P&PS

I've been wanting to play some more with typography, so I started out with this: and ended up, as of right now, with a rough sketch of a poster:  "Reading and writing are in themselves subversive acts.  What they subvert is the notion that things have to be the way that they are, that you are alone, that no one has ever felt the way you have."  It started out something like  The other quote from Armageddon  I loved (also from Mark's speech about his father) is "[Marx] did invent Communism, which we have been taught to hate, because we are so in love with Capitalism, which is what we call the casinos on Wall Street."

I had one of those odd moments today when I had to stop and wonder if life imitated art or if it was the other way around or more likely just one huge coincidence meant to mess with my head. I had a guy twice my age ask me out today after spending the last twenty minutes trying to decide how I felt about Valentina/Robert and Martin/Julia ( Her Fearful Symmetry ).  The latter of which I decided I was ok with, and the former which I decided I preferred but found Robert's view of Valentina as a "child"/childlike unsettled me.  I had this whole post planned out to try and sort through it further and then a middle aged man, having just met me and knowing nothing about me, asked me out; I look like I'm 17.  I was confused when this happened.  I'm still confused. Regardless, I'm hoping the book ends more scandalously than expected.  Ninety two pages left and only an hour until bed

tea. warm weather. sunshine. sleep. bricks. shiny words. libraries. lunch breaks. felt tip pens. fridays.

The first line of The Farmworker's Daughter ... I was going to do a review of the book but there's not much to say about it: I liked it, the stories were intriguing, the shifting POV was sometimes confusing, but it was a good, quick read.  The quote does a better job of capturing the essence of the book than I ever could and it fits with the nostalgia I've been feeling lately.  Winter's settling in and I'm missing things: people, places, green grass.

Reasons the Blanket of Time Sucking Loveliness Should Count as a Week's Worth of Creativeness: It's a time suck. It is shiny. It has taken up every spare second of awake time. It has accidental ruffles. I dream I'm knitting it. It's taking forever to finish. Because I said so.

I've been working so much I haven't had much time to actually create or write anything, but I have been thinking about it.  Here's a list of a couple of things I thought about writing about today.      &  Spoilers and the Suspension of Disbelief aka why I hate spoilers (I would focus on Mockingjay and Sanctuary 's Hangover)      &  Media Rating Systems (focusing on book [goodreads] and movies [my system vs trakt] and how certain biases/timing plays into that with examples from Never Let Me Go )      &  Why someone should create a library booktube meme and what it should include      &  All those posts I started around Christmas that I still haven't finished

My pad of scrap paper at work has green sheets sprinkled in it: these mint green distractions.  They seem to pop up randomly at the oddest times, which of course means I have to do something different with them.  The first time one popped up I was having a bit of an afternoon and so I decided to make a list of things I was grateful for.  It hasn't turned into a full fledged gratitude project, but it is a nice reminder of life's shinier things, especially since my job can get a bit stressful.  Take yesterday's list for example:      &  SANITY      &  Pumpkin      &  Arctic Air      &  Hot water

My water kefir grains came in the mail today, on the coldest day of the year.  Thankfully, as far as I can tell, they're not dead, which means I should have kefir this time next week.  It's an exciting prospect, equal parts apprehension and excitement.  It's been a couple of years since I've fermented anything on a regular basis and even longer since I've had to keep any sort of starter alive.  I'm worried about messing it up, which wouldn't be the worst thing, more disappointing than anything, but at the same time I'm confident I can pull it off.  It's just sugar water after all.  I'll do up a blog post in a couple of weeks with details and photos. I also gave myself a haircut tonight.  This isn't anything new either, but it's been awhile since I've had a shorter hairstyle and I'm liking this one.  My hair dries in less than...well never, and it's fluffy now that it's not so weighted down.  All in all not a bad end to a...

I'm planning on doing quite a bit of travelling this summer, quite a bit of it internationally, all of it quite a ways away from the creature comforts of my house and my kitchen.  For the most part, I'm staying with friends which is awesome and amazing and helps ease some of my misgivings but I'm also concerned about a couple of things, and since making lists of concerning things makes them less concerning, here's my list:      &  I don't know what I'm going to eat- I have a pretty specific diet (strict paleo) and it's not the most travel-friendly diet considering I'm on it because I feel rather cruddy when I'm not.  At home I manage by cooking all of my own food, everyday.  This isn't something I necessarily want or would be able to do while travelling.      &  Airport food- or more specifically getting edible food through airport security to address the above food issue.  Airport security, or really any security fo...

