Really?)
  • September started with the death of a beloved congregation member. It's been a while since a death hit me this hard. I had to pull over the car after meeting with her family because I was crying so hard. But. We had a good funeral for her. And, as I heard so many times this week: She never had to move off the farm, become less independent, languish in a hospital bed. God's peace to you, W. You are missed.
  • When I started being active in LJ/DW/fandom - I used Medium Sized Boy as my youngest's moniker. It's been a while since that really described him well - but I haven't quite got a new one yet. He is now 6' tall, and started grade 9 this week. He really, really is a teenager now. And his sister is in New York, being fabulous on the runway at NYFW. My kids are growing up so much.
  • Saw The Bourne Legacy twice, and I've been rewatching  The Unusuals. Mmmm. Jeremy Renner. I just. Nngh. Plus, the year of Hobo!Hardy beard really preconditioned me to find beardy! wet! mostly naked! Renner extremely hot. The arctic survival episodes of Man vs Wild probably helped too. 
  • My sister and I have been working on my resume and cover letter for the last couple of days. There's a non-congregational church job I'm applying for - I'll keep you posted. 
  • I'm seriously unmotivated to tackle the house chores this afternoon. Maybe I should take myself to Lawless if I get (most of) them done?

8, 9, 10

Jul. 26th, 2012 09:21 pm
beachlass: Gertie from Runaways, text: "um, what?" (um what?)
I had a very small shopping list when I went to the city today. Practical things like new bulbs for the turtle's aquarium, and new rings for the shower curtain.

Best laid plans.... Cut for talk of weight loss, body image and impulse shopping.  )Best laid plans.... Cut for talk of weight loss, body image and impulse shopping.  )
beachlass: wonder woman, smiling (wonderwoman)
Yay! On holidays again.

The younger teen is at summer camp this week, and the eldest is back in Canada, and has been home quite a bit.

I've been rereading Rennie Airth's mystery novels, which are fantastic.

Monday I caught up on the weeding in the garden. My cherry tomatoes are ripe and sweet. I'm still losing my kale and parsley to the local groundhog, though. Miss Dog is not earning her kibble.

Yesterday I remembered I had painting projects to do. We had ripped the awful grey carpeting off the stairs earlier this summer, leaving me with a banged up wooden staircase. Yesterday I got the risers painted white. The treads are stil problematic, but I'm going to touch them up with black paint, and call it a day. My mantra for that project is "Not letting my perfectionism get in the way".

I also repainted the bathroom! Previously, on Lass's Old House, the bathroom walls were beige/grey tiled about 2/3's, with pepto bismol pink on top. And a kind of sunset bronze/gold shower curtain. Shut up. It wasn't as bad as it sounds. 

Anyway, Yesterday I painted the pink part of the walls white. I'd already replaced the shower curtain with a white terry 'hotel style' one. And having moved out the antique pine hutch to paint, I'm keeping it out - the bathroom is so tiny, I'm deciding to purge and reduce what we're keeping in there and use a much smaller shelf thing instead. 

Eldest helped me sort through all the stuff we had in the bathroom, and we tossed a lot. 

After I swapped out the quirky folk art for a framed black and white fish photo from the living room - it looks amazing. When the boy gets home from camp, we'll probably tackle replacing the cracked floor tiles with stick down vinyl flooring. 

Now. What shall I tackle today???
beachlass: angel from Constantine, looking surprised (Oh!)
The boy and I decided that we would buy a new tv this year, as our big Xmas present. And we went out on Boxing Day, and got one - locally, I'm happy to say. It took lots of thinking and deciding, and felt like such a big, luxurious, expensive purchase - replacing our hand-me-down 20 inch tv with something bigger. 

And today we were running errands in the city - picking up the boy, indulging in a bit of post-Christmas book buying, a couple of church errands, a new toy for the dog, the market (mmmm.... roast duck for tomorrow night!!), and I dropped a sizeable amount of book allowance at the Christian book store that saved me with last minute candles on Christmas Eve. 

And then I realized - between the boy's new e-reader (present from his grandparents), my pleasure reading and my work reading - I spent more on books today than we spent on the tv.

