Since dog and man were asleep, kitten decided that we should bond.  When I say she thought we should bond, of course I meant that she thought that she should be my blanket model.

And what a lovely model she is.  Later, when I was making some Sunday brunch, she thought that she ought be paid for her modelling gig, in breakfast foods.

If I ever complain about my cat’s fatness, please direct me back here.  Does anyone else spoil their pets as much as we do?  My child has no chance.

Update: the cat is currently passed out on our bed, sleeping off the bacon.

After that news, the rest of the time away has been fairly dry.  A great holiday of relaxation and nothingness.  Enough Christmas presents to keep me occupied until well into March.  A beading day course with my mom and mother in law wherein I learned to properly string and knot pearls; a good skill since pearl jewelry is pricey, but freshwater pearls really aren’t.  I also found out that my brother in law is a psychopath;  not really, he just plays one startlingly well on stage.  Recently, I knit my husband a hat.  Bless his heart when he told me he liked it, because it was ridiculous.  Too bad I’m such a bad yarn crafter since the running, the exercising of any sort, cooking or cleaning, it has all turned into evenings nesting on the couch with a crochet hook (or kitting needles) and a puppy.

Wish I could be more entertaining/interesting/of a wordsmith.  But I really must go sleep.  But I’m keeping the wine banner.

We had a garage sale a few whiles back, and it was pretty successful.  There was many a romance novel to sell; old clothes that we don’t wear any more (but are in perfectly good condition); furniture I’d never seen before which materialized from my in-law’s basement; kitchen appliances that had never been used; handmade soap from my husband’s days as a soap maker; etc.  Good shit, seriously.

But you get the people that show up at 7, even though you’ve expressly asked for no early-birds (and she had a cane, I couldn’t just kick her to the curb); the people that sneer when you tell them that you have no fancy antiques that you would like to sell them for a dollar; the people that tell you that your husband’s handmade soap isn’t worth 50 cents and they need ‘a deal’…and so on.

People are freaking cheap.  In the end, after the signs and the coffee and the newspaper ads, we came out on top and then some.  But jeeze, garage sales are SO not worth the effort.  I’m pretty sure that was the longest Sunday of my whole life.  Save yourself the trouble and heartache, just call the Goodwill and get them to take your unwanted goods, at least they’ll be nice about it.

Another few whiles back, different whiles, shorter whiles, my husband and I participated in a church craft shindig, for the church where we are technically congregation members.  We aren’t exactly the churchly going type; something about liking to sleep in (which isn’t really a good excuse because service is at 11) and feeling like I live a decent enough existence that I feel no need to repent (which the United Church doesn’t really do anyways), but that discussion is for another time.

We were at aforementioned church craft shindig.  Selling our wears.

Mine: Necklaces, earrings and some bags that I made over the summer.

Husband’s: Soaps, lavender satchels and bath bombs.

Attendance: About 10 people.

We still managed to do pretty well.  Almost everyone bought something from us, and I even got a commission to sew some bags (from my aunt, but it still happened at the craft sale, so it counts).  This leads me to believe that people like my craft-y things and, to my husband’s dismay, fuels me to make more stuff and try and guilt people into buying it.  That’s pretty much where the plan ends.

Basically, the point of the two stories is that I am looking for new reasons to go to Michael’s  and that I am clearing space for which to put my crafty purchases.  Micheal’s, spending, crafts, sad husband, etc.  And, people that go to church craft sales are not cheap, just garage sales; people that go to church craft sales are lovely, and scarce.

So if you want something sewn, glued, beaded, whatever.  I’m your gal.

There are no cute photos to be shown today;  I’ve bearly seen the sun in several weeks and I am sick and tired of taking dark depressing photos.  When I leave for work, it is mostly dark, and when I get home from work, it is mostly dark, sigh.

Last Saturday, we had a smashing wine pairing party for my father-in-law’s 60th birthday.  It was most definitely a success, with most of the satiated guests leaving in cabs at 2am.  My husband got himself slizzard, mang-danngered, shamammed…drunk…on wine futures actualized into several lovely and expensive bottles of Bordeaux.  I, on the other hand, managed to eat a few more cupcakes than I needed to.  Like one of each flavour.

Earlier this week, Henry decided to chew into our bank account and get himself into yet another shenanigan resulting in yet another minor surgery and yet another pretty red bandage.  Here, he is putting on his sad face because he couldn’t go to the park and beat up on his friends.

And Sunday, my husband felt something like this. 

Henry concured.

Back on track, I went from an endless stream of caffeine to my measly stash of teas.  Four kinds: chai, green with lemon, white blueberry and some other fruity herbal thing.  Ohhh, how I wish I had not left my sister all that tea I received as a Starbucks employee when I moved away.  It is also a social thing amongst my new co-workers, this ‘going for a coffee’ thing.  I want to fit in, I guess I need to join them; in those instances I generally get something pretty simple, coffee, tea with honey.  Pretty harmless, but buying a beverage all the same.  By myself is a whole other story.

Three pm rolls around, I’m starting to get the three pm ‘itis’ so I slink away from my desk, fidget away the 17 floor elevator ride, which is really 16 floors because there is no 13, but I can save how stupid I find that for another day.  I start wandering around the concourse level, attempting to jolt myself out of the mid-afternoon funk, thinking “Window shop, window shop, window shop.” Holt Renfrew, William Ashley, Indigo…cookbooks, magazines….then nothing.  I zone out, and before I know it, I’m standing in front of a five and a half foot high marble slab asking the barista for soy to put in my sugar-free-caramel-Americano, wondering where my subway change went.

