Weblog Wannabe

Four Years Already

Thu, 28 May 2009 14:33:00 -0500

Four years already
Since the day we exchanged vows
At Waterloo Park.

Four years already
Since the night I fell asleep
At Star Wars viewing.

Four years already
Since you wore that batik shirt
Does it still fit, Troy? ;)

*Four years already
I still have not lost my ring
They’re still not engraved.

Four years already
May we have many more years
To love and explore!

(These cheesy haikus are brought to you by the letter X and the number 0.)

Birthday is Happy

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:34:34 -0500

If you ever wonder about what a blogger’s birthday was like in the year 2000 or year 4 B.F. (before Facebook), you’ve got to read the entries I posted between April 6 to April 8, 2000. That was the best birthday I ever had in the Bloggerville (that was before it became a Blogosphere). I really wish I still had all those voicemail messages. They were awesome!

My birthday in 2001 doesn’t sound like a very good one, though. But hey, the day after my birthday that year, I created a crappy PHP chatroom I called Quack-O-Matic, where Troy and I “talked” to each other for the very first time! Who knew that 4 years later we’d be husband and wife.

I guess my mum knew that she didn’t have much time left in this world because she really tried to make my birthday in 2002 the best one ever. She had a caterer cook all my favourite birthday food and made me feel so loved that even my dad couldn’t ruin the day for me.

You’ve gotta check out my birthday post from 2003! It’s got a picture of me and my mum when I was a baby! I forgot I had that one. Such an awesome picture. It also has a picture of me in 2003. I looked so tired. I probably was. My mum was already very sick by then. Bedridden and all. It wasn’t a very happy birthday. 2003 was such a horrible year. Oh, if you read the post and want to know the answer to the “what’s in the monkey’s mouth” question, it is in this entry.

I wrote a long birthday post conveying a wide range of emotions — from happy to sad, from hopeless to hopeful — in 2004. I wrote that “life might get better.” And it did! I’m a frickin’ clairvoyant! ;) The trip I was talking about was the trip to England, and then Canada, and then back to England, and then Indonesia. Troy and I met in person for the first time in May 28, 2004 at the airport in Toronto. I left Canada in September 2004 only to go back a month later.

I’ve always had a good birthday ever since I moved to Canada but man, my birthday posts from Canada are sooo boring! In 2005, I only talked about some stupid dream I had the night before my birthday. And it was my first Canadian birthday! It was also the day we told Troy’s parents that we were getting married in a month! I should’ve put more effort into it.

My birthday post from 2006 is a little better. I cared enough to write about the circumstances of my birth. My birthday in 2007 was probably the most eventful birthday I ever had in Canada. I even got a real birthday cake with my name on it! But I didn’t blog about it until, like, four days after my birthday. Slacker.

Worse still, in 2008, not only did I wait four days before posting about my birthday, I only wrote two paragraphs in the post, only one of which was about my birthday and it didn’t say anything other than the fact that it was a good one! Blasphemy! Now I really don’t remember what I got for my birthday last year! All I remember is that I had a whole birthday weekend plus Monday full of presents and culinary experience (read: dining out). It was an awesome birthday, dammit!

My birthday this year (i.e., today) has been pretty low-key. Troy wished me a happy birthday and gave me a couple of presents before he left for work in the morning: a book on soft toy-making and accessories for my current favourite board game, Agricola (so I’m a board game geek, sue me). I’m also supposed to be getting a bike from him but I still haven’t found a bike that I like. After checking out a bike store downtown, we went to a Chinese restaurant for my birthday dinner and after that, we bought a lottery ticket because I was feeling lucky. :) I wouldn’t mind winning 9 million dollars.

Oh, one thing that I would want to remember in the coming years is that this is my first white birthday! The ground is covered with snow and it’s still snowing! I like snow and stuff but I don’t think I like it when it’s falling like crazy in April. It’s just not right!

Addendum: I started my attempt to germinate three avocado seeds today: two in water, one in soil. Will let you know if any of them sprouts. The avocado plant I started from seed two years ago is still alive but it could use a friend!

