Going Domestic

Amazing Adventures of Philatelist Man

  Cool Stamps! 
  Originally uploaded by goingdomestic.

Mail delivery has been a little perplexing for our family lately, but today was kind of fun because this package from an Etsy seller was in the trusty (rusty, actually) mailbox today! Aren't those stamps nifty?

Back to our mail issues ... We have had our mail forwarded from our address in Calgary to our address here in St. John's since we moved here nearly thirteen months ago. I had to renew the forwarding service back in December when we found out that we'd be here longer, and the currently service expires on Feb 28th. The problem is that Canada Post started to deliver our mail to our home in Calgary as of last week, according to our home-sitter. What's the deal? I guess I'll be making some calls today.  This isn't the first time I've written a grumpy blog entry about Canada Post, either ...

Just in time for the next storm!

  The Scarf I Knitted! 
  Originally uploaded by goingdomestic.

My version (longer, wider, not as hairy) of the Rock Star scarf is finished! Done! Complete! I started knitting it sometime during the first week of December, took it off the needles on Tuesday, and finished weaving in the loose ends last night. Wouldn't it be cool if the weather co-operated and I could wear it to Stitch n Bitch on Monday? My fingers are crossed, but I'm not holding my breath!

The details for those interested:
Yarn: Phildar Frimas (MC) and Funny Lux-Pelsgarn (CC).
Needles: US 7 circulars (Boye)

The baby hat is coming along swimmingly - I had no idea that knitting in the round wasn't such a big deal at all! I have decided that it's cruel, however, to knit apparel in cheap acrylic yarn. I don't even like touching the hat on the needles, so I'm glad it's just a prototype and not intended for actual wearing by an actual infant! (If anyone is deathly curious, I'm just doing the Umbilical Cord hat from Debbie Stoller's SnB).

think warm thoughts

Snowed in!
Originally uploaded by goingdomestic.

Well, this is what the three of us woke up to this morning, so it was a day better spent on indoor pursuits. For Chris, this meant working at home inbetween shoveling the Much Loathed Explorer out and clearing the driveway. Me, I decided to get a slight head-start on my next knitting project.

My plan is for Project #3 to be a baby hat, so my adventure actually started this past Saturday when I tried to find a 16-inch 4.5mm (US 7) circular needle at Michaels. The smallest 16-inch circular they had was a 5mm (US 8), which I am really surprised about. I really don't get Michaels. I don't really like shopping there either, but there are few alternatives in St. John's. Anyway, I bought the eights, and a set of DPNs in the same size. They only style they carried in both was bamboo. That was the only positive; I was looking for an excuse to try bamboo needles because of all the fuss being made over them!

So, I brought out my schmancy new bamboo circulars today, and the ball of el cheapo Red Heart aran weight that was the first ball that I ever bought (Michaels didn't have anything more exciting), and cast on for my project. The only method of casting on that I knew was the cable cast on, which I now realize wasn't the smartest choice for knitting in the round. It's not stretchy enough. I ended up attempting the double cast on method, and now am in awe that all of that wrapping of yarn around a needle results in a tidy row of knittable stitches. Then, I made that little knit stitch that connects the first stitch I cast on to the last stitch, thus starting me off on knitting in the round. Yay for new skills! Two in a single day!

amendment

I guess that I was a little harsh in my condemnation of the Ford Explorer. It does have two redeeming features: built-in satellite radio (hello, BBC!) and the seat-position memory (handy because there is a thirteen-inch height differential between Chris and I).

Pick a snow pile, any snowpile ...

  Pick a snowdrift, any snowdrift ... 
  Originally uploaded by goingdomestic.

This is what my street looks like on a sunny day. I took this photo to illustrate the height of the snow piles after a snowstorm or two. Our rented truck was only a few inches taller than the piles!

The snow piles exist because St. John's doesn't collect snow after plowing, so all of the snow that the plows push into one's driveway have to go somewhere, so they go onto the lawn, on top of the snow that fell there. And that's the only place to put the snow from one's driveway as well.

Sometimes it's a bit tricky to determine which two snow piles I should turn in-between to end up in our driveway - they all look alike!

Behold ...

  Heart-Shaped Pizza 
  Originally uploaded by goingdomestic.

It really was heart-shaped! 