There's some reflection there for me - both in terms of budgeting (can I afford to spend 2x on books and electronics right now?); and also in terms of how I think about spending money - areas in which I'm cautious (fretting would be another word), areas where I just spend. Because: books? We always need more books, right?

Hmm. Luckily I bought a book on shopping.
beachlass: red flipflops by water (Default)
Mmm... supper tonight was homemade chicken soup.
  1. Simmer chicken backs, celery, carrots and garlic in enough salted water to cover, for about 2 hours
  2. Lift the solids out, skim the fat off the top
  3. Pick through the chicken for meat, put that and the carrots and garlic back in, discard the rest
  4. Serve with a squeeze of lemon and hot sauce in each bowl for a hot/sour flavour.
Gunless is a thing of joy and beauty. I cannot even begin to tell you how happy I am that it is in rotation in my movie channels.

I bought a new tv for Christmas! It will be big and shiny! (And not here until January, but I'm still excited)

My therapist keeps encouraging me to write/talk/otherwise explore my feelings. Pfft. You guys. If I wanted to talk about my feelings, I would.... IDEK, do whatever it is that people who want to talk about their feelings do. But anyway, I'm trying.

cut for something approaching talking about feelings )
beachlass: red flipflops by water (Default)
So. Sign that my boy is growing up? While sweeping the floors, instead of sweeping up lost pieces of lego, I'm sweeping up lost guitar picks. And the eldest is off at university. Unbelievable. Where have the last eighteen years gone?

(Also unbelievable, her sex-ed talk at frosh week said that undergraduates have an average of three sex partners while they're at university. Three? Really? That seems, um, really, really low to me. Apparently I'm a slut, because I thought about it this weekend, and gave up counting after 17.)

Yesterday I had the loveliest surprise: a box of hand-me-down presents from [personal profile] nezuko , including the lovely blue silk scarf I'm wearing today, an awesome zebra print purse and the Best Rainboots Ever OMG. I can't wait for it to rain.

SGA has spoiled me for other fandoms, a little. I'm loving Inception stories, but the writers are (almost) all unfamiliar, and there's more immature writing out there than I'm accustomed to having to winnow out. I'm reminded that one of the things I love about McShep is the way they are written as adults.

I caught the finale of True Blood on the weekend, and also the premiere of Lost Girl, which a friend is acting in, and has some of the same people behind it as Blood Ties, I think.

baa

Aug. 20th, 2010 09:40 pm
beachlass: motorbike, girl wading in water (bike)
Dear Fellow Slings and Arrows Fans,

I must tell you that whilst at the New Burbage Festival this afternoon, IRL, I almost fell out of my seat as I sat through not one but two extended scenes containing the comedic stylings of disembodied sheep bleating and a stuffed sheep on stage.  

As the bleating went on and on (and on) I thought "Haven't they seen Slings and Arrows? Are they really going there?" And they did. At length.

your Faithful Theatre Correspondent,
beachlass
beachlass: red flipflops by water (Default)
I actually had a post started yesterday, and then my laptop overheated and crashed. (Again) I have a afternoon/evening church meeting tonight, and that's the last big thing on my calendar (well, other than Sunday worship) until I start two weeks of study leave.

We're acclimatizing to new household routines - dog-sitting for the next three months. And it was so chilly this morning when I took her for a walk, although I hear it is snowing in Eastern Ontario.

I finished reading Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger
yesterday - thoroughly enjoyed it, all creepy as it was. (No, really it was creepy in a don't-want-to-read-it-in-bed kind of way for me.)

And we're in 3 Weeks for Dreamwidth, right? So here: Ask away...


What kind of topics/entries would you like to see me posting about? Any particular questions you've always wanted to ask me but have resisted because the answer would be a huge essay? Ever want to wind me up and watch me go on a particular topic? Anything you've heard me say "I should write that entry about $foo I've been meaning to write" and have been patiently waiting for?

Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on alfalfa, favorite type of underwear, graphic techniques, etc.

four

Apr. 14th, 2010 02:40 pm
beachlass: early 20th century photo of women standing by shore (shore)
Four of my scheduled appointments done for the week. Only two left, and they're both on Friday.
Four days in a row I'm working out of town next week. Yikes!!
Four weeks in a row I'll have worked on my day off.
Four days left until this keynote speaking thing for which I still have only the vaguest plan.

