7.30.2008

when i saw the future the geeks were right

organic vegan chocolate cake
it's been a good week! the other day lovely emily (from rad clothing) came over for a pizza party (yay cheese and pineapple!) and to watch death proof. we agreed that we liked girl revenge movies. like hard candy. the scene where ellen paige's character tells jerk on the roof that the other guy blamed him before he hung himself was pretty good. anyway, emily's leaving town to go to art school and live in a craft house with friends. and it makes me miss being young and free!

7.27.2008

and then there was none



Have you seen this red bike? Well, some fucker stole it last night between 11pm-12am. The neighbours were playing guitar and i heard this noise and thought it was them fucking around in their yard and not my bike getting stolen.


But, this morning when I went out the back "fence" was all taken apart and my bike was gone.

It wasn't locked, so I'm an idiot: but it was on my property! And someone entered my property to steal my bike. It was about 10 minutes after we turned the outside light off (so someone was watching the house) and had called rupert in.

Details of the bike are cherry red TREK brand cruiser. It has a new seat (not the original trek one), and a black rack on the back. There's also a bike lock "locked" to the rack. It has a bell. All in all it's unmistakable.

If you can locate my bike and get it to me I'll give you $50! I've already reported it stolen to the police and tried calling pawn shops, but I'll give them a call again tomorrow.

xo diandra.

7.25.2008

hum di hum dum.


we're not buying that house. my ramshackle income don't mean shit at a bank. supposedly. too bad it's most of our household income. but we're staying anyway. i'm going to work hard at getting a real job so we look good on paper and then we can buy a house.

and i'm newly tattooed and i love it. life's good though i'm frustrated because i still haven't been paid from my contracts. i can't handle it, really. but i'm breathing through.

xo

7.19.2008

Task #18: Ride my bike every day for two weeks!

in progress: once this is done it'll be a feat!

thursday, rode my bike to work (meow) and home.
friday, rode my bike with stewart to the skate demo and to the mall and home (while carrying bbq supplies!
saturday, rode my bike to the carwash and to drinks with the roller derby girls !


more updates soon!

you gotta do do do do do your best


well, i'm feeling better! i just got seriously distracted by trying to price out a trip to vancouver to see JAGUAR LOVE and the faint on august 1st. and it's impossible. sometimes i really wish we owned a car. we could just fill er up and go. still cheaper than the bus. and we could sleep in the car !! hahaha.

my cloud of confusion has lifted and i'm so happy! i feel great! i feel sunburnt (from above carwash) and tired but overall motivated for life here. i'm slowing down, is what i've been saying, and thinking about what i want! (aside from WANTING to go see johnny whitney on august 1st! someone please make this happen!!) what we want! and putting that in motion.

i can't really say anything else about it right now because im still really confused. mostly because i don't know where i'm getting paychecks after august 31st, and i also am having such a bad experience getting paid with my most lucrative contract this summer and i'm suffocating under not being paid. i never took being paid to be a luxury! especially being paid in a timely manner (i mean, it's been 3 1/2 months!). i'm going to be applying for some jobs here and finding a way to make it work. oh how i want to make it work!

xo

7.17.2008

i need your help!


i know that i've been so "get the fuck out of pg! i'm so sick here! i can't wait to live in victoria" but something's happening. stewart balked at how much more expensive it will be for us to live in victoria (he's a bit freaked out by it esp since we're so pay check to pay check now) and at the fact that i'd be the main breadwinner by far (which is scary for all!!) and after hanging out with friends who own houses and have dogs and gardens and compost (i now donate my compost to them!) and yards and beautiful reno projects inside and plants in their showers, etc i realize again how much i want that! and stewart, the bugger, put it back in my hands: he said, "well, i could stay or i could go, so you decide!".

part of staying is "giving in" in that we always (i always) plan these great grand schemes and fucking talk them up and then don't follow through. my favourite being the cross canada trip kieran and i have been planning since grade 10. or finishing my thesis, that's another good one! (how about even starting it!)

so, i think i'm going to look at this house tomorrow. and meet with a bank before the downpayment laws change or see if some wonderful parent in my life could fund a down payment and go in on it with us.

holy fuck. i'm so confused!

