Condo this week

The walls on P1 are slowly going up...

March 13 @ 8:55am

March 14 @ 10:52am

March 15 @ 10:52am

March 16 @ 11:32am

March 16 @ 4:03pm

Toronto Art Expo

I spent Friday night hanging out with a couple friends from work at the Toronto Art Expo. We had dinner at Marinela's first, which is, I think, one of the best Italian restos in Toronto, particularly in terms of quality and value. I've been there a handful of times and it never disappoints. If I recall correctly, I had the linguine with clams my first time there and I was impressed with how many clams there were. I like pasta, but I'm sometimes hesitant to order it over other mains because I find some restaurants skimp on the good stuff to maximize on the margin. Not Marinela's. I ordered the Fettucine di Mare last night and there were 2 honkin' whole scallops, a generous lobster tail, shrimp, mussels and crab legs. And it was just the right serving size. Mmm mmm good.

We hit the expo around 7pm and given the sheer number of artists present, we tried to be fairly systematic about our walk through the show. 1.5 hours in, we realized that we would have to step up our pace if we wanted to see all the artists because the expo closed at 10pm.

This visit was meant to be a reconnaissance mission. I was going to scope out the talent and get a sense of what kind of price points the artists I liked were asking for so that a year or two from now, when I am ready to buy art for my place, I'll have a price and object in mind.

So what did I find? A LOT. While I picked up cards for 20+ artists the themes were fairly consistent amongst them. I obviously like flowers, I gravitate towards works that have an Asian feel to them, and I prefer bright, bold colours.

Of the many artists there, I'd have to say that my favourite was Danielle O'Connor Akiyama - and it was because of her work that we stayed after close. We had made our way to the escalator to leave when my one friend who has been collecting art for a number of years now played the little devil on my shoulder...so what did we do but ride the escalator down and back up again so that I could take a second look at her paintings!

I love Akiyama's style - flowers figure prominently in her work, but there's something very energetic and dynamic about them. And I love the brilliant colour of her palette. I was taken with 2 canvases in particular, both of which, of course, were on the high end - they both cost more than my ring!

I couldn't help but think again that if I had kept all my bonus like in years past instead of playing the responsible card and rolling half of it into my retirement savings, I could have bought me some art! But no. I did so I can't and now I'm sad. There may still be hope though. I should be getting a tax refund back this year, so maybe....just maybe...I can still swing it. Hope springs eternal, non?

Anyway, here are the other artists that I've got on my radar:

Andrea Maguire - there's something just this side of eerie and lonely to her large canvases...my favourite was Spirit Dancer
Anne Drouin - I'm loving her orchids
Bert Liverance - I loved his 2 large orchid canvases but they are way out of my price range
Claustro - very cool, sculpted paintings
Debra Jackson - I saw her last at the One of A Kind show late last year
Dianna Last - she was super-nice and explained her interesting photography using old-school film and dark room techniques
Eric Tardif - I'm pretty sure I've seen his sculpted wood birds in a Toronto gallery before and I was taken by how beautifully fluid they are. I want one and a small bird is certainly in my price range....
Giampietro Filippetti - colourful, mosaic art
Ingrid Kay - I was taken with her treescapes
Jennifer Lawton - vibrant florals
Jeremy Bortz - fields of flowers, my favourite was probably Red Dahlias
March Gregoroff - there's a luminous quality to the canvases
Maura Joy Lustig - my favourite is this one
Miri Peer - I was tempted by her Rhapsody in Purple, which again, was in my price range...
Monika Aebischer - there's something very whimsical about her work
Patricia Morris - I love the light in her paintings
Paul Saari - I don't know why but I like
Robyn Drage - I like her Seasons series
Sri Prabha - his abstract work with the gold leaf is gorgeous - this is my favourite
Steven Nederveen - there's an Asian feel to his work that I love...they're sort of moody too
Sandor Monos - this little sculpture was my favourite - I love how sleek she looks, yet there's such detail in her braided hair
Samantha Sandbrook - I love the layered, old-world/new-world feel of her work using the encaustic method - my favourite is the Oriental Poppies

Obviously I'll have to narrow my scope some.

TGIF!

It has been one of those entirely unproductive weeks at work. I don't think I got ONE thing completely done. And even though it's only been a 4-day work week for me, the weekend seemed to take freakin' 2(!!!) weeks to arrive. Why is that? Is it the time change? Is it that it's March Break and two-thirds of my team isn't in the office this week? I don't know, but it sucked eggs.

I'm now biding my time, surfing the net at my desk as I wait for a couple friends to start the weekend. We have plans to check out the Toronto Art Expo tonight after work but since they're on a different team, with a less flexible schedule, they have to stay until 5. Meanwhile, my boss left almost an hour ago. Ah well.

