Making a Poster Pt.1

I decided that for mother's day I was going to make a cow poster for my mom. Now, she's been complaining lately that everyone always buys her cow stuff, and she doesn't know what to do with it all. Keeping this in mind, she's gotten difficult to shop for (although I do occasionally pick stuff up for her, but not for presents).
So in a stroke of sleepy genius, I determined that a wordy Subway Art poster would be likely to make her happy and stuff.
It's not done yet, but so far:

I created the design using a wide font and GIMP (Gnu Image Processing)(because it's free and photoshop is a ridiculous price).
Then I just played around with it. Eventually, it will be cut out and used as a stencil. Unless I like it otherwise, but then the lettering would have to be a different colour.




Eventually I liked it, and took it to a website called Block Posters (totally free and really easy, although with a low resolution availability), and it cut it into a printable .pdf file for me:

As you may have noticed, there is an entire section (black and white, in the middle there) missing.

Back to the drawing board. Maybe Staples prints 16x20s?

May 3, 2012

I most definitely bought myself a pair of boots today.

Cute ones.

I love them.

Usually boots aren't my style; in fact, anything "in style" is usually not my style ( I can't bring myself to spend so much on me). But I got my taxes, and I passed all of the courses I did so far (waiting on Arcaeology marks) this year, including BIOL103.

So I figured it would be awesome.

My thing of git 'er done today was chocolate-chip cookies (yay!); yesterday was a load of laundry.
Tomorrow I might make a lacy skirt, if I have time in the morning. I bought lots of lace, now I just have to use it.
And shortly, off to another closing shift.

April 25, 2012

Today is my first day off, after school 2011-2012 and before summer school 2012; so I shall post my git 'er done *cough*. Won't make up for not posting, but I've seen a few other blogs use the git 'er done idea after I used it, and I couldn't bring myself to not feel ripped off.
Now, though, after I recovered from immense anger by really thinking about it, I don't really care. It's fine by me; I don't think that people really read this one so they couldn't possibly have stolen the idea from me.
Besides. For all I know, I stole it from someone else.
Anyway, here are my got 'er done things for today:

made 6 loaves of bread:

4 are rosemary-mashed potato breads, and 2 loaves are regular, Amish white breads from recipes I found online. This is the first time I've ever made bread before, I hope it turns out alright, I'm writing this in awaiting the hour of rising that needs to be done. The Kitchen-Aid stand mixer (I have an old one from my almost-mother-in-law) made kneading the bread ridiculously easy.

Also, last week, I finally made a shirt I've been meaning to make for literally months. I used a shirt to make the pattern for it. I love the fabric, and it's just a standard cotton. LOVE the colours though. It took me maybe an hour to make, including the sleeves. The sleeves turned out a little like ruffled puffy sleeves (I didn't mean for that to happen, it just did, I think because I always make really large seam allowances and then sew, like, 1/4" seams, so there was a lot extra. Still, the shirt is super colourful!

 : D
Now that I have some more time, I am planning an apron, some more baking, and a few other things like pants for dancing in and parachute pants for my dance recital.
Oh, how I love guilt- free me time.

Februay 23, 2012

So, clearly, my finish-a-thing-a-day hasn't been working, unless you count catching up on six seasons of bones in less than a month "finishing things".
I have, however, after deciding not to move for lack of places to move to (clean ones, anyway) decided to help my fiance in his endeavour to change the apartment around. We switched the desks both into the second bedroom (henceforth referred to as the "rat room", although we now house a guinea pig in it).
I also used it previously as my sewing/crafting room. Unfortunately, since it was all my area, it was a mess. Constantly. Fabric all over the floor, anything that didn't have a place got shoved into the room because we didn't have anywhere else to put it; all of my books are supposed to be on my bookshelf in the closet in that room (except that the bookshelf is way full and bending under the weight of the double stacked-double widebooks and texts that I own).

