my first hint of celebrity

julia of Red Otter fame featured me on her blog! it's my first wunderbug interview, and i couldn't be more honoured.

she makes such awesome books and has the most incredible taste, i'm completely thrilled that she's featured me. check out the interview on her blog and her gorgeous creations here.

happy saturday + more clippy love

and boy do i need it. this week has been mental - next week's not lookin much better.. but it's all adrenaline right? you've gotta pace yourself and manage your time otherwise you get all burned out... and i've got at least 2 weeks to go {at least until my paper's due}.

i think i might do my paper on surveillance culture since the start of the iraq war, in light of the US patriot act. we did a section on jeremy bentham's conception of an all-visible prison, the panopticon, so working from that and using jodi dean's concept of the celebrity mode of subjectivization {as how people become comfortable with and accept this type of society}, comparing this nicholas mirzoeff's discussion on foucaultian perspectives of the panopticon... i think it'll be pretty sweet. just need to make an outline + solidify an argument for it, which i plan on doing at the kick-ass markham library today.

libraries and i have always had a 'thing' like that... i love being in them. i could spend hours in them, and this one in particular doesn't make it hard at all. newly renovated and bright, with cushy chairs and side tables next to ever {floor-to-ceiling} window, the days of dark, dusty + dingy libraries are long gone. being in them reminds me of lunch hour and my spare in high school, when i'd go up and find a cozy place between the bookshelves, find a good book, sit, and read the hour away. i'd even skip class to go hang out in the library. how dorky is that?

when mike and i went down to st jacobs last summer, we came across an old bookstore... not just used books, but old and antique books. i didnt bring my camera with me that day, but i took some shots with my crappy 2 megapixel cell phone camera that just didn't do it justice. not to wax poetic or anything, but there was just something beautiful about the spines of those old books, lined up in rows and rows of shelves. or maybe i'm obsessive compulsive.

speaking of old books, i've listed a few new clips on etsy. i've really been trying to focus on taking interesting shots so i used an old book that i'd picked up from a different used bookstore. check 'em out! the colours and the item description in particular make me happy. i love it when i come up with a great description - makes me feel like my creative juices are flowing.

i digress. today: going to the gym to do some elliptical {what does one do on an elliptical anyhow? cause you're not running. ellipse? i'm going to ellipse on the elliptical?} and then i've got yoga after that. once i'm all stretched out from that, i'll be working on my paper and then coming home where my mom is makin' hamburgers for dinner and then we'll be going to my neighbour's surprise birthday party. woot! lets get this gorgeous sunny four degrees out day started. spring has {kinda} sprung!

the to-do list

these are in no particular order. i just need to get some sort of organization back so that i can get back in the swing of things. work has been particularly busy so i havent had much chance to take mini-breaks throughout the day to read blogs, and i've a paper due on April 11th along with a conference on April 4-6 so it's taken a bunch of prep time out of me (the paper, not so much the conference...) but. in the meanwhile, my head's been spinning with an ever-expanding to-do list

01. catch up on all of the blogs i've missed reading this week.
02. get my routine back. {hello routine, i've missed you!}
03. get the remaining stuff that i havent yet listed on etsy, listed.
04. maintain best friendship with the elliptical at the gym. spring is coming, after all!
05. save money for a down payment on a house. no, seriously.

{yes yes, i know number 5 is a bit more of a biggie but i'd like to get a move-on in this real-estate game... i feel like i'm hella behind everyone else i went to school with and i'm only 25. sheesh!} over to mls.ca i go. back tomorrow for more bloggy love and most likely, more to-do's.

i think i want to learn to knit.

i already have needles; they were one of the few things i wanted of my gramma's when she passed away six years ago. (has it been six already?)

apparently knitting is most definitely not like learning to ride a bike; i've learned to knit at least three times now but it's never quite stuck with me. who woulda thought that knitting hotpads for your pots wouldn't thrill a kid into knitting for the rest of her life? i'd even tried crotcheting without much luck (but many many tangles).

but i've been seeing so many featured .. uh... knots of wool (what's the 'industry' term for those gorgeous little formations that the wool-people knot 'em up in?) lately on etsy, i cant help but want to make myself cute little scarf-and-hatsets for next winter.

(image sources clockwise from top left:

01. seejayneknit - grape crush 02. milkyrobot - mossy handspun yarn 03. littlegreycatdesigns - forest floor 04. black mustard - 80's princess)

bloomin' fantastic

1. orange awesomeness, 2. yellow doorstep, 3. red tulips

sorry - i just couldn't resist with the title. i'm so punny.

there's nothing quite like getting ready for spring like going to canada blooms. it's got so many great ideas and products, and the *smell* is fantastic... there's something about mucking around in the dirt with plants and flowers that's so tactile, i love it.

i've got big plans for this spring. me and the garden. mm.

