Should have kept those dang notes for this.

Driving to pick my little brother up from work today, I remembered how summer the act of driving is. One hand on the wheel, an arm resting on the open window and my hair being whipped in the wind.
In the city I sometimes miss driving. Transit has its advantages and I certainly will not own a car there any time soon... and maybe its a small town mentality, but the "rugged" freedom being on the road, going where you please is refreshing and uplifting. C will make fun of me for saying that.

I've left the city for the summer, in fact. For a sleepy town with sleepy folks. It will most likely be the last time I will really be living here and I'm trying to take it in for good. But it's hard. There's always something to do and even when there isn't, I know there is.

I hope to have extra TLC to afford this wee blog as well! Get ready for a lotta ramblin'...

Oh, you should take a peek at my tumblr! It needs some attention too, but I'm working on it! Happy tumbling.

Have you ever seen that tiny house on the top of that apartment building?

OH
MY
WORD.

Strathcona Stockings on Etsy

I might have had something to say earlier, but these socks have hijacked my intelligent (har har) thought and all I can think about is: ooooh... prettyyyy...

Things that are new with me:

• finished classes for the summer (as of Wednesday)
• new glasses (as of January, though...)
• new haircut (as of Friday)
• went to Mexico for a week (in February)
• planted a tiny herb & lettuce garden on the windowsill 

Sad, considering this will be the 2nd time I've updated the blog in 2011!

In a land of violently calming dreams

It's pretty cold out today. I could have swore I saw the most tiny snowflakes floating around while I was sitting on the bus.

There's something romantic and dreamy about frosty, less-than-half-full late-morning bus rides. After the morning rush, quiet, introverted.

The box of Stepho's in the fridge is calling my name.

Snowed. A month ago, though.

I wish it would snow right now. Then maybe our dying, sad, so very sad Christmas tree would maybe not seem so sad. I had left it outside during this very snowfall below and it either froze to death or was crushed by the weight of the snow. I know, probably the former. Either way, it was not a happy one when I brought it inside. Now it honestly just looks pathetic, weighed down by a stand of dollar store lights and ornaments already too bulky for its petite frame. Pathetic, but hopefully in a Charlie Brown Christmas tree kind of way. Now I have to watch that movie. And post a picture of the tree because I went on about it too much and now you're all like, well let me see it!!

Snow first.









Monday night/early Tuesday morning/later on Tuesday morning after sleeping for >4 hrs was something I never wish to repeat. And sometimes I hate university.

My end-of-term lack of motivation resulted in starting an 8 page German research paper 2 days before it was due. It turned like a piece of crap and I will never show it to anyone in the whole world, but it's done and I only have stress pimples and a piece of crap German paper to show for it. Maybe 8 pages doesn't sound like that much, but if, like me, the most you had written in German until now was in the realm of 1 page, I think you would find that 8 pages was enough to make you cry in your bed at night.

Last exam tomorrow. 8:30am.

Mouse hand is always cold.

via... the internet.

"How my heart beats when by accident I touch her finger, or my feet meet hers under the table! I draw back as if from a furnace; but a secret force impels me forward again, and my senses become disordered. Her innocent, unconscious heart never knows what agony these little familiarities inflict upon me. Sometimes when we are talking she lays her hand upon mine, and in the eagerness of conversation comes closer to me, and her balmy breath reaches my lips,—when I feel as if lightning had struck me, and that I could sink into the earth." - The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Lieden des jungen Werthers), Goethe, 1774.

I guess people don't change.


Last night I made this cake, added 2T poppyseeds to it and put a simple sugar glaze on it rather than (ick)cream cheese icing. Aaand, mashed the pears just with a fork since they were already past prime and slapped it into a bundt pan because, really, who has 4 tiny loaf pans? I'll probably have my second piece of the day now.

After all that counting... I still lost a button.

Not generally too much of a, shall we say, product whore, but I thought maybe I'd share a few that are really rocking my world right now.




