birthday preparations,

as you may discern from the dated posts, i am not as dedicated a writer as i'd like to be. life gets in the way. in january, i made the mistake of adding a photo stream & thought i'd remove extra shots or those that were not my own. as i wasn't paying close enough attention to the pop-up warning me that i was actually deleting them from my account, poof, they were gone. needless to say, i've been feeling a somewhat dishearted, & my motivation for blogging (or remeding the situation) has been deflated.

life at the mo is busy. we're preparing to leave Dubai & return to Canada. my little ones 5th birthday is very soon (friday), which of course means lots of little things to do before i can really pack. i'm planning a bit of a themed party this year with rainbows, hearts & unicorns as quasi-requested. it is so hot here now (33° at 9a.m), an outside party is out of the question. the girls are going for a swim in the a.m. before the heat really hits for the day, & then 7 little girls, & their parents, will need too be fed & entertained in my not really big apartment. i've been preparing, but there's always more i seem to add to the list. food's ordered, most of the decorations are made, party bags are almost done... still must bake a cake, some cookies, perhaps some muffins, & clean the house a bit.



today's the day before the real work begins, so i'm trying to chill a little & go over planning details. i'm also going to get started on packing i think... must make some more coffee!


good enough.

2011

Dubai, 2011

a new year, a new decade - a new beginning. i went on a bit of an unintentional hiatus this past month. life got busy. & the blank wall reappeared. with veganMoFo over, motivation deflated. i must set a writing goal. well, the little one goes back to school, but not until the 9th, so i'm unsure how much i'll get to think & read between now & then.

a little journal entry...

put down Emma (bio) for Bone (comic). reading Emma is wonderful, though there are so many people to meet, & a 'friendship' will dissolve with the end of the book. i feel like this with many books, but bios are different, so i keep interrupting her for other books to extend the relationship. i must finish, or i'll never succeed with the 12 books, 12 months challenge. i'm so behind.

the house is in disarray & i'm having one of those i cannot make myself do anything days. ah well.

still tryin' new recipes though nothing worth reporting really. i'm thinking of two baked beans recipes that were good, not bombshell. though i came across a few nice things from a couple of new cookbooks from my last post. i had a party for solstice & experimented with a few new dips. we did try our hand this year at my very first gingerbread house. in fact, we're still eating it. it is a tasty recipe. i veganised the one from Simply Recipes.



life is going to evolve around the journey home in six months. i must begin to purge. i still seems like a long way off. our goal was to buy land, or a house with land, but to set all that up will take a bit of time, & not really doable from overseas. that translates to renting again, at least, for another year. i'm trying to accept this concept. it is not what i want to do. when do we really ever get what we want? i suppose, reluctantly, that this will give time to find the 'perfect' spot. oh, i've been waiting for this for sooo long. & the idea of moving at least three more times is sooo unappealing.

well i'm using this post as motivation as a way to get back on track. hope this new year brings awareness & change.

good enough.

i won.

thanks to vegannifer for creating a contest, & lucky me, i won. i so look forward to opening up my bag of goodies.

the contest rules included perusing a list of earthy tips & goodies, or sharing personal tips on promoting a healthy world|home environment. good notion, eh? well, think i'll pose some questions for those of you who may have missed the 72 hour blog party.

1. what do you do to promote a healthy world?

2. what have you changed for a more sustainable future?

3. what can you do to further the cause?

i'm unsure how inundated you feel with the pressure of a doomed planet. i feel the weight of it as i'm always reading about the environment thru blogs, twitter, fb pages, & google reader. i realise that there are monumental changes that need to be addressed by large corporations & governmental agencies. & of course, the earth itself creates its own share of CO₂, but these are things in which i have little to no control. i arm myself with knowledge when possible, & i do not support companies with no respect for the world & those of us that live in it. but i cannot do nothing. if all i can do is reduce, recycle, & reuse at the present moment, so be it. when a time arrives, where i can initiate large scale change, dag nammit, i will. for now, i'll attempt to answer these questions on behalf of my household in the hope to convey my respect for you, & the earth.

a vegan's bio & thoughts, point form

CubbyHole of
Expositions & Obscurities

• i'm an optimistic pessimist
• i know practically nothing
• i have my hands in many cookie jars
• i love trees
• the concept of time alludes me
• i love to read ~ study
• everything is interesting, except sports
• i love most classical music, even opera
  
