and in the dark, we will take off our clothes

I've let almost a whole month go by again without a single word.

To tell you the truth, I did write a whole post a few Sundays ago, and then didn't publish it.
I'm not really sure why.

I'll just sum up all the little things that have been happening lately, and maybe touch on some life goals and dreams.

I skipped Communications class yesterday, and went home for the weekend. I say 'the weekend' but really my weekends are much much longer than my week-whole. This week I was at school for a grand total of two days?  Tuesday and Wednesday, and the exhaustion that set in by Wednesday night was pretty darn sad. I'm just waiting for the schedule gods to curse me with a five day week next term.

I promised myself that when I arrived home I would start and complete my Communications Oral Report a.k.a DEATH. But, when I got home around noon, the sunlight was spilling across my bed, and in no time, the little dog was curled up asleep in my lap, and my knitting was in my hands....and ZAP, a good two hours disappeared.

And then, obviously, I had to make cinnamon buns and bread. Obviously. And that, alternating with knitting and family dining, took me to about 9:30. Then I headed down to bed, and fell asleep with the light on, mid-text to Trevor. 

And I awoke upon today.
A day in which, I once again completed no homework, but did accomplish a countless amount of other unnecessary things. Showering, breakfast eating, kitchen cleaning, knitting, napping (in a sunlit bed, with a sleeping dog) grocery shopping, chauffeuring, soup making, supper making, and now blog posting?

Good use of a day.

And, I've still got a good three days of procrastinating to come.

So, today is Sunday, Sunday evening.

I should be at youth group right now. 

I was planning on going, but I got...a little bit lost in knitting...and 7:20 rolled past me. 

I feel like I should have lots of pictures for you. It was a week full of picture possibilities. Thrifting, Dan Mangan's beard,  lots of rain and fog.

This is my knitting. Good old scanner pictures.

I feel like there is a lot I could say to you. I'm not sure where to start, or if it's worth starting.
I'm just going to make up a list of words that are this week.
Maybe something will come out of that.

Words for the week of October  21st 2012

The Reuse Center.
Fog
Salvation Army
Value Village
Indigo
Coffee
Long traffic-filled Toronto drives
Dan Mangan
Dan Mangan's beard
Dan Mangan's man band
Dan Mangan's voice, his beautiful beautiful voice
Lisa.
Books about Stitches
Poems
Hamilton history
IKEA
Rain, rain, rain.
Dexter.
Bow ties, more coffee, crunchy pasta, even more coffee, The Master, Planet Earth and Trevor.
Trevor.

I put off all my homework for tomorrow. Smart right? Tomorrow I wake up bright and early and write an annotated bibliography, draw some paraline drawings on the good old bond paper, interpret sounds into colors and patterns, finish off my photo transfers, and pack my clothes for the week.

oh admiration, in falling asleep

It seems like it’s been a while since I’ve really written something. I can’t even remember how to phrase…and explain and expand on the things of my heart. I’ll have to start practicing again.
Soooo, i’m going to just throw it out there…
i miss essay writing
(Feel free to laugh hysterically)
I miss being forced to write. My minds running a bit slow. I think I’ll change reading week to…writing week, and start trying to phrase things rightly again, and maybe convince myself to start on my research paper…
(Feel free to laugh hysterically)
Try to clear my mind.
I’m sitting here listening to Sufjan, feeling pretty darn okay. I think it’s something about Sufjan, that makes it hard not to feel pretty darn okay. I spent the day in Toronto with Caroline and Trevor. We explored the art gallery, wandered and got a (little) bit lost. Caroline and I had deep life-exploring-train-ride-talks, about all the best things: love, youth, letting go, time and beautiful beautiful living.
I also taught her to knit. That was on the way there before our brains explode because of art gallery overload but she’s a stellar learner. Mastered casting on and knitting in a short hour.
Anyways. I’ve been keeping busy this week. Trying to. Seems like the best thing to do when the world seems to be spinning insanely. I’m trying to ignore due-dates and homework.  I feel like if I’m creative enough, such things will resolve themselves on their own…right?
It is only Tuesday.
My aunt asked me to throw something together for the John Calvin Bazaar, so I decided to re-face photo transferring. That includes dragging my lazy self out to Staples to make photo-copies and to Curry’s for canvases. It also involves cracking open my gel medium. Oh Gel Medium, dear, dear love of mine.

