Let it Be Christmas Already

Here I am again, not as stressed as everyone else. I'm just about done my ePortfolio, just waiting to hear back from some people for feedback. You can take a look too if you like: heatherwoo.com.
The SSC will be hosting another potluck on Thursday, this one is a dessert potluck. I'm very much looking forward to it. Unfortunately, two of my closer friends won't be around to come, but we had to go with the date that worked for the most people overall. I bought a gingerbread house for people to decorate, since that was something that people liked last year when it happened on campus (although I died a little inside, since I haven't bought/used a store bought gingerbread house in 4 years). Right now it looks like we're going to have a good turn out. It's a fine line though. Obviously we want as many people to come as possible, but we also don't have a ton of space in our apartment. And we can't really use our 'sunroom' off the back this time because it is not insulated. So we'll see how it goes. Might have to do some rearranging of the furniture.
Thanks to Black Friday and the magic of the internet, I've completed all of my Christmas shopping except for one gift. This is definitely a record for me, having it done so early. My mom messages me on a semi-regular basis saying "Another package arrived today," since I'm having them sent to London. Although I think they've all arrived by now. I am very excited to wrap the gifts. I love gift wrapping. (If you want me to come over and wrap your gifts for you, I'd love to. Seriously).
Not a whole lot else going on. I only have one more week of classes, and then I'm free! I've been making Christmas cards and I have to say I'm quite happy with how they are turning out. I'm really looking forward to being at home over December. I can't wait to do Christmas-y things. I'm also excited to get back into sewing.
I made dinner tonight for Marissa and Michelle. I made dill meatballs, which is one of my favourite meals. I made it for them at some point last year, and they both really enjoyed it as well. So now I try and invite them over to eat with me whenever I have it. Michelle and I played Mario Kart after. It was fun to just hang out with her for a while; she's often very busy and is never around on the weekends.

RedonDONE

I am often significantly less stressed the 48hrs leading up to a due date than my peers. Most of the time, this is because I complete my work before hand and apparently everyone I go to school with is an expert procrastinator. However, I thought this weekend might be different. We're on the third and final iteration of our Redondo prototype project (due on Monday), and my group was struggling to solidify our idea. This meant I couldn't start working on my part of the write up ahead of time. Finally, on Thursday we came to an agreement only because we argued that we literally didn't have anymore time to discuss ideas, and had to start working on the write-up and physical prototype. Filip and I were assigned the physical prototype because we were going to be the only ones in Stratford over the weekend. Filip didn't seem too happy about having the physical prototype, but I would take crafting over writing any day. Over the past two days, it took us 8 hours to complete the prototype out of cardboard, and that was on top of 2 hours the group had spent together building the shell of the Redondo. We went through 3 cans of spray paint trying to make this thing look half decent. But on the plus side, I am now done my contribution to the project, and thus have the weekend to myself. Which is where I started this narrative. Still done my work ahead of time :)

My other task for the weekend is 3D printing a bunch of mini pieces of furniture. This is for the GBDA X project, where we're redesigning the Cooper Site. As a part of the 3D model team, I created a blueprint of the building that will eventually printed at 24"x62". The mini furniture pieces will sit on this blueprint. The group became a bit pressed for time because the book/brand team wants pictures of the miniatures for their book. So we suddenly needed our models finished earlier than anticipated. I took one for the team and offered to print them over the weekend. It will be cutting it close. I started one today (a desk and bed) and it's going to take 9hrs to print. I'm just hoping that everything goes smoothly, because I left after about an hour. I will find out tomorrow, fingers crossed. 

Other than hoping the 3D printer doesn't break down from continuous operation over the next 48hrs, I don't have anything going on this weekend. All of the M&Ms are away for the weekend. I made chocolate chip cookies this evening. I used to bake because I wanted baked goods. Now I bake to occupy time, and have the added bonus of getting baked goods out of it. I finished The Crown on Netflix today. I really enjoyed it and hope they continue to make episodes (there's some controversy as to whether there will be another season due to comments from the Royal Family). Might do some reading, since I haven't done that in a while. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the weather is going to be great. Although today it was lovely. I was walking around in a t-shirt. 

Another Weekend Gone

This weekend was incredibly lazy, interspersed with moments of activity. I baked some cupcakes, which I had intended to send some home with my family when they came up on Saturday, but found out that they had made cupcakes themselves as well. So I have all the cupcakes now. I'll probably take them into school tomorrow. I've been doing a lot of baking and giving it away recently. Not necessarily because I set out to be generous, but because I'm bored, so I bake. And then I have tons of baked goods that I can't consume on my own, so I give them away. Rice Krispies have been made multiple times already this year.
As I mentioned before, my family (minus my dad) came up to Stratford on Saturday to see a showing of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. It was well done; I especially liked how they did Aslan. The legs had a very realistic movement, which I appreciated.

While at the theatre, I ran into the Dyck family, which is the family I lived with over the summer. Boy was I surprised to see them. I ended up hanging out with them after the show and getting dinner with them. We went to about 6 restaurants before giving up and getting Wendy's. A rookie mistake: if you want to eat a meal immediately before or after a show in Stratford, you need to have a reservation. Even Swiss Chalet didn't have room for us. 

This morning a group of us when to an arts and crafts show at the Rotary Complex. It took us about 40mins to walk there because it's way out on the edge of Stratford. It was fun to go though. There was over 100 vendors. There was a raffle to win this massive gingerbread house. It was like the ones you see on TV in the competitions. My favourite part was that they had left the back corner open so you could see inside the house, where they had done the entire interior as well, complete with mini gingerbread people. I was freaking out over it, and somebody from the Stratford Gazette asked if they could use my picture. I said yes, obviously, so now I'll have to keep an eye out for my picture in the paper. I managed to get some things, including a butter alternative that is primarily composed of garlic. It's basically garlic butter but healthier. I'm going to start making myself garlic bread all the time. And might even put it on my sandwiches. We decided to get a cab back, since we didn't fancy walking all the way back. 

