It's November?

So yeah, that whole blogging thing.

Ye olde month of October was a bit busy, on all fronts. I'm sorry.

Also, since it is now November, and Christmas season has started, so there will be a few Christmas stuff posts in the upcoming weeks. You've been warned.

The beginning of the month saw me at my first executive meeting for the Photographical Historic Society of Canada, because I am their new Image Curator for the Spring Photo Show! I am also acting as a content manager for an exhibition in the spring that will e using the various collections of various members. I'm attempting to change a few things about the Spring Image show, all of which will hopefully result in better attendance. We shall see.

The middle of October saw a busy 2 weeks! I have returned to the great world of paid employment (finally) and am back at an Art Gallery I worked at before and during my graduate degree. This coincided with the week that I GRADUATED with my Master's degree and went to my first, adult wedding. The vintage dress I had hoped to wear was not going to happen, but the back-up dress I ordered from Eshakti turned out to be amazing. I ended up wearing it to both events. And I wore heels. Both times. My feet really hated me by Sunday morning.

I have no pictures of the graduation ceremony, since I was mildly distracted by seeing all my classmates again for the first time in months. We spent most of the afternoon calling each other "Master," fussing over the gowns and hoods and hugging each other frequently. We survived getting a Master's. I almost cried when I saw my parents after the ceremony. Almost. Saved it for the wedding a few days later.

Two days later my best friend from highschool/undergrad got married. They had a lovely, short ceremony in the church that we grew up in in Mississauga, and a fun little reception several hours later in another town. If I sound slightly bitter about that, I am. I love them dearly, and am so proud of the two of them, but arranging transport and dealing with the 4 hour break in-between when you don't drive was a little annoying. I wanted my date (who was a friend of mine that I borrowed from his girlfriend for the day) to be able to drink since he'd never met these people, so that eliminated him driving too. Thankfully my Dad offered to ferry us around all afternoon. Thanks Dad!

The only picture I got during the wedding. Seriously. Was a little busy beaming with pride over Brendan and Kathryn. And then crying during their vows.

St. Stephen's on the Hill. Actually on a hill, cannot be seen form the road as our cab driver proved.

 

 

And then of course, Halloween. My costume was a bit last minute this year, surprise surprise. I had been rummaging through my closet and found my old chicken purse. I love that purse. and haven't used it very much. It was the key prop in a Halloween costume from almost four years ago when I dressed up as a farmer. Creative, I know. It was about 5 days before Halloween when I remembered that I needed a costume since we were going out and figured I'd just do the farmer again. My roommate was not impressed by this idea, and after some further searching on how to incorporate chicken into a costume, we came across the Robot Chicken mad scientist. Perfect. I just needed a lab coat, black work gloves and boots and a wig, and then make a costume for my chicken. 

Ze chicken, with some of the tools used to give him his costume. Those wings are pockets. Amazing.

The rest of the ingredients for this outfit. Most of which were found at the local dollarama.

I opened up a paper bag and painted it to recreate the Chicken's metal parts. I wanted this costume to be as reversible as possible so my chicken purse wouldn't be modified. 

 Scrunch up for added texture.

I added some black and gold with a really dry paint brush to give some more depth to the metal.

And scrunched again.

Then I cut up the pieces to vaguely resemble where the metal is on the real Robot Chicken chicken, and held them on with a few small whip stitches. I'm hoping (haven't done this yet) that I can just snip some of the threads and pull these all off later.

The 'eye' is a giant plastic rhinestone I'm probably going to salvage when I take his costume apart. 

All in all, I think it worked out well. Again, I have no pictures of the night itself. I think my roommate may still have a group portrait of the 4 of us that went out that night, I'll see if I can find it.

Here's hoping I can be a little more diligent with the blogging in the upcoming months.

 

Wedding bits!

Before I get to the wedding stuff,

I'M DONE MY THESIS!!!!!!!

This is also the reason why I didn't post last week, too busy celebrating!I'll post a link to the library listing when it goes up. Kinda excited about that.

On to the wedding bits.

My best friend is getting married next month! I'm super excited and happy for him! It also means I'm really an adult now, my friends are getting married. Weird.

Gift buying time! I got something small off their registry that I could add some more personal gifts too. I'm also sure that neither of them read this blog, let along know it exists, so I can put pictures up with no concern for spoiling the surprise! I lucked out with the tea pot on the registry, totally appropriate for me to give them, and it was on sale when I bought it. It's a really lovely cherry red, which seems to be their accent colour for a black and chrome kitchen. I decided to add a more personalized gift to the tea pot by adding these beautiful antique, French tea towels.

These lovely things from GoshnPoche on etsy are linen in a creamy colour with beautiful stripes on them. They may not make it the wedding. Just sayin'.