1. wooden ladder, 2. pink garden couch , 3. outdoor fireplace and bench, 4. bright and bold gerbera daisies

oh dear, i've found more things to love

found a new favourite really-want-to-have thing from heath ceramics, on design*sponge :

i've had a thing lately for ceramic vessels. any shape... generally i've been loving black and white ones (there were so many of them too at canada blooms!) but these ones are so awesome as well... lil round jugs. aw.

ok, so i know that this bag is supposed to be a picnic bag but i'd love to use it as a purse. or a small carry-on bag (for all of the trips i go on, right?) i've been loving the orange lately... almost as much as i've been loving the black and white ceramic vessels. almost. almost. aw. again.

shapely awesomeness. i want them now. and i want them to have some flowers in them. y'know, flowers of the spring kind. i'm mentally willing the snow to melt today. melt!

i love teapots. 'nuff said.

i took a ton of pictures at canada blooms yesterday; i'm going to pick out a few of my favourites and post them up -- i've got about 40 to wade through (and trust me, i'd have more if it weren't for the fact that my batteries were dying.) aw. more to come, most likely tomorrow. i have a date with the sims 2 for the afternoon. a disgusting waste of time, i know, but i haven't just done *nothing* in such a long time. i think it's overdue.

flower power

lets lighten up a bit.

canada blooms! this weekend! woot to the ninth degree!

i'll post pictures as soon as i have them - provided that my mom remembers to bring the camera.

hysteria

Is there anyone who ever remembers changing their mind from the paint on a sign?
Is there anyone who really recalls ever breaking rank at all

for something someone yelled real loud one time?
John Mayer, Belief

So, in the daily newsletter that is sent to my inbox at work every morning, there was an article featured from the National Post written by columnist Barbara Kay:

Barbara Kay on hysterical feminists overreacting to the Unborn Victims of Crime Act

"The word “hysteria” has its root in the Greek word for uterus. It was coined by Hippocrates as a medical condition peculiar to women.

Understood as irrational emotional flailing about whenever public discussion touches on a woman’s fruitful uterus, Hippocrates’s neologism is spot on. Try to say out loud in this country that what’s in a woman’s pregnant belly is a human being, not a blob of tissue, and hysteria emerges in three interesting variations. One is the irrational impulse to ban discussion of an abortion law altogether, as we saw at York University on March 5, when a debate was summarily cancelled on the grounds that the issue was settled. Of course, that is not true, as Tuesday’s Post editorial, “The abortion debate isn’t over,” reminds us."

a) the university didn't cancel it on the grounds that the issue was settled. the debate was cancelled on the grounds that, in the past, the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR) had a history of comparing abortion to genocide, touting graphic displays "in full colour of fabricated fetuses alongside people dying in the Holocaust and also pictures of people being lynched", reports york student centre executive kelly holloway. the event, in the end, was cancelled on the grounds that the centre had a responsibility to protect students from speech it viewed as discrimination or harassment on its student-funded space. “just like we would not sanction the use of student space to challenge whether black students should be able to attend university, or whether homosexuality should be illegal, we would not sanction this particular debate over whether or not women should be able to have a choice concerning their own bodies.” the cancellation was further discussed on cbc’s radio show “sounds like canada” on it’s march 6th broadcast.

b) barbara kay's languaging within this article is incredibly inflammatory. while i understand that the point of an opinion piece is to express opinion, the calling opponents of bill c-484 "hysterical feminists" is problematic in two ways. firstly, the abortion debate has always been a highly charged one, chock full of moral and ethical implications. because of this, rational and objective aren't exactly the first-choice adjectives to describe most reactions to it.

as was so astutely pointed out in one of the comments; "it's odd how Ms. Kay criticizes "disgusting epithets" and "personal attack[s]" in one sentence, then proceeds to refer to anyone who happens to disagree with her as "emotional[ly] flailing," "noisy," "not exactly rational," "furious," "hysterical," "irrational," or "conspiracy-theorizing" in the next. She criticizes "scare mongering," but refers to a dissenting opinion as a "supposed...'argument'," adding insult to injury by following a dismissive, unnecessary adjective (i.e., "so-called," "alleged," etc.) with pejorative quotation marks. By my standards, that's eight ad hominem attacks, all in the space of a few short paragraphs. Pots really aren't in position to question the colour of kettles."

thank you!

it's funny how a woman's reaction to something is construed completely differently from a man's. originally, the condition 'hysteria' was obviously a highly gendered "disorder", one of unmanageable fear and emotional excesses. (i'm not going to get into the sociological implications of this - it's a story for another day). as an obviously feminized, socially and medically outdated "disorder", kay applies it to any opponent of the bill - in essence, claiming and discrediting any opposing reaction as obviously over-emotional and hysterical.

