Fun at Internship #1

Well it's all done, my first internship of seven weeks flew by. I passed (hooray!) and certainly learned a ton in the process. Here are a few photos of what I was up to:

My "Teacher Desk"
- it's kind of decorated with wrapping paper

Christmas Party!

Well these days it's not Christmas unless there is an ugly sweater party. I couldn't make Stevemas this year so I was happy I could bust out the be-jeweled and garland' sweaters of Christmas pasts!

We held a BEd Potluck/Ugly Sweater/Movie Watching Party last Friday and while there were lots of ugly sweaters and way too much yummy food we didn't quite get around to watching the movie. I guess that's what happens when you see people you haven't in about 2 months - lots of chatting!

A fine spread with a well cleaned out dish in
the foreground - and two lovely ladies
in the back!

One half of our Christmas party fun...check out those sweaters!

The other half, one fine looking crowd!

Ugly sweater co-presidents! Check our Mr. Hanky on Jonny!

Raclette

My friend invited me to raclette while I was out on a hiking trip with the school's hiking club. When she called I probably heard every second word since I was supervising a gaggle of Middle School students and agreed to dinner later that night. I was under the impression that we were going to a restaurant called Raclette, this word was new to me and that made perfect sense in my brain. 

Turns out that raclette is not a restaurant but rather a way to cook food! It has a lot to do with cheese,  since I can't eat cheese I also learned that raclette doesn't  need cheese to be tasty. My friends whisked me off to the home of a very hospitable couple out near Kings Landing where I quickly learned about raclette and all of it's yummy wonders.

In addition to great food and incredibly generous hosts, I had the pleasure of:

• Drinking the most delicious home made beer I've ever had
• Hanging out with an adorable duck tolling retriever named Belle
• Enjoying the architectual wonders that was their house

The TWO raclette grills we had on the go

Normally you pop cheese onto the top of the whole thing to melt all of the ingredients together...but even if you don't it's still a yummy pile of food:

My concoction of pasta, mushrooms, chicken, peppers,
onions and pasta sauce!

I also ate a few hunks of bread with garlic butter spread all over it, you just toss it on the grill, wait a few minutes and you get super fresh and yummy bread!

While admiring me and my fantastic nerdiness, you should note the AMAZINGLY beautiful and huge kitchen behind me that is part of this great house.

TADA!

Random Food Post

Posting about food things around the time that I'm eating them seems to make more sense...but given my lateness it seems out of place.

Still, here I am posting about food I've eaten:

Greg and I visited my family the weekend before last, my dad worked nights for both days so rather than making a nice dinner we made a nice brunch! 

Blueberry and Chocolate Pancakes (made with coconut milk)

Mimosas and pancakes, a great way to start any day!

After wanting to go to a natural food store on Westmorland Street I finally did! They have amazing bread, and this is it. It's multi-grain with flax and all kind of yummy (and natural!) things.

Om Nom Nom

Quilting Is Fun

I posted a photo of the very first quilt I made on Facebook earlier this week in lieu of a post since I was busy busy with school work. So this post might be a lack luster post, but here it is:

All of the small squares came in a bundle of 'matching' pieces of fabric meant for quilting. It took me awhile to get the pieces in an order that I liked, I would move the squares around then walk away and come back with fresh eyes to make sure there wasn't a bunch of one colour in one area. I don't think this is what I decided with in the end but here is one look:

Laying out the squares

A closer look at the squares, I'm definitely in love with these fabrics:

I first sewed the squares in rows and then sewed the rows together. Then I placed the batting (which is pretty thick for extra comfy-ness) in between the sewn together rows and the backing fabric. I actually took the backing fabric and ironed it up over the top of the quilt, I'm not sure if that's what you're supposed to do but it made sense to me.

To keep everything in place I sewed all along the border and then the long way down each of the rows. Again, I'm not sure if this is how it's done but it worked out!

The finished product

I've since learned how you sew the little designs or shapes in the squares, my quilting lady friend at the quilting shop told me about it (who is WONDERFUL!) and I'll be trying that out on future quilts. I'll no doubt be blabbing about that down the road.

PS. I made this quilt for my cousin who is 2.5 years old, I expect it will be covered in small child grossness come a week. Hooray!

The Posts, They Be Coming

December is busy!

