construction zone

The entire building where I work is undergoing retrofitting, and the art has all been removed from the walls/rooms have been emptied of contents/hallways have been sectioned off. All sorts of junk lines the corridor, and construction workers abound. We may or may not be kicked out of the building entirely next week, depending on the whims of faculty and architects (ie not me).

At home, it is much the same inside. I forgot to take photos, but the walls to the first three rooms are exposed and ready for insulation, wiring and plumbing. Our first order was to determine the real-life dimensions of our new kitchen, which previously had only existed on paper. Hubby did not like the outcome, so we may be tweaking that a bit in the following weeks. Thankfully, things are moving along outside. Spring clean-up/large garbage is going on this week in my village, so we hauled our share of garbage (actually, not our share. Someone else's share that they just left behind...).


This was stuff in the house or the workshop, we haven't touched the barn contents yet (which contains at least a few more mattresses and appliances that I can think of). The majority of it was carpet pieces, as it appears no occupant has ever thrown away carpet from that house in the last 5 decades. They just piled it up out back, in the shed that is attached to the house. This resulted in a weird strata of carpet remnants, with styles and colours dating their origin. Yuck.


Just beyond the garbage pile, at the other end of the driveway, are cheerier sights: daffodils and garlic sprouting next to the white picket fence. Behind that is the garden plot I've laid out, whose sod must be uprooted and tilled. This is a big job, but my husband is a champ and is tackling it in sections.



Even my dog has gotten into the spring spirit, and went mucking around in the mud. She arrived home after dark with my husband, and it took a long bath to clean her of it.

sneaky addictions

I now understand why people get addicted to buying crap on ebay: The act of getting mail.

These days it is a rare thing, and really harkens to feelings I didn't know I had. Like that regular old snail mail makes me feel important and loved. Even if the tag says ebay. So odd. Combine that with the thrill of thrifty shopping, and it is a done deal. Over the last three weeks, I've ordered a food dehydrator, a scooter helmet, some organic cosmetics, organic spices I can't find around here, and a special boardgame for a gift. Sigh.

Post Office Love.

cc'd your boss

Hi,
I'm assuming the tree trimming going on right now in front of the art gallery on campus is a university contract. If so, just thought somebody might like to know they cat-called me while I crossed the street to get into the student union centre. If in your power, I think you should let the dirtbags know I don't appreciate being harassed on campus.
Sincerely,
me

I do NOT want to be inside right now

The entire weekend was glorious. Sun shining, no rain, light breeze and most importantly NO mosquitos. Today is the same. On Saturday we drove 45 minutes away to "Bancroft Farms"-basically an adorable dude-and-dog duo on a couple of acres making veggies for a roadside stand in cottage country. The fantastic potluck showcased some fresh scallops surrounded in bacon BBQ'd to perfection, sunchoke salad and other home-grown goodies. We drank beer around a campfire as the sun went down. Or tea around the table gabbing about CBC and drunken escapades. Then yesterday was a surprise birthday BBQ for my dear hubby, who is turning 30 this week. I invited some old friends he hadn't seen in a long time as well as family members to my mom's house for a surprise party. It was great!

So not much done on the house this weekend. I really want to tape down the kitchen cabinet design to verify the proportions actually work. And I had to fire the landscaping crew who were supposed to till my garden. Not only were they horrible communicators, they just failed to follow through on multiple occasions. I don't have to deal with that crap anymore. I just borrowed a tiller to do myself, with a garden plot plan I spent a few hours organizing. Companion gardening in wide plots....that's the gist of it. We'll see how it goes.

I also took a few pictures of the property today, which I'll post shortly. Sunshine!

Update: Here they are!

Inside the barn:



Outside the barn:

Riighhhtt

The advertisement along the right hand column of my youtube playlist:


I'm not sure "glam" would be the word that comes to mind, really.

Junos

From wikipedia: Juno (Latin pronunciation: /juːnoː/) was an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state.

