My Inspiration (plus Destashing!) (Adriana)

A few weeks ago Phoe decided to have a contest in honour of her 300th post. She challenged her readers to take three pictures of things that inspire us. I wanted to do it but life has a way of taking time away from blogging so I'm just squeaking by before the deadline.

Toronto

For many people, the CN Tower is the symbol of Toronto. For me, it symbolizes a lot more. It symbolizes my future because, you see, Pete and I are moving there this fall. I'm almost done school and while there are some good arts organizations here in London, there are so many more in Toronto. Pete wants to continue writing music and plays, and he feels that he has exhausted most of the opportunities here. In short, it just makes sense for us to move.
I never thought I could live in Toronto. Visiting there last fall (when this picture was taken, ironically) I informed Pete that I could only tolerate to visit, I could never live there. Two months later, I changed my mind. It just made so much more sense for us to be where all the opportunities are (not to mention so many of our friends).
When I think about Toronto, I get excited. I think about the great (well-paying) job I'm going to have, all the new places we're going to explore, all the people we'll be able to spend time with, and all the cool and exciting things Pete will get a chance to do.
I'm so excited sometimes I don't think I can wait two months to move :)

Traveling

In the summer of 2005, when we lived out in BC, Pete and I rented a car and drove into Vancouver Island. We went to Nanaimo (I got to swim in the ocean!), and spelunking and hiking through some beautiful parks. It was amazing and definitely my favourite of our many trips.
Travel is something that Pete and I want to do more of in the future. So far we've been to Vancouver Island, Seattle, Montreal, Quebec City, and Ottawa. Next summer we are planning on going to the east coast, and we want to go somewhere exotic for our honeymoon. More vague future travels will include an Alaskan cruise and many trips to Europe.
This picture represents our love of travelling and inspires me to plan more exciting trips in the future.

My Rings

You had to know that I couldn't list things that inspire me without mentioning my wedding :)
These are my rings. The top one is my engagement ring and the bottom is my wedding band, which was actually my Granny's wedding ring.
I just love Granny's ring, I always have. It makes me think of my beloved grandmother (obviously) and my wonderful grandfather (who died in 1994). This ring, with it's good quality diamonds set in platinum, makes me see just how much Grandpa loves Granny (they were married in 1942, during the war). It represents my family, my grandparents, my parents, my brother, aunts and uncles, everyone that I called family when I was growing up. And it also represents the family that I will have in the future. This is a very special ring.
But my engagement ring represents Pete and I. We picked it out together on that amazing day when we went ring shopping together and I kept making him ask me again because I just couldn't believe that he had really proposed. This ring I get to wear right now, and every day I look at it and I marvel at the fact that someone loves me enough to want to marry me. This is also a very special ring.
And don't they look great together? It's like they were made for each other which is especially remarkable since Granny's ring is 66 years old.

Now that you've made it through the introspective portion of this blog post, time for the destashing!

Since we're moving soon I decided to get rid of the yarn that I just don't seem to want to knit with anymore. I loved them all at one point but, for one reason or other, they just haven't been knit.

They are all on my sell page on Rav but here are a few teaser pictures:

My handdyed in "Black and White and Red All Over"


6 balls of Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy


4 balls of Classic Elite Classic Silk

Feel free to make an offer or suggest a trade. Everything must go!

A Trip in Pictures (Adriana)

Sorry for the long delay in blogging. It turns out that Fringing and blogging do not mix. I've been back home for a week now but between recovering from the trip and starting a new full-time placement, I haven't had time to think about the blog. But here I am now, ready to show off some pictures from the trip.

I don't have any pictures from the Toronto portion of the tour but rest assured that fun was had by all since I got to see Heather, Jane and Gen! Ottawa was much more exotic and I have plenty of pictures to show for our time there.

We went to Parliament Hill where I managed to knit-in-public next to the statues of the Famous Five who fought for women to be considered persons (can you believe they hadn't been?!?!). Interestingly, this group of five women are the only statues on Parliament Hill that aren't prime ministers or royalty.


We saw one of the official Parliamentary Cats (they have their own sanctuary on the hill).

We also saw a Parliamentary squirrel and groundhog but they weren't photoworthy.

Naturally we had to visit some museums while in Ottawa. We had the most amazing experience visiting the Canadian War Museum with my favourite great-aunt and great-uncle (ok, they are my only ones but they'd be my favourite anyways). It was incredible being there with them since they'd both lived through WWII and my uncle was actually a part of it.

Auntie Clayre and I model the very heavy helmets.

In what was a truly awe-inspiring moment, we got to see der Fuhrer's parade car.


After the seriousness of the War Museum, we needed some fun so we went to the Children's Museum with my good friend (and MoH) Calli, who came down from Montreal to hang out and see the show.
The Children's Museum was so much fun. Pete and Calli are like two peas in a pod, and they had a total blast there.

Here they are taking part in an impromptu play. Pete is the evil owl and Calli is the ordinary ocean.


