Necessary expenditures.

I have demonstrated in the past my facility with buying things.  I am a skilled spender of moneys.  But there is the odd psychological corner where I'm almost incapable of parting with dollars, no matter how urgent the need.  Like for sweatpants, say.

Joel had to buy me a new pair last Christmas to replace those treasures, which were given to me by an old roommate in 2001 who had in turn gotten them from a thrift shop.  They were many hands old.  I had to wear them over shorts to maintain any mystery.

Since I married Joel I've stopped buying gym shoes from Payless and wearing them for years (and, oddly, my knees have much improved) but I hold out on other gym strip items until the last second.  These shorts I accidentally stole from a different old roommate (sorry, Chels) and wore into the ground.

I bought new shorts for $12 and they shrunk IMMEDIATELY but I refuse to stop wearing them or to buy new ones because I'd rather expose my upper-upper-thighs to the world than spend another $12 on something like gym shorts.

Yesterday Joel and I took our annual trip to the Boxing-Week mall to spend our Christmas cheques.  Joel only clothes-shops once a year, so he has to get a new EVERYTHING, but I only spent $14 because I am going to New York in May (you may recall).  I did buy a new $5 yellow tank, because $5 yellow tanks are my go-to layering option, and also my jogging garment of choice.  Every year the new $5 yellow tank becomes my layering-tank, and the old layering-tank replaces the jogging-tank, which gets turfed for indecent exposure and loss of attractive mustardyness.  Behold.

It looks like a detergent commercial.

The caloric consumption continues apace.

Homemade hot cocoa, with homemade marshmallows.

Toasted.

The food-torch is earning its keep with a vengeance.

Excuse my radio silence.

I have been in Chilliwack, doing Chilliwackean things like snuggling puppies and going for a jog along the Vedder River and watching BALD EAGLES FIGHT EACH OTHER IN THE AIR.  Chilliwack is The Wilds.

Also, I was given a créme broulee torch for Christmas and have been using it to light candles. 

This is why I can't have nice things.

Robson Square!

So tall!

So full of bodies!

So festive!

Winter Solstice Lantern Festival!

Lanterny!

Ethereal!

Full of hippies playing wooden tubas.

It's Christmas time!

The chocolate flows like water.

We went to the German Christmas market.

There were bratwursts.

And Santa.

And (obviously) giraffes.

Best Christmas ever already.

We have stepped into the holiday whirlwind and there is a great deal of bacon involved.  Also, we went to a wedding last night and I met the Colonel.

Miles to go before I sleep, and all that.

My last exam is tonight at 7 (I know, right?) but I still owe Joel a birthday dinner from last January so we're going out at 4, which means that I have just under eight hours to study and pack for the mainland.  After the exam we're going out for drinks and tomorrow we catch an early ferry to make a wedding on the mainland.  I like to give myself lots of time between THINGS in case something goes wrong, so I am feeling distinctly itchy about all these back-to-back time-sensitive activities.

I've been reading theory for the last two days, and saved all the easy ones for this morning so I could whiz through them, which means I'm reading an overwhelming pile of feminist and post-colonial theory.  Everyone is so angry, but at least they refrain from saying things like 'the center is not the center' and 'a superabundance of supplementarity,' so I can deal with a little rage.

There are many things yet to do, and I don't think I will feel settled until we get to the wedding tomorrow.  Preferably on time.

It never ends. Except that, on Friday, it will end.

I am done a final, and it was the most poorly-constructed final of my life.  I will go on a bit of a tear after the grades are in and I am no longer secretly afraid that my prof will find me shooting my mouth off over here (he seems like the type).  Let's just say that I think I pulled it out.

Upon completion of which, I received my final paper back and phew.  My cleverly-arranged nonsense had all the appearance of scholarship.  And you're all, Raych, you are being modest.  But nay.  If I were to give you this paper to read, the academically-minded among you would be all, But this is just a series of digressions on Jane Austen, loosely tacked to Northanger Abbey!  And I would be all, *nods smugly*

I am trying to resist the siren song of literally everything that is not my theory final, but my theory final looms large.  I have just over two days.  Come here, Saussure, and I will read you.