The yearly Canadian musical awards are also called Junos, and they are taking place in St.John's. I was listening to CBC last night on the radio, and came across the live performance of some of the artists showcased at this year's Junos. If you need something in the background today, check it out as a podcast via iTunes. (screen capture below to help you navigate since I can't put a link up)

little news big news

While earthquakes abound and I worry about all westcoasters, closer to home we found a neighbour in our barn. He looked like this:

And smelled like this:
The local exterminator company wants $200-400 for removal. At that price, I think it may be worth sending the dog in and dealing with the consequences after.

re-iterate

under a tahini moon

I would like to know what is in sesame seeds that my body is apparently lacking. For two weeks, I have been craving sesame seeds something fierce. I put them in my home-made granola bars (where normally I stick to almonds, currants and coconut). I learned how to cook a spinach-sesame Japanese dish called gomae. I stealthily go down to the health food store mid-afternoon to get some of their sesame crisps.

Tryptophan? I don't know but yumm....sesame seeds. My new best friend.

flakey

Last week I ordered some wee chickens (straight run, buff orpington*, half a dozen day old chicks). They should arrive mid May, so we need to get a coop reading by then. I also scheduled when our garden to be tilled (we decided to move it from the location I originally liked in the fall because of copious tree stumps buried underground), being pleasantly surprised at the $20 cost (I was never going to get around to it at this rate anyway). Bought paint for the exterior of the house. A nice creamy yellow called "bee pollen".

I bought a big five gallon pail at a big box store (they gave me a fifty dollar discount on the upgraded paint because they didn't have the right base for my colour), got home super excited to start the long process of covering up the asbestos shingles in paint when realized I bought latex to put over oil.


Now I have to go back, spend double the money (and time!) to get an appropriate primer. Crap!

* I only realized yesterday that I said buff orpHington, not the proper buff orpington (no H). Newbie!

good things

When I saw these, I literally gasped (open-mouthed and all) in the shoe store. Beautiful glee. Unfortunately, my doctor told me this morning my fucked up left foot (in particular, my fifth metatarsal) is due to poor arch support and will likely get worse as I get older. I'm going to have gnarly old lady feet shod in gross shoes. *Sob*


Regina Spektor will make it better because hello! ...look at those collarbones.

La musica

I have come across three non-local bands that have tickled my fancy this week. Apparently I was in the mood for lush beats and tic noises.

Microbunny from Toronto (in particular, the Magnatech remix)

Little Dragon from Sweden (Twice)

Trespassers William from Seattle (What of me)

(my oh-so-smart husband told me the origin of the name without even having to check. Cute!)

I'm also getting a one month membership to a gym. A bunch of my girlfriends go multiple times a week to a dance/aerobic class that they adore in the town next door. It's basically this, but with a wider range of ages and fitness ability. Free rides and free accountability!

magical science supply faerie

Two weeks until undergrad honours thesis are due, so students are rushing like mad to finish up the last few experiments. One arrives at my door this morning to ask that I order supplies on his behalf, holding the empty containers in his hand. When I tell him I will do it asap but that the supplies will likely arrive early next week, he does that quick-inhale-between-the-teeth-reverse-whistle thing. Like "ohh...only next week??" but in non-verbal form.

There's a life lesson here, unfortunately for him. It goes something like this:

I am not one of these.
Figure 1: Science supply fairie. Space and time bend to her almighty will. Ta-da!

Sorry kiddo. Now I have to willfully compel myself NOT to chase allover campus getting signatures right quick. Because there is still a tiny teeny part of me that feels bad for him, and would do it. If my inner bitch let her. Which she won't.

dank

With spring temperatures, there is water everywhere. Puddles in the front yard, backyard, basement. When the new septic field was put in place less than five years ago, we suspect the people may have royally screwed up the drainage plane around the house. Copious amounts of dirt were presumably rearranged in the process, and it requires a smart thinker to keep the water flowing away from the house. There is no way the house would be in such great structural shape if the amount of standing water around the house right now is historically accurate.

So guess what we found under the floor of our exisiting kitchen? If you guessed a 7 foot-by-7 foot concrete box (six feet tall) with about 3 feet of clear, standing water you would be correct. And it is fucking creepy.

Our running hypothesis all winter was that the kitchen was a later addition to the house, since it "sticks out" of the original square footprint, attached to a 6-inch wall rather then an interior 4-inch one. We figured that it had no proper foundation, just a dug dirt crawlspace. It is always much colder in that space, which would make sense if it was sitting on dirt. We hoped the floor joists were structurally intact and didn't meet the same fate as the barn boards, which are crumbling from the middle of the floor outwards. (Tangent: our barn looks almost identical to this one, but with a better roof.)

