I have to admit, the diet thing went out the window a bit this past week, again. Weekdays it's not a problem to follow it, but the weekend gets tricky. On Saturday was my DB's fiancee's first wedding shower, and I tried to eat as little as possible. This weekend we also celebrated my birthday, since it's coming up in a few days - so we celebrated it twice: Saturday night after the shower, at DB's place, and then again Sunday evening with the inlaws.
So, despite counting my points during the week and trying to bank a few here and there, I gained about 2.5lbs. :( But it's ok, I've got this week to undo some of the damage done from the last two weeks.
... I've also been debating whether or not to blog about this, I really try not to vent in my blog, but sometimes I just can't help it.
There's this game that we play with my inlaws, the rare times that DH and I host dinner. It's called Let's Not Try Anything That Sabrina Makes, Because No Matter What It Is, We're Going To Think It's Awful. It's an easy game to play: whatever food I prepare, regardless of how plain-jane it is, we just don't eat it. We don't even try it. The real challenge is coming up with a new excuse as to why we won't eat it. Like if dinner's at 7pm, we claim we're still full from the meal we ate 9 hours ago. Granted, I'll admit that what I grew up eating from my own family is different than what the inlaws are used to eating - I come from a southern European family, where as they're Irish, so they're used to meat and potatoes whereas I'm used to garlicy foods, cheesey things, stuff drizzled in olive oil, etc. Think anything Italian or southern French or Mediterranean, really.
There was once where I had them over for DH's birthday. I actually had the nerve of making homemade burgers and homemade cupcakes for dinner. And, mind you, cupcakes from an instant mix, not even really from scratch. We still insisted on not eating what was served but rather raid the fridge to eat from there instead. Am I the only one who thinks that's insanely rude?!? But I bite my tongue, because these are my inlaws.
So this time, the only thing I made were some hors d'oevres. Chips, store bought dip, store bought antipesto stuff, and the only thing I really made was bocchini cheese wrapped in proscuitto drizzled with a little olive oil. What's great about bocchini is that it really doesn't have a flavour at all, and proscuitto (I used the smoked kind) tastes like bacon. Well, we were picky about that. Thank goodness that the bbq was prepackaged stuff from the grocery store and the cake was not homemade, otherwise half of our guests wouldn't've eaten it.
Sometimes it feels like I can't win for trying.
Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts
Monday, May 28, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
where things come from, and where things go...
I've had this on my mind for a while now, so I apologize in advance if this blog post seems a bit scattered.
I've been in etsy and zibbet for a while now, buying and selling and frequenting the chat rooms etc; there has consistantly been an issue of handmade vs wholesalers, supplies & "handmade" that come from China, etc that people have issue with.
And yet, disturbingly, their supplies all come from the very places they claim to loathe.
Then the holidays roll around. Not just the December holidays, but other gift giving events like birthdays or whatnot. There's the buying-from-big-box-stores issues, vs handmade. Big Box makes their revenues for that quarter, and yet handmade still stays in shop. Same sellers complain about how they dislike Big Box Store, and yet their supplies come from there. And, did they lead by example by avoiding Big Box and buy entirely handmade that season? Not likely.
But this is nothing new. It has been going on for years. One just musters and shrugs at it all and hopes that the next holiday is better than the last.
Then, though, I come across articles like this one in regretsy - not so much complaining about Big Chain X stealing the ideas of indie artists and not giving them the credit (at the very least) that they deserve, but then go off to make a ton of money off of it. All designers, all big name retailers do it.
Yes, it's irritating that they do it, but what's even worse is that people will buy it. And if not the item(s) in question, they will still buy from these big retailers, which is equally as bad, whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not.
I know that if there are any comments to this thread, there's bound to be a few that will say, "Well, there's a recession on, that's why we shop at Big Box Store." ... or ... "I don't like Company X's business practices, therefore I'm not one of the people you're venting about." (Meanwhile half of their closet is filled with Company X's things.)
The best excuse that I have heard in the past, and from fellow handmade online sellers, is "I'll buy once I have paypal money to buy it." Which means, if we're perfectly honest, it's not going to get bought. The comment may be well intentioned, but it's really something we've gotten into the routine of saying.
We all know, both the person hearing (reading) it as much as the person uttering it, that it's really not true. For some reason, there are a lot of people who view 'paypal money' in these forea as money that's not really there, it's somehow 'extra' or 'invisible' money that's just floating out there in the interwebian universe. Supplies bought at Big Box X comes from our bank accounts. And yet supporting handmade only comes off of the bare minimum we make off of what we've made.
