Laundry day

When you live in an apartment building, you do several loads of laundry at a time, right? Why would you ever just do one? I tend to save up my laundry and hope there are enough machines for me to do three or four loads at once.

There are six washers and seven dryers in my building.

When I went down today with three loads (one light, one dark and one for my duvet cover), there was another woman who also had three loads. All six machines were free, so we took them over. No problem.

A half hour later I went back down to switch the loads and discovered that the other woman had got there a split second before I had. I then discovered that two dryers were broken. She immediately loaded three smallish loads into three dryers while I sadly stuffed all of my clothes into one dryer.

As I hinted to her that it was possible to put two loads worth in one dryer, and that I still needed to dry my duvet cover, she realized that one of her dryers was, too, broken and gave me a look that suggested she expected me to forfeit my one working dryer.

When she realized that there was no way I was going to give up my one dryer, she pulled out some freshly clean clothes from another dryer that had just finished and tossed them on the (very dirty) table.

My duvet cover is now air drying in my very tiny apartment. I have no idea how long this will take.

The polite thing would have been for her to split her three loads into two dryers, so that I could do the same, right?

Sometimes I really hate this city.

Who belongs to whom?

Whenever I go to give my cat a treat, she runs over and rubs up against my leg before she sits and waits for her goody. I like to think this is her way of saying, "Thank you!" but in reality, I know it's her way of saying, "Yes, good job, servant. You WILL give me a treat. I'd like a salmon-flavoured one, post-haste."


And in the interest of blogging about something other than my cat, here's a picture of my nephew, Nathan. It was taken a few weeks after his first birthday, so by this time he was well versed in the world of cupcakes.


Really, I just saw the photo while I was searching for photos of my cat to post. Hmmm. Lame? Well, in my defence, I see my cat a lot more often than I see my nephew(s).

In other news, just because I like seeing my name is print, check this out. This time my name is in BIG, BOLD LETTERS. Holy shit. Someone might actually be reading this stuff. In fact, I know people are reading this stuff. I heard yesterday that one of my profs is using a J-source article that I wrote last year as required reading for one of his classes. That's pretty damn cool.

Now if only Anand can get his new TV pilot written and off the ground (which stars me as an out of work journalist who starts a PI agency) within the next few months, I'll have pretty much accomplished all of my life's goals before I turn 23. Well, save for having my own Wikipedia page. I guess I can't be too greedy. That can wait until I'm 24.

Extreme Makeover: Apartment Edition

After four very, very, very long months, I am finally free of the suburban shackles (otherwise known as my parents' house in Burlington) and am back in the city. I would be very excited if not for the construction that is polluting the airwaves and the airshow noise that is accompanying it, as well as the giant mess that was left in my apartment from months of not dusting and the new-found knowledge that a neighbourhood very close to my own is now the city's most violent corridor.

But alas, it is good to be home. It's also nice to finally have a proper home for my projects. I finally finished sewing some new curtains for my bedroom. And while, yes, it would have been easier and probably cheaper to buy them at Ikea and yes, there are many other things I could have done with the seven hours it took to make them and yes, the stitches are crooked and they are uneven, I am still very pleased with the result.



My cat likes to sneak into photos.



Notice the freshly painted walls. My poor camera skills make it look a little washed out, but in reality it's quite lovely. My stepdad did a great job. I think it'll look a lot nicer, too, once I get some art back up on the walls. I have a really great idea for the space above the bed, but I'll save that for a future blog post.



And a couple before pictures:



You'll notice that previously I had nailed some blankets to the walls instead of putting up curtains. Granted, the new ones don't block the sunlight as nicely as the comforters (my bedroom, which faces east, was like a bear cave).



And an earlier sewing project: new throw pillows for my couch! Like the curtains, they're not perfect, but I'm pretty proud of them nonetheless. To be honest, I'm proud just to have finally learned how to use my sewing machine.





And finally, my new knitting project. As if the last afghan wasn't a big enough task, I have decided to make another afghan. My goal is to have it finished by the first snowfall. I started it a month ago. I think I'm about halfway done, but with school starting next week and my new job (I'm the new Students' Lounge Editor at J-Source.ca), I can't imagine I'll be able to dedicate as much time to it as I did during my unemployment days.

