Fight to Entertain

good ol' pun to start us off

This is me eating my words and wishing I had brought my sewing stuff to Stratford. Only a week in and I'm rudely reminded of how boring it can get in Stratford. I have to make a real effort to entertain myself and not just waste my days away on social media. That being said, I did do lots of fun things this week. 
It was Marissa's birthday on Friday, so on Thursday we drove to Kitchener to go trampolining. Mara and I had been to this place before, where they have 6 olympic grade trampolines. It was great fun. I almost did a full front flip (I just can't quite stick the landing and end up on my butt). Michelle however did gymnastics when she was younger and so was doing front flips, back flips, you name it. Definitely got my exercise in that day and felt it for the following two days. I'd like to go back at some point and see if I can't finally land a front flip.
Later that day we had our first SSC event of the term at a local pub. Much to our enjoyment, Thursday is now 25cent wing night. I made a slight misjudgement in how hungry I was and ordered 5 wings and a burger. Way too much food. But the wings were great. And I couldn't get over that it cost $1.25 for 5 wings! I'm no wing fanatic but even I know that's got to be a great deal. I might start making regular trips to the pub for 5 wings every Thursday night.
Friday morning started off great listening to Ed Sheeran's two new singles. I've come to realize that I almost always don't like a song when I first hear it if it's a song I'm expecting to like (i.e. from an artist I'm familiar with). So I didn't form any opinions until later. And as expected, I really like both of them. I'm not sure which one I like better; it might have to be Castle On The Hill.

Last night I had some friends over to play Catan (I won). I also made my new meal of the week: spinach salad with dried cranberries, chicken, avocado, and poppyseed dressing. To be honest I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It might just make it on to my rotation of meals. I haven't decided what this week's recipe is going to be; it will depend on when I get to a grocery store next.

I also made rice krispie squares but they didn't turn out great. I think the marshmallows were past their prime.
Didn't do much today. Watched a sermon from The Meeting House online. I've started doing a daily doodle where I practice my lettering/doodling. It's not much but I'm trying out the concept that doing something everyday will help you get better at it. I'm patiently waiting for 9pm to roll around to watch the next Sherlock episode. I've had to stay off social media since this afternoon to avoid any spoilers, since Britain has already seen it and there are already things being posted about what happens.

Am I a Baking Blogger?

Yes, but I don't have a baking blog (officially). I do talk about baking whenever I do it though. And I did lots of baking last month. It was great. I made mini churros, chai-spiced tea cakes, peppermint bark, sugar cookies with royal icing, and the capstone dessert: the gingerbread train. All of you who read this blog have already seen these, but, you have to do it for the blog so here we are.

I'm particularly pleased with how the gingerbread train turned out. I was skeptical about the support system and how the cars would stand on the wheels. It was a struggle to get the engine standing but I eventually got it with some extra hidden support (made of gingerbread of course). Unfortunately, the wheels started collapsing after two days, I imagine because of the humidity and heat in the house with all the people. I took it as a sign to start eating the gingerbread ;) The train had minimal candy on it compared to my previous gingerbread houses. This was because I was trying to go for a cleaner appearance overall. But I missed the candy, so I think next year's creation will feature more candy.

Christmas was great, if busy. We had 13 people at our house for Christmas dinner! Lots of good gifts, two of which are card games that I really like: Sushi Go and The Struggle for Catan.
The other thing I occupied my time with was a t-shirt quilt for a friend, which I got finished in time(!). She really likes it, which I'm glad of.
Having been inspired by finishing that t-shirt quilt, I decided I would start working on my own t-shirt quilt with my Forest Cliff Camp shirts (of which I have many). I started working on it just before New Years Eve, and almost completely finished the top of the quilt before I came back to Stratford yesterday. I've never moved through a quilt so quickly before. The main reason for that is because a lot of supplies I need to make quilts are at the church sewing group, so I was limited to 3hrs of sewing a week. But I recently received a cutting board and ruler which are the big things I needed. So now I can sew to my heart's desire at home! Now the only thing stopping me is not understanding a quilt pattern. Margaret often helps me a lot in guiding me through the steps of making a quilt.