7.13.2008

fuck you john mccain

Feministing does this "feminist friday fuck you" and last friday it was a fuck you to john mccain. and today, albeit it's sunday i say, 'fuck you!' mr! there's an article in the NewYorkTimes this weekend that i was led to from, surprisingly, Perezhilton. supposedly mccain needs to show his conservative side to ensure that his republicans don't see him as some progressive leader, but continually so an ethically regressive leader:

"Mr. McCain, who with his wife, Cindy, has an adopted daughter, said flatly that he opposed allowing gay couples to adopt. “I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don’t believe in gay adoption,” he said."

first off, saying "both parents" doesn't mean necessarily "mom and dad". so buck up on your specific speaking points asshole. and second, "both parents are important in the success of a family" flat out states that single-parent households align with adoptions by gay parents and are therefore bad in his books. and what's "gay adoption". is that adopting gay children? these conservative fellas don't really know how to say very much very well.

bah! i'm so angry.

i hear you're moving real fine


yesterday i spent just over 12 hours at a friend's house. we celebrated the above wonderful lady's birthday in a backyard bbq style with copious amounts of food (including a sandwich cake, homemade candy apples, fresh pineapple, and a soup pot full of fruity and potent sangria), incredible hang outs, avoiding a thunderstorm, and a midnight veggie wiener roast over the fire pit in the back yar. our friends are just wonderful!

i'm not feeling rested what-so-ever and have cloudy face. this cup of coffee is slowly doing its job but this incredible sense of congestion (i was really non-vegan yesterday and i drank a tonne) and exhaustion is just weighing over me. nothing, i think, some vegan wheat free pancakes with tonnes of maple syrup and yoghurt and apricots can't fix. yum!!

yesterday at the backyard birthday party the hosts were talking about bully buddies and how they are going to be fostering two dogs in august. Bully Buddies is a non-profit organization that supports bull breeds often rescuing them from bad living arrangements, poor owners, or gifted to them by the SPCA they foster them and train them and fix em up and make them ready for positive loving adoptions. The success stories are just making my eyes water. oh how having a dog would be great. but i think more stability would be better first.

7.12.2008

minty julepy i drink you up (in an axel rose style!!)

i spent a bit of time in front of my sewing machine today and *finally* finished all of those hankies i was working on. now i have 6 extra hankies for myself for my allergic reactions (aka. snot). i also sewed up a scarf for ye ol' shoppe which i will probably list in a few days.

last night some of my cousins came into town. and we went to white spot. where i wasn't very vegan or vegetarian, but i ate well and felt good about it. and then when i came home i finished stewart's long awaited sock.

and it feels good to be done that pair of socks that almost made me stab myself with those size 00 needles more than one time. i liked the pattern a lot and the yarn is definitely interesting. it's a cotton wool nylon mix from mark and katten (sp) clown yarn.

in two weeks or so we're moving upstairs into the bright and light and bigger suite. m y plants can get light all day from all angles and there's enough counter space to lay out all the canning i intend to do. but i don't know if i should "pack" or just move up slowly (with stuff in boxes of course). but i mean we could spend a whole day taking stuff upstairs and putting it where it goes immediately. that would be most efficient for me. i can't wait to have a bath!