i'd hazard a guess that by this same measure, women who are assertive (or god forbid, even aggressive) in going after and achieving their goals are considered something other than assertive, positive role models as well.

slow and steady wins the race

so i've been doing a bit more thinking and research into potential areas of research for grad school, and one of the topics that i always seem to fall back to (in one way or another) has to do with the slow movement. the more i research it, the more i want to find out more.

i had first stumbled on "in praise of slow" by carl honore while browsing the cultural studies section in chapters. this sociocultural movement started in rome's piazza di spagna when a mcdonald's was set to open, sparking protest among it's community. the 'slow food movement' was born. it's goal is to preserve the cultural cuisine and the associated food, plants and seeds, domestic animals, and farming within an ecoregion. the movement has since grown and expanded to other areas of life, including slow travel, slow communities and cittaslow (literally, slow city) among many many others.

the most appealing aspect of the slow movement is the focus towards the self, health, community and most of all, an environmentally sustainable perspective. it seems that everywhere i look, there is so much pressure on people be super-productive in all aspects of life... resulting in higher than ever levels of stress, sickness, and burnout. we're just not meant to function at such high capacities for prolonged periods of time. but somehow, the message continues. it's funny how once i started looking at things this way, many {many!} of my philosophies and viewpoints about life started being cohesively pulled together. vaccinations and the flu shot, for example, are a huge example of the fast-paced way of life. {after all, it only makes sense; if something's wrong with your body... why bother attempting to fix it with nutrition and exercise when you can medicate it away?}

you could even look at the success that etsy has enjoyed thus far as part of the slow movement; people want something special, unique, and handmade. that is to say, not mass-produced by a machine. it embodies the slow movement's transition from mass-made to handmade and in addition, creating a networked community of artists and their supporters across north america and the rest of the world. pretty nifty, huh?

just to give a more specific idea of what i mean by this, here's a few objectives of the slow food movement, as taken from the all-knowing wikipedia:

"The Slow Food movement incorporates a series of objectives within its mission, including:

• forming and sustaining seed banks to preserve heirloom varieties in cooperation with local food systems
• developing an "ark of taste" for each ecoregion, where local culinary traditions and foods are celebrated
• preserving and promoting local and traditional food products, along with their lore and preparation
• organizing small-scale processing (including facilities for slaughtering and short run products)
• organizing celebrations of local cuisine within regions (for example, the Feast of Fields held in some cities in Canada)
• educating consumers about the risks of fast food
• educating citizens about the drawbacks of commercial agribusiness and factory farms
• educating citizens about the risks of monoculture and reliance on too few genomes or varieties
• developing various political programs to preserve family farms
• lobbying for the inclusion of organic farming concerns within agricultural policy
• lobbying against government funding of genetic engineering
• lobbying against the use of pesticides
• encouraging ethical buying in local marketplaces "

{i would like to take this opportunity to mention that this past summer, toronto held a slow food event at the brickworks. i was thrilled and would have gone.. but it cost in the neighbourhood of $70 to attend and well, i just dont have that kind of disposible income at this point. but the point is, we hosted it. and that awesome for us. woot! *pops collar*}

i'm not saying that slow solutions are the solutions *all the time*. even in his book, carl honore says there are times for slow, and times for speed. after all, who would be able to keep a job if they were constantly taking breaks to stop and smell the flowers? the point of the slow movement, as i see it, is finding your own balance.

and really now. who doesn't like balance?

awesomeness - fresh daily

Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
-- Howard Thurman

awesome, awesome quote that i found while blog surfing and stumbled across ali edward's blog. i think i've found another to add to my list of blogs that inspire me. i read about it from kal barteski's post about her morning walk, looking up and slowing down... and i'm a big fan of slowing down. so naturally, i followed the link and ended up there. it's lookin like it was meant to be; her post today was on life-focused one-word stickers, and yesterday was on the process of slowing down and being in the moment. heart.

heart heart heart.

eleven.

01. this coinpurse makes me happy just lookin' at it. the colour

combination is so unusual but so perfect at the same time.
02. this yarn makes me want to learn how to knit
03. this necklace is so super citrus-y cool it's irresistible
04. these dishes make me want to have an awesome kitchen to store

them in, and cook delicious food to serve on them
05. this wristlet has so many awesome colours and patterns, it makes

me dizzy {but in a good way}
06. this photo construct
07. this photo print is so simple and gorgeous
08. these mugs make me feel like i should be sitting in a castle,

drinking a hot cup of mead, even though i'm not quite sure

what mead is. i dont think i'd like it, but it looks like the

type of thing that would go in these mugs. or a gorgeous cup of

white hot chocolate. that would do as well.
09. this photograph ... he's one of my favourite etsy photographers

and this photo was the first that i'd ever seen of his work.
10. this notebook. green and pink and orange? how could i resist?
11. these earrings. augh. auuuuuugh.