Here's been my thinking, when it comes to gift giving (for whichever occasion): I know I have 'x' number of dollars to spend per person. How much that is may vary from season to season or year to year, but I know ahead of time what that 'x' amount is. People's birthdays don't change from one year to the other, neither does Christmas. I can budget for those pretty accurately if I put in a fiber of effort into thinking ahead for the next month or so. The varying amount of 'x' doesn't solely rely on what's in my bank account, but ALSO what's in paypal and whatever other accounts I may have. Because, despite it all, what I have in my paypal is still not only money, but money I've earned, just like the money I have in the bank.
From there, I can budget what I can buy for whomever for whatever the holiday is. Naturally, I want to buy an appropriate gift for the recipient, because at the end of the day the gift really should be what they want more than what I want to give them. There's not much sense in gifting something to someone that's just going to collect dust in a shelf or turn into closet insulation. And yes, often their gifts wind up being Big Box Store items, or Company X gift cards etc. But, can I squeeze in a handmade gift here and there? It's always budgetable.
A lot of people in my family tease me for starting my Christmas shopping early. I'm one of those weird people who has my Christmas knitting done by June or July - why? Well, because wool has its best sales, I've found, in January thru June, so that's when I buy it to make whatever holiday knitting I'm going to make. I may as well have it knit while what I want to make is fresh in my head, and it gets put aside until December.
Plus, I've worked in retail for so long, that I refuse to go to the mall in December. I rarely go to stores and malls to begin with, so if I happen to be in a mall in September or October, and I pass by a store where I see a potential gift that I know someone will like come xmas, it gets bought then and there, assuming of course it fits into my budget to do so. That way two birds are killed with one stone so to speak: an xmas gift is out of the way, and it's one less item that's going to make its way onto my December credit card bill. It just makes sense, doesn't it?
The same goes if I see said gift on etsy or zibbet. I know it's handmade, I know I'm supporting the artist who made it, and if I see it before December - well, all the better, I don't have to worry about said package fighting the holiday rush of the postal service.
So, what's the point of this whole blog post? Well, to be honest, it's more of a vent than anything on my part. I suppose I'm mildly frustrated at the fruadulence of it all. Every dollar spent at Big Corporation X or Sweat Shop Country Y, is a dollar we're taking away not only from our own country, but a dollar that we're taking away from our own handmade artisans.
If you can afford to buy a birthday gift, or a holiday gift, you can afford to buy handmade. Whatever your gift-giving budget is for each holiday, try just for a year to spend at least a third of it on handmade, or better yet at least half. Invest in quality. It's always best to have less but have quality, than to have lots which isn't. Before your next shopping trip to Big Box Store or Trendy Company Brand Mall, research what you're buying into. We live in an internet age, it'll just take a few minutes, trust me, it'll be easy enough.
Whether we like it or not, what we financially support is who we morally support. Keep that in mind.
I've been in etsy and zibbet for a while now, buying and selling and frequenting the chat rooms etc; there has consistantly been an issue of handmade vs wholesalers, supplies & "handmade" that come from China, etc that people have issue with.
And yet, disturbingly, their supplies all come from the very places they claim to loathe.
Then the holidays roll around. Not just the December holidays, but other gift giving events like birthdays or whatnot. There's the buying-from-big-box-stores issues, vs handmade. Big Box makes their revenues for that quarter, and yet handmade still stays in shop. Same sellers complain about how they dislike Big Box Store, and yet their supplies come from there. And, did they lead by example by avoiding Big Box and buy entirely handmade that season? Not likely.
But this is nothing new. It has been going on for years. One just musters and shrugs at it all and hopes that the next holiday is better than the last.
Then, though, I come across articles like this one in regretsy - not so much complaining about Big Chain X stealing the ideas of indie artists and not giving them the credit (at the very least) that they deserve, but then go off to make a ton of money off of it. All designers, all big name retailers do it.
Yes, it's irritating that they do it, but what's even worse is that people will buy it. And if not the item(s) in question, they will still buy from these big retailers, which is equally as bad, whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not.
I know that if there are any comments to this thread, there's bound to be a few that will say, "Well, there's a recession on, that's why we shop at Big Box Store." ... or ... "I don't like Company X's business practices, therefore I'm not one of the people you're venting about." (Meanwhile half of their closet is filled with Company X's things.)
The best excuse that I have heard in the past, and from fellow handmade online sellers, is "I'll buy once I have paypal money to buy it." Which means, if we're perfectly honest, it's not going to get bought. The comment may be well intentioned, but it's really something we've gotten into the routine of saying.
We all know, both the person hearing (reading) it as much as the person uttering it, that it's really not true. For some reason, there are a lot of people who view 'paypal money' in these forea as money that's not really there, it's somehow 'extra' or 'invisible' money that's just floating out there in the interwebian universe. Supplies bought at Big Box X comes from our bank accounts. And yet supporting handmade only comes off of the bare minimum we make off of what we've made.
