Category Archives: Photos

i didn’t make any new year’s resolutions. i made a point of avoiding them completely this year. i know that most of the time, they’re a barrier to success, not a goal to strive for. people over-estimate their ability to make many drastic lifestyle changes all at once: go to the gym, quit smoking, find a significant other, work harder, eat better, be nicer, save money, learn japanese.
especially for me. if i try to make a lot of big changes all at once, i know i’m doomed to failure. therefore, i didn’t plan any changes. that is, of course, when they started to occur almost of their own accord.
after what seems like years of just talking about it, i’ve finally taken my friend Colene up on her many offers of support, camaraderie and free gym equipment. she’s dubbed us the “celebrity fit club” (because it sounds better than “the biggest loser”, she says) and we have a thrice-weekly workout date.
last night marked the end of week one. i’ve sweated more in the last few days than i have in the last year. i know it sounds pretty disgusting, but it’s that healthy, glistening, workout sweat which they try to mimic by rubbing underwear models with baby oil in fitness equipment infomercials. but i got mine the old fashioned way: exercise!
honestly, i thought it’d be a lot harder to get into the groove with it than it has been. i made a point of not trying to go 100 mph right out of the gate, so i’m actually feeling really good and look forward to each next workout. hell, i’ve even considered making supplementary trips to the fitness room at work on our off days. how crazy is that?
Couch to 5K has been something i’ve been mentioning off and on for a month or so as a fitness goal i’d like to strive for. i realize now that i’m not quite ready to even start week one of that program, but at least i’m on the right track. i’m giving myself a month to work up to a level where that first week’s alternating 60 seconds of jogging won’t make me want to rip out my lungs and leave them in a ditch to feed some rabid skunks.
hm, now i wonder if i’m just thinking too far ahead. maybe i should just stick to one workout at at time… at least until the habit is firmly ensconced.
here’s to little changes with big rewards!

i’ve been spending a lot of time lately mulling over, contemplating, planning and gearing up for trying to enter into a fitness regime for the new year. i’ve been a total and utter sloth for the last year and i’m really quite sick of it. hence all my discussion about undertaking the “couch to 5K” program or finding a workout buddy to, at least, get the ball rolling in the right direction.
the ball, in this instance, being my rotund self.
knowing what i know about the mechanics of weight loss, i’m fully aware that there’s no long-term reduction strategy which does not include both exercise and diet alterations. with that in mind, i was revisiting the idea of joining Weight Watchers online. i had fairly excellent success with them a few years back, so they’re usually my first thought when a new strict eating regime is contemplated.

this morning, i ventured over to weightwatchers.ca to see what the going rate for online membership was these days. i was convinced that since the dollars are so close to par the Canadian prices were due to be dropped to entice more people to join. boy, was i wrong.

the Canadian pricing is exactly the same as it was in 2004 – it’s nice to see they haven’t jacked it up due to imaginary inflation – but, when the exchange rate is hovering around 5%, there’s not much logic behind a 41% price difference beside profiteering.

when car dealerships, book & magazine retailers and other commercial sectors are coming around to the economics of US and Canadian dollars near par, why isn’t Weight Watchers? especially when their product – health – is so much more important than cars or glossy publications!
oh, i know the answer. they’re preying on fat people’s desperation. that’s why there are people who are willing to go on 600 calorie diets and get injected with vitamin supplements (yes, i’m talking to you Dr. Bernstein!) or eliminate all carbs from their diet even though that’s what your brain needs to function properly, let alone the rest of your body.
grr. stupid, greedy Weight Watchers. good thing i know enough about your program now i don’t need to pay you a single, over-priced dime.

for a number of years now, probably since i’ve had a digital camera, i’ve wanted to put together a calendar featuring a dozen of my photographs. for many reasons (mostly: sloth and procrastination) i never quite got around to it. in addition, there wasn’t really an economical way to produce small runs of quality printing, so i just kept putting it off. again and again, year after year.
then came cafepress with their on-demand printing on various products (buttons, mugs, t-shirts, etc). i have had a cafepress store or three for several years now and have probably ordered more for myself and friends than all other orders combined. that’s always been fine, as i’m not in it to get rich (although that would be lovely), but to be able to produce printed products i want, as easily and thriftily as possible.
last year, i ordered a “former congressman chuck” calendar from the blurbdoocery store at lulu.com. the calendar came well-packaged, the printing quality was excellent and their customer service/ease of use was top notch. so, when i finally got off my ass to put together that long-awaited calendar, my first choice was to use lulu as the on-demand printer.
what does all this mean for you, gentle reader? it means that if you’re so inclined, and aren’t squeamish about online purchases, you’re able to obtain for yourself a nuttymuffin 2008 calendar featuring photos from none other but… me! here’s the promo image for your consideration:

