to-do list for 2008: top 10

Better late than never... I've always thought that resolutions were made to be broken, really, so instead I make a to-do list every year.

So, here's the top 10 of the life plan for 2008, not necessarily in this order:

1. Make sure this isn't the only to-do list you make all year. The to-do list can be an invaluable tool at the workplace. However, I continue to delude myself that I can actually remember everything I'm supposed to do. This works most of the time, but on occasion causes wholesale panic, usually in the middle of the night. So, just write it down already!

2. You bought a fancy new daytimer - so use it! See #1, above.

3. Finish the Nina Shawl. For some reason, I've already grown tired of this (you may have noticed that my attention span is somewhat short. As well, I'm not 100% on the colours I chose, an unusual occurrence for me).

What probably does not aid me in my cause is that I will insist on going to the LYS and buying new yarns like this:

Yesterday's haul at the LYS - Handmaiden Silk Spun. I went in to buy a mag only. Silly me. This was the abortive internal struggle preceding that decision:

GOOD KRISTINA: It's not necessary to go all the way over to Romni to buy a magazine. A magazine, by the way, which you actually saw yesterday at the Great Canadian News on the way to work!

EVIL KRISTINA: But we're going to Gandhi to pick up a roti and Romni is right down the street from there. Great Canadian News is out of the way going home.

GOOD KRISTINA: (ripping what little hair she has left out) Well, what's the big rush?!? It's not like you're going to rush home and start learning Irish crochet. You have the $#&*$(@#*$&(@#*&$ Nina Shawl to finish, don't you remember?!?!?

EVIL KRISTINA: Stop swearing, ye wee bampot.

GOOD KRISTINA: AUGHGHGHGHGHGH!!! Stop channelling JJ!!!

EVIL KRISTINA: On that topic, comb your hair while you're at it.

GOOD KRISTINA: (sulky silence)

EVIL KRISTINA: We're going to Romni. That's final.

GOOD KRISTINA:

Which leads me to:

4. Make mosaic version of "The Scream" by Munch.. I've been planning this for a while. I need to save up, though, to buy smalti for it. The next point should aid in this cause...

5. Limit yarn shopping to one PayDay per month. Goddess knows there is enough in the stash that this would not constitute a huge hardship!

6. Learn Irish crochet. This is the mag that Evil Kristina just had to have yesterday.


Isn't the shawl on the front cute? And I like the tradition behind Irish crochet. JJ didn't admit it (as he will insist on being Scottish, not Irish, despite the fact that both his parents were born in Ireland), but he liked it to.

7. Make more mosaics generally. After all, it's part of my cultural tradition...

... and this way, I could move to London and get a job as a subway mosaic artist!

You don't want to see the Toronto equivalents, such as they are - way too grim. (Having said that, they are currently in the process of renovating Museum Station, the one next to the Royal Ontario Museum and my law school. Here is what it is meant to look like when done:

Wish it had looked like that when I attended law school. Maybe then I would have bothered to attend more frequently!

Which leads me to:

8. Decide whether you want to go back to school or not. This is something that has been plaguing me for some time (I'm not sure why, because I have always disliked school despite having gone on to obtain two bachelor's degrees), and it's high time that I fish or cut bait. However, part of me yearns to become the next Jane Jacobs, urban planner extraordinaire. There is no way I can hope to even try without going to planning school. So, therein lies the rub. (Part of the reason that I'm holding off is that I'm scared they won't let me in. Strange, eh? It's odd when the Type-A impulse rears its ugly head.)

9. Take lunch to work more often. I'm tired of spending $$$ at the Fresh & Wild(ly Expensive) grocery and if I keep eating Gandhi rotis I will need a whole new wardrobe. Besides, I do know how to cook:

Check out this funky curly long pasta, by the way!!

Oh - and not only can I cook, I can even pickle!


Couldn't resist this shot... I need an antidote to all the grey droopy weather out there. I don't know if I'll ever actually eat these ones - looking at the jar is a great tonic in and of itself. Besides, I don't like vegetables.

