Four years already
Since the day we exchanged vows
At Waterloo Park.
Four years already
Since the night I fell asleep
At Star Wars viewing.
Four years already
Since you wore that batik shirt
Does it still fit, Troy? ;)
*Four years already
I still have not lost my ring
They’re still not engraved.
Four years already
May we have many more years
To love and explore!
(These cheesy haikus are brought to you by the letter X and the number 0.)
If you ever wonder about what a blogger’s birthday was like in the year 2000 or year 4 B.F. (before Facebook), you’ve got to read the entries I posted between April 6 to April 8, 2000. That was the best birthday I ever had in the Bloggerville (that was before it became a Blogosphere). I really wish I still had all those voicemail messages. They were awesome!
My birthday in 2001 doesn’t sound like a very good one, though. But hey, the day after my birthday that year, I created a crappy PHP chatroom I called Quack-O-Matic, where Troy and I “talked” to each other for the very first time! Who knew that 4 years later we’d be husband and wife.
I guess my mum knew that she didn’t have much time left in this world because she really tried to make my birthday in 2002 the best one ever. She had a caterer cook all my favourite birthday food and made me feel so loved that even my dad couldn’t ruin the day for me.
You’ve gotta check out my birthday post from 2003! It’s got a picture of me and my mum when I was a baby! I forgot I had that one. Such an awesome picture. It also has a picture of me in 2003. I looked so tired. I probably was. My mum was already very sick by then. Bedridden and all. It wasn’t a very happy birthday. 2003 was such a horrible year. Oh, if you read the post and want to know the answer to the “what’s in the monkey’s mouth” question, it is in this entry.
I wrote a long birthday post conveying a wide range of emotions — from happy to sad, from hopeless to hopeful — in 2004. I wrote that “life might get better.” And it did! I’m a frickin’ clairvoyant! ;) The trip I was talking about was the trip to England, and then Canada, and then back to England, and then Indonesia. Troy and I met in person for the first time in May 28, 2004 at the airport in Toronto. I left Canada in September 2004 only to go back a month later.
I’ve always had a good birthday ever since I moved to Canada but man, my birthday posts from Canada are sooo boring! In 2005, I only talked about some stupid dream I had the night before my birthday. And it was my first Canadian birthday! It was also the day we told Troy’s parents that we were getting married in a month! I should’ve put more effort into it.
My birthday post from 2006 is a little better. I cared enough to write about the circumstances of my birth. My birthday in 2007 was probably the most eventful birthday I ever had in Canada. I even got a real birthday cake with my name on it! But I didn’t blog about it until, like, four days after my birthday. Slacker.
Worse still, in 2008, not only did I wait four days before posting about my birthday, I only wrote two paragraphs in the post, only one of which was about my birthday and it didn’t say anything other than the fact that it was a good one! Blasphemy! Now I really don’t remember what I got for my birthday last year! All I remember is that I had a whole birthday weekend plus Monday full of presents and culinary experience (read: dining out). It was an awesome birthday, dammit!
My birthday this year (i.e., today) has been pretty low-key. Troy wished me a happy birthday and gave me a couple of presents before he left for work in the morning: a book on soft toy-making and accessories for my current favourite board game, Agricola (so I’m a board game geek, sue me). I’m also supposed to be getting a bike from him but I still haven’t found a bike that I like. After checking out a bike store downtown, we went to a Chinese restaurant for my birthday dinner and after that, we bought a lottery ticket because I was feeling lucky. :) I wouldn’t mind winning 9 million dollars.
Oh, one thing that I would want to remember in the coming years is that this is my first white birthday! The ground is covered with snow and it’s still snowing! I like snow and stuff but I don’t think I like it when it’s falling like crazy in April. It’s just not right!
Addendum: I started my attempt to germinate three avocado seeds today: two in water, one in soil. Will let you know if any of them sprouts. The avocado plant I started from seed two years ago is still alive but it could use a friend!
Ever since I decided that I want a bicycle for my birthday, I’ve been really obsessed with it. I’ve done quite an extensive research that if you asked me about Canadian bicycle industry, I’d probably be able to give you an executive summary. But I don’t think that would interest you much.
Bottom line is, good quality bikes are not cheap. Good quality bikes with European design can only be had with top dollars, which is a shame because that’s the kind of bike that I would like to ride. Since I don’t want to put a strain on our bank account, I guess I’m going to have to compromise. I might have to be happy with a good quality bike with a so-so design (read: North American design). I wish I weren’t such a design snob.