in addition, a portion of the proceeds from all the calendars sold will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Society of BC.
i don’t think i’ve ever talked about it here, but my step-mother has been suffering with Alzheimer’s for the last decade and i’ve seen first-hand the trauma it can wreak upon a family. this opportunity to help give back just seems the right thing to do, especially at this time of the year.
marketing myself is something i’m not very good at nor enjoy doing, so i probably won’t be mentioning this again. although, i reserve the right to position a pretty little button over there on the left to subtly remind you that you’re totally ruining your chances for an awesome 2008 if you don’t have a nuttymuffin calendar on your wall. ;)

and to help pay for it i hope to win this contest…
Over at Ashwin’s blog, you will find one crazy blog owner!! You can win $2500!! To enter just copy this text and paste it in your blog!! But hurry, this competition will not last long! So get posting!

so, after three weeks of stress, stress and more stress, it’s mostly over.
my old car is gone. the insurance company gave me a cheque. i emptied my savings accounts. i looked at car after car. i asked the same questions dozens of times. i drove more cars in 15 days than i have in 15 years. i got advice. i read websites. i learned that people will screw you over, even if you’re a good person. i love my dad. i’m thankful for all my supportive friends.
i have a new car. well, it’s new to me.
it’s a 1991 VW Golf GL. it’s white, has four doors and an aftermarket CD player. it’s got some dings and rust spots. it’s got a squeak here and there. there’s half a page of little things which need fixing, but… it’s mine.
it doesn’t quite feel like mine, though. my license plate looks weird on a different car. really, really weird.
i love that it’s mine, though. i’ve always wanted a Golf. i used to wish i’d gotten one instead of my Geo, if you can imagine. i love that it’s got four doors, so i don’t have to feel bad when i have people to haul. the fact that it can actually accelerate up a hill is just amazing to me. i like that it’s German, even if it was built in Mexico.
now, i just have to get used to all its smells and sounds. i knew exactly what was going on with my Geo just by the vibration. this car… it’s a mystery to me. i wonder how long it will be until i understand it as i did my first.
i probably won’t really consider it mine until it’s been through the shop and had it’s insides bathed. i wish to get it to a certain point where i can say that from then on it’s all mine. my maintenance, my dirt, my car.
i’m glad i got this experience. i didn’t want it, but it definitely was good for me to go through. next time, though? next time i buy a car, i want to walk onto a lot, point and say “that one, in blue, with air” and be driving home half an hour later.

i was sitting at the computer sunday morning, checking my email and catching up on my rss feeds when i started to read the story about Travis’ new kitten, Maggie. the poor little thing is only 11 weeks old and already she’s had to deal with a lot. which includes an infection which has caused one of her eyes to not develop properly, which turns out to be an incurable case of cat herpes. she’s an adorable little pure-bred Abyssinnian, bus she was deemed unsuitable for show and given away to the lovely Smith family.
unfortunately, they weren’t informed of two things before they brought Maggie home. first, was the cat herpes. second, was the case of ringworm she had and consequently shared with everyone in their house.
upon reading that, and Travis’ description of what ringworm looks like, i got up from my chair, picked up my camera, took a photo and emailed it to him with this message:

an hour or so later, my phone rang. when i answered, it was Travis. a very apologetic Travis, too.
two weeks ago, i was over playing Magic with Travis and a few other friends. i was so happy to get to play with a kitten again, i was crazy for the little orange ball of fluff. i picked her up and nuzzled her a lot. she climbed all over me and i loved every second of her tiny, needle-sharp claws digging into my shoulder as she perched there.
sometime around the middle of last week, a small patch of skin on my neck started to get red and flaky. i thought maybe it was a pimple gone bad. then another spot started appearing beside it. i thought maybe i’d eaten something which didn’t like me. Sunday morning, there was another one. that’s when i read about the ringworm.
now, Travis is an extremely nice man. i like him a lot, and have done so since we first met. he’s funny and smart and generous. i just didn’t think he’d one day share with me his fungal infection.
during his phone call, he apologized. a lot. but, eventually we got to the point of laughter and talked about how in medieval times people didn’t have anti-fungal creams to treat things such as this. instead they slathered themselves with mustard poultices which didn’t really do anything except stink to high heaven. i hypothesized it was like a warning system:
Lady: oh, that Travis, he doth smell most offensively of mustard.
Knight: verily, that is a vile odor. he must have a pox.
Lady: aye. thou must avoideth him completely!
so, yeah. me’n’Travis (and Susie and Aimee and Maggie) are now fungus buddies. i’ve never felt so close to anyone before. thanks, Travis!

