My Project

My current project (depending on how much time I have) is to copy my blog posts from my old blog (found here) over to this one.

I’ve now been on WordPress for over a year, and I’m getting worried about losing my blogdrive posts.

While most of them are very poor and boring, I still want to keep them as the history of my knitting that they are.

Also, I’d like to apologize for my continued silence as far as posting goes. I’m still quite busy and have a tendency to update my Ravelry account before I come here, so if you want to see what new stuff I’m working on, go there (if you’re able to, to those who aren’t in yet, I’m sorry, hopefully I can get stuff going here again soon).

In the mean time, I’ve still been knitting my fingers off, my apartment is frigid due to C’s grass allergies, and my work temperature is so cold that I’m still able to wear my wool socks (and some times I really need them!)

My current distraction has been my new toy. C and I managed to get a Wii, and by stroke of luck also got the WiiFit. I’ve been lazy in the last year what with not taking dance classes (they were too pricey on our previous budget) so I’m working through the games and such on the WiiFit to get myself ready for starting dance again.

I’ve been asked if I believe that the Wii is exercize in video game form and I have to say, Yes! Especially with the WiiFit for me. I have bad hand-eye coordination so I struggled with WiiSports, but once you add balance to the mix, I’m doing quite well, and really feeling it too.

Our other big news is that we’re looking at houses. Hopefully before the end of the summer we will have an offer down on one that we love. We don’t have our sights set on anything yet, but the fact that we can even look at houses is amazing!

Anyway, that’s all the big news for now. Hopefully I can have some more interesting updates here, I’ll be surprised if anyone still reads this since I’ve become boring.

Till next time!

Big Bike for Heart and Stroke

Whew, what a weekend, I definitely have a lot to tell you about, however before I do I’m going to put in a little plug.

I’m currently fundraising for the Big Bike for Heart and Stroke. Essentially I will be riding (along with many members from my work) on a big bike to support the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

If you would like to support me, you can do so through this link.

This charity is very important to me. Heart attacks and strokes are major issues in my family, on both sides. My maternal grandfather had his first heart attack 15 years ago, and we’re lucky we still have him. This year has been hard on us with him going in and out of the hospital with an irregular heart beat and low blood pressure.

My paternal grandfather had a series of “mini strokes” about 8 years ago, and while it didn’t have the debilitating effects of a full stroke, his mind was severely affected to the point that he doesn’t really seem like my grandfather most of the time anymore.

Heart disease however is the number one killer among the women in my family. We are all on watch for heart issues. I’m only 25 and I’ve already had one cardiogram, my younger brother has also.

I would really appreciate it if you would sponsor me in this bike ride, and if you decide not to sponsor me specifically, please think about donating to Heart and Stroke because this is a curable and preventable disease, and hopefully we’ll be able to stop it from taking lives prematurely.

Thanks so much.

Till next time.

Holy Crap!!!

Has it really been so long? Geeze… I’m sorry guys, my life took a HUGE about face.

I know I put little posts up but I can’t believe I’ve left this poor little blog tosit for so long.

So, I don’t have pictures for you right now, I will hopefully get them up and going in the next few days, I do however have quite a bit of news.

For starters, the main new thing that has been taking over my time is that I got the full time office job that I was looking for. It’s with the same company that I did my placement for, and I am loving every minute of it. Honestly, I can totally see myself being here in 20 years, the benefits and the department that I work with are that good.

So yay!

C and I also almost bought ourselves a house. We were about half a day from signing, we talked with my family, discussed it between us, and in the end, decided that we would be better off if we waited for a bit. That way it would allow us to get rid of the last of my school debt and get a bit of a buffer saved up.

The good news from this is that we now know what we’re looking for in a house, since we want to hopefully move into one in the next few years.

Thanks to this new job, we were able to buy a gift for ourselves (this was a personal present for making it through the last year without going further into debt, essentially we blew what we could of my first paycheck on a toy). We got a Wii!

I love this thing! The exercize ability of it with Wii Sports and Wii Fit is perfect for me (since I’m not doing dance this year), and it has a bunch of games that are just plain fun! (I don’t do very well at video games, I don’t have the hand-eye coordination for it, but I’ve actually beat a couple).

Peri the wonder cat is doing fantastic, she’s become enough of a cuddle cat for me, and enough of a play cat for C. I’m not sure what caused her to be removed from the home she was in previously, but it wasn’t physical abuse. She even lets me clip her claws with my nail clippers!

