Anti-Social Media
Something good, every day.
Community Food Smart
I was lucky enough to get in on the launch of the Tantramar Community Food Smart Program this month.
It’s a monthly fresh food bulk purchasing group that orders, organizes and distributes produce to members at a reduced rate.
The produce in the photo above only cost me $15, plus a $10 annual fee. Fantastic!
Little Love Poems
I/we don’t really do Valentine’s Day. There’s not much point when you celebrate your love every day. Yes, I know. Puke.
Five or six years ago, in the early days of love, a friend put out a request for “little love poems.” He thought he might publish a collection.
So I challenged myself. I submitted ten tiny poems.
Nothing came of the project, and I stumbled across them this week. How fortuitous!
Here are three of my favourites:
Every time I toss my keys down to you
from my balcony
I feel like your Juliet.
Except we know how to live.
Remember when I learned morse code so I could tap secrets on your skin?
•• / •-•• --- •••-• • / -•-- --- --•
You are my summer storm.
When darkness falls you
come on hot and heavy
thrill me
drench me
leave me shiny
then rumble off into the distance.
I am made new by you.
Februarys Gone By
This is the second February we have been in our lovely little rental house in Sackville, NB. But prior to this, the shortest of months has provided plenty of excitement!
6 years ago – February 2014
I met my love in February 2014, while working on Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit at Walterdale Theatre. Directed by my (now) dear friend CK, it was a collective of amazing people working together on something magical. Ruth Condomine was one of my all time favourite roles.
CK knew Bee through work, and hounded him to take on Sound Direction for the play. If he didn’t, who knows if we ever would have crossed paths? Sadly, I have no photos of the two of us that year as we were “just friends.”
5 years ago – February 2015
I skipped the trip south to visit my folks for Christmas 2014 in order to spend the holidays with Bee and his family in Alberta. So to make up for it, I travelled to Texas in February for a week. It was a nice break from the long winter, but I missed my love.
4 years ago – February 2016
Our 5 month European adventure was coming to an end, and we spent most of February in Athens, Greece. Bee’s brother came to stay with us for a week and it was an awesome end to an amazing adventure.
3 years ago – February 2017
Spending the previous winter in the mediterranean left us less than enthused to face the frigid temperatures in Alberta, so we splurged on a break and headed to Havana, Cuba with our friend LB.
2 years ago – February 2018
We were staying at my folks’ place while they went south. Our original plan for moving out here was not working out, we had no jobs or prospects, and we were basically holed up together just trying to figure out what to do next! We always figure it out ❤️
Garlic Soup
When my friend told me that she loves to make this simple soup, I was skeptical. In fact, I was skeptical right up until I had a spoonful yesterday.
This is the perfect soup to make when you’re sick. It’s quick, simple, delicious and loaded with garlic. And it’s vegan!
Ingredients:
- 4-6 cloves of garlic (2-3 Tbsp), minced
- 1-2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 6 cups water or veggie stock. I used 4 cups stock and 2 cups water.
- 2 cups macaroni (or your preferred noodle)
- salt & pepper (to taste)
Instructions:
- Finely mince garlic.
- Heat olive oil in a pot over medium-low heat, add garlic and sauté until it starts to caramelize, but be careful not to burn it!
- Add 1/2 tsp salt and slowly incorporate liquid.
- Bring to a boil and add noodles.
- Keep at a low boil or simmer until the noodles are cooked.
- Add salt & pepper to taste.
Make this bowl of love for that special person in your life who is a little under the weather (or who just loves garlic)!
Sick Day
It got me. I have succumbed. The dreaded cold. It’s mostly in my head (sniffle, cough), but my body is protesting too. I got the “must-dos” tackled and now it’s tea, soup and sleep for me. I’m really hoping if I rest hard I’ll feel better tomorrow.
Sweater Weather
Holy shit, I knit a sweater!
It’s not that I didn’t think I could, more like I didn’t think I would.
There are two things about knitting sweaters that’s not appealing to me. And they both have to do with size.
One is that a sweater is a big project that uses quite a lot of yarn, and yarn is expensive! If you want a nice sweater you need to use nice yarn, and I’m pretty frugal. So, when I saw all these balls of lovely orange yarn at the thrift store I was pretty excited by the prospect of knitting a sweater for under $5.
The second reason I don’t like to knit sweaters is because I find it difficult to knit things to size, and a sweater isn’t any good if it doesn’t fit. I feel like I can measure all I want and I’m still not guaranteed to get something that I like that actually looks good. I have an irregular body shape, and I don’t like to fuss much, so finding a pattern and knitting an actual garment is pretty intimidating.
Well, I did it. I finished it today, and it’s… just OK. I mean it does fit. I don’t hate it, I just… I don’t think I’m going to be making another sweater anytime soon.
I guess I’ll just be sticking to hats and mittens, scarves and shawls, socks and slippers.
At least I tried!
Roll Playing
Today we played the final session of an awesome D&D campaign, hosted by our friend. It was her first time as Dungeon/Game Master and she did a fantastic job.
From the handwritten invitations (delivered to our door!) to introduce the campaign, to creating/finding tokens to represent items in the game, her stellar hand-drawn maps, background music and snacks may have spoiled us.
Actually, she did such a great job it almost makes me want to run a campaign myself (almost).
It’s always sad to say goodbye (for now) to a character. I really enjoyed playing Madista Vendamon, and had so much fun with my real life D&D friends and their characters. Maybe I’ll see if I can write up a narrative from the notes I took during our sessions.