• i enjoy walking thru galleries & museums
• i love to do the dishes in winter
• cooking is fun, baking is more fun
• organisation is important to me
• i don't understand the world
• i've learned that i think differently than many
• at the time, this surprised me greatly... it still does
• i love molasses, whole grains, veggies, water & wine
• i am a tea & coffee drinker

Dubai Weekend, & Thank you! vegan MOFO

just wanted to add a quick note today concerning my writing schedule for veganMOFO as it'll be slightly different than in North America because the weekend here is friday/saturday, needless to say weekdays are sunday thru thursday. with everything happening on a weekend, i won't have time on fridays, but will post on sundays.

also wanted to add a thanks to those working so hard putting this awesome idea together. it's fun to come together like this, discover new things, & get to share thoughts & ideas. i love taking part. during dark times, it is a bit trying to 'stick to my guns'. this helps me realise that it's not just me standing alone on some achromatic linear void, while the world revolves beside me in technocolor. i'm getting traffic to my site & comments too! it feels great to be communicating with people. i have just discovered vegan month of food. i was completely unaware of it, & by chance came across it on november 1st, whew. i'm not as prepared for this round as i'll be for the next. [i thought this was only the 2nd round as there's only a bloglist for 2009, when were the others?] i have few photos of food that i've not already posted. & i've not been cooking up a storm this week. guess i'll have to add that to this week's list. :)

that's it for now, onto the weekend of reading the 713 blogs now added to my googleReader! i just bought Fable III, so i will probably get behind in the reading plan. & i have a craft date tomorrow, yeah! i will be revisiting quilt blocks i started last january. i had decided to try at least 1 block from each of the 15 examples from Stars by Chris Franses, & perhaps put them into a quilt at some point. *no pressure* i got so far as making the first two templates, buying|washing|ironing the material, cutting a few pieces & that's about it. think i need to add some pressure.




good enough!

vegan MOFO

just signed up for vegan MOFO... should prove to be a challenge, but it'll get me to blogging with some regularity, at least for november. :)

"VeganMoFo was originally created on the Post Punk Kitchen, as an homage to NaNoWriMo. Because we do want to write novels, but sometimes cooking gets in the way. So why not combine them! The idea is to write as much as you can all month, about vegan food.

The blog entries can be about anything food related – your love of tongs, your top secret tofu pressing techniques, the first time your mom cooked vegan for you, vegan options in Timbuktu...

There aren’t strict guidelines for how often to write, but the idea is to shoot for every weekday, or about 20 times in the month."

good enough.

i am free.

i am free,

i long to be free

to love myself unconditionally, a spiritual being in human fashion
to love & receive love from others
from the enslavement of emotional fears & trials
to express myself responsibly & thoughtfully without heedless retaliation
to share & support the world around me
from societal labels which artlessly dept nothing & no one
to be confident, based not upon the strength of my youth & ignorance
to mend fences sans a sense of betrayal
from a society that defends monochromatic individuals
to become a change-maker
to be

to live my life according to the guidance of my inner voice as it stands incomprehensibly in the face of a society that imperatively & passively commands of us to blindly follow rules, regulations, values, demands, rituals & practices that have been inherited from uneducated & manipulated generations.

___________________

"No man is good enough to govern any woman without her consent."
~Susan B. Anthony


"If you would lift me you must be on higher ground. If you would liberate me you must be free."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson


"I am an intelligent river which has reflected successively all the banks before which it has flowed by meditating only on the images offered by those changing shores. ~ Victor Hugo

good enough.

changing things up a bit,

got rather bored of the last design, so i've chosen a new template. what d'you think? a bit flashy really, but i needed a little spice today.

i've been on the computer now for a fair amount of time, trying to sort out photos, recipes, fb, books, et al. i should have finished cleaning the kitchen. would have felt more accomplished. ah well, it'll all get done, right?

i've been working on my primary goals this past while, organising my schedule & tryin' to fit it all in. all & all i've been pretty up in the accomplishments column, but have been pretty slack thus far this afternoon. i've added studying korean to the list & just this morning had my second lesson. things are going rather smoothly. i'm proud to admit to getting to the gym four times in the past week. & was feeling good about that until 3 or 4 hours ago, when i became a sloth. as always, i hestitate to write stuff down as though through the solidification of ideas into written word, the good fortune morphs into a ethereal being who'll curse my name & alter future happenings. thus far, teaching is too going well with six beginning piano students. i was hoping for 10, but there's still time? i have also read the first of my 12 books, 12 months challenge. i've added the libraryThing on the right where i intend to keep track of my library & write reviews. well i think that about covers it.