I Want to Ride My Bicycle

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:42:15 -0500

Ever since I decided that I want a bicycle for my birthday, I’ve been really obsessed with it. I’ve done quite an extensive research that if you asked me about Canadian bicycle industry, I’d probably be able to give you an executive summary. But I don’t think that would interest you much.

Bottom line is, good quality bikes are not cheap. Good quality bikes with European design can only be had with top dollars, which is a shame because that’s the kind of bike that I would like to ride. Since I don’t want to put a strain on our bank account, I guess I’m going to have to compromise. I might have to be happy with a good quality bike with a so-so design (read: North American design). I wish I weren’t such a design snob.

To illustrate the above paragraph, I want one of these bikes but I might have to settle with one of these. But if I ended up with the latter, at least I’d be supporting a Canadian industry. Sure I’m going to have to buy it from Wally World a.k.a. evil Walmart since Walmart is the sole distributor of that particular manufacturer but eh, what can you do. Though if I’m really, really lucky, I might be able to get this sweet cruiser for a good price, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Anyway, I just thought I’d keep you updated on my latest obsession. Will let you know which bike I end up getting for my birthday, hopefully by Sunday, because I know you really, really want to know. ;) My birthday is not until Tuesday, though.

The Great Lakes of North America

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:37:42 -0500

We went to the north shore of Lake Erie this past Saturday, to Port Bruce (quiet and quaint) and then Port Stanley (delightfully tacky). Lake Erie isn’t that far from where we live. In fact, we live only an hour away from two of the Great Lakes of North America. An hour west will get you Lake Huron and an hour south (well, maybe a little more than an hour) will bring you to Lake Erie. I guess that’s the reason this town always gets a boatload of snow in the winter, more than most other areas in Southwestern Ontario.

Oh, and we saw hundreds of tundra swans! They were on their way to their summer playground in northern Canada after spending the winter down in Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Awesomely beautiful creatures, they are.

And now, 5 links (I’m all about 5s these days):

Scientists: Less ice on Great Lakes during winter. That’s too bad. I love it when the lakes freeze over.
Great Lakes Storm of 1913. “[It] killed more than 250 people, destroyed 19 ships, and stranded 19 others.”
Lighthouses of the Great Lakes. I have been to a few of them and hope to visit many more. I love lighthouses.
Lake Erie’s ghost ship. Interesting story with a touch of mystery and Port Stanley is part of the story.
Great Lake Swimmers. One of my favourite Canadian bands. Their new album will be released the end of this month. Yay!

Dreams are nothing more than wishes

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:14:11 -0500

Because I’m feeling mellow and homesick, I’ll make a list of things I wish I’d thought to bring over here with me when I left Indonesia 5 years ago:

My good, old blanket that my mum bought me many years ago and that my brother back home said he hadn’t seen for a long time;
Pictures of my mum (because my memory of the way she looked is fading);
Pictures of me from when I was a toddler;
The carved, wooden jewelry box with all my mum’s jewelries that she left me when she died (no gold or diamonds in it, really);
My copy of Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window (reading that book always makes me feel happy).

Also, I’m jealous of everyone who still has a mother and of other Indonesians living abroad who receive a care package from their family members back in Indonesia every now and then (I never did).

Things to be grateful about:

I have an awesome husband;
My computer has been behaving ever since it got a new processor;
I can take pretty pictures and make pretty things;
I’m not broke;
I have an awesome husband.

The Story of a Quilt

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:10:00 -0500

I have this ability to make up a sad background story for just about anything. The latest one is about this bag of vintage quilt materials, mostly already cut into a bunch of equilateral triangles, that I picked up from a thrift store this past Saturday.

