Silly

For some reason, seeing my blog post titled "Cock in a sock" made me think of my favourite line from the movie Priscilla Queen of the desert.

That line would be "That's just what this country needs: a cock in a frock on a rock."


Ah yes, small things amuse small minds.  I can't always have a big mind. 

 

More windchimes.

A while back I'd posted many of my windchimes. Well I have 2 more to add to the collection.

This is a gift from my youngest daughter. Pretty and butterfly themed

This is a gift from a guest who visited my home.

Gluten free bagels, 2nd try

Cock in a Sock

For cancer awareness... Some of these guys are actually pretty hot. I'm not a huge fan of naked men..

And gotta love military guys posing together. Love the team spirit :)

Feeling better

I wish I wasn't so explosive at times.  Sometimes very little can set me off in a big way, and very big douchebags. I know the guy at work is a moron and has no filter.  I shouldn't have gotten so mad. But apparently I've been bottling emotions.

Life sucks and then you die.

People always think it's ok to treat me like shit or like a little kid or lie to me.

SO I'm a loser. With no life that people lie to

I suck.

Memory lane

I picked up this pattern on Monday because it reminds me of the dresses my mom and I wore in the late 60's. I remember having a green dress like item D,  for my great grand parents 50th wedding anniversary, in the summer of 1968. My dress was made originally from one of my mom's dresses. She had it for one or two years and then my grandma took it apart and made it for a little girl.  My mom and grandma often resized my mom's dresses to fit me after a season or two.  I always had unique dresses to wear to special occasions.

I used to recycle clothes when my daughters were little. My parents and aunt would give me the clothes they no longer wanted, and I'd cut it and make clothes for my daughters.  I remember in particular a dress I made with one of my dad's plaid shirts. It looked so cute.

Google loves to add snow to my photos.

So google made this photo out of my photo, with the snowing. Isn't it cute :)

Slowly starting to make dresses.

So far I've got 5 patterns for dresses cut out.  It's progress. Before I had 10-12 fabrics with as many patterns and I could not decide what I wanted to make with any of the fabric.

Spring my ass

It might be well past the first day of spring, but it's FREEZING out there. No spring clothes yet, still looking like Nanook of the North.... This photo was taking Saturday during the snow storm!

Pining to go camping

My first attempt at Gluten free bagels.

Gluten free Bagels

I took this bagel recipe I'd once made before and switched ingredients to make it gluten free and sugar free. They look a little overdone. I have to admit they were crispy, but yummy. I have to change a few things next time I make some,.

ah bad translations!

Jennie's gluten free Carob Macaroons are delicious, however their French translation sucks :)

Be nice and have someone bitch you out.

Since our administrative assistant was unceremoniously made redundant a few years ago, I ended up being one of the few people who gets to order stationary for all of engineering and software quality assurance. I order it from our internal store, get someone to pick it up and make it available in the cabinet that everyone has access.

I do this purely to be nice and to have access to stationary. I had realized years ago, that if I didn't get the stationary for the entire team, they all stole my stationary.  So because this is not part of my job description but something I do to be helpful, I do not check the stationary cabinet that often. On average I seem to make orders every 3 months.

Normally I make an order following the procedures. Originally I just had to fill our internal requisitions but in the past 2-3 years some brilliant person decided that we also needed to fill out an electronic version in a PDF [which only has 10 entries] and then submit it along with the paper requisitions. Usually the order is ready within 24hours.   Well the past 2 or 3 times the guy I sent to pick up the order, has passed on the message that the guy who prepares the order thinks my orders are too big and I should do it more often. I mean if it was such a big inconvenience I would not think it would be ready within 24 hours when I generally give them 1 week to fill the order.

Of course having someone complain makes me feel like maybe I could do it, like NEVER and everyone could just get their own fucking stationary.  Then instead of doing one motherfucking large order 4 times a year, he'd get little orders 3 times a day. I'm sure that would work so much better for him.

People are assholes. Being nice is often just not worth it. Makes people think you're a welcome mat.

First day of Spring

Well it was yesterday officially but by the calender today is the first day of Spring and also the birthday of my eldest child, who turned 27 today. Where does time go?

Well this year on the first day of spring it's SNOWING.  I predicted it, Today I'm going to look like nanook of the north :)

After work I hope to go to Club Tissue in Laval and check it out.

Server 2012 R2 and some integrated intel network adapters.

This is the 2nd or 3rd system in which I cannot install drivers for Intel onboard network adapters in Server 2012 R2.