Now, for the more important aspect of the day, my outfit (ha)! I have a dress I want to wear, but doesn't quite fit. I bought a beautiful black and blue vintage dress from the Clothing show years ago, and it fit back then no problem. Sadly, my master's degree happened, as well as about 20 lbs of weight gain. I've lost some of it... enough that the dress almost fits again. If I can drop an inch or so off my chest (ha) by the first week of October, I'm good. I've been trying to exercise more and eat better anyway to counteract the master's degree. Fingers crossed.

Should that not work, I did just buy this!

Eshatki is a website I've been looking at for a while, but have been a little apprehensive about buying anything from. Lovely stuff, but a bit expensive for my unemployed self. However, many of the bloggers I follow have made purchases from eshatki, and can't stop raving about the products and customer service. When I was perusing them this past week and found this dress on clearance sale and still in my size, I figured this was a good time to try them out. Now, I just have to wait for it to arrive. The accessories and shoes I've picked for my other dress choice should still work with this one no problem. Should I lose the weight for the that dress, I will wear this for my convocation, which is two days before the wedding.

The only issue I now have, is which petticoat do I want to get to go with it! I know, I'm weirdly, really into fashion and vintage fashion right now. Too many vintage fashion blogs. I'm torn between two colours in the Domino Dollhouse range.

Black, more versatile but now sold out in my size...

or Peacock blue, really fun, fairly versatile with my current wardrobe, goes beautifully with the black dress and available in my size.

The pros are stacking up for Peacock. I met a girl at a bar recently who was wearing a Domino Dollhouse dress, and was able to stalk her and ask about their fit. She raved about them and confirmed that their measurements are true to size, unlike my Torrid problem from last year.

Decisions!!

Risotto!

I actually made risotto. Yep.


I consider this a hard recipe in the sense that I've heard some horror stories about how easy it is to screw up. Once again, I must thank Canadian Living for the recipe! I added mushrooms, they weren't there originally, but I think they make it better.

Smoked Cheese Risotto

By The Canadian Living Test Kitchen

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This recipe makes 4 servingsTop of Form

Ingredients

2 cups vegetable broth 2 2cups cups(500 mL) (500 mL) vegetable broth or sodium-reduced chicken broth
2 tbsp butter 2 2tbsp tbsp(25 mL) (25 mL) butter
1 tbsp olive oil 1 1tbsp tbsp(15 mL) (15 mL) olive oil
1 large shallot , (or half small onion)diced1 1large shallotshallots, (or half small onion) diced
1 small clove garlic , minced1 1small clove garlic, minced
1/4 tsp salt 1/4 1/4tsp tsp(1 mL) (1 mL) salt
1-1/2 cups arborio rice 1-1/2 1-1/2cups cups(375 mL) (375 mL) arborio rice
1/2 cup white wine 1/2 1/2cup cup(125 mL) (125 mL) white wine
4 oz smoked cheese , (such as provolone, mozzarella or Gouda),shredded4 4oz oz(113 g) (113 g) smoked cheese, (such as provolone, mozzarella or Gouda), shredded [I used smoked Gruyere, works great for this recipe!]
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese , (approx)1/4 1/4cup cup(50 mL) (50 mL) grated Parmesan cheese, (approx)
2 tbsp minced fresh chives 2 2tbsp tbsp(25 mL) (25 mL) minced fresh chivefresh chives or parsley

4-5 mushrooms of choice, either White button or Crimini are good, chopped 

Preparation:

In small saucepan, bring broth and 2-1/2 cups (625 mL) water to boil. Reduce heat to low and keep warm.

In large saucepan, heat 1 tbsp (15 mL) of the butter and oil over medium-high heat; saute shallot, garlic and salt until softened but not coloured, about 3 minutes. Chuck in mushrooms and stir.

Add rice, stirring to coat and toast grains. Add wine; cook, stirring, until almost no liquid remains.

Begin adding 4 cups (1 L) of the broth mixture 1/2 cup (125 mL) at a time, stirring after each addition and letting rice absorb most of the liquid before adding more, about 20 minutes in total. Taste before adding last cup (rice should be loose, creamy but not mushy and still slightly firm in centre).

Add smoked cheese and remaining broth mixture; cook, stirring, until smooth. Remove from heat. Stir in Parmesan cheese and remaining butter. Sprinkle with chives, and more Parmesan if desired. 

Cool eh? Check out my attempts to be fancy by adding a flourish of green onions. 

Soooooooooo good. Really pleased with how this turned out. Keeps well in the fridge as well.

On a side note, two of my friends got married recently. We're all quite thrilled and proud of them for tying the knot. And for providing a sushi free-for-all as part of the reception. It also provided my new favorite quote about sushi. The groom and his family are East-Indian/Trinidadian and the bride's is Chinese. The groom loves his Chinese and Japanese food, specifically sushi, but it's not for everyone.

Groom's friend: Dude, do your parents even like sushi?

Groom: No. But they're gonna!

 Congratulations Keith and Sally!! All the best for the future!