I tried one transfer on wood rather than canvas, and it’s looking stellar so far. Just need to sand it down a bit, and finish it off. I’m gonna try some more like this sometime soon.
here are some of the classic canvas ones:
I also un-buried my sewing machine this week. I’m supposed to be altering my Oma’s pants for her…but you know…bow-ties are just a little bit more interesting? (I’ll get your pants done, Oma… soon I promise)

I think I’m going to make these for the rest of my life. So easy, and so fun.
They took me about 25 minutes to make...and then a good three hours to learn how to tie. I understood suddenly why clip-on bow ties exist.

And lastly, because I’ve been neglecting my bangs, and they need to be tamed somehow… and I found these beautiful rayon ends… (yes, Lisa, rayon…like our pants and like…other things ) in the bargain bins at Fabricland, I made a headband, courtesy of Cotton and Curls. 

That’s it for now! Tomorrow morning I plan to stay inside in bed with tea and my current Thomas Hardy and curl up…sort of what I felt like doing today. Maybe make some chocolate chip cookies, and then tackle the ravaging of all Burlington thrift stores with Theo and Lis.
Should be good!
Sleep well my dearies.

when my turn came…

It’s reading week this week, and reading week means you take your first ride in an airplane.
right? that makes pretty clear obvious sense.
My father met Peter at a bed and breakfast. He happens to be a pilot.
& he took my brother, my father and me flying in this tiny little plane.
It was really, quite…wonderful.

so far

 

so far

this fall has been, lemon cake, apple pie and Locke street market sunflowers.

it’s been escarpment edge hikes, felt and embroidery, sweaters, and knit hats and new friends.

and it’s been good, pretty darn good.

can you expect less of fall? Fall is a love of mine.

(lemon cake beautiful disaster zone)

(apple pie, sunflowers and coffee)

(family fall hikes)

These are my school projects so far:

For my first project I made a scarf. It’s wet felted from fleece, with soft inlays. You wet felt by laying out thin layers of felt, and then wetting it through with a soap and water mixture. Then you rub and rub and rub and rub until it hooks together as a unified fabric. The project theme was home and we were supposed to be experimenting with motifs. I cut the motifs of my families faces out of pre-felt ( a very soft hardly felted sorta felt) and felted them into my scarf base. And voila, aha!

Our second project was mixing color and line with felt. Last Wednesday we had an embroidery workshop. Which excites me, terribly. Embroidery is dreamy, and fantastic. Friend Caroline put up fantastically with my love gushing towards my sample all class.

So project two, color and line, turned into… mittens!

I’m awfully proud of these babies.
Horribly. They just behaved so well.

I just have one last picture: (picture overload! sorry! and I have so many more I still want you to see, from camping, the summer, ottawa, sault ste. marie, and so on and on and on) BUT! I headed out to art-crawl last friday night with friends Trevor and Caroline. In Caroline’s mind there is no passing these things up:

Dear me.

(this, she set aside)

hi,

I think I'm back:
with a 
new blog layout,  & a new school year.

I still tweaking around with the colors and fonts in this layout. I'm not sure if it is clear or legible enough yet. I'll probably continue to fool around with it for the months to come.

:)
but yes.
hi.
it feels good to be back.

I want to catch you up in pictures,  but we recently got  a new computer and I don't know if any of my stuff has been transfered over yet. I'll harass Brother Jacob when he comes home from school.

I started school again this fall. It's lovely so far.
Sheridan folks are ridiculously friendly or maybe, I've become a bit braver. 
It's a Crafts and Design program, so I get to do a lot of fooling around with my hands, scribbling and drawing. We've been working with wet-felting fleece to make (tadaa!) felt, paper and next week we start embroidery which I am hugely excited for. I'll insert images for you, when I get my camera up and running again.
I'm living in Burlington during the week with my grandparents & my lovely, lovely Lisa drives me into school with her when she can, and other days I ride the rails. (Remind me to get her some gas money soon!). Right now, I only have school Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, which makes for wonderful four day weekends.