The first system I encountered this problem with, had an Intel reference board known as a "TunnelMountain". After trying to find drivers and failing, I just connected a USB network adapter and did the tests I needed to do. I assumed it was because it was an Intel prototype board.

The Intel 18.8 CD could not find my network adapters.

Yesterday I was setting up an ASUS P8Z77-V Premium motherboard. I usually install the Servers on all my test systems because while most people won't run Server OS on regular machines, we have plenty of clients who run Server OS in weird scenarios and I have to see if the software & drivers I test behave in Server OSes. I had downloaded all the drivers from the ASUS site, including LAN drivers for Windows 8.1 on which Server 2012R2 is based.  This system has an integrated 82579V & an 82583V network card. But in Server 2012R2, no intel network driver installs, and just says it has no Intel network card in the system.

My google searches brought me to download the Intel 18.8 CD for Intel network adapters, and that is the last one I'm trying. It failed.  Earlier I had tried PROWINX64.EXE with the same results. I had also tried all the drivers gotten from the ASUS site for that motherboard.

In Windows 8.1 64 bits - the 2 adapters had in-the-box drivers

The question that remains currently unanswered is that in the systems where I have encountered this problem I was in UEFI BIOS mode. I wonder if there is a relevance? If I have the time, I will install on this system, Server 2012R2 in non-UEFI BIOS mode and see if the Intel adapters are found in this OS.

So when using this OS the tester will have to use a USB network adapter. I've also just discovered that Server 2012 also has the same issue on this system.  I would think it's the model of the Intel adapter in that system because I've setup over 40 computers, maybe 20 of which in UEFI mode with both Server 2012 and 2012 R2 and this is only the 2nd or 3rd system that has this issue. 

New router, up and running.

So back in January I think it was I purchased a Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router N900, EA4500 at Canada Computers and on the night I was going to set it up I realized my own WRT610N was still alive.

When the WRT610N died on Monday night, sometime around midnight. Try as we may this time it was dead. It got unceremoniously dumped into the garbage

I spent part of last night, figuring out in their all so pretty interface how to configure my router, like the previous one, that is, only known MAC addresses connect to the router.  Took me a while but by 10:30pm last night, it was all working smoothly.

Will be looking into whether or not it makes sense to but DD-WRT on my new router or if I should leave it as is.

I went back to Fabricville Monday and now I know to avoid a certain cashier because she is clueless. The flyer clearly said all McCalls patterns $3.99 each. She charged me $7.99 each and then a 25% discount. Which is NOT anything like $3.99 each.  We went back Tuesday and the manager was there, and she instructed another cashier to refund me and then rebill be properly.  I ended up buying 6 dress patterns and one pattern for Tshirts. I can't wait for the week-end to sew.

It's dead Jim.

Yep that's right. The router, the WRT610N has bit the dust, has met it's maker, is pushing daisies, it is bereft of life, it kicked the bucket, it shuffled off.

This time it's really really really dead. No more life support. Time to set up the new router tonight.

A dress from my past

 When digging in my sewing stuff I found a dress that I had made and then unsewn seams to make adjustments.   I did make some today. Dress fits ok. I intend to make other dresses after modifying this pattern a little bit more.  I had just shortened this dress.

Butterick 6639 from 1993

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vegetarian Moussaka

This was a dish I'd never had the patience or the balls to make. Today I decided I was going to make Moussaka and it turned out delicious.

Vegetarian Moussaka

I followed this recipe with a few substitutions.  I swapped the Parmesan for Kashkaval cheese, I used almond milk instead of dairy milk, I used coconut oil instead of butter and I used bobs gluten free flour instead of white wheat flour. Also I used 2 Lebanese cucumbers instead of the zucchini.

I seem to have an endless amount of old vintage Patterns.

I found another batch of patterns that belonged to my mom. There are more from the late 80's and early 90's but way too many of them. Most of my own collection starts from the late 80's.

Simplicity 6274 from 1965

Simplicity 7816 from 1986

Found some more vintage patterns.

I suspect this was part of my mom's old stash of patterns.  I found probably 10 or 12 patterns from the 1940's to the 1980s.

Simplicity 4740 from 1943

Simplicity 2382 from 1948

Butterick 6137 from 1950's

Butterick 3049 from 1950's

Simplicity 7912 from 1977

Style 2435 from 1978

Vogue 8209 from 1982

Vogue 7806 from 1983

VOgue 8449 from 1983

Vogue 7294 from 1985

VOgue 9292 from 1985

Vogue 8971 from 1985

Satuday should be a good day.