Pete and I got to ride a vespa (I have no idea what those green lights are. I don't remember an infestation of glowing green bugs when we were there. It looks pretty cool, though :P)


And Pete pretended he was a member of the crew of the HMS Pinafore.

We went back to Montreal with Calli for a day, during which I found and purchased my wedding dress!!! We also had dinner with my dear Emma, who was the recipient of the Ribbed Lace Bolero (Rav) I made earlier in the summer.


It's fun to knit for people who are so appreciative.


And so sassy!

While there Pete got to meet Emma's adorable kitties.

I love this picture!!

That it for now. There was some knitting done on the trip but not as much as I would have liked. I'll be back in a few days to show off what little knitting I managed to accomplish, and to update you all on the latest wedding details (here's a hint, there are some!).

Summer Plans (Adriana)

Thank you everyone for your kind words. It definitely helped. I've got the ball rolling to fix things but it will take a little while to get everything sorted out. I'm being cryptic because I don't know who is reading my blog. For my regular commenters, if you want to know what's going on just drop me a line.

I think I've already alluded to my very busy summer. I figured that now was as good a time as any to talk about it (this whole blogging every day thing is hard and time consuming, though the frequent comments is a delight). This summer Pete, my fiancé, and I (as his stage manager) are taking his one-man show on tour, hitting up both the Ottawa and Toronto Fringes. This show, Walking the Labyrinth, premiered at the London (Ontario) Fringe Festival last summer.
Here are some of the publicity pictures for the show:





It's a retelling of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur with a twist, making heavy use of electro-acoustic sounds and music. It's pretty cool if I do say so myself. And if you don't believe, check out the video!



We'll be on the road for a month, fortunately staying with my cousin while we're in Ottawa and my parents while in Toronto. Once we're back in London we will be gearing up to premiere another show in the London Fringe, Death!. It's a three-person musical about a man who has just died and needs to come to terms with what has happened and figure out what comes next. We also see those who are left behind, his wife and his best friend, as they sort out how to go on. I think it's going to be quite brilliant. Pete's playing the dead guy and we have high hopes for the actors playing the wife and friend. Though rehearsals haven't started yet, we met with the actors recently to take some pictures for publicity purposes.
I'll set the scene for you: this is at the funeral of the main character which is attended by his wife and best friend while the dead man watches them from a distance.





Happy Friday! I'm off to watch Sex and the City season 6 in preparation for seeing the movie on Sunday!

Work in Progress (Adriana)

Two blog posts in two days?!? What is this world coming to? (Don't get used to it, biweekly blogging should resume soon)

So I have a new long-term work in progress. This one should be done around Fall 2009.

Meme Take Two (Adriana)

Ok, Heather, you win. Here are my answers and you should know this cut into valuable knitting time :)

1. I am a germaphobe which means that I have to wash my hands before touching anything which will go into my mouth. The exception to this rule is when I am comfy on the couch knitting (I always feel my needles are dirty) and I want to eat some candy I already have in front of me. Then I will grab it really quickly and toss it into my mouth. I feel that the speed with which I do this means that none of the germs have time to transfer.
2. I am slightly obsessed with my cat. When I am away from her it’s not unusual for me to ask my boyfriend what he thinks she’s doing at that moment. Also, I got a little hysterical when she was taken to the vet to be spayed and I may have worried that they were going to give her a sex change at the same time [I knew at the time that I was being irrational but it kept me from any real worries about the procedure]. I also like to change the lyrics to popular songs to be about her and I may say that animals on tv (such as tigers and monkeys) resemble my cat.
3. Although I am often a practical person, I do have hopeless-romantic tendencies and I have frequently gotten hooked on The Bachelor. I know I shouldn’t because they never really live happily-ever-after. I thought that living with my boyfriend would cure me of these tendencies (since I would be too embarrassed to admit that I’d been watching such trash) but unfortunately he works nights every other week which allows me lots of trash tv time. My recent viewing has included Flavor of Love 2 and Grease: You’re the One that I Want. I can quit any time, I swear :)
4. I was home-schooled (that’s actually not weird thing number 4) and so I played by myself a lot. I used to love the Game of Life but there were only so many times that my mom or brother would play with me. Often I’d play it with myself but I always had a favourite car (the white one) and I would cheat to make sure that the white car always got the good job, the good house and had twins. Also, I invented the concept of getting an extra spin for your job-moon (you got to spin for your honeymoon so I thought it was only fair). My parents brought my old game here recently so if anyone wants to play, it’s so on!
5. In keeping with Heather’s breakfast confession, I cannot function if I do not have my bowl of cereal first thing in the morning. Nothing else suffices, except on Christmas morning when my mom’s amazing apple muffins fill me up nicely.
6. Although I have knit myself a number of sweaters, I barely ever wear them. I think I feel that they are too nice for everyday wear and should be saved for special occasions. I’m going to try to break this habit with Tubey and I will wear it to work on Wednesday!

Sorry for the lack of spacing, Blogger and I were not getting along.