not quite three months after i wrote about celebrating our 15th anniversary, i may have to say goodbye to her forever.
around 7:30 this morning, the black range rover i was following up the hill came to a sudden and unexpected stop. i wasn’t going very fast and i wasn’t too close, but i was close enough to not have enough room to bring her to a stop before this happened:

i slammed on the brakes, i tried to swerve to avoid impact (into oncoming traffic, so it’s probably good i didn’t succeed). instead of a near-miss, i heard an awful noise and saw a whole lot of blue hood where there shouldn’t have been any.
the car’s been towed away, i’ve been to the doctor because my leg and arms are sore, i’ve picked up a rental car and i’m just about to leave to go meet with the insurance company. i’m petrified of what they’re going to say. absolutely petrified. all the horrible ICBC stories i’ve heard during my life are coming to mind as i anticipate this meeting.
i’m still a little shocky and prone to unexpected tears. thank goodness my boss let me go home and christopher is being his wonderful, supportive self while i alternately break down and then swear a blue streak.
well, at least it’s sunny out. *shrug*

my boyfriend just called and sang ‘happy birthday’ to me. i’ve a freshly-made giant-sized latte in front of me. my dad’s taking me out for lunch. the aforementioned awesome boyfriend is taking me out for a very fancy dinner tonight. it should be a good day.
i’m thirty-five years old today.
there’s not quite the sensation of trauma i expected, but i am feeling it more than any of the last few birthdays. i’ve mentioned it to several people over the last month or so, but in my mind thirty-five has always been the age at which you should have it all together. you’ve got a career, a relationship, a home and you’re just… adult. the problem is, i don’t feel like an adult yet. well, maybe in some ways, but not entirely. certainly not in the way i perceived adult-hood as a six-year-old looking up to them around my parents’ house.
this last year has been a complete blur. honestly, it’s gone by far too fast and i kind of wish i could go back and do some of it again. not to correct any mistakes, but just to enjoy it a little more. i hope this coming year won’t be quite so quick to slip away from me. i have several goals for my thirty-fifth year. they’re pretty big and will take a lot of effort on my part to achieve, but i hope i’m up to the challenge.
here’s to me… all growed up. who knew it’d look like this?
where’s my damn cake?

despite the typo in the title, i’m beyond thrilled to have had a selection of my photos published on File Magazine today. go see!
what a fantastic way to start my 23 consecutive days off work!

sometimes, i get a little wary when people are nice to me. then, when a whole lot of people have a whole lot of good things to say about me, i start to wonder about the collective sanity of the human race. the last few days have been chock full of people saying the nicest things about me TO me, including words such as: angel, wonderful, gorgeous, princess, friendly and brilliant.
it’s hard to comprehend, let alone get used to.
last night, after leaving work early to go to the doctor to get drops for the painful ear infection i woke up to, i spent the evening getting caught up on the last three episodes of ‘Gilmore Girls’ ever to be made. i was good for the third- and second-to-last shows, but the last? i cried for the entire last half of it. i finished off a box of tissues, that’s how much abandon i was sobbing with as i watched Rory and Lorelai for the last time. i’m such a pushover for a good mother-daughter show. especially one which was so fast and funny. i really do have a soft spot for fast-talking characters.
i’m glad the storylines ended where they did. there was enough left to our imaginations and no deus ex machina to wrap things up in a ridiculously tidy bow. yet, the closure obtained was completely realistic for the characters involved. Lorelai’s mother didn’t suddenly become cuddly and warm, nor did Jess or Dean come out of the woodwork to sweep Rory off her feet. i’ll miss my weekly visits to Star’s Hollow, and i’ll always want to be Lauren Graham when i grow up, but i’m glad it ended well, if it had to end at all.
speaking of ending well, i’m so very glad ‘Lost’ producers have announced a solid end date for the series. i think it could have gone the way of JJ Abrams’ other show ‘Alias’ and just gotten out of hand with the trying to be too clever and tricky. audiences don’t like being fucked with for years without getting answers to any of the questions raised. i think if ‘Lost’ sticks to three more years, as announced, they can write an ending and work backwards from it, ensuring that we’re all left satisfied and with no questions hanging. then again, i think the writers for that show are a little bit sick’n’twisted, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they left a few things out, just to make us crazy — and ensure an appetite for a feature film (a la ‘X-Files’ and ‘Twin Peaks’).

