blog

taniewanie = me, simian = my husband

We did this independently of one another.

I fell asleep with wet, unbrushed hair and now it looks crazy, but I had to take out all the recycling this morning so I didn’t have time to fix it before work. The childcare is technically open now, but luckily I don’t have any clients who show up before 8:05.

As you can see (or maybe you can’t if you’ve never seen my fine Photobooth photography before) but I just moved my computer out into the library. Before it was in the bedroom, but there was no room for a desk in there so I had the computer on the dresser and I had to sit on the end of the bed to use it. It was super uncomfortable and annoying, and I was sick of living with crippling internet-related back pain. I just made the move yesterday and my back is already feeling better. I guess it’s just a new start for a new month!

This is my new, current set up:

The desk is Symphony’s old one, I just had to scrape the layers of tape and stickers off the underside and magic eraser the markers off the rest and it’s basically good as new. The chair is from my dining room, but since the library and dining room are actually the same room it’s easy enough to move it back and forth. I can’t fit this chair at the dining table when I have the babies in high chairs at it anyway.

The library is totally unfinished and undecorated so it doesn’t really look that great in here right now- the little table with my printer on it is inside an unfinished bookshelf that I’m in the middle of building- but maybe if I’m out here more during non-work and break time to use the computer I’ll be more inclined to decorate in here!

Taylor put the pictures he took on Sunday afternoon up on his flickr so I want to share them with everyone.

Claire & I liveblogging the game. As you can see I’m 2 beers in (I was drinking cans of Stella) so this must have been the first period. I killed the battery on that netbook and had to run and get Taylor’s Macbook instead.

The sea of face paint, flags, jerseys and spontaneous high fives in astounding.

You can see the rest here.

Bonus picture: My real, highly defined face, no makeup, after a six-pack and three hours of screaming my head off.

Please visit my etsy to get your very own fawn or unicorn print.

I have two new kids starting at the child care this week: a 3 1/2-year-old boy, and a 1-year-old baby. Sooooo basically my entire day has been a combination of “Why this? Why that? Why the other thing? Why this again?? Why??? WHYYYYY??????” and this:

Now this is all normal; preschoolers want to know “why?” about everything and babies… well, babies cry, especially when I am not their mom! I knew today would be a challenge and I accept it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I’m really looking forward to five o’clock today.

Yesterday, though, was AWESOME. Taylor and I watched the men’s hockey gold medal game at home and then met up with Rich and Jenn and their friends Shelley and Joel to go down to Robson St and join the celebration, because TEAM CANADA WON GOLD. It was amazing, the whole city was at a standstill and you could hear the cheering of the crowd all the way at our house. My hands are sore from high-fiving so many people and my throat is sore from screaming my head off and singing O Canada at the top of my voice half a dozen times. Taylor took a bunch of pictures of the crowd so maybe I’ll get to share some when he wakes up, although I don’t know when that will be. He stayed up until almost seven last night (normally on Sundays he goes to bed around three) and then he was stuck at work this morning until almost noon. Ouch!

clockwise from top left: Symphony’s Fawn, Mecha-Fawn, Pink Unicorn (pending), Coral Unicorn

My first round of fawn and unicorn paintings are done and prints are ready as well (with the exception of the Pink Unicorn- it wouldn’t scan properly so I had to tweak the colours last night and now I have to wait until Monday to get prints done)! I’m planning on setting up an etsy shop in the next few days and I’ll keep you all posted as to when my fine art works will be available for purchase.

Sometimes I think the only reason I married Taylor was to get 24/7 access to his adorable dog.

On Wednesday night I made some experimental back-of-the-cupboard-delight* chicken for dinner and I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.

*BotCD refers to meals prepared with whatever random ingredients you happen to find in the back of your cupboard or fridge as opposed to using a real recipe. In this case it was this lemon pepper seasoning, lime juice (because I used up all my lemon juice), and ground ginger (because ginger goes nicely with lime but I was too lazy to go out and buy fresh ginger).

This might have been even more delicious if I mixed all this stuff together first but that’s not really my cooking style. I just put 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts in my hideously stained Pyrex dish, and ground/poured/sprinkled everything on it. This method also has the bonus of using exactly one dish. Then I cooked at at like 450°F for 45 minutes or so.

I let Sym choose the side dish so I ended up serving this with a leafless salad: cut up veggies but no lettuce. That’s healthy, right/ This is the perfect amount for the three of us- Taylor and I each get a breast and I just pull the little fillet parts off for Sym.

I’m still in a pretty low place, but last night and today I’ve been really trying hard to stay posi. I’m going to focus only on good things in this post.