But I digress. And finally... (drumroll please):

10. Make an effort to keep the house in order. Because coming home to scenes like this gets a bit depressing, particularly when it's dark all the time!
Included in this pile of apparent crap are various yarn stash treasures which never made it to the spare room because... well, you may have seen the spare room in the post I put up the other day.

Not all that ambitious, eh? There is some other stuff, mostly boring navel gazing garbage (and what was all of the above, you might well ask?!).

Wishing you luck with your resolutions/plans/etc for 2008! And, happy Friday! The Tenant Advocates are going out after work today - this week's excuse, saying goodbye to Grace who is leaving us for greener (at the very least, money-wise!) pastures. She will be missed.

Cheers,

Kristina

PS. Oh - one more to-do list item:

11. Comb your hair.



How can such short hair be so messy?!? However, as I like to think of this trait as part of my winning charm, I am unlikely to comply with this particular item (besides, I think I may have glued the comb JJ gave me into a mosaic at some point).

Requiem to a Glue Gun

(sub nom. Patience: An Object Lesson.)

Why the title? I'm very sad to report that a fatality resulted from the creation of my Carmen Miranda headdress - and it was my fault.

I can tend towards the manic side when crafting (NO!!!! really? you say) and tend to approach things in a hasty fashion. So, when I realised that partway through gluing pretty fruits to one another with my brand new (and first ever!) glue gun that I had bought the wrong size of replacement glue sticks - way too big.

So, did I wait until the next day and take them to the shop to try to return them the following day? Of course not. Instead, I decided to forge on ahead on the theory that if I cut the oversized glue sticks in half, they'd work just fine.

WRONG.

Instead, the cut glue stick jammed in the mechanism. I tried to pry it out. No go. I was about ready to fling it over the balcony when JJ reminded me that I should not do anything that might brain an innocent raccoon and/or get us evicted for substantial interference. For once, I listened.

So instead, for the rest of the evening while I worked quietly on my crochet like a good girl, my tortured brain started planning a fitting tribute to the very short-lived glue gun. A new glue gun and a quarter of a 25 pack pack of properly sized (double and triple checked!) glue sticks later, Patience was born.

A bit about the process (such as it was - ironically, given the title, this piece took about 45 minutes to put together...):

I wanted to make something to keep near my desk to give myself the (often necessary) message that impetuousness can lead to disaster. Hence, the verbal message in the piece:
The glue gun, of course, had to be displayed prominently:
The timepiece attached (meant to remind of the importance of the passage of time necessary for the successful completion of a craft) is from a watch graveyard I discovered in my bedroom drawer underneath the old lingerie that I haven't worn for 10 years. An interesting irony: the watch is stopped at 25 minutes to nine. That is almost exactly the time at which my glue gun bit the dust! (I remember because I actually missed a few minutes of one of my favourite programmes, This Hour has 22 Minutes due to my consternation.)

The rest of the piece consists of broken china from my grandmother's "chipped" collection and flowers retrieved from the storage locker, which had been part of JJs past seasonal door decorations. There are also a few beads left over from a past scarf project.

This, after the fact, I figure could either be viewed as a symbol of breakage from hastiness, or a Horn of (crafting) Plenty:

with the requisite funereal white roses below. The roses are strewn with beads because... they're shiny (I can't keep up this deep symbolism thing all that long!)

I thought this flower jazzed up the project - life after death, that sort of thing. The brown centre looked too boring, especially after I came across the perfect rose "tessera" from the china collection:
And of course, I had to stick in my "trademark" - a hallmark from one of the china cups. I don't know why a greek canadian boygirl like so obsessed with this "made in England" symbol of alleged excellence... best not to question, perhaps.
And, all put together, I ended up with this:
A fitting tribute? Farewell, kind glue gun. You participated in a very beautiful project, and I'm sorry I didn't treat you with more patience. (Good thing I don't have kids, eh?)

(Unfortunately, this is not the first victim, by the way, of craft injuries at the hands of Brouhaha. Here is a previous one. I'm sure there have been many more which I have blocked from memory.