i survived classmates.com, livejournal, friendster, orkut, myspace and consumating, to name but a few evil social-networking web abominations. i’m NOT going to be suckered into drinking the facebook kool-aid.
besides, to quash colene’s favourite excuse: i don’t look better than my highschool classmates, so why would i want them to see me looking exactly the way i did back then?
oh, and it’s totally evil. bad, bad, evil bad.

had the car towed to the shop at 7:30am on thursday morning after the engine started trying to bounce itself out from under the hood. luckily for me and my bank account, it was just a spark plug wire which popped off. of course, i was embarrassed i didn’t just look under the hood to see — and fix — that myself. ohwell. at least my bcaa membership came in useful.
chris & mel came over for butter chicken and hockey friday night. fun was had all the way through to the second overtime. it’s hard to believe it took over two years to have them over. now that they know just how yummy that butter chicken is, i think they’ll be trying to invite themselve over much more often!
spent most of saturday & sunday outside in the gorgeous sunshine and enjoyed every second of it (even the many, many seconds when the decision to not have coffee saturday morning came back to haunt me saturday evening). took a fair number of photos, most of which didn’t even suck. that was a nice surprise.
i even got to meet christopher’s parents’ new puppy which arrived by air from alberta this very morning. she was still a little shell-shocked, but pretty cute, for a dog.
i dreamt about lots and lots of kittens last night. why don’t more people i know have kittens for me to play with?
the real treat for this beautiful spring weekend: i haven’t cleaned one damn thing. my apartment is pretty messy, the dishes are piled up and i’m not sure i have any clean pants to wear to work tomorrow, but i’m not giving a damn right now. i’m enjoying the sloth. i think i deserve it. at least a little bit.

the new internet-free workdays are causing a severe change in the way i interact with the ‘net. unfortunately, that means that blogging has become something i’m trying to learn how to make time for, instead of it being just a part of my day. i don’t like it much, but there’s nothing which can be done about it. i’m trying not to ignore this website, but it has been sorely neglected this past month. my apologies.
at least you’re not missing much. i work, i spend time with christopher, i try go see other friends at least one day a week. oh, and i clean compulsively. if i had more time, i’d try to write more interesting stories about the cleaning or the working, but meh… it’s all be done before and much better than i ever could.
i’ve discovered i should have become a pharmacist instead of an office drone; either that, or gone into IT in QA or web stuff (not programming). jen had a great birthday party friday night; it was such an occasion i wore a trio of new clothes to honour it. my mom came to visit over my six-day easter break; we shopped and i slept on my new air mattress. my boyfriend bought me long-stemmed red roses just “to see your beautiful smile”. this morning, we went to camera show where we managed to buy almost all the film available (i’m not even exaggerating). i’ve been driving dad’s car for the last seven days and i’m loathe to return it to him tonight. hockey fever has me in its grip: go canucks go!
that’s about it, really. i’ll try to be more post-y. don’t forget about me!

– copyright infringed, photographer fights back!
– defunct web-rat offered design gig, offered food as payment
– island living: city-dweller investigates weekend retreats
– beat carb cravings! eat soybeans!
– study: sleep for losers, insomnia new black

meh.