School is winding down so there is lots to mark and wrap up before I finish my internship, then there's that whole Christmas thing. I'm happily working my way through crafting Christmas presents, but it seems to take quite a bit of time.

I'll be back in Nova Scotia on Wednesday with little to do other than hang out with my family (I can't wait)! So that will leave lots of time to create some much needed posts.

Sit tight!

1000 New Friends

A Greg Post:

After living in Halifax for a little over two years I got very used to composting and enjoyed the fact that I was doing something useful and good for the environment with all of my food scraps. When I recently moved to Saint John, NB I was faced with the prospect of not being able to compost my kitchen scraps anymore. Not because the city doesn't compost, they do. However, because I live in a building with more than 4 units we have a private contractor that deals with our waste "life leftovers". So I decided to learn a few things about vermicomposting. Through watching some tutorial videos (I have to give props to one in particular) and reading lots I finally decided that I would give it a shot. I quickly ran into the first hurdle. Turns out to start a composter the size I was hoping for I needed to get 1lb of worms (approx. 1000 individual worms). So I was faced with the question: Where the hell do you get 1000 worms? Not only that but I needed a certain species, namely, large red earth worms or eisenia hortensis

Source

AMAZING!

I spied this on the o'l interwebs on yet another school closure day, yes I picked it from Perez Hilton (shame shame).

But it's TOO awesome not to post AND it features Shad making it even MORE amazing:



Who knew there were so many moving pieces in a pop song?

Next Project

I'm going to try my hand at quilting!

It's easy to find inspiration when things are just so cute:

Source

Source

Remembering

On this day 21 years ago, 14 women were senselessly murdered at Montreal's École Polytechnique.

CBC's Digital Archives provides footage from the day and additional information.

I will be thinking about these women today. 

Snow Day?

Today marks my very first Snow Day from the perspective of educator rather than student. And I must say that the feeling is very much the same, especially when it's on a Monday - unexpected long weekend!

Unlike when I was in my undergrad younger I'm making good use of my day off: blogging, crafting, listening to Q, cleaning, sleeping in. All in all a good day.

To give you insight on the degree of weather crazyness here in Fredericton I took a horrible quality photo through my front window:

SHOCKING!!!

I believe the schools were canceled because of the poor road conditions this morning (from freezing rain) and the impending doom of snow later today. Hooray for safety first!

Greg's Visit

I'm a lucky gal, Greg paid me two visits in two weeks - hooray!

This weekend was full of eating, drinking, hanging out with friends and walking around Fredericton. Kind of our thing I think.

Here are some photos:

Coming back from the market: new AND old
parts to the church roof
Religion high-fiving SCIENCE!!

We hit up the Christmas craft fair at the FREX yesterday and amongst some of the AMAZING stands there were some hilarious finds as well:

The Last Supper made out of beeswax

Paper Mached (maybe) things?

I don't know why I didn't take photos of the awesome things, there was this man who makes AMAZING furniture (tables, chairs, benches, etc) and even will make and install handmade kitchen cabinets. We chatted with him for awhile. There was also a lot of pretty jewelery, pottery and embroidered/sewn projects.

On Saturday night we went to a friends house for a potluck, we made chili and cornbread (a first for cornbread and it worked out!) so on Sunday we chowed down on leftovers:

Flattering, right?

Winter Cottaging

Last weekend we ventured out to a friends cottage located near Kings Landing. After driving through less than ideal road conditions in the dark we made it!

Here are some photos (not quite in the order things happened):

The lane that Jill's cottage lives on

Bundled up and posing in front of the cottage

For Serious!

Thankfully I'm still on one or two of Dalhousie's email lists, most of the time the news isn't relevant to me but it's interesting.

So in my Inbox today sat a precious little gem. It turns out the student who made the video/rap below goes to Dal. There's a story about it here.

But really, what you need to watch is the video:



AMAZING!!!

Happy December!

I can't believe it, but it's December. I'm not sure where the time has gone, but it's gone by quickly.

In my continual learning about Fredericton I've learned that December in Fredericton means snow, since it snowed more than a week ago it's stayed on the ground - hooray!

Last weekend I went to a friend's cottage in the middle of a snowstorm, it was lovely and I took photos...but I haven't had the time to post them. That will be a tomorrow project.