Then my husband pulled up a curious spot in the hardwood floor that looked like a hardwood patch (like those around old flue holes in the floor) that was in a funny location. It was a hatch access door to the pit.

Turns out the reason our kitchen is so cold is because it is sitting on a pool of near-freezing water. We can't figure out the purpose. Root cellar? Extra well water? Flooded bomb shelter? And more importantly, what do we do with it? Drain it, obviously. But then...cap it? Leave it & insulate the floor? Use it as a root cellar and hope it doesn't floor next spring? Pack it with vodka for the end times?

shitty timing

We found a wee treasure behind the baseboard of the old house. It is a tea company advertisement for "Beacon Tea Company" based out of Boston. I wish I could date the thing, but with the political uproar in the States right now, a quick search for "Beacon Tea" just brings up all sorts of racist, right-wing garbage (or articles mocking it, like this.)

So this is the cute placard showcasing nifty period clothing. When was tea 20 cents a pound? Now, that may be something to work with.

Wrangling

I would very much like to choke the everlivingshit out of whoever sold my email address to the ScienceSpammers. Dammit, this is what my inbox looks like:

Eight more days

Being a new grad last summer, I qualified for a government salary supplementation for my first year (-ish) of work at a "small-to-medium size company" in my field of study. At the end of the last pay cycle, my boss informed my that there was a much larger balance in the grant account then we previously believed. Basically, this funding was going to run out at the end of the month whether I claimed it or not, so if I wanted to work my ass off for 17 days in a row, I could drain the account (doubling my normal pay cheque $$), bank the hours, plow through an ever- accumulating "to-do list", apply the money to our new woodstove AND take some time off after April 1st.

So that's what I decided to do, calculating 17 successive, 9-hour days would be enough time logged to empty the left-over grant money. I am now over half way finished, and have managed to stay in relatively good spirits and health. Nine hours days, in reality, are nothing compared to the strenuous hours in other jobs. As my husband reminded me yesterday, upon delivery of some delicious potato pancakes and beer for my suppertime meal taken in the lab..."you're not an undergrad, you're not a masters student anymore. You're getting paid for your time. Chin up."

...of course, it's molecular biology. I protocol started is a protocol to be completed until an appropriate storage stage is reached. So I was here last night at 1 am transferring a Western Blot :)

The nine hour days alone are not really a problem. It is the quick spring that overtook us, highlighting the need for attention outside (ex: incomplete chicken coop, soppy garden and crumbling exterior finish) that is difficult to neglect on beautifully sunny weekend days.
Coincidentally, there were lots of planned appointments (doctor and hair) and installations or estimates for these two weeks (like the stove, planned for a Thursday installation, or the spray-foam insulation guy who is coming tomorrow afternoon). So I have been working more like four ten-hour days, and then five hours a day on the weekend.

I've also been tutoring someone while she studies mid-wifery via correspondance. Her current course is anatomy & physiology. (Thankfully, there is quite the overlap in content from my undergrad cell bio/metabolism/animal biology classes...says the girl who studied fungus, algae and plants for her scientific career). Originally a 14-week course with ~4 hours of tutoring a week, she was just informed late last week that in order to qualify for government student loans, she needs to complete the course in under seven weeks. All of a sudden, four hours a week has turned into 8. We have standing dates on Tuesday & Friday and Sunday evenings to go over the remaining material. She must complete the course by the end of April, so hopefully my banked hours this month can be used for day-long study/cram sessions before her last few exams. She also received a grant to pay for my tutoring services at a great per hour rate.

So just to re-iterate: I have job(s) I love, I'm keeping busy and I love potato pancakes with spinach and cheddar. Yum!

fun-tasking

I dyed my brown hair with a semi-permanent purple dye on the weekend while checking out the price of a honey bee starter kit ($190.00 plus tax + $10.00 registration fee).



I spent five hours updating my lab book this weekend while sitting in the sun, three hours tutoring someone in anatomy/physiology while drinking tea, seven hours cleaning the yard/stacking wood while the laundry dried on the line.




I centrifuged my midi-prep plasmid DNA in preparation of an protein over-expression protocol this morning while talking on the phone to the local Feed&Grain store about heritage/cold-hardy chicken breeds I could order.

Sunlit Swooning

I dislike aviator style sunglasses. It is my belief that they flatter nobody's face shape. To wit:



(and she has reason to where them...she actually flies planes when she isn't saving the world or "stealing" husbands.)

