Whirlwind

I feel like our life has dissolved into a whirlwind of laundry and promising to finish projects on the weekend and big days in the office madly finishing grants to days where a lot has to get done, but coming down from the grants is so hard I stare at my computer screen lost in what has to happen next.

In all of that, we did accomplish a lot in the past few weeks. We headed out the a different grocery store for a change the other weekend because it just started carrying our Cold Comfort ice cream sandwiches.  Cold Comfort started out out of the back of Autumn's little electric car at events and slowly expanded into certain local grocery's carrying her products in their freezers, but most of those local groceries were not very convenient to our house. And then she opened up a headquarters housed by a local bakery, that is just across the Gorge from us. But if we go over there, we really are only going for ice cream sandwiches so we don't always think about it. So when I heard this week that The Root Cellar was now carrying Cold Comfort I was like "GROCERIES AND ICE CREAM SANDWICHES" ... Well that was just about as perfect as an Saturday could be.

I've also meant to check out The Root Cellar for a long time. There is a garden fresh market store out by Rob's parent's house, but that is almost a half hour away, so not convenient at all. And there are these adorable little neighborhood grocery stores in Victoria, but not in our neighbourhood, and not well stocked enough with our staples to warrant driving out to them (although, they carry Cold Comfort as well and whenever we are in the neighborhood we stop in).

Like Ice Cream Sandwiches.

It was worth it, The Root Cellar is jam packed with produce, inside and outside! Our little Fairway Market is very good at selling local produce when in season, but I felt like the Root Cellar also provided more home grown products.

Cilantro, Russet Potatoes, Sunflower Sprouts

For example, while this is all we were able to find local in the produce. 
<---------

We also were able to get a lot of good stuff from Washington, which to us, is fairly local and you can tell they get that produce from independent farms in  Washington, not a big producer, so that also feels like a win.

And asparagus bulbs!
Did anyone else have any idea this what they look like?

The flyer came after I started this post.
See the local produce count?

After that we finally got our family Photos hung in the hallway in the beautiful frame Amber got us for Christmas. 

This isn't our family. They sure look nice on our wall though!
You'll have to come visit to see the finished product. ;)

And we planted our lemon tree!

Since then our life has dissolved back into its whirlwind of  days in Vancouver and getting things ready for a four day weekend.

Amber's social worker friend came to visit from Prince Albert last weekend so we headed over to Vancouver for the day. Rob had shown Amber (who is also a social worker) East Hstings one day last fall and Cori wanted a chance to see it. 

I spent some time in Chinatown while the walked around downtown Vancouver's Eastside (I've been on that walk and I'm not ignoring it, I just didn't feel that I needed to do it as a tourist again). I have been dying to look in all of the Chinatown bulk bins forever . Turns out not knowing what's inside the 100 or so bins in the store eventually becomes frustrating and not as fun as I thought :) and I ducked into a tea shop to wait, walking out with $20 worth of Chinese holistic tea!  Good thing the crew phoned and we all met back up after that.

Rob has been over in Vancouver a lot for work (at least 2 nights a week) and since Matthew is on holiday and a lot of my work lately involves me just needing the focus to do it, and not so much needing to be at my desk, I went over there for two nights and worked from Rob's hotel room. So no meal plan this week. 

And now its Easter Weekend! And we are starting our first big home owner project together. Painting the bedroom! So excited. We have so many plans for our bedroom and I feel like most of them start with the sentence, "once we paint the bedroom..." 

We'e had the duvet cover since lat summer (I think I may have posted it?) and have kept it tucked away in a closet to use once everything matched. We've had it out a lot the past two weeks trying to pick paint colors and spreading it out along the bed with the chips taped to the wall. 

Time to get to work! I will post before and after photos as soon as we finish. If you can't wait, check back here from time to tome to watch our progress on Instagram. And sometime this weekend I will also post the rest of the Swap into Spring photos. I loved getting through one cycle of wearing my new clothes and washing them and putting them away to become part of my wardrobe.

Spark

Tuesday night I took my mom to The Belfry Theatre to see a show at their Spark Festival. A Festival of "new plays and new ideas". I took her to a play I have been looking forward to seeing for a while called A Brimful of Asha.  

The synopsis from the Spark website is: 

Real-life mother and son, Asha and Ravi Jain, each defend their side of this true (and very Canadian) story of generational and cultural clash. When Ravi takes a trip to India his parents decide it is the perfect time to introduce him to potential brides. Ravi is not sold on the idea of getting married-at least not yet-but Asha fears that time is running out.

I first heard about the show on CBC's Q with Jian Ghomeshi (my CBC boyfriend) and was completely taken with the idea. The interview with Asha and Ravi is wonderful and funny. And despite the cultural differences, Ravi and Asha sounded just like most Canadian mothers and sons.