I'm so bored.

Waiting sucks.

This is a lame post.

I'm going to surf some more now.

Just when I thought I was safe

I was chatting with my girl S on the phone last night about how trying the rings on last Friday was enough to sate my recent urge for retail therapy. But it seems I was wrong. So very wrong.

I met her tonight after work to browse the bead stores on Queen West for chandelier earring findings for my client. I'm meeting her next Sunday to show her designs so I wanted to see what was available locally. I didn't find anything for her, but I found something for me...actually, a number of somethings, in the latest addition to the bead strip.

I was just going to get a couple of bracelet displays, but then I came across the wall of smokey quartz. I envisioned these beauties knotted with small pink pearls or rose quartz into a choker and figured that would be it. But it was downhill from there.

I somehow found myself in front of the glass display case at the cash - and you know that can ONLY MEAN TROUBLE! I was shown the sea blue chalcedony in two different cuts - and of course, I had to like the one that was more expensive. So I added that to my stash. Next, and what I thought would be last, was the lemon quartz. Isn't it pretty??


I was all set to check out and then I noticed the tourmalines. You can't really tell in this picture, but some of the stones are blue-green, which isn't very common. The funny thing is that their shape reminds me of kryptonite. So I ended up buying them too. It's a damn good thing that my bonus is being paid out tomorrow!

We met up with WC & WL for dinner afterwards at Epicure and had our usual fun laughing and talking over food and wine. I couldn't linger downtown since it's a school night, so I subwayed back up to pick up my car and drive home. Assuming my condo isn't delayed overlong, I shan't have to make the trek back uptown this time next year.

The nice thing was that the boy called me tonight before he went to bed. We last spoke on Monday and have been in email contact since then. I'm making dinner for him Saturday night - I'm thinking my lobster risotto and pan-seared scallops on a bed of greens or something...I got the idea from the cover of the latest issue of the LCBO's Food and Drink. He says he's going to make key lime pie for dessert - from scratch, no less!

We're also going to spend the night watching the first of apparently many movie marathons. Among them, the Star Wars Trilogy (I've yet to see the original and am rather proud of it), The Matrix, Austin Powers and The Lord of the Rings, which I've already seen, but he's talking the extended versions. I guess this means he sees us together at least in the short- to medium-term, which is a good thing. :)

This Saturday is Jane Austen's night: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma. This is not my doing but his - his favourite book is Emma - I'm still not quite sure what to make of this...mais chacun son gout.

Anyway, I told him about how bad I was tonight with my little spending spree and he tried to assuage my guilt by telling me that I deserved it, that it was for something I enjoyed doing, etc. Sweet, huh?

5 Things About Me

I've been tagged for a meme by The Lone Beader to state 5 things about me so here goes:

1. I'm a recovering compulsive planner and control freak. Case in point: For my NYC trip with my cousin A in the spring of 2005, I read up on restaurants to dine in, museums and art galleries to visit and plays/musicals to go see and compiled detailed spreadsheets for review. After making my choices, I called ahead to book tables or reserved online on OpenTable.com and bought tickets to our shows online. To keep track of it all, I made up a colour-coded Master Schedule of our 5 days and 4 nights broken up in hourly increments - yellow for sights, green for dining, pink for entertainment and orange for to-do's. Yes, I have a problem. But I'm working on it. (The boy actually thinks I'm laidback!)

2. If there was one food staple I could not live without, it's rice. Maybe it's because I'm Chinese and that's what I've eaten at meal times for much of my life, but it's so versatile if you think about it - it can be eaten plain or fried up in infinite ways. It can be made up in congee or in a dessert (black glutinous rice with coconut milk is one of my favourites!) and it can be served sticky or wrapped in lotus leaves (my aunt makes the best sticky rice ever!) It's divine when steamed with coconut milk and so good in sushi...yum. And that's just skimming the surface of the Asian methods of preparing rice. There's risotto, another favourite...and the many different types of rice - there's long grain and short grain, there's brown rice, basmati rice, jasmine rice, arborio rice....the list just goes on and on.

3. I had to change my Chinese name last year just before I bought my condo because my superstitious mother had a feng shui master friend of hers do a reading for me. As a fire dragon, my name was entirely inappropriate because there was too much fire in it and changing my name to something softer is supposed to have an affect on my personality and luck in love. Ya right. I had a choice of 3 new names to choose from so I picked the one that sounded the least country bumpkin to my ears - the bonus is that the Chinese character is easier than the original. Aside from the name change though, I had to find a condo that met a seemingly impossible combination of requirements, one of which was that it must not face west. Why, you may ask? Too much fire. I had many an argument with my mother about how crazy it was but I'm still enough of my mother's daughter that I couldn't completely go against her wishes. In the end, I was able to find a floor plan that met all the requirements to a T...thankfully, it was in short order too.