Oh - I forgot to mention the backing! I had a wooden tray which had been rescued from the laundry room for a couple of years, in more or less perfect condition. Blue seemed an appropriate colour for the mourning theme, but with a note of brightness for moving forward. So, I got the spraypaint out.

Which, I should note, very nearly engendered another casualty. Spray painting can be hazardous to your health! Especially if you're smoking a cigarette while using it.
Oops.

(I guess I should have clued into this before I started a spray 'n smoke session. And yes, non-smokers, I do know that smoking is hazardous for my health as well. Believe me, I know. In case I was inclined to try to forget this basic fact of life, the government has decided to remind me at least 20 times a day:
And, just in case I somehow lost my ability to read and understand English:

Smoking is so glamorous! Really! How else do you get to try cyanide without dying immediately, may I ask?)

But, as usual, I digress. Suffice it to say that I obviously haven't learned the "Haste Makes Waste" message completely. I'm only grateful that I didn't end up wasted like this:


And... I'll sign off with a hearty congratulations to my compatriot Manolis Andronikos,who on this date in 1977 discovered the tomb of Philip II of Macedon at Vergina - apparently a big archaeological discoveries of the 20th century. (What were you doing in 1977? I can't specifically remember, but I was likely sulking because I had to play John Bosley in the Charlie's Angels game at recess for the 27th time that year - when all I wanted to be Kelly Garrett. Just once. Or, maybe I was secretly lusting after Wonder Woman. SIGH. Life is full of disappointments, isn't it?)

Olé!

(This is pronounced "olay", as in "oil of".) Like many North Americans, I learned whatever Spanish I know from Speedy Gonzales, so please pardon any spelling mishaps.

(It is a little known fact that Speedy Gonzales actually coined the phrase "Una cervesa* mas, por favor" - one of the most useful expressions in any language as far as I'm concerned!)

*Why didn't I put a link to Corona above? I don't like Corona. I don't like Moretti either, but for some reason I love the painting of the old guy they use to advertise.) And if you were wondering, the word for "beer" in Italian - and Greek, for that matter, is birra. The Italians must have stolen it from the Greeks. Far simpler to remember for this ignorant North American.

Anyway, for those less tutored in Spanish than I, olé means "Opa" in Greek (closest English translation I can think of right now is Yee-hah!!)

Why the Spanish exhortations in a Greek/Scottish household, you ask? Because I recently took photos of my favourite mosaic creation ever (having realised I lost most of the other ones when I dropped my former laptop last winter... don't fall asleep when blogging!!!), the Fiesta Chair!
So why not bore you with the story behind the creation today? I'm sure it won't be the first time I've made you either yarn or hit the back button!

I made this one a couple of years back. Here's my how-to:

1. Haunt the large garbage disposal in your apartment building until you come across a discarded child's chair.

It is rather fortunate that I don't have photos of the "before" picture. This may have been the ugliest chair ever seen. It was painted puce and had ripped burlap upholstery, probably because the poor toddler who was forced to use it took an X-acto knife to it in desperation.

So, of course I was completely thrilled!! (JJ, correspondingly, less so. He made me take it back outside, brought out a can of bug spray and sprayed it for about 15 minutes before I could bring it back up. I was afraid Super Mario might come and poach it...!)

2. Let the eyesore sit in your spare bedroom for a year and trip over it while you decide what to do with it.

No explanation needed here.

3. Break a Fiesta plate in the microwave by accident.

By the way, have you ever heard a plate crack in the microwave? It sounds like gunfire. When I woke up from my coma after being incapacitated when my head hit the ceiling, I was mighty peeved to learn that my favourite plate (which I had scored at my grandmother's house) was broken.
They LIED! I almost wrote a very, very strong letter indeed. But, given that it had sat in my grandmother's basement under two tons of canned goods for 20 years, I figured I'd save my sword-like pen for a worthier cause (such as writing to Loblaws to complain about their not having the $5/litre olive oil in stock and not offering raincheques...).

So, of course, I decided to break the only other Fiestaware in my possession (a small green side plate). All the broken pieces went into the spare room and then I spied the ugly burlap chair - A-ha!!!