Things have been pretty normal and really nice.
I still bake like an insane person when I can on weekends.
I thrift too much.
I love shoes.
I love my bed.
I love books, paper, pens.
I fell in love with candles.
I started watching LOST.
& My family got a dog. Her name is Cleo, and she is snuggle-y and pretty cute, I guess. Quite a little yapper though.

Anyways, that is all for now. It's Sister Anna's birthday today, & I've got to run out to the store and pick up her requested dinner of chicken burgers. Nice choice, little one.

I will return, sooner than before.

And tonight will be the night

It's been almost a month?
More than a month.
And I have no idea what happened in that month.

Oh, if I thought intensely I could probably come up with something.
But I'll just start off with more recent news.

I'm a cripple.
 A pretty much healed cripple, but I am one. My knee still throbs, occasionally.

I played soccer (which is almost always a bad option). I got kicked in the foot. My leg turned stiff. I stopped playing soccer. I sat at the side of the field and stared at my foot. The game ended. I went to Chapters. I hobbled through Chapters. Then I went to the Sound of Music festival. I hobbled around in search of my companions. I listened to the Arkells (Well worth a little hobbling). I hobbled back to the car. I drove home. I went to bed. I woke up, and still hobbled. I decided to go to work. I picked up Jasmine, and drove to work. At work, I hobbled. I got called a gimp. I worked. My knee swelled up. I left work, and went to the Urgent Care Centre. They asked my how much it hurt on a scale of one to ten, I said four. They took my blood pressure, and didn't get a reading. They were pretty sure I was alive, so they tried it again. I got a bracelet with my name on it. I sat on a bed, across from a guy named Trevor with tattoos and a broken finger. The doctor came diagnosed me as a loosened ligament. He wrapped my leg with a plaster splint, and bandage. He told me not to put any weight on it for a few days, and gave me crutches.

I texted Ruth, and she said she had no work for a cripple and told me to go home.

I ditched the crutches after a day and a half. They are so dang uncomfortable.

I am very glad I am not permanently crippled.

I believe my relationship with soccer ends here.

Because of this, I stayed home from work today and I decided to start fulfilling the long put off painting of my room.
 I took all the pictures down off my walls, and uncovered many long lost sharpie scrawls. The amount of old songs going through my head was ridiculous. I jumped from Secondhand Serenade, Coldplay, Jack Johnson, Rob Thomas and Counting Crows, as I slowly scrubbed their lyrics off my walls.

Goodness, that is a lot of work, Sharpie scrubbing.
I'll think twice before I scribble again.

I also removed a lot of memories? Some memories I had actually forgotten about. I stumbled across a marking of my height, from the 26th of May 2009, with a note beside it that said. "When you are taller...". (...Keegan? I think there was some sort of promise, an expectation to look forward to, for when I grew. I can't remember what it was in the least, and fortunately, I have not grown a single millimeter since that day and so have not earned any such compensation)

My walls are so bare now. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's making me sorta sentimental.
It was...very much time though.
Very much so.

i remember.

Dear Adam Kalte
This one's for you.

You're pretty cool.

to sing thy grace

The sky is cloudbursting.

I'm inside eating lemon glaze icing out of a bowl, with a spoon.
but my hands are sticky.

The window's open and the rain is just slowly dripping outside.
I like rain.
I like it a lot.

I also like lemon icing.
Maybe not quite as much as rain.
It's pretty good second though.
 For this moment, at the very least

I'm eating lemon icing, because otherwise it will go to waste.
I drizzled it over some lemon poppy seed muffins, but there is still some left.
And it's sad when good things go to waste.
Even sadder when you put them into the back of the fridge and forget about them. Finding them a few months later, slightly frozen, slightly green, and so utterly forgotten in a Ziploc container.
 So I am going to prevent that from happening, and put it to good purpose.
It will accompany me, in my melancholy mood with the rainstorm.

It's good company.
Thanks for being my friend, lemon icing.

It's already Thursday. Has this week gone by fast for you too?
---

Dear Jasmine,
My lemon poppy seed muffins rose properly. They are slightly yellow in color, and scattered with poppy seeds. I also drizzled lemon icing over top of them. A little decadent? Perhaps. But we've already seen the positives of lemon icing, so we won't question that further.
As you know, I made the lemon poppy seed muffins for you. I was also going to make lemon squares, but we ran out of sugar. So, I hope you can come over tomorrow. I am going to convince you that Johnny Cash is beautiful. Yessirreee, ma'am. Please bring whatever other food you feel like eating. Maybe we can make caramel popcorn.
Let's eat chocolate.
I hope you have a nice day at home tomorrow. Good luck planting your marigolds, and writing your chemistry test.