But...I've made one exception in my entire life. And his name is Jon Hamm.

I just...can't....handle...his untucked shirt while he stretches. Gurgle gurle gurgle. Lainey said he touched her hair and YOU KNOW WHAT? That made me seriously consider for one millisecond not cutting my long hair next week as I had planned to. On the bizilion-to-one chance Jon Hamm wants to touch MY long hair sometime when we could possibly be in the same location. Crazy Loco. Long hours in the lab may have skewed my take on reality, folks. Or it could just be Jon Hamm. He has strange powers, that man.

Don't even get me started about when he was sporting that beard last month for Oscars.

translations from a tech

What they say versus What they mean:

"Is there any more DDT?" = "The powder is right here next to the tube of empty solution, but I don't want to make it up."

"Are there any more LB plates?" = "Someone used the last plate and didn't tell anyone. Please make more so I don't have to."

"Do these tubes of media have Ampicillin?" = "I cannot read, since these tubes are clearly marked on the side AND the tops that they lack Ampicillin. It's written on the white board and in an email I received earlier. But I didn't look there."

"Do you know where to pick up the intro reports/midterms/marks?" = "It is second semester but I still haven't figured out how university works, or that I'm responsible for knowing these things before arriving to the building. You don't work for the university but are stationed at a convenient location, so I'll ask you."

ying yang yadda yadda

FTW: My science is kicking ass over and over. My lab is clean and organized, including the freezer I just thawed out. My lab book is a mess, but will be tackled in short order. I feel like a queen bee.

pwned: The Spring thaw came whipping out of Winter's ass so fast I believe we may have missed our opportunity to tap birch trees this year. While we are scrambling to find equipment that costs less than our first born child's soul, the day-time temperatures have been 5-10 C for four days straight. Maple syrup producers have gathered TONS of sap already. Usually the maple season is the end of March, but every day this week has been gloriously sunny. Literally, one week ago we battled two mighty snow storms in a row. This picture was swiped from a friend's facebook account without credit:



This would be a snow drift, waist-high, at her front door... ie normal March weather. So although I complain, I can't REALLY complain because sun lifts my spirits. Birch syrup will have to wait until next year.

treasures

The first harvest of the spring:

I had to pick them out of cold water & snow...and I'm not sure if they are edible. We'll see, I guess :)


We had beautiful sunny spring days here this weekend. It prompted us to do three things on our "to-do list":
1. figure out where to put laying hens. We decided on 4-6 chickens, either Barred Rock pullets or Chantecler pullets (a Canadian Heritage Breed) that are cold hardy and friendly enough to have around kids. We think one of the out building was once used as a big chicken coop, so we've decided to turn it back into one for a small number of chickens that will hopefully supply us with fresh eggs.

2. figure out where to put a few bee hives. Friends of ours started last year on their old farmhouse nearby, so we went to dinner on Saturday to talk shop (and yummy food!). We won't be getting any honey for the first year, but it will be good to have them around to pollinate.

3. mark off the birch trees we could tap for sap. Although maple trees are the biggest producer of sweet syrup around here, we have almost none on our 135 acres. But a girlfriend of mine goes up to the Yukon every spring to tap birch trees, and although the process if more difficult and finnicky than maple, it can be done (ie different sugar with lower content). We thought we would try it out at least once. Within a 0.5 km radius of our backyard, we found 50 birch trees bigger in diameter than my hand.

We also visited the barn again, and opened an old chest left in the back part. It was lined in newspaper, and we were lucky to find an intact remnant:


The people is this area were ship-builders and rock-quarrying people. Many prominent families had homes here and in New England (mostly Boston), and this chest must have been from one of those family members. Nifty.

Hot hot heat

Despite drama at work, "grant writing" hell (not my own, thankfully) and a to-do list longer than my left leg, I'm still chugging along with house things. Last weekend, we went woodstove shopping. Prior to stepping into any store, we discussed budget, we both agreed around $3000 would be reasonable. That was excluding any government energy-rebate benefits (around $900) we would qualify for before March 31st. Difference that we found out later was that I meant installed, and hubby meant just for the stove. No matter, once I saw the selection, I was pretty determined to get something like this (which would never happen on my previous budget so TOO BAD FOR ME):

Pacific Energy Alderlea T5 (~$2400):

or Jotul F500 "Oslo" (~$2900):

Lovely stoves, well made, well reviewed, would fit right into the decor of our old home, both medium sized stoves. We are hoping their size will yield the luxury of overnight burns. A cast iron sleeve (on the Pacific Energy) or cast iron box (for the Jotul) means a "softer heat" compared to stainless steel, that is absorbed and dispersed more slowly. I hope this translates into a comfortable warmth in our living room, instead of a "blast" of heat in one corner that can't be approached without passing out.

