January was an interesting month, and generally speaking, a good start to 2013. The job hunt continues, but I may have some freelance jobs and part-time projects on the horizon, so that's something. I've been volunteering a lot with two organizations (actually in my field no less!), so that's been keeping me busy. Parts of the apartment are cleaner from the January Cure as hosted by Apartment Therapy, but generally I ended up ignoring it. While an excellent idea, I think a lot of the challenges were meant to be done in a day, but in my apartment could not be. Cleaning my room would, and still is taking a long, long time. It doesn't help that I received another load of stuff from the homefront that needs to find a home. Thanks Mom. That being said, the principles were sound, and I'll probably take them forward. The outbox was used quite a bit though, and on a recent run to Goodwill we unloaded several bags of crap out of it.
Goodbye 11 bags/boxes of crap!
Otherwise, January, and bits of February have been a mix of food, skating and fashion (surprisingly). A bunch of us actually own our own skates and try to get out to the fry rinks fairly regularly in the winter. At one point in my life, two or three years ago, I was an okay skater. Then I fucked up my knee, while skating. In a desperate attempt to not plow into the poor guy who had crashed in front of me, I ended up going down pretty hard. I hadn't and haven't quite mastered the art of stopping on skates just yet. Usually, at least once a winter, I land on that same knee and it makes me psychologically skittish about skating on it for the rest of the winter. It's an asshole like that. We've tried out a few extra rinks from our usual Nathan Phillips Square (for all you Tdotters), specifically the Natrel Rink by the lake for a friend's birthday earlier in the month. It was unbelievably warm that night, so I ended up skating with the coat open and just a T-shirt underneath. Until I fell on my knee and called it a night. Bastard knee.
Hi Dan!
Also, since I'm a Ryerson Alumni, I get access to free skates at the Maple Leafs Gardens! It's the one awesome thing about Ryerson owning the Gardens! Yes, I'm fully aware it's actually called the Mattamy Centre; don't care. It will always be the Gardens. Somewhere out there there are some photos of myself and a friend having some fisticuffs at centre ice in Leafs and Habs jerseys at a recent free skate. It was pretty awesome.
Also, in the month of January, a fashion blogger I follow, Karen of CurvyCanadian, had her official opening for her brand new plus size store! Pretty freakin' excited pretty well covered my thoughts on this news. Your Big Sister's Closet is located on 3126 Dundas West in the Tdot, and she has a really good selection of established (to me) and unknown (to me) brands.
These were the best photos of the day.. little busy going from rack to rack, drooling to myself.
I did actually buy a few things! This lovely bag, and a great belt with a pair of giant gold clamshells for buckles. I also attempted to look fashionable when I went to the opening, and I think I did well. I can't prove it, because my attempt at change room photos failed miserably.
She keeps her facebook page up to date and is frequently posting pictures of new stock and some of her fabulously dressed clients. I shall be heading back soon, I gather she's planning on getting some swimsuits in, and it may be time to look at getting another one.
FOOD. I was going to get there eventually, not to worry! The past wee while has actually been filled with cooking, and some new recipes, most of which I didn't photograph! My enthusiasm for doing that lately has been low, not sure why. That being said, I recently discovered the amazing blog of Helga Von Trollop, and her recipe for Spinach Parmesan muffins. They were dinner that night due to the sheer luck of having all the ingrediants!
In retrospect, i should have added some garlic. Meh, next time.
