*blows dust off keyboard*

Does anyone still subscribe or have I abandoned all of you for too long? I might just have to shout into the abyss for a while…

Today I realized that I’ve actually got a proper backlog of things to blog about, dating back to Thanksgiving(!!). I subscribe to a fair few blogs and I’m always shocked at how good others are at keeping them up to date. Is it ok if I just blame my mother for passing along the procrastination gene? No? Crap.

Okay, here’s the backlog. Do tell me which (if any) you’d like me to post and I’ll prioritize those ones.

• I made pumpkin pie from scratch; I grew pumpkins from seeds!
• Scary clown Halloween costume
• Guy Fawkes Day Celebration
• Various things I cooked / baked /  preserved
• Cats doing cute cat things
• I learned to crochet
• Chris became an uncle!
• Long weekend in Madrid
• Florida trip – mainly pictures of a big alligator!
• Christmas decorating / baking
• I got 4 year old film developed with interesting results
• Car boot sales and country walks
• Thinking about opening an online shop (Pssst, sign up for launch notification!)
• Teacup candles
• A house update / spring spruce-up list
• Chris’s car accident makes We Love Bath! Newsletter
• 8-course anniversary meal at The Royal Crescent Hotel in Bath (leave it to me to take sneaky pictures of every course in a restaurant where they put your napkin on your lap for you)

We were featured next to a photo of John Cleese!

The Bath Galleries Group Charity Auction was held at The Octagon Chapel, one of my favourite, albeit slightly neglected, buildings in Bath.

It’s a huge, gorgeous 18^th century building somehow hidden away in the centre of the city. Jane Austen apparently used to frequent the Octagon Chapel as it was (and in a way still is) a place to see and be seen. Despite its age and apparent neglect, The Octagon still manages to seduce you.

Here I am at the auction. John Cleese is one of those blurry blobs behind me, I swear.

The auction began after a bit of mingling and a few nibbles, c/o the Jamie Oliver restaurant. John Cleese did his bit by reading out the raffle winners and somehow made it effortlessly hilarious at the same time.

Following the raffle, auctioneer Richard Madley (the professional auctioneer, not the guy from Richard and Judy) took the stage and the real auction began.

It was my very first auction, so I didn’t realize it was as exciting as it was! Chris caught the bug, too, and started eyeing up a painting…

In a spur-of-the-moment decision, Chris asked me to bid on a painting for him. Wow, what an adrenaline rush! Seriously. Next thing I knew, Richard Madley was like “SOLD!”

Jemma, my friend from bo.lee gallery deserves some credit here. She did a ton of work to organise the auction on behalf of the Bath Galleries Group!

Chris’s purchase was a large Dominic Hills oil painting titled Bear. Naked lady alert!

After the auction ended, we headed to Opium (cocktail bar) and I snapped a few shots of the Pulteney Bridge that I can’t help but share. Bath is so pretty!

I am saving my pennies for the next auction!

Red having lunch at Hall & Woodhouse

…and hitting up Victoria Park for a silly game of catch or frisbee.

Elliott in Victoria Park by the Royal Crescent, Bath

Even Gravy has been enjoying the warm weather as well. He now only comes home once a week, at most. It’s almost enough to make me wish for winter!

One of the best things about this wave of warmer weather is the length of the day. I love having a morning cup of tea while sitting on the doorstep, looking out at the view and anticipating the warmth of the forthcoming afternoon. I love being able to have barbecues on the patio without racing to scarf down our dinner before the sun sets.

I also love and eagerly anticipate our regular Sunday breakfasts at Wild Café, Bath. Seriously, this place does the best eggs benedict that I have ever tasted. It’s never been short of amazing. Poaching eggs is apparently all about the vinegar.

Just looking at that photo made me hungry.

Oh yes, and we had another visitor! Laura came to visit a few weeks ago and we had fun showing her around and laughing at our mutually favourite YouTube videos. Laura was the one who showed me grape lady falls, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

Among other things, we took her to Burford and dragged her around the massive garden centre there.

We also went bowling and afterwards I experienced my first plank.

One night we went for a few drinks and stumbled upon some dudes breathing fire outside of Opium cocktail bar. Oh, the things you see in Bath.

After Laura left for France, I attended a bo.lee gallery art exhibition at The Octagon, Bath. The work was truly stunning and the venue is probably one of the most under-appreciated in Bath. The Octagon is absolutely gorgeous! I’m attending a charity art auction there tomorrow night which will be hosted by John Cleese! What to wear…

We also got to meet the two little kittens that Paul and Daria are raising (they’re looking for good homes, btw).

One of them is a black smoke, which we were hoping for with Pipsqueak’s litter; Chris has always wanted another black cat.

They were soooo cute!

