bah

moving is so stressful. (duh). and paired with being sick, it's not the funnest time in the world. i also have the last little bit on my thesis to go (to submit it to the graduate studies department) and so much packing. on top of that, work has been I N S A N E and i haven't been able to take any of the time i'm owed (9 days). so all in all, shits. i came home from work and internetted for a few hours this afternoon, made dinner, finally did some dishes, and had a nap. i couldn't sleep much longer and really craved oysters (protein!) and then tea and cookies. i was so dopey in save on that i bought mussels (yuck) but did get these yummy peak freanes and some honey for tea. so, i'm going to spend the next 45 minutes with CTV on demand, my tea, cookies, and my knitting. then sleep until i can't no more (well, until work tomorrow). p.s. excited for whip it this weekend!

it's over!

time's up on the list. i've accomplished (fully completed) 40 of them. 23 of them are in progress. i'm too tired for commentary now. pooped, actually. but i do feel like i've accomplished something, even if it is just seeing the list through to 1001 days. and i've accomplished 40 things i've set out to do in the last 2.65 years as well as started working on even more things. so, i guess that's good! and i feel like it's a success, so that does matter. not sure if i should remove the list from the left just yet: suggestions?

working in a coal mine..part 934

today was crazy. hands down pretty much insane. first, it's still super dry here (that'll never go away, obv) and i was super dried out/cranky when i woke up this morning. at 9a. and there was so much wind! windy windy windy! like typhoon strength wind. apples and newspapers everywhere (i'm not sure where the newspapers came from). and when i went into the kitchen to wash dishes (backlog) to make coffee there was a huge pile of cat puke on the kitchen floor. so i sulked away being so tired i'd vomit just from not sitting down and internetted for an hour before i got the strength to clean it up. my poor kitties. i bought them gastrointestinal food this afternoon.

anyway, a strange thing happened: i pulled something my mom does on busy days. i got in the car and went to get two venti americanos (so we don't have to make coffee) and a bag of Bagel BELTs from TimmyHos. we drank coffee and munched away while we packed. and packed. and packed. we cleaned out our "junk dresser" (just have a few things on top left) and i also cleaned off almost 98% of the dresser in the bedroom. i also went through my clothes and have decided what i'm keeping and what i'm not. same goes with craft supplies and almost all our books. and magazines. and pretty much everything else. including furniture. i think we're going down with four small shelves and two bedside tables and one kitchen table. that's it! insane. and boxes of course. but there's not that many so far. we might fit it all in a uhaul. that would be impressive.

over the past week loki and i have been working on this baby quilt for eve. and we're done! yay! above is the photo of the patch i embroidered for it. the quilt was the first time we've both done it and it was frustrating often. i think the best was when loki called it a cuntbuncher (when the fabric was bunching). enjoy!

some things

every once in a while i'll email a. a list of things i've found on the interwebs. tonight for somereason i'm staying up way past my bedtime and just got lost in making her a list...so i thought i'd share it <3

http://www.foodinjars.com/

http://pinchmysalt.com/2009/08/25/homemade-english-muffins/

http://jessthomson.wordpress.com/

http://technicolorkitcheninenglish.blogspot.com/2009/08/apple-slice.html

http://tofufortwo.net/

http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/beverage/diy-pumpkin-spice-latte-096277

http://savorysweetlife.com/?p=2178

http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ohdeedoh/artwork/marionette-cards-by-darling-clemetine-096203?image_id=743319

"you learned how to be a diver..."

so, i'm sitting outside of my house after just having devoured a bubble tea (mango slush with pearls) in the car waiting for someone with a key to come home. i'm listening to mirah kinda chilly outside and so hungry so tired from work today i didn't even have it in me to kill time somewhere. boo'urns. so really, i'm cranky! fun! dream job in port alberni came up. i need to write my letter tonight and put my resume together. wait! the fence! someone's here! xo

"the mountain stood so large, we were humbled"

(fancy kale at the famer's market on saturday)

for whatever reason (partying too hard on saturday, too much going on, moving, money, blah) i'm super stressed today! and it's stupid. first off i blame my not having my vega shake lately. i need to buy apple juice (and am heading out to do so right after this) so i can take that gross tasting powder, but it is POWER, so i should just suck it up.


(a hat i'm working on)
somehow since last week my life has just gotten so stressful. i need more coping mechanisms and more sleep, really. i can't maneuver with as much intensity as i usually prefer. whenever this happens i feel really shitty in my brains. i get all shitty down on myself and it's like "hey d! we all need rest!" WE ALL NEED REST.

other things to stress about because they're driving me crazy and i just need to get it out so i can move on:

1. house work. there is so much house work to do and i don't have time to do it. i hate this. even if stewart and i worked at it steadily all the time we could never get it done. no fun.