So we cleaned most of it and made it nice and walkable so that we can actually use the space. Here is what I did with my fabric (as it is a fairly small room and I refuse to part with a workable piece of cloth):

Essentially, what I've done is put four different strings (heavyweight cotton string, because the yarn I used originally broke terribly quickly once the weight of the fabric was on it), tied to eight very large nails that I tapped into the walls. Then, I hung the smaller, less heavy but equally useful material bits, visibly on the wall. The large pieces are in a bin that I've yet to decide on a storage space for yet.

Simple? Yes.
Easy to access? Yes.
Colourful in a frightfully bland room? Yes.
Do I think it's brilliant? Absolutely.

Cookies!

Yesterday, with the help of a friend (who gave me the most perfect xmas gift ever; I was literally thinking about it that day):
(It's a wee-baby cupcake pan!)
I completed 4 recipes of baking: chocolate drop cookies (no bake awesome goodness), thumb cookies, and modified (cough) Belgium cookies, and mini mint-choco brownies.

Christmas Presents!

Bahaha, finished these button earrings for a person at work and a cousin and some sisters. (Also, an essay and a bell ringer and a lab and a poster for said lab... hence the disappearance of me).

I stole the idea from some earrings that I saw at Claire's... mine are better because they're all different-- and I chose them based on the person, for the person.
I just hot glued earrings on to posts and used earring backings to secure them on to a piece of fabric (actually, this is interfacing, it was easier to poke the posts through).

Osteology Bell-Ringer

Well, I finished it... can't promise I did so well. On to a bio lab about Lemna. Wooh?

Introducing: Git 'er Done (Month?) <-OH! A TITLE! What a twist!

I just realized something:

I have the ability to sit still for more than twenty hours and work on an essay.

Literally. Twenty hours or more.

I certainly can't say that university didn't teach me anything...


I think, also, that come January, I will do a "year of getting things done"... or maybe like, a month to start. A year is a long time.
Since I'm still in school, though, it will include school work. Like Labs, or essays, or art or crafts or games...
But it has to be completely finished to count. And I have to finish ONE thing a day, and take a picture, and blog about it.
I just decided to do this... so I haven't decided whether work counts or not. I'm willing to say that I'll likely say that no, work doesn't count as I get paid to do work.
Housework, however, I do not get paid to do and is not a required part of life, so I will allow that to count.
Those are the rules:

• It counts as "finished" when it is 100 % done.
• It must be posted either that day or the next morning to count.
  

• It counts as an activity if it:
  a) does not get me paid
  b) is not required to continue living in day-to-day life (eg: eating or showering)

There we go. Now that that's all controlled for:

^^ My entry for the day, in testing to see whether or not I'll actually be able to pull it all off!

The button of "Git 'Er Done"... design.

November 17, 2011

I totally do win the fail blog of the season award for never updating during the school year... I'm busy and this is not what I think to do with my time... In fact, yesterday I studied bones while I cooked myself dinner, and went to bed at about one am. Every once in a while I make myself have some time, and play Phoenix Wright on my DS... such a good game series. Right now I'm in between games, so I should be able to get extra work for school done (Good thing considering it's midterms).

In lieu of that lack of time, I'll update this in this manner:
A list of things I actually think but rarely tell anyone.

I actually don't dislike biology; I like the work, sometimes I even like the stupid experiments that have no bearing on anything I will ever study in my life.
I don't actually want to keep taking biology in school.
I love anthropology, but don't think that I could do anything with it--I'm not a whiz in anthropology, I just like human evolution.
Evolution is mostly biology.
Biology classes very poorly cover evolution.
Anthropology classes cover evolution well enough.
I wish I was done school.
I wish I could stay in school forever.
I wish I could be two people so that I could live two completely different lives but have the experience of both people.
I want kids.
I want a hardworking, good looking husband with intelligence and handi-ness to boot.
I'd rather intelligence than good-looking.
Because I can look good enough for both of us.
I love oatmeal.
I'm not half as crafty as I think I am.
I steal a lot of my ideas and just add my own view to make it mine.
I feel like I had a way better chance with university when I was in middle school.
I feel like I do not know as much now as I did then.
I feel like I'm a lot lazier now.
I always feel rushed and like I'm procrastinating again...