Here's been my thinking, when it comes to gift giving (for whichever occasion): I know I have 'x' number of dollars to spend per person. How much that is may vary from season to season or year to year, but I know ahead of time what that 'x' amount is. People's birthdays don't change from one year to the other, neither does Christmas. I can budget for those pretty accurately if I put in a fiber of effort into thinking ahead for the next month or so. The varying amount of 'x' doesn't solely rely on what's in my bank account, but ALSO what's in paypal and whatever other accounts I may have. Because, despite it all, what I have in my paypal is still not only money, but money I've earned, just like the money I have in the bank.
From there, I can budget what I can buy for whomever for whatever the holiday is. Naturally, I want to buy an appropriate gift for the recipient, because at the end of the day the gift really should be what they want more than what I want to give them. There's not much sense in gifting something to someone that's just going to collect dust in a shelf or turn into closet insulation. And yes, often their gifts wind up being Big Box Store items, or Company X gift cards etc. But, can I squeeze in a handmade gift here and there? It's always budgetable.
A lot of people in my family tease me for starting my Christmas shopping early. I'm one of those weird people who has my Christmas knitting done by June or July - why? Well, because wool has its best sales, I've found, in January thru June, so that's when I buy it to make whatever holiday knitting I'm going to make. I may as well have it knit while what I want to make is fresh in my head, and it gets put aside until December.
Plus, I've worked in retail for so long, that I refuse to go to the mall in December. I rarely go to stores and malls to begin with, so if I happen to be in a mall in September or October, and I pass by a store where I see a potential gift that I know someone will like come xmas, it gets bought then and there, assuming of course it fits into my budget to do so. That way two birds are killed with one stone so to speak: an xmas gift is out of the way, and it's one less item that's going to make its way onto my December credit card bill. It just makes sense, doesn't it?
The same goes if I see said gift on etsy or zibbet. I know it's handmade, I know I'm supporting the artist who made it, and if I see it before December - well, all the better, I don't have to worry about said package fighting the holiday rush of the postal service.
So, what's the point of this whole blog post? Well, to be honest, it's more of a vent than anything on my part. I suppose I'm mildly frustrated at the fruadulence of it all. Every dollar spent at Big Corporation X or Sweat Shop Country Y, is a dollar we're taking away not only from our own country, but a dollar that we're taking away from our own handmade artisans.
If you can afford to buy a birthday gift, or a holiday gift, you can afford to buy handmade. Whatever your gift-giving budget is for each holiday, try just for a year to spend at least a third of it on handmade, or better yet at least half. Invest in quality. It's always best to have less but have quality, than to have lots which isn't. Before your next shopping trip to Big Box Store or Trendy Company Brand Mall, research what you're buying into. We live in an internet age, it'll just take a few minutes, trust me, it'll be easy enough.
Whether we like it or not, what we financially support is who we morally support. Keep that in mind.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Owl Cozie KAL - & raising CT$ for DH
For those of you who frequent the Canadian forums in ravelry, this may be old news, since I posted this there about 2 weeks ago... regardless, here I go (again!)...
I've designed this owl cup cozie a while back, and on ravelry (queuable here) for a while now I've offered the 10 sew on google eyes for sale, since they're so hard to find, & they stay on so much better than the glue-on google eyes. (Glue on google eyes are awesome, but for fabrics that stretch all the time like the cup cozies tend to do, they're not the best and will have a tendancy to eventually flake off, therefore sew on eyes are much sturdier!)
Because my husband loves Canadian Tire, he gets a lot of CT gift cards on the holidays, which go almost entirely towards tools and car supplies. As a change, though, I decided on collecting CT$, and since he's turnign 35, it'd be great to be able to raise @ least $35.
Considering how much he covets his tools, and working on his car, plus how much of his spare time he devotes to helping his parents, sister, and my brother with all the handy things he does, this really is the least I can do. I can honestly say that my DH is awesome when it comes to a lot of things, but especially the time he devotes to working with tools & helping both his family and mine (not to mention neighbors too!) all after working 70+ hours a week.
Over the last 2 weeks I've so far managed to raise $21 all in CT$, by selling 10 eyes for $1 in CT$ to ravellers, which is awesome. But I've got $14 more I'd like to raise - plus of course anything over and above that will be gifted and definately put to good use.
So, if you're reading this & have a couple CT$ that are just sitting in a drawer (even if it's entirely in 5 cent bills) and would like to knit up that owl cozie, please contact me via ravelry - I'm knitphomaniac there. An SASE will need to also be provided, and I can easily fit @ least 10 sets of eyes in one envelope with 1 Cdn stamp, possibly more.
THIS MAKES A GOOD: destash project, SnB KAL, 'learn to cable' project, gift for Father's Day or birthday with a coffee shop gift card, etc. (Just some ideas!) Or you can even headstart on December holiday gifts - these are ideal stocking-stuffer type gifts!