4. I majored in Economics in university but didn't like it at all. If I could have, I would have switched to History instead because I love to research and write papers. Some people dread them, but me? I'd take a paper ANY DAY! If only the upper-year courses I wanted to take in European history had been offered...but they weren't so an Economics major I remained.

5. I used to read cheesy Harlequin romances like they were going out of style. I'd come home for the weekend from university with my first stop being the library where I'd pick up a dozen paperbacks. I'd then go home and settle in for the weekend. Not a single call to my friends. I'd spend the weekend in my PJs devouring 4 or 5 in succession, reading into the early morning hours and then head back to school recharged and refreshed.

I'm now supposed to send it to 5 blog friends but I don't have any to send it to - the blogs I frequent on a regular basis don't often have a comment facility so this is where I fail. : ( This was fun though! I do love these things. : )

DST Delayed

I don't usually notice the annual one-hour fast-forward we do to save daylight but with this year's change coming earlier than normal, I've noticed it...albeit in a delayed fashion. I slept in Sunday and yesterday since I had the day off, but today was depressing. My alarm rang at 7am and it was dark.

It took all my will not to pick up the phone to call in sick because I felt so tired.

Coming to a small screen near you...

I took the day off from work since the show on which my jewelry will be making its small screen debut was taped today at my friend's studio-store.

For the last week, I've been working on pieces to accessorize the dresses that will be worn during the fashion show portion of the taping. There were 3 models, each scheduled to wear 10 dresses. Since the dresses weren't finalized until Wednesday, it was impossible for me to make something for each dress. In the end, I made about a dozen pieces, mostly earrings and bracelets since many of the gowns were heavily-beaded around the bodice. It all worked out rather well since a number of the pieces were versatile enough to be repeated with different dresses.

It was so cool to see the jewelry on someone other than myself, and with dress that's appropriate for the jewelry. For one thing, a lot of the earrings I made were chandelier-style, and since I tend not to wear them, they look weird on me when I look in the mirror. For another, I don't have fancy gowns readily available at home to see how they look with the right dress. To have the opportunity to see the jewelry on a model all dressed up? Wow.

To backtrack a bit, my day in the studio started around 10:30. The girls were about 30 minutes for the 11am start time so everything ended up being pushed back. It was interesting to get a taste of what goes on in a fashion show atmosphere. Aside from accessorizing all the girls, I was charged with helping one of them get in and out of her dresses. There was a lot of waiting waiting waiting in between changes.

The taping of the models took about 2 hours and then we broke for an hour. I left to grab a bite and run some errands and was back for 3pm, at which time the photographer had arrived to take the stills. Since the interview portion of the show was going on in another part of the store, we had to be quiet on the other side. More with the waiting waiting waiting. We finally wrapped around 6:30.

And now that it's done, I wait some more. The show is expected to air two weeks this Friday on Fairchild between 6 and 7pm. I can't wait to see how it all turns out. My friend asked that I be given a credit for the jewelry, so we'll see if they remember. I'm glad I decided to take the day off. If nothing comes of this publicity, at least I had a lot of fun.

Daydreams that sparkle and shine

Before meeting the boy for dinner last night, I met up with my girlfriend with plans to visit Birks and Tiffany to try on rings.

We hit Birks first, where I wanted to try on this new sapphire and diamond version of the right-hand ring I'd come across last fall. It looked good, but the original all-diamond version looked better on my finger. At $1200(!!) more, it'll be a long while yet before this lovely graces my right hand, which is fine though, because I haven't yet come up with the appropriate milestone to warrant such a big ticket purchase. It's going to have to be a good one too.

I've also had my eye on Frank Gehry's Torque ring in the brown banded agate at Tiffany for a little while now and decided it was about time I tried it on to see if it actually looked good on my finger, lest I waste any more time thinking about it. I love the design but I had misgivings about the wide band - turns out I was right - it made my finger look stumpy, fat and rather manly. Not flattering at all.

I picked up a couple of their catalogues, including The Blue Book, over which I spent considerable time oohing and aahing over the green tourmaline and aquamarine bracelet, which costs a whopping $104,500!!! My heart skipped a beat. What I really loved though, was the Tiffany Novo - their new cushion-cut diamond. It's fantastic, and with the matching bead-set diamond wedding band? Sigh. I'm so over their Legacy diamond engagement ring! The Novo is the way to go! Hehe!

OK. Daydream over.

