Post-vacation

I feel as if I've been everywhere in the past few weeks. We went to Montreal a couple of weeks ago for a wedding by car and before the end of the drive back I was already sick of riding, so of course we took an even longer trip the following weekend. We headed out on a 14-hour drive (including the pitstops) to nearly Thunder Bay to visit Logan's grandfather. This one seemed more bearable, but I think it was because we were better prepared with all sorts of books, sleep aids, and activities to keep us busy.

I was surprised to see how far along the drive we kept reception, but where we were staying and everywhere else we went within the week we spent up there had absolutely no mobile service and no 3G. It was a bit of a shock, since we are all accustomed to living with the internet at our fingertips and in our pockets, everywhere except while we ride the subway. However, I found slight relief in being unplugged for once. I got a decent amount of reading done and we spent some time enjoying the summer in the lake. I found it a little funny that the people who built the little town and live there decided to live so far from anywhere else, but still right on the highway so you can hear every transport truck that passes, but you can see so many stars up there, which was perfect because the Perseid meteor shower happened while we were up there.

Then it was another 14-hour drive before we were back in my hometown at our parents' houses for the night before departing for cottage country to attend my cousin's wedding on Saturday. Unfortunately, it was a little too cold to go to the beach while we were up there. We finally got back to our place in Toronto late Sunday night, and now I've got all sorts of email and Etsy and shipping to catch up on.

What we did do on Monday night was move all the furniture around in our apartment. Over the past several weeks I've been feeling increasingly like my studio area wasn't large enough. Our second "bedroom" has been our studio/office since we moved in and when I was working in there with my sewing machine, serger, laptop, and iron all going-- not to mention the table-space I needed for cutting things out-- it was quite a squeeze. Then add Logan at the desk with his computer set up, it was pretty uncomfortable. We decided to move the studio into our [bigger] bedroom and our bedroom into the studio, After all, we don't need much space to sleep!

Now I feel as if I'm trying to grasp as much of the end of the summer as I can.

Intentional Media Consumption

I aspire to be well read, and you know, have a general understanding of the world, society, and all those pop culture references that permeate media like giant inside jokes. I got a Toronto Library card last summer and have never looked back. You can read as many books as you want for FREE and they will send the books you want to read from all over the city to wherever you want to pick them up. Yeah, I'm lame, but I like free stuff a lot.

For the most part, I just read casually while I'm on the subway or waiting somewhere for a while, but in a couple of weeks we'll be going away to the middle of nowhere, so I imagine I will have a lot of time to read while we are there. We'll be a couple of hours out of Thunder Bay so we will not even have internet for essentially a week and we have a super long drive on the way there and back. I'm taking the opportunity today to update my library hold list so I'll be able to pick up books next week before we leave.

I like to watch TV and things while I'm sewing and doing other half-attention activities. There is a lot more to watch during the September to May TV season, and thus in the 2011-2012 season I watched a lot of shows. The trouble is that I start to do it compulsively after a while and just keep watching episodes of things even if I don't particularly like them just because I watched them before. Now that it is summer the process has to change a little because there isn't quite as much being shoved onto our screens by networks.

I haven't been too terribly into anime since high school and yaoi and Beyblade G Revolution, but ever since I finished university and had some more time, I've been trying to get back into it in some way. I watched some of the beginning of Black Butler, Hetalia, and K-ON, and every once in a while I put my Dragonball Z DVDs on because it has always been the perfect thing to work to. I do always watch English dubs though, because my Japanese isn't nearly good enough to understand and not stare at the screen to read the subtitles. Right now, I'm one season into Avatar. I never watched it the first time around and it has been recommended to me countless times. I'm also three DVDs into the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. I've been borrowing it from the library, so I can watch it while the internet is being slow. I've been considering doing cosplay. Otherwise, I recently started watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, partly to see what all the fuss is about. It is really cute and it's giving me some cute ideas so we can look forward to when I have time to try them out.

In terms of live action, my boyfriend and I are currently watching Breaking Bad, Firefly, and Game of Thrones. I've also been watching Sister Wives sometimes on the internet.