good enough.

thoughts on the eve of September, re: 2010 Focus(es)

i know this isn't the beginning of a new year, but it will be the beginning of the first (& hopefully last) school year for ava, so to fill my time whilst in Dubai (as it is illegal for me to work w/out going thru proper channels, though i will teach if i find some willing students) i thought i should plan, make a schedule & have a few goals, or i will squander each & every day playing rpg games & surfin' the net. i have sooo many things i'd like to do/learn, alas i can only do so many in a day/year. this year's energy will be consumed with the following list, but hope that next year i'll make an entirely new list from a long list i have on a sticky note somewhere.

Primary Goals:

1. exercise: we have a gym & a pool in our apt bldg (*shame*); &, of course, yoga

2. practice vegan cooking/baking; org recipes into my cookbook db; think about cookbook idea

3. practice some music: piano, singing & clairnet

4. read books on my reading challenge list+

5. learn all the buttons on my SLR & take photos; work on 'ava 2 1/2 years later'

6. blog about my accomplishments


Secondary Goals:

i'd like to include travel, macrame, sewing, quilting & embroidery if/when i can find the time.


_________


i'm hoping to actually see more of the UAE & not-to-distant countries, as well as a trip to Korea. :) for gayageum & jasu, as well as, food & friends. all the above is done while trying to save money for a house/land when we return to canada. ha!


i'm making this public as a push to myself. looking at it, it doesn't seem realistic. crap. i don't think i could simplify this if i tried even harder. well i hope to at least post some accomplishments by the end of september. we'll see...

12 Books, 12 Months Challenge

* Pick 12 titles from your To Read Pile. These should be titles you currently own in whatever format you prefer.
* Acquisition of other formats or translations is permitted. So, if you have a paperback but want to read on your Kindle, you can get a Kindle copy. If you have a library copy but want to buy your own, that’s kosher. Heck, if you own a copy and want to check another out from the library, I’m not gonna stop you.
* Post your list in your public space of choice by September 1, 2010.
* Read all 12 titles between now and September 5, 2011. Might as well tack on an extra long weekend at the end for cramming.
* When you finish a title on your list, post about it in your public space of choice.

okay, so here's my picks for the year... they've not necessarily been on my shelf for a while, but it's what i have in Dubai. i'm gonna leave the final three empty as i don't recall what titles are on my shelf in Dubai, but i'll fill them in next week. i'd like to include all the books i've started reading this past year or two, but i'm trying to be realisitic! as well most of them are boxed up in canada.

1. Neil Gaiman - Anansi Boys

2. Jonathan Lethem - Motherless Brooklyn

3. Ian Banks - the Wasp Factory

4. Shree Ghatage - Brahma's Dream

5. Karen Armstrong - Islam

6. A. Hourani - the History of Arab Peoples

7. William Dalrymple - Age of Kali

8. Ghada Karmi - In Search of Fatima

9. Emma Goldman - Living my life Vol.II (& finish Vol.I)

10. William H. Burroughs - Interzone

11. Simone Weil - the Need for Roots

12. Julian Barnes - Talking it Over



what books will you challenge yourself to this year?


good enough.

torn

as usual, i sit here trying to grapple with the vastness of information before me, jumping from site to site, reading a little of this & that. i know i don't have too much time, so i seem to be choosing to collect stuff to read for later. i have sooo much bookmarked & usually about 40 tabs open. i do check over most of this, but sometimes the battery dies & i lose it all. ugh! & proceed to forget about it, perhaps permanently.

when writing a blog post, i have not been able to sit & write what i think. i look stuff up, i read about it from 10 diff wesites, then can i fairly confidently write smthg. i really should have taken a philosophy course in uni. (thinkin' it would teach me to express my own opinions?)