The gratifying moment though was when I was complemented not once, but twice, on my citrine and carnelian rope necklace on two seperate occassions by the Tiffany sales associates! I was too embarassed to admit that I had made the piece in Tiffany, but it certainly made me smile real big inside! :)

Condo this week

Progress on P1 this week includes the plastic going up on the side - the vapour barrier?? I dunno what all the terms are...but I'd assume so. Whatever it is, I can't wait until they get to ground level and start building up!

March 5 @ 11:20am

March 6 @ 6:17pm

March 7 @ 6:59pm

March 8 @ 9:07am

March 10 @ 12:33am

Busy busy bee am I

One thing I learned: Another word for a dandy or fop is macaroni(!), which, in mid-18th-century England, was a fashionable fellow who dressed and even spoke in an outlandishly affected manner.

One thing I'm grateful for: my friends, who talked me out of my tree, yet again, for overreacting about the boy's "weird" behaviour over the last few days. As per WC, a fellow boy: "don't spend too much time fretting about it and just let whatever happen, happen...y'knowhatimean?...boys are silly...i'm sure we all know that!"

One thing that made me laugh: Conversation with my team over Friday morning breakfast snacks - my big boss waxing poetic about, among other things, the wonder of the built-in DVD player in the car on long drives chaufferuing his kid from town to town for soccer tourneys.

Date night with the boy - we're going out for Indian food tonight. He'd been acting a little out of character the last week - and I of course, forgot momentarily that I was going to chill this time around and overreacted by acting like a girl - I analyzed and second-guessed and got all paranoid...but thankfully, my friends calmed me down and reminded me what's what. He and I spoke on the phone last night and things seemed fine...so it seems my little freak-out was unwarranted.

I've also been very busy the last couple weeks working on jewelry since I was asked to provide some for a fashion show that will be taped this coming Monday for a Cantonese show produced by a national Chinese lanuguage TV network here. I'm excited by the opportunity for the exposure, but am also wary about not getting my hopes up about it and then being disappointed later....hmm...do you sense a pattern here??

The other good news is that I have my first appointment this Sunday with a bride-to-be who called me Monday about a consultation for custom jewelry for her May wedding. Busy busy busy.

Meanwhile, I've been a bad student and haven't practiced my mandarin or done my homework. : (

I'm in like

I've been seeing a guy and I think I'm in like. It's early days yet, but this one may be a keeper.

He's sweet, considerate and funny. It was easy and comfortable when we met for dinner the first time a couple weeks ago. He was in California for business last week but we kept in touch via email and made a date for dinner this past Saturday. He flew the red-eye in and was still jetlagged, so we had a low-key night of dinner and DVDs in - Little Miss Sunshine: thumbs up; Garden State: thumbs down.

I'm wary about rushing things because I fell hard and fast the last time around and that didn't end well. But I'm also mindful of not letting the past get in the way, so it's a fine balance. I re-read the article I posted earlier this year about giving 100% in love so I'm taking everyday as it comes.

We have a date set for this Friday night so I'm looking forward to the end of the week - moreso than usual.

Dating is fun again. :)

Condo Update

The live construction udpate was down for the last couple weeks apparently because the equipment was being upgraded. I still checked just about every day though in the hopes that it would come back online sooner rather than later. It finally did on the first of the month.

I was confused at first since they've changed the vantage point, but I've since figured out that the camera is facing south now as opposed to west.

March 1 @ 9:00am

March 2 @ 11:16am

March 4 @ 1:22pm

March 5 @ 11:20pm

Retail Therapy

I'm feeling overwhelmed with everything that I need to do for my business. I'd been so focused on getting everything ready for sale in the store - jewelry, displays, packaging, pricing, etc - that I hadn't even thought about a pricing model for taking custom orders. SOO much to think about.

I've also been so focused on jewelry that I haven't had a chance to shop for anything really fun for me at all in the last few months. All of my "discretionary" expenditures have been business-related and the need for some retail therapy has been growing stronger in the last couple weeks.

To backtrack a bit, I spent last Monday afternoon setting up the display - it looks great - and had good news to go with it: I've been asked to provide jewelry for a fashion show that will be taped for a Chinese talk show to air nationally(!) So I've spent the last week thinking up designs to match some of the dresses...and I'm still thinking and dreaming. I skipped my mandarin class Saturday afternoon and spent it shopping for beads and worked on a couple designs yesterday.

I took the day off today to work some more and also dropped in to visit with my friend E, who's store my jewelry is selling in. She was consulting with a customer, so I played dress-up and tried on a bunch of gowns, this lovely goddess-style gown in a deep coral colour above among them.