4. Dip into the five gallon drum of paint lying around the spare room, and paint the eyesore.

That paint may well have been JJs one and only Treasure from Trash. He brought it home from work but didn't know what colour it was. He works at a military base so I just assumed it was either khaki or institutional beige. However, I had no other paint in the house and was too lazy to walk five minutes to the Pro Hardware. So, I cracked into it. Wedgwood Blue!! Yee-hah!!!

(Let me tell you that JJ was not best pleased that I cracked open five gallons of paint to use on a baby chair. However, he sold the rest to Mario, our building superintendent, so all was not lost.)

5. Break some more crockery.

In this case, an old teacup from my grandmother's collection. This detail is my little trick to stop people from trying to sit on the thing...

6. Raid your stash for beads and tiles and glue everything onto the chair.

Again, rather self-explanatory. However, I was glad to note that the middle part of the plate was more or less intact... so of course I smashed it (OPA!!!) and reassembled it in the middle of the chair seat.


I then discovered that this feature works very well as a plant stand. So, that is its official use. And, if there was a plant in existence which could live for more than a day in my presence, it would probably hold a plant all the time.

This is the one piece of furniture in my apartment which is never, ever draped with clothes/books (can one drape books? hmm)/empty cigarette packages or other general detritus of the Brouhaha lifestyle. So, that in itself should tell you its value to me!

Happy birthday to Joni Mitchell!

Cheers,

Kristina

PS. here is my other Spanish delight in progress:

I would have finished it tonight except that I managed to wreck my brand new glue gun. You can look forward (?!) to that story when I post pics of the finished object. Suffice to say it will be something along the lines of this when finished - perhaps a tad shorter as I am really not all that tall and I don't know that this would suit JJ.

In my travels today I also acquired a felt hat form. Stay tuned for whatever is in store for it!


But wait! What's that in front of the head mannequin?
.

The comb JJ gave me, and a tube of crazy glue!

Oops.

Never on Sunday...(and candy - real and surreal)

...go to the Forest Hill Loblaws. A nightmare. Busier than Christmas Eve! And why advertise two day specials which you then don't have, and try to fob me off with overpriced substitutes?!?!? Enough said about that. I did acquire some maple fudge and fake-o Toblerone which is better than the real thing (called Alpine!) so all was not lost.

And at least I still have the poppy I shelled out $5 for (because I felt for the veteran with the poppy box - a man who likely fought in the Second World War - consigned to standing all day in the Loblaws from hell getting run over by frantic shopping cart drivers operating cell phones and Blackberries at the same time ). The fact that it is still on my jacket constitutes a personal record for longevity of poppies in the Brouhaha universe.

KB's Energizer Poppy (lasts a long, long time)


My poppy, by the way, stands for both remembrance and peace, in case anyone cares.

Speaking of poppies, or red, I'd like to digress to show you a little chapeau I acquired earlier this week at Brava (vintage place up the street from work).

Don't I look like a "lady who lunches"?

Oh - maybe not with the diet coke bottle in hand. Let's try again, shall we?


That's better.

Where was I?! Oh, yeah. Today's trek was also highly worthwhile as I stopped in at the Goodwill before hitting the grocery store. I finally left Goodwill - nine neckties, two tops and a fancy set of beads later, all for under $30!


I'm particularly proud of the beads. They were sitting at the till and I was cursing the person in front of me whom I thought had scored them. However, when it was my turn to pay they were still there. I grabbed them - the lady at the till then told me that ten people had refused them because they were "too expensive" at $5 and that a few of them had tried to haggle. Chickenheads.

Then I came home and recommenced work on my latest mosaic, which started off like this:


Then ended up looking like this:

I then had to grout it. I really dislike black grout. For some reason with me it always ends up with the consistency of tar, and about as hard to shift (man, what is all that tar doing to my lungs anyway? SIGH). So, here it is after the grouting:

What a mess, eh? But (drumroll, please) voila the finished product:


I'm calling it Liquorice Allsorts . One day, I will actually do a mosaic with real liquorice allsorts - they are probably harder to chew than the plate pieces I used today, anyway!