...

I think I'll go do some work.

Nov.1/11

For those of you who are freakin' cheap like I am, and who want to impress your friends who totally want those feathers in their hair without paying for salon prices:

Bewm, babies.

Dollar store/Walmart/michaels... jewelry crimp beads (little metal circles, usually used to hold bracelet thread/wire/plastic lacing/feathers... to the clasp of the bracelet/earring/necklace/anklet/purse dongle/phone attachment/keychain... (cough, cough; so what? They're useful!)

And dollar store feathers (and I swear I had some coloured ones somewhere, just not sure where they went; this craftster tutorial tells you to use fly-fishing feathers, but I can't seem to locate any lately in stores (I wonder why...?)
But I'm cheap and lazy... too lazy to hunt.
I found some nicer feathers at Michaels, but again: LAZY.
Anyway, add a pair of needle nose pliers and a piece of thread to catch the hair and add the bead and WHAMMO! Easy peasy addition to the hair. Instruction: Create fold in thread; gather hair in fold of thread. Place bead on to open ends of thread. Slip over length of thread. Pull hair from fold of thread. Keep bead in hair. Add feather to hole. Chop off pointy end of feather that lies above the bead. Squeeze with needle nosed pliers.
Cheer in awesome cheapness. (optional).


Also, in my life news:



BioShock bunny splicer mask= finally done.
Damn, I'm awesome.

Sept. 22/11

You know, songs just aren't made anymore for the normal person. I mean, seriously:
From the Top 40:
Katy Perry- Last Friday Night:
"Glitter all over the room
Pink flamingos in the pool
I smell like a minibar
DJ's passed out in the yard
Barbie's on the barbeque"

... Really? That costs a tonne of money. Hell, alcohol costs money. More like "went out to the bar, didn't get very far, bouncer asked for dollars, I said see ya later, HOLLA".

Britney Spears- I wanna go:

"I I I Wanna Go o o, All The Way ay ay
Takin' Out My Freak Tonight
I I I Wanna Show ow ow
All The Dirt ir irt
I Got Running Through My Mind (Repeat)"

... Hell no. Half the time it's the other way around. The fiance says "hey baby" and I say "Duuuuuuuuuuudddee, no. I'm so sick right now/I just got home from work/what the hell are you thinking waking me up at two in the morning when you get home from work???!? I have school tomorrow, jerk!"

Nicki Minaj- Super Bass

"That's the kind of dude I was lookin' for
And yes you'll get slapped if you're lookin' hoe
I said, excuse me you're a hell of a guy
I mean my, my, my, my you're like pelican fly
I mean, you're so shy and I'm loving your tie"

... Really? First, I'm not going to slap a chick if she's eye-ing my dude. I'll swagger up to him, grab his butt and flash my engagement ring, but I'm not going to start a war. And a tie? I do not think that in all of his life, the fiance's EVER worn a tie. Ever. Ever, ever.
On the other hand, I actually like this song. Like, I considered buying the CD, liked this song (which NEVER happens).


My point? My days go something more along the lines of: Got woken up at 8:07 by a creditor calling. Had a pap done at 9:30 (except the doctor was late, so it was more 10:15). Have class at 12. Work at 4:30. Come home. Eat peanut butter on a bagel. Grab a flakie (the last one 'cause I ate the rest of the box last night). Go to sleep. Do it again in the a.m.
...
There is no room for dancing on tables, or flamingos on the lawn, or getting arrested for anything other than, like, credit violations. Why doesn't someone write a song about that?

Aug. 25, 2011

Whammo! Double Post!
What can I say, guilt's a good pusher.

So, here it is: my adult-back-to-school-chicken-soup.