Text me?
I won't reply, but I'll call you if I have a strong opinion on something

Lots of love.


p.s. just to tempt you:












----

i'll wait, on the emerald isle, for you to come and rescue me.

quarters for the phone

 today ethan came over.
we made:
chocolate-chocolate-garlic-skor-sprinkle rice krispy squares.

that's right folks,
remember to wash out your baking pans well.

 

  

 

But I went looking round and all I found,

I am getting ridiculously sick of working. Ridiculously.

I bet many of you could see this coming. During the weeks and month I gushed about the livelihood of working, and how wonderful it was, most of you reasonable humans were thinking: "Just wait, such an unfounded joy can only last so long."

and that joy has since long past it's prime.
That joy is gone.
 It is gone, going, gone, everything, gone, give a damn, as Jack Johnson would say.

I am so over working.

Yesssirrr. Over it, I say.

My mind has been dulled, my hands have been broken, my wrists have been bruised. My finger has a knot of calcium built up under the skin. I am sick of being itchy and I'm sick of dirt boogers (who thought the day would ever come!).

Good thing there are only (...May, June, July, August...) 
four months left.

Goodness.
I shouldn't think like that.

 I thought today, as I once again smashed my arm between two carts and watched it rapidly swell, how much i must be shortening the life span of my fingers.

Dear fingers,
 who long to do so much more with their life.
Poor fingers,
who long to sew and draw and bake and knit and turn pages and make paper and write and knead bread and touch so many things. Fingers meant to wash dishes and braid hair and be ink covered and held and painted.
Oh fingers, i hope you live long lives, in which you become even more wrinkled and bulging with veins.

It's time you got yourselves outta that dirt.

---

While thinking about paper: (were we thinking about paper? I dunno,  I was)
I cautiously allowed my self, for the first time ever, to lay pen to my homemade paper.
I'd never felt a desire to do that before.
But, when I was out for coffee with a fine fellow a few months back, and I mentioned my paper making past-times, he expressed indignation at that fact:

"To make your own paper, and never draw on it. It is unheard of! It is preposterous! If I made my own  paper I could scarce keep my hands off it. I would draw all over it immediately!"

(It's been a  few months, he might not have phrased it exactly like that.)

My paper has always been a sort of work in itself.  It didn't need any further resolution. But that said: boy, does it ever absorb ink nicely.
And boy, the rough texture looks so lovely with the ink.
And boy, the color stands out so nicely.
I could run my pen over that paper forever.

And I proceeded to doodle on a piece.




(yes, only a doodle. but a doodle is all that is necessary in my heart)

----
Was this here one who makes me tea and brings the crossword

Bananas

I hate bananas. I hate them. They make me gag. And they are utterly overpowering and pushy in smoothies.

I do,  however, love banana bread. I love it. With my whole heart.
 I love it so much sometimes I eat it too fast and get the hiccups.

This recipe is from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook. It's the simplest banana bread recipe ever. You don't need a mixer, you only need one bowl, and you can throw almost anything you want into it. Last week I smashed up a dark chocolate bar. This week chocolate chips and walnuts. Last month I made it with only bananas, one time I used whole wheat flour.

 The only thing you want to watch for is that your bananas are actually really ripe. So ripe, that you wouldn't eat them, even if you liked bananas. Ripe, in the sense that they are spotty, and covered with disgusting brown mushy spots.
Once I was inpatient, (I'm impatient a lot, this 'once', refers only to circumstances involving banana bread...) and really wanted to eat banana bread, so I used not completely ripe, still possibly edible bananas. It didn't work so well. The  lack of mushy banana causes the batter to be very thick and it struggle to rise.

SO, be patient. Let your bananas sit around and get gross and mushy.
Then, make banana bread.


Banana Nut Bread

This is pure and simple banana bread, heavy, moist and dark.

3 ripe bananas, well mashed (with a fork)
2 eggs, well beaten
2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup walnuts, or chocolate or anything you think goes.

 Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a loaf pan, (use an 8 x 4ish, sized one). Mix the bananas and eggs together in a large bowl. Stir in the flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Add the walnuts and blend. Put the batter in the pan and bake for 1 hour. Remove from the pan to a rack. Serve warm or cool, or re-heated in the microwave, smothered with butter.
---
This recipe can be easily doubled, if you have two loaf pans. You can throw them side by side in the oven. I almost always double it. It gets eaten so fast at our house, it's worth it.
Also, if you have a multitude of spotty bananas cluttering up your counter space, and no time to make banana bread, you can freeze the bananas in their peels in a Ziploc bag, until you have time to use them. Just defrost them a little, remove the peels and mash normally. They will be a little slimier then usual but do not fear! It will be fine.
That is my promise to you.

just tie your tie, and go on, go forth

time for a weekly update:
i'll warn you, it involves a lot of baking.
i actually sewed this week too, i made a little purse/bag/pencil case thing.  unfortunately i don't have any pictures of it. i'll try get on that soon 'cause i like it.
it's sorta pretty.

anyways:

this week, i spied on anna playing the piano and trying to see the strings move.
it was pretty cute.

i cut my bangs, i know you can't really see the bangs, but the fact that you can see my eyes
is proof enough. :)

i made another apple coffee cake thing.

except this time, i took half the dough and half the sugar, cinnamon, and butter and made my own invention.

i cut the dough into three strips and stuffed them with walnuts, butter and brown sugar.

and braided them together.

and baked it.
isn't it beautiful?

i also made banana bread, with chocolate chips and walnuts. yum.

i'm gonna share this recipe with you, right now.
yup, right now.

wait for it,

and I didn't forget:

lemon cake, with lemon glaze, and lemon icing. Yum!
(if you like lemons)

apple coffee cake.



 I think it's something beautiful, and the dough is something tasty!

if we are at peace, i want to know

 my house hosted youth group games night tonight. it was bucket loads of fun.
it was a full out party, loud laughter, broken glasses, &a few gender issues. (everything you need, right?)
i sit surrounded by mountains of board games and the empty food containers sit on the counter of the kitchen, with a few used tea bags to keep them company. the dip is gone, the chips are gone, & every single one of the skor bars are gone--before i could even document their coming into existence.
(&i really wanted one for my lunch!)
i had to settle for documenting crumbs... and posting the recipe up here, so all you who devoured them can make them for yourselves.
(or...take one look at the ingredients and decided never to eat them again)

maybe next time there will be some left for me.

while i'm at it, i'm going to introduce you to a lemon cake as well. (just a image for now, recipe to follow--perhaps at a later date-- &an apple coffee cake twist thing)

beautiful Kira introduced me to beautiful Joy the Baker.
google her.
(Joy the Baker that is, you can try googling 'beautiful Kira' too,  if you want, but i can not guarantee as complete a satisfaction)

(i tried it..Beautiful Kira yields Barbie dolls and cats. stick to Joy the Baker)

& you'll never regret it. i swear to you. she has the loveliest character, and the most delicious recipes.
i've only tried three, but they've all been scrumptious.

the apple coffee cake is her recipe and the lemon cake come from my big, red, sticky-noted, most treasured New York Times Cookbook (thanks Len :) )

this skor recipe, is a rip out of a magazine, whose original identity has been lost. But that magazine has my sincere gratitude, because these are good.

never mind, i just comprehended a pun.
a hilarious one at that.
these skor bars, are actually called "Score Bars" and the recipe comes from The Toronto Hockey Hall of Fame.

good one guys, good one.

anyway, here you go:
sorry for the less then beautiful quality. it's getting late, i have to work tomorrow, i have to clean up a kitchen, i'm plain lazy.
all excuses i recognize, & you probably deserve more then that, but at this time of the day (Oh, it's 11:11!) it's about all i have to offer.

and if i don't post it now, i probably never will because then it will just be 'old news'.
nobody wants 'old news'.

right! here you go.

(i think you can click on it to make it bigger)

andddd, as promised:

anna balancing an egg with her nose!


naked lemons chillin on my kitchen counter.
sad thing is, i think i actually promised someone a picture of these.


anddd, breakfast courtesy of Joy the Baker.