It's music monday!

So much for my plans to have a handmade Christmas this year. I have been so busy that I've not spent any time at all on my knitting, and so have nothing to present to family and friends for Christmas. I do have a plan to make something for my Little, but that will be the best I can do this year.

And what has been keeping me so busy? Conference planning. That's what. Phew! It's a big job but I have a great team helping me and it'll all be worth it when it's all said and done.

What else? Well, I had a little fun too.

Last week a friend from work had 2 tickets to the Rose Cousins CD Release in Halifax, and I happened to be the lucky recipient of the the 2nd ticket! We had 2nd row seats and were treated to a fabulous concert. I've listened to Rose Cousins on CBC Radio 3 (and she gets played frequently on CBC Radio 1, too), so I knew I'd enjoy her music. I will say this, the entertainment isn't just in the music; Rose Cousins has a great stage presence and knows how to get the crowd in stitches. She's quite the entertainer. Oh, and of course her new CD is fantastic! Buy it as soon as it becomes available! Afterall singer/songwriters need nice shoes too.


The opening act was also a pleasant surprise for me. I wasn't as familiar with Royal Wood as I was with Rose Cousins, though I know now that I've heard his music on CBC Radio 3 fairly often (I just couldn't put a name to the music). But I came out of the concert with both in my head, and CDs from both artists in hand. You should buy his CD/s too. Now my biggest problem is deciding which to listen to!

In the meantime, while you're waiting to get the CD, go to CBC Radio 3 and add their music to your playlist. They're so delightful!

And since I'm on the topic of music, I thought I'd share this with you:
Yes, yes, I was one of the many who waited in line for a looong time to get Anne Murray to autograph her new book for my grandmother. Now, I'm not much of a fan, though I do appreciate her music and find her quite easy to listen to. Afterall, she is a Canadian music icon who helped to put Canada on the music map. So, all in all, this was an errand I did not mind doing for my grandmother. And, though I was completely unprepared for the signing (no knitting to keep myself occupied during the long wait, and no camera document the occasion), the woman next in line kindly offered to take a photo and email me a copy (turns out she knows folks at my workplace). So here it is, evidence that I'll do just about anything for my grandparents...and came within 2 feet of a Canadian icon. ;)

I've spent far too much money on music lately. Between concerts and CDs (I also picked up another kids CD to mix it up a little in the car with the Little; and in Toronto I found a Taize CD that's alright, but not quite what I was hoping for). I will stop music shopping for now, and instead start compiling a list of CDs for my Christmas wishlist.



Hmmm... In the time that it took for me to write this, I've eaten about 7 clementines. Is that too many? Sigh. I'm fighting something, so perhaps I can hope it's not too late to up my Vitamin C and kick the bug! By the way, Clementines are on sale at Sobeys - $3.97 for a 4lb crate! Go buy some!

Ho hum, I'm in a slump.

I'm in a knitting slump at the moment and don't quite know how to get myself out of it. I've spent the better part of a good 2 hours surfing Ravelry and find all sorts of patterns that are lovely, but none that really jump out at me. Also, I'm determined to use up some of the yarn in my absurdly large stash before buying anymore yarn. Sadly, most of the patterns that catch my eye require more skeins of yarn than what I have already in my stash. What to do, what to do.....

Suggestions?

Cafe Aroma Latino

A couple weeks ago I had dinner at Cafe Aroma Latino for the first time. I had heard it was good, but was pleased to have an opportunity to find out for myself. First of all, I was impressed and more than a little thrilled to find pupusas on the menu. One of my favourite stops in Kensington Market was always the Central American grocery where you can get pupusas freshly made. And now I know where to find the same Salvadoran 'street' treats here in Halifax!

There are all sorts of delicious things on Cafe Aroma's menu from all over Central America. And it's relatively cheap (most menu items are $2-4 ea.). You pick and choose what you'd like to order and end up with a plate of tasty treats. I ordered a bean pupusa (bottom left), a tamale wrapped in a banana leaf (top) and a beef taco (bottom right). The tamale was new to me - I'd never had one. It was okay, but more mild than I was expecting. It would've been nice with something especially spicy. The pupusa was a little different from those I'm used to from Toronto. I don't remember bean pupusas being made of beans like these were (I remember them being filled with refried beans instead), but they tasted the same and were just as delicious. The taco was also delicious and maybe even my favourite of the three; the beef+sauce was especially tasty.

And if you're looking for any Mexican-type groceries, you should check out the little grocery next door that sells all sorts of things from that region of the world. You can find all sorts of things to make your next Mexican theme night more authentic.

So there's my little review of this place. Check it out for yourself. We want to keep this restaurant in business for a long time!

Checking in

It's been awhile and I thought I might just post a note about my progress with my short To Do List. I am pleased to report that there has been progress, so that's a good start.