Once upon a time, there was a grandma who liked to spend her lonely time cutting various fabric into equilateral triangles to be sewn together into quilts. But then she died and her family who didn’t care much about quilts sent her belongings, including her quilt materials, to a Salvation Army that later priced her hard work a hefty 99 cents. She must’ve spent hours of her precious time cutting all those materials and yet it only worth 99 cents! Actually, it was more like 50 cents (it was a half-price day for green tag items). I thought it was so depressing that I have made it a project to make a pretty quilt throw out of it, just to make myself feel better.

Anyway, I’ve been looking at free quilt patterns since and apparently there aren’t too many patterns that use equilateral triangles. In fact, I didn’t find any patterns I could use at all. I only found some pictures of what people did with them. The Millennium Pyramid Quilt and this zigzag one are especially interesting. But damn if they don’t look like a lot of work. The fomer is more so than the latter so maybe I’ll try to make a highly simplified version of the latter. I’m sure it would make the unknown, potentially dead grandma of my story proud of me.

5 Good Things Friday

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 09:23:09 -0500

I did 5 Good Things Friday for the first and last time on December 1, 2006 but I think I’m going to start doing it more often because it’s actually a good blog fodder. Not to mention that it helps me count my blessings. So here goes:

There’s a garden festival going on in town. The timing couldn’t be more perfect as I’m currently obsessing over gardening. I’ve bought more gardening books in two weeks than I care to admit. Let’s see if I’ll be able to resist the temptation to buy Ed Lawrence’s book. Ed Lawrence has his own gardening show on the CBC called Gardening with Ed Lawrence. Listening to him talking about pests on the radio is strangely soothing. He will be at the garden festival this weekend.
I’ve posted this link on Facebook and Twitter but I thought I’d share it here as well: how to make seed starter pots out of newspaper. This site seems to be down more than it’s up (thanks to GeoCities) so if it’s down, try again later. It’s worth it! I’ve made about a couple of dozens of them already out of our free local weekly newspapers. I’ve found that the Stratford Gazette makes better planters than the Stratford Beacon Herald. The Beacon Herald planters have an awkward size.
Our couch might not be the comfiest couch in the world but every time I lay down on it in the evening wrapped in a blanket with the TV on and with Troy sitting in the same room with me, I can’t help but falling asleep. It’s not the couch that makes me fall asleep. It’s the ambiance. It kind of reminds me of falling asleep on my mother’s bed in the afternoon while she was sewing or marking tests next to me. Definitely a good feeling.
I’ve been making more money by doing nothing than I did working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week with my last employer back in Indonesia, and it was supposed to be a well-paying job compared to many others. I guess it’s good in a sad kind of way. I surely hope that the salary standards in Indonesia have improved since.
I come from a family who loves fish but now I belong to a family that isn’t particularly so into fish. Sometimes I feel kind of deprived, which is the reason I could go on eating the same seafood dish with rice for days. This week, I’m feasting on anchovies. Troy, of course, doesn’t like the smell. Well, too bad for him! He doesn’t know what he’s missing. Anchovies are good, especially with hot chili sauce and warm white rice. Yum!

So, what are your five good things? Care to share?

(Impatiently) Waiting for Spring

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:12:05 -0500

I like winter but I’m really, really looking forward to spring because I can’t wait to start my garden. This house was sold to us in April last year but we couldn’t move in until July and by then it was already a bit too late to start a garden. But this year, I’m going to have a whole year to grow whatever I want! Yippee!

My plan was to turn the backyard into a vegetable garden, but I’ve changed my mind. You see, a couple of weeks ago, I very ambitiously bought seeds to grow 11 (!) different varieties of heirloom tomatoes off eBay. I thought filling the whole backyard with tomato plants sounded like a boatload of fun and a half. But then common sense kicked in and I realised that it would be way too much work, especially for a novice (not to mention lazy) gardener like myself. So I’ve decided to be less ambitious and just plant 3 or 4 varieties this year and see how it goes. I won’t even plant them in the garden. I’ll plant them in 5-gallon buckets instead because I read that it would make the plants easier to maintain. I will also put them on the deck so I don’t procrastinate too much when it comes to watering because they need a lot of water to grow!