Last Weekend, in Bullets

To save time:

• I thought boo and I were frugal fiends because we found dresses for $16.50 until I found this gal and her dress-a-day-for-a-dollar.  Now I want to go buy up some muumuus and snip them into summer frocks.
• Boo and I bought the same dress for $16.50.  Also we bought the same ruffled tank.  Eventually our entire wardrobes will be doppelgangers.
• I want to make out with Vancouver Public Transit and its many, largely punctual buses.
• I held a Baby Byrd.  Also, Momma Byrd looks amazing.

• We went to boo's in-laws' for her birthday dinner, and there were more dessert options than dinner eats.
• I have a Chinese cousin now.

• Also, unless you are the wedding photographer, taking photos at a wedding is an exercise in your camera's weaknesses.  On the other hand...
• Something about a camera flash makes everyone's hair look shiny and healthy, when we know otherwise.

• Everyone is so good to me.  Thanks for chauffeuring my car-less ass all over town, boo and Darren and mom and dad (and, when I got back to the island, Joel).

Back to the grindstone, nose.

I am just going to rest for a minute.

I finished my annotated bibliography and handed it in and then met with my supervisor and then finished my paper and handed that in and then ran an errand and then ran a more different errand and soon I have to go wrassle some munchkins and then have snacks and wine with the girls until I tap out because I am exhausted and I think I've been accidentally hot-boxing myself with a Glade candle and it has made me ill.

The weather gods have smiled upon me.

The last few days I've been waking up around 6:00 with a *gasp!* my paper!  And then I get up and frantically peck away at the thing and rend my garments and gnash my teeth until it's time for bed.  It's the last one for the semester, and it is murdering me.

This morning Shannon and I were going to do our weekly burn up Mt Doug but when I woke (at 6) it was rainy and windy and full-dark (obviously).  I'd been counting on that hike/run to recharge my lethargic brains, but hike/running in the rain is miserable, and going up the mountain is (ever so slightly) dangerous in the wind.  Tree branches collapsing, etc.

I texted Shannon around 8 all, Are we doing this thing?  And she's like...Yes?  Because while I'd been pecking away the skies had cleared and the sun come out and it was 8 degrees and perfectly still.  A branch cracked over us while we were hiking, and we screeched and ran a few steps, but nothing untoward happened.

As soon as I got home, brains a-cranking and skins not horribly chilled, it started to rain again.  Torrentially. 

Cheaper than cranking the thermostat.

I have a pair of thigh-high argyle socks that I've been wearing under my sweats because the house is always so cold.  They are like ass-less long johns.

Other than that, I am frantically writing a paper over here.  Business as usual.

More eensyness!

Knowing my love of all things eensy, Joel bought me the wee-est Christmas tree.  It is my first ever real tree and it is as tall as my hand.  I promptly decorated it with cranberries and popcorns because what else are you going to do with a tree this eensy?

He still needs a topper, but given the proliferation of santa hats in this house right now he will probably, let's face it, end up with a hat.  Poor little monster.

Let's see how long I can keep him alive for.

BEA

Ok so.  The Book Expo of America is a THING in New York that all my book blogger friends go to every year and hang out and chatter and meet authors and publishers and then come home with group photos that I am not in because New York is far away.  It is an incredibly huge deal.

I decided about a month ago that I was going to scrape together my pennies this year and go, because (as that tear-jerking song they play during the Stanley Cup finals goes) the chance may never come again.  I.e. I will eventually be procreating and then I will have to find somewhere to stash my babies for a week and who needs that hassle?

Y'ANYway, I mentioned this to my sister and she was all I WILL COME WITH YOU except probably not, because it barely makes sense for me to go, and I am a book-blogger.  So I tried not to get my hopes up about her coming, but secretly I did a little bit.

Last weekend when she was out with the In-Law Contingent she gave me a package from mom and dad, which (when opened) was a set of Mapkins (maps on napkins!  How droll) of New York, and a note saying 'This is a round ticket to NY w/ your sis.'  And I was all, This note makes no sense, as tickets are not round.  Mother is so amusing.

But then boo is like, No, they're sending us.  We both get to go.

And then I shrieked and cried a little bit in the restaurant in front of the In-Law Contingent whom I had just met and they were very sweet about it and then boo and I shared a quesadilla and were like THIS IS HOW WE WILL DO IN NEW YORK, we will share all the meals.