2. our cats: rupert's sick and all sketchy. and then i wake up to him cuddled between me and stewart...kneading my back. and then i wake up to him attacking a spider which leads to ...

3. spiders!! there are so many of those big semi-translucent spiders in our house. one-three a day and they're ranging from medium-big to massive. one was so big that when i vacuumed it up (they're too big for me to feel comfortable squishing with tissue) it THUMPED as it was going up the vacuum wandy-thing. yuck. i think i'd feel more comfortable in my home if there were no big spiders. and we've been here two summers, i don't remember having any last year at all.

4. i told everyone at work and in my work-community that i was moving last week. super stressful and emotionally draining because everyone wants to know the story wants to know why i'd leave them, blah blah. tiring.

5. the computer technicians at work LOST>DELETED>WIPED whatever was on my computer that i've done since march. they won't take responsibility b/c it should've been backed up, but dropping it off at the main Y and having it plugged into the wall should've been the back up. i guess that step got SKIPPED? anyway, now i have to rebuild everything. no fun.

6. i'm back on facebook. and i don't like it. i think i'm going to just not use it often. it makes me feel yucky.

well, so that's a long list bleck. but just to counter it here's a list of things i'm excited about:

1. i'm almost done kelly's scarf. it's taking me forever and i want to gouge out my eyes with the needles. i can't wait for it to be over!!

2. packing and moving. i like knowing i still have it in me to get rid of half of everything, restrict my craft supplies to one box (not yarn), and cleanse myself of objects! i guess this is what i get for reading so many books about buddhism when i was an adolescent. it's just intrinsically in me and who i am that i don't even recognize it as "odd" to just purge.

3. no more yarn purchases until it's all gone! the main reason for this is that i want more tattoossss and should save $$

4. gossip girl tonight! woop!

5. i sign my paper for my final draft tomorrow morning. we set a date for my defense over the next few days. OMFGG!!

6. caitee and her band get her on wednesday/thursday and are staying for 3-5 days! yay!

now, i'm all excited! i'm going to go find a sports bra, do a few dishes, and then go get vitamin water for the gossip girl party!

another countdown

and it's not gossip girl this time

big news!!

first: my new hair!



on to the news:

we're moving! to port alberni! woop!

it's hard telling people at work. it's sad and tense and i still have a few more people to tell in the office and then send out a larger email blast. four more actually. i've already told three people and i'm feeling nauseous about the whole thing. fuck. well, i should do work. i can't listen to cbc radio on my computer and it sucks.

you don't have to wait until you die

WARNING: THIS IS GOING TO BE A REALLY LONG BLOG POST WITH LOTS OF PICTURES!! if you want to see more pictures (there's over a hundred) go to my flickr and search "portland trip with melissa" or click here.

holy moly! what a weekend! i'm exhausted and have just dumped all my shit all over the floor and lined my laundry and bedding up in the laundry room as both of our hostels had BED BUGS, mother fuckers. i've got itchy red splotchy parts and am not that paranoid about their travel, but need to get my last load in the washer before night fall. or bed time. that's when they come out. *i have since received confirmation from the hostel that they found the bedbugs and dealt with it, so please still stay there it was a great hostel!

the main highlight of the trip, other than spending four days with the wonderful girl of the north country, was food. lots and lots of food. from diners, groceries, coffee shops, and food carts. we also did other cool things like go to the art gallery, go antique-ing, watch away we go, buy craft supplies, and in general drive around and listen to mirah. oh yeah, and eat doughnuts, we ate a lot of doughnuts.


girl and her new (fake) art tattoo.


our twin portland creams from voodoo doughnuts. mine, on the left, is vegan. girl's is regular. they were so good. collectively we ate over a dozen doughnuts in 3 days. here are more doughnut pictures.


junior's. we had breakfast here on sunday. i ate so fast.


cool things from stars antique mall!


made in oregon!!

task #80: meet girl of the north country COMPLETED!!!

done! yaya! more soon when the internet doesn't suck. xo

task #6: read 6 canadian fiction books

oh, how the tasks continue. since i made major headway with my thesis today/yesterday i just picked my 6 books! They may not be read in the following order, but i'll cross them off as i go. so if you want to follow this one, bookmark the post and keep track of it in your bloglines or something, i'll post little reviews, too!