• 1. Compost more consistently. Check! I've been composting since January. There's not a whole lot of enthusiasm for composting in my building, and up until this Spring, I hadn't ever seen the compost bin emptied. Evidence of this: the lobster shell I put in the bin in Feb. was still there in June. Sigh. I think I single-handedly managed to fill an entire bin with my own food waste. I guess my next "to do" item should be waste less food. Anyway, I managed to convince property management to arrange for regular pickups, and they're starting to encourage other tenants to also compost.
  

• 2. Get new glasses. Check! Not sure what I think of them, but I've got them and that's the most important thing. Here are the glasses - mine are brown and gun-metal grey. I have some lovely photos with my eyes open, however they're almost all photos with my Little and I'm not comfortable posting her picture online without permission. So no photo to show off the new specs.
  

• 3. Invest in a used GPS & go geocaching. Fail. Sadly, GPSs are expensive and this was a low priority for this year. I still love the concept and I think it would be A LOT of fun with the Little. If I didn't have other things to save for, I'd for sure get one. Alas, there ARE other things to save for.
  

• 4. Knit a pair of socks. Fail, for now. I've kind of set aside my knitting over the summer. I've got a scarf on the go, but that's it. My shawl didn't progress very far. I made far too many mistakes and the black was too hard to work with a complicated pattern. BUT I have a lot of sock wool and everyone loves handknit socks, so I still hope to learn before the end of the year. Maybe over Thanksgiving?

• 5. Read at least a book a month. Check! Well, so far anyway....I still have 4 months to go. Most of the reading this year has been non-fiction, but still all good. Of course the highlight of all the books I've read this year (and perhaps ever!) has been Uncle Tom's Cabin. If you haven't read it, I strongly encourage you to pick it up at your library or bookstore and give it a try.
  

• 6. Shop smarter and better: fair trade, handmade, local, and natural. Fail. I'm actually not doing much shopping these days (in an effort to save $$), and when I do, I have to confess that I usually shop for the sales and these are not usually the best option quality-wise. For produce lately I've been doing all my shopping in my mother's garden and I'm committed to buying local produce whenever it's available. I will always choose local over imported, when local is available.
  

• 7. Sitesee more. Visit more museums and galleries in the HRM. Check! I'm getting out more around the city. I finally got to Pier 21 and was blown away by the exhibits. If you haven't been, you should go! And then there was my trip to York Redoubt and several other parks and sites around the city. Oh, and I got a MacPass, so I'm gradually venturing more and more over to the Darkside (ie. Dartmouth).
  

• 8. Stargaze more & learn a handful of constellations. Check! Sort of. I'm gradually learning the constellations, but seem to forget them almost as quickly as I learn them. Being the International Year of Astromomy, I had hoped to attend the Astronomy Nova Scotia events. There's an event on Oct. 1st that I plan to attend with the Little.
  

• 9. Stop using plastic grocery bags. Check! In fact, I've gone through my stash of plastic grocery bags for garbage and now have to consider what to use for garbage. Do I buy or do I just use the pail itself? Afterall, most of my garbage isn't terribly messy after composting and recycling. I'm also saving all the small plastic bags that dry goods come in (pasta bags, bags from frozen peas, rice, etc. I used to throw these bags out because they were too small for garbage, but now I use them for kitty litter bags and they work perfectly.

So I'm considering what to add to my To Do List. I've got a few ideas. I'd like to learn how to kayak and become a member of my church, and organize my photos (which have been piling up for years) in albums and on my harddrive. These are just a few that come to mind.

I don't want my 2010 list to be too long though. I'm committed to a big project for 2009/10 and it's going to take a lot of my time. I don't want to set myself up for failure.

Be still and know that I am God.

You know how there times when you crave to hear certain kinds of music? It could be the season or the mood, the need for energy or relaxation, but whatever the reason there's just the right kind of music for that particular moment in time.

Lately, for me, it's been the songs of Taize.

Taize is actually a very modern ecumenical monastic order in Taize, France (founded in the 1960s). But what is distinctive about this Christian community is its meditative style of worship that combines silence with sacred choral music and short readings that are intended to calm the soul so that you can experience a moment with God. It is prayer without words. And yet it is also not prayer in solitude or isolation. The Taize experience is actually built around the community, a shared experience, even in silence.

My church in Toronto practiced Taize once and awhile, as the part of the worship during our Sunday services. It was incredibly refreshing, albeit often much too short. We'd sing a Taize song, read a prayer, and sit in silence for a while. But then the service would continue on and the busy-ness of life would pick up again.

I guess right now I crave silence and meditation because life has gotten pretty hectic for me and I've had a lot on my mind. While I like being busy and having things to do, checklists to cross off and tasks to accomplish, I also enjoy quiet times. Unfortunately, when life gets busy like this, my quiet times often turn into wasted down time, either in front of the TV or puttering about while listening to the radio or to music. I don't actually take time to be silent. I guess this is why Taize has been on my mind lately. Silence is a very hard discipline to practice. You have to be intentional about it, and set aside time and energy (because sleeping doesn't count) to practice silence. And you have to stop talking.