Our house has these wicked tall gothic dormers that were a bitch to re-shingle but also means that for code purposes, our flue has to extend a god-awful length. Way up high. Like, 28 feet from the stove. At one hundred dollars a linear foot installed, well.....I was stupid to think my $3000 budget was going to go very far with anything but a $300 HomeHardware leaky bucket. A local dealer has the T5 floor-model on clearance (end of season sale) so at least there is that. Exciting!

I don't get *dressed* so much as *costume* myself...

So here is a picture of my shirt (formerly a 3.5 m length of fabric). I gave it a boat neck with a large hood that holds tight along me face, long sleeves with thumb holes and a wrapped empire waist. The bottom edge is still raw, because I want to add darts along the bottom half to make it more A-line, as well as incorporate the empire waisted tie-backs directly into the tunic (currently they are just tied around me). I still have tons of fabric left-over, but the stretch is not as I would have liked so I don't know what I'll do with the rest (it definitely bunches in places I don't want it to bunch). Alas, when you are scrummaging through the bargain bin, you take what you can get.

In the end, I came to love the colour. I wore it to work, and my boss said I looked like someone from Lord of the Rings. It is a very earthy chartreuse colour, and compliments my dark-hair-streaked-with-red. So I think I'll keep it, incorporate the finishing touches and reinforce the seams so I can by rugged with it. Like scale a tree or try out a bow or something ;)

Pushing Daisies

While I may have the necessary skills to re-create a cotton t-shirt with exposed seams (like the ones sold here), I'm afraid I've found a dress I may actually have to buy. Sigh. I've been watching alot of Pushing Daisies, a whimsical little dark-comedy show that ran for a few seasons. The styles on the show are all retro-cute



and has me salivating for upcoming summer so I can wear this:


I'll have to put it in my budget :)

Update: They have it in purple!! Sealed deal.

Spring Awakening

I know the flowers and gardens have been in bloom in Vancouver for a month, but out on this coast we usually get snow storms until the end of March. Fortunately, the frozen winter is slowly giving way...the last week has seen temperatures regularly jump up into the positive digits. Due to routine maintenance in my building on Wednesday we were without water, so I didn't go to work. Still rose really early (7 am), had breakfast with a friend (8-9 am), drove my husband to work and then took to the dog to Hometown to run errands, see another friend and have lunch with my mom. Mid-day, it was about 6 or 7 degrees Celsius, and on my way back to the village at about 3 pm, the gloriously warm sun was glistening off the puddles made by the melting snow. It was brilliant, and lifted my mood incredibly.

I stopped off at the fabric store to try my hand at creating clothing inspired by this etsy seller. I ended up with 3.5 metres of a mustard coloured knit (I found in the bargain bin) and matching thread for about $10, but the process of choosing the fabric was amazing. Everything in the store was extraordinarily beautiful, amplified by my good mood no doubt. I marveled at the whimsical patterns and the lovely textures. I oohhed and aahhed over the patches and the buttons and the zippers. I chatted with the man who was probably in a work-placement position reorganizing the bargain bin and then recognized the cashier as a childhood friends mother.

The sunlight has recharged my good mood battery. The last few days were rough at work, and I was so happy to have a mid-week day off. I'll post a picture of the shirt when I finish!

Metrics

Driving back in the snow-storm the other night, husband and I were discussing the qualities necessary for pop songs to have staying power. This was in response to a Red Hot Chilli Peppers piping over the radio waves. Although we both agreed it was thoroughly overplayed in its heyday, it completely hit the spot (musically) on Sunday evening. I think one of the reasons is the subtle, dark imagery of the lyrics, which sit just under a sugary coating of a pop rhythm chorus. Coal hearts have staying power.