Now for the backyard, I think I’ll just focus on making it look easier on the eye since the previous owner did pretty much nothing to the backyard. No flower beds, no plants, nothing but weed-infected grass. I’m going to put in some lovely flowering plants. In fact, I’m going to start growing them from seeds some time this week using the winter sowing method. I’ve never done it before so it’s going to be an exciting experiment! Basically, you just plant the seeds in plastic pop bottles, put them outside the house and then forget all about it until spring. By then the seedlings should be ready for planting on the ground. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do the forgetting all about it until spring part due to my obsessive nature, but the rest sounds pretty easy. We’ll see how it goes!

Another reason I’m really looking forward to spring: I can’t wait to see our cherry tree blooming! Cherry blossoms are so pretty. That is assuming that it’s still alive. Dormant trees make me wonder sometimes.

Oh, I know that 99.9% of my readership has no interest in gardening but just bear with me, mmmkay? ;)

Blogiversary #9

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:41:56 -0500

Weblog Wannabe turns nine years old today. Woot woot. And to think that I got my first period when I was 9. I know. Gross. See, I had an early puberty. By the time girls around my age hit puberty, I was already over it, with one conclusion: boys suck and are icky. (Strange that I get along better with boys than with girls.) I remember rolling my eyes a lot listening to the girls at school talking about boys they fancy. Similar thing happens in the blogging world. By the time people the world over went crazy about blogging, I was already over it. But why do I keep blogging, you ask. Well, I ended up marrying a boy so I might as well keep blogging!

That was one of the most nonsensical paragraphs I’ve ever written. Anyway, moving along. I should probably announce the winner of my NaBloPomo contest. I bet you thought I already forgot all about it, eh? Nope. Been planning on announcing it today. I don’t remember the exact number of comments made by each contenders but Tia posted the most comments, followed by Lance and Sarah. But since Tia said she wasn’t playing and she posted comments simply because she liked my blog (awwww!), Lance is the winner! Yay! Please send your mailing address to firda at wannabegirl dot org.

But wait, there’s more! What’s a blogiversary without a giveaway? If you’d like to win a handmade owl plushie that looks like Oliver the Owl (my own original design!) but maybe made with different materials, just leave a comment to this post and I’ll draw a name out of the hat or something to that effect after the contest closed. Contest closes next week on February 27, 2009 at noon EST. In the meantime, I’ll make a cute little owl with love to send one to ONE lucky winner. So comment away! And here’s to another 9 years of blogging! Whoa, that sounds really daunting…

Pimping My Camera

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:30:27 -0500

My very first sewing project turned to be a camera strap slipcover instead of a pillow cover. I had been coveting one of those pimped-up camera strap slip covers you can find all over Etsy for awhile but I was too cheap to buy one. I thought I’d wait until I got myself a sewing machine so I could make myself one. I made one yesterday by following this tutorial. It was pretty easy, even for someone with next to zero sewing skills like myself.

I’m quite pleased with the result but in retrospect, I probably should have used a thicker fabric. I also should’ve followed the instructions to the T and pressed the folds but damn, I hate ironing. I’m thinking of making another one next week using a thicker fabric just to see if I like it better. And then I’ll try to make a padded one. If anything, it’s a good sewing practice and, as the cliché goes, practice makes perfect!

By the way, if you live in Ontario, Canada, Salvation Army thrift stores are the place to go for fabric. They have a good selection with an affordable price. Sometimes you can even find some designer’s fabric. Fabric is about the only thing I buy when I go to thrift stores these days and my stash is getting bigger and bigger by the week! It’s good for me, but not so good for the state of the house since we have rather limited storage space. My fabric collection is just piling up in the spare bedroom right now. Not good! Need fabric storage!

Hillside Inside 2009

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:49:23 -0500

Troy already wrote an in-depth report of the Hillside Inside Festival we went to this past Saturday so I’ll just write a short version, mostly because I’m lazy. So here goes, in the order of appearance:

The D’Urbervilles. Never heard of them before, but they weren’t horrible and their stage act was entertaining.