happiness is...

getting home from work's open house and changing out of your wet snowstorm pants + socks, putting on your toasty warm slippers, favourite lulu pants, and green hoodie.

watching survivor with mike, even when i've never really followed it in my life{except for that one season, years ago. was it the second season? i think it's the second season.}

eating leftover italian style stuffed flank steak with pasta, broccoli and garlic bread that i made at suppersolved. whoever invented that store is a god(dess).

not being outside in the middle of this weekend's blizzard.

baking pillsbury cinnamon rolls. and subsequently eating them.

did i mention putting my slippers on?

friday awesomeness

so it's snowing again.

apparently winter didn't take any heed of my dear john letter that i'd written it the other day; the snow started at about 3pm and is supposed to go until 8pm or so tomorrow evening. 25cm in 36 hours. which is okay, cause we've got enough groceries to last us at least early into the week (thanks, suppersolved!) so we wont have to venture out in the snow and slush, except for the new student open house tomorrow and getting my hair cut afterwards. nice.

some nice things today: firstly, i got an awesome heads up from Julia that she had used my pendant in her citrus and berries treasury on etsy. sweeeeet! what an awesome way to start the day. she's spectacular, honestly. i purchased her strawberry delight journal and let me tell you - it's too pretty to write in. i'd bought it to start writing quotes and good things in since marta's mini diaries sold out... but no matter how incredible the quote, i can't bring myself to write in it.

{yet.}

i'll find something though.

another awesome thing is that i've been buckling down a little bit to pick a fabric for my reupholstery project. dont get me wrong - i still havent picked anything. oh no, most certainly not. but i'm looking. which is more than i could say for myself a few weeks ago, right?

i've found these four on amy butler's website and {surprise surprise} i like the green rococo one best. but i'm trying to be open minded and go with a different colour, especially since i've no idea what my new place is going to look like, or if i'll even be able to paint. i keep thinking i should go with a plain jane classic colour like beige or black for the chair itself, then sew myself a few awesome pillows to match my mood. or my outfit for that day. whatever.

either way, it seems like it's not going to be too difficult of a project since the chair itself is a simple straight-lined piece without any tricky twists and turns .. so i could always do it a bold red or orange to satiate me until the novelty wears off then re-reupholster. ha.

dear winter storm #323

ok winter. seriously, the jig is up. get a hint: you're no longer welcome here. it's time you pack up your stuff and go.

(no really, it's not me, it's you. i dont think it's healthy that either of us continue this relationship.) you're driving me crazy, and well, to be honest, i'm sick of you. you're cold and dull and not to mention, very very sloppy. and i'm just not a sloppy kind of girl.

so please, just go while we both still have our dignity intact. don't worry; i promise that i won't talk smack about you after you leave -- as a matter of fact, if you go soon i might even be able to fool myself into thinking that the next time i see you, i'll be happy about it. i might even have bought myself that pair of skis i've been mulling over for the past two years. but that's pushing it.

i have to be honest as well; i've met someone else. someone who makes me feel suntanned and warm, and who doesn't frostbite me when i want to wear flipflops on a run out to the grocery store for more vanilla yogurt. that wasn't cool, and no, i still haven't forgiven you for that one. and neither have my toes.

you can find your stuff all packed in the back of my closet, behind my espadrilles and tank tops. (sorry, i'm not trying to rub it in, i'm just getting ready for the next stage in my life. i have to move on at some point, you know.) please come and get it as soon as you possibly can, and we can just walk away with our heads held high.

throwing another storm isn't going to change my mind; i wish you'd figure this out. anyone else would have figured it out months ago... or at least just after christmas.

regardless, it's over. you should go. or i should. i heard cuba's nice this time of year.

lets all welcome the new kid on the block

new listing! huzzah! it's been a while (too long. honestly!) i've a few others that i'm going to get listed in the next few days, all made out of bamboo clips. you wouldnt think that you'd be able to tell a difference, but you can.. it's nice and smooth without even having to sand it.

these lil babies are made from one of my favourite (and most versatile!) stamps, and i love the way the black embossing stands out so kick-assedly from the pale blue paper. i'm thinking that i might glue some of the little earth magnets that i bought to the back in order to make them into magnetic clips... or maybe even some thumbtacks for those people who have pushpin walls at work... depending on demand, of course.

they really are awesomeness in a clip. what i'll do next is start designing my own patterns and use them for these, as well as with my marble magnets (which [un]fortunately got sold before they could get listed); not that i'm complaining - they totally flew after i did the ladies' coffee with a difference session in december. thanks, ladies!