The Shape of a Mother is a site i've come across the past few days & would like to share. it's an important concept for the well-being of society. i've read through the site, alas, i can not access any photos as they are blocked here in the UAE. not surprising since they are of nudes, & are therefore, not respectfully veiled. the site promotes healthy attitudes about our bodies as they are after childbirth. a place to celebrate "the beauty that created and nourished our children." our scars, our skin, our shape is the way it is, the necessary changes from maidenhood to motherhood, & it is not unsightly. we will change again. age, with its wrinkles & grey hairs, is bestowed upon us, enriching our shells with honour from living life, gaining knowledge, loving & surviving. why are we choosing to place the youth stage of our lives on pedestals? how can we celebrate & praise the individual if our ideas/values of beauty are exactly the same? how do we change society to be more accepting? simply, begin with accepting yourself. understand that which makes us uncomfortable about our own bodies, & then ask why? the difficulty lies with thinking & being different, being an individual? when you go for a walk through the forest with comfortable shoes & a scarf around your neck, are you wondering if every hair is in place? does it matter there's a smudge? why then, does this change? life is no different in one place over the other. perspective.


good enough.

Some Dubai Weather

this is a bit of weather we've had the past 24 hours. i post it here as it was a surprise to me to see this kind of day in the desert. this is the second of such occasion here in the past six months.

dubai living

life here in dubai is extraordinarily different than rural nova scotia. so many things i've seen in the past few months, & yet so many more things to see. trying to find some time to think & jot down some ideas seems almost impossible. having found a few moments, must think of something to say.

the journey itself wasn't as bad as anticipated as the lil one slept thru most of the travel time. the next few days are pretty much a blur. so tired. the jet lag was intense for days & days.

we've been busy organising our lives around work, a three year old, shopping for stuff & trying to get some sleep. finally, with beds & clothes hangers in the proper spaces, a table & sofa, some pots & coffee cups, the only shopping we were doing was at the grocery store & bookstores. been catching up on some needed reading. i think i've counted 15 books in the past couple of months. granted 3 or 4 of these were cookbooks, i'm in the middle of a few others, as well. & a few others are graphic novels. the majority are fiction. i feel a little more literate than i've felt in a long while. i miss devouring books a few at a time. i've had to put aside housework for this. neither has much else has been accomplished. ah well.

buy & eat local

8 Ways to Join the Local Food Movement
By Sarah van Gelder, YES! Magazine. Posted April 1, 2009.

1. From Lawn to Lunchas, as soon as i have land for a lawn, it will be a garden, though i usually have one where i'm renting. it's possible, but difficult when you're constantly moving.
2. Eat Your Vegetables, well, i'm vegan.
3. Party with Your Preserves, a can swapping party sounds like fun. i'll have to try this. plus i'd like to get a preserving the harvest party going as soon as i have a 'lawn'.
4. Glean Those Fields Clean, i'll have to look into gleaning.
5. Shop Outside of Supermarkets, we have a great farmer's market here, & there's numerous other markets that sell local produce.
6. Start a Community Garden, as soon as i get back from overseas. while i'm gone, i'll probably have a window garden to share with the neighbours.
7. Plant a Row for the Hungry, as soon as i plant a garden.
8. Share Your Table, this is something i do with frequency. i love to cook for others & share a meal.

Gleaning, collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest.

lately

with our move to Dubai being fairly imminent (4months), i've been busy making lists of 'things to do', 'things to donate| put into consignment', & 'things to take'. i'm trying to get recent projects ready to take & finish when i arrive, or ready enough to leave & complete when i return. i'm not considering taking the flannel quilt with me, but i'd like to have the peek-a-boo quilt ready to go. i must also finish a robe for my wee one & the wall hanging. i must decide on taking my embroidery. plus i wanted to start some crewel embroidery since i bought the supplies (took them with me to korea & dropped it for jasu).

i recently got a laptop, so i've had to re-order the program i'm using that organises my recipe box. yeah! i can now begin to consolidate my fav recipes into one place, & have only to take my laptop with me to the UAE (though i'll prob sneak in a few cookbooks anyways). we've also recently discovered a site that allows for great amount of document storage for little per month. we're still looking into that to see if it's viable & stable before investing time transfering info. my partner found an awesome site, xmarks, that consolidates bookmarks from different computers, & keeps them online, so if i were to go to your house, i can access my links. cool, eh!

luckily, i have a great friend who's letting us store most of our stuff in their big warm basement. & another great friend who's going to take care of my cat. the decisions about what to take will be difficult. i really only want to take a backpack, but then i remember the quilt i'm working on, the books i'm trying to read, the music i want to make, & think unless i have a carpet bag like mary poppins, there's no way i can fit it all into one bag.

a gratuitous shot of my beautiful pussycat, lillian. she's 13 this year.