I made up the pattern for the t-shirt quilts since you can't really fit the t-shirts to an existing pattern. I had been planning on bringing my sewing stuff to Stratford so that I could keep working on my quilt while at school but I ended up getting so much of it done that I didn't bother. I'll be able to finish the top within a couple hours the next time I go home. Then the first quilt of 2017 will be done!
The creativity continues in Stratford with a card for a friend's birthday later this week. We're hoping to go trampolining to celebrate :)
My new year's resolution is to make a new recipe each week. The hope is that I'll become more confident in trying new recipes, increase the number of go-to meals I can make, and learn how to pair foods better. This week is a chicken and spinach salad.

Creative Central

As expected, the Christmas break is flying by. I can't believe it's just a week till Christmas. I, however, am not as stressed about that fact as my parents are. I imagine this weekend will be spent writing cards and delivering presents. I designed and wrote a few Christmas cards myself this year. I've been working on a faux calligraphy, which is featured heavily throughout the cards. The cards are just done with some fine tip markers, as apposed to with crafting supplies, but I really like how they turned out. But since I've been home and have access to my scrapbooking supplies, I've made some other cards that are a little more intricate. I think making cards is going to be my new hobby. Ever since I had my new years resolution to write a letter and deliver it through snail mail every week, I've been a fan of sending snail mail (not every week though). Now I'm just adding making the cards to that. Although stationary areas in stores are still my weak spot.
The other thing I've been occupying my time with is wrapping Christmas gifts. I try and up my game each year. This year every gift has ribbon and a bow. I also try and wrap parts of gifts individually, because why open one gift when you can open 3? I made a gift basket of which I'm very pleased with. 
The 2016 gingerbread creation has been designed (here's a sneak peak: it's not a house). I'm going to make it next week, show it off for a couple days to the relatives, and then it can be consumed. I may have designed a bigger creation that I thought, but we'll see how it turns out. It's never exactly the size it's meant to be.
I went through my photos from when I was abroad and have selected a highlight reel to print off and hopefully scrapbook. It still ended up being over 70 photos. But I guess considering I took over 2000, that's not bad.
And in case you hadn't noticed the trend of crafty and creative things, the other project occupying my time is a t-shirt quilt I'm doing for a friend. It's coming along nicely, although there was a bit of a pause while I waited for the last two shirts to arrive. I'm hoping that I can have it finished within the next week. The deadline is unofficially when I go back to Stratford, so that I can give my friend the quilt the next time I see her. If I happen to have time during the craze of the week surrounding Christmas, I'll start working on another quilt that I said I would do for a family friend. Its been about 5 years, so I figured I should probably get going on that. I just wish that I had room to sew at my apartment. I can't wait till I retire and have unlimited time to do crafty things.

I wished you the best of all this world could give

title from 'Jealous' by Labrinth 

I realize it's been a while, and I've probably lost most of you because of my own lack of posts. But better late than never.
I can't believe it's 2016 already. December flew by and in just 2 weeks I'll be off to England for my term abroad. I'll be starting a new blog to use during the time I'm away. I want lots of people to be able to read about my travels but not be able to see everything I've posted over the last several years. Once I get that started, I'll write all about my worries and panics that I'm having right now about moving across the world for 4 months. Maybe I'll make myself a hashtag.
Not much else going on here. I was successful in my 2015 New Years resolution of writing and mailing a letter each week. My last letter was a letter I wrote to future 50 year-old me. I still haven't figured out how I'm going to mail that to myself... I haven't set a specific resolution for this year. I'd like to in general live more spontaneously (which will probably happen most while I'm abroad). I have a 5 year question journal that I fill out every day, so that will also be something that I'm doing this year (and the next 4 after that).
My brother currently has a friend over and is watching the new Sherlock special that aired yesterday. I haven't watched it yet because my parents and I are going to see it in theatres next week. I have to avoid tumblr until then because I really don't want anything to be spoiled. I've been watching Once Upon A Time this fall and had a pretty big plot line revealed on tumblr so I'm very cautious now about not having anything spoiled. (I kid you not as I was typing this out I heard my brother and his friend both go "Wait, what? Wait, WHAT?!" and I freaked out a bit).
Once I've got my new blog up and running, I'll post a link to it here. Then this blog will be silent for 4 months (not that it's been shouting or anything over the past year).

Hello, can you hear me?

title taken from Adele's new single, "Hello"

A friend just told me about Mark Manson (specifically this and this article). I really enjoyed them both. And it made me think about what my passion is. Truth is, I don't really know. What I do know is that two days I really wanted to do something creative. More specifically, I wanted to create a font. Ever since I got my drawing tablet and found a website that lets you create your own font, I have had a bit of a thing for typography.