I've had my eye on it since E first laid it out last Monday and now that I've tried it on, I simply MUST have it. I have nowhere to wear it as of yet, but once something comes up, I'll be ready with a gown. It's going to be used in the fashion show in a couple weeks so I couldn't take it home with me today, but I will....soon. :)

Happy birthday, Sis!

It's my lil' sister's birthday today and we only just put her birthday package together last night and posted it today. My gift to her was a gift card to Chapters-Indigo and this necklace, which I had actually started last week(!):

I wired Swarovski crystals and keshi pearls to a sterling silver chain. The colours include tanzanite, fuchsia, montana, amethyst, lilac and black diamond - not my original intention. I started off with a bluer palette and a mix of pearls and stones as you can see below, but things changed as I started working.

I spent a couple hours on it that first night last week, and ignored it the rest of the weekend to focus on getting my jewelry ready for the store (20 pieces were put on display and available for sale Monday!) and of course, there were the lunar new year festivities.

I spent a couple hours on it Monday night and packed it up yesterday with the gifts and goodies from the rest of the family. Hopefully she'll like it...I suspect it may be a little too girly and pretty for her, but who knows? It actually might be a little too girly and pretty for me...but she's way cuter than I am. ; )

Happy Birthday, T!!!

Year of the Golden Pig

Despite the fact that this exceedingly tacky gold pig offends my decor sensibilities, it's beneficent smile never fails to elicit a smile of my own when I lay eyes on it - it actually reminds me of a happy Chinese buddha. Anyway, it showed up a couple weeks ago in pride of place on our front hall table - a symbol of the new year to come - the year of the Golden Pig, an occurence that happens once every 60 years considering that there are 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac and 5 elements. This little piggy comes with a surprise inside:


We celebrated the new year with my extended family at a local Chinese restaurant. For various reasons, we're not particularly tight-knit, so seeing all my paternal cousins and my aunts and uncles together is a treat. Also, given that most of them are older than me and married, I was able to reap the benefit of collecting lucky hong bao money. :)

There was the expected crazy amount of food. By the end of it, I think there were 13 courses, lobster among them. Luckily for me, most of my cousins were like my brother - too lazy to work for the sweet goodness of lobster. There were two lobsters served up in that course and I must have had at least half a lobster all on my own. I had to remember to pace myself or I wouldn't make it to dessert.

I'm going to surrender to my food coma now.

Gung Hey Fat Choy or Gong Xi Fa Cai if that's your preference.

100 Titles

I came across this meme over at Bookmark My Heart and despite being sleepy, I'm a sucker for these things and couldn't help myself.

I'd like to preface this by saying that it may be rather harsh to say I wouldn't touch the stricken titles with a 10 foot pole...I'm just less indifferent towards them then I am with the titles I've ignored.

Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a 10 foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. +A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. +Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. +Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. +Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. +Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (J.K. Rowling)
17. +Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. +Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. +The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. *The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. +I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. +The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. *The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. +The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. +Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. +She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. +A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. *Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. +Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. +The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. *Shogun (James Clavell)
74. +The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. *A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. *Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. +Emma (Jane Austen)
86. *Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. +The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. +In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Condo this week

There's a new show on HGTV Canada called Big City Broker airing on "Real Estate Wednesdays." It's billed as a "docu-soap series" starring Brad J. Lamb, the "condo king" of Toronto and members of his team. I'm not usually interested in the real estate themed shows - Design Tuesdays is more to my taste, but I've tuned in since the show debuted last week because my condo is one of his developments. It's funny how a pseudo-connection can draw one in, isn't it?

Looking at the images from this week, it doesn't seem like there's been much progress, if any:

February 12 @ 1:16pm

February 13 @ 9:19am

February 14 @ 3:26pm

February 15 @ 4:18pm

February 16 @ 1:18pm

Sweep it all away!

Pastries filled with various sweet pastes. Pretty and yummy!

I got a call this afternoon from my mother to say that I have to dust when I get home tonight since it's the 28th day of the last month of the lunar year. According to Chinese tradition, the house has to be cleaned from top to bottom to symbolize a fresh start for the new year. It must be done by New Year's Eve which is this Saturday, otherwise you risk sweeping away any New Year's luck.

I dillydallied for most of the night and only just got around to dusting at 10pm. She arrived home soon after from her dinner party and started doing the laundry. If I had known that dirty laundry was included in the no-no list, I would have done it earlier and saved myself a shower with low water pressure.


My mother also bought fresh flowers - which she's never done before - for the front hall table. Since CNY is close to spring on the lunar calendar, fresh flowers signify the hope a new year and season will bring.

I'm rather looking forward to the good eats and of course, the lycee, or red envelopes stuffed with lucky money - Christians have Christmas, the Chinese have the lunar new year!

