Ahhh...vacation in Paris

Once again my blog has fallen by the wayside. But I have a good reason this time - I was away in Paris! It was my mom's birthday and what better way to celebrate than a week in Paris? The weather was a tad cool and rainy over there (while it was unseasonable hot and sunny in Toronto, go figure) but who cares, I was away on holiday. We saw all the touristy sites, ate great food such as crepes and red wine (my fav was this great Merlot that was only 2.21 Euro for a whole bottle!) and even had time to relax and explore the city. My favourite area was Montmartre, where I spent a wonderful Saturday afternoon and even had my portrait done by one of the artists.

The Louvre

The Eiffel Tower

Sacre Coeur

Crepes!

So, what else have I been up to? Well let's see...I went to the Wine and Cheese Show and sat through a "naked tasting" seminar (not as interesting as it sounds, sadly it was a "blind" tasting rather than the "naked" tasting it was billed to be). The show itself was pretty interesting and offered many, many wines, beers and spirits to be sampled but was surprisingly lacking in cheese! I almost made it out to some interesting HotDocs films (sorry V-pants, next year I promise), saw a taping of the Rick Mercer Report, enjoyed Mahler Symphony 4 at the Toronto Symphone Orchestra and...wait for it...resigned from my job! Yup, you heard me, I quit!

I decided that things were just too busy for me right now and that I really needed to put all my effort into finishing my dissertation and completing my degree. My last day will be May 1st, which will hopefully give me enough time to pull together the first draft of my dissertation for May 12th. I think things will go much more smoothly once I have the time to really get into my research again. Having some time off this summer (while I wait for revisions to be reviewed by my committee members) means I might actually have some time to do some crafting and hang out at the cottage.

Well, that's all the exciting news I have for now. Hopefully, I'll be posting again soon. Over the next 5 days I'll have seen Dirty Dancing, gone to the Opera and left the job I've held for the last 3 years and 8 months. I should have something to talk about!

I'll leave you with some pictures I took early this evening when out walking the dogs.

the new bedroom

I've had this blog for less than a month and I'm already delinquent. I've gotten behind on my postings and haven't learned how to reformat my page. Sadly I just haven't had the time to put into my blog (blog, blog, blog - that was for you Jim!).

I've been making good progress with my research though. I still have yet to run any anlyses on the data in my database but have completed all my interviews! I ended up having 20 participants for the interview portion of my study and am proud to say I finished transcribing all the interviews on Sunday (my wrists are still sore!). I had wanted to have that part done by the end of March so I met my deadline with 1 day to spare. On the agenda today is running some preliminary analyses (just descriptive data at this point I think) and reading through the interviews again and again. Having never worked with qualitative data before I'm a bit apprehensive of where to go from here. My advisor has suggested I just relax and read through the interviews a number of times, perhaps taking some notes, and the themes will start to emerge. At this point that doesn't sound all that helpful - I mean I don't think it works in the same way as those optical illusion images where if you just stare at them long enough the mystery image will emerge. My advisor has yet to stear me wrong so I'll heed her advice. I have a meeting with her next week so I'll see how far I get before then.

In other news, the bedroom is now finished. Well, the construction of the room is complete and Alex build us a bedframe but I still need to get 2 bedside tables and a dresser.

Here's a photo of Alex putting the first coat of mudding on the new drywall. The next photo shows the walls finished with the first coat of primer on.

Here the walls and the moulding have been painted. Next the new flooring is going in.

Finally, here's the room all done. The darker area under the window (instead of trim) is a poured concrete windowsill that Alex made. It's very funky and functional as a ledge (a favourite spot for the kitties).

The last picuture shows the view from our window. That first building on the left is the Assembly Hall, a community cultural centre. They have a performance hall, community meeting rooms and gallery space. In the summer there are musical festivals and fairs that take place on the grounds just to the left of the building, which is awesome for us - we can walk across the street to see some great performers, sample food, go on rides, etc. In the winter we have the Lakeshore Santa Claus parade that comes by the house.