On the letters that I send out every week, I like to try and make the envelope a little more interesting than just a name, address, and stamp. This usually results in me putting a lot of effort into writing out their name (and then realizing I didn't leave a lot of room for the address, and therefore have to write it really tiny, but that's not the point). The past couple of letters I've done a geometric type font, and I was fond of it. I decided that I wanted to make the whole font.

When I actually went about creating this font, I realized that I didn't have my sketchbooks with me. I own 5, and I hadn't brought a single one with me to Stratford. Neither did I have my drawing pencils, nor my paints. Anything, really. (I do have some markers and colouring pencils with me). The sad part is that I distinctly remember packing for Stratford and thinking I wouldn't want to be creative, that I wouldn't need any of my tools. And that is where I limited myself. It's true that I don't often have the desire to paint or draw or create fonts. But when they do come around, it really sucks when you don't have the tools to do so.

I got my drawing tablet out (ok, so apparently I do have creative tools with me, just not the right ones) and tried drawing some letters straight into my computer. It didn't go to well. There were two reasons for that: 1) I used Illustrator, which I've only used a handful of times and am not completely aware of how to use properly and 2) it's hard to create a font when you've never done it before. I looked at some articles online about typography and creating fonts, which were enlightening.

But what I really wanted was my sketchbook and a pencil and eraser. Because that was how I wanted to be creative. "Being creative" is such a vague term and I'm lucky that I have so many different ways that I can be creative. Just not the right way, apparently.

After my disappointing first failed attempt at creating a font, I made some origami lotus flowers like the ones in an episode of Sherlock. It took me multiple tries to get it right. I could get all of the folds, but the last step is to invert the petals so they stand up, and it's a lot harder than Sherlock makes it out to me. My main issue is that the paper would rip because it was so thin. I eventually used some tape to reinforce the spot where it always tended to rip, despite the fact that I despise using tape, glue, or scissors in origami. Hopefully one day I can make one without the tape (and no rips).

I've been thinking recently about my term abroad. I am definitely going to blog while I'm away, and it will probably be the main way I tell people in general how I'm doing and what I'm up to. But I can't decide if I want to use this blog or create a new one. If I create a new one, well, I'd have two blogs. And I don't like the idea of having two blogs. It's like one person having two cars. Why do you need two? You can only drive one at a time. It doesn't make sense.

On the other hand, if I use this one, then I run into a bit of a situation. I want more people than the people who know about this blog to be able to hear about my adventures in England. But do I want those people to be able to read everything I've written here over the past 4 years? Because if they're anything like me, I know that they'd go through and read every single post. And I'm pretty sure I don't want that. Also, I'm pretty sure some people (really, just one person that I am thinking of) would get mad at me that I hadn't told them I had a blog.

Fortunately, I have 3 months to think about this. But I don't think the way I stand on either side is going to change over that time, and thus it really isn't that fortunate at all.

(I don't want to toot my own horn here or anything, and I know I've said this before, but I am proud of my writing skills. And I know that sometimes the way sentences sound in my head doesn't always make it to the keyboard, but I could probably be a writer for something. Like a blog that has a purpose, DIY Central or Recipes From Home, not just a personal blog. I think I have a good mastery of the English language, and know how to make it sound good. And using big words is fun. Although I have a tendency to overuse commas. I love 'em :) That's all I have to say).

366. What is your superpower of choice?
Those of Elastigirl, from the Incredibles.

Let's Do The Time Warp Again

Last year, my New Year's Resolution was to floss my teeth each and every day. That didn't happen every day (but it definitely happened more often than it did previously). Luckily, I had a second resolution: take a picture myself every day. Unfortunately, that also didn't happen every day, but had a much higher success rate than the flossing did. I think I only missed a handful of days all year. And after taking a picture of yourself every day for a year it becomes a bit of a habit, so I continued into this year. I only stopped during the summer when my ipod broke and my phone at the time didn't have a front facing camera. My goal when making this resolution was always to put the pictures together in a slideshow to see them altogether in quick succession. And I've finally gotten around to making that video. So here is 457 pictures of me, taken between Jan 1st, 2014 and June 18th, 2015, in 40 seconds.

My New Year's Resolution this year is to write a letter every week, and it must be delivered through snail mail. So far I'm on track, although sometimes I have difficulty thinking of who to write a letter to. Hopefully I can make it all the way to the end, and I will have finally (100% successfully) completed a New Year's Resolution.