WTF is wrong with Saturday's. Second Saturday I feel introspective and this week I spent most of today crying. like seriously WTF.

Of course it doesn't help it's grey and wet out today.

 

It snowed one night this week and I went outside at 11pm to dance in the snow, and walked around the house since I was taking photos, and when I past in front of the patio door, who do I see but Ziva the diva sitting on my kitchen table.  Yeah. She thought she could do it since I was outside. :) 

My friends photos are being exposed!

My friend Nina's photography is being exposed at Studio Porte Bleu.  It's an interesting concept, her photos are among the artwork decorating the studio, which people can buy. It also serves as back drop to other forms of art.

TGIF

I'm glad this week is over. IT's been a really clumsy week. On the plus side, it makes my friend laugh :P

I sent flying a bucket load  of empty  water bottles the other night, and after putting them all back on the counter managed to send them flying a second time.  Last night, I dropped a large bag on sunflower seed, and well the bag split and there was sunflower seeds by the butt load all over the floor.  This morning, I took out a container of blueberries from the fridge and wee, all the blueberries went all over the floor. 

At least I laugh at myself when this happens.  

This year, I definitely won't be wearing a sundress and open-toed sandals for the first day of spring, which is 7 days away.  I'm sure I'm going to look like Nanook of the north that day.

Interesting turn of events

March is going to be a weird month.

 I have a potential date with someone I last saw 10 years ago on Friday.  My friend has her beau from  Florida visiting starting tomorrow morning. Of course now she's apprehensive. But I remember how I felt the first time I travelled to Dubai.  The apprehension will pass.

Also went to Fabricville at lunch and found some lovely cotton jersey knits, buy 1 get 2 free, so you get 3 meter for the price of 1.  I got 5.3 meters for $30 with taxes.  Will be able to make 2 dresses and a Tshirt and possibly a tank top. :) Don't get how I did not spot it on Saturday when I spent 2 hours wandering around the store.

I've been planted!

Every year for international women's day a plant gets left on my desk. This is this years plant. I always suspected it was my employee from the USSR who left me plants and this year I caught him red-handed.

I do love the random plants :)

This Satuday

I'm going to brag.

So I was really happy I got this layout going at work a few weeks ago. Apparently my bosses went to ATI to get a demo of working with 2 W600's because we figured it couldn't be this difficult to get layouts working.

Well they showed up and the layout was already configured.  My bosses expected to have it demoed in front of them, of the person putting the boards in the system, installing the driver and configuring it in front of them.

The guy said it took him one and a half hours of setup time and he wasn't going to take it apart and start over!!!!!!!!!

Giving myself a well deserved pat on the back!

All this to say that I'm good! I'm very good at what I do. I rock!  And sometimes it's good to be aware of how good you are  :)

Emotions run high and daylights saving time

The past couple of weeks I've been an emotional mess. I dunno if it's because of the cabin fever or the long winter, but I've spent the past few days watching TV shows to make me cry so I can get some of the excess emotions out of me.

One of the things that got me all emotional yesterday is talking to my friend about my daughters taking her out drinking at Christmas.  They told her that other then me and their dad, she was the most consistent person in their lives. And also that she was the person who got me the most. That's probably true. She gets me and she makes me laugh. Two qualities that my boss liked a lot about her too :)

Though everyone agrees I'm so much easier to deal with now.  I still get moody, but I don't brood as much or for as long. Things don't anger me as much, and well life's too short to blow up at everything, even though I've been finding myself short fused.

My friend is at a weird place in her life. She's left her husband and New  Brunswick, and has been living with me since December, and currently has 2 men wooing her.   Well one man totally wooing her, a cracker from Tallahasee, Florida, she's known over 12 years. A guy I've chatted with in IRC from time to time. Entertaining, intelligent and knows what he wants.   Then there's her Norwegian married man, who's been helping her keep her sanity from when she first moved to New Brunswick. However he was never leaving his wife.  I didn't have much faith in him  but sometimes an online friendship goes a long way in helping you keep your sanity when you're isolated at home.  I'm envious in some ways but happy for her as she is deserving. She's an awesome person, and has really not had too many nice things happen to her.

Hey Jethro, need help messing with her fabric?

Just to make life interesting, the long rant I made about Douche Canoe men had the desired effect but the most amusing thing is that the very next day I had 2 men from my past messaging me wanting to see me!!