Hmm... maybe that's enough grumbling.

Four patches of daffodils blooming in my garden.
Three yellow school buses in a line.
Two hugs from my teenage daughter when I drove to her school for missing paperwork.
One worship service in the nursing home, with smiles and a warm welcome.
beachlass: text: keep your shipyard clean (clean)
In my ongoing quest to keep body, mind and soul together, I'm eating lunch. Ok, it's at my desk, and it's 2:30 in the afternoon, and I'm working tonight as well during the day, but still! Lunch!  And I actually hauled myself out of bed this morning early enough to do yoga before breakfast and ensuing bedlam.
beachlass: text: keep your shipyard clean (clean)
I've replaced the broken doorknobs on the front door (which was a lot easier than I thought it would be). Had someone in to fix the dryer (not entirely sure if it is fixed, however). I've been to the accountant's to pick up my tax stuff, and the hardware store and the health food store and the bank.  And I caught up on paying bills and sent in money and contracts to the national church and receipts to other people and posted a couple of letters.

(And Nezu, when I looked around the messy, messy house and cringed at the thought of the repair guy coming, I thought of you and reminded myself that I was paying him to fix the washer, not pass judgement on my housekeeping skills.)

Later, when there's a kid home to spot me on the ladder, I need to climb up and engage in another round of territorial warfare with the starling trying to nest in my dryer vent. I've got a couple more pieces of screening, and a new roll of duct tape. Fear me, starlings.

So. I might be having bad dreams about paperwork that's not done at work, but I'm sooooo glad I took the day off to get stuff done at home.  
beachlass: red flipflops by water (Default)
Today is my fortieth birthday. I celebrated by washing my floors. I'm not very good at housekeeping, and steadily working at transforming my attitude and aptitude by learning that it is a gift to myself to make the house tidier and cleaner, less full of clutter.  So my floors aren't perfectly washed, but many things in this life are worth doing imperfectly, and so I'm carrying a little less dirt into the new decade.

I also purged all the acrylic/novelty skeins from my yarn chest, and tidied it up a little. I hate knitting with acrylic, and having skeins of it just makes me feel like I should be doing something with it.

So it seems I'm starting the year with a spirit of letting go. Expectations, yarn, old habits, negative self-imaging... There's lots I'm quite happy to release from my life.

In my twenties, I worked on an undergraduate degree, came out of the closet, had two kids, got married, was baptized. I listened to Ani DiFranco and breastfed babies and read bedtime stories. I lived on low wages, or welfare. I learned to knit. I drank pints of beer in pubs where I knew the band. I planted my first gardens.

In my thirties I went to grad school, left my marriage, continued to struggle with depression. I bought three houses, left behind two gardens, lived beside the beach. I started to live part of my life online. I readjusted to being a single parent, and began to settle into my vocation.

In my forties...? I guess we'll see what comes next. 
beachlass: red flipflops by water (Default)
I've done a ridiculous amount of driving around southwestern Ontario in the past week or two. I've been in and out of cities, over to the lake and around the countryside. I've driven in snow and rain and sun and hail. The hail was yesterday - when it started up I had the window down, and had to roll up quick after it came stinging into the car.

Even with the hail, it was a great afternoon to be driving home... There was a long interview with  Gordon Lightfoot on the CBC, and the miles of field rolled past to old Lightfoot songs. Listening the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald under rolling grey skies can still give me chills.

On the weekend we braked as a beaver crossed the road. The tractors are out on some of the drier fields, in others blackbirds are perched in the corn stubble. The birches are bleeding from white trunks to a burnished dark red in twigs, the willows glowing gold in the late afternoon sun. The lilies are growing bright green in the ditches. My neighbour's magnolia tree is starting to bud, white promises of spring I can see from the upstairs hall. I saw colts and calves and wee baby lambs in pastures.

