Portable Passtimes

After having a bit of a mental downturn last night I am back to fighting form on this is fair-weathered Friday morning. I never said life always has to be a ball of laughs.
Chilly weather in August does several things to me. It's an energy boost before my morning energy boost (coffee or what have you) and while I moderately resented having to put on full-length pants this morning I did not mourn the lack of humidity.

A nippy August day is a much more poignant reminder of the fleeting nature of summer-time in Canada. By and large I can ignore back-to-school commercials in my usual sophisticated manner (read slapping my hands over my ears and screaming 'la-la-la-la' at the top of my voice), a chilly breeze is harder to ignore.

As promised, I am still compiling stories from this past summer and while they may not be exciting, they're mine and I'm hoping that writing them down will cement them in my memory.

Today's topic is a double sided one. My focus this morning shall be the things that I carry with me. As this has been the Summer of Transition, there has been a bit of residual baggage.

Without further ado, here are the items which I have added to my magical life luggage (I like to think of it as a cross between Mary Poppin's carpet bag and the Luggage of Discworld fame).

1) Learning to cook and bake on my own. I have fond memories of standing on chair helping my mother compile a cake mix and getting progressively messier as I did so. Now I get very excited at the prospect of making something delicious to eat. Just look at that cake! It may not be perfect, but I did it, so all is well. And as I cooked, I learned. I learned the difference between baking powder and baking soda, and how much of either is too much. I learned how pouring love and effort into food makes it taste that much better. And I learned that adventures into new foods are almost always worthwhile.

2)  Stepping out of the hobbit hole. The Hobbit is one of my favorite books, I plan to read it to my children one day in the far far off future. The thing I loved most about it was getting to adventure with Bilbo Baggins, and to venture to far off lands for the first time. I'm not saying that reading the hobbit, way back when, gave me a taste for adventure. While I have to idea from whence the urge stems, I cannot deny its existence. I need to have adventures. I have already spoken of my camping foray in a previous post, but that was one of a few adventures. I participated in the Mitsubishi City Chase for the second year. City Chase is essentially like the amazing race except it takes place in one city and the racers are limited to using public transit and their own two feet. It's a great time every year, even if my team didn't finish on time or all the challenges. And heck, I got to pole dance in The Village.

3) More books than I can carry. While I have always been a book worm, I'm broadening my horizons by diving into genres I have not yet tried. My latest foray is into travel diaries (for lack of a better description). I know that these shall in no way replace my own travel experiences, but they whet the palette. Books like Michael Palin's Full Circle get me very excited to explore the world in my own way. And of course, I want to write about it. The world is huge and I only take up about 2 cubic meters of it.

4) Needles, needles everywhere. Knitting is a renewed hobby. I tried it once when I was too young to get it, but I have overcome the initial frustration and am now... essentially and sort of embarrassingly... addicted. I'm amazed at how quickly it got into my head. Projects are lining up in less-than-orderly fashion to be tackled and I am, for now, undaunted. Let the needles fly and the hats fall where they may!

I think that's enough out of me for one day. There is one more week left of Official Summer and I'm going to enjoy it.

I wish you the same joy.