Great Lake Swimmers. One of my favourite Canadian bands, I was thrilled that we got to stand next to the stage! I don’t think their music is the kind of music you’d play in an arena, though. Their performance was enjoyable, but I really feel that they didn’t sound like they should. I’m blaming it on the venue.

The Magic. It’s a local Guelph band, apparently, and, just like the D’Urbervilles, they weren’t horrible. They dressed like a glam rock band and played music with an 80’s vibe. Groovy!

K’naan. I’ve always enjoyed listening to his first album, The Dusty Foot Philosopher, but I hadn’t expected to be blown away by his live performance. And blown away, I was. He was amazing and his was the best performance in the whole festival, hands down. And I’m not even a big fan of hip hop music. Once again, we got to stand next to the stage, which was awesome.

Jay Malinowski. Um, I was too busy trying to figure out how to eat my Jamaican Chicken Curry Roti wrap thingy properly to pay attention to his music. All I can say is, that was a very filling dinner! I wasn’t hungry again until we were on our way home close to midnight.

Bell Orchestre. I had no expectations since I never heard of them before but they turned up to be quite enjoyable. They played orchestral, instrumental rock a la Godspeed You Black Emperor! (if you’re familiar with their music) with strings, brass and percussion. The violin girl had very toned arms!

Thunderheist. If I were a teenage party girl, I’d probably enjoy their music. They had these flygirls dancing on stage to some of their songs. And there was this flyboy wannabe dancing to their music right in front of where we were sitting. He had some pretty good moves but still, I had to try hard not to laugh because I’m easily amused. Of course Troy had to conveniently go to the washroom.

Bedouin Soundclash. The lead vocal was Jay Malinowski (see number 5). I kind of enjoyed two or three of their songs. But after awhile, I felt like telling to them to play that song from that commercial already.

That 1 Guy. He was a one-man band who played music from various genres with his magic pipe (and no, I didn’t mean bong). He was entertaining and his music was enjoyable, but he also kind of reminded me of our dirty neighbour across the hall back in Waterloo who liked to play crappy music out loud every Friday night.

Sam Roberts Band. I really, really, REALLY DID NOT ENJOY their music. The hour they played felt like the longest hour ever. I kept praying pleasegodletthisbetheirlastsong over and over again, but god didn’t listen to me. Sigh.

Stars. By this time, I was already too tired to be enthusiastic and SO ready to go home. I only knew three of the songs they played. The male vocal dude had a very theatrical stage act. Maybe that’s what they call making love to the audience? He also kind of reminded me of Ben Linus from LOST for some reasons. I don’t know why. He wasn’t creepy or anything.

All in all, we had a good time. I hope your Saturday was awesome, too!

The Piano

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:18:03 -0500

I miss playing a piano. We had a piano back home in Indonesia from when I was in Grade 3 to six months after my mum passed away. My dad sold it so he could get remarried. I wouldn’t leave my room when they came to pick it up. I couldn’t bear to watch it. The guy who bought it smoke a cigarette inside our house. My mum wouldn’t have let anyone smoke in our house. My dad didn’t seem to care. It was a bad day. I felt like screaming. Instead I just locked myself in my room and cried.

Our piano was a shiny, black, Yamaha upright piano. It was beautiful. My parents bought it because they wanted all their children to take piano lessons. I was the only one who didn’t quit taking the lessons after a few months. I took piano lessons from Grade 3 to first year of high school. That made me the only person in the family who could play the piano properly. I wasn’t great at it. I couldn’t play by ear. I could only play by reading the partitur. But there were songs that I had played so much that I could play by heart, and those songs I could play by heart I would have a hard time playing if I had to play them by reading the partitur again. My brain is wired weirdly.