One was someone I had a misguided affair back in my early years working probably 17-20 years ago.  The other was a guy I had a one night stand with in 2004? I had pneumonia the night he came over, and ended up at the clinic at 8am the next morning because after he left I was coughing up blood!  He seems to reappear in my  life at moments when I'm totally emotional and prone to make rash decisions.  Dunno if it's Karma telling me something.  What's for sure is that I tend to remember more the fact I had pneumonia then the time we spent together. I was thinking about it yesterday.

I was so emotional yesterday and so indecisive that I sat around with 8 sewing patterns and 10 swatches of fabric and could not decide for the life of me which dress to make with which fabric. I'm over thinking it over analysing. Driving me nuts. I hope today I do better.

Ten fabrics, 9 patterns, decisions, decisions, decisions.

On an unrelated note, why is daylights saving time in early March now?   Just to screw up my  sleep cycles again? FUCK YOU!  I mean it in the nicest way.

I'm not broken just weathered.

I had a friend who often spoke about how his girlfriend was broken. It's a perception I know.  I'm not broken. Just weathered like my 45 year old Maytag dryer!

I was thinking this morning about how most of the time, the thought of being touched creeps me out. Or even hurts at certain times.  This thing is both physical and psychological.  I don't like being touched sometimes because I do have sensory issues and there are days where it brings sensory overload and that makes it hurt when I'm touched.  Then there's the part where I have abandonment issues stemming from early childhood, compounded with bad choices in partners. 

I can't remember the last time I let myself melt in someone's arms and for a few minutes at least I felt completely safe. Or I felt in a peaceful state. No I don't even allow it because the last few people I melted with betrayed me in so many ways, I don't allow myself to trust.    It's been easily 20 years since I melted into anyone.   Don't get me wrong, I've loved, I've been close from time to time, but  I prefer keeping my distance.  I couldn't deal with anymore betrayals on that level.

There was a time where I hated sleeping alone. This despite the fact I don't sleep very well to begin with. But I liked the proximity of like minded people. That ship has sailed a long time ago. I really enjoy being alone in my bed and having all the space and no having to touch anyone.  

When it comes to trust, having trust issues seems to run deep in the psyche of the women in my family. My mother as a child under 5, had asked her mom "But I can always trust YOU mom right", and my grand-mother responded that she can't just blindly trust anyone. Not even her own mother. Perhaps she is worth trusting now, but what if she developed mental issues or Alzheimer as she grew old, then she might not be worth trusting.

There are about half a dozen people that I trust as much as I can trust. I do trust my daughters, but they are the only family members I do.   There's a few friends that I trust on various levels.  But my trust has been broken and is mostly  not fixable. There isn't enough time in my life to right those wrongs.  Even my mom betrayed me. I understand her motivations, but she betrayed me nonetheless. Did not help with my trust issues. Does not help me now make good decisions concerning relationships.

Does not help build strong relationships when you spend most of your time in a relationship waiting for that moment the other person lies, or cheats or withholds information or somehow destroys the bit of trust you actually have for them.   But that's the truth.

Grain free cats

I've been feeding my cats grain free food for a while. It started when I still had Zeke and at the time we were giving him ProNature "Duck a l'orange" formula. It did help but the other cats didn't care much for this food and it was expensive. But at the time it was one of the few formulas for sensitive stomachs. I will buy a normal sized bag many once a year now, just to give them variety.  But still not a favourite.

Now grain free food for cats is far more common. I've tried most brands and after a while I get confused or forget which ones they like or don't like and I do tend to prefer to rotate 3-4 different foods into their diet then give them always the same thing. After months of the same food they are bored and give you dirty looks. If I keep 3-4 varieties in the house and alternate they dont' get so bored.

At some point I stumbled onto Taste of the Wild, the Rocky Mountain Formula. My cats LOVE this food, unless they have nothing else for months, then they tire from it. Otherwise it's in their top 3 favourites. I found it to be good price for the quality of the food.  They don't like the other formula of this brand,  but that's ok. This brand is from the USA.

The 2nd one that is high rated by my cats and is a Canadian brand is Origen cat food. Originally suggested to me by a Swedish woman in my ADHD group as being a healthy alternative. I just bought hte 6 fish blend I hope they like it as much as the other variety. This food is in their top 5 for sure.

The third one that my cats appear to love is the Acana grain free cat foods. Also a Canadian company, slightly more expensive then Origen but they really love the Pacifica. Will have to try their other flavours. to see how my cats feel. But definitely one worth buying.