On the knitting front, my stash has exploded all over the back room and I have to get that cleaned up. I’m working on actually finishing up some of my WIP’s and UFO’s. I’m hoping that when I clean up the stash I’ll uncover everything that is currently on the needles and take pictures to put into Ravelry. That list of WIP’s on there is my hall of shame and hopefully that will get me to actually finish stuff.

I’ve still been doing my voice acting for Quirky Nomads which is now just QN. It’s my favourite podcast and if you like little skits and funny stories, you’ll probably enjoy it too, plus it updates about twice a week at least.

Let’s see, thanks to Lime and Violet, I’ve started Letterboxing (you can find more info on it here) and I’m now an F2 with C. It’s a nice little hunt that gets you out of the house and seeing new things, plus it has creativity with making stamps. I’ll have a post or two about that in a bit too.

I think that’s about it on the general news thing from me. I’m hoping to get more time on the net and be able to write in here more often. I’m just finding that when I’ve stared at the computer screen all day, I don’t really want to look at it anymore when I get home. Maybe I’ll become a weekend poster.

We’ll see.

Till next time.

Saffity’s (Mis)Adventures in Cooking

So, in the nature of Odds and Sods, today I will tell you about what happened in the kitchen today.

Should you speak to my family they will tell you that I’m not exactly the best chef. I have a very good pallet, I even startled a Maitre D’ in a New York Italian restaurant by listing off every spice in a bruschetta that my friend and I were eating. This is thanks to my brother only being allowed to cook eggs in the microwave and testing out different spices in them to make them more interesting (of course he never ate the eggs, I was the test subject), but I digress. This isn’t to say that I can’t cook anything.

I have the normal college student meals of Kraft Dinner, rice, udon or ramen, and chicken noodle soup. But I have some home made recipes as well. My first college roommate actually declared my Tuna Fish Casserole as the only edible version she’d tried. My Spaghetti sauce is a favourite among the boys who are friends with my fiance (so long as I don’t dump half of a bag of rosemary in it).

The best complimen tho came indirectly from my brother. I had made my version of Shepherd’s Pie for dinner (my fiance claims it’s not Shepherd’s Pie due to the inclusion of Tomato Sauce and Carrots rather than gravy and corn), and while eating it, I mentioned that there were 3 more dishes of it in the freezer should my brother want to cook them up when his friends came over. My brother looked me straight in the eyes and stated “why would I want to waste it on them!”

However, up until today, the biggest mishap I had had was causing the microwave to pop when I’d forgotten to take the bottom off of a frozen orange juice container, which all things considered, wasn’t really that bad.

Today tho, I decided to make a most fantastic dinner of Freezer Isle Shepherd’s Pie (it’s so hard pulling it out of the freezer and putting it in the oven for the specified time). So I set the oven to preheat and went in the back room to finish weaving the ends in on an FO I will show you all soon. Suddenly, my brain picks up that something doesn’t smell right.

I head out towards the kitchen and OH SHIT! Realize that the living room is full of smoke. Dashing into the kitchen, I see that the oven is in flames! I stress for a second, then turn around and grab the fire extinguisher. I read the label and get the extinguisher ready and reach out to open the oven door.

This is when numerous scenes from the movie Backdraft entered my mind. I panicked for a moment. To open the door and chance flames doubling in size yet having access with the extinguisher, or to leave the door closed and hope it burns itself out. I waited for 3 more minutes and when the flames did not diminish, I tested the fire extinguisher, then slammed the door open.

The flames increased slightly with the influx of air, but then I doused it with the extinguisher.

The entire apartment was filled from ceiling to about counter level with smoke, I had to crawl to the patio door to get it open and step out. I worried that the neighbours might call the fire department with the amount of smoke billowing out of the windows. After about 5 minutes of catching my breath, I heard a sound that made me realize that had this been a real threat, we would be in deep trouble.

Only at this point had the smoke detector in our apartment gone off. All told from the time I discovered the fire (and had the living room filled with smoke) to the time that the detector went off was a good 10-12 minutes. Had this not been a contained fire, that was sufficient time for the fire to spread and cause serious damage.

After I got most of the smoke out of the apartment I finally went to check on the oven. The cause of this fire was actually the fact that we’d hidden some dishes in there the last time we’d had company over. Included in these dishes was at least one plastic container. The container had melted and then lit on fire. After seeing this, I was very glad that I grabbed the fire extinguisher and not a jug of water.