so, the cleanse is history. and i totally shucked it with a bang on saturday: pizza, beer and chocolate. hell, yeah! i made it five days with two cheats (damn leftover chips). maybe it was the flu-thing i had, maybe it was the cleanse, but whichever it was i felt like crap the whole week. what i’ve taken from the experience is that i don’t think there’s any bad food, just bad eating trends and as long as my overall trend is healthful eating with lots of real food, pizza and beer (and even chocolate) on a saturday night is a-okay.
i don’t know if it was being home two days last week then going to work for friday or there was a general slow-down in time, but my weekend seemed to stretch on forever. i had a quiet night at home alone friday. i got up earlyish saturday and proceeded to clean out my overflowing bookshelf (hence the purge of programming books), ran errands in the rain, tried on my new dress (now i just need somewhere to wear it), picked up christopher at the seabus, went to the dollar store, ate pizza & went to see the late show of Pan’s Labyrinth. sunday, i didn’t get out of my pj’s all day. chris & i spent the day playing zelda. well, he played zelda while i puttered around on the computer and around the rest of the apartment.
actually, it was the best weekend ever.
these days, all it want to do is hang out at home. i love my apartment with the sofa and the Wii and the bed and the bathtub. being a textbook cancer, i do tend to nest and love to be home, but lately it’s entirely out of control. actually, i think i’m going through my winter funk. i can’t wait for spring to have sprung so i feel a bit more like going outside. at least i hope i will.

let me see how many times i can work sushi into this post…
thanks go to josh for pointing me in the direction of fujiya in the comments to this post. thanks to their awesome website and online ordering system, i now have a big-ass tray of sushi ordered for sunday’s thingie mcbob (with extra yam rolls just for leah).
tonight’s the concert which is turning into quite the group activity. i’ll be attending both the show and pre-show sushi with: colene, gill, jen, christopher and gill’s co-worker, chris. i don’t have any part of tomorrow off work, so i dread what kind of shape i’ll be in when (if?) i wake in the morning. i’m not sleeping well as it is, let alone attempting it with truncated duration. i might be a very crabby girl come v-day.
last night, after work, i met up with col, nelson, mel, ritchie & ernie for coffee. after some beverages and chatting at the bread garden, we tried to figure out where to go eat. we almost went for sushi, but people wussed out, so we went to boston pizza instead. how boring! but, as colene pointed out, it was probably a good opportunity for me to enjoy lots of carbs and cheese because this time next week they’ll be verboten. so, i did. yum.
i think that’s it. i don’t know, it’s tuesday afterall. i hate tuesdays.

anyone know where i could buy brown sushi rice?
i believe i’m going to be totally addicted to making sushi for the next few weeks. even though i totally forgot to buy other fillings, the baked yam rolls i made for christopher and i on saturday seemed to go over well. next up: veggie rolls! mm, sushi.
the weekend kind of sucked, actually. it ended up being a clash of moods and ill-feeling. i was feeling icky both saturday and sunday while chris wasn’t in the very best of moods, either. there was lots and lots of down-time, which isn’t so bad, i guess. i only wish we’d both been feeling better to enjoy it more. the highlight was going to daiso on saturday and buying lots of adorable bento box supplies and super cute sushi-ware.
this week looks nice and lazy. i’m going to see camera obscura tomorrow night at richard’s, christopher is cooking me dinner on wednesday and then it’s my amazing race party on sunday. it should be a good week. cross your fingers.
suddenly, my page is getting no hits from people searching for the bad art i had on my wall last year (which i won’t mention ever again) so my stats have gone from 130+ visitors per day to 30. how depressing.

in the last episode of “Heroes” i’ve watched, Hiro’s father (played by George Takei) rode in a big, black town car with the license plate NCC-1701. i actually clapped my hands and whooped a little when i saw that.
my new obsession is learning to make onigiri, home-made sushi and bento boxes. i’m even slightly upset i have to go to the Of Montreal show tonight because it means one more day without trying to make them. i dragged christopher to T&T last night to procure supplies of sushi rice & vinegar, nori and onigiri molds. i’m thinking i might try a home-made sushi night on saturday. spend the day making rice and cutting up maki fillings, make some miso soup and roll our own sushi & rice balls. whee!
oh, and i’m so fucking sick and tired of comment spam. i’ve had to close comments on old entries and my installation of mt-blacklist catches a lot (including any real commenters who put a blogspot or yahoo address in the email or url fields — sorry about that), but i’m having to delete 20+ comments a day now. it’s totally annoying and a waste of my time. i refuse to install a captcha or whatever those things where you have to correctly type the letters you see in an image or force anyone to register to comment, so i guess i’m stuck. grr. stupid spam.
before i forget: hi person from whitehorse who visits my site almost every day! leave me a comment so i can know your name! and actually have a comment from a non-spammer.