This past weekend, I played in a softball tournament in Bristol. Miraculously, the weather was perfect both days! I somehow managed a homerun, too – my first!

I got a new lens for my camera, as well. It’s a Sony DT 50mm AF f/1.8 SAM. I also got an E to A mount adapter so that it would work with my Nex-5. I’m in love with it already!

Check out the quality this thing produces!

I should mention that Trevor brought his cat, George, in to work yesterday. He was meant to be catching a big rat that escaped from the cellar, but instead he meowed a lot and peed on Chris’s lunch! LOL. He was cute nonetheless, though.

The lens is amazing; I am a huge fan of the massive blur and sharpness that you get all within one photo. Once I get the AF working, it’s going to be portrait time once again for the cats! </crazycatlady>

I suppose that brings us up to date. Graham has requested I post more recipes and I’ve got a butter tart recipe from my Aunt Lynn to try out, so that might be up next…

My mom is a beautiful person. It’s Mother’s Day in Canada, so here’s why I’ve got the best mom.

Growing up, she never missed a single one of my softball games or tap dance recitals.

When I was 5 and fractured my arm at ice skating lessons, I vividly remember sitting in the heated stands with my head on her lap. People kept saying I was white as a ghost, but I felt like everything was going to be ok. It happened to be Halloween and mom made sure we waited until the end of the lesson so I got my bit of candy and then we headed to the hospital.

When I decided on a whim to change the colour of my room to beige with dark green and maroon accent colours (don’t judge me), she helped me paint and put up a border (it was the 90s, ok?). She also painted my entire bedroom set and sewed a quilt to match. A few years later I decided I liked primary colours and we started making a new quilt together.

On that note, my mom is very talented. She can play the flute, french horn, piano, organ and guitar. She used to be fluent in French. She is amazing at crafty things such as sewing, quilting, cross stitch, knitting, embroidery, and can master pretty much else she sets her mind to. She is a pitcher on her church slow-pitch (softball for you Brits) team and didn’t shy away from the position even after a hard hit to the nose gave her two black eyes.

As well as being a member of the softball team, my mom also volunteers as the secretary for the Awana weekly youth program at her church. She will also play any song (whether she knows it or not) for the Sunday worship team, which often requires hours of practice.

My mom is more organized than you can even imagine. She has entered my tax returns competently (and for free!) since I turned 18. She is the quickest typer I know and she will own you in Scrabble. Mom has become real competition for me in Facebook Bejewelled Blitz, which I now regret introducing her to! She also excels at Photoshop (which I taught her a few years back) and has a great eye for photography. In fact, all of the landscape photos in this post are ones that she has taken! She also took up golf in her mid forties and wins all kinds of ladies’ tournaments.

Basically, my mom is very selfless and excels at everything she sets her mind to.

Her sister (my aunt) Heather adds:

When we were teenagers and Sharon could drive but I was still too young, I would beg her to take me places – McDonald’s, a drive in the country, Ipperwash beach, etc. The thought of that little independence was so enticing to me. Sharon, who worked long hours for Dad in his office, pulled off straight A+’s at school, plus worked on her flute, french horn and piano skills, would always give in and head out to the open road with me. This is just a little example, but the big point is, Sharon is a softie – great big, huge, kind heart. That’s why I love her and that is what I know makes her a great Mom. Lucky you.

And this is what my younger brother Nick had to say:

In addition to all of the above (and her more than 400 rounds of golf per year), mom somehow had the time to be my personal chauffeur growing up. She was the one getting me up at 5:30 AM for hockey practice, driving me to band at 7 AM, or taking me to Toronto to see the Blue Jays. I’m not sure I realized what a huge commitment she was making at the time – I was too busy complaining about having to get up so early! But without mom’s dedication to providing me with opportunities to try and succeed at new things and pursue my interests, I wouldn’t have a career in music today. Thanks mom!

We love you, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day!

L to R: Kristen, Amy, Kim

Now that we’re older, paired off and live 4000km+ away from each other, there’s no harm in posting these things…….. right?

Paired with the fact that we were older than a flood of our younger cousins, we have always thought ourselves so mature. Our friendship was exclusive and not extended to our ‘annoying’ younger cousins (sorry, guys! haha). We dubbed ourselves The Three Musketeers so long ago that I can’t remember and, to this day, still sign all of our emails with our awesome secret code names.

Us in our new flannel nightgowns from Grandma

When the entire family was gathered, we would sneak away and sit on our own, which, with a large family like ours, usually meant a cold storage room or empty bathroom. When the younger ones found us, we would come up with excuses and games to get them away from us until one would cry to their mom that we were excluding them.

We once put all the younger ones in grandma’s bath tub and turned the lights off, telling them that they were on a magic carpet ride. [I suppose this dates the event post 1992.] They had to stay in the bath tub and close their eyes, or else they would fall off Aladdin’s carpet and be excluded from the experience. We took this opportunity to slowly sneak out of the bathroom one by one, leaving them to squeals of delight for a little while until one of them peeked.