Snow Days

When I went to bed last night, I was hoping for a snow day since we'd all gotten a voicemail from HR asking us to call in to check our messages to see if the office would be open. The forecasters had been calling for 10-20cm of snow in Toronto. In actuality? Not so much. Regions west of Toronto got upwards of 70cm. Here? With all the blowing, we might have had 5cm on our driveway this morning, if that.

I had a grand plan to stay at home in my PJs all day. I was going to watch daytime TV and eat chocolate. But my plan was thwarted by Old Man Winter and I had to make my way into work instead.

The drive this morning took me thrice as long so I didn't get into the office until about 9:30. I don't mind driving, but stop and go traffic is the worst because I get BORED. There's nothing to do! If I was on the subway and it took extra long, I wouldn't care, because that just meant more time for me to read my paper or book...but in the car? Being stuck in the car is the worst.

I had back to back meetings over a 4 hour span, the second of which was a lunch meeting that lasted 3 hours. At least the food was good.

Oh, the guilt!

I've been feeling like a complete sloth the last week having made up any number of excuses for not hauling my butt out and into the gym to work out - chief among them being that it's just too darn cold to make the brief walk out from house to car to gym. Lame, I know.

I was undecided about whether or not I was going to run tonight. I finished dinner around 7 and then sat around for a couple hours doing not very much. 9 o' clock rolled around and it was do or die time - so I decided to haul ass. I figured since we're supposedly going to be hit by a snowstorm tomorrow, I better go now while I can, because there's no way I'm going to go tomorrow. And besides, a week is about as long as I'll allow myself for a break from the gym - any longer might result in a deeper slide and we just can't have that.

Tonight's distance? Just over 5.3K...not bad considering I probably could have run longer if it wasn't coming up to 10pm. I think I'm plateauing - I've upped the intensity but there's only so much my poor feet and shins can take, so I think my next goal now that I've hit 5K fairly consistently is to work towards doubling my distance. I know there's a 10K race sometime in the year...or am I talking crazy? Hmm....

Carpal tunnel from a spray paint can?

I spent the day attending to business: I re-shot Sheila modelling my jewelry for my portfolio this morning and then hauled my butt out into the cold after lunch to pick up some more cans of spray paint (a brown colour, primer & matte spray).

This afternoon was spent with can in hand, painting my white pillow pouch boxes brown. I think I might have given myself temporary carpal tunnel from depressing the spray button for a prolonged period of time - it's still feeling weak 3 hours later.

Mais la voila:


This is how my jewelry will be packaged for the buyer...it will be wrapped in a pink kerchief first, which is next on my to-do list, and then placed in the box.

Looking at it makes me want to eat chocolate...which is what I've been doing off and on all day. BAD! But the extra dark chocolate is soo good.

The hunt for Tim's and playing hooky

I went to the funeral of my best friend WL's grandmother this morning. I had made plans with our friend S to pick her up from Warden subway station about an hour earlier in order to stop for a bite to eat before going to the service at 11am.

I figured we'd stop at a Tim Horton's, which is pretty ubiquitous - who knew that we would drive by 3(!) that were drive-thru only before finally finding one that was sit-down? We were ready to settle for a McDonald's when we came across a billboard for the golden arches only to find that it was a phantom McD's because the actual restaurant was nowhere in sight.

We made it to the service with about 5 minutes to spare and slipped into the last row where our two friends were seated with the other pallbearers. It was a nice service done mostly in Cantonese. When the minister spoke about Grandma L at length, I tried to translate to S who isn't Chinese, but much of the religious symbolism got lost in translation since I'm not familiar with the vocabulary in Chinese. I cried during the eulogy, and I had never met Grandma L in life. I suppose it just reminded me of my own grandmother's death. The burial, thankfully, was short, since it was REALLY cold this morning.

The cemetery happened to be the same one in which my father is buried, so I stopped by for a visit with my dad. By this time it was 12:30. Too late for me to make it to my mandarin class on time, so I played hooky today and went for lunch with S&WC instead. Given the cold, we opted for the warm comfort of congee. I had never been to Congee Star at Don Mills/Eglinton, but it's funny how it looked and felt like Congee Wong. If it weren't for the sign outside, I wouldn't have known the difference.

Afterwards, I dropped S&WC off at the subway and went about my errands: I picked up a new beadmat at beadFX since I had spilt nail polish on my last one and stopped at FabricLand in the hopes of finding some nice fabric to line the display case with. I've settled on chocolate brown and pink for my colours and came across this great bolt of flocked taffeta. I also found some lovely pink satin for the DIY display mats for the trays I picked up at Lacy & Company.


