little bitty girl

I would like to preface this by saying I love Stefan very, very, very much. He is almost always my favourite person in the whole wide world. When he was away to Australia in August, I missed him terribly.

Now that we are down to our final month at the loft, I would like to say, I very much wish that he was back Down Under. The man is making me crazy.

I've spoken about this to numerous girlfriends who also have co-habitating boys and the verdict is all the same: They simply are not the same species.

There is no sense of urgency, no feeling the need to purge, no nothing. This happened the last time as well when I helped move Stefan. I basically packed 90% of Stefan's things. If it had been left up to him, he would simply pack on moving day.

It's not so much that we have a lot of furniture, we simply have a lot of miscellaneous "stuff" accumulated from over the years. We also have the issue that a big chunk of our furniture won't fit which means we will have to sell quite a number of those things in the next week.

This has been the boy's reaction to things so far:

We have to pack soon (Why? We still have a whole month, I don't want to live in boxes.)
Let's give away these skis from the 90's, you don't even ski anymore (Hey! They're vintage!)
I am going to start packing the dishes and serving plates that we are not using (Why don't you just pack our underwear too?)
Geez! Do you even wear these shoes? (They were expensive! They could come back in style...)

Hmmm....yes indeed. Those shoes do look very well worn and loved these past 5 years! The man is purposely trying to push me over the edge.

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Posted in House Bound, Stefan

Sometimes, you simply have to love Facebook. In many instances, Facebook can be weird and lurky, acquaintances or strangers trying to be your "friend" but overall I've had a fairly positive experience with it. I tend to only add people whom I either had real connections with in the past and genuinely would like to stay in touch or people who really are in my every day life.

Last month, a very happy, happy coincidence happened on Facebook. A very old and dear friend contacted me. Leeana and I were very close high school friends. If Stefan and I were not in the midst of packing right now, I would totally try to dig up my old pictures of us as young, fresh faced grade 9ners.

We shared so many things in common - our love of reading, laughing, shared family experiences; we were in so many ways such kindred spirits. For various reasons, we had lost touch shortly after high school. It wasn't for any reasons of discord or love lost between us. These things just sometimes happen.

And I would think about her for the next thirteen years. The first few years of the lost connection were more painful than the later years. And I always wondered where she was, what she was doing, hoping she was happy wherever she was. And to my delight, one day in September, I got a message from her on Facebook.

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Posted in Joy-Friends

And the cycle repeats itself.

I feel like we go through this every time Stef or I go away for long periods of time.

The first stage is poop rage mixed with wistful looks.

Mindy poops on Leaver's possessions, butts head and paws reach out when the Leaver calls. Pictures of the Leaver is shown to Mindy, whereby she will also head butt, touch and purr at picture.

The second stage involves crying during inappropriate times.

Mindy cries at the door for the Leaver. This usually takes place at sometime in the early morning and will take place for an hour. No amount of cajoling or treats will calm her down. She will cry until she falls asleep. This is usually a very traumatizing time for the Stayer.

The last stage involves total and utter indifference to Leaver and too much love for the Stayer.

Mention of the Leaver's name brings back blank stares. Huffiness is coupled with nose in air and swish of tail. Then begins the neediness of Mindy to see, touch and cuddle the Stayer at all moments while the Stayer is within her vicinity.

The return usually results in tears (of the Leaver) as Mindy will ignore the Leaver for at least a week to punish the Leaver for leaving. This usually brings of sad stares and cajoling of the Leaver to no avail.

And they say animals are dumb beasts with no feelings.

I can't wait. Revenge is such a sweet, sweet treat!

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Posted in Mindy-Lou, Stefan

OK, so I am officially over my buyinghouseitis. It always only take one thing to set me over the edge. I have always loved our building and the people in it. Especially the people who live on our floor. For about four or so, solid years, we have had INCREDIBLE neighbours. Unfortunately, people move out and move on and other than two neighbours remaining, the others remain feckless, unknown people.

All I know is that some tend to be quite noisy and inconsiderate. And tonight there was this.