In the meantime something I've been loving for the last little while: The Gawkerverse.

I started on its Foodgawker and Craftgawker, getting lots of ideas for meals and crafts. They've since branched out to Dwellinggawker and Weddinggawker.

Lots and lots to be inspired to try!

Musical Confessions

Maybe it's a result of spending most of my time in Middle School these days, but I've been visiting YouTube to get my pop music fix more frequently these days.

This is what I've been digitally spinning, go ahead and judge your heart out:














I think cleaning my apartment has become MUCH MUCH more enjoyable with these tunes on, good o'l dance inspired cleaning!!

Thanks Pop Music!

Analytical Update

Despite a lull in activity people still are visiting the o'l bloggity blog.

These are the numbers from October 22 - November 22:

I decided to go for a Top 10 this time just to spice it up.

It seems I'm working on cornering the Maritime market, just about there!

What the WHAT!

I knew this was happening, but I never could fathom just what the product would be.

Well here it is, The New Kids on The Block and The Backstreet Boys all mashed up into an amazing 5 minutes and 50 seconds:




My mind is blown from SO much choreography! And they gave themselves an acronym should out!!

So when they go on tour (which they are doing) do you think they'll sing ALL of their songs together as a giant mash-up?

Different Perspectives

National Geographic is always up to awesome things. This is a picture from one of their photo contest galleries.

Such a neat perspective of the Eiffel Tower:

Source

Fa la la la la!

It seems as though winter stops by earlier in Fredericton than in Halifax.

It started snowing on Saturday around noon:

A few flakes

I stopped into this AMAZING little quilting shop, and came out to find this (more on the quilting shop to come):

It's starting to accumulate!

The kind of snow where flakes sneak their way into your nose

Take THAT fall!

I really didn't think that the snow would stay very long. But here we are on Monday where it just keeps coming down. It's been snowing since before lunch today:

I'm super pumped I'm prepared with the toughest boots ever! I picked them up a few weekends ago in Halifax. Watch out Fredericton!

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International Treats

STU's International Society held a potluck and performance night last week. Sarah and I stopped by to soak it all up.

The food was super tasty, I wish there was more to go around!

BBQ chicken, grape leave, fried banana,
plantains, guacamole, I can't remember what's
front and centre, and miso soup in the cup.

Thumbs up and mouth full from Sarah!

Next Project: The Kitchen

The kitchen will be a yellow-brown colour as well, good-bye wall paper and border!

This AMAZING kitchen!

This will be going, but Greg can soak it up in the meantime

Greg's New Digs

A painting project to turn Greg's lovely apartment into a more current spot. We started on the living room on this visit then it's the kitchen.

The first idea was to paint the room green...but that turned out to be a poor choice, you can see our adventures below...

A view from the door

The out of commission fireplace and amazing bookshelves

New to Greg couch and paint supplies

The first colour we tried...it looked less than stellar in real life

So it was back to Kent in search of a new colour, much better!

On the way to looking spiffy

11 foot ceilings, require two stages of painting

The fireplace wall with one coat of paint

So much sunnier!

We did a final coat but I forgot to take a photo, so the final project isn't quite as streaky.

Next project the kitchen!

Pole Poster of the Day

Found on Needham Street. Not quite a standard pole but it gets the job done:

Loud, Loud Shows

STU won a free Metric and Ok Go concert this past month. You had to vote online for your school and it seems despite it's population STU has a lot of people who vote in things! So we won for the Atlantic Region.

Because I voted I got tickets, and even thought it was on a school night I sucked it up and was a social human being - GASP!

Either I've gotten old and whiny or it was the loudest show of my life - my ears are actually still ringing!

This was the third time that I can remember that I've been to a Metric show and once again, it was a great. Even though I only know the Ok Go songs that have amazing videos they had a bunch of catchy tunes - that's right, I said tunes.

The opener was Keys N Krates. They reminded me of Girl Talk with DJ Lobsterdust, but they had a live drummer which was impressive. The did end on a sour note for me though, with a horrible punk-rendition of a Jay-Z song - it was awful.

But a free show is a free show, so I shouldn't be complaining - tisk tisk.

Keys N Krates

Ok Go playing these AMAZING bells

Ok Go Case

I stood back to appreciate Metric's stage presence