Please note the very la-di-dah features:

(a) Actual gold content!

(b) Hallmark from an exotic place!

And finally, another detail shot:


All this, too, can be yours - after a trip to the Goodwill:


(Not to mention the spot where large items are disposed behind my building!)

And - JJ actually likes it! And - he suggested painting the rest of the unit yellow! I think I may be converting him to crazy coloured craftdom... heh heh. Who's the Voice of Evil now, Holly?!

I should note that this is my first project for the Crafting 365 Flickr group (which I found about on "Handmade Originals - thanks, Frances! I've put a little list into the left sidebar of this blog to track my progress. The link to the Flickr page is there if others are interested.

I am still knitting as well - work progressed apace yesterday on the argyle blankie as well... I hope to have the FO very soon (I keep saying that, don't I?)

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

Housework has its rewards.

Had you said to me before yesterday that I would ever hold the above sentiment, let alone commit it to writing, I would have told you that you needed to call the white coats on yourself. (And I do hope that my mother, if reading, hasn't already fainted!).

So, let me explain why I would make such a preposterous statement.

When taking out... oh, let's say 2 1/2 weeks' worth of recycling today, I found this!!

An olive-coloured pirate's chest! And my mailbox key works on the lock (hmm, I guess this means I'd better not store valuables in it...given that my mailbox key operates on at least two other mailboxes in the building - as I learned purely by accident, I assure you).

I posed it together with my (alleged) Law Stay Away candle:


I LOVE these occult candles. Two to three bucks each at any decent dollar store, and they last forever! I used to have the whole collection: (alleged) Put A Hex on Nine People, (alleged) Find Your True Love, (alleged) Find a Job - and let's not forget the whole Jesus and Mary collection. Right now, I'm down to this one and the (alleged) Good Luck In Your Court Case that I keep at the office for special occasions.

(I don't know what the "alleged" is there for. I suspect someone sued one of these companies for big bucks at some point when their hex didn't work, they lost their court case, they didn't get a job, etc.)

But back to the regularly scheduled programme. I also spotted this:

I must tell you that I exhibited my usual forbearance and considered deliberation in this acquisition (Good Kristina having made a sudden reappearance... back from her hangover at the hands of Evil Kristina, apparently!), because I don't really "need" another rolling bookshelf. Really, I don't.

I even made it back up to the apartment without it (having initially decided it would be very useful if only to roll pirate's chests in from the large garbage disposal). Also, I was rather fearful that JJ would have me committed if he came home last evening from work to find yet another piece of "rescued" furniture.

Here is a snippet from the last conversation we had on the topic:

JJ: When we moved in here, hen, you had all those furnitures from IKEA. You said you were sick and tired of looking at them, so we went and bought a total set of replacements. Now you're bringing in things again from IKEA???

KB: (sulking) It's not from IKEA...

JJ: Correction - it WAS from IKEA before some wanker bought it and kept it in their flat for five years and then - wisely, ah might add - threw it out.

KB: But I have a plan to decorate it.

JJ: With broken plates from the Goodwill? I try to provide well for you, yet you insist on bringing in garbage and junk and playing with it.

KB: (sulky pause)

JJ: And just where will you put it, anyway? There's no room! We have a living room set from Leon's and a dining room set from Idomo...

KB: (giving the silent treatment, which is a big challenge indeed, when you're KB)

JJ:... so I guess it's just going to sit in the spare room for a year or so and then migrate to the storage locker, am I right?

The hell of it is... he was right!

So, I was just going to leave it down there. Then - ANOTHER benefit of housework! - when desperately seeking the vacuum cleaner, I came across this long-forgotten cache from Goodwill:
Perfect for covering the bookshelf!!!

So, up came the bookshelf into the craft materials/yarn stash black hole otherwise known as the KB/JJ household.