I really like what the Taize website says about the value of silence:

Sometimes we are apparently silent, and yet we have great discussions within, struggling with imaginary partners or with ourselves. Calming our souls requires a kind of simplicity: "I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvellous for me." Silence means recognising that my worries can’t do much. Silence means leaving to God what is beyond my reach and capacity. A moment of silence, even very short, is like a holy stop, a sabbatical rest, a truce of worries.

Read the whole article here.

I know that a lot of my friends who may follow my blog aren't the churchy type, and that's fine. I still think there is a lot of value in taking time to be silent and for meditation in whatever form you may see fit (introspective, retrospective, or maybe even extrospective).

I close with this last thought, again from the Taize website:
When words and thoughts come to an end, God is praised in silent wonder and admiration.

A weekend in pictures

I went to the Valley this weekend, and enjoyed a 24 hour vacation in the countryside. So much got done in that short period of time: I did a few loads of laundry and hung out on the clothesline, G. replaced my brake pads and rotors, I went to the Wolfville Market with Mom for lunch and got my hair cut (3.5 inches and still most people don't notice it's been cut *sigh*).

I dipped my toes in the brook, which most years has dried up by this point in the summer. As you can see, there's lots of water in it this summer.

I did my produce shopping for the week in Mom's garden: beets, carrots, green beans, waxed beans, kale, Thai basil....did I miss anything?

And then I went up the road and picked 5 pints of raspberries at the U-Pick, and mashed them into this delicious sauce, perfect for my yogurt in the morning!

When I got back to the city, I decided I needed to find my way to Lawrencetown Beach. I've promised a certain 9 year old (The Little) to take her to a beach and I haven't quite decided which one we should go to. Suggestions are welcome. I'm leaning towards Lawrencetown because they waves are just plain fun, but there beach is actually pretty rocky and not conducive to playing in the sand. Queensland or Cleveland Beach might be better for that.

I had fun in the waves while I was there and managed to get soaked. But what would you expect when you stand in the water waiting for waves daring the waves to crash into you! :) I have to say, the water was really cold! It took a little while to get aclimatised (read: numb).

Afterwards I found a spot in the sand and watched the surfers while the feeling came back to my legs.

It was a beautiful weekend. Perfect in almost every way - a good mix of fun and productivity, of exploring new places and visiting the familiar.

Oh, and I'm over my obsession with the "dream house" in Berwick. Having a realtor stand-you-up for a viewing will do that to you. In the end it's probably better this way. The likelihood of loving this house even more after seeing it in person was pretty high, and yet it's still too far away. The message was clear: the house is not for me. I can move on now.

Home is where the heart is. Right?

As many people close to me know, I've been spending far too much time lately obsessing about a particular house on the market. It's a beautiful house, with character and charm, and a spacious but private yard, and it's certainly within my price-range should I want to buy it. In fact, this house is pretty much my dream house. The problem? It's 1.5 hours away from my job, and my job is not really one that would allow me to work from home. And I'm nowhere near being prepared to walk away from my job for something else closer to this house. I won't give up one dream for another.

Still, this makes me a little sad. I'm not uncomfortable where I am right now and quite like my current living space (for the most part). But I'm really looking forward to the day when I will feel finally settled into a home of my own. I realise that renting right now is actually pretty dumb, considering how low the interest rates are for mortgages and I had to be throwing good money away on an investment that's not my own. I also know for a fact that my mother is tired of storing the remaining bits (bits may be an understatement) of my stuff and would happily repatriate it with the rest of my things the first chance she'd get.

But here's the other problem: it's difficult to buy in the HRM on a single-person's salary. Interest rates are low, but housing prices are not. Even most condos are above my price-range. Now this is where I could bemoan my single-ness and wish I were in different circumstances - because there is no doubt that buying would be much easier with two incomes - but this I refuse to do! All told, I'm okay with being single. Sure, it's not quite where I thought I'd be at this stage in my life, but I'm determined to not let it stop me from doing the things in life I'd like to do - the things in life I'm supposed to do. Like own a home, rather than rent for the rest of my life. Afterall, I need to be sure I have a place to live in my retirement, right?

So now comes the fun part. Preparing. I'm still a long ways off from buying. I've got a bit of work to do. I have to carefully evaluate what it is in a home that I'm looking for: location, features, amenities, etc.; and I have to squirrel away more money for a downpayment and for "the inevitable emergency" fund.

In the meantime, I'll try and tear myself away from the idea of living in this picture-perfect house and of the quality of life it inspires. Sigh. Here's hoping for something equally as lovely here in the HRM when it comes time for me to buy.