On an unrelated note, I made green lentil-chicken-curry with a peanut sauce (without a recipe) last night and it was FANTASTIC! The problem is that, as my cooking skills improve and I explore locally sourced or organic food blah blah blah, hubby is not cooking. While this is fine now, I may become bitter if/when we have babies, because I don't want to be doing it all. And I don't want to be eating fried steak with chopped potatoes slathered in butter every night. So we decided last night to even out the cooking duties now in order to thwart any bitterness later. We all know coal hearts have staying power.

One Sunday

Yesterday afternoon I spent three hours outside playing in the snow. Something I haven't done in a decade probably. My husband, his two siblings, his brother's finacee, and his sister's son.

We made a fort. That turned into an igloo. That got a chimney. And a mini snowman sentinel.

I carved a mermaid in the snow, and gave her hair (ie sticks from the ditch). Got coloured water and made her tail green. Took pictures before she melted away.

We chased the dog around the igloo/garage/sculpture. My nephew (3 years old) would throw himself down, stomach first, into the fresh snow, and eat it. It would become bubblegum, or sometimes ice cream.

There was a slide, and a "crazy-carpet" thing (but better), which we would pile onto (two adults, or one adult and one child, or sometimes one adult and one poor puppy). We went down head-first, or standing up, or on our backs. Once my husband even climbed the garage and slid down the roof into a snow bank.

Then we piled inside, ate some nice warm seafood chowder, and played games until 11 pm. We drove back home in a mini snow storm that quieted down just as we pulled into the village. From our driveway, my husband could see the utility light he had left one in the barn. So we went together, in the hush of new snow and bright moonlight, to the barn. He had spent many hours cleaning up a section of it, and in that warm golden light it transformed into a magical place (one of many here at this house).

Last year, when we decided to move back "home", it was to relish these luxuries - a Sunday family visit & a home so enchanting it makes me jealous of myself. Love love love.

tossing and turning

This week is money week. I've started watching all EIGHT seasons of this reality program called "Til Debt do Us Part" which is basically about a hard-nosed (and curiously accented) host slapping consumer-driven Canadian couples from their debt-riddled lives. Since this is the first time in my life I have had a predictable incomes AND predictable expenses, I've taken the advice to heart. I've made budgets several times over, and actually stayed AWAKE a few nights ago, fretting about our financial future. Which is utterly unnecessary, since unlike the couples featured in the show who are routinely one full year of dual income-worth in debt, we have relatively little. The real eye-opener is that my scratchings on paper have told me we could pay off our mortgage ENTIRELY by the time our five-year term expires, by contributing $2000.00 a month to our mortgage. Ask someone in Toronto whether 2000.00/month for two people is impossible. It certainly is NOT impossible. It is certainly appealing to this young gal, who once had her heart set on mortgage-free living.

As I see it, interest rates can really only go one way from this point on. What if in five years our reasonable, locked-in rate of 5% jumps into the double digits? It has happened before, it will happen again. My mom was telling me about one of the mortgages she had before divorcing my dad and filing for bankruptcy. Fret fret fret.

Again, we I thought we lived frugally. But I think we could be doing better. The complication is that last week, before the budget bingeing started, I called the mortgage lady to ask for money for home renovation. The demolition is chugging along, and hopefully before the snow melts entirely we will be ready to have electricians and plumbers help with our best laid plans. Since we have excellent credit and moderately good incomes, I think we will be approved. The question of course is whether we should go for it if we are. Last week I was sincerely and completely in the "no shit, abslutely" camp. The downstairs is a wreck, gutted without a proper kitchen and NO INSULATION means we are paying out the nose for heating this winter. I don't want to spend the next 24 months fixing it. I want to spend six months fixing in it and then 18 months paying for it. But at the expense of paying years more on the mortgage? We are teetering on "maybe not such a good idea, don't-spend-it-until-you've-got-it"now. Or at least I am. Hubby probably thinks I'm two parts crazy & one part hormonal.



Ask me next week, I'll likely expound on the virtues of different flooring options. I am a tad spastic with my obsessions. *breathe*

Monday Humming

I woke up this morning in a super-grumpy mood. Not aiding this fact: I had a Paula Abdul song stuck in my head. "Straight Up", which was introduced into my unconscious by a friend Saturday night, explaining his visit with family. "It's like I never left. They watch Amercian Idol, Survivor or movies all day. But now the TV has gotten bigger-it's like a 102" or something". He mentioned a surprising performance on Idol, a acoustic rendition of Straight Up by LA artist Andrew Garcia, that made him question why the guy was on the program in the first place. I didn't seek out the video until this morning, in an attempt to dislodge the song. He was right, it is pretty impressive.