I had trouble falling asleep last night, so spent the afternoon in bed lounging around. I watched an episode of The Crown on Netflix. It's about Queen Elizabeth II, starting with her marriage to Prince Philip. I'm loving this series. And it's also surprisingly accurate in terms of what actually happened. I've been doing lots of research into the Royal Family because of it. I'm also starting to manage wrapping my head around the Royal Family tree. I've tried to do that before, and struggled. It's basically a history lesson that's also entertaining. 

This evening I went out skating again, and set a new record with my Misfit (and officially this time, since there was no time change nonsense). 2030 points :D The skate costs $5, which is a bit much to go skating for an hour and a half, but I'm calling it an investment in my health, since the Wii Fit, while motivating, I'm not exactly sure can be called a 'workout'. 

In other news, I'm counting down the days till the term is done. Not even particularly because I'm desperate for school to be over, but because I have so many ideas planned for what I can do during my break. I'm especially excited to be able to sew again. I'm going to try and pump out two quilts in one month, which I've never done before. Heck, I haven't done one quilt in a month before. And of course, Christmas baking. Big plans :)

QOTD

371. Have you ever looked down on someone because you thought your religious views were superior?

Not knowingly, although I'm sure I've done it subconsciously. I know that when people mention that they don't believe in God that I make note of it and generally try and steer conversation away from religion, but I don't look down on them. 

BFFLAATs Take TO: Take 4

The yearly tradition of me going to visit Emily (and now Alison) in Toronto for a weekend continues. I was able to stay for a little longer this year because I don't have school on Fridays. I arrived Thursday evening and we went to see Mariah Carey perform at the unveiling of The Bay holiday windows. There was a large crowd filling the street and we weren't sure where Mariah would be performing. We did manage to eventually worm our way further into the crowd, but we still couldn't see a stage. Mariah eventually came on stage after the Mayor of Toronto and CEO of Hudson's Bay Company spoke for a few minutes. We couldn't see her at all, but there was a screen that was projecting the whole thing. I did see her at one point when I jumped above the rest of the crowd and I caught a glimpse of her in her predictably red dress. Add Mariah Carey to the list of famous people I've seen with my own eyes.

On Friday we went to Snakes and Lattes Board Game Cafe. It took us a while to walk there, but it was worth it. They have so many different games. We played one called Sushi Go Party, which once we got the hang of it, was a lot of fun. It's a card based game by Gamewright, whose games I've played before and enjoyed. We played a number of games and ended up staying at the cafe for the whole afternoon. We headed home and made dinner (pasta with a rose meat sauce - very delicious) with our friend Justine. It was really good to be able to see her again.
Saturday morning I took on the role of model for Emily's roommate, Nicola. She was doing a photography assignment on lighting and needed a model, so I was assigned to the role. It was a lot of fun, and also something I'm not keen to do again. It feels great to have your photo taken and to have the fancy lights and reflectors, but staying in the same pose for an hour at a time or trying to recreate a pose multiple times get tiring. For one position, I was leaning all of my weight on my crossed leg and I promptly lost all feeling in my lower leg. I could touch my foot and I didn't feel anything. When we were done it took me 5mins to try and get feeling back in my foot again. I can't wait to see the photos though. I'm sure Nicola made me look much better than I usually do.
After the photoshoot was done, we headed to a cafe that made #freakshakes, which are these milkshakes that have entire desserts perched on top of them. I got a surprise version, which came with a chocolate milkshake topped with Nutella, whip cream, a mini cupcake, two powdered donuts and lots of sprinkles. They also offered a version which came with a full size donut and a fudgsicle on top. On the way to the cafe we stopped in this store that has a bunch of random props everywhere, including these absolutely massive picture frames. It was a really neat store to look around in.

For dinner we went to a pub type restaurant across from the movie theatre, where we each got poutine. Alison got a popcorn chicken poutine, Emily got a smoked brisket poutine, and I got the poutine sampler which came with the standard poutine, the popcorn chicken poutine, and a pulled pork poutine. It was delicious.
Of course, the tradition of the visit to Toronto is to see the next Hunger Games movie. Unfortunately those are finished now, so we found another movie with a November premiere date that we all wanted to see. Thus, after we finished dinner we crossed the road to the theatre to see Doctor Strange. It was a really good movie, and pretty different from other Marvel movies. But they still managed to tie it into the MCU. And I'm very happy to hear that Doctor Strange will be making appearances in future Marvel movies.
I had to leave fairly early on Sunday morning to come back to Stratford, so Emily made pancakes for breakfast and I was off. I got a ride with my friend Mara, so the ride was much more enjoyable than riding public transit. I ended up going skating at one of the Stratford arenas in the evening with a couple of guys from GBDA. It cost $5 which might be a bit much for skating, but it was enjoyable. I'm not quite at the level of skating as the guys I was skating with (they both play hockey), so at the beginning we were spread out on the rink. After a while we were starting to tire, so we just started doing laps together and chatting. There were only 6 other people on the ice, so there was lots of space. It was an adults only skate as well, so there wasn't any kids which was nice. It was good exercise. I set a new record on my Misfit (fitness tracker). The way the misfit works is you get points based on how much you move. It's approximately one point for 100 steps, but if you're doing something more intense than walking, you get more points. Unfortunately, I think some things got mixed up with the time change, so things aren't registering correctly. But I reached my daily goal of 600 points with just the skating.
A very busy and enjoyable weekend!