The play proved to be every bit as charming. It is immediately brought to every ones attention that Asha (mom) is not an actress and doesn't intend to be one either. It is really 90 minutes of story-telling and conversation. The lights even stay up for the first 3/4 of the play making you feel like you are in their dining room. (They handed out Samosas to start and shook peoples hands as they walked through the door!).

This is by no means a review, but I really wanted to share the experience with you. What a fun play to take my mom too, while they talked about generational differences, parents always being right, and at one point Asha even stops Ravi mid story as he has absent mindedly leaned against the table and she makes him get up and find a chair! Obviously it had all been well rehearsed, but they were so charming and honest with each other (as only a real life mother and son could be) that it was easy to believe that this argument about marriage changes every night, and is fuelled by new fires.

Listen to Ravi and Asha on Q here:

Interview – CBC Radio – Q with Jian Ghomeshi – Ravi and Asha on Q

And this is what I wore  -->

This might be the bravest I've been out here yet. Its weird the amount of freedom living in a new place has given me in feeling like I can really be whoever I always wanted to be.

A year ago, you could not have convinced me I would wear a regular length top and leggings out to the theatre! But here we are. And I like it.

With jeans and a little more casual in the office.

The shirt is satiny and feels totally glamorous, even when paired with jeans. Matthew took me along to a lecture he gave at UVic yesterday and it was the first time I have ever been introduced to a University class as a theatre professional. So I was really glad I was feeling slightly more glamorous than most days.

Yesterday I was back to casual with a nice comfy half button down shirt.

It sort of feels like I am wearing the top half of a onesie and I like it, but the buttons at the top won't stay done up, so I feel a little as though I am "popping out". It's the first swap item that I have considered may end up in the next swap.

Today I am wearing another new top that I absolutely love, but I'll have to wait until Rob or Amber can help me take a photo of the back of it, because that's the best part.

Stay tuned.

Swap Into Spring Update

This update didn't happen last night.

Either did the Pho Soup. After all all that touting about meal plans.

Instead I opted for some quality best friend time. Have I mentioned that Amber (who has been my best friend and on and off again roommate since we were 12 years old. Including the 3 years of high school I spent living with her family and 2 of which we shared a bedroom) has moved to Victoria and rented out our basement suite?

It's pretty awesome.
It's pretty much the most awesome thing ever.

Last night we went out shopping for a bit right after I was done work. Our main goal was Michaels, but we took a long time getting distracted by multi-vitamins and apricot scrubs and thigh high stockings before we got there.

And then we bought the prettiest yarn (I wish I had taken a picture of it to post here!) for me to knit us some head/ear warmers for going on our walks along the Gorge. While it may not be that cold here in Victoria, the wind can still make your ears hurt.

By the time we got home it was 8 PM and the thought of still baking my chicken for Pho Soup was unbearable (normally I would have had this done ahead of time as well, but I forgot on Sunday). So I threw the chicken in the oven to have later this week, made a batch of rice to have with leftover curry for lunches at work and Amber made me supper in her place.
See. Pretty much the most awesome thing ever.

And then when my chicken was safely out of the oven we watched two episodes of Gossip Girl. We thought we would pick a show that would bring us together, like Dawson's Creek did in high school, and make us feel like teenagers again. Teenagers that disapprove of all of this bad behaviour! Gossip Girl has been a really great pick and has us squealing like 15 year olds and yelling at all of the characters on the screen every night that Rob has gone out of town.
(Have I mentioned how awesome this arrangement is yet?)

This has not been a Swap into Spring update at all... whoops.

Here it is.
First, my amazing new dress!

I had some reservations about this dress at the swap. It is a bit on the snug side... I am sucking in a lot in this picture so that no one mistakenly thought I was announcing a baby Howland. But once I had it on on Saturday I was so beyond thrilled with it. The fabric has some give so it didn't feel snug at all after having it on for a while, and its a soft cozy sort of fabric, so I didn't even really feel like I was wearing a dress.

Look at all that pretty lace.

It goes perfectly with my feather earrings.

I wore it out to see Rob's little cousin Alana in her middle school production of Annie, that was out of this world! Two and a half hours went by and I almost forgot that they were kids on stage! Incredible. What a fun night out. They had it at the McPherson Playhouse, this gorgeous old playhouse in town and had 118 kids on stage, and another 100 backstage. We were at the closing night performance so the Dirctor came out to say thank you and gave a speech about how importnat theatre is for kids and parents to be involved in. I was so choked up!

 

The last two items are pretty casual, and pretty me. Just a nice t-shirt to lounge around in and...

 Yes. Another black sweater. You never know right?