Just as I was pulling out of the parking lot into traffic, it occurred to me that I needed some fabric to use as a backdrop for my photos...so silly me, I drove to another FabricLand about 20 minutes away. Why didn't I do the easier thing of turning back? Because it wasn't easier - there's only one entrance into the lot I had just exited and to turn back would require a couple illegal U-turns given the stupid island that separated traffic...and I couldn't be bothered.

I was glad I decided to go to the other FabricLand though because I found this great flocked fabric on sale for $5/metre:


I have no use for it right now, but I think they'd make great accent pillows. I love the bird motif - and the brilliant fuschia and turquoise colours. (The picture doesn't do it justice at all.)

I spent the rest of the afternoon taking pictures of my dummy - christened Sheila by WC - modelling my jewelry, but after downloading them to my laptop, it occurred to me that they're too dark. I'll have to try again tomorrow earlier in the day for better natural light. Here she is though, doing her thing:

Condo Update

More progress on the construction front - there are a few more load-bearing walls up now on what is likely P1:

January 30 @ 9:17am

January 31 @ 9:23am

February 1 @ 10:00am

February 2 @ 10:02am

February 3 @ 5:35pm

February 5 @ 10:55am

February 6 @ 9:51am

February 7 @ 1:17pm

February 8 @ 10:36am

February 9 @ 9:42am

My dummy's here!

I left work early today and stopped in to visit a couple wholesalers. I've been looking for earring display stands and found the perfect ones for $2 each - so I bought 4 of each size. Here's the sketchy thing though: It's one of those Chinese places where if you pay cash, there's no tax. So I paid $24 for the 12 stands I bought...and when I asked for a receipt, I was told that they don't give receipts. When I asked for one, the saleswoman picked up a random piece of scarp paper and wrote $24 and the date on it - as if I couldn't do that on my own! When I asked for a card because I needed a receipt to claim the expenses, she said she'd write the details on the card, and to "validate" my sale, she signed it. Weird, non?? I think she was just too lazy to write up a receipt for me given the small volume.

The good news? I arrived home today around 5:30 to find that the dummy I had ordered off EBay to model my jewelry had come! Now I can start photographing my jewelry for my portfolio.

I've been procrastinating the last week in regards to the administrative stuff - while I've priced everything, I haven't actually put pen to paper to label the pieces...and I still have to finish painting my boxes brown and attaching the ribbons to them....the list is long....and I better get my ass in gear because next weekend's Chinese New Year...and what better time to make my debut then when the ladies will be shopping for new accessories to dress up the new year?

Retail Therapy....sort of

I track my expenses on a regular basis and was udpating the "books" the other night when it occurred to me that the bulk of the "discretionary" charges to my Visa have been related to my business. If I didn't have that on the go, I would have made good on my goal of saving more this year. But you've gotta spend money to make money, right?

Anyway, I treated myself today. It's Clinique Bonus Time at The Bay and the timing couldn't have been better because my liquid soap is good for another day or two and I've been meaning to pick up some scrub.

The impulse buy was Norah Jones' Not Too Late, which was on sale for $11.99! Actually, it's not really an impulse because I'd been thinking of getting it since I heard she was coming out with a new disc...it just seemed like an impulse to my friend because I walked in looking for him, saw the disc and walked to the check-out right away.

I haven't listened to all of it yet but so far, it's sounding pretty good. I was told at the check-out that there's a free bonus track available for download but the website in the CD had changed so I was given a flyer with the new address. Problem? Well, there was no insert included in my CD with the pin number needed to download the track. So no bonus for me. :(

...it's only a rehearsal

I signed up for the Harbourfront Centre's e-Newsletter awhile back and the latest arrived in my inbox today. Attached was this promotional image of the Norwegian dance company, zero visibility corp:

Photo by Erik Berg

My first thought was, "Damn! she must have rock-hard abs to hold that pose!" Then I thought, "her arms are so nice and toned!" It's a strong, super-sexy pose. Almost enough to get me to lift a weight again...almost.

From the Harbourfront Centre website:

...it’s only a rehearsal is choreographer Ina Christel Johannessen’s powerful and physical duet for a man and a woman. Based on Ovid’s myth of Actaeon and Artemis, the couple’s relationship is revealed to us through their raw physical expression. The dynamic shifts between them as they rub and press, push and pull, back and forth—as the physical tension mounts in overtly sexual and sensual ways.
An intimate story of reward and punishment, the audience becomes the voyeur in this incredibly sexy, potentially risky, sometimes funny love story about the inherent connection between the watcher and the watched, and the fine line between desire and obsession.

It premieres tonight and is on stage until Saturday.