 The walk home that evening is a fair trek, a coffee would be nice.  Out comes the card…

 This week I decided to myself that there would be no coffee buying, that I was not, in fact, too good for self-steeped tea in a ceramic mug.  I am not.  I would like to save the, *don’t read this, mom* $30+ I spend just on coffee each week.   But Saturday did not really work out, we took the dog to the park, it was chilly, a coffee was almost necessary for warmth.  Same for Sunday.  On Monday, it was decided that if my husband bought me a coffee, it was not the same as buying it for myself.  Tuesday, I was having a bad day, and then the second coffee, well that was just because it was the second of the month.  Today I forgot my breakfast at home.  

 My name is Mallory and I am pathetic, weak-willed, and currently drinking a schmancy coffee.

My cousin Harriet takes top notch photos.  They are really, super brilliant.  She knows all about lighting and exposure and she has pro equipment; but that’s not what makes them great.  I like to construct things, but I don’t have the creative brain that Harriet does.  She is extremely creative and she has an excellent eye for spotting awesomeness. It is a huge gift to be able to imagine things that are not yet there, to use something for a fresh purpose, to create something that didn’t exist before.  Not only does she use her creative powers, but she uses them in a way that has not been done before.  She’s most famous for her amazing portraits, even the Sudbury Star knows what’s what.

If being talented, creative and artistic was not enough, she’s also a really top notch person: super nice, fabulously fun, great dancer, best friend to all furry creatures…and she always has time to extreme hang out with me when I come to visit.  Awesome!

After all that, you can understand my glee to see Harriet when I arrived in Red Lake for a visit.  We spent most of my time there hanging out: going for coffee, dancing at the Balmer, photo shoots, eating really awful pineapple upside-down chocolate pumpkin cake and really awesome sweet potato fries.  Even thought we did not write any raps in which every line rhymed with ‘shit’, go cliff jumping or lose our voices singing George McCrea’s “Rock Your  Baby” on top of the water tower, it was most definitely a vacation well spent.

Sudbury is lucky to currently have one of my most favorite people in the whole world.

All photos have been borrowed with the permission of Miss Harriet “Fresh!” Carlson.

I have yet another new haircut; new haircuts are awesome, I always feel fancy as hell walking around with freshly cut hair.  Even if I can’t style it like my hairdresser did.  Actually, my hairdresser isn’t even a hairdresser yet, she’s a student…still did a kickass job, if I do say so.  I keep gowing shorter with the intention of having my natural hair colour and cutting out all the orangey-brown stuff (which used to be red).  At this point I have about three inches of my natural hair colour, for the first time in about 10 years, and the layers really blend the rest of the colours together, yey!

Comfy new shoes!  Ten dollars from the GT Boutique!  I also got a beautiful pair of brown boots.  I’ve been looking for a non-trendy, flat, riding-style knee-high boot, and I finally found them.  At the same time, D got Beatle-boots!  They’re great too.  I have no photos…

Superfluous pet photos because, why not!

(Elbows don’t photograph well.  Imagine your elbows the last time you did something that hurt like hell and left a mark.)

FYI: I am talking about roller skating, just so we’re on the same page.

I thought it was only Carleton that had a labrynth of a website.  In fact, it seems all universities employ the same sadistic web designer.  After navigating this, and finally figuring out how to not only enroll for a course, but pay for it too, I curled up on the couch and cried a good cry.  It was all that could be done.

I’ve also been using the crock pot more lately.  The fact that I have only owned a crock pot for 3 weeks aside, it’s going well.  I have made several textureless dishes that had some great flavours about 4 hours ago, but now are a bit…how do you say…blah.  Thanks www.Chatelaine.com, but maybe I’m just not cut out to slow-cook.  I’ll keep trying, though.

I am also shortly (by shortly, I mean tomorrow) going on a extreme adventure to visit The North (Red Lake, ON) to see my rad 96 year old grandma and learn her potato soup and dinner roll secrets, my bestie Kiera whose spring visit you may remember, and the coolest person alive (aka my cousin Harriet).  The rest of my family as well and perhaps even a trip to this piece of forest that I have (more on that later).  Other than trips to the cottage, which were great, I haven’t done much travelling lately, so it will be nice to get away from Toronto for at least a few days.

I’m climbing the CN Tower, yet again, this year.  Last year’s time was dismal, I won’t even tell you; I wasn’t feeling well that day, I had a sore throat and my shoes were too tight…. so this year can not possibly be any slower!  Right?  That’s the theory, anyway.  I will solicit for sponsors as soon as I receive confirmation of my registration, so get your credit cards ready.  Or your cheque book, if you are my mother and/or terrified of internet credit stealing predators.

Sir Henry is healing well from surgery, thank goodness, and Miss Kitten has been hiding in her newly installed cat tree for the past 6 days. Hopefully it helps her lose some weight, who lets their cat become 12lbs?  I’m an irresponsible pet owner.   Don’t think that for a second Henry is cute and sleeping here, there was an entire green ball is his mouth when I took that photo, he was making sure I wasn’t there to take it from him.