Grandma Joy would host sleepovers for us every once in a while and we would relish in the opportunity to hang out, just the three of us. It was such a treat – dinner at Wendy’s followed by a nice swim, some Little House on the Prairie, leave-in hair curlers and then sleeping bags in the lounge. When we played mermaids in the pool, we all got to be Ariel because it had to be fair. Who wanted to be Ursula, anyways?! Kim was the best at this and came up with the most elaborate story lines. It would figure that she went on to pursue an English degree!

Late at night, after being hushed a million times for her incessant witch cackle of a laugh, Kristen would convince us that we should make breakfast in bed for Grandma to make up for it. Kim and I heartily agreed and the three of us would stumble through what was likely a terrible excuse for poached eggs & toast at 6am, just to surprise her. Grandma later told me that she didn’t like breakfast in bed because we would just sit there, watching her eat and keep asking if she liked it. Can we say AWKWARD!

Another pastime of ours was making up dances to songs that we liked. Kristen knows that there is an embarrassing lip synching video of us somewhere! Once, at Kim’s summer cottage, we got in trouble for dancing to a Spice Girls song (our families are religious). It was worth the lecture about secular music, though. It was also the first time I ever wore mascara!

Speaking of makeup, Kim was the first to be allowed to wear it, so we’d ALWAYS do makeovers at her house. She always seemed so naturally glamourous to me, though, and I envied her having two older sisters. Sometimes we’d get lucky and Kristy (Kim’s older sister) would help. If Kathy (Kim’s other older sister) wasn’t at home, we would most definitely try on all her platform shoes.

Amy and Kim, skating on the Mill Pond in Dorchester. Snapped in a rare moment when we weren't shovelling our own private rink and having Lincoln the dog pull us around it.

Kristen and I bonded over crafty things like scarves and making anonymous ransom-style letters to each other. We’d cut out all the letters from magazines and everything. Then, to convince each others’ parents we had secret admirers, we’d put on the back of the envelope “SWAK” alongside a lip print. Honestly. Once Kristen even accompanied this with a return address. I used to bust her chops about not spending as much time on my letters as I did on hers. I needed her letters to be longer because I was “a really fast reader”.

I realize that this blog post means little to those who don’t know the three of us, but I just wanted to publicly express how much their friendship has meant to me over the years.

Here are some other things that might stir up memories with you guys:

• Kraft Dinner x 2093245234
• Kim doesn’t like Amy Grant, oh no!
• Touching Lincoln the dog in such a way that he couldn’t stand it and wanted to bite your finger off
• A surprise visit at Northwinds
• New Year’s Eve with string lights and wigs
• Jumping on the trampoline
• That one time at my old apartment, probably the last time we were all together
• Licking our breakfast plates clean to get a sucker
• I sat on your hampster
• Hiding in the treehouse and talking about boys
• Making rock forts at Northwinds

And to my seemingly annoying little cousins, I love you guys too.

See you all at Christmas, I hope!

Yours truly,

TMAM

*wipes a few homesick tears*

The Mysterious Leg Explosion

The first in the chain of events happened in late May (okay, so not quite summer) during a visit with my friend Lauren, whom I hadn’t seen since I visited her in Holland the previous May. We met up in London and had a fabulous day of sightseeing, complete with lunch and wine in Covent Garden. It wasn’t until the end of the day when we were on the London Eye that I noticed my legs had a weird rash on them.

It wasn’t like a normal rash. There were no bumps and it didn’t itch. It was just bright red under my skin. A visit to the doctor confirmed that it was, in fact, burst blood vessels under my skin. I had a blood test done, just in case I had a strange disease (for the record, I do not), but nobody could figure out what had caused it. I suspect it was some sort of reaction to the heat / walking, though.

Bronchitis

I generally come down with bronchitis several times a year, ever since my pneumonia spell during college. I have asthma as well, so bronchitis is never much fun and I usually need a round of azithromycin to set me right again. This summer was no exception. Here I am with bronchitis and a bonus kitty:

Broken Finger

The pinky finger incident was embarrassing. When I initially had it x-rayed at the hospital, they said it was just bruised and swollen and not to worry. I didn’t worry. It didn’t get better.

Then the hospital called me a week later and said they had noticed something on my x-ray and suggested I visit the fracture clinic.

It turns out I had a volar plate injury, which is kind of like a break in that the ligaments in your finger separate from the bone in the joint, often pulling off a little bit of the bone with it. I guess it’s hard to see in an x-ray, which is why they didn’t notice it the first time. In any event, my finger hadn’t been splinted for the first week and still doesn’t bend, nearly two months later!

