How to long-weekend ....

Step 1: Skip Spring Break
I must say, I have been waiting for this long weekend for a while. This being our 2nd year in the US, it had not yet occurred to me that if you don't take a spring break, you will get no vacation from New Year's until the end of May. That's a long time to go without vacation. A very long time. As such, I went into the weekend with a heightened level of excitement.

Saturday

Step 2: Start with pancakes
Of course the best weekends start with pancakes, so we made sure to add pancakes to our agenda. But, as luck would have it (and by "luck" I mean our inner laziness that meant we didn't go grocery shopping last week) we did not have eggs. So I needed to find a good egg free pancake recipe. Now most egg free recipes will take their substitutions much too far, adding in things like apple sauce, soy, orange juice, flax, etc... but this recipe kept it simple, it just omitted eggs (and I used real cow milk).

Egg Free Pancake Recipe

And here are the results of our fine adventures in pancakes ...





Mmmmmm..... pancakes.....

Step 3: Commune with Nature
Next up, some hiking. We decided to drive up to New Hampshire to check out Bear Brook State Park .








And all was well .... we were enjoying the fresh air, the brisk exercise, the occasional off-routing as we lost our trail, but then ... the bugs woke up ... and they attacked us with a fury.... Apparently, growing up in Winnipeg is not sufficient training for the immune system to minimize the impact of mosquito bites .... stupid bugs ....



And so, we decided to cut our trek a bit short. We should have known better than to go hiking in June without bug spray.

Sunday

Step 4: Get makeovers
To make up for our previous day of exuberant exercise, we planned some spa-like activities for Sunday. First up, hair appointments. Frankly, I am not going to hide it, I was quite happy with the results of my hair.

Now to maximize the effect, I highly recommend taking a photo in front of a fan. Apparently, that does wonderful things for showing off one's new hair! From now on I plan to only pose for photos if there is a strong breeze or a nearby fan!



After that we went for foot massages at Rainbow Health down the street. It is one of those shops where the shopowners don't speak English, they charge a nominal fee for services, and you get an hour of foot massage. Our feet were tenderized. (btw - what is not completely obvious in this photo is that Eric is reading a Home Decorating magazine to complete the picture!)



Monday

Okay, so Monday hasn't really happened yet, but assuming the weather stays warm, it will likely involve reading by the pool for the afternoon .... aaahhhhh long weekends....

Hillarity from the Halls of Harvard

Due to the large positive response to a previous post on the "nerdy things my husband says", I have decided to continue with that thread in today's blog post.

Recently heard in the halls of the physics lab at Harvard while working on some mathematical equations including complex and real variables ....

Husband: "I'm a complex conjugate. I'm a complex man with conjugate views."
Labmate: "How does your wife feel about this?"
Husband: "She keeps it real."

Later that day ....

Husband: "I'm a complex man, living in a real world."


Yes, I know, it is surprising that I let him out in public ....

Beautifying Me

This weekend I had a bachelorette party to go to, and frankly not much else to do. So I invested myself wholly in the preparation of making me "hot" for the bachelorette party. And along the way I learnt a few things:

1. The power of the second hand store
Now I don't usually go in to the many, many chi-chi second hand stores along Newbury street, but Eric had recently informed me that my dresses were out of date and I was in search of something stylish to wear for the evening's bachelorette party. After failed attempts at all the typical cheap places, I decided to go into a second hand store - I figured, if I was looking for "unique" style, why not try somewhere that wasn't about mass marketed clothing. Of course, one of my typical worries with the more "unique" places is that they won't have my size, but I entered nonetheless. I was oddly successful. At the first place I went, I found a one-armed black dress for $55, and it hadn't even been worn before; it was the overflow stock from some boutique in Connecticut. Score. I then went down the street and was oddly drawn into yet another second hand store where I found yet another one armed black dress (although very different in concept), and soon found myself walking out of the store with my new BCBG dress and only a mere $68 poorer! I couldn't believe my luck. Now normally, I would start to worry that this might become a problem - but luckily, I don't normally have the patience to riffle through the stacks at the second hand stores, so I think I shall be safe .... well until I need a new dress. (And yes I appreciate the irony that Eric said I needed to update my wardrobe and I was most successful at the "used" items store)




