Larocque and Roll

Merry Fourth Day After Christmas, and a Happy Two Days Until New Year’s Eve! December 29, 2007

Woo!

I just spent the Christmas holiday at the home of my parents, mostly eating, sitting around and eating and oohing and awwing over the antics of my nephew [1]. It was a good visit, and everyone made out well in the gift department. The weather was distinctly un-winter like - up here, it’s well below zero, and there’s so much snow it’s getting out of control [2]. Down there? Barely any snow and hardly any need for mittens.

Today started out pretty ambitious - I got the house cleaned and washed a few floors [3]. Now I can barely gather up the ambition to waddle over to the couch to knit and watch TV.

Coming soon: the books of 2007! [4]

[1] He’s teething, which means there’s lots of funny faces and an ocean of drool.
[2] Last night, we got another 10cm. Insane!
[3] Blissful domesticity.
[4] I know I said I was going to do this a week or two ago, but I’m sort of glad I didn’t have a chance to. There was still plenty of year left for me to read a whole bunch more books, which is what I did over the holidays.

Not to labour the point… September 3, 2007

This Labour Day long weekend, I’ve been spending it… well, labouring. Saturday I had to work - I don’t mind working the Saturday of a long weekend because everyone’s already left town or are doing long weekend-y things, and don’t so much come to the library. Sunday I spent it doing laundry and tidying the basement, and doing dishes. On the goofing off front, I did manage to finish the book I was reading, and spend a goodly amount of time watching TV in the evenings. Today I plan on cutting the grass, doing some weeding, and perhaps hitting a matinee. And reorganizing the two bookcases I moved a few weeks back.

Last night I made rice for with my dinner. I always make extra so that I can make rice pudding for dessert. Tonight I tried a different recipe, and used shredded coconut instead of raisins. It is an addition that was most delish - thanks to my sister who made the suggestion.

In other news! My sockapalooza socks arrived last week!

My pal was Lucy, aka Pinkphish, all the way across the ocean in the UK, and I love the colour and the pattern. The socks look really blue in that picture, but there are actually a lot of different, subtle colours. Thank you so much!

Good night and good riddance July 20, 2007

Today has been terribly unfocused and unproductive, and it feels like I’m being thwarted at every opportunity. To say that I’ve been a cranky pants over the last day or so is a huge understatement - I’ve managed to maintain a reasonably pleasant demeanor when I’m around other people (which is most of the time), but in my head I’m snarling and snapping and swearing a blue streak. Normal conversation with people is well-nigh impossible because I’m so impatient that I’m liable to cut the person off and tell them to hurry up, or just walk away in the middle of a conversation. In fact, one of the summer students - the quiet one who’s going to library school in the fall - came into my “office” [1] and asked if I was okay. At which point I felt really bad and tried hard to be pleasant and cheerful to everyone, even to the individual who tried to bite my head off during a somewhat stressful transaction.

Happily, I have the weekend off to be anti-social and not leave the house at all. I have grass needing cutting, a garden to weed, and a basement floor to wash. Not to mention mango sorbet needing to be made. On the other hand, I’m feeling restless and edgy, like I need to get out of the house. Tomorrow morning is a perfect time to hit the bike path for a few kilometers, then hit the market and head home in time to do the yard work. That should take care of the restlessness, and then I can spend the rest of the weekend vegging out.

[1] Not so much an office as a desk around the corner from the main area, with a cubicle wall which doesn’t make it to the ceiling, a desk groaning under the weight of the papers needing filing and the journals needing reading, boxes upon boxes upon bags of donated videos and a filing cabinet topped by a colossal pile of audio book and video catalogues which constantly threaten to fall on the next person who comes around the corner too quickly. Wait - where was I going with this?

Night off June 15, 2007

I’m trying to think of a compelling reason not to sit here and watch television until it’s time for bed. So far, the reasons for doing just that are pretty damn good:

1. I have to work tomorrow, so I should take the night off.
2. No matter how much I clean, everything is going to be covered in cat hair tomorrow anyways.
3. I just made lemonade, and what greater pleasure in life is there than cold lemonade?
4. It’s too hot to do much else.

The DVDs of “A Bit of Fry and Laurie” I ordered for work came in the other day, and I took home a Horatio Hornblower film tonight. Just more reasons to chill out and do nothing strenuous.

Post-post-Boxing Day buzz December 28, 2004

Another day spent in glorious debauchery.

Yesterday, the ILP tried to go to the kitchen and restaurant supply place and the giant book store. Hilariously enough, both were closed. So I hit both places today.

If you are ever in the St. Catharines area after Christmas, might I suggest stopping by the Book Depot (it’s on Welland Ave. for those in the region). Books that are already on sale are even more on sale for the next few days. I made out pretty good - among other things, two Nigella Lawson cookbooks, A Cook’s Tour by Anthony Bourdain (I’m hooked, I tell ya…), Me Talk Pretty One Day by Dave Sedaris, The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger, and Sellovision by Augusten Burroughs (which I started reading while waiting in line). The clerk tallied up the total and then divided it in half, which made me all giddy and excited and wanting to go back again tomorrow. But I somehow have to get them all back to Sudbury, plus I don’t have room on my shelves (or, at least I’m not going to have room) to house them. Plus, I need to save money for my SEX (stash enhancement expedition - a knitting term) on Thursday.