I had bought some Nutrience grain free food, they really don't care for that one.  I feed them with cat food ball dispensers of late, to keep Pixie from eating to fast and puking and to keep him  from putting on more weight, and that is the one that always has food left in it.

Another brand they don't like, is the oven baked grain free cat food. That one did not go over well at all.

There are other brands they didn't care much for that I've bought in the past but I'm fuzzy on it. Also there are brands that I did buy that they liked I might not remember.  There are so many options now, especially in specialty pet stores like "Croc en Bol" or the one near my house "Boutique Golden Paws". 

It's been a while since there's been fur

or pussies on my blog, so today, Jethro and Ziva peacefully sleeping at the foot of the bed while I geek....

More vintage finds

Looking through more of my sewing stuff I found the remaining patterns that belonged to my grandmother. One was actually from the late 1930's.

Simplicity 3089 - from 1939

Simplicity 4759 - from 1943

Simplicity 1078 - from 1944

Simplicity 4970 - From 1944

Simplicity 7323 - From 1947

Butterick  5169 - From early 1950's?

Butterick 8236 - From the early 1950's?

Found a pattern from 1970

Among the stuff I inherited was most of my grandma's sewing things. Including a box of patterns. The majority of patterns are some she designed to make work clothes for my grandpa or pants and shirts for herself.  But among the patterns was a girls coat pattern and from the year and size it was obvious it was bought to make me a coat.  I'm sure I have other old patterns somewhere, some that I suspect date from the 50's but I didn't find them yesterday when I was going through patterns to see what else I might like to sew.

Many men are douche canoes!

Or douchebags, or morons or idiots. Take your pick.   Dunno what it is about male behaviour.  Many will decide to burn all the bridges when they are hurt and then conveniently forget about all the nasty things they said and then get surprised when they woo you and you tell them to FUCK OFF.

If you're going to either call your ex and chew her out over shit that happened over 10 years ago, or email your ex and rant on about things that you imagined happened, like the food she fed you was poison, do not be surprised that she never wants to hear from you again or doesn't respond to anything you say or still thinks you're the epitome of the word douchebag.

I've had men do this to me forever. You have a fight, they burn all bridges and then weeks, months or even years later, suddenly they rebuild the bridge from their end and expect you to want to cross it with them.

Well guess what?   I ain't crossing the newly built bridges, because it will bring me right back to the stupid things that happened and the bridge will be burnt again.  Why beat a fucking dead horse?

Like I was your favourite victim and after a while, you miss pissing on me?   Sorry but no... not having it. Moving forward all the assholes from my past shall stay in my fucking past. Leopards don't change their spots and assholes don't suddenly change functions.

Don't call me, don't text me,  don't email me,  don't MSN or skype me, don't comment on my fucking blog,  don't Facebook me, don't like my shit on Facebook, just don't.  

It's March, when will it thaw out?

Everyone I've talked to says we've had a hard winter.  Even the UPS delivery guy who brought my Monoprice order, complained that he has had it with Montreal winters. He's from Trinidad and he would rather move back to the islands where it's warm most of the year.

Seriously though, it's fucking MARCH.  I was telling someone in chat just the other day that 2 years ago on March 21st, I was wearing a sundress and open-toed sandals.  This year on March 21st, I bet I look like Nanook of the North.

It's been in the -20's overnight and even during the day if you had the windshield factor.  Maybe -18 but feels like -28C BRRRR.

I'm really starting to have serious cabin fever that even a trip to Ottawa this week-end didn't resolve. I mean it was freezing in Ottawa too. When will we ever have spring?

I discovered FabricLand

Apparently Fabricville only exists in the east. In the west it's FabricLand. I went to the one in Ottawa in the Nepean area. It was big.

One thing that drew me there was that they had cotton eyelet on sale for $5 a meter. Also picked up 3 flowery prints to make dresses this summer, along with a few patterns. One pattern was a steampunk style outfit, I can visualize this in black, of course.

fabrics I bought.

Then there were dress patterns. I spent a few hours in Rideau Mall in Ottawa, didn't buy anything but had fun looking at this years fashions. Will have fun making clothes again .

Got this one for $1

Quintessential hippy dress

McCalls M6027

The love McCalls M6027, I just had to have it.  When I was Googling it earlier, I stumbled upon a really cool blog called Goth It Yourself. She's taken this pattern, modified it slightly and has been making really cool dresses, this one just wowed me.