1. never cry wolf by Farley Mowat
2. the diviners by Margaret Laurence
3. from stone orchard by timothy findley
4. the bewilderments of bernard willis by aaron peck
5. nikolski by nicolas dickner
6. turtle valley by gail anderson-dargatz shitty! the emotions and communications were boring and telling. you knew where the story would go though the twist at the end "got me" it made sense faster then it played out. romance was lame and protagonist was disappointing in her struggle.

and let me just close this by saying that i must thank the incredible vanoronto and KTkabOOom for hooking me up with books!

"part of me won't let me quit"

Good call, Apartment Therapy, good call. When Stewart works closes we both usually eat particularly shitty. Kraft dinner, frozen foods, bowls of popcorn, and slurpees. But, this week I've been trying to make it better. I'm not sure what's come over me? Probably ovulating or something.

Last Night: Leftover Eggplant Bharta, wild rice mix, peanut/cabbage salad, and tamarind sauce.



Tonight: Leftover salad with a pizza or two. With goat cheese, chorizo, portabello, and homemade tomoato sauce (so easy!)

Reasons the new BC budget should piss you off

HOLY MOLY! Where to start? First, the whole Liberal Government sucks balls. i'm so full of rage i'm not really coherent, but below is a list of the things that are ridiculous. R I D I C U L O U S ! ! ! The general feeling of the whole shebang is 1. olympics = good and 2. let's make something better and more successful by taking money away from it! good job! NOTE: when I show budget cuts below I'm not ignoring any new programs/increases, there's a few there, but the cuts OUTWEIGH them by lightyears.

1. Min of Education hopes to raise the percentage of adults who can read successfully (literacy) from 66% to 67% within this fiscal. BUT: public libraries are seeing a funding decrease of 2.5M within this fiscal. I'm not sure if this includes the 1.6M cut of the adult literacy programs??

2. Education programs are being cut a total of 54.8M dollars in this fiscal. (Min of Ed document)

3. Culture and the Arts in BC are being cut (new stories). The Min of Tourism, Culture and the Arts sees arts/culture as restricted to the Olympics with this budget: "There are clear opportunities to boost the standing of arts and culture in the province, including the
2010 Cultural Olympiad, the final in a series of three multi-disciplinary cultural festivals that form the cultural pillar of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games."

4. There is actually a DECLINE in tourism revenues in the Ministry's Budget: 13.8B this fiscal to 13.3B next fiscal (you know, the one with the OLYMPICS??) (Min of Tourism document).

Other funding declines with their "Strategy":
>Arts and Culture 19.5M 08/09 fiscal >> 3.67M 09/10 fiscal
>Funding Transfers to other agencies 298M 08/09 fiscal >> 75.3M 09/10 fiscal
>BC Arts and Culture Endowment 8.3M 08/09 fiscal >> 1.5M 09/10 fiscal

5. Ministry of Healthy Living and Sport: Their "strategy" is here.
There is so much to report on in this one, so just read it! but, there's a total loss of 67.5M from their budgets with the highest cut at just under 50% to Population and Public Health Nurses. Here's a story about how it's affecting people in my community, both jobs and services.

6. There's an 82M reduction in payments to municipalities! Fuck!

7. Ministry of Housing and Social Development? An 80.2M increase in Community Living BC. A 1.5B increase in income assistance. A 4.1M decrease in Employment Insurance. A 66.3M decrease in Housing supports. So, more welfare, but less help with EI and getting stable housing so people can work to get off of welfare? Also an increase in the amount for # of people receiving disability, which is awesome, but perhaps they're just restructuring it and those on disability who received housing supports won't get it anymore? Read more rhetoric here.

OBVIOUSLY, i could go on and on and on about the cuts, but i'll leave you with some tidbits of the Minister's throne speech. and, if any of this pisses you off: call, visit, and write your MLA! speak out publically against them in student papers, city-based papers, staff meetings, etc. THIS ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH! WE NEED CHANGE!

> "Mr. Speaker. This government has always been committed to prudent fiscal management."

> "Of course, we have another great opportunity on the horizon as well. In less than six months’
time, B.C. will host the world at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
With 7,000 athletes and coaches; a quarter-million visitors; and three billion television viewers… we have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to showcase our strengths, our talents, our advantages.

Look what happened with Expo 86.

During the lead-up, we witnessed the same kinds of protests and doom-and-gloom predictions
we’ve seen in recent months from Olympic detractors. But today it’s crystal clear that Expo was a
critical turning point in B.C.’s history — supporting us to take our place on the world stage, and
serving as a catalyst for growth and prosperity. Hosting the Olympics will provide an even greater boost — just as the world economy is emerging from recession. "

going hundred miles per hour, with your radio on