7.09.2008

i triple dog dare you


today on apartment therapy los angeles there was this post: "simple green: go veggie one day and week". and when i saw it i thought, "whoa, do people eat meat everyday? like, everyday?" they wrote about their awe for a friend/coworker who went vegan for one month! and, "if we all centered our meals around grains and vegetables instead of meat just one day a week it would have a significant impact on the planet (not to mention your wallet)". I thought, did anyone ever read "diet for a new america?" i mean, i read that when i was 15 and was immediately a vegetarian (my mum told me about the book) and remained so until i was 22. but back then i was definitely the vegetarian police. and now i feel like i have to carry a "duh!" sign around.

i think more so than go vegetarian smart food choices are of the most important. this last year regular almonds have become $1more/100gm while organic almonds have dropped in price (!!). organic foods have stayed the same price or dropped in price and "regular" food is just getting more and more expensive. i mean, though i shop at slave-on where all vegetarian/vegan/wheatfree food is really expensive anyway, it's not going up that much (unlike value village where we greased on about the rising costs today). and dairy? how bad and hormonal is that stuff? and wheat's been killing me. my kidneys are a lo-grade sore again. i'm consuming too much sugar. white sugar. slurpees, treats, etc. and preservatives, don't get me started! and now i'm totally watching for parabens in all my bath products (of which parabens are in everything including my lush sea salt scrub, lush i love juicy shampoo, and body shop ginger shampoo).

i guess this is all just ranting because i've been thinking more and more about being a vegan. but being a wheat/gluten free vegan would be hard. the sugar free wouldn't be so bad. i mean when i can't have desert out or pasta at cimo i truly relish myself some goatcheese or yoghurt. maybe i can try to just be as vegan as possible? right now my inspiration is the urban housewife. i too am, since marrying stewart, an enamoured with being "hard core". and, for some reason see being a vegan as part of being hardcore. well, that and loving rob crow. (this is so good).

tomorrow i'm going to try and post my tutorial for my vegan wheat free chocolate banana cake (say that 10 times fast). but now i'm going to finish drinking my tea, plow myself through another chapter of "story house" by timothy taylor. i'm just over half way through the book and really got into graham's character right when taylor switched to elliot's character. and now it's getting to the point where they're going to meet (next chapter) and live out their past problems and what have you. it's been frustrating getting to this point. i guess that i've been waiting for it and the lead up has felt like a frustrating waste of time. but anyway, off i go! g'night! xoxo

7.07.2008

suck suck suck my art hole

dear god, did i ever!? so bad. we had a veganniversary today for alissa the vegan princess and ate a variety of carbohydrate based salads and vegan desserts. i made vegan wheat free cupcakes and made vegan icing *yay earth balance!* and alissa made vegan lemon cookies. i put my matryoshka cupcake toppers from the peach on them.
yummy vegan wheat free cupcakes
and then alissa and rupert had a cuddle sesh. i'm not used to this behaviour from him. in fact, last night i woke up all weirded out by this big mammal (rupert) spooning me. definitely strange behaviour.
alissa and rupert cuddle down
and emily saw tilly an the wall and i'm jealous.

stewart and i are both getting sick. which is bad news. i'm tired and my throat hurts. and i didn't even leave my house today!! wait, maybe that's why.

i've been crafting with fabrics again lately. i made a pair of blue leopard tights and made these hankies:
hankies!
i also started an account with burda style and downloaded a shirt pattern that i want to make a dress of to wear this upcoming weekend at some fun events and get togethers.

and last, but not least i wanted to show some love and share this:

it's a plush acorn by ::seealso:: lovely lovely thing. i want all of them. in my arms. on my couch. on my book shelves. i love being surrounded by lovely things. more soon! xoxo

7.01.2008

summer soother - a drink for the breakfast champions.

summer is here!
what did you have for breakfast today? i had a wine spritzer. two weeks ago i scored this lonely vintage glass (the lamps are fading) and filled it this morning with the following method: find beautiful vintage glass, fill 3/4 way with ice cubes, fill half of glass with white fruity wine (mine's a "classic" from geringer brothers. yummers.), pour in a dollop of saft (details below), top with one-two inches of soda. stir with a bendy straw. and drink. tres refreshing.

saft is, as martha stewart says, a sweet scandinavian summery syrup. her recipe is in her new issue or on her website. i made mine with organic strawberries and mint from around the side of the house. organic cane sugar, too. and it's so yummy. i want to bathe in it. or drink a lot of it, regardless.

today's been a work day. and a sit and knit day. overall, a good day. i'm obviously not making sense. but alas.