If you've got a knitting group and would like to do this KAL, maybe you can propose that each person in the group can bring $1 or more in CT$ - that way all their eyes can be sent via and to you.
JUST A REMINDER that if you wish to participate in this particular project, I do need to receive the CT$ by Tues June 28th @ the very latest! PLEASE QUEUE IT ON RAVELRY & happy knitting!
I've designed this owl cup cozie a while back, and on ravelry (queuable here) for a while now I've offered the 10 sew on google eyes for sale, since they're so hard to find, & they stay on so much better than the glue-on google eyes. (Glue on google eyes are awesome, but for fabrics that stretch all the time like the cup cozies tend to do, they're not the best and will have a tendancy to eventually flake off, therefore sew on eyes are much sturdier!)
Because my husband loves Canadian Tire, he gets a lot of CT gift cards on the holidays, which go almost entirely towards tools and car supplies. As a change, though, I decided on collecting CT$, and since he's turnign 35, it'd be great to be able to raise @ least $35.
Considering how much he covets his tools, and working on his car, plus how much of his spare time he devotes to helping his parents, sister, and my brother with all the handy things he does, this really is the least I can do. I can honestly say that my DH is awesome when it comes to a lot of things, but especially the time he devotes to working with tools & helping both his family and mine (not to mention neighbors too!) all after working 70+ hours a week.
Over the last 2 weeks I've so far managed to raise $21 all in CT$, by selling 10 eyes for $1 in CT$ to ravellers, which is awesome. But I've got $14 more I'd like to raise - plus of course anything over and above that will be gifted and definately put to good use.
So, if you're reading this & have a couple CT$ that are just sitting in a drawer (even if it's entirely in 5 cent bills) and would like to knit up that owl cozie, please contact me via ravelry - I'm knitphomaniac there. An SASE will need to also be provided, and I can easily fit @ least 10 sets of eyes in one envelope with 1 Cdn stamp, possibly more.
THIS MAKES A GOOD: destash project, SnB KAL, 'learn to cable' project, gift for Father's Day or birthday with a coffee shop gift card, etc. (Just some ideas!) Or you can even headstart on December holiday gifts - these are ideal stocking-stuffer type gifts!
If you've got a knitting group and would like to do this KAL, maybe you can propose that each person in the group can bring $1 or more in CT$ - that way all their eyes can be sent via and to you.
JUST A REMINDER that if you wish to participate in this particular project, I do need to receive the CT$ by Tues June 28th @ the very latest! PLEASE QUEUE IT ON RAVELRY & happy knitting!
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
turning 30 soon.... yikes!
Well, that birthday is coming up soon. The big three-oh. As of Saturday. Yeesh.
I've never really been that worried or excited about a birthday before, it's always been just-another-birthday. But, for some reason, turning 30 is just eerie.
It's funny how I didn't realize I was turning 30 until the beginning of this year - like it actually had time to sit in. Not that I forgot how old I was or anything, but it just kicked in.
I'm bouncing back and forth between two lines of thinking: a part of me is disappointed that I didn't manage to accomplish what I wanted to by this point, but a part of me also appreciates not only what I've accomplished so far, but also that my 20's will finally be done with. I'm pretty much set in my ways, I've a better perspective on adulthood, and I've got a good foundation.
But, I still feel a bit bad of not being able to follow the life plan that I once had. Things I wanted to accomplish by now, so that the things I wanted to do in my 30's could come into fruition. It's almost like I'm 10 years behind in what I've always wanted to do.
Oh well. Maybe I can just condense 20 years worth of goals within 10? That's totally possible, right? The plan just needs a bit of tweeking.
On to a new decade. Yikes. This better be a long rest-of-the-week.
Friday, September 28, 2007
DB gets his sweater, and I get my Halloween Swap package!
This is the swap package from the crochet swap blog swap that I've received from Laurie, who has absolutely spoiled me with her swap package! I can honestly say that not only has she outdone herself, but this is probably one of the best swap packages I've ever gotten! (Not that I don't appreciate what I've received in the past, but Laurie has really outdone herself with this one!)
Halloween is my absolute favourite holiday, so I was glad to find out that the theme of this particular swap was - in fact - Halloween! Laurie sent me two patterns (one of which is an illusion candy corn dishcloth, and the other is felted pumpkins) plus all the yarn to go with it, some dpn's, halloween themed stamps, Pumpkin Chocolate Milk mix from the Peanuts Good Grief Cafe, a stellar halloween mug, a pumpkin candle, and a fantastic hand-made halloween themed card! :) Thanks, Laurie!
Secondly, my brother came home from Quebec where he has spent the last couple months working, so we celebrated his birthday (which was, in fact, a few weeks ago!) ... the sweater (originally posted here) he's flaunting for the pic. (Part of his head's cut off on purpose, he's not a fan of being pictured for online but I did want to include a pic of him wearing it on my blog!)
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