So this is the deal, if someone is ahead of you in laundry, you simply defer to the person in front of you, right? Or so that is how it should be. Instead, some guy takes my laundry out and manages to sneak his laundry into the dryer, even though I had put my money in the machine already. I had simply been waiting for my first load to be done. Then he writes a scrawly note on a random piece of paper and just says,"Ooops! I wasn't sure whether your all your clothes needed to be dried so I put mine in instead." WHO THE FUCK DOES THAT?!!! So now I have to wait past my bed time just to put my laundry in...

I am so over it and cannot wait to have my own laundry room.

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Posted in What's Buggin' Me

Dear Husband,

I am not sure you realize this, but at some point, in the very near future, you will be coming home. I highly suggest that you try to call me very soon and do the following to avoid being in that very bad place that I assure you; you don't want to be in. This bad place is also called the doghouse. This is what I suggest:

(a) Proclaim your undying love

(b) Tell me you've bought fabulous paper/stationary/home accessories from the various stores that I sourced for you

I have not heard from you for almost 5 days other than your cryptic emails about needing some password for some account, possibly coming home a day early (what does 1 day do anyway?) and wanting a picture of me and Mindy. I am not sure how you expected me to take a one handed picture of myself as you have taken our point and shoot camera. Which is also a very sore point with me, as you have mentioned that you have taken very little pictures with it.

I am not worried. I know you are alive since you somehow manage to find the time to change your status on Facebook and add new friends. The only way I've been able to hear your voice is by listening to this radio interview, where I was forced to listen to a lot of footy mumbo jumbo before actually hearing your voice. As you might be able to tell, I am not pleased.

However, here is a picture of your precious Mindy.

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In case you are wondering, yes that is a picture of her sitting in "your" chair. The one that you hate her sitting on and you guys fight about every morning. She's been sleeping in it every day, on her back, with her one paw over her eye, getting her hair over all your dark clothes. I just thought you would like to know.

Sincerely yours,

Your Wife

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Posted in Stefan

You can tell that Stefan is away because I am cooking and experimenting more than usual. I have no one to distract me at night. One wonders what would happen if I was single. I could probably be the next Nigella Lawson! That boy is stifling my cooking creativity! I kid...

As per usual, I don't have an actual recipe with proper measurements. I don't know how to cook or create recipes with measurements but this is a really easy thing to make even with basic gauging. I do have to say that the only hard part of this recipe is the prep.

I love eating these; to me it has everything a perfect summer meal should have - the fresh herbs, mixed with the lightness of the noodles, the sweetness of the shrimp and the tangy spicy sauce make it a filling meal without being heavy.

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Ingredients
Coriander - half a bunch, cut in half
Mint - Thai mint is recommend but regular is fine, strip the leaves off stalk
Sweet pepper - half, the cut into thin strips
English Cucumber - cut into 1.5 inch strips
Lettuce - Cut into 1.5 inch long pieces
Glass noodles - although any rice noodles is fine. Soften with boiling water and then immediate blanch with cold water
Rice paper rolls - I prefer the medium sized ones but this is totally up to you
Shrimp - boiled and sliced in half lengthwise

Dipping Sauce
Usually they serve this with a peanut sauce, I generally don't like peanut sauces so I made my own. I am sure you could google an easy peanut sauce recipe

2 tbsp of soy sauce
1 tbsp of honey
Lime juice (half) or fish sauce
Fine chopped red chillies, de-seed them if you don't want it to have a bite without it being too hot

Directions Have all your ingredients prepped and put on plates for easy accessibility

Have a large bowl filled with warm water. This is to soften your dried rice wraps. Put one piece of piece of rice paper roll in the bowl, push it gently into the water. This should take about one minute.

Take a clean cloth and place on a working surface. Put softened rice roll on one half of the cloth, and fold other part over to soak up additional moisture.

Place all the ingredients in the middle of the rice wrap and wrap up like a burrito. I like to fold one end and tuck under while I roll halfway and then fold the sides and then roll up the rest.

Cut in half and serve.

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Posted in Homage to Hunger