To illustrate the above paragraph, I want one of these bikes but I might have to settle with one of these. But if I ended up with the latter, at least I’d be supporting a Canadian industry. Sure I’m going to have to buy it from Wally World a.k.a. evil Walmart since Walmart is the sole distributor of that particular manufacturer but eh, what can you do. Though if I’m really, really lucky, I might be able to get this sweet cruiser for a good price, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Anyway, I just thought I’d keep you updated on my latest obsession. Will let you know which bike I end up getting for my birthday, hopefully by Sunday, because I know you really, really want to know. ;) My birthday is not until Tuesday, though.
We went to the north shore of Lake Erie this past Saturday, to Port Bruce (quiet and quaint) and then Port Stanley (delightfully tacky). Lake Erie isn’t that far from where we live. In fact, we live only an hour away from two of the Great Lakes of North America. An hour west will get you Lake Huron and an hour south (well, maybe a little more than an hour) will bring you to Lake Erie. I guess that’s the reason this town always gets a boatload of snow in the winter, more than most other areas in Southwestern Ontario.
Oh, and we saw hundreds of tundra swans! They were on their way to their summer playground in northern Canada after spending the winter down in Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Awesomely beautiful creatures, they are.
And now, 5 links (I’m all about 5s these days):
Because I’m feeling mellow and homesick, I’ll make a list of things I wish I’d thought to bring over here with me when I left Indonesia 5 years ago:
Also, I’m jealous of everyone who still has a mother and of other Indonesians living abroad who receive a care package from their family members back in Indonesia every now and then (I never did).
Things to be grateful about:
I have this ability to make up a sad background story for just about anything. The latest one is about this bag of vintage quilt materials, mostly already cut into a bunch of equilateral triangles, that I picked up from a thrift store this past Saturday.
Once upon a time, there was a grandma who liked to spend her lonely time cutting various fabric into equilateral triangles to be sewn together into quilts. But then she died and her family who didn’t care much about quilts sent her belongings, including her quilt materials, to a Salvation Army that later priced her hard work a hefty 99 cents. She must’ve spent hours of her precious time cutting all those materials and yet it only worth 99 cents! Actually, it was more like 50 cents (it was a half-price day for green tag items). I thought it was so depressing that I have made it a project to make a pretty quilt throw out of it, just to make myself feel better.
Anyway, I’ve been looking at free quilt patterns since and apparently there aren’t too many patterns that use equilateral triangles. In fact, I didn’t find any patterns I could use at all. I only found some pictures of what people did with them. The Millennium Pyramid Quilt and this zigzag one are especially interesting. But damn if they don’t look like a lot of work. The fomer is more so than the latter so maybe I’ll try to make a highly simplified version of the latter. I’m sure it would make the unknown, potentially dead grandma of my story proud of me.
I did 5 Good Things Friday for the first and last time on December 1, 2006 but I think I’m going to start doing it more often because it’s actually a good blog fodder. Not to mention that it helps me count my blessings. So here goes:
There’s a garden festival going on in town. The timing couldn’t be more perfect as I’m currently obsessing over gardening. I’ve bought more gardening books in two weeks than I care to admit. Let’s see if I’ll be able to resist the temptation to buy Ed Lawrence’s book. Ed Lawrence has his own gardening show on the CBC called Gardening with Ed Lawrence. Listening to him talking about pests on the radio is strangely soothing. He will be at the garden festival this weekend.
I’ve posted this link on Facebook and Twitter but I thought I’d share it here as well: how to make seed starter pots out of newspaper. This site seems to be down more than it’s up (thanks to GeoCities) so if it’s down, try again later. It’s worth it! I’ve made about a couple of dozens of them already out of our free local weekly newspapers. I’ve found that the Stratford Gazette makes better planters than the Stratford Beacon Herald. The Beacon Herald planters have an awkward size.
Our couch might not be the comfiest couch in the world but every time I lay down on it in the evening wrapped in a blanket with the TV on and with Troy sitting in the same room with me, I can’t help but falling asleep. It’s not the couch that makes me fall asleep. It’s the ambiance. It kind of reminds me of falling asleep on my mother’s bed in the afternoon while she was sewing or marking tests next to me. Definitely a good feeling.
I’ve been making more money by doing nothing than I did working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week with my last employer back in Indonesia, and it was supposed to be a well-paying job compared to many others. I guess it’s good in a sad kind of way. I surely hope that the salary standards in Indonesia have improved since.
I come from a family who loves fish but now I belong to a family that isn’t particularly so into fish. Sometimes I feel kind of deprived, which is the reason I could go on eating the same seafood dish with rice for days. This week, I’m feasting on anchovies. Troy, of course, doesn’t like the smell. Well, too bad for him! He doesn’t know what he’s missing. Anchovies are good, especially with hot chili sauce and warm white rice. Yum!