My lesson from this is to always ALWAYS check the oven prior to turning it on. This time I was lucky, but it could have been a lot worse.

Till next time (with an FO!!!)

Being sick sucks…

So I was all ready to write a big post today about the projects I’ve recently finished and some that I’m working on, when I woke up with the mother of all colds.

It was bad enough that I didn’t feel like knitting all day (that’s when you can tell I”m really sick), so I spent the day in bed, reading and sleeping.

I hope to feel better tomorrow so that I can take pictures and show off my new things, I’m so proud of what I’ve finished. Until then, I’m going back to bed with a NeoCitron.

Blarg

Well not much work done this weekend… read my Live journal for why.

But my backpack is all knitted up, I just need to stitch the knitted stuff together, then make the lining.

Trying to decide what I want to knit next.

There’s lots of cool patterns in my stitch ‘n bitch book.. and i’ve got a lot of presents to knit. We’ll see…

I have to get needles first to start the stuff..

I may work on the next Saffity warmer if I can figure out how I want it to look.

I think that’s it for now

I’M FINISHED!!!!!!!!… one thing…..

well i got the misto costume done.. just need to brush out the wig and that will take me no time at all.

so for convention (that happens next FRIDAY!!) i have to dye the james wig, spray and support the Jessie wig, braid and add the forehead braid to the birdie wig.. and make birdie’s gloves.

I’m definitely going to have to be spirit gummed into the birdie costume.. no way in HELL that thing’s gonna stay!

also got a huge portion of my backpack made! the front, back and gusset are all knit up.. just need to do the straps and make the lining. YAY!

i’m going out to dinner tonight.. i’m so burned out from this costuming marathon..

*falls over*

6 hours of sewing make saff go crazy!

Ok.. in desperate need of a break.

however, i’ve now got my birdie costume 3/4 of the way done, still need to make the gloves and fix up the wig.

have misto’s vest cut out and have to sew that up, and sew the purpley white boa to the unitard… it looked full white in the store, but i can’t help but giggle that this misto will have a hint of purple on his bib…..

then when i get home i get to restyle my Jessie wig, and dye the james wig… hopefully manic panic will actually work

as far as knitting goes, I have the front 2 sections and back section of my back pack done, and just need to do the gusset and straps… but the gusset is in garter stitch so i can fly through that.

i just need a chance to veg on the net for a bit… way too much sewing at one time for me..

ta

Yay!! Costume and Skit work!

All right.. so to get the ball started I’m putting in an itinerary of sorts of things that I’m doing/need to do/ want to do.

so…

costume stuff:

For the convention next weekend, i’ve got my birdie (sailor moon) costume to do… i’ve got it about 10 % done, but it’s essentially just a body suit so it shouldn’t take long, I also have to braid the wig and add the little braid across the forehead.

my Misto costume, which has the body suit, and wig… i need to make a sparkly vest, plus a white bib, and a tail for him.

Then I have to restyle the Jessie wig (lotsa hairspray) and dye the James wig… I tried Kool-aid but it didn’t work, plus it made my room smell bad… so i’m going to try manic panic and pray…

for halloween, I’ve got a tugger costume that I have to make a wig, vest and mane for (yay for fake fur)

a kids quaxo costume that needs a warmer, and a redo of a wig (cuz i’ll now how a kid quaxo and adult misto, thereby needing 2 wigs if both are to be worn at the same time..)

a costume for chris, which was supposed to be cats related, but he doesn’t wear unitards well….

and a set of video etcetera warmers for Julianna’s friend, which i have to get back to her with definite prices.

then.. for Neko con, i’m so uber lucky that Erikonil and Idiosylph have offered to make me a German Cassandra costume. I’m a bit nervous about wearing it, as Cass isn’t one of my fav characters, but I hope I pull her off ok.

and as miscellaneous costumes right now, i’m finally going to make a Saff cat costume, have one warmer done, and a plan….. so we’ll see how long it takes to make it.

as far as skits and such go, for now I just have my skit to rehears for next weekend’s con. I’ve got the song cut and everything, but I have to choreograph some parts of it, and practice like crazy.

for knitting, I’ve got my backpack that I want to get knit up and such so I have something to carry around my projects in.

then i’ve got christmas presents to start for my friends *grin* I’m liking this knitting thing!

so for now that’s what i have planned and started. We’ll see how my progress goes in the near future.