Sweet almond oil as a body moisturizer.
It soaks in promptly and traps all the moisture after a shower. Softy.



Clear mascara to comb through the eyebrows.
Keeps eyebrows where you want them! And then darkens them a wee bit.



Baking soda? Really?
We'll go over this later... it's really interesting!

It snowed last night in Vancouver. Before I went to bed I wanted to shut off all the lights and watch the snow fall in the glow of the street lamps across the street. And then I realised it was just the floodlight blaring into the window that needed to be turned off. Yeah, I think it's time to say something about that.
It was nice from our bedroom, though. The nearest street lamps were a ways off and it was really dreamy. Then I went to bed in a giant hoody and sweatpants because it was cold and lonely.

Those little babies are growing up so fast!

Without warning, one day, once upon a few days ago, a big ol' nasty floodlight was installed right outside our living room window. This is an absolutely true story.



I took these photos after dark one evening. You can see everything... perfectly.



It is quite pretty, really. The light pours in from sundown to sunrise and it does make things all nice and cosy. And we save on our electricity bill, ha ha. Buuuut, I'm sure you can see into our apartment as if the universe was shining a universe-sized flashlight right in our living room window. Oh wait...

School time, boys & girls!

Dry lips means you have eaten too many chips.

Although Halloween is officially over - I know because I have a giant box of 95 mini chocolate bars (that number is now significantly diminished) totaling 1.1 kg sitting beside me that I scored in the sale only post-Halloween can bring you - here are sum pikchas from a pumpkin carving party, nay, contest, I went to a few weeks ago in the Qube.




Karen. Mwah. Ambitious pumpkin design, girlfriend.








The pumpkin I "carved". I didn't hollow it out so that it would stay fresh and I can eat it. Nom.

I'm kind of really in love with this skirt but it seems to "fancy" for everyday. It's silk. Grey & mustard striped and long and flowey and makes me feel like a real lady if that's okay to say. Maybe if I just start wearing more real lady skirts this one wouldn't feel like dress up. If only I hadn't hemmed every skirt I've ever owned... I should have listened to my mother when she told me longer hemlines would come back in style. Mothers of 18 year old girls are often, unwisely, not headed, however. But naw, I still like my short skirts too!

There are chips on sale at Super Valu for $1.66 a bag (and that's just crazy) and C & I thought it ended today so he asked me to go stock up after work and when I got there I realised that the sale is on until Januaaaary and then I saw that they had hot dog flavoured chips and I really want to get those now. After the crazy success of Doritos cheeseburger chips.

Ramble, vent, whine, contemplate.

It's been a month. And you know I said that like "bean" and not "bin".

These are just nonsensical (perhaps a smidgen sensical) ramblings of a blogger only half-way through her first coffee of the day.

I feel like I've almost become scared of this place. This, my wee little blog. And I thought about why (apparently for a month) that is and I came so close to shuttin' 'er down - I was literally on the settings page ready to make it private only. The answer that makes the most sense as to why this has stopped being a pleasure and started being work is ... : I don't know what I want from this space anymore.

It is, in fact, partially work as it's aspiring to be promotion of my Etsy shop. (My Etsy shop being a whole other can of worms entirely.) And I suppose work as well due to the fact that you have to do things that aren't super fun in order to have a successful blog. What's a successful blog, anyhow? And why aren't the things you should do to have one of these successful blogs fun? They sure seem like fun; showcasing other blogs, visiting as many blogs as possible, creating a little community in this space, etc. How's that work?

Back to the question of what this blog is supposed to be. Is it entirely promotion? Not at all! But is it a fashion blog, per se? Or a personal journal? I don't feel as if I really have enough content, knowledge or drive to make this a fashion blog.