If anyone wants the details, this is a photo of the heart-shaped Popeye pizza from Boston Pizza. It's topped with a tangy tomato sauce, roasted garlic, spinach, and feta. My favourite.

Happy Hallmark Day

Bah! I'm not very attached to the whole Valentine's Day thing, but today I am really glad that I have a sweet card from my sweetie sitting on the kitchen counter and a tulip (my favourite!) bouquet sitting on the dining table.

Why do I need these cheer-ups? Well, today Avis called up because they want us to trade the Escape we're renting for an Explorer. Ugh. I despite everything about SUVs, so trading a small one for a bigger one doesn't sit well with me. Particularly because it's winter now, so 6-8 feet of nearly every road in St. John's is buried under huge snow drifts. Perfect time to start driving a wider vehicle, yes ...

Then, I tried to renew my vehicle registration online for my 14 year-old Ford Tempo back in Calgary, so that I would have the new sticker for my license plate all ready for when we arrive back home. The glitch in that plan is that my driver's license expires on my birthday, in about three weeks. Thus, I could not renew my registration, but frankly, that license is a bigger problem.  I'll probably be in Newfoundland for two weeks past that (knock on wood), so what do I do in the meantime? Be a hermit? Drive with an expired license? Get a Newfoundland license for two weeks? Beg the Alberta gov't to give me an extension?  Ughhhhhhhhhhhh ...........

And then, I had wrote a post about ninety minutes ago, only to have discovered that it didn't upload to Typepad properly or something because it's clearly not on this blog.

I really hope that Boston Pizza is still making heart-shaped pizza tonight, because I could use something fun to end this day on!

three hundred & sixty-eight days and counting

Well, the one-year anniversary of us landing at the St. John's airport for a temporary six-month assignment arrived on Friday. Today is Monday, and we're still here, three hundred & sixty-eight days later. I really love this little city, so I normally don't mind having had all of this extra time here, but waiting to move back is making me a little anxious. I feel that we're in some kind of limbo, where we can't really plan things here or there because I don't know how long we're going to be in St. John's or how soon we'll be in Calgary. Kind of frustrating.

Chris, Madeline, and I had another lovely restaurant meal this weekend - we went to the Tuscan Door for dinner on Saturday, and myprosciutto chicken (with Gorgonzola) was divinely prepared (certainly not overcooked like the review suggests!). I think that it made my Top Three Meals in St. John's list, up there with the dinner that I had at Basho back in August and the lovely brunch we went to at The Rooms last month.

Tonight is Stitch n Bitch at The Ship. I've only made it there once since coming home after Christmas - Monday nights seem to attract winter storms, but my fingers are crossed for better luck tonight. I'm still working on that scarf, and I've decided that while row after row of garter stitch is easy, it also takes a lot of time and uses a lot of yarn. I'm scoping out hat patterns for Project #3, but I don't think I'll start anything until I'm back in Calgary (land of several yarn shops) or my birthday needles arrive in the mail - whichever comes first.

I don't believe my eyes ...

Our 2007 Property Assessment from the City of Calgary arrived in our mailbox here in St. John's today. Our house apparently increased in value by $97,500 over the past year. Just because. It's not like we were even there to maintain the lawn.

When will the insanity end? The oil may run out before your mortgage is paid off, Gentle Calgarians ...

definitely a monday

It's a technologically frustrating day today. We upgraded to Internet Explorer 7, and for whatever reason, I am unable to have multiple IE windows open simultaneously. Every time I select "open in new window" from the menu, the page opens in the current window. Bah. So, I've started using Firefox and the transition has been really smooth. And heck, Firefox appears to have a built-in spell check function!  Whee!

My other complaint is that ever since we installed Google Earth, I have been getting an error message every time I try to upload photos from my digital camera. I imagine that this is just an unlucky coincidence, but I'm still a little resentful. Mind you, Google Earth is rather cool to play around in. Chris and I managed to identify our house in Calgary - the map even showed our back alley and the foot path that has been worn into the green space behind our garage! The image here shows the part of St. John's that we're currently living in. We're the red dot. Not a lot of houses in this part of town. Quidi Vidi Lake is the body of water to the left, and Quidi Vidi Harbour is to the north of our home, and the ocean is the blue stuff to right, both north and south. It's what we used to be able to see out our back window before an embarrassingly monstrous house was built next to us this past summer ... Anyway, I am still grumpy about the issue between my camera and my computer's USB ports ...