Top 5 New-ish Buildings

Yesterday's post got me thinking about my favourite buildings and what they would be if I had to come up with a top 5. If I restrict the list to new-ish buildings, in no particular order:

1. The Gherkin in London
2. The Seattle Central Public Library in Seattle (duh)
3. The Four Seasons Centre in Toronto
4. The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles
5. The Dancing Building in Prague

I've experienced all of these buildings up close and personal in some way:

The Gherkin, as previously mentioned, I saw while riding on the bus. I remember spending an afternoon along the Thames and watching it amongst the London skyline, and wishing that it wasn't so cloudy so that I could take a good picture of it. I also remember kicking myself for not pulling my camera out while I had the chance on the bus - but I was too busy taking it all in to even think about taking a picture.

I went to Seattle over the Labour Day long weekend with my ex 2 years ago when I was out on the west coast for a visit. We drove to Seattle partly so I could check out the library (below), which I had first read about in an article possibly by the Toronto Star's architecture critic, in person. We took the elevator up to the top floor and walked our way down the ramps, browsing the stacks as we went - it was a great, albeit geeky, way to spend a morning.

via

The Four Seasons Centre makes me look forward to going to the opera - which I've still yet to do there. I did go see The Nutcracker this past Christmas and it's just a beautiful building inside. The glass box design really does bring the city in and makes the audience part of the spectacle to those without. Even within the building, the heavy use of glass gives this sense of amazing space - we could see from the top level down to the bar in the main lobby, and the wide steps allow for seating and lounging during intermissions. It's certainly not the typical night at the opera one would expect to experience, that's for sure.

It's interesting to me that the last 2 buildings on my list are Frank Gehry designs. I took the picture below of the Walt Disney Concert Hall back in June of 2004 when I was out there to visit one of my oldest friends. We waited in line in the bright sun to get rush seats to a piano recital by a Japanese pianist who my friend's husband was a fan of. This was soon after I had chopped off about a foot of hair (I was bored) to boy-short and I remember getting a sun burn on the back of my neck that day - it hadn't occurred to me to use sunscreen since the back of my neck was usually covered by my hair.

Anyway, we got some pretty great seats about a dozen rows from the stage and the cool thing was that the pianist ended up sitting a seat away from us after the intermission. We asked her for her autograph, even though we weren't really fans because we thought it'd be fun.


Finally, I was in Prague last April with another one of my best friends, S. Prague is a great city to wander around in. We spent an afternoon walking about with the aim of hitting some of the architectural highlights - Gehry's "Fred and Ginger" building below among them. The approach we made to the building was perfect because it sits on a corner and it just so happened that we came towards it from the front. We tried to get inside but the cafe that was on the main level appeared to be closed and it looked like a pass was needed to get into the building so we just admired it from without.

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I've always found Top lists hard to compile, but this was fun. Based on the international flavour of my list, I've been very fortunate to travel and experience the architecture first-hand....and now that I'm done my list, it's suddenly occurred to me that I've completely forgotten the Sydney Opera House, which I toured in 2002 while there for my cousin's wedding! Drat!

600m pounds!

My friend W sent me this news story today about my favourite new building in London, the Gherkin, or, as I like to call it, the Christmas Lightbulb, because that's what it reminds me of. It was sold for GBP 600 million, the equivalent of about US$1 billion.

I saw it for the first time while on the bus last spring. I think it was the day that S and I had spent the day shopping. If I recall correctly, that was the day I bought not one, but two(!) pairs of suede boots (they were on sale!) and my 30th birthday gift to me, the LV Sonatine handbag which I had been eyeing for a few years - who would have thought that LV would be cheaper in London even with foreign exchange factored in? Anyway, we were on our way to meet W and friends for dinner at an Indian restaurant and the bus drove by this building and I was immediately struck by how cool it was.

It's featured quite prominently in Woody Allen's Match Point. Jonathan Rhys Meyers' character works in the building and the view from within looking out is quite spectacular. The picture below is W's favourite. It's a fantastic addition to London's skyline. All in all, a beautiful, modern building.

Photographs by Dan Chung

Stretch to 150%!!

My company announced its Q4 results yesterday and because we exceeded our targets for 2006 by a substantial margin, our bonus payout will be stretched to the maximum 150%!! So, if I get a "perfect" rating on my performance for last year, I'll get 100% of my bonus, plus an additional 50% "stretch."

Now that the initial excitement has faded, I'm thinking about how much of that lovely bonus will be clawed back in the way of income taxes. Granted, I can roll all, or part of my bonus into my RRSP so that it's sheltered, but I kinda want the money now...I've got at least another week to fill out the necessary paperwork for HR so I'm going to mull it over a bit.