So then I am thinking of this to post, I tend to get overly critical and decide that either nobody would ever be interested in that, or I look like an ill-informed, ill-researched fashion blogger wannabe who is the last one to be up on anything (and here we are back to the lack of interest for most readers) and I will be exposed, once and for all, as a fashionista fraud who actually is not with the hip hop happenin' times of the wacky world of fashion.

What to do, what to DO? Right this second ago, I thought of just bucking up, soldering on, and what I would post next. I cringed. I know of some bloggers who proclaim that they will stop blogging the minute they stop enjoying it. I wonder if they truly mean it. Am I even going to post this or will I be my usual self-critical self and decide that whoEVER will read this at all. Readers just want photos. Readers think reading is boring. I am one of those readers, mostly.

I usually save such introspections for a diary diary but I feel like today the world-wide-web isn't prohibiting me from saying what I feel, as the scary, publicity of the internet usually does. As it should, honestly.

It's really easy to simply say, it's your blog, do what you want with it. Is it 100%, no-strings-attached, no catch, THAT simple? Because I, unfortunately, don't see it that way. I suppose that if that were to be my game plan, some people in the vast universe of the interwebz would find what I have to say/post appealing, but I guess that's a scary prospect. Trying to figure out what people want and gleaning what you can from sites before that have worked seems like a more fail-proof plan. But now that just sounds lame, uninspired and unoriginal.

I don't think I necessarily find blogs that are all over the place in their content to be too terribly interesting. Variety is usually good, but don't you read a blog because you find its topics interesting? And if Jenny over there is posting on Fendi handbags one minute, forestry the next and CSI Miami the other, the continuity and cohesion is left to the wayside. And it becomes messy.

But maybe that's not the point. Not everything you post is going to be interesting to everybody. That is why you blog regularly and if what you post doesn't do it for Jim-Bob one day, the next thing you post may just well be right up his alley.

Self pep-talk!

Although I'm not entirely sure where this pep-talk has gotten me this morning. Food for thought. I've exhausted this train for today.

That's right - no photo.

Holy smackers! That is a lot of cabbage rolls!

This gal immediately caught my eye over at Copenhagen Street Style. For me, the outfit is a bit on the ho-hum side (though certainly better than what I've been coming up with lately!) but just please look at that close-up. Fresh fresh FRESH. Amazing hair, great skin, no makeup and looking perfect.



Now if my skin were only as lovely as hers, I would gladly follow with my best face forward. Sadly, my sebum production/blemish factory of a face still thinks I'm 14.

Certainly, this is no time for fooling things.

When Sister & I took a walk in between rainy periods in Pacific Spirit Provincial Park near UBC recently. It's so refreshing & gratifying to suddenly realise how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful city. I attend university amid a rain forest plunging into the Pacific Ocean...

I have an image/feeling of Vancouver/the West Coast that I suppose stems from trips here as a kid; it is so faint & fleeting that I can only hold onto it for a matter of seconds and can't even conjure at will. But it reminds me of what drew me here four years ago. Now I can't imagine not living here. (At least for the time being...)

Now, Advanced French Composition homework & banana pear muffins in Cyril's pyjama pants.

Do you ever wonder what would happen if we just weren't here?

Typing from my new (hand-me-down yet souped-up) laptop! My big brother is a computer man and thus obsessively buys new computer things and thus gets rid of older computer things, making them available for purchase at seriously discounted prices and in seriously refurbished quality. Plus he installs fancy things that are too complicated for me.



Imma tell you what - I really have not felt this fashionably uninspired in quite some time!
School. School deserves to be blamed for everything. Soul-sucking, money-draining, procrastination-master-creating big mess.



And so consequently I have been wearing a variation on this outfit since Friday. Today is Tuesday and this is what I wore today.
Now why should I choose today of all days to post a self-proclaimed uninspired look? See qualification # 3 of the soul-sucking etc big mess. That, and I find "everyday", "errand" getups very interesting. We all have 'em; here's mine. For the past four days.



Tomorrow is the last sunny day before doomsday. What should we do to savour it?