• Symphony had piano last night. She’s been taking lessons since mid-September and they are going really well (as in, I’m NOT wasting $100 a month on them). Yay!
• After dropping her off at her dad’s house I bought two huge bags of vegetables and made a giant salad for dinner.
• Then I drank a beer and watched figure skating (Joannie Rochette!) while I worked on my latest fine art project:

Mecha-Fawn! (Still a work in progress, obviously.) Please note the rocket feet. I LOVE IT!
• Earlier that afternoon I realized I didn’t have any grey acrylic paint, so I called Symphony’s dad and asked him to stop by the art supply store near his work and asked him to pick me up a tube. I think it’s pretty cool that even though a lot of our relationship was a disaster and our split was NOT amicable, nowadays we’re good enough friends that we can ask each other for favours like that.
• This morning I had a new client start graduated entry. Sometimes it can be REALLY awkward- on the first day the parent and child both stay for two hours, so I have to do all my regular child care stuff while also making conversation with a near-stranger who has decided to trust me with their baby. It actually went really well though, it wasn’t awkward hanging out with the mom and her little baby is so cute and funny. I’m really looking forward to working with them!
• I’m wearing my favorite jeans. A few weeks ago they sadly developed holes in the seat, but I took them to Simdy’s Fashion Alterations by my house to get patched up. I picked them up last night and OH MY GOD the work is incredible. I mean, look:

You can’t even see where the holes were! Amazing. I also appreciate that according to their website they are “conviently located in Downtown Vancouver,” because that’s exactly what I always say about myself. Except I know how to spell conveniently.
• I got my Cassandra Warren-designed business cards in the mail, as well as a little crochet heart and knitted flower pin from Molly Knight Crafts and The Hero Complex. They were sending little gifts to all their e-friends who donated to Haiti, how sweet is that?
• Right now, like literally this second, I’m eating some awesome McCain Superfries.
• Tonight I’m going to make a healthy and delicious dinner of chicken & veggies and Taylor, Symphony and I are going to watch Spirited Away. I love that movie and Sym has never seen it- when she was younger she thought it was too scary, but she LOVED Ponyo so I think she’ll really like it.
EDIT! • I just discovered that yesterday today (why do I keep thinking it’s Thursday?) my children’s living room was posted on Ohdeedoh! How cool is that??

I’m having a hard time staying posi today. I’m feeling that between working 50 hours a week, parenting and trying to spend time with my oppositely-scheduled husband, I don’t have any time for ME. I haven’t been to the gym in weeks. Taylor and I were going together but his injured knee put a stop to that, and I’m really not happy with the shape I’m in right now. Although work is going well, as I mentioned yesterday, today I am resentful that I have to work at all.

In my dream life, I would take Sym to school, go to the gym with Taylor when he’s done work (apparently my dream life is realistic about him still working night shifts), spend the rest of the morning and the afternoon painting or sewing and making the house nice, before picking Sym up at 3 and making a delicious, not hastily-thrown together meal. Then I could have a nice relaxing evening with my family instead of rushing to try to get dinner on the table (last night we didn’t eat until almost 7:30!) and feeling guilty about not going to work out.

Clearly I need to find either more hours in the day OR more money in my bank account. At this point, though, neither seems likely.

Anyway so this post isn’t all sulking I wanted to say GO KELSEY GO! Kelsey Serwa, Taylor’s cousin, is racing in Women’s ski cross today and she is KILLING IT. She was 4th in the qualifying runs this morning and I just watched her heat in the 1/8 finals and she was way ahead of the other racers the whole way down the run. EDIT: Same thing in her 1/4 final heat! She is amazing! EDIT: Oh no eliminated in the semi final! 🙁 FINAL EDIT: Kelsey came first in the small final, which places her fifth, but Canada’s Ashleigh McIvor won gold! YAY CANADA!

Until I get the library set up properly with space for a desk, right now I do all my fine artwork at the dining room table. I used to do it at the kitchen island so this is actually a step up! This is what it basically looks like at any given time, but especially this morning.

a a jar of buttons. This is out because last week I was using one of the buttons to trace the small circle onto my light cover template
b the tulips I bought last week, now fully open. I had to cut them really short because they kept flopping over. What is the trick again to keep tulips standing up? I thought it was putting a penny in the vase but that didn’t work
c my Paradise Birds salt & pepper shakers and a bottle of soya sauce. This IS the dining table after all
d a moleskine. I think this is actually Taylor’s- mine is on the other side of the flowers
e tubes of titanium white and azo pink acrylic paint
f a little gladware container with mixed green paint. I used 4 different shades for the background on my current painting; they’re all in there
g a storage box with like, 50 cookie cutters in it (I use them to trace the hearts in the background). This is just my warm-coloured cookie cutters, I have another box of cool coloured ones O__o
h a package of carbon paper, for tracing images onto the canvas board
i the small unicorn picture for tracing
j a little gladware container with mixed pink paint. I used 3 different shades for the unicorn on my current painting; they’re all in there.
k the pink unicorn painting in progress!
l a plastic placemat that I use, mostly unsuccessfully, to keep paint off the table
m my eensy-weensy fiddly paintbrush
n sunglasses
o a tube of hooker’s green acrylic paint
p cellphone, for important calls