2. The internet is helpful
It had never occured to me before that I could use the internet to learn how to do my hair and makeup. Historically, I had always just asked my hair dresser for a few tips and then spent hours practicing in front of the mirror until I figured it out. So of course with my new "updated" look, I wanted to have new "updated" hair as well, and I started thinking "People on the street seem to have cute hair, it's too bad there isn't a place where people can share how they do their hair and makeup with me." And then it occured to me. There is. It's called the internet. And so off to YouTube I went. And there I found a plethora of videos doing exactly just that. Of course, the only challenge was that apparently everyone on the internet wants to look like Taylor Swift, and I have no interest in looking like Taylor Swift. This guy had the best video by far! At a loss for hairdos, I did end up copying the Taylor Swift do, but I made sure to pull it a bit more severely against my head so that I didn't look like a bustling 20 year old country star.


All in all, my efforts were successful, and I had a good time at the bachelorette party. (And I would like you to keep me posted if you find a good hairdo video that isn't about Taylor Swift!)

We're Back!!!

Blame it on a rainy day, or blame it on Eric working on the weekend, or blame it on Chris' awesome campaigning to reinstate my blog .... regardless of the reason, the blog is once again alive!

And to kick off the new season with a successful start, I have decided to pay homage to one of my favorite blog's (www.newdressaday.com) by blatantly copying its premise and format.

For those of you who are not familiar with New Dress A Day, every day Marisa takes an old piece of clothing and remakes it into something fabulous. So here we go.... it all starts with Eric's favorite sweater.

This is me in Eric's sweater.



If it wasn't immediately apparent, you can tell it was one of his favorites by the giant holes he has worn into the elbows.

My inspiration for today .... Veronica Mars. We have recently latched on to this show and are making our way through season 2 at a fairly rapid clip. Eric is drawn to the petite blond and I am oddly drawn to her sweater vests! So now, to transform me into Veronica. Petite check. Blond check. All that's left is the green sweater vest.



My first step was to take off the arms and about 6 inches in width from the side ... out comes the seam ripper.



Side note: Doesn't the pin cushion in the corner make it look like I know what I'm doing!

Next out, my trusty sewing machine. I have had this machine since 2002. My main goal in selecting a sewing machine was to have something simple with a decent number of features, but that was easy to store and carry around as I move from city to city. The Singer Featherweight II fit the bill perfectly!



I then used my old grade 7 home-ec skills to sew up the seams, taking care to add a zigzag stitch on the outside of the main line to reinforce the seams.



With the sides sewn up, my next step was to add the trimming to the arm holes. Here's where I ran in to my first dilemma. My plan was to take the cuffs off from the sleeves and resow them to the arm holes as trimming. It was at this point that I realized the radius of my wrist is very different than the radius of my arm-pit. And while I am thankful that I do not have chunky wrists, this was a problem. The solution ... well with little fabric available, I decided to cut the cuffs in half to give me twice the amount of fabric to work with.



I then painstakingly pin the cuffs to the edge of the arm hole to make sure that I have enough fabric to go around. Luckily this did the trick!



I then had to hand sew the cuffs on to the arm holes because unfortunately the only thread colour I have is brown and I needed to hide the stitching. I pushed my sewing machine aside and pulled out the needle.

After sewing on both cuffs, here are the result: a cute sweater vest just like Veronica`s - it even has a little embroidered moniker on it just like hers. I wanted to do a v-neck as well, but I realized after the arm hole fiasco that I would not have enough ribbing to redo the neckline so I decided to leave it alone.



Of course the fun part for me was waiting to see what Eric`s reaction would be. I predicted two outcomes: 1. He would realize immediately I had cut up his favorite sweater 2. He would look at it and think "that looks familiar it must not be a new outfit" and not really realize that it was his. While the latter was the funnier outcome, he actually did notice right away that I had redone his sweater. Frankly, I think he is a little jealous that it is now mine!


Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did, and thanks for all the continued readership support!