My mum used to drive me to the music school every Saturday. I loved playing the piano but I really didn’t enjoy taking the lessons. I didn’t quit only because I was worried that if I did, my parents would sell the piano. Sometimes I would talk my mum into letting me skip the piano lessons. Sometimes she was game because she was an awesome mum and we were buddies and we would go to the market near the music school instead where we would shop and eat our favourite street food. It’s funny because my mum paid for my piano lessons.

Thinking about the piano always makes my eyes go wet.

When I started using the Internet

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 11:15:25 -0500

Plinky wanted me to recall when I first started using the Internet regularly. Well, it's got to be 1996. You've probably been online long before that, but keep in mind, it's Indonesia I'm talking about. I signed up for an Internet account after a field trip to an Internet provider for a class in University. I have to admit, it took me awhile to figure out how to hook up the computer to the Internet. Stupid TCP/IP! But when I did, I was instantly hooked! So many things to read!

Like many other bored kids on the Internet, I had countless free GeoCities and Tripod accounts. I'd always preferred GeoCities to Tripod. GeoCities was okay until Yahoo! bought it and introduced pop-up ads. Ick! My first webmail account was with Rocketmail before Yahoo! bought the service in 1997 and transferred all Rocketmail accounts to Yahoo! Mail, which was lame. Yahoo! seemed to ruin everything that was good back then. The only good thing about Yahoo! was, if your site got listed on the Yahoo! directory, you could brag about it and it actually brought you quite a few hits.

Some Indonesian guy once sent me an email upon seeing my pictures on one of my GeoCities sites and asked me to remove them because he was concerned that people from outside Indonesia would think that all Indonesian girls are as ugly as me. Nice! Sadly, that site is no longer up. I didn't take it down. Yahoo! did, apparently. I met a bunch of Internet assholes along the way, but mostly on IRC. Remember a/s/l?

I have a site at Angelfire from 1997 that's still up but you have to beg me for the link (it's that embarrassing). I kept some kind of a blog on that site. I posted wacky news articles from Indonesia, copied straight from a local English language newspaper by hand. No fancy cut-and-paste! See? I've always been a hardcore blogger. Heh.

I found Usenet very entertaining. I would download news from random servers using my email client just to see what kind of crap they had for me to read. I learned how to use stylesheet/CSS in 1998. I loved it and still do. I practiced my CSS-Fu a lot while online-journalling (that's what blogging was called back then) over at Diaryland between 1998 and 1999. I discovered Blogger in early 2000 when it was still owned by Pyra instead of Google, before Blogspot was conceived. Made quite a few friends from the world over. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Fabric Love

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:07:11 -0500

I’ve been collecting fabric for awhile because, well, I appreciate good design and some fabric have really good designs. Since my source for fabric is thrift stores, they’re relatively cheap, too. I’d also been buying fabric because I figured I’d get a sewing machine sooner or later and when that happened, it would be cool if I already had fabric I could cut up and sew and turn into lovely stuff.

So I got a sewing machine for Christmas. It’s just a basic, Brother sewing machine, nothing fancy. But now that I’ve got a sewing machine, I can’t bring myself to cut the fabric! They are so pretty! How could I cut them into pieces? I know it doesn’t make sense and that once they’ve turned into many lovely stuff, I’ll still be able to enjoy the prettiness of the fabric anyway, but not making sense is like my middle name. I’ll get over it, eventually.

I think my first sewing project shall be cushion covers because we have two cheapo cushions on the couch that could use some prettifying. I’ve found a tutorial at Sewing Republic that seems easy to follow. After that, I’ll learn to make a zippered pouch even though sewing zipper seems rather daunting. But man, I really wish I didn’t have to cut up my lovely fabric collection to make stuff!

My Breakfast

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:17:28 -0500

I’m currently obsessed with replicating the look of film photography on digital shots. I did a study of my breakfast this morning with that particular post-processing idea in mind. I think it looks pretty good, if I say so myself. This shall be an ongoing project, i.e., shooting my breakfast. If I were a breakfast person, I’d probably do this photo shoot daily. Since I’m not, I guess I’ll add more pictures to the project whenever. A few more shots from the project are behind the cut if you’re interested.