On and off this week I spent quite a bit of time trying to put together first, an intro video and later a book review and a book haul for the youtube channel I started in conjunction with this project.  I want so badly to post something, anything, to find an excuse to play with this medium that's so new to me and which inspires so many new ways of looking at things.  Unfortunately this is proving more difficult than expected, which I did expect I just wasn't quite expecting there to be quite this big of a learning curve.  I'm not looking for something perfect.  Perfect would be boring because it would require cutting out all the quirky little things I know other people love, even if I don't.  But I wanted something that at least had the following:      1.  Decent lighting (the lighting in my room is horrible)      2.  A backdrop that doesn't consist of piles of stuff or stacks of boxes      3.  Dece...

Book Review: The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

SHOWTIME by Chloe Kayne Review

I made up a couple of new fonts today based on my own handwriting, mostly just to play around, but also because I wanted to be able to make things like this that had a personal touch to them.  While I'm not exactly sure what this is (blog header atm?) I'm happily geeking out over the fact that I have a handwritten font (I *love* handwritten fonts) of my own scribbling.  I mean it looks like I wrote it!  Only I didn't have to.  No more scanning endless paper scraps.  Score one for the trees(?)

I wanted to make up some sort of graphic I could post along with the links to my book reviews.  I wanted a graphical representation to go with all those words for posts that don't have pictures (aka ebooks and hastily returned library books).  I started out with the index card at the top (which needs some more love if I'm going to use it) and ended up falling back on an old favorite of mine: library cards!  Now if only I had a way to put them in all my digital books...

I though since the Christmas video I had planned is at a bit of a standstill I would get to work on a first/intro video that might actually get posted.  The text below is what I ended up with; it's the self-image new years meme a la emilieofnewgloom , whose video is here .  I have yet to film anything yet (getting sick/being allergic to the world tends to put a damper on on-camera enthusiasm), but hopefully it'll get finished soon. Daughter, grand daughter, sister, friend. Reader, writer, knitter. Chronic learner. Social worker? Case worker? Job titles are confusing and not what I expected them to be this time last year. Confused about what I want from life but willing to figure it out along the way. Accidental traveler. Canadian wannabe. Homebody, geek, occasional dork. Happily obsessive, fangirly, and introverted. A planner. A cat enthusiast, history lover,  and country girl at heart. Tree hugger, environmentalist, upcycler, recycler, thrifter. I'm Lisa and this i...

My love for awesome-thing-related bingo is no secret- bingos make for all sorts of fun achievements and crazy goals, and books. well those don't need an explanation- so my glee over discovering Random House's reading bingo ?  Flailtastic, so much so I got up first thing this morning and made this card, before breakfast, before checking my email... I may be in love, just a wee bit.

I received a wax turnip for Christmas.  This may seem like an odd thing to receive as a gift, particularly in the singular, but it was the last thing I had expected and it made for a pleasant surprise. Wax turnips, or rutabagas as they're also known, are quite beautiful in their own way.  I wish I had gotten a picture of it before I started chopping it up.  I do have a couple of pictures of the peels, though with their wonderful waxy flakes so that'll have to do. I wasn't quite sure what to do with one wax turnip.  I didn't want to throw it in with a bunch of other vegetables since I wanted to enjoy it for itself, so I settled on slicing it up into fries and pan frying them with a couple of hot dogs for lunch.  As it turns out this was exactly the right thing to do; it was the shortest lived and most delicious lunch I've had in quite awhile. For those who are curious, wax turnips taste quite a bit like potatoes, only a bit sweeter...

I'm not usually a sequins or sparkle person, but there seems to be a lot of glittery glitzy things hanging around this week: the costumes in Showtime , the flapperesque dress from the latest hair tutorial over at See Creatures , and one of my all time favorite dresses hanging on my closet door.