I'm not in school yet, but I am eating it now.
This reminds me of school when I was young... you know, chicken soup for lunch and a nice grilled cheese... mmm. I was a lucky kid who got to go home for lunch. This was something we ate a lot, with these changes added-- which I love.

Drop in a scrambled, uncooked egg and shredded cheddar cheese and chopped onion to the packaged soup mix and measured water once it's boiling. (Usually I use Lipton's Chicken Noodle Soup, but this time I tried dollar store ramen and bulk chicken broth mixture. I would suggest sticking with Lipton's...)
You could add wieners, but I'm cheap and don't buy them. They just go too fast and are too expensive (yes, wieners ARE expensive to me).
ETA: sausages= delish. Boil them in the soup pot, cut into bite sized pieces or rounds, and then add the soup mix, the cheese and the onions and egg. It is AWESOME.
Also, you could add carrot, shaved, into the soup after it's mixed-- for texture and colour. :D
Realistically, I've seen mixed veggies added-- I don't have any at the moment, though, only corn and I forgot to add it in to the soup. So, I put a touch of Kikkoman soya sauce in. Mmm... It was pretty okay, except that it kinda took over for the flavour of t he broth... but it worked with the ramen noodles.

Anything you wanted to add to the cheese, chicken noodle and egg soup would probably work. Ground beef. Bits of left over steak.
I mean, I would avoid fruits, I'm not THAT adventurous... Although I have a feeling that pineapple might be okay if you left out the cheese.

Anyway, go for it. It's cheap and so vary-able that it's good for a student's lunch three times a week before boredom sets in...
Then, instead of a grilled cheese sandwich, try tuna wraps... take a wrap or flatbread, add some tuna, lettuce, salt and I like whipped dressing in mine but mayo's good too. Or caesar salad dressing, or italian dressing... the possibilities are endless. Cucumber's good chopped and thrown in... :D
... Hungry yet?

Aug. 25, 2011

I have no excuses, really. I spend all my time on the computer, so it's not like I can't get here to make a blog post.

Umm... Pinterest distracted me?
I haven't done anything interesting enough to blog about?
I'm thinking about cleaning my computer screen?

... Sorry. I'm lame like that.

Aug. 16, 2011

It's a good sign of summer when your nail polish matches your freezie.


And, yes: I did paint my index a different colour than every other nail. I did it on purpose. I did it on both hands. It matches. No worries. I think it's kind of neat. When I'm bored of the orange, I just switch fingers... but I don't look like an eleven year old testing her nail kit.

Aug 4, 2011

Yes. I am done ecology. So I'm doing laundry till I work...
in the mean time, I am eating a homemade slushie (basically, frozen juice and some unfrozen juice).
These are the cubes made in the silicon tray from the fiance's mom:



Hahahahaaaa! Awesome. It's The Scream.

It was funny watching them spin before they got chopped up in the blender.

August 3, 2011

Yay! Tomorrow is my last day of Ecology, if I pass it, forever! Wooh! Then I get to take courses that are interesting and also awesome. But first I'm off of school for three weeks-- just enough time to visit my family and have my brain turn to mush a little bit.
:D
So excited.

July 26, 2011

I have a special dislike deep, deep down in my heart for ecology:


Yep.
and there are four more-- in a six page paper, that's it--but blogger won't let me paste them in.

My kind of hell.

July 18 2011

Last night we had a really bad epic thunderstorm. (Bad? I don't know if that's the right word. Good? Cool? Epic?) It knocked the power out for a minute, then the power came back on, and then it knocked it out again. (It came back on momentarily). Usually when the power goes off it is gone for a good few hours. It was sweet though.