So, what are your five good things? Care to share?
I like winter but I’m really, really looking forward to spring because I can’t wait to start my garden. This house was sold to us in April last year but we couldn’t move in until July and by then it was already a bit too late to start a garden. But this year, I’m going to have a whole year to grow whatever I want! Yippee!
My plan was to turn the backyard into a vegetable garden, but I’ve changed my mind. You see, a couple of weeks ago, I very ambitiously bought seeds to grow 11 (!) different varieties of heirloom tomatoes off eBay. I thought filling the whole backyard with tomato plants sounded like a boatload of fun and a half. But then common sense kicked in and I realised that it would be way too much work, especially for a novice (not to mention lazy) gardener like myself. So I’ve decided to be less ambitious and just plant 3 or 4 varieties this year and see how it goes. I won’t even plant them in the garden. I’ll plant them in 5-gallon buckets instead because I read that it would make the plants easier to maintain. I will also put them on the deck so I don’t procrastinate too much when it comes to watering because they need a lot of water to grow!
Now for the backyard, I think I’ll just focus on making it look easier on the eye since the previous owner did pretty much nothing to the backyard. No flower beds, no plants, nothing but weed-infected grass. I’m going to put in some lovely flowering plants. In fact, I’m going to start growing them from seeds some time this week using the winter sowing method. I’ve never done it before so it’s going to be an exciting experiment! Basically, you just plant the seeds in plastic pop bottles, put them outside the house and then forget all about it until spring. By then the seedlings should be ready for planting on the ground. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do the forgetting all about it until spring part due to my obsessive nature, but the rest sounds pretty easy. We’ll see how it goes!
Another reason I’m really looking forward to spring: I can’t wait to see our cherry tree blooming! Cherry blossoms are so pretty. That is assuming that it’s still alive. Dormant trees make me wonder sometimes.
Oh, I know that 99.9% of my readership has no interest in gardening but just bear with me, mmmkay? ;)
Weblog Wannabe turns nine years old today. Woot woot. And to think that I got my first period when I was 9. I know. Gross. See, I had an early puberty. By the time girls around my age hit puberty, I was already over it, with one conclusion: boys suck and are icky. (Strange that I get along better with boys than with girls.) I remember rolling my eyes a lot listening to the girls at school talking about boys they fancy. Similar thing happens in the blogging world. By the time people the world over went crazy about blogging, I was already over it. But why do I keep blogging, you ask. Well, I ended up marrying a boy so I might as well keep blogging!
That was one of the most nonsensical paragraphs I’ve ever written. Anyway, moving along. I should probably announce the winner of my NaBloPomo contest. I bet you thought I already forgot all about it, eh? Nope. Been planning on announcing it today. I don’t remember the exact number of comments made by each contenders but Tia posted the most comments, followed by Lance and Sarah. But since Tia said she wasn’t playing and she posted comments simply because she liked my blog (awwww!), Lance is the winner! Yay! Please send your mailing address to firda at wannabegirl dot org.
But wait, there’s more! What’s a blogiversary without a giveaway? If you’d like to win a handmade owl plushie that looks like Oliver the Owl (my own original design!) but maybe made with different materials, just leave a comment to this post and I’ll draw a name out of the hat or something to that effect after the contest closed. Contest closes next week on February 27, 2009 at noon EST. In the meantime, I’ll make a cute little owl with love to send one to ONE lucky winner. So comment away! And here’s to another 9 years of blogging! Whoa, that sounds really daunting…
My very first sewing project turned to be a camera strap slipcover instead of a pillow cover. I had been coveting one of those pimped-up camera strap slip covers you can find all over Etsy for awhile but I was too cheap to buy one. I thought I’d wait until I got myself a sewing machine so I could make myself one. I made one yesterday by following this tutorial. It was pretty easy, even for someone with next to zero sewing skills like myself.
I’m quite pleased with the result but in retrospect, I probably should have used a thicker fabric. I also should’ve followed the instructions to the T and pressed the folds but damn, I hate ironing. I’m thinking of making another one next week using a thicker fabric just to see if I like it better. And then I’ll try to make a padded one. If anything, it’s a good sewing practice and, as the cliché goes, practice makes perfect!
By the way, if you live in Ontario, Canada, Salvation Army thrift stores are the place to go for fabric. They have a good selection with an affordable price. Sometimes you can even find some designer’s fabric. Fabric is about the only thing I buy when I go to thrift stores these days and my stash is getting bigger and bigger by the week! It’s good for me, but not so good for the state of the house since we have rather limited storage space. My fabric collection is just piling up in the spare bedroom right now. Not good! Need fabric storage!
Four Years Already