Below is an amalgamation of lists of books that I posted to my old Livejournal a while back. I use it as a guide to what I should read next if I'm not sure. I also have been reading the Hunger Games series, although I'm still waiting for my hold on Mockingjay to come in, so I've been avoiding spoilers.

New computers vs. nuptuals, or I've just made my own long-term commitment

I've been tired lately. This summer is shaping up to be pretty busy; it's a good thing I quit my second job. I don't have the extra time for it anyways.

On Saturday the 30th, we were in Markham for a wedding and on the drive back toward Toronto I asked to go to Tiger Direct so that I could actually finally get a computer. (I've been saying I need a new one for a year now.)  We found one there relatively quickly that fit all my specifications and cost about $100 less than I figured I'd be spending. After a few moments of doubt about warranties and things I left with a new computer.

That evening was the wedding after party and things so I didn't get a chance to open it until the following afternoon. When I did, I was all excited and booted it up to see the "Windows was not shut down properly" screen, which was odd since this was supposed to be a brand new computer. When it reached the log-in screen, I found that the computer was password-protected. They had not told me that this was previously a floor model (especially strange because that would mean that had two laptops of the same model for floor models), and now I could not use it. After spending probably about 45 minutes on the phone with three different people back at the store, they finally gave me the password, but I was pretty upset. They had basically lied to me about giving me a used computer and didn't even give me a discount! I decided I didn't want to give them my nine hundred dollars anymore, especially after the attitude of the last guy I talked to that was mostly "Well I don't know what the salesperson told you or didn't tell you!"

 On Tuesday (they were closed on Monday for the holiday) I ended up getting Logan's dad to pick me up and take me to Markham to return the laptop. After a little bit of an issue where the guy wouldn't return the software that I didn't ask for, we got out of there.

I shopped online a bit for comparable computers over the next couple of days and just ended up buying the same model as the one I returned off of Amazon.ca on Thursday afternoon. Of course I got the free shipping, so it was supposed to come Tuesday or Wednesday, but it actually came on Monday because living in the city is cool. Now I have a new computer and it is fancy and I am using it to type this post. It is an ASUS K53S-DS51, by the way.

Growing

I think I've all but given up on the 30 days of creativity thing. I sew almost every day so I think I can be forgiven. I was starting to let myself get stressed out about it so I decided to just let it go and not worry about it. If I do make some things I will still share them.

Around the same time I stopped, I started reading the Hunger Games. I put it on hold at the library in March and on Thursday it came in. I enjoyed it for the most part, but I felt like the pacing could have been different to make it more exciting. The "romance" within made me feel like seeking out fanfiction for the first time in several years. I'm not sure whether that means that I liked it and I want more or that it was lacking and someone else could write it better. Today I picked up the second book. (My hold hasn't come in, but I noticed that the reference library had an un-hold-able copy in the Browsery, so I found it and picked it up when I returned the first book after work.)

Today I quit my second job- the one where I sell pantyhose and get discounts on tights. I am sort of sad about it but the way they wanted to change my schedule I just couldn't make it fit with my life and the way I want this summer to go. I was getting bored with it anyways, since it has been pretty slow. It would get busier in the fall but my other job will too, so I wouldn't have been able to keep up with it anyways.

I've been meaning for a few weeks to start gardening on my balcony. Last year, I had a few plants, but I sort of dropped the ball on them and they dried out and died. This year, I am determined to make it work. I got a couple of plants and the biggest bag of potting soil I could carry from the Canadian Tire garden centre yesterday, and a few weeks ago, I picked up a couple of packs of seeds at Dollarama. Today I planted it all and hopefully it lives and grows and flourishes. Then my balcony will be all fancy and I can sit out on it with a drink and be awesome.

In other news, I've been working on getting an Etsy shop up and running for what I have left from Anime North and other cool things I make. You can see it here. I still have a few things I need to put up. I'm having a bit of trouble getting the photos I need because I only have a couple of hours of natural lighting every day in the evening after I get home from work and it has just been so sunny on my balcony and everything turns out the wrong colours. I don't really want to touch Photoshop until I get a new computer, which I should do very soon since mine is frequently very angry at me.