Do you know, I'm in university, and one of the things that I find baffling is that when I buy pop, it sits in my fridge/pantry/kitchen after I open it (usually I buy it for mix. For alcohol. For friends' nights in, a.k.a. Super Smash Bros Night or Mario Kart/Party Parties). I do the same with chips. I'll open it, eat three or four (or a quarter of the bag), then put the bag down and forget about it for months, till I'm cleaning out my pantry again. Then I'm like, oh, wow. I bought these ages ago. I then proceed, usually, to feed them to my rats as treats, or if they are only marginally stale, I eat them. I'm a terrible person, I know, but my rats love junk food.
But I mean, I'm in university, I'm supposed to never have leftover junk food, right? I mean don't get me wrong, you don't exactly find chocolate floating around, and nuts don't last long in my house... but chips and pop... just stick around forever. And ever. Until they're so stale that my rats won't touch them.

A new thing that I've begun to truly dislike is these:
(image via)
I know, they're good-er for the environment, and I'm totally cool with that. I am so down with not killing the environment. Even though I own a car, I try to use my bike unless I absolutely have to use the car (eg: large item purchases. I would still have had to call a cab, which uses MORE gas than my well-kept car, and for some reason they always seem to take the long routes home).
However, I have an issue with the legality of these.
1) You do not need a driver's license for them. This is one of my biggest issues. You do not even need a beginner's license. So, you have some nitwit who hasn't any idea of the laws and rules and etiquette of the road driving around on the road... or worse. A car would be pulled over. Not so much these.
2) Because they are under the "bike" category (they have non-functioning 'pedals', which are not pictured in the photograph), and they have a smaller sized tire, it is "legal" apparently, to drive them on the SIDEWALK. Yes. Where there are people walking. Much slower than these things go.
3) They go 32 km an hour, and are allowed on the sidewalk.
4) They are a bike, and so drivers argue that they are allowed on bike trails and paths that move throughout some cities which have a "no motorized vehicles" rule. However, they are motorized with an engine that is electric, making them... motorized.
5) These things are 75 kg. If it were to hit somebody/thing (or fall on them, as I watched a driver of one yesterday almost a)hit a car while crossing at a cross walk and then b)swerve to avoid a post that she... didn't see? and almost fall off the curb on the sidewalk to the traffic in the street), it would do some considerable damage. Let me reiterate: 75kg is 165 lbs. That's like a fairly heavy person (myself or a man), who wears metal armor, running into you at a little over half the speed that a car moves while traveling on 50 km/hr roads.
... Plus the weight of the driver, now over 250lbs for a small rider, plus the weight of carry-ons. If it were me riding, it would be over 300 lbs of weight. Plus there's force involved for it going 32 km/hr right into you. My bike (a mountain bike with no shocks) is light enough that it would be my weight, plus about 20 pounds, about 180 lbs. Plus my meager 20 km/hr... maybe. If I don't get thrown off, because my bike is not made to hold me on a seat in a seated position, like the e-bike is.
6) They do not have to be insured, so they are only fined when in an accident wherein they ruin another person's vehicle-meaning that they have no financial responsibilities to the person whose vehicle they just hit, even though a driver of another motorized vehicle would be.

... Do you see my issue here?

July 7, 2011

In the most awesome fashion, I had an ecology class yesterday and wore jeans--yay! We were hiking on the drumlin to compare the west and east bank trails for tree species. Basically, the East bank I think, had way more Ironwood trees. The other side had a lot of buckthorn and sugar maples--but we also came across an oak- a white oak! (Yes, that excites me. It wasn't a sugar maple OR an Ironwood. It's awesome).
Anwyay, I wore jeans in the 900+ C weather to avoid poison ivy, which is rampant up there... Did not wear a long sleeved, white shirt. So, now I have mosquito bites... all over my arms, and my hands. Whoo!
(Sarcasm). On the other side of that, most of the nasty ladies who were biting me (biting mosquitoes are female, they don't care about inflicting itchiness as long as they survive) got squished as soon as they landed on me, HAHAHAHA!
Have you ever had a mosquito bite somewhere that was uncomfortable? Like, fingers, toe joints, your ear?

only i would drive for three and a half hours and realize that I left my license at my grandparents' house...
Happy anni grama and grampa
Happy Canada day (yesterday)
... time for a trip in the car