The other buildings you see further down are part of Humber College's south campus. Just down the road past those buildings is the Lakeshore Yacht Club and a protected park erea. The park includes beautiful walking trails along the waterfront and picnic areas surrounded by over 30 hecters of wetlands and areas of native vegetation. The park includes the grounds of what was the Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital which occupied the site from 1888 until 1979. It's a beautiful area - Max and Eva like to walk the trails and go swimming in the lake.

I made bread

A little while ago I tried making bread for the first time. It wasn't actually all the difficult but I was suprised at how much waiting was involved. It ended up taking me most of the day to bake 2 loaves but I was able to make sugar cookies, whip up a batch of royal icing to decorate them with and then make a chocolate banana cake with buttercream frosting while I was waiting for the bread to rise at different stages. All in all, I enjoyed the experience and was really glad that I had a standmixer to do all the hard work for me!

In other news, the house renos are progressing smoothly. Our new bedroom is almost finished and I hope to post pictures of the process in a few days (as soon as the new flooring is down and the furniture is). My research is going well, all the quantitative data has now been entered into the database but no analyses have been run. The qualitative data is coming along too, 11 interviews have been completed and transcribing will begin this weekend (ack!).

Alex's new bike is now safe and sound at home.

A new addition to the family!

Although I had planned to spend the day in the house working on my research, I ended up downtown at the Harley-Davidson dealership and am now the proud owner of a new Buell bike. It's a gift for Alex.

Here's how it all happened: My husband Alex is an avid motorcycle rider. He's one of those guys that'll ride through the winter if you let him. With the spring weather hopefully on the way Alex has been talking incessantly about bike season. He built a vintage bike last year and has been planning to rebuild the engine and do some modifications before the riding season hits. However, he's been putting all his spare time into working on the house so he hasn't had much time to put toward his bike. He was feeling a bit discouraged about everything he has left to do on it and about how expensive some of the parts were going to be so I suggested dropping the whole rebuild project and buying a new bike. We did some research online (although Alex already knew what he wanted after falling in love with a Buell model he had seen at the bike show in December) and off we went to the dealership. It was retail therapy at it's best.

Here's Alex with his new bike. He picks it up next week. Now, if only all this snow would disappear!

Paying it Forward

Eva looking cute

An extreme close-up of Max's nose

I love this concept! I just found out about this group from knitticrafy (and signed up to be one of her recipients - how could I refuse? Have the seen the awesome crafts she creates, and btw, thank you VERY much for my way cool apron at Christmas). Here's what you need to know...

"It’s the Pay It Forward Exchange. It’s based of the concept of the movie “Pay it Forward” where acts or deeds of kindness are done without expecting something in return, just passing it on, with hope that the recipients of the acts of kindness are passed on. So here’s how it works. I will make and send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment to this post on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I do not know what that gift will be yet, and it won’t be sent this month, probably not next month, but it will be sent (within 6 months) and that’s a promise! What YOU have to do in return, then, is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog. Please remember, you don't have to knit or crochet to participate, anyone who can make a nice handmade gift is welcome to join :)"

I can't wait to see what my handmade gift will be...and to see who will post to request a gift from me. Remember, you must have a blog of your own so that you can make the same offer to others. I'll try and get some pictures of past crafts on this site to entice you. What might I make? I love to bake and make fudge but that would only work if someone was local to me. Maybe a cool wooden bowl? Something done on my sewing machine (which has just been serviced and is raring to go)? A luxurious bar of handmade soap? Who knows! If you're interested, please respond to this post and join the exchange.

My introduction to blogging!

I enjoy reading blogs, looking at blogs and hearing about my friends' blogs but I have never made a blog...until now. I don't know that I'll have much to say but I'll try.

It might take some time to get things going but I figure I can use this blog to discuss random things that interest me, bore everyone with pictures of my pets and keep my family and friends updated on my traveling, crafts and life in general. I can also show progress on our never-ending home renovation projects and I hope that reporting on my dissertation research will help keep my motivation up. I'm midway into my last year as a grad student and have some looming deadlines that I just can't miss!