(As an aside, I should note that JJ approved highly of the pirate's chest and suggested I upholster part of it to use as an ottoman. Excellent idea! He either didn't notice the bookshelf or ignored it. However, he will certainly notice it tonight once it has broken colourful dishes all over it! OPA!!! )

More characteristically, however, I should also mention that yesterday also provided a lesson in the benefits of procrastination. This, by the way, is actually a lesson I don't really need, as I am a highly educated, extreme morphomeni* - in fact, I've been putting off defending my PhD thesis entitled "The Perils of Procrastination - Why the Greeks No Longer Rule the World" for some five years now.

* "morphomeni" = "learned" in both Ancient and Modern Greek. Some have even told me that I am para-morformeni (i.e. over-schooled) - repeatedly, like the male relative who shall remain nameless but who keeps quoting the gringlish phrase "Booooook smarrrrrrt, life stupid". My answer to this is typically to sing this little ditty - at least to myself under my breath. Which is probably just as well given my singing voice.

However, for those lesser mortals who still benefit from ongoing education... in my ever-so-organized fashion, my list of things to do yesterday included removing all of the recycling which had grown to epic proportions due to the bloody Toronto Star insisting on sending "free" newspapers that we don't even read (because, of course, there were no empty whisky or beer bottles. Well, maybe one or two) - no later than 10:00 a.m. By the time I actually made it down there it was 4:30 or so.

And - I was just in the nick of time!

As I was coming in with the chest, the building superintendent whose name begins with "M" came out. He looked at me with disbelief and disappointment and said, "I was out here half an hour ago and that wasn't there!!!" You snooze, buddy...you lose.

Oh - also, when cleaning I came across this which was hidden underneath a bunch of old cigarette packs with phone numbers written on them and some Canadian Tire money:

I can't remember if I posted this photo before or not. It is my Crazy Watermelon plate - I acquired the base plate a couple of years back from Goodwill and added the tile, beads and grout. I quite like it.

And, here are my two latest mosaic creations:

(a) No Mirrors in My House! (a Treasure from Trash)"


Yesterday, you may recall that it looked like this:

I took the mirror out of its actual frame (having spraypainted the frame blue) and glued a border of mixed tiles, beads and sea glass on the backing. Then I cut up the mirror, and repositioned it into the mosaic "frame". I then stuck beads and glass to cover some little nicks.

The grout was chapparal brown mixed with cadmium red and burnt siena pigment.

Now, if I were a really deep and pretentious artiste-type person, I would tell you that the symbolism of this piece involves a deep sociocultural commentary on the fate of many young women who spend hours on end looking at themselves in department store mirrors, hating what they say, and feeling fractured and very blue as a result.

But I am not a big artiste, nor am I big at understanding symbolism until it beats me over the head after the fact and completely depresses me. So, I'll tell you only that I love looking at blue and white glass and china, and that it is named by one of JJs favourite expressions: "No mirrors in your house, eh?" (which expression, when directed at me, is usually followed by "Why don't you use that comb I gave you? Where is it, anyway? Did you glue it to a table or something?")

Oh, and in case you had the thought that broken mirrors bring bad luck for some period of time... that doesn't count when they are cut, not broken. Or so I keep telling myself...

(b) A Genteel Existence (a Brouhaha storage locker find, revisited)

Remember this?
It has now morphed into this:



Doesn't it look better with these on?

(a classic example of English as She is Spoke, I suspect - what are "colour pebbles", anyway?
Are they meant to be "Pebbles of Colour"? If so, just say so, dammit!)

Anyway, the in-house review process is now complete, more or less. JJ approved highly of this one (having disliked it immensely in its original form, as, really, did I). So highly, in fact, that it has pride of place above the sofa... where he doesn't have to look at it while watching Nigella or The Daily Planet! Conversely, the verbal review on the mirror piece was "uh-HUH... um, well... it has an offbeat sort of look. Very modern." Nice save, JJ!

Hmm. Better sign off. Maybe if I go back downstairs today those old rusted golf clubs will still be there...imagine the potential for pissing off the neighbours with a spiky sheaf of gold clubs protruding from the balcony rails!! heh heh heh.

Happy "Extra Hour of Sleep" Day!

Kristina