Somehow, this acoustic version of Straight Up morphed into another earworm; "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley. I recently heard a cover of this song by Alice Russell, played during a kitchen dance party at a friends' place. I was checking out her stuff on youtube a few weeks when I came across this uplifting little ditty:



Sure helps with the mood.

In this new age

The amount of amazing art and music and creative-ness that I run across on the internet has me more attuned to how the biggest, bestest library in the world can help artists reach a larger audience. And what my role as a consumer of this art is. It reminds me of a post I read almost two years ago on a blog by writer/actor Wil Wheaton. He expands on a notion first written about by Kevin Kelly.
"A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living...Assume conservatively that your True Fans will each spend one day's wages per year in support of what you do. That "one-day-wage" is an average, because of course your truest fans will spend a lot more than that. Let's peg that per diem each True Fan spends at $100 per year. If you have 1,000 fans that sums up to $100,000 per year, which minus some modest expenses, is a living for most folks."
Maybe it is because I'm a scientist at heart, but I often try to quantify the meaning of beautiful art or music in my life directly, and $100/year seems like a bargain. Something to think about in my quest to simplify life & material goods, and spend more time/effort/money of things that matter to me. Food. Art. Music. Family. Wine :)

where I explain what happens when hubby doesn't work

My husband, being a carpenter often employed in replacing windows or completing additions to homes, requires a minimum outdoor temperature to make the occupants comfortable while this happens. He is usually laid off during the coldest months of the year, regardless of who he is working for (or in what city). So for the past tree weeks, he hasn't been going to work. As a result, our schedule has gotten incredibly wonky. Average time arriving to work is probably 11 am. One luxury of my job is that I can make my own hours. Being a recent grad, I am paid with a government grant for placement among industry, and I was told the grant covered five 7-hour days. (NB: recently informed I'm under the grant value, so I can log more hours if I feel like a pay boost). When I work these 35 hours is entirely up to me. I could work 12 hours on Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday and have Thurs-Fri-Sat-Sun off if I wanted to. Lots of molecular biology techniques don't work that way though, so mostly I stay consistent and go in dutifully everyday. With the alarm clock decommissioned, I lazily wake around 9 am, hang out with the dog, shower and then get out to work around 10:30-11 am. The past week I've been staying from 11 am-7pm at work with one hour lunch (around 3:30 it seems). Late dinners are not cumbersome these days thanks to the all-day-cookfest I undertake on Sunday. We eat alot of soup. Last night was a three-bean salad (that tastes better the longer it marinates-yum!) and some (formerly frozen) pork souvlaki I cooked that morning while showering.

Evenings are varied-Tuesday a Nobel Peace Prize winner gave a talk at the university. Wednesday nights are vegetarian/gluten-free/lactose-free potlucks with a half dozen girlfriends, where we consume wine and talk about books, fashion, sex, food and boys (and radio shows, taping birch trees and unemployment insurance). Friends visit the farm and we make good use of the snowshoes gifted to us for Christmas-we went walking in the snow on Saturday, Sunday and again yesterday. My legs are sore from walking so bow-legged.





With no job, hubby is able to tackle the demo downstairs. It is a fine balance between using his free labour while it is available and removing the air barrier (ie plaster) from our walls, effectively exposing ourselves to the cold harsh winter outside. We are averaging $500 month in oil, and that's with the thermostat set to a balmy 12 Celsius. This is what the downstairs looks like these days:




We have narrowed down a floorplan for downstairs, including an open concept kitchen-dining-living room. The front parlour will become a library, and we will add a half-bath and mudroom in the current kitchen location (as well as lots of currently lacking closet space and pantry space). I've contacted the bank to explore financing options related to inceasing the mortgage, as we would prefer to do the bulk of the work in the next 18 months with loaned money instead of a slow renovation over many years. But that may not fly, and we may have to fund it ourselves with tax returns and line of credit. There are pros and cons to each method, so I am okay with whatever works out in the end.

Oh, and I turned 26 years old. My friends threw a surprise sushi party. Awesome!

I got a doggie:

and she's cute.