The kitchen place is really cool, even though I feel like a complete amateur in there. There are so many pots and pans and implements to look at, that I feel that my cooking/baking would improve if I only had that funky looking wire whisk…

The other problem I have is that when you grow up with a mother who loves to bake and does so almost constantly is that you have an unrealistic expectation of how many pie plates, cookie sheets, muffin tins, loaf pans, cake pans, mixing bowls, etc., you really need. Do I need those tiny muffin tins for perfect bite-sized cheesecakes? No. Do I need a deep-dish pie plate with scalloped edging? No. Do I need a round bund pan for making gingerbread cake or poppyseed cake? Maybe, but I don’t need the $40 cast-iron one. So I limited myself to a nice, heavy mixing bowl and a long square pan for making brownies. Yeah, right…

Afterwards, I stopped at the library for a little visit (hi Elaine!) and then went to the yarn store in Fonthill. I got another ball of Dandy to finish the scarf I started eons ago but needed one more ball to complete, and two balls of totally cool novelty stuff - names of which I can’t remember.

And then I came home and finished Kiss of the Fur Queen. Good lord, but it was a sad ending! It was a sad book, but I loved it nonetheless. I’m all sad now, and I don’t really want to read Pi, but I’m going to force myself to anyways.

So, what did I accomplish today? December 18, 2004

Banking stuff, including paying bills.

Make gingerbread cookie dough.

Returned some videos to Blockbuster.

Dropped off a book at the library, and picked one up that had come in on reserve for me. (I found out later that the librarian renewed a book that I forgot was overdue. I know for a fact that librarians only renew books without asking for library users they like. If they really like you, they take the fines off too

Filled the gas tank. (I tried to ignore the fact that it was under 66 cents the other day, and today it was 78 cents.)

Got part of Denise’s present at the mall.

Got a present for my godfather at the mall (he gets the same thing every year - Dixies from Laura Secord. He doesn’t read this, as far as I know, but I think he’s expecting them anyways.)

Got a Christmas outfit that will probably go over moderately well with my fashion consultants (my mom and Rachelle). I used a gift certificate to make this possible.

Had lunch.

Drove past the LYS without even slowing down. Didn’t have time.

Went to BouClair’s and got material for making bags for Christmas presents.

Went to Chapter’s. Got the rest of Denise’s present and something for Rachelle. Also got a peppermint latte and finished writing a card. Also came up with a cool tagline for the blog that I’ll use in the new year.

Got to the grocery store. I’d planned to get the videos, mail a parcel, and get a few groceries, but I managed to accomplish only the first task.

Came home. Spent next three hours trying to get rid of headache.

Baked gingerbread cookies. The first batch that came out where severely undercooked, and sucked big time. I’m not sure how the rest turned out, except that I left them in longer than the first batch.

Put up Christmas lights in my window. Pretty!

Knitted some. Puttered some.

Watched the first Blade movie, which was on Space (the sci-fi channel). I’m realizing how much better the story is than in the most recent one. Donal Logue was my favourite vampire in that movie. I’m considering making a t-shirt with the line, “I’m gonna be a naughty vampire god!” Or, “Some mother****ers are always trying to skate uphill.”

Went to bed. Umm… eventually…

To do list October 21, 2004

Towards the end of the second teleconference (the portion I like to refer to as “navel-gazing time” because two or three people start discussing minutia), I jotted down a to-do list of things I needed to do when I got home. It ended up that the first three items were in alphabetical order, so I did my best to carry on with the theme:

• applesauce (as in, make)
• bathroom
• closet
• dishes (not many, but still)
• email
• fridge
• garbage
• have nap
• ironing board (as in, pick up)
• (I can’t think of anything for “J” Jog? No thanks!)
• knit (while I watch CSI and ER tonight)
• laundry
• make supper
• (Yeah, I got stuck on “N” too…)
• organize papers
• printer ink
• quit procrastinating!
• read bookclub book
• sweep
• telephone home
• ummm…
• vacuum
• walk (instead of jogging)
• Xmas list
• yarn (as in, pick up and put away)
• zzzzz…..

B could also be for blog, since that’s pretty much what I’ve done since I got home. And nap. So two things down, 21 to go!

It’s not snowing here - yet October 16, 2004

For a while it looked like it might, and it’s cold enough to snow. But it isn’t.

What I have accomplished this morning so far:

I went to the market and got cider, carrots, cranberries and apples.

I went to Future Shop and got a new CD-R/RW burner (because my current one is not working properly), ink cartridges for my printer, and the Franz Ferdinand CD. It’s okay. (While I was there, they were showing “The Day After Tomorrow” and I stood and watched it for a few minutes. I have a fascination with natural disasters - I was terrified of them, but I would collect books about them and watch all kinds of specials on PBS about the. My grandfather delights in telling people about how scared I was of the Mt. St. Helen’s erruption, but knew everything about it. So, in other words, I need to see this movie, even though I’ll have nightmares for a week afterwards.)

I stopped at Chapters because I had heard that Christopher Moore’s The Stupidest Angel was out. Alas, they were sold out. But! They did have a hardcover copy of Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal, so - yay! (I didn’t buy it - I buy my Pratchett’s in paperback.)

I went to the grocery store, where I stood in line for longer than it took to pick up what I went for. And ended up forgetting to get spinach.

And now, I will forage for lunch, replace the burner, and back up my important files so I can format this sucker. Bleah. I’ve already formatted my hard drive once this year but I’m getting way too many virus warnings from Norton, and everything I’ve done doesn’t seem to be helping. Grr…

Holy crap - I think it’s snowing now! No, wait - it’s just rain. Sorry!