Also note that British people call this a ‘little finger’ and not a ‘pinky finger’. They didn’t know what I was on about for a while.

Wisdom teeth

This one doesn’t really count as bad luck since it had been planned months in advance, but it was painful nonetheless. Have a look at the bottom ones!

When I came to, I remember giving everyone the thumbs up, only my pinky finger was still broken so it looked like I was telling everyone to call me. The nurses chatting amongst themselves said I was really giggly. After that I was on codeine for a week and it was glorious. Eating, looking like a chipmunk and coming off the codeine were not.

Branded Palm

This one was really stupid. I mean really stupid.

I cooked a full roast dinner, complete with roasted potatoes which had been previously boiled and then coated in flour and tumeric before popping them into the oven to crisp up. I have done these loads of times, but this time I decided to use the pot that they had been boiling in and stick that in the oven instead of using another roasting pan.

They crisped up nicely and I put them back onto the cooled hob for a few minutes while I carved the beef. Then I decided to serve the potatoes, so I grabbed the pot to carry it over to the table. I did this without the protection of my trusty oven glove and didn’t realize until the nerves affected sent messages to my brain, by which point I had carried the pot halfway to the table.

I dropped the pot and food went EVERYWHERE. I was sobbing, more about the fact that I had ruined my perfect meal than about the scalding burn. By then I was used to pain. Actually, the only finger that didn’t get burned was my pinky, which was taped up due to swelling.

Near death experience

What a better way to end my string of bad luck (touch wood) than an ambulance ride! This one happened at softball also. I was playing third base and a male was up to bat. For some bizarre reason, I was playing ahead of the baseline. I should have known better!

Still, the batter had probably the best connection with the ball ever, and it ended up being a line drive to my throat. I swung my glove up as fast as I could, but it was too late. Some say the ball clipped my glove, but I don’t think it did. I remember it hitting my throat, but not feeling the pain at first. I saw the reaction of the batter and of my shortstop, and then the pain hit. I spun around and fell to the ground, clutching my throat.

People on my team didn’t realize where it had hit me until they heard me struggling for air. Just typing this makes my throat feel tight. It made this awful sound, something like what I imagine a dying walrus to sound like. I realized that my throat was swelling up and panicked, realizing I couldn’t take in enough air and feeling like I was going to pass out. I know it sounds cheesy, but I really did have a ‘life flashing before my eyes’ moment and realized that if I let myself pass out, I probably wouldn’t breathe again.

With some help, I managed to turn over and find a position in which I could somewhat breathe. My teammates got ice on me really quickly and called an ambulance. Turns out there are no bones in there – just cartilage, and my actual neck was okay. Worse than the pain, though, was the shock. I couldn’t talk about it without crying for a week!

I was on codeine for another few days after this, but after about a week I was pretty much back to normal.

You can see the stitch marks from the ball!

The day after this happened, I bought a lottery ticket. I may not have won, but it gave me dreams of winning the lottery and living happily ever after, which was well worth the £1, if you ask me!

What do you guys always pay premium prices for?

Here’s my list:

• ketchup
• toilet paper
• yoghurt
• hair straighteners
• hotels
• peanut butter
• frozen pizzas
• sheets
• tweezers
• vacuum cleaners
• ice cream
• toothpaste
• towels
• eyeliner
• gym shoes
• nailpolish
• electronic devices
• wall paint
• car washes
• small kitchen appliances
• chicken breast
• cat flea spot-on treatment

Not only did I not catch the ball but it jammed my pinky finger, which still doesn’t seem to want to bend a week later.

The poor finger has been taken for granted as I have now noticed all of the things I didn’t know that I used it for.

• Balancing a cup of tea
• Holding coins in my hand
• Removing eye goop
• Carrying grocery bags. It’s surprising how much more weight you can manage with all 5 fingers in use!
• Typing the keys ‘p’ ‘,’ and ‘shift’
• Throwing a softball

Feel better soon, pinky!

Some of my stuff (and two cute cats), before

I had an entire apartment full of stuff and I had to part ways with most of it in order to fit my life into one large suitcase. Doing so helped may have made me feel a bit homesick in the beginning, but it was also liberating.

Some things I have noticed after letting go of my stuff:

• It’s now much easier to ruthlessly purge my wardrobe
• It feels good to donate to charity / give to friends
• If I ever had to move countries again it would be much easier to let go of my possessions
• When my stuff is organized, the rest of my life is easier to organize as well
• I’m more picky about what stuff I spend my money on. I ask myself “Do I really need this?”

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying everyone should live a minimalist lifestyle with no collections or frills. I have quite a bit of stuff now, in the UK.

I just think that being able to make the distinction between ‘want’ and ‘need’ is important. And also, it’ll save you public embarrassment on How Clean Is Your House.