It was windy driving home, the tractor trailer ahead of me on the highway going north was squirrelly on the road, twisting onto the gravel shoulder. The pines swaying, the willows streaming out, the sky clearing to the west, over the lake. 



beachlass: text "Am I that transparent" (transparent)
Went curling tonight for the very first time EVER. Had SO MUCH FUN. (yes, a capslock amount of fun). Actually left the house for something other than work or parenting, which is a far too infrequent occurence. Fell over on the ice and hit my head, but did I mention the fun? There's something highly appealing about sliding big rocks down a sheet of ice.

*am feeling very Canadian, and also like I now want one of the big cardigans with a deer on it*
beachlass: red flipflops by water (Default)
Happy Things
Day 8 


Christmas shopping at the used bookstore. And the happiness of having a family where that's part of Christmas presents; especially when we can find really weird books. Like a 1960's guide to camping.
beachlass: red flipflops by water (weird middle eastern)
Happy Things
Day 7


Two words: Christmas. Pageant. 

Complete with bathrobes, hockey sticks used as shepherd's crooks, kids dressed up as donkeys and cows and doves. With muttered dialogue and proud grandparents and goofy smiles.
beachlass: red flipflops by water (running)
I just came home from driving my daughter to work.

I shed my woolen scarf and suit jacket, because just now it's warm enough in the last bit of golden afternoon sun to be out in the yard in bare arms. I stopped at the volunteer squash patch, which has taken over part of the side yard, and rummaged through the prickly leaves until I found another three squash. They're longed necked, golden and green, sometimes spiky things, little decorative ones.

Threaded my way through the piles of discarded lumber still littering the yard from taking down the back deck. Around a togaggon and boogie board, past an old snow shovel. Just before I made it to the garden patch, to gather up a handful of herbs and some late tomatoes for supper, a flight of geese lifted off from the resevoir behind the trees. The honking pulled my gaze up to the sky and there they were, brash and beautous against the sky, forming three vees.

The sun was warm on my face and arms, the geese were lifting up above the orange and red maples and my hands were full of squash I hadn't even planted.
beachlass: red flipflops by water (red car in snow)
Well. Winter is certainly here. Our north/south highway has been closed since Saturday. For a few days the highway that heads inland was closed also, as was every damn road in the County. They can't even get the shift crews in and out of the power plant just north of town. Apparently the weekend crew got stuck in for 48 hours, working 4 hours on, 4 hours off.

Our front door blew open this morning just before the medium sized boy and I got up... I really should have gotten up right away when I heard the dog bark. Everything in the front hall was covered in snow! Not a dusting, but a couple of centimeters. I actually used a shovel to clean up the hall.

Brrr. Another good day to curl up with my homework, throw the kids out to build snow forts (too cold to make snowmen stick together properly) and curl up with hot soup and movies later.
beachlass: red flipflops by water (advent)
Small Town Adventures: Christmas Shopping Edition

So I went downtown this afternoon to do some christmas shopping. And I hit the usual places: the the shop with transformers, lego and matchbox cars; the asian grocery (every stocking needs pocky); the girly store and the used book store. Where I am a well known customer, who gets a frequent buyer discount. So I'm picking up some books (wine growing, Isabel Allende, and some Douglas Adams, because my copies always seem to have some sort of metaphysical property that either causes them to disappear, or transmute into extra copies of Jeanette Winterson novels).

Anyway.

I commented on how empty the front of the store seemed: he's shipped I don't know how many boxes up to northern communities this week, and the towering uneven piles of boxes were missing. I was a little worried about having a bout of agoraphobia, since I'm used to the whole cramped, books from floor to ceiling used bookstore aesthetic.

The bookstore guy (who is so nice) says he had a woman throw a hissy fit just before I arrived. She browsed around, picked up a couple of books and brought them to the counter. Then she asked why the price was written in pencil in the front of the book. He took a couple of tries explaining to her that the price in the front is the price he sells the books for.... she didn't understand why he wasn't selling them for the price published on the back cover.

Until she realized that they were used books.

...

And that's when she freaked out. You can't give used books as presents! These are used books! She had no idea! Used books! Ewww!

And he tried really hard not to just laugh meanly at her.

Apparently the other customers thought is was pretty funny. I'm kind of sorry I missed it.
Page generated Jul. 9th, 2025 08:17 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios