Cookies and Kisses

 

Happy New Year!

For all the great experiences I've had this year, I am thankful.

For those to come, I am eager.

Here's looking forward to something good.

Cheers, from myself and the Lad. See you next year.

Gray Days

Going to work during the holidays is very peaceful. There is a noticable and pleasant lack of crowds, pushing and lines. I can indulge in personal space - the things we can come to appreciate on a morning commute. I don't mind coming in to the office, in fact I need a break from the whole holiday at home thing.

That being said, Christmas was lovely. There was good old Polish food, which I am still eating leftovers of, thank you very much. I have boxes upon boxes of chocolate to get through (this is going to hurt later) and I was allowed to lie around and read for hours. I found that I no longer read as fast as I did in high school, and this does not bother me very much. I no longer feel the need to judge my prowess at reading by how many books I can be reading at once or how fast I can get through them. However, I do wish to be faster if only to get to the books sitting further down my list.

This talk of books makes me excited to start the Reading Challenge - the challenge is in the sheer volume of books to read but also in the writing about them. But you've already heard this. So, back to Christmas.
There is nothing profound to say about that other than we managed to remain mostly sane. The Lad and I spent more time together this past long weekend than we have in previous holidays; we even found time to go cross-country skiing.

My first year giving knitted gifts was well recieved. Coworkers and family alike were pleasantly surprised by my cozy little delights. It feels so good to get all those things out of my room and into the arms they were meant for.

In an aside, I'm looking to expell my more rebellious and angry thoughts. I get frustrated, much like many people my age at being in that middle ground where no one takes us seriously but still demand complete submission and respect from us. The twenty-somethings: largely belittled in favour of the thirty and fourty-somethings, whose complaints of personal crises are spattered throughout the media genres.

The original purpose of this blog was an exercise in positive thinking, and I would like to keep it that way. So in the coming year I shall be branching out in my writing, seeking to examine the plight of my much-maligned age group.

Let us end on a good note (how's D? *ducks*) and look forward ringing in the next fantastic year.

Cheers.

Eve

 

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope that your celebrations, whatever they may be are fantastic.

Love and Gingerbread,

Katherine

I Said I Would

I said I would get my ears pierced, and I have! No, there are no pictures yet, but I suppose that from now on, most pictures of me will feature the new adornments. It hurt and now I have to actually pay attention to cleaning my ears. I tell you, it is very strange. But at least now the Lad will stop making fun of me (for that).

So, with weeks to go before the end of the year, it would seem that I am not done learning new things. For instance, I have now tried my hand at curling.

Don't I just look like I know what I'm doing? Feel free to laugh, I was doing plenty of that. Overall, it was an interesting idea for an office Christmas Party. Everyone had fun and I learned that pushing a 40-something pound rock along some ice is harder than it looks. However, do not ask me to explain the brooms.

Indeed, we Canadians can be a bit odd. I would hypothesize that the toques melt our brain matter that crucial little bit but I see enough people not wearing a hat despite the cold to refute that theory.

I thought that I was on the ball this year with my Christmas shopping, having accomplished all of it nice and early. But then life, inevitably threw me a curve ball and I failed in my attempt at knitting something cool for the Lad. I'll keep trying of course (and I won't tell you what it is because he reads this) but, sadly, it won't be for Christmas. So now, I have to run out of the office and scurry into the malls in the last few days before the deadline.

At least I had plenty of backup ideas. And no, I won't tell you about those either until after the fact. Regardless of how badly I planned this, I'm looking forward to a nice holiday with plenty of food and drink. I'm at the point of near child-like anticipation and it cannot be good for my sanity.

Snow is fluttering diagonally outside my office window. The flakes are at times puffy and then suddenly not so. At the very least, the view is never dull.

Early Resolutions

Join the Challenge

As we are a little over halfway through December, it has occurred to me that the time of resolutions is almost upon us. I often struggle with the process of coming up with feasible ideas for The New Year's Resolution. Luckily, a quick putter around the interweb proved quite fruitful.

I'm a manic bookworm, but I would like to become more proficient in sharing my literary finds with others. So, in a preemptive strike on the dreaded resolution, I have chosen to participate in the 100+ Reading Challenge for 2011. Now it is all well and good to read a pile of books, but I feel that I should be writing about them as well.

There is already a link to the hosting blog on the sidebar and once the challenge commences on the First of January 2011, there will be a list of books as well. I encourage all of you to participate, even if it's just making of books you've read in a notebook.And of course, I welcome, nay, encourage you to share your finds with me.

Here are the official Challenge Details:

1. The goal is to read 100 or more books. Anyone can join. You don't need a blog to participate. Posting on GoodReads or wherever you post your reviews is good enough.

2. Audio, Re-reads, eBooks, YA, Manga, Graphic Novels, Library books, Novellas, Young Reader, Nonfiction – as long as the book has an ISBN or equivalent or can be purchased as such, the book counts.

What doesn't count: Individual short stories or individual books in the Bible.

3. No need to list your books in advance. You may select books as you go. Even if you list them now, you can change the list if needed.

4. Crossovers from other reading challenges count.

5. Challenge begins January 1st thru December, 2011. Books started before the 1st do not count. You can join at anytime.

Music on the Mind

A person's dual nature can really come through in the winter. It seems that while the snow forces some to introvert into their hoods and mittens these same people can radiate brightness and enthusiasm.

I can't make assumptions but this is what winter does to me. I can't help feeling chilly for the whole day when the stinging wind freezes my cheeks into a permanent grin. Cherry cheeks and hat hair; it would seem I am pleased by the strangest things.

As you can see, even when the peaks of roofs are draped with icy curtains, colour manages to poke its nose through. I think that without these gaily painted windows and doors, it would be a grey season indeed.

Yes! I'm back to taking pictures and sharing them with you. This pleases me. I am looking forward to being a frosty-fingered shutterbug again.

But more to the point, I find myself thinking about music. Now, I'm not one of those people who has extensively categorized music collections, meticulously organized into play lists and what have you. I do, however, enjoy listening.

If I might be permitted to get deep for a moment, I would muse about the act of listening itself. How that when we force ourselves to pause and be attentive if only for a moment, we notice things that were around us all along. I'm not very good at being deep.

On that note (haha), I will share some songs that have put a spring in my step and continue to do so every time I hear them. Be warned, if you live in a place where the surfaces are presently icy and treacherous, employ caution when sauntering along.



And it seems that the second one cannot be embedded in this blog. But I persevere! Feel free to take a look at Luke Doucet's cover of The Lovecats.

Cheers

Le Vent d'Hiver

Blink and realize that the wind is stinging your cheeks, snow is sticking to your eyelashes and you can't seem to pull the earflaps of your hat tight enough. Le vent d'hiver - the winter wind - made romanitc by endlessly sung carols but one cannot deny the cold reality, not matter how tuneful.



Bad quality winter cell-photo; there is no way my real camera
is coming out in this kind of weather.

 Shadows an icy platform, waiting for a train that never comes. Such is the reality of a city that denies the existance of Canadian Winter year after year.

Yes, it's windy and yes, it snows a lot. I think we would all be better off if we stopped denying this fact and behaved as if we lived in a snowy region (those of us who do, in any case) rather than a temperate one.

I am as much to blame as everyone else, I put off donning my winter boots until the last minute but even I admit that it's no time for heels. Nor is it time for unclad heads and sheer tights under skirts shorter than one's coat. Those few are an exception; most level-headed people are practical about cold weather.

Besides, if I didn't live in a climate like this, what use would my hat-knitting skills come to?

There is always a bright side. And soon the moon will glitter over snow-laden branches beddecked in delicate lights. To me, Christmas lights will always represent seasonal magic; hundreds of tiny spells woven around ever-green branches.

Cookies are magic too and the holidays mean gingerbread! Can you smell them yet?

Greeting the Sun

I rolled out from under my nocturnal pile of three blankets, just as many pillows and two teddy bears. Somewhere between stumbling into the shower and boarding the train a jaunty spring slipped into my boots. If I wasn't worried about slipping on the damp pavement, I would dance down the street. I do have sympathy for my neighbourhood's other residents, so I try to limit the click of my heels.

What I love most about the morning is being able to watch the sun rise as I stand just inside the train doors. The sky is a milky gold and the scene illuminated by the glow is a bustling construction site; it's not exactly idyllic but it's my home.

December is Pause Month; everything takes a break and I permit myself plenty of inert moments. I want to bake piles of cookies, try some new cakes, knit until my room is bursting with colourful creations and read something that was not on a school book list. I will also write again, November is a trying month for university students here. I managed not to lose my mind but other things slipped to the side, but I go now to collect them.

There is plenty to look forward to, as there always is. A new project, discovering a new song or perhaps just doing much of the same but taking the time to enjoy it. I have enlisted my friends to kick me in the rear and force my to get my ears pierced - something I've been putting off out of fear for years. My theory is that if I tell enough people and then get it written here (if it's on the interweb then it's true, right?) I have no excuse to put it off.

It's time to get cozy, pull on some knee socks and throw myself headlong into winter. The sooner I accept the snow, the sooner I will be shooting headfirst down a hill on my trusty sled.

Welcome winter.