The twilight zone

It's the middle of the summer and currently I am wearing jeans and a sweater. The temperature is hovering around 20 C and doesn't look to increase much in the next week. It's also been rainy and overcast for the past few days.

As I recall, this time last year Toronto was in the middle of a serious heatwave. Temperatures were closing in on 40 C (plus humidity!) and I was sitting in a pool of sweat in an sweltering office. I went to a movie for the first time in a year just to cool down.

Now, a sweater. Seriously, Canada, what is up? I am starting to believe all those rumours about the Great White North. I'm half expecting to see igloos and polar bears popping up.

I guess it had to happen sometime.

The Great Undertaking

I have always been very crafty. The craftiness took a downturn in my teen years once I discovered the concept of going out and buying things and the need to spend a lot of time jacketing books and folding T-shirts in order to earn money to go to said places and buy said things. But still, many moons ago I was the child that turned egg cartons into caterpillars, file labels into Christmas ornaments and Popsicle sticks into picture frames.

One thing I had always wanted to do was learn how to knit. My Grandma Wilson tried to teach me once when I was about nine, but I seemed to be incapable of knitting even a scarf for my doll and she deemed me hopeless. Dejected, I gave up my knitting needles.

Ten years later, I started university and met my friend Seema, whose knitting skills could rival my Grandma's. Three years after that, I finally built up the courage and motivation to get Seema to try to teach me how to knit. Surprisingly, I picked it up pretty quickly. Seema taught me the basics and the rest I figured out on an as-needed basis from the internet.

A few weeks after my first lesson I had successfully knitted a scarf for my Macbook and started a very sad looking purse (I haven't, to this day, finished the purse). Looking for a new project, I decided on this: an afghan.

I wish someone had told me just how long knitting an afghan would take.

Nevertheless, Easter was around this time and my mom bought me a few large balls of yarn to get me started on my afghan. Still afraid of any big girl knitting projects, I decided to make it in patches (nice, easily digestible bits of knitting) and used big needles and two strands of yarn at a time to make the whole thing go by faster. I also tried out a couple of different stitches to keep my fingers on their toes.

Still, the whole process took over three months (granted, there were periods where I didn't knit at all for a couple weeks, and periods where I knit for two or three days straight). Plus, because I was a beginner when I started and a, let's say, beginner plus when I finished, a lot of the squares are slightly different sizes and are of varying levels of, well, niceness.

I sewed the last square on just a few days ago. Behold:



It matches quite well with the old lady-esque bedding, doesn't it? Sidenote: the comforter, in a previous life, belonged to another grandmother. It took over my room when I moved out.







All the yarn that I have left. I just made it without having to buy another ball. All told, it took five very large balls of yarn (two orange, two yellow, one purple).

So, in conclusion: Take that, Grandma Wilson!

HP-Day

I wonder how I can incorporate a craft table into my decor

It all started when Seema taught me how to knit. Then I started knitting a lot. And then knitting wouldn't satisfy me all the time, so I decided to learn to use my sewing machine.And things have started snowballing from there. I don't know where my spare time has been going. All I know is that I have been in a serious craft kick for the past few weeks.

The only catch is that I'm still in the beginner stage in the sewing department and the beginner-plus stage in the knitting department, so mostly I've just been trying to develop some basic skills with some small projects that don't require much time or material (in case I screw it up). But, how many teeny tiny things can you knit and sew? Not many, it seems, though I have found a plethora of things to make for my cat.

Let me preface this picture by saying that I 1) paid less than a dollar for the fabric and 2) have (almost) never bought my cat anything other than litter and food. I have never bought her any sort of clothing or accessory.

Nevertheless, the dragon Apple suite:



First I made the blanket, to practice sewing hems. Then I made the pillow, to practice for the pretty non-dragon throw pillows I'm going to make. Then, for whatever reason, I decided to see if I could one-up myself and made the cat bed. I didn't even have the fill for it so I stuffed the thing with old (but clean) socks and underwear.

It's hard to tell from the picture, but the bed is way too small for my constantly growing cat. She has to squish in and coil herself up like a snake.