And so I am going to New York with my sister next May, and it will be a sisterday adventure like never before!  WHAT LARKS!

Only 166 more days.

New tricks.

I have learned a very dangerous trick.  I can make a very passable cake-in-a-mug.  Everything gets mixed in the mug, and then you cook it in the microwave.

I know!  It should be gross.  But it's very not.

And all I dirtied was the tablespoon and the quarter-teaspoon and my hand a little bit when I cracked the egg.  And the mug, obviously.  And a fork.  But considering cake-that-is-not-in-a-mug, these are small potatoes.  Small, delicious potatoes.

With great power comes great responsibility...not to have cake for dinner every time Joel is on call.  I'm 0-1 on that score.

If you do not want this sort of power, avert your eyes.  Recipe courtesy of Chelsie the Interrobanger.

You will need:
The largest mug you have.  No seriously.  A huge one.  That jokily massive mug someone at work got you as a gift?  That one.
4 tbsp flour
4 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp cocoa
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 egg
3 tbsp milk
3 tbsp oil
3 tbsp chocolate chips (or walnuts, or goji berries, or whatever)
a splash of vanilla (I just dump a wee bit in the lid and toss that in)

Mix the dry bits in your mug.  Put in the wet bits and mix those too.  Make sure you get around the bottom edges of the mug.  Microwave 2.5 minutes.  Eat.  Repeat whenever you have a fancy for cake.

My house is December-ized.

My friend Kayleigh came over last night to help put up all three of my Christmas decorations and drink hot cocoa.  'Tis the season.

So I'm sitting in the front room waiting for her to get there and stealing the Santa-hats from these hideous dollarstore snowmen I bought when I worked in daycare, and Joel comes in all, What are you cackling about in here?  And I'm all, Hee hee hee I put hats on the ducks.

Adorablemente, and you know it.

And then Kayleigh arrived and we set up the teeny tree (with the huge balls [hee])

and the teeny nativity set from my mom

and swapped out the current rotating-couch-quilt with the specifically-Christmas-themed-couch-quilt.

All of our decorations are still teeny (except the balls [hee]) even though we live in a very house-sized house, because this will be our last Christmas in this house-sized house and many of our future houses will be teeny-house-sized.

Speaking of Santa hats (we were earlier, right?) I have hit two dollar stores looking for a smallish Santa hat for Sam Skellington (and also perhaps a beard) but no dice.  Diceless, these trips have been.  I am exactly one dollar store away from buying some felt and making my own damned hat.  How am I not able to find a smallish-but-not-teeny hat?  If Sam were capable of looking depressed, he would.

Aw, he doesn't have a frown in him.  I'll find you a hat yet, skinny man.

Why can't sitting in my paper-writing chair feel this amazing?

The weather has finally and officially turned, which means that when I go running I am effectively combining two things I hate: running and being cold.  (I tried running in the gym but that also combines two things I hate: running and being bored.  PLUS then I have to get to the gym.)

I hate running.  I hate running in the cold so much more than I hate running.  I hate the searing lungs, I hate the nasty way everything feels on your cold skin afterwards, I hate that I have to wear all of the things.

But running makes me feel like the healthiest person in the world, and that's not a feeling I take lightly.  If there was anything that made me feel half as good as running does, I would do THAT instead, and do it twice.

So me and my bad knee and my stupid socks and my headband will be out there, running and hating it and waiting for spring.

I am available upon request.

I'm going to carry NaBloPoMo as far into December as momentum will take me.  I promise that the next three weeks will be very boring.  Today, for example, I am writing a paper.

I am also listening to Christmas music, because it is the 1st.  Joel always tries to sneak them in before the 1st but I want to still be enjoying them by the 25th, so I'm pretty Nazi-riffic about it.

I always listen to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Christmas Eve/Sarajevo as my kick-off carol, because even though it's awful and hokey and super-lame, I love it unreservedly.  It's like that song they pipe through the speakers when a sports team is taking the field/rink/court, it gets me all pumped up for the season.  Plus, the video is exceedingly Soviet-Russia (in Soviet Russia, bells carol you!).

Embedding is disabled on that video, alas.  So you'll have to click the link, crank your computer speakers, and rock out to some awesomely bad-ass Carol of the Bells.  Do it.